Ten years ago the Shogun divided his kingdom between his two sons. He was hardly cold in his grave when the brothers hatred and jealousy of each other drove them to war. They were evenly matched for years, but now one brother has made a move that has tipped the scales in his favor.
May the Gods help all of us...

The young woman listened carefully. She was nearly finished gathering the herbs her grandfather needed. But even something as simple as gathering was more dangerous now.
A twig snapped had her breath catching and she looked around. The riverside was silent. There should have been birds chirping, animals running around, even a breeze blowing, but there was nothing.
That silence was what scared her the most.
Grabbing her basket, she hurried back towards the village. Not that the village would keep demons from attacking, they attacked regularly, but being around other people made her feel better. Especially her grandfather. He was so old and had seen so much that very little scared him.

A bunch of birds suddenly took off from a tree nearby, breaking the silence. Something had startled them.
Ayame didn't wait to see what it was, she hid in some tall grass and waited, holding her breath.

A scream made her close her eyes and cover her ears. Another attack. A middle aged woman from the village had been washing clothes in the river, Ayame had seen her on her way to the field where she picked her herbs.
Ayame opened them long enough to see the woman's body being dragged away. It was missing it's head.
She covered her mouth to keep from screaming or throwing up. The metallic smell of blood was in the air.

Usually the demons waited until nightfall to attack. This attack during the day, it meant things were getting even worse. Standing, she slowly picked up her basket and took a deep breath. She would have to tell the woman's family that she was gone. The village was mostly women, children and old men. All able-bodied men were sent to fight in the war. They had petitioned their ruler to return the men to the village to protect their families, but he had refused. So the village had taken matters into their own hands. The village elders, which her grandfather was one of as the village healer, had sent out messages across the land, a call for warriors to come and defend them from the demons. They would pay whatever they desired. They weren't a wealthy village, but they would find a way somehow.

EDITED

Kiryu inhaled deeply, his eyes closed. "This smell..." he said. It was the smell you could only get next to a body of water. A river ran by his feet, the soft bubbling of water not unlike a lullaby to his ears. He scratched the top of his head, yawning. It was the middle of day, yet oddly silent. Quiet enough to get some well deserved rest.
The ronin lay himself along the incline of the riverbank, and his sword across his lap. Another yawn escaped his mouth as he stared at the clouds with eyes half open. "You know what I need", he mused to himself with his last few minutes of consciousness "is a bath."

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Another day in another land. At least that's what Vosswald thought when he woke up this morning. Since he had been washed ashore on this strange and foreign land he has been travelling every day. Experiencing the beauty and strangeness of this land made him feel a little better about the fact that he was poor and homeless here. His weapons, the clothes on his back and the occasional bonfire were his main source of comfort, so it wasn't surprising that he was once again thinking about lighting another large bonfire this evening.
He kept following a small trail, thinking about nothing in particular, when he came across a small river. Having decided to take a break, he moved towards the riverbank, opened his pants and took a leak into the water, not aware that someone was taking a nap just a few more meters away.

Orion looked over a map of the land, marking in red the places he hand this miniature band of demons had been. He didnt care much for the chaos they spread so they only traveled at night. their mission was rather: eliminate high threat targets. while other demons and hired weapons took a more offensive approach and engaged in warfare he had the stealthy pleasure of sabotage. His job was not to find the leader of the "enemy" nor was it to spread fear across the land. His mission was to simply kill any powerful figures employed by the enemy, by what ever means necessary. The method by which he did that varied though. If they were among a guarded city the demons he was with would great distractions and he would sneak in and kill him, calling for retreat once the deed was done. That way the demons got to have their mayhem. But if they were individuals who were finacial backers of the war, Orion was much more quiet about dealing with them. In those instances he would go in alone and slaughter everyone in the house, leaving the town unharmed.

judging from the map the next town was only a small village with aboslutly nothing to offer. The demons would want to make a meal of it but Orion had a different idea.

Isana woke to the sound of a high scream. She jumped to her feet from her sitting position against the tall trees of the forest. What was that?[i] She peered around the area, scanning for movement. She turned to the on which she was leaning, rearing back and taking a quick dash at the trunk. She placed her boot on the bark, reaching up and seizing another branch. She barely felt the wood through her gloves, and heaved herself atop the branch.

Isana quickly crouched on the branch and closed her eyes, focusing intently. She opened her eyes again to see the heavy blue tint of her vision when she increased it drastically. Her sentinel eyes scanned the forest, looking for the source of the scream. She pinned her eyes on a set of figures, maybe a half miles away. She focused even harder and the picture became even clearer. [i]Demon! She could see the gnarled outline of the monster at the river bed, dragging what looked like a body. She forced her eyes to remember the target, and as she moved, her mind absently tracked its movements. When she returned her gaze to the area, she saw what looked to be another human, hiding from the demon. She surged her muscles and launched forward, climbing the treeways towards the river bank. The distance decreased steadily, and when she was nearly above the demon, she whipped her sword from the sheath on her back, and leaped down to strike the creature.

For the past four years, Umiko had been at sea swimming. This may seem odd, except that Umiko was in fact, a fish. Her life was peaceful and free of worry. The ocean was a vast place, so she was always able to find food, and always had something to do. Such a life was great- but why did she leave? Her fish instincts told her to follow her nose, and with a bunch of other fish, she swam to her ancestral homeland to lay her eggs and finally rest. Or so she thought.

"So, do you want to fertilize my-", "You know, I'm avail-", "U-um!" Umiko frantically searched around, the other salmon in her school only caring to get inland. Then suddenly, a shadow was cast above- no, several. A terrifying noise could be heard from up above, a terrifying "SCAW!" It was the birds, and it was their feeding time. A yellow beak poked into the water, grabbing a fish before flying off. It happened again, and again, until Umiko was the last one left. "Okay, maybe I can find someone from anothe-" before she could finish her thought, Umiko herself was scooped up, held in the gull's mouth.

"Let me go!" she flailed about desperately trying to relinquish herself from the gull's beaky grasp. "Let me go dammit!" she struggled again, before finally slipping form the bird's mouth and falling straight down onto the ground- several feet down. With a plop accompanied by a splash, Umiko's dead body fell into the river and floated downstream, a man urinating on part of her corpse before the water finally carried her to the side of the river.

"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" a ghostly figure shouted, thrashing around like a child throwing a tantrum. She stopped and looked in the water, seeing her reflection before realizing that she had in fact taken the form of a little girl. Her eyes were wide and glazed over. Umiko got down to the floor, went into a fetal position, and began to cry.

"Nnnngyuuurgh" a noise escaped Kiryu's mouth as he sat back up. "Whuzzat." he scanned the area.

There was a girl crying next to a dead fish a few feet away from him. "Oy. Girl." he squatted next to her. "You need to stop crying." he stated, scratching his head as he eyed the dead fish. Then he tapped her head. "....You alright?"

It had been many moons since she'd left the grand city of Tula Fey, sent away with a task to find information about the worlds current condition. Guójiā De Huǒ had always managed to keep itself out of war, it's luscious vast lands surrounded by large mountains which secluded it from the rest of the world. But it seemed the great mountains were no longer going to be able to lock out the quarrels of the rest of the world, and so it would be down to the Elemental Knights to seek out where each nation stood in the conflict. This way Guójiā De Huǒ would at least be prepared for what might come. This was the reason Alessia was here, travelling on this dirt road path towards a village in hopes of finding a place she could rest for a while before heading onwards. She wore a red cloak with a hood, the cloak fastened with a small golden broach that represented a flame. She kept the hood up for now, using it as some shade so that she wouldn't have to squint in the presence of the sun.

During her walk Alessia stopped, her brows knitting together a little as she picked up the sounds of something rather unpleasant, a young girl crying. She looked around for a moment, wondering if the source of the noise could be seen before she eventually began to move towards it. Of course it could have easily have been a trap set up by roadside bandits but that was nothing she couldn't get herself out of if it came down to it. Eventually Alessia found herself at the side of a river bank, the sounds of running water and birds chirping creating a pleasing orchestra of peace she'd come to adore in areas such as this. But of course such beautiful music would have to wait, for a young girl appeared to be making a song of her own, a sombre sound of loss which Alessia had been all too familiar with. A man also appeared to be with her, although from the looks of it they were not born from the same family. She would not assume this though, not at least without asking first.

Alessia took a few steps closer before she stopped, "What's going on here?" she asked in an even, soft tone. She kept her face shadowed under her hood for now, her eyes watching the man carefully in case there was more here than what she could already see.

"Huh!?"

Vosswald's state of relaxation was cut short when he heard the shouts of a girl, accompanied by the sound of something thrashing in water. He quickly closed his pants and searched for the source of this disturbance... which turned out to be located mere ten meters away.

He mentally wacked his head for not noticing sooner.

A hooded woman and a shady looking man in clothes more filthy and torn than his own stood in front of what appeared to be a crying girl. Dreading the worst, Vosswald reached for his longsword before realizing that this may not be what it looks like. So he decided to simply let his hand rest on his sword before slowly stepping forward, making no effort to hide his steps.