Girls did not speak.
Their words had dried out due to the Shinji’s menace.
“No need, Shinji.” Fujimoto said by picking up a sack.
He shook it to hear coins rattle inside. Shinji did not wait to hear anything from there.
He decapitated both of them in a single blow. The fat customer crept out of the bed on pool of blood to see half split bodies.
“How dare you kill my mistresses?” the angry man walked towards Shinji.
But Shinji did not mind being annoyed by a stranger. The old man walked out of the room in anger.
Shinji watched his coins inside the bag.
“I wonder how much these girls spent.” Shinji tied the bag.
When Shinji moved his eyes to the door then he saw guards with their swords drawn. Behind them was the same old man who yelled, “See, two murderers have sneaked in this city.”
To their misfortune, Shinji hadn’t put his sword back in sheath either.
“I don’t want more deaths.” Shinji said.
“Then you shouldn’t have caused it in the first place.” A guard came forward with his sword held high.
Shinji stabbed him. The blade went through him like butter. But another guard was running at him while his sword was stuck in the corpse. Pulling the great-sword from the body, he slashed in at another guard – whose fate was no different.
Guards divided and the half of them charged at Fujimoto, hoping they would spill his guts out.
“I am no different than him.” Fujimoto said after chopping a guard’s head with ease, “All I lack is a big sword like him.”
Slaughtering proceeded from there. The guards were losing their body parts while Fujimoto and Shinji were yet to get a flesh-wound.
Their swords were not missing the mark. Fujimoto was the one to end the fight by stabbing a crawling guard.
Count of corpses had reached eleven.
“Where’s that loose mouth fatso?” Fujimoto peeked out of the door.
Shinji began to wipe blood from his sword.
“I don’t remember you being this good with blades.” Fujimoto had to say, “Will you tell me where you got this great sword from?”
“From a good forger.” Shinji said as Fujimoto walked beside him in the passage.
“You have been keeping secrets, aren’t you?” Fujimoto’s voice changed.
“Yes. And don’t even think of being part of it.” Said Shinji while they were leaving the brothel.
Without exchanging any words, the two cut-throats hit the street again in search of Tetsu’s address.
However the result remained same. Tired, they headed for a natural tap to drink water.
In total, there were twenty of them in a single place.
Those taps appeared to be things of elegance with dragons carved on their mouths.
“You know why such hated creatures are given this much priority?” Shinji broke silence when he gulped the fresh water. He did not even wait for Fujimoto to hum, “The king who lived here long ago believed dragons are misunderstood creatures. In fact he loved them. And he wanted people to love them as well. So he made these dragon sculptures.”
“You know a lot about this city, don’t you?” Fujimoto also drank some water, “Have you already been here?”
“You are again trying to be part of something confidential.”
“Explains everything.”
“See, I don’t want to be rude. Not to you.”
“Doesn’t seem you are trying.”
“Don’t blame this man.” A young man intervened, “This city is renowned. The man with sword must have heard about here at some point of time.”
“Sorry, who are you?” Fujimoto narrowed his eyebrows.
“Just someone who has seen you wandering in alleys of the city ten times a day.” Young man smiled.
“And happened to meet us.” Shinji said, “Doesn’t seem like a mere coincidence to me.”
“This might be fortune for you.”
“Then don’t keep the fortune waiting, boy.”
“Everyone here knows where Tetsu lives. But nobody will tell you the address.”
“And why would you?”
“I hear you have coins.”
“Who told you?” Shinji got alerted.
“A rich man can’t go unnoticed here.”
Shinji plucked out a coin from his bag, looked around for anything suspicious and when he didn’t see any, he tossed the coin at young man.
He caught it with delight.
“Follow this route. Then you will see a big banyan tree. Take left from there and soon you will see a yellow house. It is where Tetsu lives.” He said then started to disperse from the cut-throats’ company.
“Wait. Why didn’t anyone tell us about it? Why did you sell the detail for a coin while nobody else did?”
Young man turned at them, “Because I have nothing to gain from Tetsu.”
They let him go from there.
