Eira and Asumi had stayed the night in the town, spending the remainder of their money on a small room where they slept. When the sun rose upon the town they both started to walk, in the soft wind, and the light orange beams covering the town.
"We finished that mission quickly. And without injury, do you think they'll give us a new mission as soon as we get back?" Eira asked Asumi as they walked back to the inn. Although they had no reason to, they didn't want to ditch Ali just like that. Asumi shrugged but couldn't help but think how quickly they had completed that mission, it was nothing like the first mission, the stress had taken a toll on her, Asumi wasn't sure if she could handle another mission right after the last two. Asumi sighed and massaged her trap, the path was quite straight, it wasn't til 300 metres forward that there was a fork in the road. All of a sudden, Asumi's crow swooped down and landed on her head. Asumi flinched a bit but relaxed when she realised it was just a crow.
"The master thanks you for your service. Your next mission is postponed due to path blockade. I will report when the mission is available then. Till then you are free to rest." the crow said and rocketed upwards and continued to fly. Eira looked at Asumi who was lost in thought. Path blockade? Eira and Asumi would likely reach the Wisteria House in the late evening. Eira took a deep breath, for some reason it felt refreshing, her body ached from soreness but she ignored it. She wanted to live in the moment a bit more, as the sky watched over them and the wind pushed at their backs to keep walking.
Ali sat outside on the porch of the Wisteria House. His wounds had recovered rather quickly. However, he would still feel pain when moving in some ways. The old lady informed that he would likely be discharged in a week's time, he stared at the green grass, moving ever so slightly. Suddenly, a big gust of wind blew at Ali's face, pushing his hair up. His eyes watered as the wind got into his eyes. The day was calm, the sun slowly rose, the wind softly blew, the birds chirped. Ali's heart was slow, relaxed as he threw pebbles at the entrance of the inn from the place he sat. His boredom had not been any less. He just wanted to go out and fight demons, however, he didn't have a weapon, and second he could barely run without his whole body being paralysed with pain. It had thrown him back to the reality of fighting.
He had to take a lot of time for recovery when he was under the mentoring of the Wind Hashira, his training style was rough and harsh, constant blows to every part of his body. The hashira called it conditioning. Ali didn't disagree with the training method, as Ali's endurance almost tripled because of it, but he just believed that there were better ways to condition one's body than full force hits to one's body. Ali believed he got lucky that he wasn't majorly disfigured or even dead. One thought constantly remained on Ali's head. The mission. It had been a good two days since the mission, but he couldn't grasp why they sent the toughest demon after him. Then again, two demons were sent to Eira, and three to Asumi. Ali had never seen something like it before. Blood Demon Art.
Ali got up and walked towards a tall bookshelf, with several genres of books, whether it be action packed epics, holy texts of all religion or informational texts. He brushed his finger over the books, and stopped at one. "Demons: Powers, Origins and Abilities"
Ali tugged it out of the tightly packed row and read with great interest.
Blood Demon Art was an ability that higher level demons unlocked, it gave them special abilities, some could track enemies without even opening their eyes, some could make entire areas turn to ice. Blood Demon Arts were more common to Lower and Upper moons, (the 12 strongest Demon, see page 165). It would be rare to find a lower tier demon with a Blood Demon Art.
Ali wondered how hard a demon had to work to even get a glimpse of their own Blood Demon Art. In some way, it was sort of how people would train to make their bodies as strong as possible. Ali pondered about this for a while, the similarities between demons and humans in terms of strength. Ali stretched, the feeling of his sore wounds had become less painful but still bothered him, he stood up and wandered around the residence. He stumbled upon a rather interesting door, it led to a small square area open to the sky. It glowed as the sunlight hit the light dirt floor of the area. It was locked in by bamboo.
Training dummies on sticks, and more training based objects lay there idly, as if they hadn't been used in years. Scratches and marks all over the dummies presumably from other people practising on them.
The floorboards creaked as Ali went closer to the rather interesting area. There were no swords to practise with so Ali just stared at the dummies. Their faces were disfigured, faces seemingly painted on with black paint were blurred from the amount of hits the faces had probably taken. The heads were made out of dry hay, small strands poking out on a closer view. Ali looked at his hand, bandaged for recovery. Although it felt fine, he didn't want to try anything risky.
Ali stayed there for the rest of the day, he lightly sparred the dummy from time to time.
The sun was close to touching the horizon as evening fell. It was almost time for dinner, Ali looked at the dummy one more time, gave it a light tap and walked back into the residence. He was sort of tired of waiting. He looked at the steaming soup as it sat there still. As Ali lifted the wooden spoon, small ripples danced as a few drops fell into the soup. Slowly but surely, Ali finished satisfied, he laid in bed, watching the sun set.
"How long is it going to take?" Ali sighed. He mainly referred to two things, Eira and Asumi's return, and his sword's arrival. Ali had basically convinced that the sword maker had something against wind breathing users and was putting it off for as long as possible. Night fell and Ali closed his eyes.
Asumi and Eira had taken much longer than they would've thought, they had no idea how long they had left. Both very tired, but with no form of safe sleeping area around them. They couldn't do much except walk. Asumi rubbed her eyes and looked up at the sky, painted with bright stars. She started to day dream, well... night dream. Asumi's ultimate goal was similar to Ali's, becoming flower hashira. When she became hashira she would order her sword to be remade, and her mentor's name to be etched onto it. She thought of the pride that her mentor would have when she took up the title. She took a deep breath. They had both walked in silence for a while, Asumi gulped, she wasn't good with silences. She wondered what could start a good conversation between them.
She asked a rather boring question. "Where did you come from? The mountains?" Asumi asked with sweat forming.
She could fight demons with ease, she could respond to people with ease. But the one thing she struggled with was starting a conversation. She was sure it had ruined her chance for big opportunities. Like the time her 10 year old self wanted to ask her mum if she could earn pay for her labour in the flower field, but had no idea how to bring it up. It wasn't til she was 13, when her mum brought it up herself. However, by that time, Asumi spent less time in the flower fields, she slowly spent more time training with the old lady. Asumi's heart hurt whenever she thought of the old lady. She didn't like to admit it, but she had no idea what had happened to her, whether she died, got lost, left the town completely or even got killed by a demon. She hated to think about it.
Asumi was so lost in past memories that she hadn't realised that Eira had already answered her question. And she had just kept silent, not responding. It became less awkward when they saw the familiar light and banner that read "Wisteria''. They had finally reached the inn.