23 – Back to Business

Guang told me that he would do what he could for Yomi, the lotus in my possession being just what he needed. I left him to it, the old man tending to Yomi’s wounded side with both the flower and a strange rod of copper.

There was no reason for me to hang around past that point, after all. I was much better at breaking people than I was fixing them. And anyway, getting her the flower was payment enough.

Surviving what came next was all on her.

“Oi, Aniki,” Haita said, leaning on a fence as I left Guang’s office. “Is it true? Was there really a yokai in these parts?”

“There was,” I replied. “The woman in there killed him. Saved your whole village.”

“Ha.” He gave me a jagged grin, a faint gleam in his eye. “You and I know the truth about what really happened, don’t we?”

“What really happened is none of your fucking concern, and I’ll slap you if you try and spread stories about me.” Leave it to this idiot to try and push his luck.

“Relax, Aniki, I know you value your privacy. So, er…” He fidgeted with his hands, his eyes shifting from side to side. “Need any work done on the farm?”

I sighed. “Well… those bastards damaged my fence, right when I’d gotten the damn thing looking the way I’d wanted it. So, if I can trust you to do it, I’ll have you mend the posts. In the meantime, I need to feed my hellcat and check up on his wounds.”

And so I set off, taking the familiar track along the north of Tiode, and Haita giddily followed me. It saved me some trouble, since his time working the farm had made him decent at working wood, and I was at least a little worried about Smoke.

“So uh,” Haita said, deciding that I would much rather hear his fucking voice than the sounds of nature, “you’re probably going to say it’s none of my business, Aniki, but… what’s your story anyway?”

“It’s none of your business,” I said.

“Ha. Right. It’s just uh… Well, you have to admit, you’re an oddity in these parts. I mean… we get the smugglers and some sailors from the west, but… it’s not like any of them want to live here. And then there’s, you know, that strength of yours.”

I exhaled slowly through my nose. “All you need to know is that I was a bad man. Hells, I still am, just… trying to be less of a bastard,” I said.

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“You can be pretty mean for someone who wants to be less of a bastard, Aniki.”

“I said trying to be,” I replied through clenched teeth. “My point is, I came out here for my own reasons. Good reasons, I reckon. Whoever I was before, you don’t need to know. And it’s better that you don’t.”

There was a man standing by the gate to my farm. A portly man, a few inches shorter than me, large circular lenses resting on his plump cheeks. In his hands he clutched a large wooden box. The sight of him made me tense. He might not have looked like a warrior, but neither had many of the strong wizards back home.

Looks could always be deceiving.

“Oh, that’s…” Haita perked up, raising a brow, then he suddenly paled. “Damn, it’s Mikan’s father, Ryu!”

Ah. So he was alive. And when I got close enough, I could see a little similarity between them. Their noses were the same shape, and he had the same shade of brown in his hair. “Huh. Haven’t seen him around the village before,” I murmured