His first thought was that she was attractive, in an elegant kind of way.

The woman had certainly lived a life of luxury, judging by her uncallused hands. Well-tailored silk robes, porcelain blemish free skin, more pampered than any village-elder's daughter back home. She must have been someone of great importance, but something didn't correlate with that image. An intricate tattoo design of the four elements rested on her forearm, with Earth being the centerpiece. She'd been a bender, perhaps?

Her only discernible flaw was the arrow pierced through her back protruding from her chest. Still, death seemed to have favored her. The head must have gone through her heart, killing her instantly. Obsidian tipped, nothing stating "made in Earth Kingdom" inscribed; it wasn't like the occasional imported weapons that made its way onto the island.

What kind of arrows had Bahu and his "boys" used? Shuzen couldn't remember, their archer had been too far away from him the whole time until he had made his move with the fish skewer. Sloppy work too. His sisters would have berated him for being caught so completely off guard. He'd even had to ditch his supplies and equipment, too. Shuzen's pride would never recover if the others found out.

Shuzen murmured a small prayer for the unknown woman and pushed down the distaste he felt before looting her corpse. He tried to be as gentle as possible to preserve what dignity she had left in death. Still, 'one person's tragedy is another's opportunity' he thought bitterly as he checked her pockets. His hopes vanished when his hands came back empty. No copper, no silver and no gold. His eyes lit up however when he found her waterskin.

Finally, some luck.

He could at least replace the one he'd had to ditch back at the river. It even felt half full too. Maybe things were turning around for him. Shuzen unstoppered the bag, immediately recoiling as the scent of strong rice liquor assaulted his nose. Great, until he could find more water to clean it out. This was useless. He sighed as he stood up from the corpse and prepared to move on.

Since arriving on the mainland, Shuzen hadn't run across anyone who was having a worse time than he was, at least until now.

"You'd be safer on the mainland." Kimyo had said.

Why had he believed her?

Sure, Kimyo might've been right about fishing, fighting, and foraging being plentiful in the greater Earth Kingdom; but it wasn't as if she'd ever left the island, and those scrolls of hers must've not included any warnings about the intricate laws and social structures that seemed to plague every village he came across.

Need to find work on the island? Easy! Just be able-bodied and look bored. Tasks will come to you quickly and whatever compensation or barter was fair wasn't something you'd need to haggle over.

Need to find work on the mainland? Not so fast! First, you'd better have someone to vouch for you. Then, you'd need to audition for the job by doing half of the work for free. Good luck being paid on time and don't dare voice a concern lest you disparage a small business owner who is only trying to make ends meet in these trying times.

No, Shuzen most assuredly did not have it any better here on the mainland. It had been a hungry month since he'd arrived and since then he had been treated with suspicion, contempt, and now apparently was outright hunted.

He'd lost all his tools too. Shuzen grumbled for what he felt was the millionth time.

Now that was the real waste, having to abandon everything by the river. Well, almost everything, he thought as his hand idly fingered the hilt of his sword. Still, there was no use in lamenting the fish that the Unagi snapped up, he reasoned. His tools were gone, but he had a sleeve full of darts and there was no way his pursuers were going to track him now; he'd made sure to prove he wasn't worth the effort.

Right?

Shuzen's hands were still shaking from his encounter. It was one thing to spar with his sisters back home; it was another to actually put his skills into practice against someone trying to kill him.

If Bahu and his brigands really had killed this woman, perhaps they were more capable and dangerous than he thought. He had been right to try to take Bahu's head when he had seen the chance. That Bahu had been lucky enough to avoid the first attack had galled Shuzen. Maybe they were more skilled than they let on. All the more reason for him to move on quickly.

He gave the woman one last look, wishing he had the time to bury her properly before heading into the wood in the direction she seemed to be running from. There was no guarantee that following the dead woman's trail would lead to anything but trouble; she was too well dressed to be a common traveler and, more importantly, she had no supplies on her besides alcohol, plus she was too soft looking to not have a camp and a retinue. Maybe he'd find a silver lining if he located where her group was or at least had been. If Shuzen found Bahu and his boys there, he'd be the one doing the ambushing this time. It wasn't as if robbing them would come with any sense of dishonor.

Banditry, really? He had been here less than a fortnight and he was already sliding downhill into scum and villainy. Shuzen spit on the ground as the idea left a bad taste in his mouth.

He took a look at the ground around her body and found her footprints easily enough. The earth had easy to follow gouges. For once, the rainfall was helping him instead of making him more uncomfortable because even her light feet had left an easy to follow trail for in the direction of wherever she had come from. Soon enough, he crept through the forest, pausing only to check the soil and confirm his direction. It likely had only taken her a fraction of the time to flee in this direction at what looked like full speed, but it took him at least an hour to close in on where she came from. He could smell that he was in the right place before he ever broke through the treeline, the coppery scent of blood permeating throughout the area despite not being able to see its source yet.

Shuzen finally came to the edge of a clearing and got a look at the camp. It was in ruins, the source of the odor clear as day as the ground was soaked in blood, coloring the soil. Shuzen glanced around and, when he was reasonably sure the coast was clear, broke the treeline and picked his way into the carnage. Nothing had been spared, not even the ostrich-horses. The area was strewn with so many arrows that there was no way that a single archer could do this, no matter how skilled. There were at least five bodies haphazardly strewn throughout the area. It looked like most of them had tried to run. He noticed smaller details as he stepped over corpses, such as their lack of armor, and how few of them even appeared to have even drawn a weapon. He also noticed that their possessions all appeared to be untouched. If they were slain by bandits, then why did they seem so… unruffled?

There was a group far more dangerous out in this forest than just Bahu and his "boys".

Pushing his distaste aside again, he shooed off a buzzard-hawk that perched too closely to him, watching with its beady eyes as he looked around for food or water that he could use. He didn't want to be here any longer than he had to be, so he made his search quick. Most of the supplies he found were ruined by the rain, and it seemed the local wildlife had already started picking through the food. He grumbled as he eyed the fallen mounts as a potential food source. He felt the hunger pangs as he passed them up, considering how much prep he would have to do here in the open just to cook one.

With reluctance, he found one of their feed bags. It wasn't ideal, but it would do for now. Unless… He dropped the sack and looked over one of the bodies, a man who had died next to the remains of their campfire. Shuzen looked him over; well groomed, his clothes must have been nice before being saturated in his blood. Curiously, a blue mark stood out on his neck. Shuzen turned his head to the side, revealing another tattoo like the one he had found on the first woman. A quick look around the camp revealed that they all had the same markings on them in one place or another. He filed that information away as he knelt back beside the groomed man. Maybe it wasn't a sign of a bender; there was no way so many benders could be taken down so easily. Shuzen rifled through the corpse's pocket, looking for anything useful.

Aha!

He pulled forth a small satchel of jerky. He offered a quiet thanks to the dead man before digging into the meager finding. Maybe the others had a little more or, considering how unmolested their belongings were, perhaps they had some coins he could still find here so he could eat wherever he found the next town.

Shuzen looked around, knowing he should do more for the people here, before his eyes settled on one of the ruined tents. With a few hard jerks, he tore it into pieces and draped it over the bodies, shrouding them as well as he could. It would do nothing to deter the wildlife, but it was the best Shuzen could do for them before he had to move on. He wished he had had the material to cover that noblewoman he had seen earlier, but it was too late now. Offering them one last prayer, he turned his back on the scene and stepped deeper into the forest.

Death hadn't been kind to them, but he'd done his best.