Taisa was sitting in the shokudo when suddenly someone burst in, breathing heavily.
"Mr. Sho…!"
He went straight toward the kitchen. Everyone stared at him in shock and suspicion.
A few moments later, Sho and that man both ran outside, drenched in sweat and trembling.
Taisa sensed the fear in them and began to follow.
They ran without stopping, sweating and terrified, and Taisa chased after them.
They moved far away from the city center, almost outside the capital, up a dry hill with old, leafless trees, where no other houses could be seen nearby.
Taisa hid behind a tree and watched.
Sho and the man entered the house.
"Hana, my daughter, can you hear me?!… My daughteeer?!"
The man noticed something near a table, walked closer, and showed it to Sho.
"This is a torn piece of her skirt… but this blood?!… We're too late."
They both rushed outside when suddenly the man quickly said:
"Look, footprints… they went toward the Forbidden Forest. Hurry, we don't have time!"
Sho and the man headed toward the Forbidden Forest and entered it. The man said, "Stop."
Sho stopped and said excitedly,
"What is it? Did you find Hana?"
But the man gave a sinister smile, and suddenly something struck Sho's head. His vision went black, and he collapsed to the ground.
"Here, this is your payment!"
"If there's more work, come to me again, Mr… Bartos!"
Bartos—the same man who had been punished days earlier by Sho in the shokudo for injuring his daughter Hana—now had both of them in his hands.
"At last, the time for revenge has come… Prepare for endless suffering, cook!!"
Bartos hoisted the cook onto his shoulder and started moving, when suddenly the cook vanished from his shoulder, and Bartos himself was blasted backward by a powerful kick to the chest, crashing into a tree.
"I am here to enforce the law and protect innocent people."
"Hahahaha… hyaaaaaaah! But this time isn't like before, man of the law!!… Attack!"
The ground began to shake. Taisa threw Sho over his shoulder and looked around nervously, sweat pouring down his face, when suddenly large wolves with sharp fangs surrounded him from all sides. There was no escape.
"Damn it… this many sharp-toothed wolves?!"
Bartos stepped forward with a wicked laugh and said:
"Heroes don't always win, brother!… Attack!"
The wolves lunged at Taisa all at once.
Slash—!
In a single motion, as Taisa drew his sword from its sheath, several wolves in front of him were cut down and collapsed to the ground. But the wolves behind him sank their teeth into his arms and legs, tearing into his body. With brute force, Taisa ripped them off himself.
He kept swinging his sword, killing wolves. He fought desperately, but their numbers were overwhelming, and more kept joining the battle from within the forest.
"Hurry up, cook—wake up! We don't have time!… I'm reaching my limit!"
Dead wolves surrounded Taisa, but still more kept coming, endless and unceasing.
"Give up, Taisa! It's over for you!"
Taisa laughed and said:
"Hahaha… You think I, the supreme commander, would surrender to an animal like you—one that doesn't even have the courage to fight me directly?!… Never!"
Bartos roared in fury:
"Then I'll drown you in your own blood!… Tear him apart!"
Taisa's vision began to blur when a voice of hope was heard. Sho barely opened his eyes.
"What happened… where am I?!"
When Bartos saw that Sho had awakened, he shouted:
"Get that man—don't let him wake up!"
Taisa hurled his sword at Bartos. The blade pierced straight through his left shoulder.
"Damn you, Taisa!…"
With both hands and his last remaining strength, Taisa threw Sho out of the forest.
"Your arms and legs might break—but you'll survive!"
The force was so great that Taisa's own arms broke from the strain. As Sho looked back, all he could see was Taisa's smile, surrounded by wolves tearing his body apart.
"Go after him!"
Two wolves ran after Sho.
Taisa, his body shattered, broken, and covered in blood, fell to his knees with a victorious smile.
"Protection complete!… I entrust the execution of justice to the true one."
Bartos raised his kanabō (spiked mace) and stepped forward to finish Taisa.
BOOOOM—
Taisa's head exploded under Bartos's kanabō.
"I will seize this entire empire and make myself the new emperor of this land!… Emperor Bartos, eternal… hahaha!!"
As Bartos laughed, behind him hundreds of thousands of glowing wolf eyes lit up, and his laughter echoed through the entire forest.
Sho landed hard—one arm and one leg broken—but to ensure that Taisa's sacrifice wasn't in vain, he kept running without stopping, even with his broken leg.
He could see the edge of the forest and felt hope, but it didn't last long—the wolves found him.
When Sho heard them, he panicked and fell several times. The wolves drew closer. His vision blurred from heavy blood loss. He was almost there when one wolf grabbed his leg. Sho didn't give up; crawling forward, he dragged himself with his hands.
He managed to get out of the forest, but the wolf was still clamped tightly onto his leg.
"Let go, damn you!!"
Sho kicked and smashed the wolf with a stone, but it wouldn't release him. Things got worse when a second wolf arrived and grabbed his other leg, dragging him back in. Sho anchored himself to a tree trunk with all his strength.
"What's going on over there?!"
Someone was nearby.
"Help!!!" Sho screamed.
The man rushed over and pulled Sho's arm—pulling so hard that Sho's broken leg was torn off at the knee. But Sho survived.
One of the wolves was thrown out of the Forbidden Forest along with Sho's leg. As soon as it crossed the boundary, its body began to smoke—skin, flesh, and fur burned away until only a skeleton remained.
Sho lost consciousness from the pain and massive blood loss.
The other wolf reached the forest's edge but couldn't go any farther.
When the man saw that the wolf couldn't leave the Forbidden Forest, he felt relieved, threw Sho over his shoulder, and ran at full speed toward the city center…