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Post by Musashi on Jun 6, 2008 22:10:01 GMT -5
"Ninja are just too expensive"
Those had been the words, the exact words, from the Fire Lord's messenger.
Musashi stood amidst a circle of bodies, white armored warriors backing away from him and the corpses of their comrades, all the while holding spears between themselves and him. There were many of like-clad soldiers between him and the mass of red armored warriors that he had come into the battle with, men he had trained and fought beside, who were even now fighting to get to him before he was swarmed by the larger enemy force.
His face was expressionless, and his eyes unfocused. He was seeing the last meeting he had with his Lord, when he told him that they would be going on a raid into the neighboring country of Wind. The reason that they were using soldiers instead of ninja was, simply, the price of ninja was too high. Because of their pseudo-mystical abilities, and the power struggles amongst the clans, the price of Ninja was steadily climbing.
And the price of the soldier was dropping like lead.
Musashi's eyes refocused and he let loose a growl, stepping forward and bringing his twin blades to bare. He may have overextended himself, but he would make his enemies pay in blood the price that the Fire Lord refused to pay. "To me!" He shouted, holding his weapon, the Onigiri high. His enemies saw the blade, covered in the red fluid of their comrades, and the prayer beads entangled in the tsuba.
They knew who it was they were facing now.
Another few steps and a snap of his blades, and Musashi had sliced the heads from spears, only to step further in without getting stabbed, and bring his blades around. His katana slashed down to his right, the wakizashi in his left coming up to balance the drop, and he took out two soldiers only to turn and slash through the neck of a third. His blades didn't stop moving, and he carved a path through the enemy forces.
An arc of blood painted the white armored tide, marking Musashi's path as he fought back to his soldiers. The red fisherman's band around his forehead marking him as a Hi no Kuni soldier, even if his clothing wasn't entirely red as it should have been. When finally he reached the red clad infantry of his unit he marked the falling back of the advance, both sides separating and leaving the dead to the crows while they tended wounds and reworked strategies.
Musashi paused as the soldiers turned back to the main camp, cheering for their courageous commander. He looked over his shoulder, and allowed his gaze to sweep the dead. The price of Shinobi was too high, he had been told. So, the value of life had dropped. A sigh escaped his lips and he trudged back to the main camp of the Fire country's forces. Looking towards his homeland, the Kawa region of Hi no Kuni, he wondered if his Lord would have put the price of Shinobi above the value of life...
He wondered, but no answer was forthcoming.
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