The sun was slowly hiding towards the horizon and in only a few minutes darkness will fall. Sagang was all alone with the strange boy in the datu's hut. He noticed the the boy was wearing a warrior's clothing, he wore an embroidered warrior's vest and pants. He was also wearing a green putong on his head but Sagang saw no swords on him, but one thing that caught Sagang's eyes were the boy's necklace. The boy had a necklace just like him, a clear colored crystalline rock attached to a string. Sagang was filled with curiosity about the boy, why was he dressed up as a warrior and why did he have the same kind of necklace.
"Hey boy..." Sagang called quietly "...what's your name?"
The boy had his back against the wall, he was clearly close to panicking "Huh? ... I-it's Kinabuhi..." the boy then peeked into a hole in the window "...wait, those aren't aswangs, those are just people wearing animal skin."
Sagang found the boy's stupidity somehow amusing "You honestly believe in aswangs? Those bastards are just bandits who calls themselves aswangs then dress in animal skins... they think it scares the shit out of people like you." Sagang said with a grin.
"Well they ain't scaring me now" the boy somehow regained his composure "What are they doing here anyway? There's like two dozen of them here."
"...they come here every passing moon... and steal from us the weapons we make.." Sagang bitterly.
"Huh? Where's the datu? isn't he going to do anything?" Kinabuhi was surprised but Sagang only kept quiet and clenched his fist.
Kinabuhi stood up and uttered a sigh "All right, looks like no ones protecting you from those guys so I'll go instead, after that tell me everything."
Kinabuhi ran out the hut and dashed towards the bandits, Sagang tried to stop him but he was too late, when Sagang looked through the door Kinabuhi was already brawling with the bandits. Sagang could not believe what he saw, six people were already down but the bandits could not group him up, Kinabuhi was too fast, every time they try to surround Kinabuhi, he would just loop between their feet and strike them hard and another bandit would fall down holding his broken leg or swollen knee. Sagang noticed that the boy did have a weapon, but he does not think it could be called one, Kinahubi was wielding two thick wooden sticks. Kinabuhi would just dash in and then out of the fray striking the bandit's joints and they moved sluggishly making the chore easy for Kinabuhi, but then Sagang saw Kinabuhi stopped moving. One fallen bandit was holding his legs, stopping him from running.
Three men were now lunging towards Kinabuhi, there was no way that he could fend them off. Sagang tried to help but he could not move, his fear has once again frozen him in place. Their village were being saved again by someone yet Sagang could do nothing to help, then suddenly appeared a blur of black feathers and the three remaining bandits went down and standing in their place was a person covered in black cloth and a bird's skull on his head. Seeing that they had no chance of winning, the bandits ran away with their broken limbs while the others were carrying their downed comrades. The other villagers were now appearing from their huts and surrounded their heroes.
That night, a fire was built at the center of the balanggay and the people feasted without fear because of their saviors. Sagang could see Kinabuhi surrounded by the elders along with the mysterious masked man. Kinabuhi stood when he saw Sagang and approached him.
"Hey! How's it going? Wanna go for a walk? You owe me one, remember?" Kinabuhi said with a smile, it was as if he just played a game with the bandits a while ago.
Sagang nodded "Come with me."
"Where are we going?" Kinabuhi asked.
"To the datu's hut" Sagang watched his pace, he noticed that Kinabuhi was covered in bandaged wounds, no matter how fast you maybe it is still impossible to go fight with swords and remain untouched. The walk might open some wounds but Sagang needed his privacy, it wasn't his fault that the boy jumped headlong into danger.
