After another hour or so, the painful process was finished, and Haruto had been completely bandaged up and released by Chen. Once the bandages were set, Gan gave Haruto a black Chinese-styled shirt with long sleeves and red buttons, and shortly afterward, Haruto had left the tavern with Kan'u in tow. Together, they took a walk down the main street of the ruined village, waiting for Chouhi to return with news from the scouting, but the trip was surprisingly unpleasant. Kan'u's grip on her halberd was iron-clad, and she occasionally rubbed at her ear, shooting Haruto dirty looks from the side of her eyes.
"It hurt, OK?" Haruto said after three minutes of the prolonged silence. "Like the asshole shoved me headfirst into a campfire. What did you expect me to do, smile and laugh it off?"
"You didn't need to resort to such harsh language," Kan'u said, grinding out the words from between clenched teeth. "You are the Messenger of Heaven, my lord. You must present a more dignified image to the people if you expect them to follow you!"
Haruto shrugged. "Old Gan said he liked the way I talk. Makes me more approachable, he said. And no one else seemed to mind it. Not even the kid."
Kan'u's expression could not be called anything except a pout, particularly as her cheeks were flushed and she was staring straight ahead. "If you mean Chouhi, then I should tell you that she is not easy to offend with words alone. At any rate, it is still extremely undignified. I would prefer it if the lord I chose to serve would conduct himself as such..."
The raw annoyance in her voice grated on Haruto a bit, but he knew what point she was trying to make. Still, the rebel in him didn't back down easily, and while he was kind of accepting the "Messenger of Heaven" deal because of his current circumstances, he didn't intend on letting it dictate how he handled himself and his business. "Well, newsflash. This is kind of the way I am. I didn't have time to be polite and shit back when I was blowing up Cauldrons. Wouldn't have done jack shit for me."
Kan'u blinked, and said, "What are Cauldrons?"
Her tongue tripped over the strange word, and Haruto mentally punched himself in the back of the head for even bringing them up. He hadn't even had time to figure out how the hell he was going to get back to where he belonged, anyway, much less how he'd wound up where he did.
"Nothing important," he said, kicking a rock down the sandy street. "Just a job I had to do."
The harshness of his reply made Kan'u shrink in on herself, but she quickly hid her unease from Haruto, and nodded. However, the slight stutter in her voice was too obvious, and he looked over at her just in time to see her slightly distraught expression. "I-I see."
Her visible uncertainty made Haruto wince internally, and he sighed, pressing his right palm to his face. "... Sorry. Didn't mean to snap at you. It's just… that's some really personal sh—business to get into. And if I sat and explained the whole thing to you, you'd think I was crazy."
Kan'u's stomach loosened slightly at Haruto's self-censure, and she got the courage to actually look at him again. "Personal business? Then, those Cauldrons have something to do with Heaven?"
I'd hate to be from any kind of Heaven where there are Cauldrons around, Haruto thought. Still, better change the subject. Don't wanna get into this shit right now. "... Sort of. Maybe sometime later I'll try to explain, but not right now, OK? Got too many other things to worry about."
Inwardly, Kan'u patted herself on the back for getting Haruto to agree to share a story about Heaven. Outwardly, though, she let her happiness show in a more reserved manner, simply replying with a confident smile. "As you wish."
Haruto felt something in him stir a bit at the way Kan'u's lips curved, but after a moment, he shook it off and went back to keeping his eyes forward as he walked. After a second, he said, "Kan'u. Earlier in the tavern, you looked like you felt bad about something. It was right after you introduced me as the Messenger of Heaven. What was that about?"
Kan'u blinked, looked at Haruto, then squirmed a little bit, looking away from him as quickly as she had looked at him. Her previously happy expression gave way to a self-loathing frown. "Chouhi and I are the only ones that know of Kanro's oracle," she said, her voice lowering to a slight whisper. Her brows drew together, and her bottom lip pressed tightly against the top. "There is no talk of it in Luoyang at all. I lied to them for the sake of rallying them against the Turbans."
Haruto shrugged. He didn't particularly like the idea of pretending that rumors of his arrival were hot shit when they weren't, but Kan'u had been fishing for ways to raise morale. A little white lie or two wouldn't be too bad if it got their job done and kept the villagers motivated enough to fight. "What's Luoyang again?"
"The capital of the empire," Kan'u replied, chiding herself for forgetting that Haruto didn't know the lay of the land. "If people truly knew of your existence there, there might have been a mass swarming to this province to find you." She sighed. "Right now, though, people are more concerned that the Imperial Court's policies are the cause of the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the first place, so that may not have even happened. The fact of the matter is that I still manipulated the villagers' trust, even if it was for a good end."
"What's done is done," Haruto said bluntly, scratching his nose with his right hand before he put said hand into his pants pocket. "If you regret it, try to avoid doing it again. Simple as that. Though, at least you're sharp enough to understand that ends don't always justify the means."
"Of course they don't!" Kan'u retorted, a bit more sharply than she intended. Haruto stopped walking outright as her voice bounced off a few of the buildings, and after a moment, she flushed bright red and looked away, gripping her halberd even tighter. "Pardon me, my lord," she whispered. "I'm sorry for losing my temper. But it's the acceptance of that attitude that caused this issue with the Yellow Turbans in the first place. Because the Imperial Court didn't think of anything but how to make their policies benefit them and not the people, they kept on doing such intolerable things that the Turbans couldn't help but rebel." Her knuckles cracked as her hand clenched around the shaft of her halberd. "And then the Turbans forgot that purpose and began to do whatever they wanted, claiming that they were fighting against the tyranny of the court. It's disgraceful! There are just certain depths one cannot fall toward if they wish to fulfill a dream, and both the Court and the Turbans refused to remember that."
Despite himself, Haruto let out a dry, slow chuckle. Kan'u had just described the NOL to a tee, and the way she spoke so passionately about it made him wonder if perhaps she had been as personally affected by the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the Imperial Court as he had been affected by what had happened to him when he was a child. "The assholes that made those Cauldrons I mentioned are the same way. I think that maybe 'Heaven' and this place aren't quite so different as I thought."
Kan'u blinked, and almost asked what he meant, but the loud shouts of Chouhi's voice from behind them stopped that conversation short.
"Sis! Big bro! We found them!"