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I frantically looked for a way out as the man in red stood still in front of me and the bandits were closing in from behind. “Boss…That kid is dangerous…She uses Hibiscus poison… if it wasn’t for that antidote, we would still be on the floor reeling…” One of the bandits behind me said with watery eyes. “Haha…so I’d expect. Hibiscus powder is rare these days…who taught you how to refine it to a poison like that?” The man in red said…I looked straight past him at his goonies to see what they were planning on doing. The man in red sensed my uneasiness and signaled all his subordinates to leave immediately. All of them bowed at the same time and in the blink of an eye they were gone without a trace. I took this opportunity to strike…I threw my bag at the man and as he brushed it aside with one even motion of his hand… I charged him with a barrage of fist and kick attacks since it seemed the powder was rendered useless to me now. It was very strange he seemed to predict my moves and was able to block them with ease… as if he could read my mind. I pulled out the knife from its sheath at my side and continued the barrage of attacks…The man in red changed his attack pattern to the defensive, then he took a cut in the arm in order to get the knife away from me. After that he threw me off balance sending me back first to the ground… He pinned me down with one hand, and held the knife too me with the other…

I remembered Kiel doing the same thing when he first taught me how to use a knife as a weapon… His words seemed to overlap the man in red words as if they were side by side speaking at the same time. “You must defend yourself better and never let your enemy take your weapon from you…lesson number” the man in red begun to say “42” I Finished. “Kiel taught me that and how to make the poison from the powder of the Hibiscus petals…” I said and the man in red suddenly backed off dropping the knife a few steps away from me…it’s blade stuck in the ground and the man in red had a puzzled look on is face. “Kiel was my teacher as well, a little over 10 years ago…I was 6 years old when I met him. My parents seemed like they were always too busy to play with me, so at 6 years old I ran away, and Master Kiel took me in. My name is Akairo Takeru (Red Rising Sun) … I’m sorry about the way my gang treated you back there.” The man in red said offering his hand out to me. “Rayne Onmi. I think I did more harm to them then they did to me.” I said shaking his hand.

We stayed up well into the night exchanging stories as we walked along the path to Akairo’s Village, where he offered me lodging since it was so late. I told him about my past and how I was looking for the bandits with the name “Sabyo”…He told me the Sabyo clan lived in the basin where the land was smooth and a river divided their territory in half. Akairo also told me how Sabyo is the most ruthless of the bandits…stealing a killing just to get rich. There are few gangs including my own that steal only what they need to survive and they never take a human’s life under any circumstances…Those kind of bandits are not really a big concern to general population…most people just refer the as less fortunate folks trying to get by and leave them be. The ones that are real problem are the ones with blood lust like Sabyo…They make the general population think all of us that live in this territory are the bad people when most are not…most are just trying to make it in this world. Akairo told me a lot more about his village and the people in it before the village came into view and the sun begun to rise.
{End of Chapter 6}