Jintaru let Nomi speak, the Gods knew the man loved the sound of his own voice. Whilst he pulled on his pipe, occasionally sipped his sake, the goading and arrogance of the many before him was taking a pair of bellows to the fire in his veins. He had to remain calm, the silver-haired bastard wanted him to lose his temper, wanted conflict, lived for it even. Jintaru was not going to give him the satisfaction. But Nomi had crossed a line.

[color=orangered]“The man you once knew…is dead, Yanimura. There is no slumbering, nothing shunned nor pushed aside. He is dead. Honour and loyalty are as meaningless as the lives of those who dedicate themselves to those ideals. It took me a long time to learn that lesson, but learn it I have.”[/color] Knocking the charred herbs from the bowl of his pipe, Jintaru replaced it within the folds of the bedroll slung around his waist. His tone was calm but inside, he was levelling mountains. [color=orangered]“We’ve had a drink together, we’ve exchanged words and it is has been as civil as we get with one another but I swear to you, if you ever speak of my wife or my son again, especially to presume to tell me what have and haven’t done for them, I will take your head from your shoulders. Do you understand?”[/color]

He stared at Nomi for a long time. He wanted the man to know that this was no idle threat. He then poured what was to be the last of the sake from the bottle into his cup and let the vessel sit in front him. He wanted to rip worlds apart, he wanted to paint a new atlas with blood and bones. In that moment, he wanted to pile corpses to the heavens and scream curses in the faces of the Gods. But he didn’t. Instead, he took another sip of sake and looked back at the man opposite him. He wouldn’t appreciate the irony of this until later but had Jin Long still been ‘alive’, the almost blinding rage that burned within him would not exist and he would be centred enough to have felt the leaden tone of the forest, to have felt the presence of people hiding within its embrace. But the anger was winning, robbing him of something important.

[color=orangered]“I have a better idea, Yanimura.” He began. “I will do no such thing. I will go and speak with Ornestoro, and pick up my next job, with no involvement from you whatsoever. Then I will carry on with my “miserable life” never having to care what you want or why you want it.”[/color]

He heard the young woman approach but he sensed her first. A mixture of aroma and energy, royalty, he had spent enough time in the service of others like her to recognise the way the air seemed to writhe over her skin, as though hesitant to touch her. She didn’t belong here, and if she didn’t belong here, why was she here? And why was she so brazen about her own presence? Not a runaway then. Before he could ruminate much further on the appearance of the woman, a man approached the table at which he and Nomi were sitting. In what must have been his early fifties, the man walked with a slight hunch and a shuffle that spoke of gout or arthritis. 

[color=6ecff6]“Excuse me, Sir. But a group of men just down the road asked me to give you these.”[/color]

With that, the old man placed five coins down on the table in front of Jintaru. The same five coins he had given the boy. The old man shuffled off on his way and Jintaru picked up the coins from the table. 

[color=orangered]“Perhaps the lad isn’t as quick as I first thought.”[/color]

Just then, two blasts came from within the tavern which drew Jintaru’s attention. He snarled silently, he hated guns. A coward’s weapon, a way to distance oneself from killing, of pretending you’re not taking someone’s life. There was commotion inside but it didn’t seem like a brawl. He didn’t really have time to dwell on it. The boy had gone unpaid for his work. This needed to be rectified.