After the samurai retreated with whatever shreds of dignity he could salvage, the cheers from the surrounding crowd rang out enthusiastically and showed no sign of diminishing. People pressed forward to express their gratitude and admiration, voices overlapping in a warm, chaotic chorus directed at all three of them—though Nathan, despite his disguise, drew particularly wide-eyed looks from anyone who had witnessed what a bare hand had done to a master-crafted katana.
Then the old man who had been at the center of the original confrontation appeared through the crowd, pushing forward with the urgency of someone with something specific and immediate on his mind.
