A Journey through Kingdoms

CHAPTER 8- BANDIT BRAWL

"Alright. Bandit boss, bandit boss, where would a bandit boss want to stay?" Tetsuga scours around in the shadows of the village as he searches for Yurie after gaining intelligence from the girl in the prison. "Think, Tetsuga. What would a bandit boss do?" He starts to think long and hard about where it is before noticing a house in the distance. He gets to a better vantage point and sees the bandit that brought Derrick to Yurie. He walks out of the house, along with a slight glimpse of Derrick and Yurie inside, before the door closes behind him. "Gotcha."

Tetsuga sneakily makes his way through as he makes sure he is not seen by anyone. Once he had reached the house, he climbed up to the roof where no one could walk in on him, spying as he lay down on top of it, eavesdropping on the conversation between Derrick and Yurie. "Alright, you two. Start spilling," he says as he listens in. "You're probably wondering why we've captured you," Yurie said as Tetsuga placed his ear on the tiles of the roof. "Well, some would have the thought, yes. But I assume it's because of a bounty on my head, right?" Derrick replied.

"A bounty, eh? Heh. Been there, kid," Tetsuga says before listening in again as he tries to follow along with their talk. "Can I ask you one question, Yurie?" Derrick asked, to which Yurie responded with a snide. "Sure. You're going to get traded off as soon as the sun rises, and when my contractor gets here, I'll bite. Go on, boy," the bandit said as he let the boy ask. "So, considering you are a bandit, Mr. Yurie, why do you steal or pillage? Is it for survival? Necessity?" Derrick asked, which was replied to with a chuckle.

"Why do I steal and pillage? Look around you, boy. This world is full of weak people that always settle for less, so I take it. Take every single thing they have just because I can. Those who can't control their things are weak, Especially those who give away their crops in exchange for worthless people," he explains. As the words left his mouth, Tetsuga felt a slight sensation of irritation as the words reminded him of someone. "Y'know, I didn't have to kill their village Chief. I just did so because I wanted to show them that I'm in control now."

"Alright. Shows over," he said, not wasting a second as he dropped down from the roof in front of the door where a bandit was standing guard. "What the!? Where the hell did you come from!?" The bandit yelled in surprise, but Tetsuga was quick to shut him up as his forearm started to glow a blue hue before flying it towards the bandit's face. "AUGH!!" The bandit was then sent back, flying right into and through the door. Breaking it open into pieces and shards. "What the hell!!?" Yurie shouted as Tetsuga stared back.

"Oops, my hand slipped," he said as he prepared to take them on after now just revealing himself. "It's you! From the city earlier! Ha! Ha! How have you been?" Derrick, on the other hand, did not skip a beat to gleefully greet Tetsuga again after meeting him for the second time today. "Now is not the time for catching up, kid!" Tetsuga tells him before noticing Yurie behind the Alchemist. "Duck!" Tetsuga yells as Derrick ducks down to dodge a swipe from Yurie that was aimed at his head. "Woah! Wasn't that a close one?"

"I'll beat your skull in!!" Yurie shouts as he pushes Derrick to the side with his foot before rushing in to face Tetsuga with a saber. He swings the sword at him but gets evaded by Tetsuga as he weaves away from his flurry of strikes. After dodging a few of his attacks, Tetsuga kicks him away before uppercutting him away as he lands on top of the table he sat at earlier. He destroyed it as he landed. "Alright kid, let's get out of here!" Tetsuga waves for Derrick to follow him out, but the boy has noticed something behind him.

"Not to alarm you, but there are several blunderbusses pointed directly at us," he says as Tetsuga looks behind him as he sees several bandits have rallied around with their weapons trained at them. "Oh, fuzz buckets!" Tetsuga yelled before hurrying inside to hide from the ensuing gunshots as their bangs rang out into the night and their smoke painted the air. "Looks like we're cornered!" Derrick exclaims as he hides behind the wall across from where Tetsuga was hiding to avoid the gunfire. "Yeah, I can see that kid!" Tetsuga responds back with a little snark in his tone.