Just like CR7 said against the mighty Uzbekistan.... "I AM BACK!!!"
Hello there people. It's been a while lol. Sorry for the long ass break. But like i said, here it is. THE first chapter after months. So enjoy!!!!!!!!!
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Ten minutes.... A sixth of an hour.
In the grand scale of things, ten minutes is nothing. A breath in the life of a mountain. A heartbeat in the age of a river. In the span of a human life, ten minutes is like a drop in an ocean.
But sometimes, that's exactly how long it takes to convert a heaven into a hell.
The first arrow killed Genta.
The second killed the fisherman.
He'd been standing away from the group, still holding the whetstone Juzo had given him, when the arrow punched through his throat.
He didn't scream. But everyone could see the pain in his eyes.... as if he were trying to speak underwater.
The third arrow narrowly missed. Then the panic followed as they appeared.
Men came dropped from the trees. Pouring out of the forest like rats. They were all armed with swords, spears, crude axes, and all kinds of makeshift weapons.
Bandits.... all of them.
They hit the village like a tide hitting a sandcastle.
Old Takeshi stepped up to shield the kids.
He picked up his walking stick and swung it at the bandit who was about to harm the kids. The stick connected with the man's jaw, sadly, it did nothing.
The bandit barely flinched.
He grabbed the stick, ripped it away, and drove a short blade into Takeshi's stomach.
"Gasp!"
The bandit smirked and pulled his blade, which opened the old man's abdomen and let everything inside spill out onto the dirt he'd swept clean that morning.
Takeshi fell, taking his final breaths. His hands reached for his stomach, trying to hold himself together, trying to push back what was coming out.
His mouth moved, but no sound came. He looked at the sky above him, and for some reason, it looked breathtakingly beautiful.
He died looking at it.
The bandits, however, did not care. They stepped over the body and kept moving.
The village men rushed forward to protect the villagers.
Sadly, they were no warriors. They were farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen.
But still, they fought.
They fought with kitchen knives, with axes meant for firewood, with farming tools, and with anything and everything they could find.
Daisuke charged at a bandit with a sickle. The curved blade caught the man across the arm and sliced through him, as blood gushed out. The bandit yelled in pain. Daisuke thought he had won... sadly, that was not the case.
The bandit went into a frenzy and swung his sword at Daisuke.
He raised the sickle to block.
Unfortunately, a sicle was never meant to be sured this way. The sword cut through the wooden handle and dug into his shoulder.
The blade went deep into the muscle and hit Daisuke's bone. He screamed as his left arm stopped working.
But he didn't fall. He still stood on his feet and was still gripping what remained of the sickle.
The bandit laughed at him as he pushed him to the ground. Even with all the courage, Daisuke could not do anything against a seasoned fighter like the bandit.
"Hahahaha, look at this pest!!"
The laughing bandit planted his knee on Daisuke's neck and started sawing his neck.
"No. No, No please, n- AAARGH!"
The bandit got up with Daisuke's severed head and held it high. Turning towards the villagers so that they could see it.
"Doesn't this rat look beautiful? Tell me, HAHAHAHAHA!"
A heartbreaking scream came from Daisuke's wife as she was being pulled by other villagers. There was no time to grieve.
The men pulled the women and started running.
There was no evacuation route, no plan for a situation that none of them had ever imagined, because situations like this were never supposed to happen.
So they simply ran.
Mothers grabbed children. Some carried two, one on each hip; their arms burned, their lungs were screaming, but they kept running.
Others dragged older children by the hand, pulling them through the chaos.
But not all were able to run in time.
The bandits were not dumb. They had raided many villages and knew exactly how they would react.
They caught the women who ran the slowest. That was what they did.
Men were slaughtered, kids were captured to be sold off later, and women? They were the entertainment.
Ume was dragged from behind the fisherman's house by two bandits who grabbed her arms and threw her on the ground.
She fought with everything she had, clawed at their faces, their hands, anything she could reach, but nothing worked.
They hit her until she stopped moving.... and stopped breathing. She was lucky she was older, as the younger women faced a fate much worse.
Hanae, a young woman, was caught near the edge of the village. She'd been running toward the forest with her infant son pressed against her chest, shielding his body with hers. Just as she was about to escape, a bandit grabbed the back of her collar and yanked her off her feet.
She was slammed onto the ground. She curled around her baby, shielding him. The baby cried loudly, feeling his mother suffer.
The bandit crouched over her with a grin, and he sliced her clothes with his blade, grabbing her thighs.
"NO! PLEASE NO!!! I BEG YOU!"
"Hahahahaha!!!! They all say that, beautiful. Don't worry, you will lov-"
SHINK!
Before he could do something else, a blade tore through his neck.
"KKH-KACK-KACKH!!" The bandit was still in shock, as he choked in his own blood.
The bandit's body shuddered violently as his lungs begged for oxygen. Alas, all his lungs got was his own blood.
Juzo stood behind him as the bandit's blood covered him.
He stared at the dying bandit with dead eyes, making sure to let him suffer before he died.
He then pulled off his upper kimono and draped it over her. And then pulled her into a hug, softly patting her back.
"It's all right," he said. His voice was steady, trying his best not a pain her. "You're safe now, Hanae."
She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes as the baby screamed against her chest. She was shaking violently, thinking what was about to happen.
"Th-hank y-ou, Juzo-s..san. Tha-"
"Don't thank me. Get to safety, now."
"What about y-"
"Go."
Looking at his face, Hanae flinched as she scrambled to her feet and ran away.
Juzo watched her run into the trees, making sure she was out of sight.
Then he turned back toward the village.
The men were dying.
Not all of them, at least.... not yet.
Twelve villagers had taken up arms, and six were already dead. Three were wounded badly enough that they couldn't stand. That left three men and Juzo, standing in a rough line across the center of the village, bleeding from cuts, but still holding the weapons.
From what Juzo had observed, the bandits numbered around twenty. The only reason they were still standing was that they were able to catch the bandits off guard.
The remaining men pulled back, forming a wall so the bandits could not go after the women and the children.
Juzo was breathing heavily. A deep cut ran across his left forearm where a bandit's sword had cut him during the earlier fighting. It was a deep cut; you could see the bone through the flesh and blood.
He looked at the men beside him.
Saburo, the carpenter, Hiro, the young rice farmer who'd just gotten married last spring, and Masa, the fisherman's brother.
Those four against twenty bandits. Bandits who had weapons and knew how to fight.
Juzo looked at them as they looked back.
No words were needed.
They knew what this was. This was the end.
Juzo filled his lungs and roared.
"WE HOLD THIS LINE! AS LONG AS WE STAND, OUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN RUN! EVERY SECOND WE BUY THEM IS A SECOND THEY GET FURTHER AWAY!"
"WITH OUR LIVES!" Saburo, Masa, and Hiro screamed back.
***
Away from the last line, Suzune ran.
She carried Kiriko in her arms, one arm under the girl's body, the other pressing her daughter's face into her shoulder. Covering her eyes so that she did not have to see the gruesome reality.
Alas, it was too late for that.
Kiriko had seen it... she had seen it all.
She'd seen Genta's death when the arrow hit him. She'd seen the bandits rushing in while smiling. She'd seen Takeshi die on his front porch. She'd seen the blood, the fire, and the faces of men she'd known her whole short life twisted with terror.
She was three years old, and she had seen all of it, and her mind didn't know what to do with any of it.
Ten minutes ago, they were laughing. Ten minutes ago, her father was handing out candy. Ten minutes ago, the world was warm and happy.
Now people were dying.
Why?
The question ran through her mind.
Why would a human hurt another human? We are supposed to be kind to each other. That's what Mommy said. That's what Daddy said. We give love, and love comes back. That's the rule. That's how it works.
So why?
She didn't have any answer.
All she realized was that her parents lied about the rules. They lied about being kind, which was a must, and now they are suffering because of that.
Then she heard her father's voice.
"WE HOLD THIS LINE!"
She knew what that meant.
That her father was staying back, and would be killed by those people.
Her eyes went wide in panic,
"NO!" she screamed, thrashing against her mother's grip. "DADDY! NO! DADDY!"
Suzune's hand clamped over her mouth.
"Shh." Suzune's voice was barely a whisper. Her own tears were streaming down her cheeks. "It will be all right, honey. We just have to be quiet. Daddy will be fine."
Kiriko wanted to believe her. She really did, but she couldn't.
But Suzune's hand stayed over her mouth, and the women and children kept running, as the sounds of the village grew fainter behind them.
As they ran away, only one question remained in Kiriko's mind.
Why?
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Hope it was realistic. And not over explained