A bag of cash, Barney and Vincent dead on the ground. Seth lowers himself to the ground, taking out the cash and examining it. "It's counterfeit but it has a weird shine to it."
Nixon leans over Seth, "What do you mean?"
"It's gold... a thin sheet of gold is pasted onto the money."
"How the hell?"
"That takes a lot of effort."
Tsuki comes out from behind them, stepping down from being next to a few trees. "So what's the deal, do you know why they attacked?"
"Not a clue." Seth shrugs, "They have gold though."
"What?" Tsuki crosses to Seth, lightly jogging. "What do you mean?"
"Look," Seth shows Tsuki the cash, pointing it directly to the son showing a gold shine to it. "These guys seem to have some gold pasted onto the cash, both sides. It's disguised as counterfeit cash but, well... looks like they didn't hide the gold well enough."
A young, beautiful Half-Native American woman comes out from some bushes, holding onto a rifle and tightening her military uniform. She sighs, taking in the sights around her. "Sucks that these people had to die in such a beautiful place. Such is life I suppose." She nods, content with her answer.
"We got gold." Seth shakes the cash, Hinata appearing from behind the Half-Native American woman. "You want a look, Citlali?"
Citlali, the Half-Native American one, the one who almost killed Seth a month ago, walks over to Seth, grabbing the cash from his hand and examining it. "Oh wow, there is gold."
"I still can't really understand why they attacked us." Seth comments, arms folded across his chest.
The cracking of twigs alerts Seth's ears, spinning by his heels to look to where the sounds were coming from. A Japanese man wearing a Komuso, hand on his nodachi's hilt, gripping it with hearty ambition. "Distance yourself from the cash please." The man in the Komuso says, Winchester at his hip, pointing to them below him. Three others come out from the forest wearing Komusos but their outfits are military uniforms rather than the signature kimono the first one had arrived in. They all point rifles at them, completely surrounding Seth's group.
"Shouldn't have thought those were poachers huh?" Nixon thinks aloud, showing his hands to the group. "My bad."
"Nah, it's fine," Seth assures Nixon, showing his hands as well, this includes the rest of the group.
"Hand us the cash." The man who seems to be the leader commands, pointing the Winchester at the bag, "Throw it to us, keep your palms facing us."
"日本人ですか?" (Are you Japanese?) Seth asks, shuffling to the bag.
The man in the Komuso lets out a light chuckle, "ここであなたの友達からそれを学びますか?" (Learn that from your friends here?) He motions to Tsuki and Hinata.
"いいえ,自分で学びました," (No, I learned it myself,) Seth pauses, "ここで何が起こったのかについて少し説明してもらえますか? あなたはそれについてもっと知っているようです." (Can we get a bit of an explanation about what happened here? You seem to know more about it.)
"You don't need to know."
Vincent - previously thought dead, coughs up blood, writhing on the ground and rolling himself over, laying himself on his stomach. He curses aloud before looking at the environment around him before going for the bag, a twinging of pain comes across his entire body, stopping him before being able to grab the bag, a bullet also smacking against the dirt ground before he is able to grab it. "You're alive!?" Seth exclaims in surprise, swearing that he didn't have a heartbeat earlier, but he knew that his being alive couldn't be completely impossible.
"Fucking bounty hunters...!" Vincent yells, but only being barely audible due to the blood filling his mouth, spitting some out here and there.
"Well, yeah, I'm a bounty hunter but what does that have to do with anything? Do you have a bounty or something?"
Vincent goes silent.
Seth attempts not to laughs, a smile cracking across his face. "So you're just..." Seth almost bursts out laughing saying the rest of his sentence, shaking his head to push the laughter down. "You're just fuckin' stupid huh?"
Vincent clicks his tongue, looking at the man wearing a Komuso. "Who the fuck are you?"
"Just give me the fucking bag or you'll all die."
"Well... we technically outnumber you." Seth comments.
"Also, I'm a better shot than all of you," Nixon comments as well as if realizing they could've won this long ago.
Seth sighs, grabbing the back. Vincent growls, knowing that he could not do anything more than that. Seth throws the bag over to their leader and notices a slight tilt in his mask's movements, taking that opportunity to sprint towards him, jumping onto the high ground the leader of their group purposely stood on - with one long leap, quickly skidding across the ground and grabbing him by the neck, a stiletto dagger at his throat, all of this in a period of time in where no one could react properly.
The leader flips their Winchester around, attempting to fire at Seth who stood behind him. Seth uses his thigh to slap the barrel away, the leader's thumb firing, causing the bullet to hit one of the random arrays of trees sitting behind them. "Don't fucking move!" Seth screams, bringing the dagger closer to the man's neck, kicking at the back of his legs to bring themselves closer to the ground. The rest of his team freezes, confused about what to do.
Nixon takes out his revolver and spins it with his middle finger, "Now you guys really are stuck."
The leader chuckles, "How's that huh? We still have the advantage, they're prepared to fire after all."
"Were you born in Japan?"
"Yeah."
"Well then, you wouldn't know why I'm confident then."
Of course, the leader did not understand the meaning of Nixon's words.
***
Stepping out from a car, Palach grunts, squeezing his massive body through the doors. He takes a deep breath, smelling the Montana air, scratching his thigh with his half-broken nails, dirt lining the top of said nails. He puts a hand through his grease ridden beard, a smile creaking across his face, laugh lines forming around his mouth.