“Inaki has run away,” Gonten screamed. It had been a week since they had left Gael, and they were on their way to Heoin. The news of Inaki’s disappearance had traveled by word of mouth in the past few days. Though no one knew yet where he was.

“Don’t worry about Inaki,” Takehito said. “He’ll be alright.”

“How can you say that after what happened those months ago,” Gonten said. When Gonten had found out that Inaki had tried to end his own life, he had felt such emptiness he couldn’t believe it. He had considered leaving, and going back to Tomoka to be with his brother, but ultimately Takehito had convinced him to stay. Gonten held the stump of his right arm in his hand, and massaged it. He had begun getting phantom pains, as if his hand was still there, and it was hurting. He had to massage the stump to convince his brain that his right hand was really gone.

Gonten and Takehito were sitting at a tavern, Gonten emptily sipping on some tea, and picking at his eggs. The two of them were the only ones there in that tavern, a place in the middle of nowhere. The tavern was open to the skies, with just a few tables. At the side there was the man—the lone owner—cooking around a fire, with a few tables holding cutlery and a few baskets with vegetables, eggs and chickens which hadn’t been defeathered yet.

“That was just a spur of the moment thing,” Takehito said. “He’ll be fine. Do you have any idea where he might be headed.”

“The last time he ran from home he came looking for you to teach him,” Gonten said.

“Why would he need me to train him when he has his father,” Takehito said. He was on his fifth cup of tea of the day, and looked like he was about to order some more.

They were in the land of the clanless, people whose families had been exiled so many generations ago, who didn’t have any identity. This particular place was completely unnamed. Gonten and Takehito were both wearing monks robes, Gonten had even shaved his head, and had become a warrior monk, though his sword was in his pack, he didn’t see the need to carry it at his waist. Somehow Gonten looked more the part of a monk than Takehito.

Takehito was sitting with his feet on the table, rocking his chair back and forth sipping on his sixth cup of tea for the day.

“I think it’s time to take your training to the next step,” Takehito said.

“What do you mean,” Gonten said.

“Actually using it,” Takehito said, swinging his chair back and forth.

Gonten was confused, until he looked behind him and saw a few people walking up to them. Four people, they sat on different tables surrounding them.

“Yo, Tayo,” A fifth person entered. They all had short hair, with big bulky builds, and holding in their hands long knives, just short of being considered swords. “Do you have my money?”

“You know we haven’t had many customers here,” The young owner of the tavern said.

“Fine,” The man said. “This food is payment enough.”

The man went silent. He began protesting, but the bandit began picking the baskets of vegetables.

Takehito rocked back his seat, and gestured to Gonten. Gonten stood up, and walked towards the man.

“Stop that,” Gonten said.

“Are you going to pay up on his behalf,” The man said. “That is the condition of living here. You want to live here, you pay me. You pay taxes to your Sage don’t you?”

“Who died and made you Sage,” Takehito said, still nonchalantly swinging back and forth on his chair.

“I’ll stop,” The man said. “If you pay on his behalf.”

Wordlessly, Gonten walked towards his bag. “Do you need help removing your purse,” The man said, “I can give you a hand.” All the bandits in the room laughed. But instead of removing his purse, Gonten removed his sword. He put his hand over the Silver band on it, hiding it from the bandits.

“You are carrying the sword for someone,” The man said. “Can you even swing it with one hand?”

“Thank you for giving me this practice,” Gonten said. “I won’t harm you. At least not too much.”

“Damn, this armless monk thinks he can swing a sword around,” The man said, “Come on boys, let’s send this monk to Okan.”

There were five men around them, all holding long knives which just barely dodged being called swords. They rushed at Gonten.

Gonten blocked a sloppy strike from one, and dodged another's strike. All five of them struck at once, and Gonten just walked through their strikes. They were all standing behind him, and Gonten was on the other side, unfazed.

“I cannot wait for the exam next year,” Takehito said. The bandits rushed at Gonten, he dodged once again and jumped up onto a table. He kicked one of the men in the face, and hoped he would stay down. Gonten flipped and jumped back down.

The men now stepped back in fear, looking apprehensive.

“What are you cowards, rush at him,” Their leader screamed.

The four men left standing including the leader rushed at Gonten. Gonten walked through their strikes, kicked one man in the shin, he stepped on another man’s foot, and then with his right stump, shoulder butted one of them. He kicked the last man in the knee, but it was a little too hard, he regretted it as he heard the crunching noise.

“Who the hell are you,” The leader asked. He had dropped his sword, and was reaching into his shirt. “It doesn’t matter, because I have the swordsman killer.”

Out of his shirt he pulled out a pistol. It was a small, yet long barreled gun. Gonten had heard of guns, but they were impractical, like bows, but the bullets were faster than arrows, but they were slower to reload.

The man shot at Gonten. The gun was extremely loud as the bullet left the chamber, a circular pellet the about the size of a few grains of sand. The bullet was as loud as fifty horses neighing simultaneously. Instantly time slowed down for Gonten. He remembered focusing on the dummy, and channeled it all, focusing on the bullet flying at him. He held his sword and slashed.

Gonten didn’t have any injury, which told him that either the bullet had missed him, or he had hit it. He looked to the ground, and saw the two halves of the bullet.

“If you don’t become Gold in the next exam, you can change my name,” Takehito said laughing.

Gonten stepped forward, grabbed the gun out of his hand, and gave it to the owner.

Takehito got up from his chair, stretched and yawned, and from his purse gave a few gold coins to the owner of the inn.

“If this man ever comes again,” Gonten said. “Just use the gun.”

Gonten walked back to the leader of the attacker and said, “Give me all the bullets you have.” Gonten put his sword on the man’s neck, and he quickly obliged.

Gonten gave the owner of the tavern the bullets, then after that, Gonten and Takehito left, continuing on their way to Heoin.

“I wonder how Inaki is doing,” Gonten said.

“Wherever he is, he is probably doing well,” Takehito said, with his wide childish grin.

----------------------------------------

“Son-Hassai, we have some business to discuss,” The man standing ahead of the army said. The man had short, spiky hair, holding a spear in his hand and with a knife at his belt. He was a head taller than Inaki. With him were ten soldiers of the Gael army.

“My name is Yotta-son-Yusuke of Trina,” Inaki said. “You have the wrong person.”

The man raised his fist. The army stopped marching towards Inaki, but the man continued walking towards Inaki. “Oh, I’m sure I have the right guy.” He reached Inaki and examined his face.

“You have the wrong person,” Inaki said. “You can check your registry with your gate guard, my name is Yotta-son-Yusuke of Trina.”

“I see you don’t have a sword,” The man said. “What happened to you?”

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“I am saying for the last time, you have the wrong guy, I am a traveling painter,” Inaki said.

“Last time I checked, Trina was a fishing clan, ruled by the Livion” The man said. “Why would a traveling painter come from Trina?”

“I… I ran away to follow my dreams,” Inaki said.

“Don’t you have any shame,” The man said. “Well, I am forgetting my own manners. My name is Farrow-son-Yan Gael. Your father killed my grandfather. I know you understand that I just need a little bit of revenge.”

Inaki remembered the stories that Ivanta had told him about his father. One of those stories was about his father as a Diamond, nearly slaughtering an entire army, along with the Spear-Sage of the Gael during war.

“You have the wrong—” Inaki was about to repeat himself.

“Give him a bloody sword,” Farrow yelled, and a man from the army behind tossed a sword forward. Farrow picked it up and held it by the edge, offering Inaki the hilt.

“I’ve waited so long for this,” Farrow said. “Killing his son would definitely get that bastard Hassai’s attention wouldn’t it?”

Inaki didn’t accept the sword, he stood there, trying to think if he could possibly run away. But where, this was the current Spear sage’s son. He wouldn’t be able to leave the city, and as long as he couldn’t leave the city, he might as well be a rabbit trapped in a snare.

Inaki reluctantly accepted the sword.

“Attaboy,” Farrow yelled, instantly charging at Inaki. Inaki instead of defending himself, or countering, turned his back and began to run. Inaki yelped as Farrow’s spear made a scratch in his back. If Inaki had been a little slower that spear would have definitely gone through his back. Inaki turned, but Gael definitely wasn’t the city where Inaki would be able to run away for long. Inaki realized why the streets were all so wide. The wide space gave the spear the most advantage, and made it difficult for Inaki to hide.

Could Inaki climb up a building? No, Inaki had tried that when running away from the Yaroka swordsmen, and that had gone badly for him. Inaki turned back as the spear nearly sheared off his neck, instead it only sheared off a part of his hair. Inaki stepped forward, under the man’s spear and swung his sword, but it was a bad strike. His brain was like that of a rookie. Farrow dodged.

“Everyone knows of your descent,” Farrow said, kicking Inaki in the chest. “But I didn’t expect this bad.”

Inaki rolled on the floor, and tried to jump back onto his feet. The tremor in his hand wasn’t visible, but for the sword, the slight tremor meant that none of his strikes would go where he wanted it to. Even when he wasn’t tremoring, his swordsman’s instincts were completely gone, and his sword did not respond to his brain like it once did.

Farrow stabbed his spear at Inaki. Inaki stepped back. Farrow jumped up, he pushed himself into the air with the spear and seemed to hover in the air for a few seconds.

“You’ll be the first person to experience my rain of spears technique,” Farrow said.

While still in the air he thrust his spear down at Inaki multiple times, but he was too slow, Inaki rolled, just barely dodging each one of the strikes he hit the ground.

“Guess the Rain of Spears still needs more practice,” Farrow said. “No problem, I don’t need it to kill you.”

Farrow raised his spear and swung at Inaki in a sweeping arc, Inaki parried it, but his hands were weak, the sword flew out of his hand.

Farrow turned his swing into a stab, and Inaki just barely dodged it. The spear flew down at Inaki as he tried to pick up his sword, but it was fruitless. Inaki rolled, and picked up his fallen sword.

“Come on,” Farrow said, “Fight me. At least die a swordsman’s death.”

“I am not scared of death,” Inaki said. “I am scared of dying while still this pathetic.” Inaki began running away, and Farrow followed.

“Have you ever heard of this, a swordsman running away from an opponent because he doesn’t want to be pathetic,” Farrow said. “That is pathetic.” Farrow leaped up and hit the butt of his spear on the ground, he jumped forward using his spear like a polevault. He landed in front of Inaki and stabbed his spear forward. Inaki tried to dodge, but he was too slow, the spear grazed his shoulder, ripping into his flesh and drawing blood. Inaki screamed.

There was once a time that Inaki was used to such pain as an everyday occurrence, but he had spent so much time living a life of comfort, where all of his pain was mental, that the physical pain was too much for him.

Inaki dropped his sword, and clutched his shoulder. Farrow continued his onslaught, and Inaki was forced to dodge while seeing spots and being in pain. Inaki stepped back, with no other plan in mind, he began walking towards the first building he saw. It was a tavern.

In a tavern Farrow wouldn’t have the amount of space to swing his spear, and he wouldn’t have the height to jump. Inaki stepped into the tavern, Farrow still stabbing and swinging his spear at him, stepped in too. The tavern was crowded, with very few empty tables. Inaki kept stepping back, no weapon in his hand to defend. Farrow stepped forward at him. Inaki rolled over an empty table.

“Sorry,” Inaki said to a man and picked his pint of ale, and chucked it Farrow.

“Throwing things at me,” Farrow said. “Is this how far the mighty swordsman who nearly defeated the Yaroka single-handedly has fallen.”

Don’t remind me of that god forsaken day. Inaki continued throwing things. The patrons were silent seeing that the sage’s only son, most likely the next sage in line, was swinging his sword.

One man got up and grabbed Inaki, “Lord, you can have him.”

“Don’t you move,” Farrow said. “This is a fight between me and him, you stay down.”

Farrow stabbed at Inaki, nearly stabbing the man who had grabbed him too. Inaki pushed the chair back, and the two of them hit the ground with the spear flying overhead. Inaki jumped up onto his feet.

Maybe if he could somehow turn this into a hand to hand he could win. No, he was too short. There was no hope for him in this fight. He needed to find a way to survive.

Farrow slashed, and Inaki dodged under it. He grabbed Farrow's spear, but Farrow hefted it with just one hand, and punched Inaki in the face with the other. Inaki dodged a spear-stab and grabbed Farrow, and pushed them both onto the ground. Farrow’s spear leaped out of hand, the two of them began wrestling on the ground.

“This might be more cathartic than killing you,” Farrow said, punching Inaki. Farrow threw Inaki to the ground, and then sat on his chest. “Seeing you struggle like this, imagine how Hassai must be feeling, two disappointments for children. Barman, bring me a nice pint of ale.”

The shocked patrons of the tavern didn’t say a word. The barman reached and handed him a pint. He took a swig, placed the pint down, and then punched Inaki in the face. Inaki tried to protest, he tried kicking up with his legs, flailing his arms, but it was all worthless.

“If you have any honor you won’t kill me like this,” Inaki screamed through a bloody lip.

“A worm like you questions my honor,” Farrow said. “Fine, how would you like me to kill you.”

“In a real duel,” Inaki said. “Not like this, cornering me in the middle of a street.”

“You want a real duel,” Farrow said, “Fine, I’ll give you one. I’ll give you time to train and recover from your injury as well. Two months from now, once the Gael festival is over.” Inaki was losing his grip on consciousness. “But punching the son of the man who killed my grandfather is too much fun, let me just punch you a few more times. Oh, and I’ll be taking you prisoner, just to make sure you don’t run away before our duel.” Farrow raised the pint, and poured all of the remaining ale in it onto Inaki’s face. “Hope this numbs the pain, drinks on me.” Inaki began choking as the ale entered his nose, his eyes burned as the ale creeped into his eyes, and as Farrow continued punching, Inaki lost his consciousness as Farrow pressed his thumb into a sheet of paper.

----------------------------------------

“Where did he say he was going,” Hassai said to the guard.

“He only had painting equipment with him,” The guard said. “I swear lord, he told me he was going painting in the forest.”

“In the middle of the night?” Hassai screamed. “I apologize for screaming, just a little worked up.”

“You don’t have to apologize, lord.”

Inaki had run away, and it was all Hassai’s fault. Hassai had given Inaki the vain hope that all it would take was one year to go from his injury. Hassai should’ve told Inaki that it will take longer, he should’ve been there more for his son.

Hassai marched, alone across the city. He reached his wife’s—ex-wife’s—house and asked the gate guard to call for Ivanta.

“The lady is sleeping,” The gate guard said.

“This is important,” Hassai said. “Tell her Inaki has run away.”

The gate guard walked back in, and called Ivanta out. Ivanta walked out of the mansion, and stepped out of the gate. She shrunk back and asked, “What happened, why have you come here.”

“Don’t you care about your son?” Hassai said.

“What happened?” Ivanta said.

“I am sorry, for making you resent our son,” Hassai said. “But this is not the time for that. He has run away.”

“Where, when,” Ivanta asked.

“A day or so ago,” Hassai said. “I was so busy I didn’t even realize.” Hassai kicked at the ground, and cursed at himself under his breath. “Someone in the castle told me that when he left the castle he came to meet you, did he tell you anything?”

“No,” Ivanta said. “He didn’t even come here.”

“Are you sure,” Hassai said.

“You think that my own son would come to my gates and I would reject him?” Ivanta said, but she averted her eyes, and looked onto the ground, fidgeting with her robes.

Hassai shot a look at the gate guard, and the guard signaled him that they would talk after Ivanta went back.

“Well anyways, take care,” Hassai said. “Tell me if you hear anything about Inaki.”

Hassai stepped back, the gate guard walked up to Hassai and said. “Lord Inaki did come here, but Ivanta didn’t take him in, after that he left without saying a word.”

“I knew it,” Hassai said. “Did he say anything about where he was going?”

“No,” The guard said.

Hassai cursed under his breath and walked away from Ivanta’s home back to the city gate from where Inaki had left.

“Where could he have gone from here?” Hassai said. Could he have gone to Yaroka? What would he do there now? If Inaki was still the same person who assaulted Yaroka castle alone, maybe he was looking for Taral. That’s where he has gone. Hassai thought. He has gone to get revenge against Taral and his son now that he is injured.

But where could Inaki think that he was.

Hassai walked into his castle, he needed to gather some intel. He spent the rest of the day trying to get into contact with his messengers.

A messenger from Yaroka arrived in the night, and gave him a letter.

Hassai rejoiced. He had found where Taral was living. It was almost half-way across the Province. Hassai confirmed that the shortest path to get there was from the same gate that Inaki had taken. It would take Inaki more than a month of traveling to reach there if he was going by cart. Hassai would definitely be able to catch him on the way.

How did Inaki find out where Taral was? Hassai wondered. Hassai got ready with his sword, his best horse, and travel money.

He began drafting up a note for his Council of Masters, ready to leave the place in charge of them once again.

Hassai left Tomoka, going towards Tiru, the place where Taral was currently living.