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“Wait!” The desperate lad ripped off his bronze mask and, with great effort, pushed himself up against the wall of the brick farmhouse as he caught his breath. “Wait! My father—"

He let out a shriek as Homura slammed her foot into the ankle of his good leg. She raised her eyebrow, looking at the young man’s knee on the other, bent the wrong way and caked in bloody dirt. His face was full of fear and tears.

“Y’know, you’re not half-bad looking. Ever tried asking?” Her face twisted into a bloodthirsty grin.

Cat ears pricking up, she heard a few heavy thumps from behind the house along with the howl of another man, then the tell-tale death rattle of a third. Kingsley was likely finishing up.

The lad’s eyes widened in terror as he pleaded, “He’ll pay you any sum you want. M-my father, he’ll get you a ship!” His eyes darted between Homura’s bloodstained face and the long, exotic blade she held, dripping wet with his blood.

A ship? Mmm… I bet.

“So,” she sighed as she stepped off his ankle, “the bastien girl with the black hair, what was it that you called her?” She crouched down to his level, scanning his face for a response.

The lad tilted his head a little, still breathing heavily. “W-what do you mean?” His eyes locked into Homura’s bright blues, searching for her intent.

He’s got an inkling.

“Looks human, but with cat ears and a tail like me! Lustrous black tail, though, and long dark hair. Maybe my age! Last night?” She paused for a moment to relish the growing terror forming on the lad’s face. “What did you call her, just before you bid her goodnight?” She ended her question with a feigned smile.

“H-how do you—”

Her blade whipped across the lad’s face, cutting through fingers that had tried to block the slash. His jaw dropped and hung loosely as she cleaved him cheek-to-cheek. She sat back, falling onto her rump, and watched him sputter blood as he tried to mend his jaw with fingerless hands.

“Keep calling us demonspawn while treating us worse than animals, eventually you’ll get the claws, no?” Her voice was dripping with disgust.

She knew he wasn’t capable of responding, but she wanted him to hear her accusations. He now lay motionless as blood continued to dribble from his jaw, painting his shirt a dark red.

Philosopher plough him. He probably didn’t hear a thing.

Homura eyed her blade, dripping with blood. Blood that was worth less than the dirt it bled on. Noble blood.

I hope you can rest now, kin. Whoever you were.

The blood had stopped dripping, the blade renewed. She tucked it into the sheathe on her back.

Slow, heavy footsteps accompanied by faster, lighter ones approached her from behind. She stood up and twirled around to face the two.

“You’ll pass for a red-head now, Homura.” A mountain of a man, dark enough to pass for a shadow, approached. He carried a metal staff that was all bloody at the bottom.

A silver-maned, fox-eared inari lady accompanied him, wiping a shortsword clean of blood with a scrap of fabric. “Water’s still clean in the house. Get yourself a quick scrub, yeah?”

Homura smiled until her eyes were tight and nodded, then ran inside the ransacked house to the large tub of water by the kitchen. As she scrubbed the blood off her body, clothes, and out of her blonde hair, she overheard the couple chatting.

“I didn’t ‘spect them to be all the way out here already,” sighed the man, scratching at his beard. “Really didn’t want you to see that, little dove.”

“Please, I was with Lionel for half a decade before you fell in!” Yui, the inari lady, laughed back at him.

“Yeah, about Lionel…”

The inari dropped to a low whisper with her mate. “She’s being much too selfish, Bear! She needs to come to Osinjolu with us. We need her for the journey!”

Bear. Only Yui called him that. Bear Kingsley was just the majestic and intimidating Kingsley to everyone else.

“I can hear you, you know! And I know you know!” Homura shouted.

They sighed in unison and entered the house to confront her directly as she finished cleaning up.

“Don’t act like you two can’t handle the journey on your own. That sailing route’s safe as they come.” She recalled the slender inari handily cutting down one of the armed men. She’d seen her face worse odds. Yui was with child, though. She wouldn’t be nearly as capable in a couple of months.

“An even better reason to depart from Osinjolu! And there’s a place for you there if you want to stay. Bear has family there!”

And I’d lose at least a month.

Homura shook the water out of her hair and ran her fingers through it. It was clean now, but its spiky wetness and short length gave her an almost boyish look, only contradicted by her feminine face and voluptuous, yet muscular, body. “You know where I stand on the issue. I’ve been training for years now. The fact that I’ve got this intel and the Bronze Masks…” Her voice had grown to a stern growl. “It’s now or never, Yui.”

Kingsley grabbed three traveling packs and carried them to the door. Only the essentials. Mostly food. He dropped two on the floor as he slung the largest one over his shoulder.

“You ain’t gonna change her mind now, dove. Unless we’re gonna hogtie her and carry her with us?”

The inari crossed her arms as she glared at Homura. “There is justice in living a happy life. Wasn’t that the point?”

She was right. Homura and Kingsley both knew it, but the fury never left Homura. The curse of youth, perhaps. That, and those memories she couldn’t shake.

“Fuck,” Yui whimpered as a stream of tears flowed from her golden eyes. “If it were any other time, I would’ve been ready.”

Homura walked over and pulled her into a tight hug. “I know.” She felt Kingsley’s rough hand patting the top of her head.

The trio exited the house, traveling packs slung over their shoulders. The moon cast its silver glow over the quiet farm. The crop fields were empty after a successful harvest and the vastness of Homura’s home for over seven years came into view under the pale light. It was an almost meditative scene, were it not for the dozen bodies scattered about: throats slashed, heads crushed, or chests caved in as their spilled blood soaked into the dirt. She glanced at the noble propped up against the house, his jaw hanging loosely from a few strands of flesh and muscle, a menacing bronze mask laying by his side.

Bear had cut the oxen loose—they were busy scarfing away at the bales of hay just outside their barn. They had a decent chance of making it on their own, especially if they stuck to the farmlands and found a new home. Homura could only hope they didn’t end up on a butcher’s block.

“Patrick Steward, Hansa banker in Cyrine?” asked Homura, glancing up at Kingsley.

“That’s right. Bald fellow, fancy accent. Human. Once we’ve settled, I’ll send ‘im a package addressed to you. It’ll have everything you need to track us down.”

She nodded at him. She was going to miss that face. Dark, wrinkled skin tanned even darker by the harsh Zyrdian summer. A mess of black tangled hair and a bushy beard that would tickle Homura when she would ride on his shoulders as a child. Those brown eyes had so much kindness in them. So much violence for those who would hurt his loved ones.

“And you better write back soon as you can!” Yui added.

After one last goodbye, the older duo began their journey to the west as Homura took off to the northeast.

When was the last time she had been alone?

She thought about that dream she had. The memory that was not hers. The decomposing corpses found in cell after cell. The overwhelming stench of death and decay.

How long had they sat abandoned in that squalid dungeon? That growing feeling of rage towards the nobles who would abandon slaves to starve and rot in cages. And then the tiny bastien child, skin wrapped tightly around its skeletal frame from starvation. Irons around its neck, wrists, and ankles.

But it clung to life, breathing and shivering slightly as it lay next to a small puddle that had formed below a grated window, crumbs of moss around its lips as it faintly attempted to chew.