Run

The following minutes had been bound to a conversational standstill. A delicate balance of awkward silence yet simmering tension filled the air, as if the very atmosphere held its breath, waiting for something to break the stalemate.

Sato scanned the horizon, taking in the untouched beauty of the land. On the outside, it seemed as if he'd still been enamored with nature, but his mind was elsewhere. His anxiety had returned once again - caught in the web of uncertainties and potential threats that may lie ahead.

Agawa glanced nervously at the suited man beside her, Kamida, who seemed perfectly calm as he hummed a tune to himself with closed eyes. Her fingers drummed lightly on her knee to create a silent rhythm of her mounting anxiety.

Takagi, meanwhile, had maintained his usual bravado, but even he seemed subdued, his gaze shifting restlessly between their surroundings and the road ahead.

Finally, unable to bear the silence any longer, Agawa spoke up. Her voice cut through the tension like a knife. "So, what's the plan when we reach wherever they're taking us? We need to have some kind of strategy, right?"

Kamida leaned forward. A calculating gleam sparkled in his eye as he smiled. "Agreed! One must always have an extra ace up their sleeve when bargaining, especially during such uncertain times. What might you propose?"

Takagi mockingly snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Bargain? You say some funny things, conman. I say we take them head-on if they try anything funny. No need for all this sneaking around."

"You're just muscle-brained, aren't you?" Agawa snapped. "We don't know these people, or what they're capable of! I doubt your 'brawn and bravado' attitude will intimidate them the way it did Tachibana. You'll just get yourself killed! Learn to think first before you act."

The punk gave a mischievous smirk and threw up his hands. "Heh. I am thinking. Thinking about how cowardly you are, Goldy. They're just old men in robes, nothing special. It's kinda embarrassing to be afraid of some geezers."

An elegant chuckle left Kamida's lips as he slowly clapped. "Well put, well put, my hard-headed friend. But don't you think you should reconsider? Just as some doors require a lockpick and not a hammer, I think it best to exercise subtlety in this situation. Wouldn't you agree?"

"No," Takagi flatly replied.

"I see… Well, why don't we settle this with a professional opinion, then? Right, Mr. Sato?"

Torn from his thoughts upon hearing his name, Sato turned toward Kamida to see him and the two other passengers intently staring.

"What?"

"Don't you think an approach of care and caution would be best suited for this situation?"

"Nah," Takagi interjected and shook his head. "I'll bet the soldier guy agrees with me. These geezers can't complain about what we do if they're not conscious to see it."

Sato paused for a moment. Though he had no intention of traveling with these three, the thought of them stirring up trouble with reckless action was too dangerous to ignore.

'Worst case, they screw up my chances to slip away. I can't let that happen.'

Decided, Sato hardened his expression as he spoke in a stern and authoritative tone. "We can't afford to be reckless, Mr. Takagi. Information is the difference between life and death, so we have to lay low and observe. Our lives depend on it."

Kamida and Agawa both let out a sigh of relief upon hearing Sato's words. As for Takagi, the punk clicked his tongue while crossing his arms in a pout.

"Whatever," he grudgingly nodded, though his eyes still blazed with defiance. "Fine. But I won't hesitate to crack some skulls if I need to."

Kamida clasped his hands together and smiled. "Splendid! I'm happy you saw things our way!"

"Yeah. Maybe there's hope for you still," Agawa sighed.

As the three exchanged more words, Sato averted his sights back to the outdoors. It was then that he noticed an alarming sight.

'We're surrounded…'

Three men on horseback now patrolled on either side of the carriage. Likewise, every other had its own squad. Their combined presence formed a long column of three dozen soldiers. Each wore crude leather armor and wielded identical steel-forged swords and ashen-black shortbows.

"That's new," Kamida hummed, pointing to the guards.

"It doesn't matter how many bugs they send; I'll squash 'em all!" Takagi declared. He squeezed his hands into fists and smiled triumphantly.

"You won't win any friends if all you do is start fights, you know?"

"Fine with me, Goldy! Who'd wanna make friends with bugs, anyway? You maybe. Heh."

"Agh! You're so frustrating!"

Takagi's narcissism aside, the presence of the new soldiers concerned Sato. He knew that a changing of the guard was standard for any operation, but a reinforcing of it? Now that was a red flag anyone could recognize.

After all, any commander worth their salt would wait to deploy their forces to preserve their strength. So if the troops were here now, their leader was either foolish…or a potential danger was looming ahead.

'I'm not optimistic enough to think the leader's a fool,' Sato thought. He cautiously and meticulously studied his surroundings for anything out of the ordinary.

First came the tree line on either side. Save for the occasional patter of a woodland critter, it was clear from any potential hostility. At least, as far as the soldier could tell.

Next came the rear, which was just as he'd expected it: a long stretch of empty gravel road.

'Now the front…'

Sato turned his gaze forward to see an odd glint of sunlight whizzing through the air, reflecting off the jagged cliffs that loomed on either side of the narrow gravel road. Then, with absolute precision, it found its mark and buried itself deep into a rear-line guard's neck.

"Gughhhh," the guard gurgled as a fountain of blood erupted from his throat, painting the arrow's feathered shaft a deep crimson. He collapsed, lifeless, while his horse shrieked like a banshee, bucking its fallen rider and trampling him with a sickening crunch of bones before bolting away.

"What was that?!" the guard ahead shouted in a panic.

"Where the hell did that come from?!"

Sato instinctively traced the arrow's trajectory. The soldier's suspicions were all but confirmed once he discovered the origin.

"TO ARMS! Bandits on the cliff sides straight ahead!" a shout accompanied by the alarm of a ringing bell came from the lead carriage. "Everyone, brace yourselves!"

For the first time, Kamida's calm demeanor had disappeared. "What did he say? We're under attack?!" His brow crinkled in fear as his eyes darted in every direction. 

"What do we do?! We're trapped in here!" Agawa frantically replied. She huddled close to the carriage door and ducked under the window, her eyes wide in a panic. 

Amongst them, only Takagi seemed to be unaffected. The punk only smirked to himself and crossed his legs with closed eyes. "I'm not worried. I won't hide from these bugs. Ha!"

Suddenly, the illusory atmosphere of peace shattered.

Sato was no longer surrounded by the pleasant ambiance of nature. Instead, war cries echoed alongside bone-chilling wails from those on the verge of the void.

On either side of the road, the convoy's protectors scrambled for whatever cover they could find. Dust clouds rose, and the sharp scent of fear and sweat permeated the air.

"Return fire and repay the bastards in full! Let's show 'em how stubborn we Blackwood boys can be!"

"Yes, sir!" the soldiers shouted. They swiftly nocked their arrows, the strings taut with tension, and angled their shots toward the cliffsides. Then…

"LOOSE!"

A flurry of howling arrows pierced the sky. They arced downward, peppering the cliffs in a fury of snapping wood and death throes.

Sato's heart pounded in his chest as he scanned the chaos.

The whizzing and snapping of arrows resounded as both sides relentlessly pelted each other with a rain of steel-tipped death. The bandits held the advantage, positioned high on the cliffs, spraying relentlessly upon the convoy with deadly precision.

Slowly but surely, the guards' numbers were diminishing. Every scream of pain, every thud of a fallen comrade, intensified the dread. They were losing.

"Oh god, they're everywhere! We're outnumbered! Captain, what do we do?!" a soldier cried, eyes wide with terror.

"Great to hear! You louts can't miss, then! Now keep nocking those arrows!" the captain barked, though the strain in his voice betrayed his own fear.

Sato cautiously peered out the carriage's front-facing window, observing twenty, no, thirty assailants lining the cliffs surrounding the road. Beyond the attackers, the soldier focused on the guards.

Their fear-filled expressions…

The overwhelming odds stacked against them…

The hopeless loss of life…

All of it was a scenario all too familiar to him. The scene playing out before his widened eyes mirrored what he'd experienced on his last mission. A suicide masked as a mission.

'Why? Why does it always end like this?'

Sato squeezed his fists tight in frustration. The faint urge to bolt out of the carriage and aid the dying soldiers welled up within his pounding chest. And yet, the soldier refrained from any heroics.

'I… I have no responsibility to help them. I already died once; I can't… I won't let it happen again so easily. Still…' Sato looked out and saw a dying man groaning in agony.

"Oh… It hurts… God it hurts!"

His body resembled a pin cushion, pierced by dozens of arrows over a pool of reflective crimson soaking the gravel beneath.

"Someone…help me…"

He shakily reached a hand for Sato's carriage as it passed by - a last dying gasp for life as it faded from his eyes. Then, a gurgle as an arrow delivered its final blow into his throat. His pleading hand thudded to the gravel below as his blood seeped into it.

"…I'm sorry," Sato muttered with his head hung low.

His apology was genuine, filled with both respect and pity for those dying before him. But, as much as he despised witnessing men being sacrificed in a losing battle, it wasn't his place to be their "hero."

Still the fight raged on.

"GODDAMMIT," the captain roared as he raised an arm in the way of an oncoming arrow's path. It fractured in half as he swiped it aside. He reached out to an injured comrade at his side and yanked him onto his horse. "WE'RE SITTING DUCKS OUT HERE! GET US OUT OF HERE! NOW!"

The repeated clap of frantic whipping rang out as he shouted. The sounds bounced around the rock walls surrounding the convoy as each horse jolted forward, moving from a hurried jog to a mad sprint.

"We're moving! Stay strong, all of you!" the captain shouted again.

A bow in hand, he strung an arrow and fired it. The arrow zipped through the air, striking a bandit in the leg. They howled in pain, their scream echoing off the cliff. As they slipped, arms flailing, they plummeted to the road below. The bandit hit the roof of a carriage with a sickening thud and bounced off.

"Yes, sir!"

The few guards left standing heeded their captain's call. Despite their hopeless situation, none lost their faith or drive for survival. Each showed a rousing fiery fury that not even the greatest despair could douse.

The convoy of carriages stampeded forward, through a storm of arrows and debris.

Amongst the chaos, one line could be heard from the left cliffside.

"Death to the Devil King's dogs! Death to Kirina Vlad!"

Sato locked eyes with a woman next to the shouting bandit; she was cloaked in black, wielding identical swords in each hand, and wore an icy-blue stare. Behind her was a towering, makeshift banner. A banner with an oddly familiar pattern.

"Isn't that…?" Sato mumbled and narrowed his gaze.

The flag's visage struck a chord of nostalgia. Lining its frayed cloth edges was a border of vibrant red dye which converged inward into a solid red circle. Though it was clearly crafted by rudimentary means, there was no mistaking it.

'That's Japan!' Sato thought with widened eyes.

The woman noticed Sato too, then fixed her gaze upon him. Their stares intertwined as she motioned her mouth and silently uttered a single word. A word that concerned him more than any other.

"Run."

Then, just as quickly as she appeared in view, the woman vanished from sight. The carriages were speeding too quickly for a lengthy exchange within the chaos.

Suddenly, a flash of bright light illuminated the front-most carriage, followed by a thunderous clap of energy that shook the ground in a rippling seismic reverb. 

Right before Sato's eyes were dozens of arcing branches of purple blooming, taking form as a webbing of electricity that pummeled the cliffs on either side. His hair frizzed and stood on end as the air became more and more statically-charged.

Pulverized rock and dirt kicked up from the impact, quickly creating a thick smokescreen. Yet the caster of the spell, revealed to be the old man, refused to cease his attack.

"How dare you bare your fangs to me? Perish, you mongrels! PERISH!"

Perish they did as several bandits found themselves as an unwilling conduit for the lightning. Their bodies involuntarily spasmed and fried from the heat as they let out blood-curdling screams.

"It's the mage! Fall back! Fall back! Get away from the edge!" a surviving bandit ordered. Those that avoided the electricity's wrath promptly retreated as the purple-hued energy ravaged their positions.

"Hahahaha! Yes! Flee, you filthy miscreants! Flee or perish! Run back to your camps as nothing more than hopeless failures!" the old man cackled with a hint of sadism.

Even so, Sato was more focused upon the bow-woman's words.

'Why would a bandit, attacking us, tell me to run? Was it a threat? Or a warning? And why were they waving a banner depicting Japan? Wasn't this supposed to be a new world?'

Many questions tugged at the soldier's tearing mind. Slowly, he felt himself being overwhelmed by the desire to discover answers. That's when Agawa's panicked shouting purged them from thought.

"What's happening?! Who are these people?!" she shouted while huddling over in fear.

"Lay down on the floor and ball up!!" Sato asserted with a leader's boldness. "Make yourself as small as possible!"

"Uhhh, right!"

Likewise, Kamida dropped to what little floor was available, and the two curled up into tight balls with tucked-in knees.

Takagi, on the other hand, only scoffed at the order. "Hah, this is nothing. Getting scared over this is pre-"

"You think this is a joke?!" Sato interrupted. "You could die! Now do what I say!"

"Pfffft. Speak for yourself. Don't lump me in with losers like you. I'll be fine."

"You stupid-" Sato paused, his veins boiled with anger and throbbed against the surface of his skin. He was utterly tired of dealing with Takagi's defiance.

"Listen to me! There's no time!"

No time indeed. 

Sato noticed a rogue arrow cutting through the air at breakneck speed in his periphery. Its course: a direct strike for the punk's exposed head.

'This kid… I'm done!' 

Out of time and long out of patience, Sato lunged forward, grappling Takagi by his hair and pulling him down…

"Hey! Ow! What are you doing?! Let me go!"

…while paying no mind to any thrashing and complaints to protest.

Holding the punk there was no easy task, even for Sato. Yet he refused to budge. 'I won't let this kid get himself killed. Not if I can help it!'

For a while, the group huddled over the dusty floor while waiting for the projectile to fly through. They waited...and waited…and waited... Yet, the snapping of an arrow never came. 

Sato and his companions, barring Takagi, lay there, motionless and hugging the floor as if it were their only lifeline. The carriage violently vibrated beneath them as it dashed across uneven gravel. 

Several minutes later, a voice ahead shouted, "All clear!" and the carriages slowed back down to a reasonable trot.

'We're…in the clear? But the arrow…where'd it go?' Sato turned his gaze upward and found the missing projectile. Oddly enough, it was suspended in midair, halfway through the carriage's windowless sill. 

Around the projectile's violently trembling shaft flickered a barrier of pure, translucent energy. It rapidly flashed with chaotic static centered around the proverbial wound, almost like an odd visual glitch from an old video game. 

'The surprises just never end…' Sato curiously got up to study the phenomenon. Cautiously, of course. 

Inch by inch, our hero's fingertips closed the gap toward the arrowhead. When they were a mere hair's width away, the barrier, like an elastic film, slungshot the arrow into the tree line.

The rag-dolling projectile caught on various pieces of foliage, creating differently-pitched cracking noises. The noise finally ceased after it disappeared far from sight into the darkness of the forest beyond.

Yet, the barrier remained.

'Am I seeing things?' The soldier flattened a palm onto the windowless sill's opening. Only for his hand to be repelled like a magnet of opposite polarity.

"What the…?" Sato muttered with a bewildered expression. "What kind of technology is this?" Even in the modern world, he'd never witnessed such a thing - a barrier with no discernable physical structure.

'Maybe it's magic,' he thought in passing, torn between sarcasm and genuine belief.

As Sato appraised the barrier, Takagi picked himself up off the floor and dusted himself. "Tsk... See? Looks like everything would've been fine, anyway, if you had left me alone. Don't go 'saving' people that don't need it."

"You're welcome," Sato sarcastically retorted, then inwardly added, 'A magical barrier won't always be there to keep you safe.'

Kamida poked his head up like a curious prairie dog. "Is it... Is it safe now?"

"Yeah. Everything's fine now," Sato tiredly replied.

Though with obvious caution, Kamida and Agawa returned to their seats. 

The suited man brushed at his garments and cast a shameful stare at the patches of dust and dirt now covering it. Even with his efforts, the uncanny purity of the cloth was forever reduced from immaculately pristine to mildly worn. 

A loud sigh exited Kamida's lips as he groaned. Seemingly, he'd regained his earlier nonchalant and calm attitude. "Ugh… Would you look at this? My suit's in shambles! I suppose I'll have to purchase a new one now…"

"Your suit?" Agawa looked at Kamida, her expression alight with surprise. "Who cares about your suit?! We were just attacked! Isn't that more important, right now?" 

"Perhaps…" Kamida gave a wry smile. "But perhaps not… You see, a man's image must be safeguarded at all times. All it takes is a single blunder to mar a lifetime of perfection. Such an ordeal may be worrisome, but it's trivial compared to that."

"An ordeal? That was more than just an ordeal! I mean, bandits? Are you kidding me? I just... I just want to go home!" she mournfully sighed and cradled her head in her arms.

"Pffft… You just gonna whine?" Takagi taunted.

"You…"

Banter, complaints, and arguments ensued between the group, but Sato was stuck contemplating the bandit's words. 

'"The Devil King's dogs…" Was she referring to us? If what the old man said was true, anything "demon" is our enemy. So, why were we being targeted by people allegedly on our side? Why would they have a Japanese flag?! Plus there's the issue of what that woman said….'

Considering those questions, Sato arrived at a distinct possibility. The possibility that the attackers weren't bandits at all. 

'Something's very wrong here. Something's being hidden from us.'

Every safety alarm within Sato's body blared loudly due to the bandit's warning. It's because of that that the soldier considered something rash.

'Maybe I should leave now. Make a break for the treeline. The soldiers are on horseback with heavy equipment, I doubt they'd be able to give chase. Even more so with a group of "bandits" at large. They'd have to split their forces to chase me and protect everyone else here.'

Sato looked out to see that, after the attack, the guards' numbers for their caravan had dwindled to a mere third of their original headcount.

'...and they definitely lack the manpower for a division of labor.'

A moment passed as the soldier simulated a daring escape in his mind. All his chances seemed relatively high! Except for those that came after - the dangers of the open wilderness.

'No... No. It'd be foolish to run now. A quick ticket to death by any number of things. I've got no weapons. No protective gear. None of the basic essentials.' Sato sighed as the dense forestry passed him by. 

"There's no way I'd survive," he quietly mumbled.

"Excuse me? Did you say something?" Kamida inquired amongst Agawa and Takagi's hurling of insults.

"No. It's nothing," Sato replied. Though he felt as if he were held in place by a ball and chain, he didn't plan on sharing it with these sudden companions.

Kamida raised an eyebrow and hummed to himself. "Is that so?" Though clearly unconvinced, he leaned back and resumed a relaxed demeanor. "Well, if you're sure. I won't prod any further."

Likewise, the soldier fell back into his seat. Shrugging to himself, he thought, 'Might as well make myself comfortable too. I can't leave, so there's no point in overstressing myself.'

After that, the four retreated into their respective minds to ponder what had happened. But, what none of them had realized, what none of them could possibly understand at that moment, was that everything could…was going to get much, much worse.