The hideout was an easy one to penetrate. The winds were in Mineko's favour on that particular day, and the clan had been careless with their defences. Apparently they hadn't considered the possibility that she already knew where they were headed.

She had known where their base was located for a while now. She had informed the Monastery but they had instructed her against infiltrating it. It didn't matter how adept she was with a sword, there were simply too many of them to risk it. This was different though, as long as she stuck to the shadows she would only have to fight a limited number of the clan.

It was important that she got the future dweller back, but more than that, she felt a little guilty that he had gotten involved in the power struggle. She may have been highly disciplined but she wasn't unfeeling. At times, human emotions were too prominent to ignore.

The large structure was quite simple to move through, much to Mineko's surprise. There weren't many secluded rooms connected to it, so that reduced the places she had to look through. She hid whenever people were passing through, usually near the ceiling. Over the years she had discovered that people were always so busy looking down that they forgot to look up.

Finally she discovered a rather large but empty section. Nothing resided within apart from a few piles of newly cleaned pots. There was nothing of substance though; no weapons, no training dummies... nothing except a big slab of wood in the middle, and a man tied to it. His head hung from his shoulders as if he had been knocked unconscious, but the twitching of his fingers proved that he was very much awake.

The short,dark hair was all that was needed to convince her that it was Barry, but if it hadn't, the clothes certainly helped. Her eyes flicked around the area. No one else was there yet but there was always a chance that they could appear when she least suspected it.

Without a sound, she slinked into the light and over to the wounded man.She placed her hand on his shoulder and his head moved upward. Mineko gritted her teeth... she didn't think they'd be so quick to hurt him. Barry's  mangled lip and obviously broken nose were caked in dried blood, congealed and cracked. It had drizzled down his face like rain down a window pane.

"What are you doing here?" He said, his voice gravelly and raw.

Mineko's had dropped from his shoulder. She forced herself to look at him, to appear stronger than she felt. "I have come to assist you."

"I don't want your help." Barry hissed. "I trust you even less than the ones that took me. At least they made their intentions clear..."

Mineko sighed and shifted over to the wood he was being held against. She untied the complicated knot easily, releasing Barry's hands and revealing that the rope had left deep cuts in his wrists. "Your distrust is unwarranted. I have done nothing to feed your suspicions."

"You've done nothing to erase them either." Barry grumbled. He brought his hands in front of him and bared his teeth at the deep gashes. "You let them take me. I think that's enough to suspect you."

The woman tugged on his arm in an instruction to move but the man only shrugged her away with a growl. She searched the room once more, aware that they had already stayed in that room for too long. She had to earn the man's trust... but it was difficult for her to do so. "I apologise. I was under the false impression that they would not harm you during the five days of rest."

Barry made a grunting sound, one that informed her that he didn't care about her excuses. "Am I just suppose to know what that is and accept it?"

"No. It is not something you would recognise." She replied, swallowing her pride and forcing herself to continue. "The five days of rest are sacred to any who train in a monastery. It is said that the very first master, and one of the few true samurai, had an impossible task ahead of him. He was to fight off two seperate clans that threatened the area. They were not properly trained, but their numbers were astounding. Instead of training his physical form he sat and meditated until the day of the battle - for five days. The legend tells of his success, and so many of us take those days to meditate in honour of him."

Barry blinked up at her in astonishment. She had been avoiding his questions for so long that he hadn't been expecting a straight answer. "Then why aren't you partaking in this 'rest'?"

"It was revealed in an ancient scroll that the legends were false and that he died on the field. Many still meditate but I ceased doing so after it was revealed, I saw no point in celebrating failure. These clans though... they have not been informed of this."

"Why would they care? Their clans were supposedly defeated."

"Not their clans, different ones. They consider them imposters and so they hold respectful rememberance to their downfall... at least they use to." Questions whirled in Mineko's brain almost as much as in Barry's. She had done everything right, so why did she feel so terrible? "I believed that I could avoid the harm of innocent villagers if I allowed them to take you. It was a mistake."

"No..." Barry quickly interjected "You did the right thing. I would've done the same."

"I am glad to hear that. Only a fool places greater worth in the life of a comrade than the life of an innocent." She held a hand out, and this time Barry took it. He still disliked her distant personality, but he was grateful that she at least admitted that he wasn't useless.

"Thanks...?" He sighed.

All of a sudden Mineko's grip on his hand tightened. Her entire body tensed and any minuscule amount of emotion on her face fell. Her head whipped to the side just as the door was being pushed open. The leader entered, sword in hand and eyes flicking straight towards Mineko.

"Kaze." He hissed, pointing his blade in her direction. "Today you die."

"Someone will, Tsuchi, but it will not be me." She unsheathed her own weapon and stood defensively in front of Barry.

"Oh boy." Barry sighed under his breath. His eyes occasionally snapping to the doorway leading into the room...a blindspot for the two fighters.

For what felt like a lifetime, the two warriors stared each other down. Their eyes were similar in colour, but Tsuchi's were harsh and rough while Mineko's were steady and focused. For two people who had been trained in the same way, there had never been a pair more different.

When Tsuchi leapt he did so with an apparent lag in his actions. His feet were too wide and his stature too broad to have any chance at a swift enough action. Instead he relied on brute strength, forcing the sword over his head and slamming it into the earth. The ground rumbled and cracked under the force, and finally formed into spikes that arose from the surface.

Barry gasped and dove clumsily to his left, narrowly falling free of the chunks of rubble sent forth by the samurai's attack. Instead of executing a swift dodge, Barry's legs tangled themselves around each other and he planted his face firmly onto the ground.

The chunks of earth continued bolting in Mineko's direction, but with a sudden bound into the air, she managed to avoid their path. She spun in midair and the oxygen surrounding her became visible, and pushed her forward with incredible force. Tsuchi attempted to dodge it, but his awareness of the attack couldn't completely compensate for his sluggishness. Mineko's blade slashed him right across the cheek, spilling the man's blood onto the floor. She skidded to a halt on the other side of the room, wasting no time in re-assuming a defensive stance. Now, Tsuchi stood in front of Barry, but was adamant on winning his duel before finishing the young man.

Without a word, Tsuchi simply touched a thumb on the wound and gave an irritated glare at the blood now coating it. This was when Barry finally managed to get up from his desperate dive, and send his attention back onto the duel.

He hated this feeling of helplessness. It made him regret what he chose to do with his gift. He had all the time in the world to prepare himself, to train and become a better fighter...but instead he depended on the Speed Force. He was useless without it.

As the two warriors began taking more steps in their deadly dance, Barry noticed a slight glint in the corridor...which was in full view now that he dove away from it. "Mineko! Your left!"

The words barely left his mouth before another swordsman shifted into the room from the dark hall, but Tsuchi seized advantage of Mineko's sudden glance away, thrusting his blade at her now unguarded side. Like a bundle of leaves in the wind, she twirled and struck the attacker's blade with her own, and the other samurai's eyes flashed. There was no way Mineko would be fast enough to fight two fully trained samurai at once...

Barry growled and sprinted like a fury at the man. He weaved passed Tsuchi and brutishly tackled the samurai  from behind, and the pair tumbled onto the ground like ragdolls.

The man's hand was rammed into the wall, and his fingers cracked as his grip on his katana was struck free. Barry's attention fell instantly onto the sword. As he desperately grasped for the weapon, still prone like his opponent, he felt electricity surge through his mind again...not as much as he was used to but it was still enough.

Sword now in hand, he propped himself up on the wall, trying to get to his feet as quickly as possible. The enemy laughed as he followed suite and spied Barry holding the sword, but his smirk soon wavered once he saw that it turned into a blur in Barry's hand.

He wasn't going to use it. No way. He needed to keep it out of the fight for his and Mineko's sakes though, and maybe he could scare these people while he was at it. Barry focused his energy into his hand and in turn, vibrated the molecules within the sword at an incredible speed. This was an old technique that had many applications, one was literally shaking apart the molecules of matter, destroying it.

After a single second, the steel blade exploded into harmless particles of steel dust, and Barry instantly dropped the wooden hilt that remained. The swordsman was stunned by the remarkable happening, and Barry didn't want to waste that kind of chance. With no more juice left, Barry locked onto the shelf of pottery behind him. He spun, clasped his hand onto the lip of one pot, spun again, then released.

The ceramic pot hurtled through the air and shattered as it impacted on the swordsman's face. He was pushed into the wall by the violent blow, snarling in rage.

Deeming this attack rather successful but not successful enough, Barry immediately repeated it. Another pot broke itself on the forehead of the swordsman. The shards of ceramic material flew in all directions and he dropped to the floor like a dead weight, blood trickling from his brow.

Now that his attention wasn't demanded by something else, Barry, out of breath from throwing those two pots as well as tackling the guy, looked back at Mineko. Her blade had clashed with Tsuchi's again, but he slipped. She didn't forgive this mistake, as she slid beside him, sliced the back of his knee then bludgeoned his temple with the pommel of her katana and knocked him unconscious.

As quickly as it began, it ended. Mineko immediately said to Barry "You fought without honour."

"Well, I usually just go for any advantage I can get."

"...I was not informed that you could make objects explode." She murmured, gesturing towards the pile of dust behind him that was once a sword.

Completely aware that Mineko wasn't likely to understand anyway, Barry almost said something along the lines of 'I just oscillated its molecules until they destabilised and disintegrated', but checked the action. Instead, he simplified it to "I...vibrated it until it fell apart, essentially. It's still speed, just with a bit of science."

Mineko's face scrunched up as if she hadn't completely comprehended what he had said. She wanted to ask something, that much was obvious, but they had already spent far too long in enemy territory. Instead she somehow manages to sneak Barry out, which proved to be a lot more difficult than she had originally hoped. He was clumsy on his feet and without his powers he was slower than an average person.

Still, they somehow made it out and Mineko couldn't help but feel a little relieved about it. Her stress levels had declined so much that she was able to remember the question that she wanted to ask the man.

"What is 'science'?" She said as they entered a relatively safe zone.

Barry almost jumped at her question. She seemed like a fairly intelligent woman, how could she not know what science was? Instead of answering her he scoured his mind for an reason, and it took a little too long for him to finally realise that science was extremely different a few hundred years ago. In fact, it wasn't even called science.

"Oh, right." He sighed, eyes shifting to the ground. He had learnt the old name for it, but it wasn't something he had deemed important enough to pay attention to. Barry, at that point, had to be grateful that he had a fairly decent memory. "You guys call it Natural Philosophy... I think."

Mineko's brow wrinkled. She still didn't seem to fully grasp his meaning. "What you describe does not sound like Natural Philosophy."

"It's changed since... well, nowadays. Religion and 'science', or the research part of Natural Philosophy, no longer go hand in hand. They're two separate entities."

"That does not make any sense, religion is a key component to Natural Philosophy. It is the backbone, the reason behind the research."

"I know it's a little difficult to imagine if you didn't grow up in a world where that was the reality." Barry held a hand across his side, only now beginning to feel the delayed pain from his time in the enemy's base. "I don't know how else to describe it... maybe I could try and teach you a little about it. I might even be able to help you find different uses for your powers."

Mineko raised an eyebrow at the boy. "Powers?"

"Yeah, I saw you back there. It looked like you could manipulate the wind."

"Oh..." Mineko nodded, glancing at the limping boy out of the corner of her eye. She would have helped him walk, but she was raised to believe that such a thing would be an attack on his pride. "My apologies, within the temple we do not consider it a power. Though I suppose members of the Defenders of the Realm do."

Barry's free hand came in contact with a wall and he leaned against it for support. He needed a minute to catch his breath, and surprisingly didn't need to tell Mineko to wait. She had already halted any movement forward the moment he had.

"What is it if not a power?" Barry asked curiously.

"I cannot tell you. Even if it is something already widely known by the clans, if they torture you for information I would prefer you not to know anything at all. They have probably already gathered too much from you this time."

"They got nothing from me." The man's expression darkened and scrunched into anger. Did she really think he would tell those creeps anything?

"The guilt is unnecessary. Those clans are adept at torture and extracting what they need, without proper training it is almost impossible to resist them."

Barry's glare sharpened in a way that didn't suit him as he repeated himself. "I didn't tell them anything."

Mineko observed him, searching his face for any hint of a lie. She saw none and that only surprised her even more. "You... resisted their attempts?" She said in disbelief.

"You have very little faith in me, you know that? I'm not as weak as you think."

"It's not about weakness or faith. I struggle to imagine any of my comrades withstanding that kind of torture, let alone a complete stranger." Mineko couldn't help but feel a twinge of admiration towards the man. Anyone with such mental strength was worthy of praise... though she wasn't going to be the one to give it to him.

At her explanation Barry lightened up a little. He shrugged and inhaled a large gust of air. "You don't know true pain until you've experienced the sensation of your brain being shredded to bits."

The woman blinked at him in surprise, and he could tell that there was a snippet of horror behind her gaze as well. As expected, she couldn't imagine such a thing. Barry, however, had gone through it during the earlier years of the Justice League. Despero was one of their first villains, he had both Telekinesis abilities and Telepathy among other things; he could do anything you could imagine to someone's mind. Barry almost shivered at the memory.

"The future sounds horrid..." Mineko grumbled, leaning against the wall beside him.

Barry shrugged. "Yeah, well, the past sucks as well."

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