The walk back to the village itself was uneventful, but things quickly escalated once Kan'u, Chouhi, and Haruto arrived there.
The moment they approached the gates, a desolate scene greeted them. Doors were kicked down and buildings were stained with scorch marks. Corpses were strewn about in the city, lying in pools of their own blood. The only place that seemed relatively untouched was a large, tiered building that was enclosed by the wall surrounding the town; the massive black gates that protected it were untouched. With a snarled, incomprehensible curse, Haruto drew Blood-Scythe and held it ready to strike as he dashed forward. Both Kan'u and Chouhi, however, remained frozen in place, though Chouhi soon snapped out of it and followed after Haruto.
"...The Turbans," Kan'u whispered to herself, taking a few shallow steps further into the village. "They must have done this. While I was finding him, perhaps...?" She pressed a hand to her face, grinding her teeth together. "Damn! This is… this is my fault."
"Bullshit," Haruto said as he walked back toward her, stowing Blood-Scythe again. He could tell that the stony look on her face was mostly put-upon, a front to stop herself from letting her real emotions show. "Besides that, if you had been here they might have overwhelmed you. Even losers can be dangerous in numbers." He watched Chouhi go farther up the street, then sighed, wincing when the action caused his chest to burn. "The squirt thinks that anyone left is hiding out somewhere around here. Come on. We've gotta help her find 'em and figure out how we're gonna counterattack those Turban assholes."
"The people here aren't warriors, my lord." Kan'u said, slowly shaking off her malaise to look Haruto in the eye. "And after a defeat like this they may not want to even try to fight back. We'll have to convince them into it."
Haruto snorted. "Good thing I'm here then. Isn't that exactly what this Messenger of yours is supposed to do? Rally the people to kick some ass, end the war-torn era or whatever? Don't tell me you don't believe the shit you told me just a while back. If you don't believe it, you can't expect anyone else to."
Kan'u's gaze firmed as she rapped the butt of her halberd on the ground. "I very much do believe in what I told you earlier. However, I would prefer that you not dismiss my ideals so flippantly, my lord. I merely had a moment… of doubt. This village was thriving earlier today, and now… it's been reduced to this." She gestured around loosely with her free hand, and her lip trembled.
If Haruto felt more comfortable, he might have put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but touching people had never been something he'd been big on even before he'd started toughening up. "And getting choked up isn't going to bring it back. The best you can do for the people that died is kick some Yellow Turban ass. Now, let's get going already."
Kan'u took another look around the destroyed village, then nodded and followed behind Haruto as he went after Chouhi.
As it turned out, Chouhi's intuition was correct. The building that she entered as Haruto and Kan'u followed behind her was the tavern, and a number of villagers were holed up there—sons, daughters, old and young, anyone that had managed to escape the attack. Chouhi was talking adamantly with a middle-aged man, and Haruto and Kan'u caught the tail end of the conversation as they came up behind Chouhi.
"... there were about four thousand of them," the man said to Chouhi, his shoulders slumping. "They just swooped in and hit us. Those bastards..."
Chouhi's expression was surprisingly thoughtful, though it soon enough broke into the smile that she always wore. "Well, you don't have to worry, Chief. Me, Kan'u, and big bro Haruto will take care of all those Yellow Turban jerks!"
The man blinked, then looked at Haruto and Kan'u standing right behind Chouhi. "I'm guessing that you're the two that this girl was talking about," he said to them. "My name is Gan. I'm the village chief. Who are you people?"
Kan'u nodded. "I am Kan'u, and this man is Haruto, my current lord." She gave Chouhi a gentle rap on the back of the head. "This is Chouhi. As she said, we are more than happy to assist you all, but we cannot do it alone. We know that you have lost many people dear to you today, but if you are willing to fight to the bitter end, then you will triumph."
Another villager sitting in a chair, a young woman holding a child in her lap, looked up at Kan'u, a weary expression crossing her face. Her eyes were red and puffy. "We were completely defeated, though. What can the three of you do against the Turbans?"
"It's not just the three of us," Kan'u said. A faint smile graced her lips. "We have the heavens on our side, as well. In Luoyang, there has been a rumor of a golden-haired Messenger from Heaven, graced with a red right eye and a large blade. He is said to be the one that can end the turmoil in these lands. I, Kan'u Unchou, swore my loyalty to this man, and so too did Chouhi. We knew that he could change this world as prophesied if we were to lend him our power."
As the villagers all looked up at her in wonder, her description made them all look over to Haruto. He returned their curious gazes with an impassive, calm frown, then took a quick glance in Kan'u's direction. She nodded once, though he saw a brief flash of guilt written all over her face, and Haruto replied by doing the same to the audience at large. A quiet buzz began to spread amongst the crowd as they looked back and forth between Haruto and each other, and Kan'u continued where she left off. "So long as you all have the desire to fight, you can claim our aid, and we will in turn fight until the Turbans are wiped out to a man. Heaven shall stand with us. You can count on that."
The murmurs grew louder, but stopped when Gan stepped up and looked Haruto straight in the eye. "Are you truly the Messenger of Heaven? Can you truly save us from this endless period of war?"
Haruto could feel Kan'u's eyes on his back, and he sighed in his mind. "I can at the very least help you pay back those Turbans for screwing with your town. But it's like she said. You gotta be thirsty to win, no matter what. Otherwise you're not gonna avenge anyone, and anything I do for you ain't gonna mean shit. The rest of it is up to you all after that."
Kan'u looked slightly mortified by Haruto's choice of words, while Chouhi just watched Haruto with a serious frown that seemed extremely misplaced on her face. Gan closed his eyes and rubbed at the stubble on his sun-marked chin, then nodded. "You seem young for a Messenger of Heaven, and you're pretty plain-spoken, but you're an honest lad. If you'll lend your power, we'll take it."
Haruto felt a dull burn sweep over his body, and he sighed to avoid flinching in pain. "Long as you're serious, yeah, I got no problem with it. Though getting some bandages for all my cuts—and a new shirt, if you can spare one—wouldn't be a bad deal either."
"Our doctor made it through all right," Gan said. "I'll have him patch you up. The Turbans said they'd be back sometime tomorrow, so you can at least rest before you attack them." The deep lines on Gan's face grew shallower as he cracked a wry smile for Haruto. "We'll pay back what they gave to us tenfold."
Haruto nodded, then looked at the rest of the villagers gathered in the tavern. He could see Kan'u smiling broadly at him, encouraging him to go on, so he cleared his throat. "I don't think we're in a position to do too much waiting, though. We got no clue when they'll hit tomorrow, or even if they'll actually hit tomorrow. We stand a better chance of kicking their asses if we jump 'em when they don't expect us to." He scratched his hair, closing his eyes for a moment, then looked to Kan'u, who was slightly shocked by the boldness of his statement. "I ain't really good with this battlefield tactics stuff, though. You think we might be able to take down 4,000 guys with what we've got on hand if we march in an hour or two?"
"If we're careful about how we engage them, we should be fine," Kan'u replied. "It will be a daunting proposition regardless. We should definitely confirm their numbers first. After that, we can counterattack effectively." She looked over at Chouhi. "Chouhi. You're the fastest one we've got here. Do you mind taking a few volunteers to go scouting?"
"Of course not, sis!" Chouhi replied, grinning wide. "Just leave it to me."
"Works for me," Haruto said. "Once we find 'em, we crush 'em. Simple as shooting fish in a barrel." He rolled his right shoulder, and looked down at Gan again. "So, about that doctor and that shirt...?"
"While Lady Chouhi's out scouting, we can get you fixed up," Gan said. "Don't worry about it.
As he said that, another middle-aged man approached from another corner of the tavern, with a roll of bandages in one hand and a pot of something foul-smelling in the other hand. His brown hair was arranged in a bun, and he wore small glasses and plain white robes.
"The doctor, I presume," Haruto said.
The man bowed. "Chen, at your service, my lord."
Haruto would have told Chen to stop calling him "my lord", but he figured that it would be a lost cause with him as much as it was with Kan'u, and shook his head. "We don't have much time. You got anything that'll keep me together for the next couple of hours?"
Chen nodded. "I'll have to rub you down with an ointment before I wrap your wounds. It'll feel a bit unpleasant at first, but between that and the bindings, the wounds will seal and your body will start to feel better than it ever has before."
Haruto arched a white eyebrow and gave the doctor a suspicious look. "How unpleasant is 'unpleasant'?"
Rather than reply directly, the doctor put the pot onto a nearby table and dipped a hand into it. When he pulled it out, a daub of yellow oil was on his fingertips. He rubbed his hands together, coating it in the ointment, then moved around to Haruto's back and rubbed it directly on the spot where the Nu's last stab had come out of Haruto's body. Haruto winced more from the contact with his injury than anything else, but as soon as the doctor stopped spreading the ointment around, Haruto's body became a board before he bared his teeth and let out a roar that shook the tavern like it was in the middle of an earthquake.
"SON OF A BITCH, IT BURNS!"