Chapter 534: Yamashita-maru
When it was all over, Kian stretched, dusted off his butt, and got ready to go.
The old monk looked stunned, both at Kian's terrifying physical strength and at his absurd fighting style.
He glanced at the horned samurai. The man's chest looked like Squidward's face after getting sat on.
The old monk hurriedly said a silent prayer to ease the man's passage, then ran up behind Kian and asked:
"My lord, what about the slaves?"
Kian glanced at the forty-odd slaves the samurai had rounded up and said flatly:
"Untie them and let them find their own way."
The old monk did as he was told and went over to untie the slaves.
When that was done, the old monk followed Kian, ready to head back to Kyoto.
Just then, a familiar, weak voice came from behind Kian. "B... Big..."
Kian turned around and saw someone he knew. A boy of about ten was standing among the slaves, looking at him with tear-filled eyes. It was Yamashita-maru.
Yamashita-maru's body was covered in whip marks. The lashes had cut deep into his skin and flesh, leaving him striped with bloody scabs.
Kian walked up to Yamashita-maru and asked with a frown:
"Kiddo? What are you doing all the way out here? Where's your mom? Where are your two little brothers?"
Yamashita-maru burst into tears and pointed at several of the bodies on the ground.
"The samurai wanted to take me and my brothers as slaves. My mom wouldn't let them, so the samurai killed her.
"My two brothers bit the samurai, and they killed them too! WAAAAAH!!"
Only then did Kian realize that one of the bodies on the ground, cut in half at the waist, was Yamashita-maru's mother.
The two who'd been cut down beside her were Yamashita-maru's little brothers.
Kian's face darkened. He'd only met them a few times, but they were still people he knew.
The old monk said quietly:
"Some slaves are valuable and some are cheap. Children like these are the most malleable, so they're the most valuable slaves.
"Whether they're trained as death-sworn retainers, or as page boys, or... worse...
"Anyway, the nobles love child slaves. Every time a famine sets loose a flood of refugees, the children are always the first to be taken..."
Yamashita-maru kept bawling and bawling, but he didn't have much strength left to cry with. The whip wounds on his body were still bleeding.
Kian told himself, His Lordship is soft-hearted. This brat had the guts to pelt a Big Yōkai with cow dung. Take him home and train him up, and someday he might have the guts to throw grenades at Chaos Space Marines.
So he went over, scooped Yamashita-maru up in his arms, and strode off toward Kyoto.
Because Yamashita-maru had been whipped and had open wounds, Kian couldn't sprint. He could only carry him at a fast walk.
That left the old monk walking alongside with a resentful look on his face, thinking, But I was here first...
Because of the delay, the trip that had taken three or four hours on the way out took four whole days on the way back.
On the road, they found a doctor in a small country county who treated Yamashita-maru's wounds.
Yamashita-maru really was tough. A whipping like that would be too much for most grown men, but the boy had pulled through. He didn't even run a fever, and after four whole days on the road, his wounds were starting to scab over.
Then the three of them were hauled into the city by basket. Kian went back to the Minamoto family's old house, only to find the family had moved out.
But Hei had left a message on the wooden door. It said Hei had killed a demon general and been recruited by the Son of Heaven as one of his retainers.
He asked Kian to come join them at the Son of Heaven's palace and said they'd already spoken to the guards.
Kian looked up at the tall castle keep in the distance. He had a feeling this planet's Son of Heaven might have something to do with Tzeentch.
The Son of Heaven's palace was definitely not safe, and Kian wanted to go up the castle keep and take a look. So he left Yamashita-maru with the old monk for the time being.
"This kid's hurt. Take him to the temple to rest and heal for now. I'll come get him in a while."
Yamashita-maru felt like he was being abandoned. But right now, the only bond he had left in the world was with Kian.
And his bond with Kian didn't seem to consist of much besides cow dung.
Yamashita-maru grabbed Kian's leg without thinking. Seeing how anxious he was, Kian reassured him:
"I've got something really important to take care of right now. Don't worry. When I'm done, I'll come get you, and you'll come with me."
After the deaths of his mother and his two brothers, Yamashita-maru seemed to have grown up all at once.
"But I'm no use to you at all. All I can do is throw cow dung. When I get whipped, it hurts. When my mom and brothers got killed, all I could do was stand there and watch."
Kian thought about it and said:
"You're right, you're no use right now. But you will be someday.
"You're still small and weak, but one day you'll grow up, and you'll get strong.
"Right now you throw cow dung. Later, I'll give you melta grenades.
"Right now the whip hurts. Later, I'll put you in power armour.
"And if anyone ever tries to kill you or the people you care about again, you kill them first!"
With that, Kian handed the future First Company Captain of the shadow Astartes Chapter he would one day secretly raise, codename "Blast Magnet," over to the old monk's care, and walked toward the Son of Heaven's palace.
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