Sen sat on the steps as Emi and Hachirou readied their things to leave when he saw Yuzuha storming towards him with more purpose than he felt any situation warranted. She stopped in front of him, sheathed naginata in hand, and looked down at him, "I'm coming with you."

Her declaration made Sen blink up at her in surprise, "You... what?"

"Got mud in your ears? I'm coming with you," she frowned down at him. "I'm not someone who likes to be in debt and since I don't have any money, I figured my muscle would be more than enough."

"Sounds good," Sen turned in abject horror to the sound of another voice and saw Aoi leaning casually against the doorframe of one of the burned-down houses. "Hope you don't mind if I tag along. I'm going the same way you all are."

Sen was ready to scream at the idea of having even more people in the party, and it only intensified when Emi clapped her hands excitedly, "Oh, how wonderful! The more the merrier!"

Sen felt Hashi gently tap his shoulder, and when he turned, he was met with his friend's broad smile. He felt the tension building in his shoulders relax and his fists that had bundled tightly on his knees relaxed. If Hashi was okay with this, he supposed that he could find a way to cope as well. He stood up as Emi hurried over and excitedly began chatting with Yuzuha, who seemed beyond taken aback by the nun's sudden burst of energy.

Aoi wandered over to Sen and crossed his arms as he looked at him, "Your friends mentioned that your friend here was sick."

"Hashi is, yes," Sen nodded as the large yokai lumbered over to him and looked down at the ronin, who smiled up at him.

"Mind if I take a look?" Aoi asked and held out his hand. Hashi hesitated for a moment before handing the ronin his arm. He flipped his hand over and looked at the long ashy tendrils stretching out from across his palm and up the veins of his arm. "I've seen sicknesses like this on other yokai," he nodded as he allowed Hashi to take his arm back, "and I can't say that it's ended well."

Sen felt his hand tense up at his side again as Emi hurried over and quickly came between them, "Shall we be off?" her cheerful tone pulled Sen from his thoughts and made Hashi give an approving grunt as the group all began to head towards the center of the town.

"So, why are you coming with us?" Yuzuha asked Aoi after they had passed through the gates and made their way back onto the main road. "You don't seem like the type to just join a group."

"Neither do you," Aoi shrugged as he pulled his arms into his kosode and cast a bored look at Yuzuha.

Hashi gave a quiet snort and looked down at Sen, who looked back up at him with a small knowing smile. Both of them knew that this was going to be an interesting voyage if these two were already at odds with one another.

"Do you have a problem with me, old man?"

"Me? It sounds like you have a problem with me."

Sen saw the corner of Emi's mouth quirk down as she turned over her shoulder, "Can you two just answer one another's question? This seems like a rather silly thing to be arguing over so early in jour journey."

"Yeah," Sen called from behind them, "I am rather interested to hear exactly why the two of you decided to join up with a group of strangers that you barely know."

Aoi answered first, "As I said, we're going the same way, but if I'm going to be honest... I'm also looking for someone. I'm traveling across Nihon hoping to find him. You're heading in my direction, so I figured tagging along with a conspicuous group of armed and altruistic travelers was the way to do it." When he finished, he turned his attention to Yuzuha and raised an eyebrow, "Your turn, my lady."

"Don't call me that," she snarled before she cast a look back at Sen and cleared her throat, "I... I don't have any money, and to be honest, you'd be surprised how few people are willing to pay a woman to defend them – onna-bugeisha or not. Figured tagging along with some Buddhists was a decent enough way to get some free room and board while I was traveling... Also, I do think I owe Sen for helping me in that fight. Probably couldn't have done it alone."

"What about me? I helped."

"Yeah, and you stink like stale sake. It's punishment being stuck next to you."

"Yeesh," Aoi narrowed his eyes and moved up closer to Emi and Hachirou, "I'm staying up here away from that cold northern wind that just got frigid as hell."

Sen saw Yuzuha throw her eyes in an exasperated roll as she slipped back beside him and Hashi with a shake of her head. "Samurai," she grumbled as she turned to look at Sen as if waiting for a response. The only thing that Sen did was flex his hand and keep his eyes on the road ahead. Yuzuha stood slightly taller than him, and her whole stature was intimidating if he had to be perfectly honest. She stood wide, was well-muscled, and with her additional height, intimidating Sen wasn't too difficult. "What?"

"Hm?" Sen flicked his eyes to her.

"You're tense. What is it?"

"I'm always tense," Sen replied quickly, and it was true enough. He could barely remember when he had genuinely relaxed. He also didn't want to die, so he decided to forgo mentioning that her very intimidating aura was what was making him outwardly tense. He felt Hashi look down at him with perhaps the most unamused expression he had ever seen on the face of any yokai he had ever known.

Yuzuha looked up at him, "How in the hells did you two wind up meeting? I figured most yokai would rather eat humans than be friends with them."

"That's not true," Sen responded more quickly than perhaps he should have. "There are plenty of yokai out there who are perfectly fine living beside humans."

"I just fought a horde of them that were trying to butcher innocent townspeople, so forgive my skepticism," she frowned at him before looking back at Hashi. "Do you have anything to say to that, big guy?"

Hashi looked around before pointing at himself, his eyebrows rising in surprise.

"Yes, you. Who else around here is big?"

Hashi looked down at Sen.

"He's short!"

Hashi grunted and shrugged his shoulders, gesturing up to his horns before patting his chest with a shake of his head. Those yokai aren't me. Yuzuha frowned at him, not sure what to make of the gesture, so Sen cleared his throat.

"He said that those yokai aren't like him," he offered somewhat quietly, making Yuzuha turn her eyes to him again.

Yuzuha's eyebrows raised in surprise as she shifted her naginata on her shoulder, "I thought he could speak like those other yokai we ran into."

Hashi shook his head and tapped his mouth.

"He's been mute since I've known him," Sen shrugged. "He can speak, but it takes so much effort that it isn't worth it.

"What a strange yokai..." Yuzuha muttered with a small shake of her head as Aoi snorted ahead of them.

"There are all sorts of yokai out there, my lady," the ronin shouted back to them, "but you have to actually not attack them as soon as you see them."

"I do not-!"

"Please," Emi turned to them both and pleaded, "can you not fight? This is supposed to be a happy pilgrimage!"

Hachirou nodded, "Emi is correct. We need to focus on being unified in deed and purpose if we are to make this great journey to Kyushu."

"Wait... You really are going on to Kyushu, then?" Yuzuha asked with surprise laden in her voice. "I have to admit... That is a long trip. I figured you were all going to hit the coast and start back."

"We need to meet with Owari no Hoshiga," Sen supplied, and that made Aoi stop and turn back to him in surprise.

"Wait... the Owari no Hoshiga? As in, the Diviner of the Otomo? The legendary seer?"

"What does some smelly ronin know about the affairs of real samurai?" Yuzuha asked as she narrowed her eyes at him.

Aoi hesitated before he rolled his shoulders, "Let's just say that back in the day, I got around. I did some odd jobs for the current Otomo Jitou's father back when I was younger and still wandering with a few fellow friends of mine. The old man is still kicking, so I might be able to call in some favors and get you in to actually see him."

"Is... that much of an issue?" Sen asked, and it made Aoi completely stop and turn around to him in surprise.

"Oh, kid... Hoshiga has a waiting list that can keep you there for months. Unless you can catch his eye during one of his public grievance meetings, I highly doubt you'd get within spitting range of that diviner." Aoi reached up and stroked his beard thoughtfully as he seemed to weigh their options, "Though... your connection to spirits might draw that old diviner's gaze, to be honest. If rumors hold true, he's also a master of onmyodo..."

Yuzuha snorted, "Joy. More magic users fooling with things they don't understand."

Sen felt his hand flex again as he turned to Hashi, "Either way, we need to see him. He might be the only one who knows how to heal Hashi's illness."

Emi walked back to him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder with a calm smile of her own, "We will get you to see him, Sen. You and Hashi will have nothing to worry about so long as we are all together."

---

Their journey took them across the fields and plains of Nihon, and Sen found himself growing more and more fond of his rather eccentric travel partners. It had been a long time since he had friends, he realized after a time, outside of Hashi. The constant bickering between Yuzuha and Aoi was a welcome break from the silence of the roads, and the gentle chants sung by Emi and Hachirou would often open and close their long walks. It felt nice to not have to make the whole voyage by themselves. It certainly had begun to make things easier.

Yuzuha often hung back to walk with him. He wasn't exactly sure, but why she spent more time back beside him than she did up with Aoi and the others was beyond him.

She gave a small cough and looked over at him, "So... Sen." He turned to her enquiringly. "Do you have anyone waiting for you back in Ebume?"

"Not really."

"No family? No friends?"

"A few friends, I suppose. Most of my friends left the town a while ago."

She seemed almost relieved before she went to speak again, but Aoi quickly hurried back to them, looking more than a little perturbed. "Bad news. Seems like there have been bandits along the roads. Keep an eye out."

When Sen made his way up to Emi and Hachirou, Sen saw them gazing down at a toppled shrine that had rested beside it. The old idols had been cast into the dirt, and whatever valuables had been left were yanked off and taken away, leaving everything else strewn across the ground. Small stone statues of jizo lay toppled beside them as well, rooted through for any manner of offerings. The old wooden shrine had been pushed from its carved stone base and lay on its side, mostly intact, though the small mirror was stolen and any extra decoration had been pulled off of it.

"Why would anyone have done such a thing?" Emi asked as she knelt down and began sitting the jizo back upright with a distraught frown.

"Desperation," Sen muttered and knelt to help her, picking up the small guardian statues in his hands and sitting them upright, placing some of their small round heads back on their bodies. Nothing was sacred when hunger gnawed at your belly, Sen knew all too painfully well.

"The villagers may know more," Emi supplied as Hachirou grabbed ahold of the shrine and attempted to set it upright. Hashi hurried over and helped him lift it, and the little building was righted with so much ease that it even made Hachirou seem somewhat surprised. The two hefted the shrine onto its old stone supports with a hefty thud as Emi and Sen began gathering up the fallen pieces and rearranging them on the altar.

"I wonder whose shrine this used to be," Sen muttered as he stepped back and pressed his hands together with a bow. "Hopefully they haven't abandoned this town because of the shrine."

Yuzuha snorted behind him, "Do you honestly believe that gods sit around in those little shrines?"

"I believe that they go where worshippers are," Sen countered as he clapped his hands along with Emi, Hachirou, and Hashi. He paused and looked around. Dead vegetation surrounded the old shrine, with wilted flowers and brown fallen leaves. "I wonder if there's a temple nearby. They usually go hand-in-hand."

"There used to be one out this way." The group turned to Aoi, who was scratching the base of his skull with one hand and resting the other on the handle of his sword. "There used to be an order of monks who lived out here. I don't know if any of them are still around, though. This area has been hit badly by the war."

"All the more reason for there to be brothers and sisters here helping people," Emi nodded happily. "Let's see if we can find them!"

Sen was surprised at how fast the two Buddhists moved at the prospect of finding other members of their order, and he was left standing behind them in a state of shock with the others in his group before they struggled to catch up to their intrepid friends. They scoured the road for any sign of Aoi's elusive temple, but they came across a little town instead, surrounded by an ancient rickety little wooden wall that wouldn't stand any chance of thwarting any real attack by the enemy.

The small houses made of mud, straw, and old wood seemed older than some of the local buildings. Besides small stalls for selling produce, the town looked almost deserted. There wasn't so much as a sign of life outside. The streets were dry and all of the tracks looked old and worn down. Something about it didn't feel quite right. Hashi looked around and sniffed the air. He could smell people, all huddled behind the wood and obscured to his eyes, so he gestured to Sen to get his attention and pointed to the houses. Sen nodded and gestured to the houses for the others in the group to see.

Yuzuha moved to stand next to him and frowned, "Why are they hiding from us?"

"The bandits?"

"Maybe. I figured we'd be a welcome sight."

They ventured further into the town, and it was only when they had made it to the main square that they began to see shutters being lifted and doors slowly sliding open. When they finally passed by one of the houses, a farmer burst from his house and sprinted over to Aoi, catching him by the arms. "Please!" He begged, "You have to help us!"

"Whoa, slow down," Aoi pushed him back and held him at arm's length. "What's wrong?"

"The-there are raiders! They'll be coming back in a few days. We don't have any more food! They'll kill us!" The man paused when he saw Hashi and backed away with a small panicked squeak.

"He won't hurt you," Sen offered. "If anything, we want to help."

"Whoa, hold up," Yuzuha turned to him and frowned. "Do we even have time to stop and help every single little town along the way? Who knows how his condition will be by the time we even get close to Kyushu."

Hashi let out a low growl and shook his head. He tapped his chest and made a forceful slashing motion through the air with a vehement shake of his head. I don't matter.

Sen frowned at that, but he nodded anyway, "If Hashi thinks we should help, then I'm with him."

Aoi sighed and looked at the farmer, "Are they the same bandits who have been ransacking the shrines?"

"Them? No, no... These raiders are trained. They have weapons. Good ones," another farmer interjected as more and more people began creeping forth from their homes.

The village elder came forward and gave a long, low bow, "Please... We... we don't have much to pay you, I know, but we do have a local treasure..." He gestured to a small house and began to walk towards it, leaving the group to follow him and the expectant townspeople to follow them. He gestured for them to wait and reemerged lugging a heavy chest, dropping it onto the ground before him as he grabbed the lid. When the group finally managed to look inside, what they saw made Sen pause. "This armor has been in our village for generations," the elder stepped back as the group looked down at it. "We don't know who it belonged to, but..."

Sen felt his mind grow distant and hazy as the voice he had heard in Tomoemura slowly began again. It was only when he felt a hand on his shoulder that he managed to snap himself back to reality with a small jump. Seemingly, no one had noticed save for Hashi, who was looking down at him with his brow furrowed in worry. Sen tapped his chest and shook his head. Nothing's wrong.

Hashi gestured from his mouth to his ear before tapping the side of his head. Hearing voices again?

Sen hesitated before giving a slight nod as the elder continued, "That's really all we know. Just that it was left in our care ages ago, it feels like. It has been here since long before I was born."

Aoi reached in and pulled out the chest plate, turning it over in his hands and furrowing his brow. "I don't recognize the kamon. It's not from any clan I'm aware of. What about you, princess?" He asked as he passed the armor to Yuzuha, who brushed her fingers over the insignia. "I don't know the clan, but this design is called kikukiri hiyoku. Back home, I had an old monk who lived with us and studied samurai clans chronicling their histories. I've seen it in one of his old books." Sen moved in closer to get a better look at the crest and saw what Yuzuha had meant. Half of a chrysanthemum resting on hollyhock leaves. It was vaguely familiar like he had seen it somewhere before.

"If you take care of those raiders, the armor is yours," the elder took back the chest plate and put it back inside of its case, closing the old chest after he did. "Might I suggest asking the monks at the old temple for advice? They've seemed to have a good enough time fending off the raiders. Perhaps they know some way we missed."

---

"Well, we know where the temple is!" Emi hurried ahead of the group as they passed through the gate on the opposing side of town. "I'm so excited! Do you think there could be sohei there? Perhaps maybe other warrior monks?"

Sen saw Hachirou frown at the mention of sohei. "What has me worried is that they haven't tried to protect the village at all. What sort of monks are they that they are not rendering aid?" He scoffed and gave a hard stamp of his naginata when he set it down the next time.

"Perhaps something has been keeping them from helping?" Emi supplied with a smile and a shrug.

Yuzuha rolled her eyes and turned to Sen, "She is boundlessly optimistic, isn't she?"

Sen shrugged as he looked over at her, "I mean... It's served her well so far, honestly."

"That's fair." Yuzuha watched them walk ahead of her before she went quiet and turned back to Sen, dropping her voice as she spoke, "Did... Earlier, did you..."

"Did I what?" Sen asked. He felt like he knew, but he wanted to hear her say it.

"You went away there for a moment when that old man brought out the armor. Is everything alright?"

"Yes," Sen answered quickly. Too quickly, he knew the second the words left his lips, and he could tell that Yuzuha thought so, too.

"Listen," she turned to face him and dropped her voice, "I won't let the two cheery chanters know if you don't want to, but I need to know that you're good and ready to fight."

"I'm fine," Sen's reply was quieter and he felt his hand tighten around the strap of his odachi. "This won't affect anything."

He felt Yuzuha's eyes linger on him for a moment, but she finally sighed and nodded as she turned back around. "Let me know if it starts whispering to you and I'll stab it." Sen felt the corner of his mouth tug up when she spoke.

Aoi paused ahead of the group and turned with a jerk of his chin towards a barely noticeable old path. "Temple is this way," he started down the way with the others in hot pursuit, and they soon found themselves standing before an ancient and weathered temple.

It looked as though it had seen better days. It wasn't nearly as beaten down as Hashi-ji, but many of the windows had been broken and the paper doors had been horribly ripped and torn. Whole segments of the wall looked as though someone had run a bull into them. There were scorch marks and huge chunks of wood slashed out. The abuse was from conflict and not age. The old temple was seemingly abandoned. Though that façade was shattered rather quickly because almost as soon as they passed through the main gate, an elderly bald monk hurried out almost breathlessly and down the path towards them. "Please!" He begged, almost tripping over his robes, "Please, don't try to take anything else! All we have left are our writings and sutras..." his voice trailed off when he saw Emi and Hachirou, and Sen saw him visibly relax as he bowed, "My deepest apologies, my friends. There have been those raiders and those bandits. My friends here and I are the only ones left." He gestured behind him as several younger monks and, much to Sen's surprise, a tanuki appeared.

"Where are your warriors?" Hachirou asked as he watched the group of monks slowly emerge from the building. "Surely some sohei would have been sent to help you by now."

"Heh, yeah, fat chance of that!" The tanuki rolled his way up to the monk and quickly morphed its shape into that of a young trainee. "They abandoned these guys ages ago, claimed they'd lose too many men defending a warzone."

"Is that why you're here?" Sen folded his arms across his chest as the tanuki proudly puffed out his chest.

"They made me a disciple. I wandered in here starving and looking for shelter. They took me in."

"Sounds like you're taking advantage," Yuzuha frowned, making the tanuki sputter in surprise before the elderly monk chimed in.

"Zenko is as much one of our brothers as any of our humans."

"Who is it, Dainei?" Sen turned to the voice and saw another man emerge, and something about him struck Sen. There was a certain energy about him that radiated power – eminence, more like, he decided. Judging by his robes, he was the abbot, and if Emi and Hachirou's reverent bows meant anything, his assumption on that front was more than correct.

"Abbot Angyo," the monk named Dainei bowed as the man approached and began to look the group over. "We have guests, and a brother and sister have also arrived here."

Angyo looked over the group and smiled at Emi and Hachirou, "Welcome, you two. I sense that you have come a long way."

"We have. I am Emi of the convent at Matsubayashi. This is Hachirou, a sohei of the temple there."

"I welcome you both, and your friends, of course," Angyo nodded briefly at them before returning his gaze to Emi and Hachirou, "but I fear that there is little we can do for you. Our temple is barely holding together as it is."

"The elder mentioned that you may know about the raiders," Aoi spoke up as Angyo turned his attention back to the rest of the group. "What do you know? We're here to help."

Angyo's eyes wandered over the group before they settled on Sen. He held him in his gaze, and something about the eyes seemed to burrow into him in a way he hadn't quite felt before. There was a majesty in the monk's countenance and bearing that made Sen frown. "You keep interesting company," the abbot smiled and turned to Aoi once again. "Come. We will speak inside. Go-an, prepare some tea for our guests. They have traveled far and their arrival bodes well."

A younger monk bowed and gestured for the initiate behind him to follow. To Sen's surprise, he seemed older and more grizzled than the monk who was commanding him. Angyo gestured for them to follow him and led them into the temple. The large carved statue of the Buddha inside seemed well-kept despite the haphazard setup going on everywhere else within. Everything had been moved to the central chamber for what Sen could only guess was safety's sake. Monks hurried about, though there were only about half a dozen that Sen could see.

"The raiders are professional soldiers," Angyo began as he gestured to worn old mats for them to sit on, taking a space on the floor across from them for himself. "I believe that they were deserters. Our newest initiate, Seido, was once one of them. Their leader is named Miraki, and apparently, they have been fighting with a group of bandits that have been seen ransacking the local shrines for table scraps."

"Abbot," Hachirou leaned forward, "where are your sohei? Surely other temples would have sent some by now."

Angyo gave him a smile similar to one that a parent would give to a naïve child, "We are a small temple. The sohei have other worries for the larger temples with their scriptures and sutras far more valuable than ours."

"Then how have you survived?" Yuzuha asked as she looked around, her eyes seeming to drag themselves over every single scratch and broken piece of wood.

Sen noted that the nearby junior monks all began glancing at one another before Dainei chimed in. "We prayed every day for a miracle, and soon we woke up to find that the raiders had encountered something on their way to raid us for the third time. Whatever it was, it managed to kill many of them and scared the rest of them off."

Sen kept watching the junior monks, who glanced briefly at the seniors, all of whom shook their heads when prompted. He flicked his eyes back to Hashi, whose eyes met his own. They both knew that something wasn't getting said. It was only when Sen caught the monk's shadow in the candlelight from the small burners at the feet of the Buddha that he realized exactly what was amiss. It was amorphous, but he could see another two sets of arms in the shape of the body. His eyes wandered up to the abbot's face, and he found his eyes latched onto him while Dainei continued to explain the situation in the background. How nobody else had noticed, Sen couldn't guess, but he quietly decided that he wasn't going to cause a scene. If the Abbot was a yokai, there was no sense in drawing attention to it. As if Angyo knew what he had decided, he gave a small knowing smile and turned his attention back to Dainei.

"Though... If you are looking for assistance, the best place to look would be the roads that wind back towards the older abandoned farmhouses," Dainei supplied as Sen finally tuned back into the conversation. "That is where the bandits have been seen. Perhaps a mutual dislike for the raiders will play in your favor?"

"Why would they help?" Sen asked. "Isn't that the opposite of what they're supposed to do?"

Dainei chuckled and patted his knee, "Oh... I think you'll find that they might be receptive. Most of them come from that little village, you know."

Emi leaned forward as she began to speak, "Is there anything else we can do to help you, Abbot?"

"Emi, simply helping the people where we cannot honors us more than you could possibly know," Angyo smiled and gave her a small bow. "Our inability to assist them shames us. This is the least that we could do."

The group gathered their things and made their way out from the temple, and after they had put some distance between themselves and the front gates, Hachirou turned to the other and frowned as they gathered alongside the road, "I... I don't quite know what to make of them, in all honesty."

"The abbot is an interesting man," Aoi spoke as he stroked his stubbled chin.

"He wasn't human," Sen spoke softly. "They were definitely monks, but their abbot wasn't human."

Yuzuha stopped and spun to Sen, "Then, he was..."

"You didn't see?" Sen stopped and turned to the group, who had all begun to watch him curiously. "In the temple? His shadow when he prayed? The arms?"

Nobody said a word for a long time, leaving Sen to stand staring at them as his hand began to clench and unclench beside him. "Sen, nobody saw anything, but he was... off," Emi finally confessed as she looked around, "Hachi?" She turned to the sohei, who shook his head silently.

Aoi rolled his shoulders and let out a long hum. "I... heard rumors. That abbot wasn't the one who ran things when I was last through here."

"What kind of rumors?" Yuzuha looked at him. "Did something kill the abbot?"

"Not something, but I think when he was killed by those raiders, something took his place," Aoi pulled one arm from his kosode and moved it back through his sleeve so he could rub his chin once again, a pensive expression crossing his features as he did. "Whatever it is, I'm assuming that it's on our side."

"It's a yokai," Yuzuha snapped. "How can we trust it?" Hashi fidgeted and looked down at Sen, who stepped back towards him in an almost unconscious act of protectiveness. Yuzuha noticed what she did and looked down at her feet. "Sorry. Most of the yokai I've run across haven't been like you, Hashi. That was unworthy of me."

Hashi shook his head and nodded as he patted his chest once. I understand.

Emi looked up, her face bright, "No matter! The abbot gave us a place to start, and I think we should pursue it! He said that the old farmhouses were where the bandits were, correct? Then we should find them!"

Yuzuha cocked an eyebrow, "So, we just... what? Saunter up to them and nicely ask them to help us?"

"I can't believe I'm saying it, but I agree with princess," Aoi nodded. "These guys could be pretty rough, sister. Maybe we should..."

Sen and Hashi passed the group by and began making their way down the roads to the farmhouses, only glancing back when they realized no one else was coming. "What are we waiting for?" Sen asked as he adjusted his odachi. "If anyone wants to try and fight, Hashi and I can handle them. Besides," he cast a smile back at Emi, "our nun hasn't been wrong about a person yet." Emi blinked at him for a moment before a broad smile broke out across her face as she and Hachirou hurried to catch up with the two of them.

Yuzuha shook her head and followed suit with Aoi close behind. "They're insane."

"Insane? Maybe," Aoi chuckled as he looked back at her, "but you have to admit that they've got guts."

She couldn't help but smile at that. For as weird as Sen and his group of merry strangers were, she had to give them points for being oddly fearless, all things considered.

They wound their way down the forest paths and soon found the old burned-out farmhouses that the monks had mentioned, accompanied by signs of living. However, Sen noticed rather quickly that within the charred remains of the old houses, while there were sleeping bags and pots and whetstones, he noticed that there were very few signs of any food. There were some piles of half-rotted vegetables and burned strips of meat, but he didn't see any signs of anything substantial enough to support a group of men whose life revolved around traveling and fighting.

"Even the bandits are starving," he looked around as a sound caught his ear and Hashi yanked out his odachi for him . he handed it to Sen with a small grunt and began scanning the surrounding area.

The very same bandits emerged from the building, old rusted weapons and sharpened sticks in hand. They looked the worse for wear, dressed in rags and covered in dirt. Many of them had dirty strips of cloth wrapped around their wounds, and they were blood-soaked through and made the already dingy cloth look like a dirty rust color. One man stepped out ahead of the rest. He had a cloth strip covering one of his eyes and held a spear that was, Sen noted, at least professionally made. Despite that, he did not wear any armor aside from armguards. His dark hair was messy and pulled into a ponytail wrapped in cloth, and his face was unshaven, but despite that, he had an air of authority that his compatriots seemed to lack.

"Who in the hells are you merry bunch of misfits?" He asked as he watched them all. "Listen, we don't want to fight that yokai, so let's be civil-like, yeah? What do you want?"

"I take it you're the bandits," Emi stepped forward with a shallow bow.

"We don't rob the farmers, sister," the leader continued. "If you're here to stop the people bleeding them dry, try looking for Miraki's raiders."

Behind him, one of his men's stomachs produced a loud growl, and the man self-consciously shifted to stand a little further behind the others. Sen saw Emi's eyes get that look in them. She set down her pack, the motion making the bandits stagger slightly before she pulled out a large bag of rice. Without so much as a hint of fear, she walked up to the man and handed it to him, "I take it that you all haven't eaten in quite some time."

"You can't be serious!" Yuzuha turned to Emi, blinking hard as the nun maintained her usual cheery demeanor. "These men are criminals-!"

"These men are starving," Hachirou countered, producing a sack of rice from his bag and weighing it in his hands. Before he walked forward and handed it to the men. "Divide this amongst one another. It should be enough to feed you for several days."

"Do you live in the village nearby?" Emi asked as she watched the befuddled bandits. "They mentioned that some of the outlying villagers knew you..."

Their leader cast his eyes down at the bag of rice before looking up at Emi with a look on his face that Sen could only read as shame. "I... Some of them lived there. Before the war started. They took everything that these people had. Looting shrines and robbing passersbys is the only thing we can do. Our entire harvest was ruined."

"Why not go back?" She pressed, prompting one of the men in the back to scoff.

"They're terrified of us!"

"I think you're terrified of them," Sen muttered.

The comment made the leader turn to him and scowl. "And since when in your entire life have you had a town scared witless of you?"

"Longer than you'd think," Sen flexed his hand as he lifted his head to meet the eyes of the bandits, who exchanged glances nervously between each other. "That never stopped me from protecting them. Not once."

"Cowards like you make me sick," Aoi joined in as he crossed his arms over his chest, his voice taking on an authoritarian tone that Sen hadn't ever heard from him before. "You have the guts to rob heavily armed travelers, but you don't have the guts to use that to fight for your families? Yeah, they may not like you right now. Who cares? Their lives should be worth more to you than your reputation!"

"Easy for a samurai to say!" Another man shot back, gripping his turtle shell full of rice like his life depended on it. "You all can thieve and steal all you want from people like us! Nobody gives a damn when you do it! When we do it, we get hung or worse!"

"We're out here doing what we can to provide for the families in the town. We're not strong enough or trained enough to take on those raiders, so we do what we can for the families there," the leader continued. "We can't go back now, but we try our best."

Emi watched them carefully before she stepped towards the leader, "What's your name?"

He hesitated for a moment, "Daigo."

"Daigo, listen to me. The raiders are heading back to the town soon. They will take everything those people have, including their lives, if we don't get more people to help us. You may believe that you are criminals, but you have done everything you can to help your families. No one will fault you for this. Hard times make hard people who were once good and are still good despite their bad deeds. Help them."

Daigo looked down at her for a long time before he glanced back over his shoulder at the men standing behind him. Sen had been watching. As soon as Emi had mentioned the raiders going back, their entire demeanor had changed, and Daigo knew it too. He paused for a long time before he turned again back to Emi, "Alright, sister. Lead the way."