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Buddha, or the idea of a higher power, was almost laughable to you. You felt like everything happened for a purpose, or for a reason, not because something out of your control willed it into existence. At least that’s what you told yourself. But looking up at the large man steadfastly gripping the front of your hair, you thought,
‘Is this it? Then, what was the purpose of all of this? Buddha, If I survive this I promise I’ll spend the rest of my days praising you…’
Sitting helpless on the floor, your lip was cut and bleeding, and you had blood dribbling from your nose. That wasn’t the only area of your face that had been hit though, you could feel your head pounding. The grip on your hair was only tightening by the second, as the man squatted to face you directly. You desperately tried to free yourself from his grip, but even trying to use both of your hands he was much too strong. He had no discernible emotion, but the harsh light above cast a menacing shadow on his face, which would make it hard to make out his expression regardless. He jerked your head towards his face, making sure to keep you lower than him, even while squatting.“So are you going to continue to accept the blame for that girl? I’m getting tired of your saintly attitude, you know.” His voice was calm, but you could feel the malice hidden below.You’re quiet for a few seconds, then spit the blood that had been pooling in your mouth towards him. You miss his face, but it sprayed all over the top of his silky white, button up shirt. His face begins to twist as his eyebrows furrow, and he moves his arm furiously to throw your head into the ground. You hit the ground hard, with an audible groan.“You fucking bitch! I really liked this shirt too.”You struggled to look up, you could barely move your throbbing head, and you could see the man was getting up while taking his shirt off. Your eyes widen, and you see a strange tattoo all over his upper body you had never seen before. You knew he was part of the Yakuza, but you didn’t recognize the tattoo as anything a Yakuza would have. It had deep, thick lines curving all around his chest and arms, with different kanji characters in the blank spaces.You barely had time to take a good look though, as he walked towards a table where he grabbed a pair of scissors. You were used to his violent reactions before, but this time felt different. Much more menacing. Anxiety began to wash over your whole body, you were glued to the floor, you couldn’t move. The man returned next to you, and harshly grabbed your jaw with a crushing grip.“Maybe I should make it so you can’t act so noble anymore.” He spat at you.You were squirming and grunting loudly, your hands feebly trying to release yourself from his grip, but he easily overpowered you. Then his other hand forces your mouth open, and grabs your tongue. You see the scissors shine out of the corner of your eye.
‘Oh shit, I guess this is really it.’
----Sugimoto, Asirpa, and Shiraishi were standing outside of the brothel, trying to figure out the best plan of action. The two men looked down at Asirpa.“I don’t think they’ll let you go in there, Asirpa.” Sugimoto remarked.“Yeah, let the two men handle this one.” Shiraishi winked at Asirpa.“The only reason you’re not afraid to go inside is because you want to flirt with some of the women.” Asirpa coldly retorted to Shiraishi.After a few minutes of griping and bickering, Asirpa begrudgingly agreed to wait at a nearby tea shop. As Shiraishi and Sugimoto entered the brothel, Shiraishi quietly reminded him of the details of the tattooed convict they were looking for.“Takeo was one of the most handsome men in Abashiri prison. Despite being a yakuza, he only had his legs tattooed, which allowed his upper body to get tattooed by Noppera-Bou.” Shiraishi explained as the two men peeked through sliding doors to see if they could find the convict. So far they were only receiving a handful of dirty glances, or locked doors.“Do you know why he didn’t get the Yakuza tattoos on his upper body?” Sugimoto asked, slamming another door.“Apparently he didn’t want the women he was seducing to know he was a Yakuza, and it was easier to hide if they were on his legs.”However, the next door they opened, they noticed a short man with only his shirt remaining on, about to climb over a woman. Shiraishi and Sugimoto both noticed the tattoos running all over the man’s legs, indicating Yakuza.“Hey!” Sugimoto yells, and immediately yanks him by his shirt to pull him off of the woman. The man yelps, as he’s thrown to the ground, and before he has a chance to think his shirt is ripped open by Sugimoto. Sugimoto looks down and sees a bare chest, with some patchy hair, and then takes a good look at the man’s face.“I guess you’re not strikingly handsome. Shiraishi lets g-” Sugimoto turns and sees Shiraishi immediately getting cozy with the woman. “Can’t you keep it in your pants for 5 minutes?!” Sugimoto barks and pulls Shiraishi out of the room by his ear, the two of them ignoring the man thrown aside, who was looking at them with shock and embarrassment.As Sugimoto is berating Shiraishi they notice a younger girl, around Asiripa’s age, run up to the two of them. She looked panicked, and her face was red and puffy from crying.“Please, please help my friend! I think the owner is going to do something really bad to her this time!” The young girl was out of breath, and her words were barely intelligible.“Are you sure we have time for this?” Shiraishi whispers under his breath to Sugimoto.Sugimoto pauses to think, then nods at the girl. He and Shiraishi follow after her. Running and winding through the brothel, they bump into a few patrons, and even go up a set of stairs, until they get to a large western style door.The girl is out of breath, but they can hear her say “They’re both in there…”They both hear grunting and talking and Sugimoto carefully grips his gun, brandished with a bayonet, getting ready to run in. He jiggles the door handle, but it’s locked.“Shit. Here we go, Shiraishi.” Before Shiraishi even has time to respond, Sugimoto throws his full weight onto the door, causing it to bust open, with a loud *BANG!*----You hear the door slam open, but the grip on your face is so tight you can’t turn your head to see what happened. Takeo jerks his head towards the door, and curses loudly. He throws you back towards the ground again, and he stands up with a frustrated huff, annoyed his work was disrupted. As you finally look towards the source of the noise your eyes widen as you see two men standing in the broken doorway.The light from the hallway lit them from behind, in contrast to the dim lighting of the room. The door breaking open had caused a poof of dust to surround the doorway, which caught the hallway light causing their entrance to look even more dramatic. Your mouth was agape, and your breath had been stopped short. A tall man with messy hair and a large scar across his face is already pointing his gun at Takeo. He was wearing a large coat, a striped scarf, and an olive hakama underneath. As for the man next to him, he was wearing a purple hakama, had a shaved head, and…“Buddha? Are you Buddha?” You point at him, your mouth remaining open. You figured your small prayer had been answered, and you were ready to devote yourself to these two men.“No, I’m Shiraishi.” He quickly replied, waving his hand.You were still disoriented and barely had time to acknowledge this, when Takeo recognized “Shiraishi”.“What the hell are you doing here Shiraishi? Can’t you see I’m conducting business right now? Are you and this punk going to pay for my broken door?” Takeo had adopted an aggressive stance towards the two intruders, his voice was agitated, but he wasn’t violent, yet. His hand was still gripping the scissors tightly, and he was waving his other hand, pointing at the two men.“Hey, we just want a copy of your tat-” Shiraishi began, but was quickly cut off by the other man.“Business? It looked to me like you were about to cut right through her tongue.” His face was dark, and you could tell he looked pissed off. Shiraishi’s face began to show panic as his friend took the reins from him.“That’s how we do business around here.” Takeo wasn’t phased by the menacing tone of this man. In fact, his tone of voice gave off the impression he was very amused by the remark the stranger had just made.“So you want a copy of my tattoo, huh? Come and sit down, no need for violence.”Takeo made a gesturing motion towards a small table on the ground, completely ignoring the fact that you were still in the room, slightly battered and bloody. You noticed he didn’t let up his grip on the scissors, nor did the scarred man let up his grip on the gun. The two men paused, and looked at each other for a few moments.You knew how strong Takeo was, and you began to grow worried for these men. Takeo wasn’t your average Yakuza. Not only could he use his pretty face to draw people into a false sense of security, you knew he was incredibly tough. It had once taken six patrons to tackle him to the ground when he lost his temper. You also knew he kept weapons stored away in random areas, for example…in a hidden compartment in a table. The two men weren’t following him to the table, but you saw Takeo was already sitting, his free hand nowhere to be seen.“Be careful! He’s going to pull out a gun!” You sat yourself up slightly, and shouted at the two men to warn them.“You bitch!” Takeo spat out, and he began to move quicker.Both of them flinched when you shouted at them, to which the man with scars immediately tackled Takeo over the table before he had the chance to finish pulling the gun out, stabbing Takeo with his bayonet in the shoulder, causing him to lightly growl.“Shiraishi, help me out!” The scarred man yelled to his friend. He was on top of Takeo holding him down with his bayonet, to which Shiraishi pulled out some rope and ran over to try to tie up Takeo.Your mind was blanking, you wanted to do something to help but you couldn’t think of any way to be useful, until you saw the shine of the scissors in Takeo’s hand. The two men were still struggling with him, so you tried to quickly crawl over to Takeo’s hand to grab them. However, just before you were able to reach them, Takeo plunged the scissors into the scarred man’s side. You let out a gasp, and turned quickly to the injured man. Takeo was still bleeding and struggling with the two men, but a large wicked smirk had spread across his face.You looked at the stabbed man, and your eyes widened. He acted like nothing had happened, and his friend, Shiraishi, quickly grabbed the hand that used the scissors and began to quickly wrap it with rope, reaching for the other hand.“It’ll take way more than that to kill me, you fucking bastard! I’m the immortal Sugimoto!” The scarred man shouted, his eyes and face becoming darker and even more intense.Takeo’s smirk quickly disappeared. All you could do was stare in awe, and mild fear at this “Sugimoto”. Shiraishi now had both of Takeo’s hands tied tight above his head. Sugimoto used this chance to slam Takeo’s head into the table a few times, knocking him out, and leaving his face busted and bloody. He winced a little while pulling out the scissors, but otherwise seemed unaffected.“Shiraishi, pull out the paper.” They began to lay oil paper over Takeo’s body, and Shiraishi traced over his tattoos carefully.While they were doing this, you continued to stare at Sugimoto in awe. The man who had made your life a living hell for the past 5 years, had just been completely knocked out like it was nothing. After a couple seconds, he noticed you staring at him then walked to your side, offering his hand to help you up.“Are you ok? Your face is pretty bloody.” You stood up, still in a daze, unsure how to respond.“Uh…um, yeah I’m alright.” You lightly brought your hand to your face to see if your nose or lip was still bleeding, but your mind was racing so much you couldn’t process if you were actually still bleeding or not. You looked at Sugimoto, and then to his friend Shiraishi who had just essentially saved your life. You desperately wanted to offer your thanks, or help, but you were standing there speechless. Sugimoto gave you a small concerned look, and then turned back to Shiraishi to check on his tracing.
‘Dammit! Say something else! Thank them!’
They were quick in tracing the tattoo, and it looked like they were going to leave soon. You open your mouth to say ‘thank you’, but nothing comes out of your mouth. You didn’t think a simple thank you would be so hard to say, nor enough for what they had done for you. You were desperately trying to think of something suitable, so you blurted out the next thing that came to your mind.“Let me come with you! Please!” Sugimoto and Shiraishi turned their heads towards you and both gave you a surprised look, seeing you bow so deeply, your hair almost touching the floor.“Huh? But You don’t know anything about us, or what we’re doing.” Shiraishi gave you a strange look, and pointed at the side of his head. “Your head got knocked pretty badly, huh?”You raised your head, slightly shaking it. “Anything is better than being here in this brothel, please. At least let me travel with you to the next town...”You felt incredibly awkward and pathetic pleading with these strangers, but they were the only option you felt you had at this point that you could think of. You knew you couldn’t survive on your own, you had no real skills outside of brothel work. Staying at this brothel, or any other was out of the question too, you knew as soon as Takeo woke up he would kill you if you stayed, or blacklist you from all the other brothels he could find. You couldn’t remember the last time you had begged for something so earnestly.Sugimoto and Shiraishi took a good, hard look at this girl begging them to let her accompany their journey. Her hair was tousled and out of place from Takeo’s harsh grip. It was hard to tell if her face was red and swollen from being hit, or an excessive amount of crying. Probably both. She had dried blood running from her nose. Some of the blood had dripped onto her kimono, which was also wrinkled and disheveled. The two men exchange looks again, and begin to loudly whisper to each other with their backs turned to you.
“...be in danger…”

“...who’s responsibility…”

“...a little suspicious…”
Shiraishi turns his head around to look at you again, and then goes back to whispering with Sugimoto.You look back and forth at the two of them whispering, barely making out some of their words, but then they go silent. After a minute passes, you assumed they were going to reject your offer. Your hand tightens into a fist, and you can feel the dread beginning to swallow your body again. You close your eyes, and take a deep breath in to steel yourself for their rejection, but before the feeling of dread can fully take over your body, you hear;“Sure. If you have anything you want to bring with you, you should grab it now. We’re about to run.”You recognized the voice as Sugimoto’s, and your eyes shot open. Dread was replaced with a new feeling, relief, something you hadn’t felt in a long time. You bring your hands up to your chest, your eyes beaming bright, and all you can say is;“Thank you! I promise I won’t be a burden! I’ll meet you outside!”You ran past the two men to your room, where you quickly stripped your old bloody kimono off, and replaced it with a fresh one, as well as a hakama skirt. Other girls from the brothel began to look into your room, as you were sitting and tearing through your stuff. Finally, you heard your name said softly, and quickly turned around. It was a young girl, Haruko. The reason you had gotten into so much trouble with Takeo in the first place was because you had taken the blame for an accident she had caused. Her face was puffy from crying, and you winced slightly when she brought a damp towel to wipe your face. She began to cry again.“I’m sorry…that he did that to you…” You could barely understand her through her sobs. You gave her a small smile and sighed, rubbing her tears with your fingers, and then taking the towel from her quickly wiping the rest of your face.“I have to go. But I promise I’ll come back for you.” You looked up from her, to all of the other brothel girls standing behind her that had been watching. “I’ll come back for all of you as well. I swear it.”You quickly laced your boots up, and with nothing but a fresh kimono, the small towel Haruko gave you, and a small pouch, you ran past the girls from the brothel to the entrance. It felt like you were running towards the light at the end of the tunnel, and at the end you saw the silhouettes of the two men who had suddenly burst into your life.“Ok, I’m ready!”----Asirpa had been impatiently sitting at the tea shop, waiting for Shiraishi and Sugimoto to come back, twirling a dango skewer in her fingers. It was taking a little longer than she expected. She was annoyed she had been delegated to sitting outside and waiting, and she was planning on giving the two of them a bit of a hard time once they got back. She immediately perked up when she saw them, and her face turned slightly confused when she saw the girl running behind them, following them.“We got the skin!” Sugimoto cheered, slightly breathless.“That’s great! But, who’s that?” Asirpa tilted her head slightly to see the person behind Sugimoto.Asirpa saw a young woman, in an arrow pattern kimono, and her hakama. Her hair was slightly disheveled. She appeared nervous, and unsure of what to do with her body. Asirpa also noticed how she seemed like she had just gotten in a fight.----You noticed in front of Sugimoto was a small girl, probably around Haruko’s age. The first thing that caught your eye, besides her Ainu clothing, were her blue eyes. You weren’t aware they had been traveling with such a young girl. You stepped to the side of Sugimoto, and offered her a deep bow, introducing yourself.“Sugimoto and Shiraishi saved my life, and I sort of just followed them out of the brothel. I don’t really have a plan yet…” Your voice trailed off slightly. You were slightly stiff and awkward while introducing yourself, you were mostly used to dealing with customers.Asirpa immediately shot Shiraishi an accusatory look, to which he began to profusely defend himself.“She offered to come out of her own free will! I did not pressure her in any way! She even called me Buddha, as thanks for saving her!” This only made Asirpa’s face more disgusted, to which Shiraishi began to defend himself harder.“I’m alright with her joining us, as long as it really was her own free will.” Asiripa’s glare disappeared as she turned to you. “My name is Asirpa! It’s nice to meet you.” She held her hand out to you with a smile.You were still in your deep bow, and rose slightly to meet her face, and shake her hand. You couldn’t get over how cute she was, especially with her bow by her side. You began to look her over slightly, and then gave her a small smile, responding.“It’s nice to meet you too.”You felt a large hand lightly clap your shoulder, which made you jump slightly. You looked up, and saw that it was Sugimoto.“We’re on our way to Sapporo to meet Asirpa’s uncle. Why don’t you see how you feel once we get there? Maybe there’s something for you to do there.”Looking up at Sugimoto, you felt slightly moved, but realistically you had no idea what you were going to do, or if traveling with these strangers was even a good idea. You just nod at him slightly, giving a small “ok”.You looked back at Asirpa and saw her pointing at Shiraishi. “And don’t listen to anything Shiraishi says, he just wants to get into your pants.” Shiraishi immediately looked shocked, and began to mope slightly, whining.“That’s so cruel Asirpa, I’m more than just a dog you know…” Asirpa gave a big smile in response, and patted Shiraishi’s leg in consolation.You cracked a small smile, and began to chuckle at the group. As they began walking, you glanced back at the direction of the brothel. It was already on the other side of town, your thoughts were swimming. Only time could tell if you had made the right choice.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

On the way to Sapporo, you were riding with Shiraishi on his tiny horse, and you had to wrap your hand around his stomach pretty tightly to keep your balance.
“This isn’t too tight is it?” You felt kinda awkward squeezing some guy you had just met, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he was pretty elated to be receiving physical attention from a young woman.The three of them hadn’t told you what they were doing at the brothel, or why they were traveling together at all. You noticed they had been wanting to talk about…something, but had been avoiding it due to your presence. You weren’t used to speaking unless spoken to around strangers, so you opted to focus on the scenery.
You look over at Sugimoto, and notice Asirpa beginning to fall asleep on Sugimoto’s chest. The sun was still high overhead, and the air felt crisp. Enjoying the light breeze through your hair, you closed your eyes, wondering if the whole trip will be this peaceful.

----
You must have dozed off, because you opened your eyes and you had already made it to Sapporo. You brought your head up from Shiraishi’s back, and noticed a big wet spot on his haori from your drool, which you kept to yourself. Asirpa was also just waking up from her nap, slowly rubbing her eyes.“Kiroranke said he would be at a nearby firearms store…” Sugimoto mumbled.You slowly got off the horse and looked around the town, taking in the sights. Leaving the brothel was prohibited, for you at least, so you never had the chance to experience living in a city, much less explore one. You noticed Sugimoto was looking at you as you were in awe of the city, and you quickly crossed your arms, and looked ahead at the road, embarrassed.
You tried not to make it too obvious that you were glancing at all the different shops and restaurants on the way to meet Asirpa’s uncle. Approaching the firearms store, you were immediately intimidated.
You saw he was a large man, and was wielding guns in both of his hands. He was very muscular, and you felt like his hands almost engulfed the guns entirely. He had an Ainu garment on, resembling a male kimono. The swirl earrings he had on stood out against his dark hair, which was short on the top, but came down to his shoulders in the back.
Sugimoto, Shiraishi, and Asirpa all gave him a friendly greeting, but Sugimoto and Shiraishi seemed to be slightly more reserved around him. His eyes then turned to you, noticing that you were new, and introduced himself as Kiroranke, an old friend of Asirpa’s father.Immediately you gave an intense bow, and introduced yourself. It’s not as though you trusted Sugimoto or Shiraishi immediately. To be honest you couldn’t say you completely trusted them quite yet. But, you couldn’t quite place your finger on it, you just felt like you could trust Kiroranke even less. You raised your head slightly when you heard him chuckle.“You don’t have to be so formal, it’s a little uncomfortable. You can drop the honorifics as well.”
‘Maybe I’m just scared of his size…’
You stood up straight, and saw him looking right at you. Embarrassed, you nodded and quickly turned away to distract yourself, immediately seeing the large gun Asirpa was holding.
“Nice choice.” You held your thumbs up, but she immediately got scolded afterwards to put it down.
Talking to the store owner, Sugimoto and Kiroranke learn most of the hotels have been booked for the night, except for a western-style hotel, run by a beautiful woman. Shiraishi immediately perks up, and begs the owner to give them the info on this hotel. He leads the group, a little skip in his step.
When you arrive, the entrance to the hotel is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. You have to keep yourself from looking around like a country bumpkin. Your eyes are darting around, taking it all in, when you notice Kiroranke staring down at you. You stiffen slightly, and try to make your body language seem as natural as possible.“Hello? Is anybody here?” Sugimoto calls out.A beautiful woman gracefully comes down a set of stairs greeting the group. She welcomes the group to the hotel, and her voice is as beautiful as her face. She could even rival some of the high class Geisha you had met. She introduces herself as Ienaga, but she barely finishes before Shiraishi places himself right in front of her.“Currently, I’m single. I promise to be a passionate and devoted boyfriend if you’ll have me.”Ienaga does a pretty good job at keeping a stoic face, but you recognize it pretty immediately as being flabbergasted. You used to see things like this all the time at the brothel. You quickly exhale and bite your lip, trying to stifle a laugh.
You follow her through the maze-like hotel to your respective rooms, listening to Shiraishi mercilessly flirt with Ienaga. You realize everyone is rooming together in pairs, save for yourself, but you didn’t mind.
Excusing yourself to your room, you carefully situate yourself on your bed, stiffly laying down. You just couldn’t get comfortable. The past day really had been a whirlwind. You had been so preoccupied with keeping up with the group you had completely forgotten about how sore your head and body felt.
Immediately your thoughts went to Haruko, and the other girls at the brothel. When Takeo had woken up, did he hurt them? Did he lash out in a rage? He was probably furious that his perfect face had been smashed by some nobodies…and you couldn’t help but feel that whatever happened to the girls would be your fault.Anxiety and misplaced guilt continued to swirl in your head until you heard a knock at the door. Cracking it open slightly, you see Kiroranke, Asirpa, and Sugimoto.
“Let’s go eat!” Asirpa moved to push the door open further, giving a small smile. You smile back and give a short nod following the group down the hallway.“Where’s Shiraishi?”“He’s going after the woman of his dreams!” Kiroranke replied, with a bit of passion in his voice. You couldn’t help but slightly roll your eyes, and give an amused huff.
“What's his pla-”Suddenly, you stopped in your tracks. You thought you had already filled your quota of intimidating men for your lifetime, but in front of you stood the largest man you had ever seen in your life. Takeo and Kiroranke had nothing on this man.
Your poker face had left you completely, and you were just gawking, mouth wide open at this man.
“Sinna kisar.” Asirpa and Kiroranke said in tandem.“What?” The large man turned towards the group.You shut your mouth quickly, so you wouldn’t appear totally impolite, but you couldn’t stop your eyes from practically bugging out of your head. You tried hard not to stare at the protrusion popping out of his forehead. Sugimoto begins speaking to him about judo;“Actually, that’s called ‘judo ear’. You’ve done a whole lot of judo, haven’t you? I guess I was just lucky or something, since I never ended up getting judo ear.”You’re in awe of how Sugimoto can talk to him like it’s nothing. In fact, Asirpa and Kiroranke brought up his ear as well. A tiny part of you, scratch that, a very large part of you was envious of how easily they were able to talk to this stranger. This very large, scary, intimidating stranger.Sugimoto began to shake hands with the man in greeting, and suddenly they grabbed each other near their collars! You couldn’t stop yourself from gawking again, your mouth dropping wide open. They stare at each other intensely, for a few seconds, and your eyes flick back and forth between them. Suddenly the large man lets up.“If we don’t stop now, we’re gonna end up fighting to the death…you might be the strongest guy I’ve ever met! Hah, I like you! Come on, let’s get some dinner! It’s on me!” The large man laughed. ‘Nice going, Sugimoto!’ You internally cheered, your face finally relaxing.
“The power of talking to strangers is amazing…” Your eyes are sparkling as you say this. Sugimoto turns to you quickly.“Not just talking! Judo as well!” He pumps his fist up.You nod furiously, taking his manly advice to heart.
You sit yourselves at a quaint western style restaurant, at a large round table. Noticing the only seat left is in between Asirpa and the large man, you sit down and scooch your chair a tad closer to Asirpa. He introduces himself as Ushiyama.
“May I…may I call you Yama-sama?” You look up at him determined, trying to be brave and socialize with this behemoth. If Asirpa could do it, so could you. His size initially was intimidating, sure, but you thought if you gave him a nickname for his incredible size, it could make him less scary.
“Of course, little missus. What should I call you in return?” His demeanor immediately changed when talking to you, versus Sugimoto, becoming much smoother, and almost sultry.
On instinct, you leapt out of your chair and gave him an animated bow, introducing yourself loudly. He just laughed, and you slowly sat back in your chair, very sheepishly. Luckily the food came out quickly after, and you could forget about that little spectacle.In front of you was a heaping bowl of curry, and as soon as the smell hit your nostrils, you had to physically control yourself to not start shoving it in your mouth like a pig. You were trying to get the largest spoonful you could, and you heard a tiny voice…
“Osoma…”
“It’s fine Asirpa. That’s the kind of osoma you can eat.” Sugimoto tried to console her.
‘Osoma?’

“What’s… osoma ?”You turn to Asirpa and Sugimoto, and Sugimoto chuckles lightly.
“It’s the Ainu term for poop.”Your eyes widen slightly, and you look down at the curry. You suppose you could see how it could be interpreted as…poop. You also notice Asirpa’s scrunched face, scared to take a bite. You take your large spoonful, and open your mouth wide, making sure Asirpa can see.“I love this...this osoma !” You say the last word tentatively, but happily shove the spoon in your mouth, peeking at Asirpa to see if she follows suit.She takes a timid bite, and immediately falls on the table, struck by its deliciousness, and she was right to do so. It tasted pretty damn good.
As you and the group ate, you seriously considered continuing to travel with them after the group leaves Sapporo. They were really starting to grow on you, even Shiraishi.
‘It’s not like I have another plan…’
“Come on, let’s have a drinking contest with Sapporo beer! Keep the bottles coming!!” Ushiyama challenges, interrupting your thoughts, as he starts throwing back his bottle of beer.
You aren’t sure if you want to follow suit, and get drunk around three men you don’t know very well, and begin to take tepid sips from your bottle. You weren’t much of a beer person anyways. After glancing around, you can see the men are not shy with their intake. Even Asirpa is drinking faster than you.

‘You know what, after the day I’ve had, screw it. Just tonight couldn’t hurt.’
You hold the bottle over your head, swirling it in a circle creating a whirlpool of beer, straight into your mouth. The men stare at you as you chug your beer, and slam the beer bottle down back onto the table.“Aaaah…Ah!” You take a large breath out, and then yelp as Ushiyama gives you a hearty slap on the back while laughing. At least for you it was hearty, for him it was probably the equivalent of swatting a fly. Sugimoto is staring at you, awestruck.
“Wanna learn?” You give Sugimoto a smug smile.You’re rubbing your sore back, showing Sugimoto how to swirl the bottle without spilling it on himself, and you notice Kiroranke has called out your name. He’s one beer in, and the alcohol is beginning to lower everyone’s inhibition, including yours. You turn your whole body to face him.“So…why did you end up traveling with Sugimoto, Asirpa, and Shiraishi? I don’t remember seeing you when I left Otaru.” He tilts his head up slightly, and leans back in his chair, like he’s trying to appear dominant over you. You wonder if he picked up on your uneasiness around him, and is trying to use it to his advantage.You pause for a moment, trying to think of the best way to answer without giving up too much about yourself.
“They helped me out of a tight spot, and they allowed me to travel with them here to Sapporo. I owe them a lot, and I’m hoping to repay them in some way before they leave.”
Maybe it was the alcohol, or your tired head not bothering to filter anything, but you sounded surprisingly earnest. You didn’t feel scared to answer his question, and Kiroranke picked up on that. Sugimoto’s face also softens a bit after hearing your answer.Kiroranke leans forward and picks up his bottle of beer, giving a small smile. It seems that answer satisfied him. For a second, you feel pretty cool.“I see. Want to teach me how to whirlpool as well?” He picks up another bottle, and hands you one as well.Another bottle and a half later and you were pretty drunk, and so was the rest of the table. Not even Asirpa was safe. In fact, she had been trying to pull the strange lump off of Ushiyama’s face.
“Nngh! Come on, everyone! You’ve got to help!” Her dainty fingers are desperately gripping the lump, and her tiny foot is pushing off of his face.“Asirpa, use your knife!” You egged her on, laughing.“Hey now, that doesn’t come off…” Ushiyama mumbles, completely unaffected by Asirpa exerting her maximum strength.“Asirpa, stop that right now! Don’t you encourage her!” Sugimoto points at you but you can’t stop cackling.
Ushiyama turns to Asirpa, “Little lady, you make sure to grow up to be a great woman…and when it comes time to pick a man, remember…the most important part is his penis.”
Maybe it was the alcohol (it was), or the fact that you had been having such a good time at that dinner, but you can’t stop laughing, especially when Sugimoto gets insecure about his size.
You shoot your hand in the air. “Yama-sama, can you elaborate, please?”
He gives a confident nod, and wags his finger like an old man.“The question is, whether his penis is a ‘gentlemanly’ penis. You’ve got to sleep with the guy and find that out for yourself!”
“He’s right!” Kiroranke chimed in, nodding.You nod profusely. You weren’t sure if you really agreed with them, but you knew that’s just how men were, especially after that judo display. Plus, this was the most fun you’ve had in ages.“Okay, that’s all for today’s penis lecture! The lovely Miss Ienaga is waiting for me in my room, so I’ve got to get back!” Ushiyama thumped his chest, and you could see steam blast out of his nose.“Thanks for the meal and the lesson!” You all respond with vigor. Shuffling back to the hotel, everyone returns to their respective rooms.
As soon as you lay on your bed you notice how much more comfortable it felt than before the dinner. You give a content sigh, and fall asleep almost instantly, melding with the mattress.Your blissful sleep didn’t last long, however. It was more like a power nap. You blink your eyes slowly, hearing crashing and shouting. Or…more like smashing and shouting? It literally sounds like someone is smashing through the walls of the hotel.“What’s going on…?” You rubbed your eyes, unbelievably drowsy, still feeling slightly drunk.You’re quickly coming to your senses as you hear running outside of your room, and then suddenly, a large boom. You decide you need to see what’s going on, or at least check on Sugimoto or Asirpa, and begin putting your boots on.
Suddenly, the wall right above your bed explodes, and bits of wood and plaster are flying everywhere. Shrieking, you cover your neck, and then you hear Sugimoto grunting.
“S-Sugimoto?!”
You looked up, seeing Ushiyama had pushed him through the wall above your bed. Before Sugimoto can fall to the ground, he gains his balance and plants his feet, hurling Ushiyama over his shoulder. Mid-throw, Ushiyama directs his feet towards the wall, and his impressive weight instantly decimates it. He and Sugimoto are still grappling each other, causing them to both crash through the wall opposite the one they initially destroyed, leaving your room as quickly as they burst in.You hastily follow the two of them out of the hole they made, and see Ushiyama slamming Sugimoto against the ceiling. You stand there speechless, mouth agape. You’ve never seen such insane feats of strength. You want to help, but you knew if you tried anything you would be instantly pulverized, you feel frozen. The two men haven’t even noticed your presence.
Ushiyama then slams Sugimoto onto the floor, but instead of picking him back up, Sugimoto disappears through the floor. You hear him yelling, and dash over to the hole.Unfortunately for you, you didn’t actually have time to properly tie your shoelaces before the two men blew up your room. Before you know what’s going on, you trip, and fly face first into the hole, following Sugimoto.Ushiyama finally noticed you, and called out your name, confused about where you appeared from, but you couldn't hear him over your shrill screaming. You land on Sugimoto, with a loud “Oof!”.
“Ugh…” You roll off of Sugimoto slowly rubbing your legs, and you notice your kimono feels wet.“Huh?” You look around, and can see Sugimoto doing the same. It’s dark, but it looks like a small dungeon, with chains on the wall, and you swear out of the corner of your eye you can see bones. The smell of alcohol instantly begins to burn your nostrils, and your eyes begin to tear up. You quickly bring your arm up to your nose, trying to cover the smell.Sugimoto instantly understands what’s happening as he smells the alcohol, and without warning scoops you up and throws you over his shoulder and begins to book it.
“Sugimoto, what is going on? ” You cry while bobbing up and down on his shoulder, hitting his back lightly. As soon as you leave the room you just fell into, it explodes into flames. Sugimoto grips you a little tighter, and in a surprisingly soft voice, he tells you,“Once we're out of this, I promise I’ll tell you, Okay?”
“Okay…” You grip the back of his jacket.Running up the stairs, Sugimoto can see Kiroranke carrying Asirpa, who’s knocked out.
“Kiroranke!! Get all of the stuff together!” He shouts, setting you down quickly.You run back to your room, grab your small pouch, and quickly shove your shoelaces in your boots. You do not have the luxury to afford to trip again. You look up, and see Sugimoto carrying Asirpa and Kiroranke just outside your room.
“Here, let me help!” You grab Asirpa’s bow, and the three of you hurry to the staircase.Just as you’re about to make your way down, you hear Shiraishi screaming. He’s running over, making an insane face.“I dropped the bag of explosives right into the fire!”Without warning, the staircase turns into a ramp, and the five of you slide down right into the entryway.“What the hell kind of trap was that?!” Sugimoto groans.
Without saying another word, everyone scrambles to run outside, barely making it in time. The force of the explosion almost knocks you off of your feet, and you can feel the back of your hair is definitely singed, and your clothes have debris and dirt all over them.After waking up from the explosion, Asirpa looks around.
“Wait, where’s professor penis? He hasn’t made it out yet!” She turns around to look at the hotel, which continues to explode, and finally crumbles to the ground.
“Professor penis!!” She cries out. Falling to the ground, she picks up a piece of fish cake, the exact size of Ushiyama’s forehead lump, and begins to cry.
“Pro…professor penis…” You rub her back slightly as Sugimoto corrects her.“Asirpa, that’s just a fishcake.”Kiroranke and Sugimoto begin mumbling to each other, but you can barely hear it over the sound of a crowd forming in front of the hotel.“The police or military will be here any minute now, and that means trouble for us. We’d better get out of here.” Kiroranke says.“It’s starting to look more and more important that we go meet Noppera-bou in person. Well, assuming Ushiyama was really blown to pieces in that explosion…”
You can hear Sugimoto saying this, but you are at a complete loss as to what it could mean. You’re squatting next to Asirpa, rubbing her head now, as she’s still in shock over the fish cake, and you look up at Sugimoto.“Don’t forget your promise.” You look at him right in the eyes, and he has no problem looking back.
“I won’t.”
As the two of you look at each other, this exchange isn’t on Kiroranke, who takes note of it.The group was lucky enough that Kiroranke could pull some strings and find you all a place to stay. It was a pretty cramped room with some mattresses on the floor. No surprise, you, Asirpa, and Shiraishi knocked out almost instantly.Sugimoto was standing outside with Kiroranke. Surprisingly, neither felt tired at the moment. They were still winding down from the explosion and chaos, and Sugimoto couldn’t close his eyes without his mind racing. The cool, crisp air was helping relieve his stress. Kiroranke stands next to him.“How did you actually meet that girl?” Kiroranke asks, while taking a puff from his pipe.
Sugimoto pauses. He wasn’t sure how to broach the topic that she used to be a prostitute, so he decides to be broad. He also noticed Kiroranke held some strange attitude towards her.“One of the tattooed convicts we found was about to kill her. Shiraishi and I managed to step in before she was too badly hurt.”
Kiroranke hums in acknowledgement.“So that explains her response at dinner.” He turns to face Sugimoto fully, taking another puff from his pipe.“And you’re willing to tell this girl about the gold? How do you know you can trust her? She may just take this information and run off to find it herself.”
Sugimoto shakes his head.
“I don’t think so. It would be way too dangerous for her to try by herself, and the way she interacts with Asirpa tells me she wouldn’t try anyways. And for that matter, I don’t even know if I can fully trust Shiraishi.” Sugimoto states.

‘The same goes for you, Kiroranke.’

Kiroranke says nothing, and turns away, continuing to puff on his pipe. Sugimoto can’t tell what he’s thinking, but decides to leave the conversation at that, and heads back inside.
He looks at you sleeping, illuminated by the dim moonlight coming from the window. You’re curled into a ball, trying to take up as little space as possible. Then he notices how close Shiraishi is sleeping to you. Sugimoto shoves Shiraishi over, and puts himself in between the two of you.Outside, Kiroranke tightens his grip on his pipe.
“The last thing we need is another variable in the mix…”
----
The next day, you’re helping the group look around the debris of the hotel for any evidence of Ienaga or Ushiyama. While you’re lifting up some singed wooden planks, you hear Sugimoto calling your name. You turn to look over at him.“Did you find something?” You ask, walking over to where he’s standing.
He shakes his head. “I’m ready to make good on my promise, but I need to ask you a question first.”
You cock your head.“What is it?” You weren’t sure what kind of explanation would help make sense of everything that had happened in the past few days, and were even less sure what kind of question Sugimoto wanted to ask you.
“If I tell you, and you decide to continue traveling with us, there’s no telling what other kinds of danger may appear. Your life will probably be in danger again.”
Sugimoto looked completely honest when telling you, which surprised you. But, when you answered you had no hesitation.
“Okay, tell me. I mean, you had no hesitation in saving my life twice.” You laughed sheepishly. “I feel pretty safe with you.”
Sugimoto suddenly looks bashful, and then a look of relief washes over his face.
As he was telling you the details about the tattoos, convicts, and Ainu gold, Kiroranke was standing next to Asirpa, watching the two of you talk. From a distance he could see your face went from serious, to shocked, to giving Sugimoto a face that could only be described as ‘yeah right’, and then back to shocked. Suddenly, you start walking over to Asirpa, who is staring longingly at the fish cake, while Kiroranke makes his way over to Sugimoto.“Asirpa!” You call out. She looks up at you, surprised. “I…I don’t have many practical skills, so I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’m going to accompany you guys!” You looked nervous and excited at the same time. “I really want to help you on your journey, if you’ll allow me.”“Oh yay! Now I can teach you about different types of osoma !” She quickly hugged your midriff, to which you rubbed her head in response.
“How much is there to learn about poop?” You chuckled.Sugimoto and Kiroranke were walking back towards you, and Sugimoto puts a hand on your shoulder.
“I too, had that question once.” He almost had a wistful look on his face.“We should tell Shiraishi! Where did he go, anyway?” Asirpa asks, glancing around the rubble.“I’m sure that pervert went to Susukino…” Sugimoto mumbles.Suddenly, Shiraishi’s head pops out from the rubble.
“And guess what I found out at Susukino? Some info about…” Shiraishi pauses mid-sentence, when he realizes you’re with the group. “I uhhh, I got…”
“It’s ok Shiraishi, I told her everything. She’s going to be traveling with us.”
Shiraishi’s mouth is slightly agape. “Don’t tell me…you’ve fallen for me? And you want to travel together?” He suddenly looks bashful, and his eyes are shining.
“Not a chance.” You state immediately. “I would have sooner blown up with the hotel last night.”
“Ouch…but I guess that means you can listen to the intel I got. There’s no guarantee things will work out at Abashiri. So while we’re headed that way anyway, we should try to get all the info we can on any tattooed convicts.” Shiraishi rubs his head slightly. “And that’s exactly what I got.”“Well? Where’s the convict?” Sugimoto nods at Shiraishi.“He’s in Hidaka.”
Listening to the group plan, a strange feeling begins to blossom in your chest. You aren’t even sure what you would do with your share of the gold yet, but you realize, you’re actually excited to see what happens next, despite all of the danger from earlier. While Shiraishi and Kiroranke were still debatable, your fondness and trust of Asirpa and Sugimoto had grown significantly. Lost in contemplation, you didn’t even hear Sugimoto calling your name.“Hm? Sorry, what did you say?” You look up, and realize all four of them are looking at you.“Are you ready to head out?” Sugimoto asks, slinging his gun over his back.“Yeah.” Smiling, you nod your head. “Let’s go!”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

You weren’t one to have nightmares. Usually you wouldn’t remember your dreams, or they were about something silly. But, ever since the explosion at the hotel you had begun to wake up in the middle of the night. At first, it was just once a night, and you would fall right back asleep. But recently they began to increase in frequency, and intensity.

Initially, in the dream you were surrounded by flames and screaming, and then you woke up. Next, you started to hear your name among the screams. Then, you saw the face of a young girl in the flames, a face you remembered all too well. You would always shoot up out of bed, never screaming, but sweaty and panicked. You started sitting outside after waking up, unable to fall back asleep. Sugimoto began to notice, but decided against saying anything. Kiroranke as well.

When you sat outside, your thoughts would return to the brothel. You couldn’t stop worrying about Haruko, and the recent nightmares had exacerbated your anxious ruminations. When Haruko came to the brothel, you tried to keep her under your wing, hoping she could make it out mostly unscathed. It had been eating you up on the inside thinking about if Takeo had done anything to her. You felt selfish for leaving her, and wondered if you should have taken her with you.

Asirpa could sense a shift in your demeanor, noticing how tired you were beginning to look, but you always lied and told her you were fine. You didn’t want to trouble her, or any of them for that matter, with your petty anxieties. You knew she had enough on her shoulders with her father.

That wasn’t to say there hadn’t been glimmers of joy in between the nightmares. On the way to Hidaka you stayed with a relative of Asirpa’s, in an Ainu village. Asirpa’s warm demeanor, as well as the familiar way everyone interacted with each other really put you at ease. You had been so used to having your guard up all the time at the brothel that you weren’t used to being around a group of people so easily. The time you spent laughing and expressing yourself over the past week or two had been far greater than the times you had done so at the brothel, and you were grateful for anything to take your mind away from that place.

----

“I took care of the

tokkari

(seal)! You can come out now guys.” Asirpa wiped the sweat from her head, looking proud of herself. She had dealt the seal a killing blow to the head with her big wooden club, and you were hiding with the boys behind some rocks.

“But seals are so cute…” You whined, as you watched Asirpa gut the seal.

You understood that Ainu culture treated animals with sanctity, and that they never let anything go to waste. But you were so sensitive to animals, you had to cover your eyes when animals would be skinned and gutted. You enjoyed the ignorance of not knowing where your food came from. You peeked through your fingers as you heard Sugimoto call out to you and Shiraishi, holding the fleshy skull of the seal.

“Asirpa said we could eat the brain!” You and Shiraishi looked at eachother, and then the head of the seal, cradled in Sugimoto’s hand. By no means were you a gourmet, or a snob about your food, but…

“I’m allergic.” You blurted out, holding your hand up.

Asirpa turned to look at you, narrowing her eyes.

“Allergic…to brains?”

“Uh…yeah. It’s a horrible condition actually.” You had barely finished your sentence and Asirpa began to chase you down. How did she already have the brains on a spoon??

“You

must

be allergic to having a brain to come up with an excuse that bad!” Asirpa began to chase you around the beach with her brain spoon, and you were running like she was chasing you with poop on a stick. Which incidentally had happened a few days earlier.

“Nooo! If I eat the seal’s brains I’ll gain its memories and its soul!” You cried out, and you were about to use Shiraishi as a human shield, but the bastard tripped you, and you fell face-first into the sand. You see a shadow encompassing your body, and you look up in horror at Asirpa standing over you, spoon firmly in hand.

“Open wide, baby bird.”

“Asirpa, wai-*mmph*” She shoved the spoon in your mouth, showing no mercy. Smacking your lips, the brain had the texture of firm tofu, and was a little savory. It actually wasn’t terrible. But you would never admit that to her after the trauma she had just inflicted upon you.

You decided to start fake choking, like you were actually allergic to the brain, but Asirpa had already walked away leaving only Shiraishi laughing at your terrible acting. A swift kick to the butt shut him up, and you joined the others around the fire.

“Seal meat has a very metallic, ‘bloody’ taste, but if we boil it properly the blood simmers out and the meat ends up tasting better. We can boil the liver and lungs tog-

AAAAAHH

!” Asirpa threw herself on the ground suddenly, crying out.

“Whats wrong?!” You suddenly turned to her, concerned.

“The…the

pukusakina

…the soft windflower I gathered and dried last year…we’ve run out…” Asirpa’s face was in full agony, and she began to slam her fists on the ground. “If you use it in meat dishes they taste so much better…the flavors complement each other so perfectly, and now it’s all gone…”

You all just stared at her deadpan, watching her tantrum.

“Is it just me, or is she more upset about this than she was about finding out that her father is Noppera-bou?” Shiraishi asked.

“Eat it or whatever - I don’t care! I just boiled it with some salt!” Asirpa cried out, as she finished cooking.

You took a piece of the meat, the heat slightly singeing your fingers, and you saw Asirpa looking at you expectantly out of the corner of your eye. Taking a tentative bite, you sunk your teeth into the meat, and your eyes shot open, surprised by the taste. Sugimoto was the next to take a bite.

“Oh, this is tasty Asirpa! Even without any special seasoning, it’s really delicious and tender!” Sugimoto encouraged her.

“Mmm…” You closed your eyes and savored the taste, and then began to gobble it down, quickly grabbing more pieces.

“Hey! Don’t be such a pig, leave some for me too!” Shiraishi yelled at you, trying to grab a piece out of your hand, and the two of you begin to squabble.

“See, they both think it’s tasty, Asirpa. Cheer up!” Kiroranke reassured Asirpa, to which she just continued to pout.

----

In the village, you met an interesting woman, named Inkarmat. You instantly had an affinity for her, you loved any woman that enjoyed swindling men.Whether or not she herself considered it swindling was a different story.

You felt that her “divination” added to her mysterious charm as well, even though you weren’t completely sure how true it was. Then, she closes her eyes and holds a finger up to her head, with a hand stretched out towards you.

‘Uh oh, is she going to reveal something embarrassing about me? Like how I think Sugimoto has nice arms? Or how I pushed Shiraishi into that thorny bush and lied about it? Or…’

“You…” Inkarmat began, and then opened her eyes to look at you. “You still grieve the passing of your mentor.” Her face was unchanging when she said this, still holding a small smile.

Your body immediately stiffens. Maybe she wasn’t faking it after all.

“Yes, it really affected me. It weighs on my heart a lot.” You hadn’t opened up to anybody about that before, and were caught off guard.

But, when she guessed Asirpa was looking for something your eyes widened. Sitting down, Inkarmat pulled out different divination tools to test the success of Asirpa’s finding what she’s looking for.

She places the bottom jaw of a white fox on top of her head, and slowly tilts her head forward. The jaw falls to the ground, teeth facing down.

“The teeth are facing down. There’s no hope of success. I have a terrible premonition about what lies ahead of you.” Inkarmat’s eyes are still shut. “It would be better if you halted your plans.” Inkarmat predicted. Shiraishi looks shocked, and Kiroranke has a blase look on his face, huffing on his pipe.

“All of this is just guesses you’re making based on what seems likely to be true. I have no intention of living my life following the predictions of diviners. I’m a new Ainu woman, for a new age.” Asirpa stated calmly, and confidently.

‘Yeah, you tell her Asirpa.’

(You were more than slightly put off by the fact that Inkarmat put your baggage on full display in front of everyone.)

“Is that so? Of course, I’m not ordering you to do anything. I’m merely making a prediction.” She says while standing up. “Oh, by the way…

It’s your father you’re searching for isn’t it?

”

A shiver went down your spine. You were simultaneously bewitched, but also scared of this woman. Shiraishi had fully fallen onto his knees, in disbelief of her power.

“Well, no need to listen to me! After all, I’m just
guessing
…”

And after that whole display, Inkarmat walks off, leaving an awkward atmosphere in the group.

----

It was no surprise that the next day, Shiraishi tried to use Inkarmat’s divinations to predict the outcomes of horse racing. One thing led to another, and well, after an intense snowballing of events, you had to fight two yakuza, and three bears at the same time.

Well…you weren’t actually doing any of the fighting, you were standing next to Shiraishi cheering Sugimoto on from the sidelines. Everyone realizes the fighting is senseless, as the bears outside pose a much bigger threat. Sugimoto began to try to negotiate with them to defeat the bears together, but then the Yakuza began to argue?

Oh, it turns out they were lovers.

You and the group watched intensely, heads turning between each yakuza. you couldn’t believe what was going on, all the while man-hungry bears were trying to bust down the doors. Part of you was scared for your life, while another was loving this drama.

A different part of you also realized how useless you were to the group. Everybody was able to contribute something in times of stress. Asirpa’s knowledge, Kiroranke’s wit, Sugimoto’s strength, hell, even Shiraishi’s candy was more useful than you.

After the two Yakuza were slain in a fight to the death with the last remaining bear, they died together holding hands. You were almost moved.

While dealing with the aftermath, Sugimoto received info that the group needed to go to Yubari, as someone saw a man with a very unusual tattoo.

The whole situation had been such a blur to you, it had hardly registered. After Inkarmat’s divination about your past and the recent sleepless nights, you had been living inside of your head, going with the flow of the physical world.

Sugimoto notices your apathetic reactions and demeanor, it wasn’t difficult. Even Asirpa and Shiraishi had caught on.

----

You were helping Asirpa and Sugimoto forage plants in the woods, eating butterbur leaves, and listening to Asirpa teach you different aspects of Ainu culture. You were nodding your head, listening, but part of you wasn’t present at all. Your body and your head just weren’t aligning. Returning back to the village, you see Kiroranke and Shiraishi holding up a big salmon.

Sitting in a hut with everyone around a pot, you were watching the salmon and veggies stew in a large pot in the middle of the room. You still weren’t used to homemade food made with such care, and as the smell hit you, your mouth began to instantly water. You listened to everyone chat around dinner, as you remained uncharacteristically quiet. After Asirpa fell asleep, you sat with the men, listening to them chat.

“By the way, what’s all that on your face?” Shiraishi asked Sugimoto. He had a long strip of bandage wrapped around his face, with some kind of goop spread underneath it. It was covering the deep cuts Sugimoto had received from one of the bears.

“It’s a bunch of medicinal plants to prevent scarring. Asirpa puts bear oil on my face every day, too. Personally though, I don’t really care if I end up with a few more scars.”

“Maybe she just liked how your face looked before?” Kiroranke mused.

“Yeah, your face does seem like it would be popular with the ladies. I can’t imagine that you’re married but, do you at least have ‘someone special’ back home?” Shiraishi began to pry.

Sugimoto’s face suddenly turns solemn. You watch carefully, but he doesn’t respond.

“Oh? He’s not denying it…could it be that the reason you’re looking for gold has something to do with that woman back home?” Shiraishi leaned into Sugimoto, as he began to probe even further.

“Shiraishi. Lay off him, already.” Kiroranke took a big puff from his pipe. You stood up slowly, gathering the attention of the men.

“I’m gonna sit outside for a bit.” You mumbled, and then hurried outside. The crisp air was biting your cheeks, and you sat on the dirt, arms wrapped around your knees. You hadn’t meant to leave so suddenly, but you were jealous of Sugimoto’s dedication. You weren’t sure what he needed the gold for, perhaps for that woman. But he had a clear loyalty to Asirpa and her troubles as well, and it made your heart ache.

You were just someone that showed up, someone that was going with the flow. You had no goals, no skills…you were useless.

You felt somebody sitting next to you, disturbing your brooding, and to your surprise it was Sugimoto.

“Oh, hi Sugimoto. Aren’t you tired? You didn’t have to come follow me outside.”

“Are you ok? You didn’t say much during dinner. Or the past few days.”

Your eyes widened suddenly at his question. You hadn’t really expected anyone to notice, or ask about it. You take a few seconds to come up with an answer, hopefully stopping Sugimoto’s worrying.

“Oh, yeah, I’m alright. I’m just a little more tired than usual.” You knew it was bullshit, but you didn’t think the problem was worth diving into.

His face told you he wasn’t buying your answer, he just continued to look at you. Alright…maybe you could open up just a teeny tiny little bit.

“Well…” You started, and took a deep breath, staring up at the sky. “I’m just worried about the girls at the hostel. Especially one I had been really fond of. I mean you saw how Takeo was about to hurt me…I just…” You trailed off. You knew if you kept talking the floodgates would open, and you weren’t sure if you were ready for everything to spill out yet.

Sugimoto was still looking at you, and you turned your head to look at him. You didn’t feel worthy of his concern, but seeing him look at you with a gentle face, listening to your problems, it made your chest ache even more. Suddenly, the words just began to spill out of your mouth.

“I mean, everybody has contributed something to this journey. Asirpa has her knowledge and heart, you have strength and determination, Kiroranke has all of that…and even Shiraishi has more to give than me.” You twist your upper body to face him, putting your arm on the ground. “I don’t…I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel so useless. When we find the gold, I won’t have earned my share at all. I don’t even know what I would do with it.” Your voice was getting more emotional, and began to waver. When you realized this, you shut your mouth quickly, and turned your body to face forward again.

You couldn’t see Sugimoto’s face, but his voice gave you an idea of what his expression was.

“You don’t have to

earn

your share of the gold like that. You didn’t just come along with us for financial gain, I know that.”
His voice was soft, something you had only heard a few times before. “I was also lost before meeting Asirpa. But, she was the same way. I think my path crossed with hers for a reason.”

You turned to look at him, his face had the same solemn expression as earlier.

“I know you’re worried about being a burden, or taking up space. But I think Asirpa would be devastated by you leaving. Don’t worry so much about your place in all of this, or your goals. You can figure it out as we go, and it’s ok to rely on us.”

You were surprised at his tactfulness, and his kindness. You rarely were on the receiving end of a listening ear, much less from a man. You began to tear up a little bit, and tried your best to suck it back in.

“Yeah…I really like traveling with you guys too…” You cleared your throat, trying not to sound like you were about to burst into tears. Turning to look at him, you give him a big smile. “Thanks, Sugimoto. You know you’re surprisingly sensitive despite you being able to beat the shit out of people.”

“Is that an insult or a compliment? I can’t tell.” He laughs.

“Obviously a compliment! Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.”

“I don’t know if I would consider the word ‘crispy’ a compliment…”

The two of you continue to chat into the night. You open up about having nightmares, and Sugimoto touches on his time in the war. Neither of you talk about these topics at length, but it was just enough that you began to feel a little lighter. When you excuse yourself to go to bed, Sugimoto awkwardly pats your back. As you stand, you awkwardly pat his head in return, and shuffle away to sleep.

Entering the hut, Asirpa begins to stir awake, and mumbles out your name as you lay next to her and Shiraishi.

“Yeah, it’s me. Sorry I woke you.” You face her and whisper.

You silently cursed yourself for waking her up. But then, she reached her hand out and grabbed yours lightly. After trying to keep everything bottled up, that simple act broke the dam. Silent tears fell down your face, and you gripped her hand back.

It was the best sleep you had gotten in months.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Standing next to Asirpa, you were trying to help her sell the gallbladder harvested from the red bear that had been slaughtered by the Yakuza lovers a few days earlier. After the buyer tested its authenticity, he weighed it, and tried to offer up some money. Looking down at Asirpa, you can see her shaking her head.

“Huh? That’s too little money?” The buyer looked a little annoyed.

“Sorry, but we’re going to need more than that.” You lightly protested.

“Listen up, girls. Normally I wouldn’t even buy a bear gall unless it was from a hunter I knew and trusted.” The buyer scoffed.

You looked down at Asirpa and winked. Time to show her how women run the world. You slide over to the man, and caress his arm lightly, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear. Giving your best doe eyes, you look up at him.

“Come on sir, can’t you just give us a little more?” You poked his chest.

He just scoffs again.

“You expect me to trust some Ainu brat and a whore? How do I know that you two didn’t steal it? You should be grateful that I’m willing to buy the damn thing at all.”

It feels like he just took a shotgun and aimed it right at your pride. As Sugimoto appears and puts his arm around the buyer’s neck, you fall to your knees, devastated.

“Guh…my standing as a woman…my ego…destroyed…” You utter under your breath.

“Hey there, mister medicine seller. Sounds like you’re trying to take advantage of some easy marks, eh?”
Sugimoto threatens, jutting out his lower jaw.

“What, do you think we’re stupid?” Kiroranke joins in, squinting at the buyer.

“Do you think we’re stupid??” Sugimoto repeats, his other hand begins to grip the buyer’s jaw, shaking his face lightly.

Laughing sheepishly, Shiraishi puts his hand on Sugimoto and Kiroranke’s shoulder, trying to calm them down and reassure the buyer.

“Come on fellas! Let’s not lose our cool…Sorry about that mister. These two are war vets, and they don’t seem to know much about restraint. They’re real animals if you ask me…”

“Shut the hell up and stay out of this!” Sugimoto smacks Shiraishi to the ground, landing next to you.

This happens a few more times.

Meanwhile Asirpa is patting your back, reassuring you, “This guy just doesn’t know a good thing when he sees one. Gallbladders or women.”

----

Afterwards, the five of you went to the river to catch some eel for lunch, and you were actually pretty good at it.

“Look, look! I got one!” You held one up in your hands. It was pretty slippery and trying to wiggle out of your hands. You quickly chucked it in Asirpa’s basket.

“It’s a lamprey. We Ainu call them

Ukuripe

. They use their mouth to cling to the rocks on the bottom of the river. I don’t know how you were actually able to catch it by grabbing it. Usually you stick your middle finger out like this and try to grab one.” Kiroranke demonstrated, curling his middle finger while holding his hand in a light fist.

“That’s because at her old job, she was used to grabbing long, slippery objects!” Shiraishi retorted.

“Hey! I’d like to see you try, jerk.” You kicked some water up at Shiraishi. You hadn’t told Kiroranke about your old job yet, and you preferred to keep it that way.

Shiraishi tried a few times, but they all flew out of his fingers.

“Just go over there and play with Asirpa, okay?” Shiraishi whined at Kiroranke’s instruction.

You give Shiraishi a smug smile, waving him away, and then go back to helping Kiroranke. Despite your awkward start, the two of you had started to get along really well. You found you were talented at foraging, and other random tasks that got assigned to you, and he always appeared pleasantly surprised. You were just glad you could be useful.

“Look, Sugimoto! I caught one!”

You looked over and saw Asirpa had caught a tiny eel in between her toes.

“This is a brook lamprey. We call them

puyapuya.

You can catch them by digging around on the sandy river bottom with your foot. They don’t taste any good, we only catch

puyapuya

for the fun of it!” Asirpa waved the tiny eel around, and set it back into the river.

Sugimoto began shoving his foot into the river, and with a delighted expression pulled his foot up quickly.

“Gotcha!...Huh?”

Pulling his foot up, he had caught Shiraishi’s pinky toe, causing Shiraishi to fall backwards into the water. After sitting himself up, there was a lamprey sucking on his head.

“Hey look! There’s a lamprey clinging to Shiraishi’s head!” Asirpa laughed.

He pulled it off, and waved it in front of your face, returning your smug smile. You snatched it out of his hands, and smacked his face with it, chucking it in the basket afterwards.

Preparing the food, everybody was chuckling and having a good time. Your heart felt light, and you were devouring your food. It really was a motley group, but maybe that’s why you felt so comfortable being yourself. Asirpa noticed your small smile and peaceful expression, and smiled to herself as well.

----

After the night Asirpa held your hand, she confronted you (gently) about your distant attitude. The two of you had gone off foraging alone while the men were tending to the horses. You weren’t sure what to say to her because after all, she was only 12. Plus she had her own burden on her shoulders, which was a lot more pressing than your nightmares.

“Well…” You began speaking, and turned your head away from her, unsure of how to phrase what you were going to say next.

“It’s okay. I don’t want to add to your mental load already.” You gave her a small smile.

“OW!”

You yelped, and saw that she had hit you in the back with her ‘punishment stick’ that she would use on Sugimoto or Shiraishi sometimes. It was her first time using it on you.

“You say you don’t want to trouble me, but I’m troubled because you won’t tell me anything! Friends are supposed to confide in eachother!”

Your eyes widened when she called you her friend. Despite all the traveling the group had done together, you still closed yourself off to them. You knew the closer you grew to them, the likelihood of getting hurt increased.

But Asirpa and Sugimoto kept managing to worm their way into your heart, making you feel vulnerable.

You give a heavy sigh, and look down at her. Her face was determined, and her hand was still gripping the stick tightly. You knew she wasn’t going to let up, and if you tried to change the subject you would be walloped again.

“I’ve never…I haven’t really talked about this before.” You gave her a tentative look. “It’s a lot. And I feel like as the older one, I should be providing you support, not the other wa - okokok! I’ll talk! Just put the stick down please.”

The men had long been finished with the horse care, and were starting to worry about you and Asirpa.

“I don’t think foraging for leeks would take this long. Do you think they got lost?” Sugimoto worries out loud.

“They didn’t seem to go very far - oh! There they are!” Kiroranke noticed. The men were relieved once they saw your figures emerging from the woods, but then immediately went back to being worried once they saw your faces.

Both of your eyes were puffy from crying, and Asirpa was sniffling. She had a tight grip on your hand, while you were carrying the leeks,

“What happened?!” Sugimoto rushed over.

“We talked about our feelings…” Asirpa sniffled.

Asirpa never told the men what the two of you had talked about, and neither did you. You definitely saw her as more than just a child after that talk though. She was basically half your age, but the comfort and ease you felt around her was undeniable.

----

After your lunch at the river, the group headed into town trying to find information about a book made of skin, or the convict’s tattoos. Sugimoto and Shiraishi went off by themselves, while you stayed with Kiroranke and Asirpa. When asking about a book made of skin, or strange looking tattoos, most people just shook their heads. It was made doubly difficult as you were two Ainu and a single woman.

However, mid conversation, you experienced what felt like a mini earthquake. You glanced up at the mountain and heard someone say there must have been an explosion in the coal mine. You rush over to the coal mine with Kiroranke and Asirpa to see what was going on, and walking out of the mine you see…Ushiyama! And he’s holding Sugimoto and Shiraishi like they’re stray cats.

Asirpa gasps, and looks up at Ushiyama. Your face also lights up slightly, at the ridiculous sight, and also from seeing a familiar face.

“Oh, hello little lady. And you too, missus. It’s been a while.” He nods to you and Asirpa.

“You’re alive!” You beam up at him. “I can’t believe that you weren’t crushed under that house.” You look down at Asirpa, and you see her pull out a sad, dry fishcake.

“Professor penis…”

“You’ve still got that fishcake?!” Sugimoto coughs out, looking disgusted.

Ushiyama sets Sugimoto and Shiraishi down, and you begin lightly cleaning Sugimoto’s face with a wet rag, when he asks Ushiyama what he’s doing here.

“Well, the guy I came to Yubari with ended up wandering off…and while I was looking for him, I happened to spot you two riding in a minecart.”

“Who are you with?” Sugimoto coughs out.

You turn and look, and see another man walking out of the mines. He’s normal human sized (thank god), and the sides of his head are shaved in an undercut fashion. You also noticed he has two identical scars on both sides of his face. You have to do a double take, as you swear you’ve seen him somewhere before, but you can’t place your finger on where.

“Well, I guess we don’t have much choice…all right, go ahead and bring them along.” He says as he runs his hand through his hair.

He looks down at you cleaning Sugimoto’s face, and he has an unreadable expression. You look back up at him, and make eye contact. He looks away, and you see him exchange a look with Kiroranke.

“Hey, you’re…one of Tsurumi’s men, aren’t you? Why are you with Ushiyama?” Sugimoto’s voice is still hoarse, and he strains to get his sentences out.

The man doesn’t answer the question, and just walks off.

‘How pleasant.’

As Sugimoto and Shiraishi slowly gather themselves, the new, larger group makes their way to a house on the outskirts of Yubari. You and Asirpa were chatting away with Ushiyama, and saw the man with the scars glancing at you talking, and you realize you still haven’t introduced yourself. Even if he was standoffish, a good first impression couldn’t hurt, right?

Walking over to him you’re about to give a deep bow, but then catch yourself halfway, instead giving him an awkward, half finished bow and your name. Looking up, you can see him staring at you with a stony face.

“Ogata.” He responds, and then keeps walking.

“Ugh…” You groan slightly.
Men at the brothel could be blunt, but you were used to it because of the circumstances. Maybe you needed to work on your charisma, or first impressions. Asirpa walked over and patted your arm.

“It’s ok, once he sees you aren’t as awkward as your introduction, maybe he won’t be so cold.”

You give a big sigh in response.

Arriving at the house you‘re shocked at the amount of taxidermied animals and…other oddities. You’re guided into a room filled with what look like mannequins, but upon further notice are taxidermied humans.

“It looks like…the fake skins were made using these six stuffed men…” Ogata says.

You take one glance, and then look away from the stuffed men. It was bizarre for sure, and you decided you would be better off just trying to distract yourself. You glance around the room, and hear the door open slightly. You see a cat pop into view, and without even looking at who was carrying it, you lean in slightly and say, “Kitty!”

Everyone in the room turns to look as well, and then you see an old man carrying the cat, while holding a piece of fake skin in his other hand. Your eyes widen at the sight. Both his hair and beard are long and gray, and he has wiry eyebrows. Despite his old voice and appearance, he has sharp eyes, and it intimidates you. The sword attached to his hip doesn’t help either. He shoots a glance down at you, making eye contact, and you nervously bring your eyes back to the cat, avoiding his harsh gaze.

“Hey, old man…I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before…have we met?” Sugimoto asks while he tightens his grip on the strap of his gun. His face turns rigid, and suddenly the atmosphere gets tense. You begin to sweat a little, as you're basically standing in between them.

“No…of course you haven’t!” Shiraishi sounds nervous. “He’s…Hijikata Toshizou.”

Sugimoto begins to slide his gun off of his shoulder, and Hijikata drops the cat. Squatting down and quickly scooping up the cat, you notice Ogata and Kiroranke give each other a nod. You narrow your eyes slightly, trying to figure out their dynamic, when Ogata notices you looking at them. You turn your head away quickly, and just try to focus all your attention on the cat, scratching his head.

‘How does everyone seem to know what I’m thinking?’

You cringed at your own transparency.

“It’s certainly been a while, hasn’t it, Shiraishi Yoshitake? Would you be so kind as to introduce me to your friend?” Hijikata glances over at Shiraishi. Somehow, Shiraishi just happens to know all of the most intimidating men in Japan.

The tension continues to escalate in the room as Hijikata and Sugimoto go back and forth, and you’re beginning to hold the cat a little tighter as a response.

Suddenly, Asirpa interrupts and says, "My Father-" But Hijikata cuts her off, hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Shall we join forces? Or shall we fight to the death, right here and now? Make your choice.”

Sugimoto is getting his gun ready in response. Glancing around the room, everyone’s face is tense, when a different old man, bald, walks in and begins talking to Sugimoto.

“If you’ve got any tattooed skins, then we’d be willing to buy them from you. We aren’t asking you to concern yourself with the future of the country.” The bald man begins to say.

‘This is getting really complicated…’

“You could use the money from selling the skins…go back to your home, find a wife, and live a quiet and peaceful life.” You can’t see Sugimoto’s face, and you begin to worry what his response may be. “Or does that sound like a boring path to a young man like yourself?”

Sugimoto raises his head. You don’t even realize how tightly you’re holding the cat, who begins to struggle against your grip.

“We need to meet Noppera-bou so that we can confirm something. If somebody finds the gold before we can get to him, then that would be a big problem for us.” Sugimoto states.

Asirpa looks up at him, moved. Her eyes are beaming. You feel your heart clench again.

The room is so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. But instead, you hear someone’s stomach growling. Everyone is looking around, tense, listening to the gurgling.

Suddenly, the cat hisses and you yelp, causing everyone to look at you. The cat had scratched you to get out of your grip, and your hand began to bleed. You feel your face heat up, and looking up you catch Ogata’s eye. He has a face of disdain. You’re only saved from further embarrassment by the stomach continuing to rumble.

“What is with that gurgling?” Sugimoto has a really pissed off face. You could almost laugh if you didn’t feel like burying yourself in a hole right now.

Suddenly, the beautiful woman from the hotel, Ienaga, pops out behind the bald old man.

“Well, shall I make some food for everyone? How about we continue this conversation at the dinner table?”

You were surprised for about half a second, and realize nothing in this room really makes much sense anyways. You relax and take a deep breath, as the tension finally dissipates from the room, and attached to Sugimoto’s hip, you walk to the dining room.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Everyone sits at a long table, as Ienaga serves some hot pot. You sit in between Sugimoto and Kiroranke, and don’t hesitate to begin stuffing your face. As you eat, you can’t help but glance at Ogata. It had been bugging you this whole time, you just can’t recall where you had seen him before. You press your finger into your forehead, deep in contemplation and chewing, and Sugimoto leans in and whispers to you.

“Why do you keep looking at Ogata?”

“I swear I’ve seen him before.” You say under your breath, and with a mouthful of rice.

Sugimoto pauses, and then speaks up.

“It’s pretty amazing that a group of people like this ever managed to team up. That guy in particular.” He nods at Ogata. “He was one of first Lieutenant Tsurumi’s men, after all. Any man who turns traitor once will do it again.”

You continue chewing and shoving more food into your mouth.

‘Lieutenant Tsurumi…that sounds familiar too…’

“Sugimoto…you know you almost killed me. But I’m not the kind to hold grudges.” Ogata leans back and puts his hand on his chest, acting offended. “Still, that remark just now really hurt.”

You quickly swallowed all of your food. Surprised, you turn to Sugimoto and hiss under your breath,

“You tried to kill him??”

“It wasn’t on purpose!” Sugimoto protests.

“Don’t you think you should apologize?” He looks appalled at your suggestion, and almost like he’s pouting. He’s about to say something back when Shiraishi interrupts.

“Don’t start an argument while we’re eating.”

“Hmph.”

You continue to eat in silence, listening to the people at the table plan their next move. If they can’t find the fake skins in the mine, they need a way to be able to distinguish the fakes, and Ienaga suggests contacting a counterfeit artist, but he’s currently in prison.

Everyone at the table stands to split up into three groups to gather information, and you head with Sugimoto, Ushiyama, and Asirpa to the mines to try and find a body wearing a military uniform. While looking around, you decide to bug Sugimoto about the situation with Ogata again.

“I thought that when men fought, they became friends afterwards. You and Professor Penis fought, but here we are hanging out again.”

“I wouldn’t consider this ‘hanging out’.” Ushiyama objects, as four men pass by, carrying a body out of the mine.

“I don’t owe that guy anything, he’s a traitor. And besides, he’s the one who came after us first.” Sugimoto rolled his eyes.

“Ogata was running away when Sugimoto almost killed him.” Asirpa chimed in. You gasp and turn to Sugimoto. He gives Asirpa a death glare for half a second, and then turns to you.

“I didn’t mean to make him fall off the cliff!” You gasp even louder. Sugimoto keeps desperately defending himself to no avail while the two of you continue to go back and forth for a while, but then you decide to drop the subject. If you bugged Sugimoto about every person he almost killed, the conversation would never end. Besides, you were pretty sure everyone at that table had tried to kill each other at some point. Though Sugimoto’s reservations about Ogata weren’t lost on you completely. He made you feel uneasy, and just gave off the vibe of a prick.

Your group’s efforts aren’t turning up any results, so after a while you give up and start returning to the house. Asirpa complains about being tired, and you offer her a piggyback ride, but she opts to jump on Ushiyama’s back instead, like a baby monkey. You narrow your eyes at her, suspecting that was her plan all along.

“It’s like a gorilla and his daughter.” That made Sugimoto crack up and Ushiyama sighed heavily.

Looking at the house on the horizon, you can see it’s started to go up in flames. There are flocks of soldiers outside the house, some dead, some alive. With no hesitation, the three of them rush over to a side of the house where they see Ienaga trapped behind a window. Ushiyama hoists the bars off of the window while Sugimoto jumps inside.

Knowing you won’t be of much use here, you keep yourself hidden behind a tree when a soldier appears next to you. You both look equally surprised to see each other, and he hesitates on if he should attack you or not.

‘Ohshitohshitohshit’

You realize you can’t always rely on Sugimoto, or someone else to save you, so you grab the soldier’s arms, shaking them, attempting a half-baked plan to get away.

“Help! These crazy people dragged me here and I don’t know what to do!”

He believes it for just a second, and then you can see him processing what you actually said. Before he has a chance to finish, you knee him in the groin as hard as you can. Falling to his knees the soldier curses loudly, and you take this chance to turn around and look for the others. Just as you’re about to run, the soldier reaches out and grabs your ankle, jerking it towards him, and you plummet to the ground.

You turn over to look back at him, and begin to panic. His grip was crushing your ankle, and he looked extra pissed that you had just crushed his crotch. Panicking harder, you try to wriggle out of his grip by kicking him and pulling away, but he just grabs your other ankle and drags you closer to him.

You realize the position you’re in, on your back with him holding both of your ankles, towering over you. Your stomach drops and you freeze up. The soldier takes notice of this and smirks, leaning in closer to say something.

Before he has the chance, a shot goes through his neck, and he flops over on top of you, the blood spraying onto your kimono. At first your eyes widen in shock, thinking he might still be alive. You desperately try to push his shoulders away from you, but as the blood soaks into your kimono you realize he isn’t moving anymore. His head is hanging right next to yours, and you're in full view of his bullet wound as you continue to struggle under him.

You’re having a meltdown at this point struggling to push him off of you, and your grunting quickly turns into crying. This asshole is just too large for you to move by yourself, and another soldier could appear at any moment and assume you were the one who had killed him. The thought sends you spiraling, and you lay in shock at how helpless you are.

Suddenly, a pair of hands grabs you under your arms, and you gasp. The hands hoist you up, and you flail and panic until you hear your name uttered from a low voice, as the grip around your arms tightens.

You stop moving, and turn your head around, and your eyes widen when you see Ogata. You were surprised he lifted you up, and even more so that he remembered your name. He’s staring down at you with his same stony face, but he has dried blood around his nose, and you can see his lip is busted open, causing blood to stain around his mouth as well.

When he feels that you can stand on your own, he removes his hands from your arms.

“Are you okay?”

“We need to run.” He ignores your question.

You wipe your face, and give him a small nod, trying to keep up with his pace as he jogs into town. He keeps his rifle ready for any other soldiers.

‘Did he…save me? From that soldier?’

You feel a little bit bad for thinking he was a prick. Just a little.

Arriving in town, you catch up and see everyone else. Asirpa and Sugimoto look relieved when they see you, but when Sugimoto notices you came with Ogata, he becomes slightly irked.

“What’s going on?” Ogata asks, slightly out of breath.

Sugimoto and Hijikata decided it would be better to split up into two groups on the way to find the counterfeit artist, they explain. Ienaga and Hijikata leave to join up with Shiraishi and Kiroranke, and you’re with Asirpa, Sugimoto, Ushiyama, and Ogata.

As your group is on the way out of town, Sugimoto walks closer to you. You’re in pretty bad shape mentally, and it doesn’t help that you look like you got injured, from all the blood splattered soaked into your kimono.

“Are you okay?” Sugimoto leans in to ask you, using his soft voice again.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” You respond quickly.

Sugimoto grows a bit irritated at your answer, but keeps it to himself. He thought you two had grown a bit closer, but maybe that was just his imagination.

In reality, you were too scared to talk about what happened. You didn’t want Sugimoto to burden himself with watching out for you when he was already so reckless with his own body. Sugimoto stops leaning in, and sighs.

“Alright.”

He leaves your side, and walks closer to Asirpa. This is how it should be, you tell yourself. Asirpa is the top priority, and you don’t need to get in the way of that.

‘It’s not like they need me for anything…’

----

Ogata’s first impression of you, is that you were wildly out of place. You were cleaning Sugimoto’s face after he escaped the mine, which was way too doting considering the circumstances. When you bowed to him, you looked like a plank of wood that had been snapped in half, and you said your name like you were being held at gunpoint. Was there really a need for that kind of courtesy? He was almost amused.

His second impression of you was that you were a transparent idiot. You were never paying attention to important information, and your feelings were always clearly written on your face. He caught you staring at him immediately, and he noticed how anxious you looked when tensions started to rise in Edogai’s house. He could feel you staring at him again at the dining table, and whispering about him with Sugimoto. It was astonishing how you couldn’t hide anything.

Ogata’s final impression of you is that you were weak. He hadn’t noticed you were under the soldier’s body until after he shot at him, and you didn’t even have the ability to push him off of you. Picking you up, if his goal was to kill you, he could have done so easily. You weren’t even trying to defend yourself. To top it off, you took one look at his face and asked if he was okay. To ask if someone else was okay when you couldn’t even take care of yourself was foolish and soft.

In other words, he had no idea how you had survived this long, being a soft, weak-willed, moron. He didn’t intend to stick around and find out either, until he was forced to join you and the others on the way to Tsukigata. Hijikata was already riding away by the time you and Ogata made it to town, so he didn’t have much of a say.

He was already pissed that he had been saved by Sugimoto, and then having to drag you along with him after saving you. But when he saw how irked Sugimoto became seeing the two of you together, a small, petty idea began to manifest inside of him, and you were right at the center of it.

----

The thought of what happened earlier with the soldier had been replaying in your mind. Not only did your attempt to run away fail, when he physically overpowered you, you froze up. You could still feel his hands gripping your ankles, and you were desperately trying to think of anything else.

Luckily, walking through the woods helped. The sunlight dappling the ground through the trees, along with the sound of the running water all helped you distract yourself from your earlier failure. Stopping by a nearby river, Asirpa suddenly got excited.

“Sugimoto, look! There are

tureptacir

walking around over there…that’s what we call woodcocks.” Hearing this, you silently waddled next to Asirpa and Sugimoto, to look for the birds as well. “Woodcocks arrive here during the women’s season, when women are out looking for vegetables.”

“Do they taste good?” You asked, hopeful.

“Their brains do.”

‘Bleagh.’

Suddenly, as soon as Asirpa finished saying that, Ogata had his rifle ready, and aimed at the birds. You looked up at him in shock, where did he even come from?

“Ogata, wait! Don’t shoot!” Asirpa stopped him.

“Why not? You want to eat them, right?”

“Even if you hit one of them, the others will fly away. Woodcocks fly in a meandering and confusing way, so it would be difficult to hit them with the kind of rounds you’re using.”

Seeing Sugimoto give Ogata a shit-eating grin, you had to hold back a laugh.

“We Ainu know a trap that takes advantage of the woodcock’s habits. If we use traps, we should be able to catch enough woodcocks for everyone to eat.”

“Hmph.” Ogata pushed his fingers through his hair and walked away.

‘Men are so petty…’

It didn’t stop you from enjoying their dumb antics though.

The whole group, save for Ogata, is helping Asirpa set up traps for the woodcocks. You weren’t sure how this group would get along, seeing as Ushiyama and Sugimoto had been throwing each other through walls before, but everyone was being surprisingly friendly and cordial. The most surprising being you and Ushiyama getting along so well, exchanging crazy brothel stories.

You find yourself smiling and chuckling with ease, and before you know it, all the traps have been set up. The pleasant feeling doesn’t last for long, as the smell of blood hits your nose, and you remember that your kimono was a dried, burgundy mess. You had no idea if you would actually be able to get any of the blood stains out, but you figured you could at least get rid of the smell, so you excuse yourself from the group, heading towards the nearby river.

Walking over, you spot Ogata looking through the forest with his binoculars. You wonder if he feels rejected from earlier. His good intentions were shot down, and decide to walk up to him to try and start a light conversation. You approach him slowly, as if he’s a wild animal that could run off at any moment. You stand close to him, but not fully next to him.

“What are you looking at?” He glances at you without moving his head, noticing your apprehensive voice, and brings his eyes back to his binoculars.

“I’m checking to see if we’re being pursued.” Yeah, that seems pretty important. You feel a bit silly for bugging him now, but you want to at least thank him for saving you.

“Oh, yeah. That’s important. Thanks for that. Good idea.” You felt so awkward talking to him, and you knew you were coming across as an idiot. It’s not your fault though! Talking to customers was easier than talking to this brick wall. Ogata puts his binoculars down, and gives you that same stony look, but slightly more exasperated.

“Did you need something?” His voice is biting, and to the point. It makes you even more nervous to talk to him, which had already been at a 5 out of 10. You were too nervous to look him fully in the eyes now, and instead looked towards the trees.

“Thank you for saving me earlier, shooting that soldier and lifting me up. I couldn’t do it myself. It’s not much, but if you ever need something, you can ask me for help.” You knew you couldn’t actually offer anything he wouldn’t just do himself, but you didn’t actually expect him to take you up on that offer. Slowly bringing your eyes to meet his, you’re hoping maybe that your gratitude has elicited some positive reaction from him.

“I don’t need thanks from someone I had no intention of saving.”

Did you just hear that correctly? He didn’t mean to save you? Your face was clearly showing your thoughts, and your mouth opened slightly.

“What?”

“I didn’t care about saving you, you weren’t even in my field of vision.” He leans in slightly, emphasizing his words to make sure you heard each one.

“Oh, okay! Well, thanks anyways.” You give him a stiff smile, and with a small huff, spin around on your heel and start walking towards the water. You couldn’t tell if you were feeling more bewildered or just pissed off. Seeing this, a small smirk creeps onto Ogata’s face.

“I’ll be looking forward to that favor.” He called out.

You crouch down by the water, and then spin your head around, your smile looking more like a grimace.

“Great!” You rip your kimono off, leaving a light lace undershirt and hakama, and begin furiously dunking your kimono in the river. It’s the most conversation you had with this guy, and he uses it to piss you off. He couldn’t even accept your thanks! Ogata lightly scoffs and turns back to the forest, looking through his binoculars, the smirk not leaving his face.

‘She’s so easy.’