Jin would have creamed himself at the prospect of being able to lay traps, but he didn’t have the time, the tools, or the proximity. Maybe if they had a few hours warning, and maybe if he had a shovel and a smaller knife. Hell, even if they were just a mile away, he would have been more than able to cook something up. Pitfalls with spears yearning to impale; trip lines; falling logs. Maybe just a few choice spots to set up some cover, and the two of them could halve the numbers of nearly any advancing formation in a matter of seconds.

But time, tools, and proximity were exactly the things they did not have. Raikou and Kazamika resorted to whispering, even, just so that they would not be overheard by the party that awaited them on the other side of the line of scrimmage. In attempting to even make divots, just potholes to trip up anyone that fancied a rush, Jin would cause all kinds of noise and leave all kinds of clues. It seemed that their only options were either to fight or to retreat.

Then Raikou threw a curveball, hard and fast, and Jin had to catch himself from being toppled over by the sheer weight of the surprise. Eyes wide, brows curled curiously upwards, he leaned in.

"Really?"

One cannot truly blame Jin for his prosaic curiosity. He was of a simple mind, when it came to dealing with things outside of the realm of warfare and combat, and was not yet fully prepared to wrap his head around the prospects of magic. There were rumors, there had been since the day he was born, and some of these seemed more plausible than others. Of priests with the power to exorcise demons, or of the monks that could crack boulders with their bear hands. But what Raikou spoke of was…witchcraft.

Could it be true?

"Yes." Of course it was true. Jin but had to look into Raikou's face, and he knew it to be simply fact. This was not a joking matter, and when it came to the lives of men, Raikou was not a joking person. The pain in the painter's eyes told Jin all he needed to know.

"Yes. Yes I can. I need you to make a distraction. A large noise or something that attracts them all here." Jin stood up slowly and prepared himself to move. "I want to be able to use stealth to my advantage for as long as that advantage is available. After the noise, I need you to hide yourself Raikou, and hide yourself well.

"We can afford to lose an arm, not our voice."

And with that, Jin stalked back into the shadows and lay in wait.

Offtopic: Sorry about the wait. I've had a busy weekend.

It took no more than five minutes for the prophesied cadre came into view. Chujutsu maintained a position behind a tall, wide oak, back against it, tree between he and the enemy. They had slowly but surely made their way into the clearing that Chujutsu and Jin were avoiding, Chujutsu and Jin both hidden from view from those within the clearing. It was a matter of creating distractions, now, but that had to wait--just a moment, for them to settle . . . as it seemed they were going to do. How long had they been walking? Only they knew--but it was long enough to merit a brief rest while they had the space.

Were Jin to count the group, he'd find that Raikou was off: there were only twenty. Some senses, no matter how good, could be a little off sometimes . . .

Six of them were archers, equipped with helmets to keep the glare of the sun out of their eyes, quivers of arrows, long bows, and short shorts. Any longer blade would have been too cumbersome, too slow to draw in case of proximity combat, which increased the chance of death if their targets came too close. The other thirteen were trained for much closer combat: swordsman, conscripts they were, equipped with long swords rather than katanas. Gardini hadn't allowed non-samurai to wield katanas or even traditional armor. It was, perhaps, one of the very few traditions he adhered to.

One swordsman sighed and took a place upon the ground to sit. "How far do you believe they vacated?"

One peculiarly dressed archer, well decorated and, unlike the others amongst the group, not a conscript, replied gruffly, "The camp seemed only a day old, but it held a lot. They've covered their tracks, but not well. A large group like this has something to weight them down--women, children, that sort. They can't be too far. Further north and we'll find them."

A very debilitating concept. Chujutsu needed a moment to think, leaving the group of twenty a moment to rest. It was both mercy and necessity on his part. If all went well, they wouldn't be leaving this forest alive. They deserved to rest briefly. Likewise, while resting after a long time of walking, people were even more defenseless than before--they didn't have their guard up, and so long as Raikou and Jin made no sounds, they weren't going to put it up, either.

A single leaf fluttered down to the ground, swaying to and fro as the winds caressed its every edge. It settled onto the right leg of a simple swordsman, one still drunk on the romantic power that came with his blade; the authority that it offered. The ability to walk through a town and know that you were stronger than any peasant there, because you were a part of the Shogun's army. He looked up, idle curiosity striking him and coercing him to glance up to see what bird or manner of creature may have shaken the leaf loose.

From that point onward, that man never drew breath again.

Jin descended onto the traveling troupe with all of the furious precision of a bolt flung through the sky to strike them by the gods themselves. That man, that nameless soldier that looked up, had his face split like wood beneath the keen edge of a lumberjack's axe. That nameless man's compatriot, friend only in proximity and not through association, lost his head. First figuratively, screaming girlishly at a sight that he had never seen before, that of a man's life being taken, and then literally as he was silenced forever.

The bowmen were quick to react. At least one of them was. Jin grabbed hold of the collar of his first victim, hefting the heavy dead body up to form a fleshy barrier between himself and what is to be an imminent onslaught of arrows. He let go of his sword for a moment, something that most swordsman are told never to do, and flash his hand to his belt. Three shuriken screeched through the air, one caught an archer in the eye, the other in the hand, and the third missed complete. The third was meant to take the life of the well dressed archer, clearly the leader of this contingent, but it seemed his garb was more than just a flagrant display. That man earned his cloth.

The poison would kill the two archers soon enough. The one-eyed archer already found himself struggling against hypoxia, lips and fingertips turning blue. The one with the wounded hand had a few more minutes to live.

The arrows came swiftly from the others, peppering wetly the body that Jin used for just this purpose. He took hold of his sword and looked to either side; the remaining swordsmen were on their way. 17 enemies left.

Jin held the body up with his left hand and gripped tightly the hilt of his right. He ducked down a bit, sure to keep his head out of range of the bow, and waited. The archer's got wise; they either realized they were wasting ammunition or thought far enough ahead to realize that if they kept trying to shoot Jin, they might end up shooting their comrades instead.

Which meant they were close.

Thrust

Jin stepped to one side and lifted his right arm, releasing his hold on the body, grimacing at the feel of wind playing against his robes when the sword punctured the air where he once stood.

Slash

From in front this time. Both sides had caught up with him and one of them was trying to separate Jin's head from his shoulders. He ducked quickly, the guy behind him couldn't see the swing as it was obscured by Jin's body, and one swordsman decapitated another. Jin brought the sword between his legs, cut clean, and severed an important artery. He wouldn't die right now, but in a few minutes time he'd be a corpse.

He broke away from them complete now. Jin separated from the group and ran into the forest, sure that some numbers of the remaining 15 would follow. Not the bowman, the trees were too close to each other for that.

He needed Raikou for this.

Chujutsu didn't curse people often, or at all, but this was the first time he had been in charge of a mission of this caliber. Before, when he was in charge of fellow artists, he was a competent commander, but this was a bit different. It was perhaps understandable that Jin would not follow orders as strictly as Chujutsu had provided them. Chujutsu didn't curse people often, but when Jin acted before he could, he felt a strong sense of disappointment.

Jin was supposed to have waited for Chujutsu! Rushing like he did ruined quite a bit. All wasn't lost--they, Chujutsu and Kazamika, might not die, but there was no chance now of them keeping all of the enemies there. It was almost a guarantee that they were going to escape, at least a few of them, and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it now--Jin had jumped the gun. Let the targets walk into a trap, spring it, and then jump--don't jump before the trap is sprung! That was how game was lost.

And Kazamika had jumped before the trap was sprung . . .

He kept his back to a tree, ensuring that no one was to see him--not just yet. Ideally, he'd go through all of this without his face being seen once. Both he and Jin would have gone unseen had Jin not been hasty, but that couldn't be changed now.

Kazamika would be stopped in his tracks, thrown off of his feet by an unseen force, or perhaps anticipating it and jumping back to avoid an oncoming attack--though, it was highly unlikely. An attack that could not be sensed in any other way could only be dodged by a fluke, or by use of a sixth sense of some sort. It was, however, a blunt attack, and not a strong one--shocking, perhaps, just enough to throw Kazamika off of his feet.

"What are you doing here, Kazamika?" A familiar voice sneered, its location spanning all around Jin Kazamika, as if the forest itself was speaking to him--

A haughty tone and the direction (all around) it came from would be more than enough to tell Kazamika who he was dealing with. This wasn't a conscript. This was someone vastly superior to him. Someone he'd know as such--someone elite--someone who had thrown away his identity long ago--

The Chameleon.

A mistake had been made, and the burden for that mistake lay squarely on Jin's shoulder. Raikou was not the kind of man to leave someone high and dry. You could see it in his eyes, in the way he hesitated while formulating a plan to kill these twenty men, that he didn't have the heart. Something happened to Jin. The mounting pressures of the inevitable coupled with his precarious positioning underlined just how human this mankiller was. He slipped, or maybe it was just the wind, but either way the leaf fell. And when it touched one of the nameless swordsman, Jin knew he had no choice.

He could only hope that Raikou had found somewhere safe to stow away until the ride was over, and hoped ten times as hard that the promise of what his abilities would bring to the field were still playable.

Jin tossed a look over his shoulder and grinned smugly. The bowman did not bother themselves with the forest. The trees and the branches offered more than enough inadvertent protection and they did not seek to waste what little ammunition they had. If things went well, then those that remained behind would stay as is, too afraid to break away from the clearing in the hopes of avoiding what could be a much larger ambush. What kind of fools sent one man to attack a troupe anyway?

As for the four swordsmen that followed, Jin simply outclassed them. Their foot speed was admirable, but not quite comparable. By the time that he turned around, that he tore his eyes away from the ever-diminishing silhouettes of what could hardly pass as threats, it was too late to react accordingly to the strong pressure accumulated at the bridge of his nose.

He had this vague notion of stopping and lurching back, or rolling to the side; his legs tensed and his body relaxed in preparation, but it was too late. Something struck against him bodily and sent him reeling, skittering along the ground and falling onto his back. As he was trained, Jin went along with the momentum and rolled onto his feet. His sword, previously sheathed, was drawn in an instant and his eyes, furious, pierced every detail of the forest.

"Fighting to live." Jin's tone, curt and decisive, did not betray the rancor festering beneath the surface. Not fear, but anxiety. He could not fight the Chameleon. Maybe, maybe if it was a one on one battle, and they fought as samurai, then Jin had a fighting chance. But not like this. The Chameleon could drop ten Jin's without any of them being the wiser.

Jin looked behind him again. There was no need to keep his eyes forward, that monster could be anywhere. But the swordsman, now that Jin had stopped running, were closing in.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Jin looked straightforward, presuming that's where the Chameleon stood, and straightened his body.

"You are a servant to the Shogun now?"

"We always were, Kazamika."

Indeed, the swordsmen were catching up--but that was it. The archers couldn't even be seen anymore. They were either hidden well, or gone--Chujutsu had perhaps attended to some of them, but the leader of this expedition knew as soon as the previous mistake was made that he wouldn't be able to take care of every last one of them. Someone was going to get away. Now it was just a matter of who.

"It is our duty as Kensai to serve the land," the Chameleon declared as the four swordsman regained their composure, "Our blades belong to the Shogun. Our lives belong to the land."

The swordsmen had their blades drawn, each with their swords held out before them. Jin was cornered. The Chameleon was somewhere ahead of him, where was indiscernible. That was how he got his name--the identity that he took when he became an elite and devoted his life to the land.

Before, he was a haughty man--cocky, one who enjoyed fighting more than anything else. He still had that in him, but not nearly as strong. Now, it wasn't a fair fight that he sought anymore. When his enemies were ordained to die, he sought a massacre. When no one could see him, then he'd simply decimate an entire line of enemies. They'd never stand a chance. And under his helmet, he'd smile. That was all that remained of his old life.

"For a Kensai to . . . fight to live . . ." he continued, pausing a moment, "Is a disgrace. Kneel, Kazamika, and we will allow you to end your disgrace honorably."

Seppekku, he was suggesting. The elite Kensai was telling Jin outright that the only way now to cleanse himself of dishonor and disgrace was to take his own life. It wasn't an easy life, that of a Kensai. They had more to uphold than just a samurai. A samurai could become a ronin, and end his own life if he so chose--but a Kensai . . . that wasn't a status that one ran away from . . . doing so was to end any chance of survival. The offer to end his own life after that was the closest to mercy that Kazamika would find in his former compatriots.

"I don’t fight to live." Jin straightened his posture. Squared his shoulders and brought his arms down into straight lines; the left arm dangled freely and the right hand held a tight grip onto his blade's handle. The sword's tip touched the ground. Jin's honed senses ignited when he became acutely aware of the presence of the swordsmen to his back.

It was a laughable title when applied to these novices. Swordsman. Men with sharp sticks, nothing more. They insulted Jin's breed, the Kensai, and their lesser brothers, the Samurai, just by daring to swing a sword. They were children screaming desperately at the mountains, and yelling that they were equal.

"I fight for life."

But Chameleon. He had taken that final step into a blinding white that Jin was too cautious to let consume him. That other man was now more machine than he was man. Jin loved the sword, and once upon a time, he loved the Shogun as well. Pledged his life, his very essence, to serving Almaster. But that was a time before Jin was commanded to forfeit his humanity.

His sword? Yes. His life? Yes. But what made him human? That was something he could not bear to part with. Chameleon, apparently, had no such moral obligations.

"You said it yourself. Our lives belong to the land. The land. The land being sold back to us by outsiders. And the people on it. Not to one man whose only drive is greed and who wants to kill us all. Have you heard of the wars? We fight against whole nations, not for territory or for the betterment of our nation, but because of a simple insult.

"We serve…I served Almaster because he is supposed to be our savior. To protect us, and bring the nation to glory. I cannot give my sword arm to a man whose only drive is his greed and who wants us all to die. When has the massacre of our people ever been just?"

Could one reason with a fanatic?

Jin gingerly sheathed his sword, the hilt clicking thunderously when it met the rim of its scabbard. He brought one knee to the ground and then the other, laying the sheathed sword horizontally before him.

"You dishonor our name."

He said no more. Jin bowed his head low to the ground and extended his neck, waiting for the final blow.

The Chameleon said nothing.

Ideologies amongst Kensai were frivolous. Individualism amongst Elites was impossible. Dishonor their name? It was impossible for an Elite to do so. They possessed no individuality; nothing made them unique beyond their abilities. That was all. They followed their Master without question. Their faces meant nothing. Their flesh meant nothing. Their blood was just water, nothing more. They had nothing left of ideals or personal goals. Kazamika didn't know what he was talking about anymore.

He had been warped by the revolutionaries. They had forced their opinions on him, and now he was just like they were--warped, depraved. It was good that he was deciding to end it now. There was no better way.

The four swordsmen moved to stand closer behind Kazamika, just feet away from him, not as a precautionary measure, but to catch him when he fell--inevitably, following what would soon come.

The Chameleon showed himself. Standing before Kazamika was a man dressed down in tight armor--skin tight, it looked like. He was tall an thin, but his muscles were well developed, at least as far as they looked wrapped in ultra-flexible armor; the material, though, was hard to pinpoint. What it was, no one could say, no one but the elites themselves. A thin, scaled helmet covered his face, bearing only two eye holes, both covered in a red lining. Thin mirror coated platemail wrapped about his chest and padded his elbows, shoulders, and knees--elbow, rather.

Different about the man compared to the last time Kazamika had seen him was that his left arm was severed at the shoulder.

The Chameleon was often noted as one of the few Kensai that did not need to carry a blade. Edged "armor" upon his fingers acted as sufficient weapons, and did not weight him down like a full sword would have. For this purpose, though, he needed one--and he took Kazamika's.

Jin's sword in hand, the Chameleon silently set the blade against the man's neck, and after raising it once, swung it down in a hard arc towards the traitorous Kensai's throat . . .

At hearting the swordsmen to his back come to a rest a few feet away, the wind whistling as it carried itself briskly between their legs, and the leaves rustling on high, Jin turned his head slightly to face them. There, in his eyes, these man saw their demise. They were the eyes of a wolf; cold and without mercy. He turned away from the men, the men who had to fight with their legs to keep them from shaking, and looked up at the Chameleon.

At the exact moment that Jin saw the Chameleon’s true form, or what was left of it anyway, was the exact moment that his current reality really sank in. The promise, not the idea, of death made his bones heavy like cement and all the blood drained from his face, leaving the once-brazen Kensai with the porcelain face of a geisha.

Jin straightened his back and bowed his head, hands folded neatly in his lap, and eyes closed as he prepared himself for the inevitability of death. Jin signed his life away the moment he turned his back on the Shogun; he knew this, and accepted it readily. But to die like this? So early on, on the eve of his revolutionary incipience, before he has even had a chance to change the world? To die, right now, with only Chujutsu knowing his name.

And Chujutsu! What would happen know that their voice was lost?

The blade touched gingerly against the back of Jin’s neck, and Jin exhaled a cool breath. It lifted, paused for a half a second in the air, and a lightning bolt of awareness rampaged through the center of Jin’s brain.

The Kensai exploded from the ground in such a fashion that could only have been executed by human being whose muscles have been conditioned through hard years of use and repetition. Jin aimed to slam into the Chameleon’s front with the force of a human freight train, and bring his arm along the Chameleon’s side and against the Chameleon’s own arm to keep the sword at bay.

Jin’s free arm wrapped itself tightly around the Chameleon’s waist and, again with the strength and efficacy of a well conditioned and honed body, torqued heavily enough to one side to slam them both on the ground with Jin on top and the Chameleon’s arm hopefully pinned beneath his own body. Jin reached into his pocket, fingered a shuriken, bared his teeth, and then slammed the tip against the Chameleon’s rib with all the bodily might that his muscles offered when pushed to the breaking point.

Let see how the final page of a man’s story is written.

The Chameleon was notably surprised at this. What dishonor! Even he, a man once of few morals, whose habits of murder, senselessly so, never truly died, possessed a stronger grasp upon honor than Kazamika!

He fell back, Kazamika on top of him. The other men hadn't expected this, either. They didn't quite know what to do. The Chameleon was an elite Kensai--he could take care of himself, right? Unfortunately, no man was immortal, regardless of their affiliations. Everyone could die. Even the gods could--and someday, they would.

It wasn't even a fraction of a second after Kazamika got a hit in before he'd feel a horrendous pain in his ribs. The Chameleon had lifted his knees hard, an act which would press them suddenly into Kazamika's chest, before his legs continued with the act, intending to kick him away, back where four armed soldiers stood, their blades already drawn--and Jin Kazamika equipped with nothing more than his minor weapons, those throwing blades and their ilk. The Chameleon had not let go of Jin's sword.

Offtopic: Not my best post

It was a dishonor. Undeniably and tremendously. But he had given up his honor, at least how honor was defined by the Shogun and the Kensai, a long time ago. Days ago, by the calendar, but at least a life time by how his mind played out the events. He had given up their brand of honor when the men like him, sworn to protect the land, bathed it in the blood of its people.

There was nothing left for Jin to lose, expect his life. And that had been sworn to the revolution.

While back-pedaling, arms flailing wildly in the air as Jin desperately attempted to maintain his balance, he noticed something on his hand. A small indentation at the very center of his palm; one more pound of pressure and the shuriken tip would have punched through his skin. Mere moments ago, Jin was but a sneeze away from being given to the earth.

The four men, in whose midst he was thrown, were of no consequence. They were paltry annoyances if nothing more. Jin was not foolish enough to turn his back on them mind you, for a child with a stick can still swing wildly and hit something, but if he kept his head about him then he would get away from this alive.

All he had to do was keep a part of his attention on the Chameleon, wait him out until the poison lacing the shuriken stuck in his rib cage did its magic.

The process was hard to describe. They weren't exactly words. Fully formed letters did not form in his mind's eye, giving Jin proper warning of what to expect in such down-trodden and militant situations like this. The warning was much more vague. An impression. A hazy feeling of something or other. Danger, for sure, but with a bit more shape that give him a bit more insight than he would have had otherwise.

He was not precognizant and could not see the sword slashes before they came, but rather felt them as they embarked on their journey. It took precision and honed reflexes, even with this cultivated talent, to be able to move as effortlessly as Jin did, and an outsider might not even realize that every second he stood in the maelstrom of weaponry was a second that Jin could very well lose his life.

But even Jin, with all the years of experience backing him, was not exempt from error. He moved too slowly, or perhaps too quickly out of the way of one and into the way of another, and his back was consequently torn apart. Not so deep as to paralyze him, but enough to make him hurt and bleed.

From there he managed to rip the sword away from one of them, and now that he was armed, it was just a matter of time. He cut through the for men like paper tigers, suffering only minor contusions, bruises and lacerations save for the big one across his back.

And in the end . . .

The Chameleon stumbled back. Before him, Kazamika, a man who had just now slain four of his fellows--would be fellows, at least. Allies to Kazamika, had he never betrayed in the first place. But now, those transgressions were set in stone. Nothing could take them back.

The image blurred. The Chameleon grabbed his side. It felt . . . inflamed. The elite Kensai groaned. Something was making its way into his lungs, he could feel it. Had Kazamika poisoned him? It wasn't a possibility that was doubted for too long.

"Someday . . . I will kill you myself," the Chameleon whispered painfully as his parting words.

The figure of the elite Kensai faded, prompted only by a brief glimmer across his mirror coated armor. It started with his hand and right foot, a quick flash over his body as he disappeared entirely, leaving no trace behind that he had even been there at all, blending so perfectly that not even an outline could be seen, moving so tactfully that his footsteps could not even be heard through the brush. He did, however, take Kazamika's sword with him. Once the Chameleon was gone, everything became dreadfully silent--until . . .

"K-Kazamika-dono!" Chujutsu shouted from a distance.

It wasn't long before Chujutsu was there, somewhat out of breath. He had run quite a distance to get back to Kazamika--who was now alone, it seemed. Chujutsu stopped once there to hold onto the side of a tree in his vicinity, a method of keeping himself from falling over while he caught his breath.

"Are you all right?" he asked between pants.

With the immediate threat of the Chameleon and his lackeys completely cleared out of the vicinity, the adrenaline once surging through every arterial pathway available in Jin's body died down, and the kensai became increasingly aware of a certain sensation. A sharp, throbbing, flaming pain that cut a swath across his back; agony swam sluggishly to the fore of his mind and his vision began to flicker in and out of clarity.

The Chameleon had escaped with his blind. Though Jin held a sword in his hand now, this was not his sword. His sword was a paragon of excellence; folded one hundred times, a tang that reached deep into the hilt, and could cut through ten stacked corpses. Laying his sword on the river side would cut a lotus in half, if it found itself flowing towards the sword's razor-edge in passing. What he held now was a toy. A sharp piece of metal, of course, but nothing more than that; simply a sharp piece of metal. A sword in shape, but nothing worth mentioning in practice. Jin felt its frailty just in the way he held it.

By the time that Chujutsu arrived on scene, Jin found himself on the verge of unconsciousness, but some merit of valor or the inner strength requisite for his caliber of swordsman allow him to fight back the creeping blackness and stay standing. The pain, however, he could not ignore.

"I'm not alright." The cut, though not terribly deep, was also not too shallow. Shallow enough to leave his spine intact, still covered by layers of skin, fat, and muscle, but deep enough to inspire blood to run freely down his back. Not a stream, but salient nonetheless.

"An old acquaintance surprised me. I didn't think I'd ever seen him again. He's a lot stronger than I am. Better. I hope he dies within the next day. We need a fire."

Jin stumbled drunkenly towards the nearest tree, put his free hand firmly against it to keep his balance up, and gripped the hilt of the purloined blade a bit feebler as time progressed.

"As soon as possible. Start a fire, stoke it with this sword here, and wait until the metal gets hot. Then press it against my back and stop the bleeding. We can continue then."

Jin was . . . giving him orders, again . . .

Chujutsu furrowed his brow. He looked so girlish sometimes that he just couldn't be taken seriously. Perhaps that was the case, now. By appearance alone, he couldn't be taken too seriously, and he was so soft spoken that a irect order sounded more like a polite request. He just liked things better that way. But . . .

"I can do better than that . . ." Chujutsu whispered.

. . . now just wasn't the time to worry about it. Kazamika was injured. This had to be taken care of. The wound needed to be closed, and there were means available to him far better than taking the time to start a fire and cauterize the man's wound. They didn't have the time for that, anyways.

Chujutsu stepped over the bodies apologetically, pausing once he was beyond them. He took in the whole of the area, paying attention to every little detail of color. It seemed that the pallet here was vast. Good.

"Sit down," it was a direct order, but still presented in a very kind, polite way--but with enough urgency to suggest that Kazamika needed to do just that.

Jin had no problem taking orders from Chujutsu. Perhaps confusion could be had with that statement in light of most recent events, but those most recent events, this one included, have been a matter of life and death, and it is hard to ignore one's instinct in times so dire. He had known Chujutsu for the period of less than one day, and though he respected the man and his messages immensely, it would take more than that to overcome the hard-wired nature of a warrior. Especially that of self-preservation.

Now that things had died down a little, now that the only sound to be heard above the dialogue between the two men were the susurrus of leaves and the whistle of the wind as it raked through the branches, Jin's mind had lost its turbulence. He sat when ordered and did not complain when the gash along his back gushed and pain sent electric tentacles rooting into his brain.

"I'm sorry about earlier." Though Jin's voice held a tone of subversion to it, it still left his lips in a stentorian fashion. "I thought I had given you enough time. I miscounted. The sound of my heartbeat must have thrown me off."

The ex-kensai was curious as to what Chujutsu planned on doing. Jin had a feeble grasp of the existence of magic, though he could hardly claim himself even a base practitioner, and having missed his chance to see it in action during the skirmish, he was eager to see what Chujutsu had in store for him.