Tetsuo scraped the edge of his knife against the grindstone a few more times and re-examined the blade, poking it lightly with his finger to see if its sharpness was up to his exacting standards. After tilting the blade to assess its sheen, he gave a nod of approval and slipped it into his holster before bidding his family a hasty farewell. "Just make sure you're back in time for--" but Tetsuo was out the door before his father could remind him that he needed to help with the cooking tonight. He needed to help with the cooking every night, so it's not like he needed to be reminded of that.

It was a beautiful spring afternoon and the light breeze was sweet with the scent of flowers and fresh water carried down from Bluestone Creek. Tetsuo paused a moment to relish the scene, but soon began walking towards the Guardian HQ to see if there was any work they needed him to do today. Being a Guardian was usually a pretty relaxing job that demanded so much less from him than his restaurant, but from time to time they would need to step up and take down a large predator in the vicinity, or break up an altercation in this village. Still, the Guardians did regular patrols of the village and its outskirts to maintain a presence and ensure that their job stayed so enjoyable. If nothing else, he was sure that somebody would be up for a little sparring match with him.

On his way to the HQ, he came across a familiar face that he hadn't seen in some time. "Saya!" he called waving to the kitsune swordsman. "I heard you got back recently. It's good to see you in one piece."

Saya looked at Tetsuo briefly and nodded, but said nothing and continued making her way towards the HQ at a brisk pace. The truth was, she was lucky to be back at all; her last battle was quite a bit more dangerous than she was used to and she didn't like talking about it. She still had a small bandage around her arm covering up what was left of a pretty nasty wound that would eventually become yet another scar. Noticing that she and Tetsuo were heading the same way, she decided to speak. "If you're free tonight, the Guardians will be having a meeting. It's important and we'd like as many Guardians there as possible."

"Did you find a monster?" The voice of a young eavesdropped came from seemingly out of nowhere. Saya paused for a moment and looked down to see Garoth standing before her with an eager look on his face.

"You should be in school," Saya said, swiftly dismissing the claim, and proceeding with Tetsuo towards the HQ, leaving the dejected Garoth behind.

A morning sunbeam came down, shining onto Alexander. His armor shambled and shuffled, making various metallic clinking noises as it moved about as Alexander began to rise from his hempen hammock. He rubbed his eyes and yawned as he looked in front of him to see only the tree. Deep bags were under his eyes, deeper than every other wrinkle on his wrinkled old body. A low groan escaped his mouth as he rolled the ladder down. "I miss my wife" he mumbled. Alexander was having a hangover.

Carefully, Alexander climbed down the ladder. A rabbit hopped up to him, smelling him. Alexander crouched down, petting the rabbit over its ears and smiling. "How are you doing little guy?" he said with a warm, disarming town. The rabbit snickered happily, until its sound was suddenly stopped, a dagger shoved through its neck, eyes going wide. Alexander had stabbed it. "And that takes care of breakfast" he sighed.

Over a fire, Alexander roasted the rabbit, throwing on various dried herbs he picked in the forest and bought from the nearby town of Kado. Taking the roast from the fire, Alexander began eating his breakfast, heading into town with a stack of papers.

It was 3 in the afternoon.

Kun Fan took a sip of the wine he and his brother had made last fall- no, still needed a little more time, it seemed. He corked it and placed it back on the shelf, greeting The Chairman as he descended the steps. He walked into the first floor of the shack, tossing a few fresh logs into the stove before wandering some ways to fetch his rickshaw. He drew it close to the building before loading it up with clay pots and glass bottles of all shapes and sizes, all filled with a plethora of wines, beers, spirits, and other such comforts.
"Brother!", he shouted towards the shack where Guo Fu worked, "The cat and I are going to town. Do you wish to come?"

Million fixed his arm straps. They had become a bit loose from the work, and he would hate for them to come off.

"Phew..." A sort of exhausted sigh and he looked up to the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun with his left hand. He blinked hard a few times and let his optics stray from the deep blue above. He had taken note of the lack of clouds, and went back to huddling over the ground. He had gone out of town to scavenge some more herbs. He had a good wealth of them growing back home, but he would like to keep those in stock for actual clients. After stuffing some thick green looking straw into a chest pocket, he began walking home. His scythe had been resting against a tree, and he swooped it up into his hand as he passed by, placing it blade skyward to rest against his shoulder and behind his head.

He loomed towards the town, his eyes not really bothering to watch anywhere ahead. He had come this far often and he scarcely ran into danger.

After walking a short while he arrived in town, looking about as he watched people bustle about their lives. His eyes set on to two bodies, walking as it were left-wards. Assumably towards the guardian HQ. He had been invited once or twice to join the guardians. They had always asked for people to enter, even if it was a peaceful time, danger always existed. That and he handled his farm tool in battle with surprising efficiency. He hummed as he thought on the matter, deciding that his schedule was fairly open, he took to following them. "Good evening Tetsuo, good evening Saya." His deep voice soothed across the air to their backs. He quickened his pace only a little to catch up with them. His long legs allowing for his strides to outdo theirs. "Is something happening at the HQ?" He asked softly, and innocently. He didn't want to pry, but he was still curious.

---

Hace sat on the grassy ledge. Her knees together and risen to prop up the plank of wood and parchment. She was using a stick of charred wood to draw, spreading it's ash around. She struggled as her eyes kept darting back and forth, resting on her paper, then on the flower in which the likeness was being copied. She sighed a bit as she scanned the drawing. It wasn't amazing, many little faults here and there, but it wasn't horrible either. She shrugged and gave up, her legs a little tried and numbing a tad from the extended time in their current position.

She stood up to her unimpressive height and moaned a little with some annoyance. Invisible pins and needled stabbed at her thighs all over. She stomped her leg a few times with slight irritation and hoped for them to stop hurting. She looked about the area as she did so, pondering where her next venture could be.

Setting eyes on nearby figure, she tensed. Some odd shadow wisped by in the near foliage...

"Just seeing things..." She murmured, ignoring her aching legs and forcing her body to tensely walk away. She felt eyes in her neck...

A snap of a twig and she yelped, turning around to see the beast!

A small blue bird flew by, it's perch just broken.

"...Just seeing things..." She restated cautiously.

Guo Fu was nicking away at a slab of wood he had prepared earlier, his chisel pounding into the wood. He carefully observed it as he heard his brother. He shouted back "Yes Brother, I wish to accompany you to town." He opened up his backpack as he placed his chisel within it. "I have not talked to Jin there for sometime. He is a most amusing door." He got up and slung his backpack, well over his back, and exited out of the carving shack.

It was often Rurian found himself out of bed before the sun was up and back in bed after it went back down, but on this particular day he had slept right through the morning and most likely would have slept the rest of the day away had a bird not tried to detach the tip of his feline tail. While he normally would have been thankful for such a wake up call, he didn't find enjoyment in being lazy and sleeping about as most felines did, but after the previous evening a bit more sleep would have been divine. How often was it that one of the town herbalists mistakenly ate a plant that made them sick? Not very often, that was for sure.

Rurian grumbled loudly as he lightly rubbed the end of his tail between his forefinger and thumb, smearing blood into the soft sandy colored fur that covered the tip of his tail. A frown slowly forms on his features as realization slowly started to hit him, mainly about what he had not gotten to do today and what all he had missed! Another groan escapes Rurian as he turns his gaze downwards, towards the ground. He was still high up in the bright red leafed tree he called home. With a light push he slips easily off of the branch, landing several feet bellow with a nearly silent thud. Slowly he starts to make his way towards the town, still fiddling with the tip of his tail while he walked.

Not only had he missed his class today, he hadn't even been able to make his rounds as he usually did. A twinge of disappointment hit him, he wished the bird had tried to get his tail sooner.

Kumazawa Takeo had been up early that day, just like every other day since he could recall. He didn't tend to the farm anymore, that had stopped when his parents passed away, but now he had a mill to run, quite literally since it depended on his muscle more often than not. It took three horses or two oxen to drive the treadmill that powered the machinery as well as he could, the animals took longer to do it and him and Uncle Masa could only get people to loan their animals on occasion, for very short periods of time since it was exhausting work for the beasts. Still, he didn't mind much, it was a good morning workout overall even if it was a bit dull.

Takeo's duty only extended as far as grinding the grain, however. Extracting the oil that was their main source of livelihood from the ground up paste, as well as the subsequent cleanup and gathering of the remaining "press cakes" to be sold as animal feed or even as an ingredient in baked goods was supervised by Uncle Masa. "You're too much of a careless brute for the delicate parts, just stick to grinding and frying" he'd been told more than once, so that's what he did, which left him some free time to do whatever he pleased before he opened up the eatery for dinnertime.

He donned one of his white robes, since the people in Kado didn't appreciate him going around in his underwear, strapped on a pair of straw sandals and went for a stroll around town, to see if anything interesting was going on or if anyone needed to hire some muscle, maybe the Guardians had a problem they couldn't solve on their own. If there was nothing going on, he might just step outside the village's boundaries for some excitement.

Keyton packed up his things, sliding his books and pencils off the desk and into his small satchel before buttoning it shut and slinging it over his shoulder. "Looks like he's not coming." One of his class mates sighed, it had been twenty minutes and there was no sign of Mr Rurian or a substitute, while some students seemed a little disappointed Keyton was happy. He loved school and lessons but it was nice to have a day off every now and then, not that weekends counted, this he assumed was his teacher's thought process as well...Or maybe something cool had happened and Rurian he had to go and be a guardian. Keyton's face lit up at the possibility of something exciting happening, he walked swiftly to the class exit. "Key, where are you off to?" A young girl asked him as he passed, her eyebrow raised with curiosity. "You're not going to try and climb the tree of nesting again are you? You nearly got hurt last time." Keyton shook his head and smiled over his shoulder. "Nah, I'm just going to see if anything interesting a happening in town."

Making a mental note to go and try to climb the tree later the boy set off into town, he passed by the brewery and spotted Garoth with his brother, also a guardian, who was leaving. He ran over to the other boy's side and looked over to watch Tetsuo head towards guardian HQ. "What's going on Garoth?" He asked with a grin. "Something going on with the guardians? Mr Rurian didn't turn up this morning...and neither did you."

Kun Fan clucked his tongue as he took hold of the rickshaw's handles, The Chairman taking up his usual position perched atop the left corner. Kun Fan stood, bottles rattling slightly as he rose. He took a swig from his sake gourd, and then, breathing steadily, legs bulging with power, he set off on his morning run, headed for the village.

Garoth glared indignantly as the two Guardians left him behind; he wished his ears were as sharp as his eyes so that he could hear what they were talking about. He didn't have much time to smolder, though, as his classmate soon approached. "Hiya Key," he said in a friendly tone, though he didn't take his eyes off of Saya and Tetsuo as he spoke, and by the looks of it Mr. Spirit was joining them too. "I was busy today so I couldn't make it to school..." "Busy" was the word he used whenever he was more inclined to spend the day practicing with his wooden sword and tossing rocks at a target than he was to reading books. Even though Mr. Rurian often took them outside, today was too nice to waste on books and numbers. "They're up to something," he continued, letting what he wished to be true embellish what was actually said. "Saya said they were going to have a secret meeting. I bet they found a monster and are going to make an elite team to go fight it!"

* * *

Saya turned and gave a silent nod to acknowledge Million's greeting. It seemed to be her standard way of saying hello these days. "Nothing out of the ordinary is happening," she said in an icy voice that was terrible at hiding the fact that this meeting was, in fact, a bit out of the ordinary. "We just need to discuss a few things. The village is safe. We will inform you if any precautions need to be taken."

Those words of reassurance only put Tetsuo a bit on edge. Why was she talking like that? Was she just that accustomed to talking about danger, or was there really something amiss. "Of course, you're welcome to attend the meeting if you like," Tetsuo said in a legitimately calming tone, not wanting Million to be put off by the weird attitude that Saya had been showing lately. "We decided to invite some respectable people to the meetings lately," Tetsuo explained to Saya, who had been away when they made that change. "You know, to keep things transparent." He was thinking that he ought to convince his father to let him off the hook tonight. The Cajun Catfish would last at least one night without him.

"I see..." Saya said, not entirely bothered by the fact that civilians would be attending the meetings, but a just a little dismayed by the lack of privacy. "Well, Tetsuo, if you don't currently have any duties, could you please spread the word to the other Guardians? And perhaps you could inform the people as well, Million? It would be best if we have a full house this evening."

"Not a problem," Tetsuo said with a nod, but he didn't want to leave poor Million in the dust, so he waited to see if he would help Saya as well before taking off.

For a lesser man, the road would have taken upwards of an hour and a half. Kun Fan, however, was no lesser man. Within the old man raged the strength of an ox and the speed of a purebred stallion. He dashed down the path, the rickshaw wheels moving so fast it looked as if they would go careening off into the forest any second, but they never did- such was the quality of his younger brother's craftsmanship. Forty minutes, and they were there, on the outskirts of the village.
Kun Fan relaxed his pace- no need to rush past when he could let others eye his wares. He drew the rickshaw into the village center, retrieving a blanket from the back and laying it out in front of the rickshaw, sitting crosslegged as he finished setting up.
Nothing to do now but wait.

Guo Fu followed his elder brother into the town square, as he watched his brother set up the wares, and finish setting it up. Guo Fu slung his backpack from his back and plopped it onto the ground. He peered down into the grass as he saw a lone pebble, which he picked up in his left hand. He peered at the stone for a bit, as he curled the fingers around it. He stroked his mustache with his right hand as he nodded at the pebble.
"Hello Da. How are you?"
-I have been stuck in that grass all day, and they kept mocking me for being a pebble.-
(... Da started it by insinuating that we were only fit to die.)
Guo Fu paused for a moment as he glanced at the grass below him, where he plucked the pebble, he then glanced at the Pebble.
"Did you start it Da?"
-Okay, maybe I di..-
"Da... what do we say?"
-Fine I'm sorry grass...-
"That is better." Guo Fu gingerly placed the pebble near the satchel as he stretched out his back, and looking around the village center.

It seemed that something was indeed going on with the guardians, and it must be big if they wouldn't even tell their families."A monster?" He repeated with wide eyes, making sure that only Garoth would hear him, if there really was a monster it would be best not to let the whole village know. "Awesome! So are we gonna spy on the meeting or head out and find it ourselves? I mean if we wait then they'll go out, fight it and we'll never see anything cool." Keyton had yearned for some excitement over the past few weeks and now it looked as though he was getting some, and there was no way he was going to let it slip away. He hoped that Garoth shared his excitement, he probably did, the two were often thinking in similar ways and perhaps that was why they were such good friends.

Weapons in Kado were scarce, mos of them reserved for matters pertaining to Guardian Duties. Even then, there were hardly enough to go around. Short sword was the weapon of choice, with the benefit of being the one most readily available. To that avail, walking into town Joseph Iverson was quite the sight. Having recently been asked to help repair, or otherwise rebuild, many of the worn and torn tools, he was back to make his delivery. Strapped to his back were eight dull edged swords, all that need be done is sharpening them. Iverson had no grind stone with which to do this, so whoever took the sword would have to perform the task.

Many wished his a good day as he made his way through the town. The most response any of them would get would be direct eye contact. Whether or not some viewed this as rude would be up for debate, but being dubbed Silent Joe, what more did they expect. But even though he didn't come to town too often, he did like how colorful and active it was. These people had what they needed, and they were happy.

Finally he made his way to the Guardian HQ. Without stopping he walked through the door, around the corner, down the hall and into the armory, if it can even be called that. Everything, be it the armor, the weapons, the ammo, or the tools, ranged from tattered to partially used. Any outsider would find this to be a problem, and honestly, it is, but the fact that the village survived this long is a testament to the Guardians and their expertise. Joseph unloaded his wares, and started putting them on the racks.

Garoth grinned at the prospect of getting a glimpse of whatever had the Guardians worried before anybody else. Besides, hearing people talk about something was almost as boring as reading about something; if they spied on the meeting, they would only get even more excited about going out and actually seeing something. "Let's go on patrol!" he decided, which was his way of saying that they would look for anything interesting in the woods. "If we do find something maybe they'll even let us tell everyone about it at the meeting. C'mon!" And so, without knowing where to begin looking, without knowing what they would do if they actually did find a monster, and without even the slightest inkling of hesitation, Garoth darted off towards Tall Tree Park to get a good view of the surroundings. Some kids didn't like how bossy Garoth could be at times, but Keyton understood that it was more often than not his eagerness talking than his ego. He didn't like standing around and deliberating about things, so he made his decision quickly and then acted on them.

Returning his friend's grin, Keyton nodded vigorously. It seemed that great minds did indeed think alike as Garoth set off towards tall tree park, it was almost as if the two had laid a plan telepathically and the boy's mind raced around imagining various scenarios in which the two found various things and performed various actions. One of the most prominent and exciting of these scenarios was one that involved the two finding a wolf-beast and teaming up to bring it down before dragging the creature victoriously through the town to the HQ and flinging open the doors while the guardians had their meeting, this would be followed by a night of celebration and then the two boy heroes would be made guardians themselves.

Keyton's smile grew wider as they entered the park, picking up the pace to over take Garoth and almost instantly he leapt at the tallest of the oaks, he knew the trees well and had climbed almost all of them. He swiftly and gracefully made his way to the lowest hanging, sturdy branch and dropped a hand down to Garoth offering him a boost up. "I'd say that if we can get about half way up we'll have a pretty good view." He looked up to scan the tree for a good observation spot. "There!" He pointed with his free hand to a thick and relatively flat branch a little over half way up. "That's our target!"

Kumazawa was fairly well liked in the village. Not like a celebrity but his family had never been a bother, the farm and mill produced a number of commodities beyond the base sesame they also traded with and he would often handle situations where an extreme amount of strength was required completely free of charge, just to show off his abilities. The eatery was quite popular as well despite being a messy joint where people couldn't even sit down to eat and he liked to attribute the success of his "restaurant", such as it was, to his food not being so drowned in spices that people had trouble eating it, and he liked to do so often, loudly and in the open, perhaps the most deplorable part of his personality.

Still, despite the friendly greetings and some inane gossip, it seemed like a dull day without much going, so he approached the Guardian HQ. If there was a place that might have some excitement waiting for him, that'd be it. Otherwise he'd just have to strike out on his own and see what he could find. "Eeeeeeeeey, guard bros! Need something killed by hand?" he called out when he saw the gathering of people nearby, not spotting Tetsuo amongst them. He'd wrestled down a few beasts for the Guardians here and there, so it wasn't strange that he'd ask for such an assignment. The only reason he had never been asked to join was because he refused to memorize the laws. "Remember I work for free, quite the deal, eh?".

Million listened intently as the two bantered about recent guardian rules. He wondered just how long Saya had been gone this time. It was always worrying when she left, she led a dangerous life, and losing any member of the town was a terrible thing. "...I wouldn't mind helping." He stated in response, his low tone dulcet and calm. He wasn't sure exactly how many people he could actually gather. Sure he wasn't the slowest person around, but his comfortable pace may have something to say against that. He looked now to Tetsuo, who seemed to be waiting courteously for him, he gave a sort of nod to him, to show he acknowledged the kindness.

Alexander was approaching the village, when he heard somebody shouting "There! There's our target!" An old man, Alexander looked behind him to see if he noticed something, looked around, then looked back. He made a double take, then continued forward. Alexander had protected the village for roughly half a decade, starting from the moment he entered the village. By then, he was already old. It didn't take much longer before Alexander's bones to start cracking, leaving him to have to quit being a guardian all together- though not the sole reason. He was still more or less capable of fighting, after all.

"What's going on?" the old man asked in a nonchalant manner. He looked up, then glared at Tetsuo. He had a bit of a bone to pick with the guy. In fact, it was thanks to one of Tetsuo's stuffed peppers that made it so that Alexander had to run to the restroom every five minutes the other night- a whole four minutes less than usual. But he didn't say anything.

Guo Fu turned to his brother, "Say Brother, did you hear about that one guy... And that thing in the Swamp?" Guo Fu walked up to Kun Fan as he nudged him on the shoulder, "Remember that story?" Guo Fu glanced around the area, looking for potential customers for their wares. He paused for a moment as he sat down on the grass, still near Kun Fan. Guo Fu picked up a different pebble, bringing it closer to him. "Do you know where Ni is?"
-The Shrubbery?-
"Yes, I am referring to the Shrubbery named Ni."
-I am not sure where he is at this point. I'm guessing where he would normally be?"
Guo Fu used his left hand as he began tugging on the left side of his mustache. "I see... Thank you for the information pebble." Guo Fu nodded as he placed the pebble back down onto the grass. He got up, and stretched out his back. "Say brother... That story, you do know the one I am referring to yes?"