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He should have known it was a mistake.
The entire thing was suspicious. It had grated his nerves, his instincts, the entire time. But— coinpurse empty, hard on foot after the scuffle beforehand, desperation had seemed salvation.
Yasuo curses himself, presses his back up against the wall of the monastery, and unsheathes his blade. It couldn’t be helped. A fresh, moment-ago robbery had been pinned on him. There was no convincing them.
Just his luck. The past month had been nothing but mistake after stumble. It was as if someone had jinxed him.
He breathes deep. In, and out. Reaches out his awareness with the shift of the wind. There were five men outside. Another, he can feel, around the side passage.
It should be quick. There were civilians close by.
Yasuo lowers himself into ichimonji. Adjusts his sword grip.
One.
Scuffling feet, rapid.
Two.
A startled shout.
Three—
“Hello boys! I’m bringing guns to the knife fight—!” Someone shrieks. Then something whirrs, a grating metal thing. “Come and get some!”
Yasuo ducks just as the distinctive sound of bullets thud into the wood where his head had been. They spray in a wide arc outward, spitting splinters into the monastery.
He grunts.
Just his luck. A madman with a gun. No doubt, the actual thief.
Keeping flush with the wall, he slips through a side passageway. Creeps out of the monastery into the stinging light of the sun. Braces himself.
Stood in the light, surrounded by bodies, was the thief.
Yasuo squints. A child?
They— she, turns to face him. A monstrous contraption swings with her body and points at him. Pink eyes shimmer.
A girl. Couldn’t be more than twenty summers.
Yasuo keeps his body loose, and his hand curled around his sword.
“Huh,” The girl rasps. “You one of these lot?”
“If I was?” His voice is even.
The courtyard wasn’t overbig. The girl’s weapon was obscenely large. Certainly a slower draw than his sword strike.
There were trees neatly laid into the grounds. Cover if he needed it. The fight would be in his upper hand.
“Then you’ll get the same holes as these snipes. Though—” She squints. “Y’don’t look like ‘em. Too fancy, yeah? They were…” A shock runs through her body, as if struck by lightning. “Oh! They were coming for you!”
A cackle escapes her. Yasuo tenses a little.
Spirits, he did dislike loose cannons like these. Unpredictability was unpreferable.
“Because of you, I presume.”
“Caught! Oops!” She shrugs. The metal thing on her back clanks. Yasuo suspects it’s another weapon. “They started it. Ain’t my fault.”
Bizarre.
“Who are you?”
A shrug. “Not sure yet.”
“Not… sure, yet?”
A finger comes up to tap her chin. It’s overexaggerated. Like everything about this girl, he assumes.
“Haven’t decided on a name. A new name?” A nod. “A better name. It’ll come to me. Takes time— didn’t think of one in the— before it all, y’know? Or don’t. I don’t know you.”
A nameless girl who looked like a manic dream made form. It’s a sudden thing that washes over him— could this girl be a spirit? A test? A corruption of a wandering soul, twisted up by the war?
All were likely. All, meant he had to treat her with some respect.
Unfortunately.
“So, who are you, old man?”
He bows his head a fraction. It’s the most respect he can muster. “Yasuo.”
The girl— spirit? —lets go of her overlarge weapon. It hangs by her hip, gleaming metal-pink in the sun.
“Nice to meet’ya, old man Yasuo.”
She sticks out her hand. Yasuo stares down at it. The fingers wiggle. The girl has a metal one on her left hand.
Odd.
“You’re supposed to, y’know, shake it.” She blinks rapidly. “Do they not have that here?”
Spirits save him.
It becomes clear the girl has nothing better to do but follow him. It’s just his luck.
She trails behind him and whistles obnoxiously. When he camps at night, she throws herself down onto the ground by his fire— hands behind her head, uncaring.
But she sleeps without complaint. She wants for very little in general. Barely eating, barely drinking. All she does is chatter. It all points towards her being a spirit of some kind.
Yasuo can’t seem to get rid of her.
“Aren’t swords redundant now?” The girl chirps as they walk.
The Twirling forest runs on their parallel, circular-growing trees providing ample shade. The spring sun was warmer than usual.
He’s thankful of the shade. Not of the girl. Potential spirit or no.
Yasuo sighs. Says nothing. What would be the point? A week of this, and he’s run out of words.
Not even silence drives her off. No ritual does, either.
“I guess if you augmented it with magic, or whatever. Not every snipe does that, though, that fancy shit put into the hilt. Is it in the hilt? Blade? Or— no, you have arts for swords, right? Sounds fancy. Fancy runes, right?”
She skips ahead. Spins on her heel, blue hair flaring out. Reaches out and breaks off a branch and—
“Don’t do that.” Yasuo grunts.
“Do what?” Shimmering-pink eyes lock onto him. He regrets speaking. “M’not doing anything. Well, this time.”
“You’re harming the flora.”
“Flora. Ooh.” She’s dragging patterns into the dirt with the branch. “Not hurtin’ anything— They don’t bleed. Only things that feel pain can bleed. Duh.”
“The Balance feels.”
As she should know, he grumbles internally.
“What the fuck is that?”
Yasuo sighs, again. Maybe he was wrong. Or it was a trick.
“You’ve never been to these lands, have you?” He tries.
“Caught me!” She grins. Exasperation fills him. Of course. “Didn’t know trees could be different colours like this. S’like someone’s spilt oil all over the ground and the trees just ate it all up, became it. Wait—” A spin. She’s staring, suspicious, up at the treeline. Then, “Nevermind. Seen this before, just on— They eat the arcane, don’t they?”
Strangely observant. And meant, categorically, not a spirit.
“Magic. And, yes.”
“Ooh. Point for me! The Balance is the pushy-pull of arcane, isn’t it? Can’t just take-take-take, or it gets angry. Does it turn you into dust, if it does?”
“No.”
It simply sent annoying girls to hound and confuse him, instead.
“Huh. Knew the Balance with a different face, once. Turned things to dust. Or blood. Or turned people into bad things. Why’s it fine, here? Nature a different factor?”
The girl devolves into lunatic muttering.
Yasuo continues on. Reaches out and grabs the stick from her. Returns it to the stream, despite her sudden protest. Watches it drift through the green-blue water.
So, she wasn’t a spirit. He refuses to feel the tinge of embarrassment from the realisation.
It was an easy mistake. The girl held herself as if she was malleable. At the very least, as if she was half-here and half-not. Like any spirit did.
It’s easy to feel curious about her, now. And irritated.
The mutterings break off. The girl jogs to walk by his shoulder, pink eyes peering up at him.
“Tell me about the trees,” She says earnestly.
A sigh. Yasuo can’t find a reason not to.
The village they come across is nothing more than a dozen huts. Humble and quiet. An appropriate place to lay over. At least for a few nights.
Perhaps the girl would shake off him if they stopped moving. Yasuo hopes so. Silence seemed a commodity these days.
They pass through the boundary. The girl, who is obviously a foreigner, does not give any thanks to the guardian spirit of this place.
Yasuo says an extra thanks, just in case.
She’s skipping ahead between a few stalls in the presumed marketplace by the time he’s done. Fingers flitting over the wares. Ignoring the bug-eyed looks of the locals.
“Why do you do that?” She calls over her shoulder. "You do it a lot. Everytime we go somewhere, actually."
He comes up beside her. Peers down at the fishing wares. A strange thing for her to look at.
“For safe passage.”
“You have a sword. That’s safe passage enough, ain’t it? All that talk means nothing, can’t mean scop—” At his glare, she giggles. “Just sayin’! It’s stupid. Waste of time and mouth-breathin’.”
Yasuo takes a breath. Attempts to find his patience. Wonders how his life ended up this way.
“You know no spirits? No gods?” He settles on saying.
“Sure, I do, duh.”
They move to the next stall. Yasuo slaps her hand away when she reaches to steal from it.
“They’re all selfish bastards.” She says easily. Yasuo scowls. “What? My ones are. They want coin and scrap and screamin’, and they all take take take. Though—they ain’t here.”
A sigh. That explained her lack of respect, if nothing else. “And how would you know?”
“Your nonsense has grass, and water, and— all this. My gods are rotting down below the sky.” Yasuo stutters to a stop. Stares at the girl. She shrugs back. “Everyone knows— law of exchange, right? Take in muck, you become muck— and there ain’t nothin’ filthier than a trencher. So!” She claps her hands, “Scop scum filth, that’s what my gods are.”
It’s bizarre. It feels heretical. Yasuo shakes his head.
“That’s what you truly think?”
A shrug. The girl bounces away to the next.
“What everyone else thinks. Ain’t no different— I got no reason not to.” A sneer. “All rotten, stupid stories. Why do I gotta beg a wisp to breathe?”
Yasuo doesn’t know what to say. For once, a lack of words feels irritating.
So he says nothing. Turns back to the stall, and pays for the fishhook the girl had stolen without the keeper noticing.
Their camp is set up by the river, outside of the village boundary. They return to the market the next day.
Yasuo spends the morning in their small chapel, head bowed, puzzling the girl’s words. By mid-morning she finds him. Complains as she usually does.
The talk of gods and filth isn’t brought up. He’s oddly thankful for it as they leave the chapel.
They pass through the market stalls easily. The locals still stare at them. Another day, and they would have to move on.
The girl chatters about metal, and parts, and paint. Yasuo tunes it out as usual.
“Y’know,” The girl sighs after another long rant. Pokes at his elbow, “you’re really bad at haggling.”
Yasuo blinks back. “I’m not.”
“Uh, yeah. You are. Got that dumb rock-sleet look on ya’face. Everyone can tell you’re a likely scam— oh, Janna,” He frowns at the name, at the impish grin on her face, “you’d get fleeced by the snipes back home. Should be glad I’m here to save ya, huh?”
“Save me from what, exactly?”
“Poor purchasing decisions, duh. Have you even been listening?”
She throws a citrus fruit up into the air, catches it with the flat of her palm. Walks close. She was unnaturally warm. He hadn’t noticed before.
“Bet you grew up in one of those fancy-pancy monasteries they got here. Didn’t need to haggle for shit, just given everything ever so kindly, if it pleases you.” She turns, squints at his face, and promptly begins to grin. “Ha!”
Yasuo rolls his eyes. “And where did you grow up?”
“Streets. Stone ones.”
He folds his curiosity back into his chest. “Hmp.”
“Hmp all you want, I got you read, didn’t I? C’mon, admit it. Admit it.” Her voice is a musical lilt. A finger pokes him.
“Perhaps.”
The girl whoops. Jumps in the air. “Knew it!”
A few steps away, the locals begin to mutter to each other.
Yasuo sighs. They’ll have to leave tonight.
Yasuo curses his bad luck. The trail was the only way forward that avoided the western sword school. The only one that wouldn’t get them into a fight against superior numbers.
Yet it’s just as dangerous here. The corruption of the war had spread so far. Even without seeing it, the corruption flows on the wind and stings his nose.
The girl says nothing as they approach the blighted lands. It’s uncharacteristic.
They reach the cross-over by mid-morning. The wood and stone planks of the path had already begun to rot. No replacements, which means the closest village had been abandoned. The blight must have already reached them.
Yasuo feels the ache in his chest and swallows it. Steps onto the unsteady path.
Then the girl pauses.
“Chem-tech,” She murmurs. A sudden stillness over narrow shoulders. “That soluble, liquid based bullshit. Huh.”
“You recognise this?” Yasuo calls.
Casts his gaze over the blight. The black-brown earth, the film of shimmering toxicity. How the air was thick and fogged filled, difficult to see even a foot in. Deadened, blackened plant life. Magic shuddering lazily in the air.
Corruption in pure form.
“Sure.” The girl says. Stays still at the start of the path. “Never seen it on actual nature, though— like trees and shit. Don’t have trees where this was produced— it’s a… like a sulosas cut with dhyren’at disfate, right?” Nods to herself, “Ken— yeah. Expensive shit.”
“Why’s that?”
The girl hunkers down onto her haunches. Picks up a clump of dead earth. Turns it over.
Yasuo is privately surprised it doesn’t begin to eat through at her uncovered fingers. There were stories about the half-buried skeletons and their flesh.
The toxicity of it is visible. It shimmers like a multi-coloured omen.
“Compound it came from burnt itself out,” She replies. “Like, literally— the shit ate through its own sump, into the old drainage network, killed, like, a buncha trenchers. Down the gashes now, ‘cause it mixed with Grey and went solid. Only now— the pick-junnies would be the only ones who— I mean, unless?”
The girl wipes the toxic film onto her fingers. Then pops it into her mouth.
“That will kill you,” He says to point out the profoundly obvious.
It makes a pop noise as she takes her fingers back out. One of them waggles at him. Yasuo rolls his eyes.
“You’re funny, old man. I’m made of worse stuff than this, it’s like— puttin’ spit into a sump.” A snort. She rocks back up onto her feet. Wipes her hands on her ragged trousers. “Knew it. Nasty shit. Weird seein’ this stuff out here.”
“Noxian incursions.” Yasuo murmurs. “That’s why it’s here.”
A curious expression flits her face. Then, “Their chemdoc was a dumbass.”
Yasuo sighs.
Glances back out over the wastelands. There were so many in the lands now. The rotten blackened fields that devoured outwards. Like tumours.
An aching cry of suffering. It weighs heavy on his chest.
He briefly wonders on the girl’s rotten gods.
“We should continue.”
“Sure. Shame you lot haven’t invented rebreathers yet— would be a titz for ya otherwise.” The girl shakes off the strange mood on her shoulders. “I mean— this is nothin’ compared the chokedamp.”
Yasuo studies her. “Can it be reversed?”
“What can?” The girl chirps, “The chems?”
“Yes. The land’s suffering – can it be restored to its original state?”
“Huh. Not sure. Maybe? Probably not.”
They start out on the path. Yasuo contemplates her words.
She knew things that no one else did. About compounds, and chemicals, and the make-up of a bioweapon. Knowledge that had to have come from the source.
“Why not?” He asks.
A shrug.
“It ain’t a thing— reversal, I mean —where it’s from. Never had to reverse anything from corrupted to clean— was all corrupted since the beginning.” Rotten gods, he remembers. The girl begins kicking at blackened rocks. Fingers clenching and unclenching. “Ain’t the right question to ask, though.”
“And why is that?”
“’Cause nothing is ever gonna scrub this shit out. So— useless question. It’s here to stay.”
He scowls. That she held such knowledge and defeated a good purpose with it without pause. It didn’t feel fair.
“The land cannot— should not exist like this. It’s perverse.”
The girl’s face twists. She kicks another rock.
“Wrong. Minus point. Ding-ding.”
“Enlighten me, then.” Yasuo grunts.
The girl spins suddenly. Fire in her strange eyes. Yasuo leans back from her pointed finger warily.
An odd reaction. Fury wasn’t an emotion he thinks he’s seen on her before.
“It’s changed, not perverse, and it’s not dead— nothing ever really dies. Everything just becomes somethin’ different.” A calculating look is levelled at him. “Oh. No, yeah, I get your issue now.”
“Issue?”
The girl snorts. It’s an ugly thing. “Learned fuckin’ uselessness, that’s what.”
Yasuo inhales sharply. His own rage was an ugly thing, too.
He scowls down at her. “You believe this crime is learned uselessness?”
“Awh, boo hoo! A bad man made the ground toxic, whatever will we do!” Her voice is caustic. “You people just gonna sit around crying all day?”
He realises. It’s startling in its clarity.
The girl had never held anything sacred because she had never known what sacred was. Her rotten gods and her dogged disrespect. Her stone streets and ignorance of beauty.
It must be a miserable existence. Yasuo feels his chest burn.
“These are the First Lands. Do you have any idea what it means to corrupt it?”
“No!” She caws, and stalks forward, arms wide. “And I don’t care! That ground is useable. Really super useable— you know how many trenchers would shiv a scav for this shit?”
“You’re ignorant.”
A hiss through her teeth. “So what? At least I’m not stupid, or blind.”
Yasuo leans back. Breathes to the count of five. Then releases it.
It’s not worth it. She’d never understand.
“Enough. We need to move.”
The girl scoffs and stomps off.
She’s quiet for days. It’s strange to hear silence once again returned to his travels
Reluctant, Yasuo finds he misses the noise.
The road-side chapel is well loved. Its wood is varnished and polished. Its beads are clean and its chimes ring clear in the gentle breeze. Even the sand basins are worn but well loved.
It sets an ache of remembrance in his chest. When was the last time he’d truly given respect to the spirits? Beyond just a restless prayer, muttered at boundaries or passovers.
They stop on the side of the road. The girl, still in her tantrum, says nothing as he sets down their packs.
When he bids her to stay still, she does.
Yasuo wonders if he should spare a prayer for her.
Entering, he settles into his vigil. Pulls out the small, rarely used box from the bottom of his pack.
Every time, it felt wrong to do this. An unworthy act for such a transgression. But necessary. Something had to be held sacred in this miserable life, and if it was not him, what would be?
The incense burns to a half before he’s interrupted.
“What’s—” The girl rasps. "Huh. What's this?"
Irritation crawls up his spine.
“Leave.”
The girl falls quiet. Doesn’t leave.
Then, in a hushed voice, “Can I join?”
“You— what?”
Yasuo turns to peer at her.
The girl’s eyes rove over the incense. The scrap of his brother’s robe, a shard of his broken sword.
“It’s for— people, right? People you—” A swallow. Pink settling back on him. “Y’know. R-right?”
Yasuo takes a moment. Looks back to the shrine. To the drifting lines of smoke. They smelt of his favourite prayer sticks.
He returns his gaze to the girl. The vulnerable set of her narrow shoulders.
It hits him. He feels foolish.
Rotten gods and stone streets. What else would you care for more than people in an existence like that?
Shame fills him. Judgement came so easily to one similarly judged. He didn’t know a thing about her. And she, him. What worth was his condemnation, in truth?
Yasuo nods back at her.
The girl rocks on her heels, forwards, then back, then, “I don’t— it’s different back home. Tell— tell me how to do this.”
“Kneel, here.”
She does, the most still she has ever been, the most obedient he’s ever seen her.
“The incense is lit to commemorate the dead. One for everyone person, to honour their spirit in the realms beyond.” He reaches out, hand soft over the cut lock of his hair. Even now, he felt dirty to touch it. “Traditionally you would also place flowers, give offerings or things of great meaning that evoked them.”
The girl hums disjointed and tremulous. “We… don’t have that— flowers, where I’m from.”
Yasuo settles his curiosity. Nods. “That’s fine. It’s colour and meaning, that’s the most important.”
“I can do colour.” She murmurs. Hands reaching out to gather seven incense sticks.
His eyes widen before he can help himself.
Seven.
“And I just, what, put them down and light them?”
They shake in her hand. Yasuo hums a quiet yes.
They’re pushed one at a time into the sand bowl. The girl’s fingers linger awkwardly by them.
“Say their names. Speak to them.” He murmurs. Something twitches across her face. Yasuo tilts his head. “It is about connection, honouring them.”
“Connection,” She breathes. It’s a wet-sounding thing. “Sounds lame.”
To his own surprise, his lips twitch into a smile.
“You may say it within your mind, if it suits you.”
The girl exhales stutteringly. “Yeah— yeah. Thanks, old man.”
Yasuo bows his head. Returns to his vigil. Ignores the way incense cloys in the air, the volume of sticks lit over-much and choking.
He does not comment on the pink-purple tears streaming from the girl’s eyes.
He smooths down his bedroll. It was nothing impressive. Simple and easy to use.
The tent was already set up. The one.
Curiosity takes him over when the girl returns from the river. As she drops down onto the ground without a care and pillows her arms behind her head.
She had slept like that since they first met.
It escapes him like a stumble. “Why do you sleep like that?”
The girl blinks over at him. “Huh? Like what?”
Yasuo gestures. Lamely.
A curling grin. He regrets his question immediately.
“Took ya this long to ask?” She snorts. “Gee, feelin’ real cared for over here.”
Right.
His face twists. “…Would you like a tent?”
The girl laughs at him. He huffs and ignores the warmth atop his face.
“Awh, thanks old man. But, nah— I like lookin’ at the sky. Feels like I’m gonna fall up into it, y’know?” A shake of her head. Her blue hair had grown long. She’d taken to braiding it in two twins. “Never knew my own stars. It’s… nice to see yours.”
“I suppose that’s understandable.”
Yasuo pauses. Looks to the hard, stone ground beneath her back.
“Would you like a blanket?”
The girl laughs again.
The girl was acting strange. Or, stranger than usual.
As they pass from the true wilds and into the more settled lands around the coastlines, the habit emerges. That of wandering off for the day. To the bigger villages, and then to the towns, he assumes. To stone streets.
Yasuo says nothing of it. The girl returns at night without fail. Usually with grease smeared across her face.
Their arrangement is not one. No agreement, no outspoken bond. She can do what she likes.
It fills him with suspicion regardless. She just won’t stop grinning at him.
Morning crests earlier and earlier and summer begins to sweep through the land.
Yasuo greets the sun in vigil, meditating on the previous day to the sound of the girl’s snoring. She refuses him the time he offers to teach her tranquillity.
He supposes it makes sense.
One morning she’s gone from her place on the ground. From her new pattern of behaviour, it’s not overly concerning.
It’s not long after that she emerges at the camp. With a… thing, in her hand. And a grin.
Yasuo squints at the girl.
“What… is that?”
“I’m so glad you asked, old-man.” She skips over to his kneeled form. “It’s a gun-sword. Well, actually, I called him Ripley. But it’s conceptually a gun-sword.”
The girl is grinning wide. So much it almost looks painful. The contraption in her hand clicks rapidly.
“The trigger mechanism is here, you can— look, just watch— it’s a trick-weapon, y’know, like the ones in Bilgewater? You click this here, and it’ll swing into it’s fun-form gun-form.”
At the press of her finger, it does just that. The blade slotting into a lower part of the hilt. A blunderbuss and trigger clicking out of the handle.
Yasuo takes it as the girl offers. Passes it over his hands.
It’s a folded metal blade from the distinctive rippling pattern on it. The raw mechanism of the ‘trick’ was still exposed to the air. There’s a line of soldered metal on each side. Pale wood covers the rest.
It’s impressive, he supposes. The incurring Noxian forces at attempted things similar. None looked quite like this.
This wasn’t elegant nor Noxian. Or even resembling the character of Bilgewater’s blades. He supposes nothing the girl ever made looked like anything but her own inventions. Because it was, clearly, built of her own hand.
Its scabbard is by the girl’s hip and thoroughly graffitied. Ugly. Bright. Entirely her style.
“So? Whatcha think? It’s yours afterall.”
Yasuo blinks. That was strange. He didn’t need another sword.
“I’m not taking this.”
It’s the wrong thing to say, apparently. The girl chokes, then lets out an outraged, “What?”
Yasuo offers the gun-blade back to her. It’s not taken.
“I would never use it.” He tries.
“Now you’re just being rude. It’s a gift, shithead.” The girl gestures wildly. “Y’know! Like a— it’s a gift.”
A gift. But the reaction seemed overmuch. Yasuo squints at the girl. She seemed very upset.
But the truth remained. His sword is all he required. It was tuned and imbued to match his person. It would be a handicap to use the girl’s contraption.
“But I don’t need it.”
She stomps her foot.
“That’s not the fucking point— it’s— it’s a y’know!” The gun-blade is snatched off of him. Waved in the air at him. Her face is red. “A passa’tat. A—a za’glut. You ken? Aza’glut!”
Nonsense.
Or, no, words he doesn’t understand. A different language?
The girl makes a frustrated noise. “Fucking— What, are you being stupid on purpose?”
“No.”
“Then take the fucking sword.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Fine.” The girl hisses around clenched teeth. Stares like fire into him. “Fine, coulda just said— fucking, what’s even the point? Don’t take it. Asshole. Don’t even need to— whatever. Fuck it.”
She storms off. Boots squelching into the mud. Yasuo watches her slim back disappear behind the trees.
The gun-blade is stuck into the mud. Thrown into the ground out of rage. Strange that she abandoned it like that.
Yasuo shakes his head. Scatter-brained, as always.
He turns back to his kneeling vigil. She’ll be back for it later.
Three days pass. Yasuo returns from the village to see the gun-blade still stuck into the dirt. As it had sat since that day.
The girl hadn’t returned. The camp is empty.
The village had become used to his face. It was getting dangerous. Whispers had started. He needed to move on. He shouldn’t have stayed for as long as he did. Someone would notice soon enough.
He needed to leave. If he left, the girl would not know.
The camp is empty.
Yasuo stares at the gunblade.
The market was colourful and fragrant smelling. Summer had been kind to this village.
Yasuo mutters a small thanks to the spirits as he crosses over the boundary. It was something to celebrate so deep in the lands. These people’s lives were miraculously untouched.
He weaves through the small crowds. Keeps attentive, hand on his coinpurse. Searches for a simple stall. Supplies, some sword-oil, and then he needed to move on.
A man with circular tattoos keeps the stall that has his needs.
Yasuo lists off everything. The man gathers them from the boxes and displays. Broad and steady handed. A look is shot at him as the man begins wrapping them in Boa-Bo leaves.
It didn’t seem like one of recognition. He tenses anyway.
“This everything?” He says. Yasuo nods. “Mmh. Hope you don’t mind me saying, srah, but that’s odd lookin’ sword you got there.”
A nod to the one tied to his back. The graffiti had not washed off the scabbard. It was a sacrifice to his own pride that he had to make. The gun-blade wouldn’t fit into any other. Tailor-made for that leather alone, it seemed.
It was not the worst thing. It did stand out awfully. The girl certainly had loved her neon.
“Where’d you pick it up?” The man continues, bagging up the rest of his request.
Yasuo grunts. “From a friend.”
“Interesting friend you got, then.”
“You could say.”
The parcel is tied with a vine woven and dried out. He slides it over the counter. “Don’t talk much, do you? It’s fine, had a client much the same the other day.”
Yasuo stuffs the goods into his pack. Turns to leave. Adjusts the gun-blade before a thought strikes him.
“Has a blue haired girl passed through here recently? Pink eyes, slight, with two weapons on her hips.”
“Bounty?” The man asks to his turned back.
“No. No— just… someone I used to know.”
A shake of his head. “Sorry, srah. Would’ve noticed if she had.”
Of course.
Yasuo nods. Keeps his face still. It had been a foolish question to ask.
He tightens the gun-blade on his back and takes his leave.