Chapter 9: Because you are Strong

"You impudent...!!" They all were shaking with rage towards Karma but as they saw him they knew, they couldn't do anything against him but bite their own lips. The man Karma stood atop with Karma's blade in his mouth, started blathering in hardly understandable words, "We dwon't know, thwere is nwo boss, we argh just locals, takin' care of the shack."

"You fool, You'll cut your tongue." amn shouted

Karma looked up, "Don't worry so much, I'd already figured as much, but I wasn't talking to you." Karma raised his second blade and pointed it straight towards the head, "I was talking to you."

The head wanted to run away, but the faith shown by the patriots, the responsibility of the towns people's live's he'd got caught up in this mess lied upon his shoulders, he couldn't run,

"I'd rather die, you won't get any use out of any of them!!" Saying this much he picked up a torch and screaming, with his eyes closed tight and mouth wide open he was about to burn his tongue. Karma put his blade through the bucket lying by the man at his feet and tossed it up towards the head, Karma then plunged onto the head, cutting the torch into two pieces, like knife through butter, and grabbed his hand holding the torch, "Even though you hid the truth from all these people, you are a really commendable man, now become my link to the resistance. And you should know that no is not an answer." Saying this Karma moved out of the Head's view, The head looked around him, all his men were safe from the fire that was raging just a moment ago, but they were all down on their faces, scattered like dead fleas, as Olivia stood there, looking at him.

The man lost all hope and yelled, "I am sorry my brethren, I have to sacrifice you, but if the general is captured the resistance will lose one of it's strongest leaders, But I promise to follow you. You can do whatever you want with me in our afterlife"

Karma ceased his mouth close, and moving closer he said "I promised you something just now, that Karma will be served and I assure you it will be, against the crimes of the Imperialists." His tone got a lot heavier, "I WILL, with your people's help drive them out."

There was no impurity in his eyes, his strong sense of rage, hunger for justice, was clear by one view at his scarlet eyes that were literally flaming up from the inside, "Calm down!!" Olivia shouted before Karma was caught on that ominous fire again like on the altar. Karma snapped out of his fit by this sudden calling of his name, Princess Kaguya finally came out of hiding when signaled by Olivia. The head saw her, stayed quiet for a moment, then looking down at his feet, "I'll take you there, But you'll have to follow my instructions, if you can't comply, you can kill me."

Karma smiled, "Hmmph, Fine, we'll do it, you couldn't harm us anyway."

"Think of us however you want, but if you try to pull something uncalled for, I, Tadao assure you, that you will have made the grave mistake of underestimating our General Meishu"

"You misunderstand Tadao, I say you wouldn't harm us, not because I think you are weak, but because I can see that you are strong". Saying this Karma let go of Tadao's hand, spread his arms across to surrender. Tadao lead the three, in a direction far away from the shack before others arrived to check on the smoke from the fire. The fire itself had been put out by the girls already, so they left immediately. Once they reached the outskirts of the village Tadao stopped to turn around, " Stay Close to me. Once we get into the forest there's no way for someone from outside the village to navigate through it. Should keep any friends of yours, lurking in the dark, away."

Karma looked at him, " You really don't trust us yet? Why did you bring us along then? You certainly weren't afraid of dying. "

Tadao:" I am not as narrow-minded as you think, I am sure there are good and bad people alike on both sides of the spectrum, may it be imperialist or a citizen of Denrenkyu." "Besides your eyes speak for you. " He muttered to himself.

As they got through the forest no one other than Tadao could actually tell where they were going. It was a thick forest that looked the same all around, why the base would be made in such a place was very apparent.

Olivia called out to Tadao, "Remember you warned us about pulling something uncalled for, If you are just trying to get us lost in here and sacrifice yourself, I won't kill you, I will make you wish you were dead" Tadao simply nodded and kept walking silently.

--

After walking through the forest until morning they were finally out of the forest, as they walked out of the thick covering of trees, they saw a cliff before them, Olivia snapped at the view of nothing other than the cliff before her, "You are going to pay!!". The timid Kaguya fell back being shocked by Olivia's outrage. Olivia set Tadao flying with a punch, but before Tadao could hit the ground, they were surrounded at all sides by the rebels. These people were obviously different than the men from the prior night at the shack, they were well equipped and on guard.

One of the rebels caught Tadao straight in his arms, "Tadao!! What do you think you are doing?...Huh...Is that the...Princess!!?"

All the rebels were absolutely flabbergasted, "Wait...Now that you mention it..."

What were a couple of imperialists and the princess doing here, with Tadao? And after he was ordered to drive out the perpetrators at the King's old shack too. The men looked at Tadao for an explanation, and Tadao gave them just that, "...They say they are here to help against the imperialists, and they were with princess Kaguya so....".

"That's preposterous, they just wanted to find our hideout, and our princess helped them rat us out,... " Their discussion was a clear giveaway as to which faction of the rebels they belonged to. Olivia was ready for a battle to start at any moment, armed with her trustworthy sword, they were still surrounded near the edge of a cliff after all. Karma intervened their discussion, " I have a proposal, I would like to negotiate with your leader, to unite the two sides to fight side by side and win your country back."

The rebels were hateful for the imperialists, "And why should we trust you?"

"You've made apparent that you don't trust your princess, but I am guessing at least the news about the imperialist's religious head being killed must have reached you." Saying this much Karma smiled at them, a smile radiating confidence and power.

And indeed they knew of it, but the monarchy hadn't let any information about the missing princess get out, by the time Kaguya was abducted, all the citizens had either managed to make it out or fallen victim to the coherent stampede.

"Why didn't we notice it earlier?! The silver hair, red eyes, exactly like the rumors" the Denrekyuns did not have the same concept of the devil in their faith, instead they believed in the God of the afterlife, a Punisher of the wretched. But they became vary of the power of the man who supposedly single handedly massacred several high ranking soldiers in the middle of his own execution. They were way more hesitant now, because even though he had proven his hate for the imperial kingdom, their was still no trust that he wouldn't kill them, at the same time thoughts like "the Gods have sent us a Hero for dealing out punishment to the tyrants" were coursing through their brains.

Karma sensed this anxiety from their expressions.

"In order to gain your trust,-" as he was talking to them

"AHHHHHH!!!!" a scream of pain, from a short distance away into the forest and "NOOOO!!" simultaneously another from below the cliff, what was going on?