Bandit Country

The ride had been uneventful; he didn’t even need much of a change of clothing to pretend to be a merchant, with the exception of the long hooded cape that he had to wear to pretend to be a merchant. The bitter cold of the evening was nothing to him if refreshing, he almost felt cold. Almost. When he started noticing movements at the periphery of his vision, he also noticed the Uzumaki had been talking. The Yuki would nod along, ashamed to admit he had put his plugs in earlier just in case they were ambushed and the Uzumaki forced to play his flute at the drop of a hat. Yet, as far as ambushes went, this one was quite amateurish. No tree blocking the path, no maiden in distress. They just pulled bows, and two sneaky bastards approached the horses to halt them and threaten them with swords.

Time to get to work, he guessed. Just before he got up, the Uzumaki spoke to him and drew his flute. “WHAT?”, he exclaimed, as he couldn’t hear him, but when he put the flute to his lips, he knew there was not much time left.

Snake, Ram, Boar, Bird, and a clap of his hands as if to go along with the harrowing tune of the flute, wind surrounded the both of the Yuki, pulling back his cloak and causing his hair to violently snap at the night sky. In a skip off the carriage, he landed on the first man’s face, breaking his nose and orbital bones on impact, and a jump onto the nearest man to a gut punch so powerful, internal bleeding might follow soon. In a blink of an eye, one by one, the Yuki dished out pain and regret onto each one of the bandits that surrounded the carriage, his chakra slowly draining, but the gratuitous violence worth it. Inside his skull, it cackled, as if a grim version of the Uzumaki’s usual cackles of joy.

Finishing with the second man holding the horses, a knee strike to the base of the spine that nearly folded the man inside his own clothes, the grounds were now carrying the screams of pain and sorrow of a bunch of bandits, none of which reached Noboru’s ears. His breath labored, he looked up to the Uzumaki, waving his arm to allow him to recognize it was time to put the flute away, and start piling the beaten thugs onto the carriage, destination, and prison.

He leaned on the horse for support for a moment while he caught his breath, the technique dispelled while the horse whinned as if he was starting to get spooked by the pain surrounding it. “Shhh, there there, buddy, it’s all over now.” He patted and petted the horse’s hair, the bristles soft and hard at the same time against his palm while taking off his earbuds. He smiled at his friend. “Thanks. I practice a lot in my own head.” He went around and got a few bundles of rope, which he would start binding around the wrists and legs of the men whose bodies and spirits he just broke. “Tag ‘em? Heh. Just call them John Does. The System can tag them later”, he called out to the Uzumaki.

One, two, three, the bodies of the disgruntled thieves were piled on the back of the decoy empty caravan. How ironic, they ambushed their own prison escort. With the heavy lifting done, the Yuki and Uzumaki finally sat in the carriage. “Play us off, music man.”

Once at the prison, the duo would hand over the criminals one by one to a series of guards and nurses who attended to the severely wounded. The nurses seemed to be shocked at the violence perpetrated on common men, but the guards took a sadistic joy of the beating applied. “Comes with the territory”, he thought to himself. Once they got paid, it was time to call it a night, and the duo went their separate ways.