"Soooo… What's it like being the most wanted man in the world?" Kosha asked.
"Let me put it this way. I'm still wondering if and when you decide to betray me for the money," Ryuma said.
"That bad huh?"
They'd been travelling down the road for hours now. Most of the way it's been silent and awkward. After this last exchange, it has gotten even more awkward. Ryuma didn't think much about it. He didn't care how he came across; his paranoia is what kept him alive. His problem right now was how to keep his vigilance and still do good in the world.
He feared that if he didn't change the circumstances soon, he was going to warp into something he didn't want.
"A hundred thousand gold teals. You tell me if that isn't a powerful incentive," Ryuma said.
"Good point,"
Kosha was honest. If he couldn't have admitted that much, then there would be no point in letting him follow.
"I gotta say, you're a pretty trusting person," Kosha said. Ryuma raised an eyebrow at his words. "If you think about it, so many worries and yet you still allowed me to come,"
Ryuma didn't look at it that way. This was just one way for him to gain a little charisma. Something he was going to have to work on if he needed help against the Skylands when he needed it.
"You're reading too much into it," He said.
"Probably,"
It got quiet again. Traveling was going to be annoying if they had to do it like this every time. He was going to have to find a different way.
Being engrossed in his own thoughts, he stopped walking. His eyes darted off to the side. Kosha followed suit.
"Something wrong?" He asked.
Ryuma huffed out of his nose. "I don't know… you get the feeling you're being followed?"
"I don't know, you're the spirit force user. I figured you guys were the one's sensitive to these sorts of things," Kosha said.
{Was this guy really the student of that swordsmaster?}
Ryuma shook his head of the thought. Indeed this wasn't the only time he felt this way. In fact, he felt this way about master Taishu himself. There were a multitude of times he had the strange feeling of being watched. This was one of those times. If it weren't master Taishu that time, then who was it and what was going on?
It couldn't have been The Order. The edicts made it clear that they wanted him dead and nothing else. Could it have been another faction keeping some sort of tab on what he's doing? No matter who he thought they may be, nothing obvious came to mind.
The feeling of being watched finally disappeared. It's like whoever followed them caught on to the fact they were compromised in some way. Though they eased up for now, there's no reason for Ryuma to assume they won't come back for some more.
"Nevermind. The feelings gone," Ryuma said. Though he said that, he couldn't help but be reminded of an apparition. For the life of him, he couldn't tell why.
"Don't forget you're a wanted man. Though I highly doubt people could tell you're connected with that shoddy drawing, most bounty hunters are experts at noticing key details. They make a living from it after all. It wouldn't be surprising if someone has pegged you already," Kosha said.
Ryuma stared at him briefly. "You may have a point," It was better to have a second opinion with the mind of a surface dweller down here with him. He might've ended up overlooking that.
The two continued travelling. The evening passed on towards the night.
"So are we going to set up camp?" Kosha asked.
"Camp? Oh yeah… camp," Ryuma said.
"You ok man? Seems like you have a lot on your mind. Anything you want to talk about?" Kosha asked.
"Not really. Just forget about it. We'll set up camp here if you don't mind,"
He was really thinking about Naru and what he was going to see there. Those thoughts led to Erin Frost. The real Erin Frost. It was better to push those ideas to the side.
"Good, because there's something I want to talk about," Kosha said.
"Excuse me?"
He folded his arms in defiance. "That wild dance sword move you came up with. Those strikes were anything but. How did you do that?"
"Hmm… I'm not following. How did I do what?" Ryuma asked. That felt strange. In all his time training as a cleric in Rebble, he was never asked about the details of his swordsmanship.
"Don't play dumb with me. It might looked like you were wildly swinging, don't forget my perception ability. Each of those strikes was aimed with lethal precision towards direct targets against an ever blocking and shifting target. I thought if I made one mistake, I was dead," Kosha said.
"If you had made one mistake, you were dead,"
"Ok then, so how'd you, do it?" He asked again.
Ryuma rested his chin on his finger and thought about it. It didn't look like Kosha was going to relent on figuring this out anyhow. "Well I'm a duel wielder. Whenever I swing my swords, I have to time it every time one of my katana reaches the end of its arc swing, to pivot my body at that exact moment to begin swinging the other blade. I've been practicing my pivot swings so much, I could move my body with such fluidity, it looks like I'm not pivoting at all.
He conjured his katanas and stood straight forward. He slowly and carefully swung the black one in an arc. Once it reached the end of the swing, he moved his body like an infinity figure, carefully switching to the white blade while the black one retreated.
Kosha stood there mesmerized by such a slow dance. Could he have thought up such a dance?
I trained so much that my body remembers the movement no matter how fast I move. Where the sword will strike however, always go towards where my eyes are looking at. So even if I look like I'm just wildly swinging my swords, they'll always go towards their intended targets.
"Is that why you made them opposite colors?" Kosha asked.
"Huhh?"
"I'm talking about your blades. One is white and the others black. Clearly that was deliberate to confuse your opponent for that move. I was stuck between blocking and being distracted by the color contrast," Kosha said.
"Oh… Sorry to break it to you, but that's not how spirit weapons work. You can't just choose what color you want them to be. You don't even get to really choose what weapon you get. They just came out that way," Ryuma said.
"Really? I never really spoke with a priest about how their weapons work. I just assumed you guys conjure up whatever you want,"
Ryuma couldn't help but chuckle. Where'd he get such a strange notion? "You never decided to ask?"
"Sorry. A friendly priest is hard to come by. I kinda don't want to associate with too many of them,"
That made sense but then that begs to question what him and his master's motives were. "If you guys weren't so friendly with The Order, then why were you two on a mission to find the priest killer? Shouldn't you have left it up to them?"
"That's what I said but master was dead set on finding the priest killer. He felt that even though The Order is oppressive and overbearing, they still serve a purpose in dispatching apparitions in places we don't see them. Letting them die hurts surface dwellers in the long run,"
Once Kosha said that, his mind immediately went towards Geneo and the two priest that he killed. He began having self-doubts. {Was that the right choice?}
Kosha pulled a small futon out of his bag fit for one person. Ryuma sat up against a tree and closed his eyes with one of his swords in his hands.
"That's right! We haven't established who was going to take shift now that there's two of us," Kosha said.
"No need. Just go sleep," Ryuma said.
"You're going to take the first shift? You sure about that?"
Ryuma didn't even look in his direction. "I can guard and sleep at the same time. So just go to sleep,"
Kosha blinked in surprise. "Never thought to train my body to do that. You certainly are full of surprises. More diligent in your training than I am, I can say that for sure," He finally rolled over in his futon and closed his eyes. He believed Ryuma without a second thought.
{Training? What training?}
Indeed Ryuma could guard in his sleep. The moment he sensed an attack imminent his body would have a second and a halve delay on it which was more than enough to stop most creatures. He never trained in the slightest to do it. His paranoia hit a level to the point he was never fully sleep no matter how bad he wanted to be. He was lucid the entire time.
It was more like his body forced himself to adapt to his situation. And he needed that more than anything.