Ryu tracked Sabrina by the sweet smell of the perfume she wore. Night had long held the camp in its clutches by this point, so it was a surprise to him to hear the raised voices and sounds of panic from the area his nose was leading him to. Even more surprising were the bodies he found when he got there. He pushed his way through the gathering crowd.

“Know what happened here?” Ryu asked the man in white robes. He kneeled over the corpses of Sabrina and her companion, the Classers Horace had asked to help with the investigation.

“Not quite. Word when I arrived was that the men in those tents,” he said, waving at the ring of tents Ryu knew to be Rab, Caine, and Orin’s, “killed these two. Their tents are empty, though, and no one knows where they are. A few of the hotter heads have gone after them. A few of the cooler ones are trying to get word to Lucius.”

Ryu needed no more. He walked past the corpses and out of the camp. More innocents had died, and it was his fault. To solve the situation, he would have to kill. Echoes of his laughter trailed behind him as he giggled at the hypocrisy of it all. His nose followed the smell of blood.

He found the first body pinned to a tree by a knife. The woman was bleeding through the gaps in her armor, and the light of life had abandoned her glazed eyes. One of the hotheads intent on pursuing the murders, he guessed. The next three were found in similar states. By the time he found the fourth corpse, the sounds of combat had already reached him.

Three men fought in the clearing ahead of him. Two were men he recognized: Orin and Caine. They were the supposed friends of the first victim. The third man was dead by the time Ryu got a better look at his face, and he found it was not the face he had expected to find. So the papers were true, he thought.

“Mr. Ishida, you can come out now,” Caine called. The swarthy man’s black hair was pulled back, exposing the cruel lines of his face. His armored body was covered in sheaths that exposed the armory of serrated daggers and short swords he carried on him. Ryu noted the curved blades in his hand.

“Aye,” said Orin. The hatchet-faced man sported a bored expression. “We are leaving, and I’d like to make this quick.”

“So you killed Rab?” Ryu said, finding his voice. He stepped out in the small, muddy clearing. The moon shone between the branches above.

Orin grunted. “Didn’t want to, honest. The brat just found out who had killed Myles and freaked out. Was going to rat us out, y’see.”

“You make a habit of murdering friends?” Ryu’s face was as stiff as carved stone, and the will beneath it was even firmer.

“Suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I told you we didn’t have a choice. We’d already accepted the money before we’d received the name of the target, and well, he didn’t seem the type to cross,” Orin said.

“He?”

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“Yeah, L-”

“That’s enough, Orin,” barked Caine. The man pointed a knife at Ryu. “Suppose we best get this done.”

Ryu’s hatchets seemed to come free of their loops by their own will. They started to glow with crimson light. “I agree.”

---

The pale light of the moon revealed two pools of spreading blood. In one, two murderers gazed into the afterlife. In the other, a man clutched a gaping wound across his abdomen, contemplating the meaning of justice.

The restorative pill had stopped the bleeding of Ryu’s wounds and dulled some of the pain. He suspected he would add another scar to his growing collection, nonetheless, but in an odd way, this one felt deserved. He laid back on the muddy ground, knowing he would be swarmed by monsters and leeches in minutes and knowing he did not much care.

It was without surprise that Ryu realized he felt more relaxed resting in a hostile swamp near the corpse’s of two murderers than in the bed of Bonny’s tent. He loved her, he knew, but this… He was ashamed to admit he loved it more in his own twisted way. Monsters were open with their hostility; the same could not be said for humanity.

---

A sound outside his tent brought Lucius to his feet. He sighed. Another complaining fool, he was sure. Oh, but he was ready to be done with this expedition. He found two decapitated heads waiting outside of his tent, instead.

The two heads had words carved into their foreheads. Pressed together as they were, the message was clear to him.

“Your Justice,” Lucius said to himself. He smiled, and then when a smile could contain his humor no more, he laughed. And laughed. Heads peeked out of tents. He ignored them. Real laughter had been rare in the past months, but if Lucius was right, he had finally found a man who understood his humor.

With a shake of his head, he let his tent flap swing shut. On his way back to his bed, he kept muttering the words to himself. Yes, Lucius was excited now, more than he had been in a long time.

---

Bonny returned to her tent with frayed nerves. Horace had assured her he was alive, but the scouts had found nothing. Except blood. She told herself he needed space. Hells, she even understood. When she had learned the murderers were two of the men they had talked to, rage had threatened to overwhelm her. After she had learned Ryu had chased after them, she was gearing up to follow him. Her brother had stopped her, saying he was fine. A part of her was scared he wasn’t.

Her tired feet carried her to the room they shared. She looked at the empty room with sad eyes. The shirt he had left beside her bed was gone. His discarded socks were gone. The dagger he kept under his pillow was gone. She suppressed the tears that threatened to come to her eyes. This time was different. It was not her fault. He would be back. At least she knew he was alive.

She had known he was hard to pin down, but it was hard to see the evidence with her own eyes. Again. For the second time since she had known him, Ryu had disappeared without a trace. She only hoped he was okay.

---

Ryu ducked under the jaws that threatened to rip his head from his body with a small smile. He was a man for simple pleasures, and it was with the most simple pleasure of them all that he dodged the snapping teeth of the swamp drake. The pleasure Ryu enjoyed was none other than the pleasure of being alone. Blissfully, totally alone. Here, he could put the burdens of the camp aside, if not forgotten. He spared a thought for Bonny, but she would understand.

The swamp was as close to a home as he had ever had in recent years. It had become his refuge when he wanted to escape his past, and now, it would become his refuge as he looked towards the future. Ryu had never had large goals. He had no idea how the presence of the Sixth Ring would affect humanity, nor did he have any idea why Lucius was both the man to organize the expedition and sabotage it. He could say that his reasons for wanting to go to the Sixth were more than the simple need for a change of scenery, however. He needed power, the kind that could resist the maddening presence in his psyche.

The presence had awoken in his mind during the fight with the murderers. It was a subtle thing, one he had found easy to grow accustomed to in the ten years since its birth, and not even his Skill could keep it suppressed any longer. With the barrier between them fallen, his mind and the presence had started to merge, leaving Ryu with the urge to fight and gain Qi.

He dispatched the drake with an arrow through the skull, snatching its Qi crystal with a small shudder. It would take much more to appease the presence, yet a part of him looked forward to the coming fights. In this way, Ryu and his bloodthirsty neighbor were of the same mind.