Hidden Secrets (kodahichi)

Soranami sighed as he stood in front of all the new recruits, looking them over. The first day was always the longest, but not for them, but for him. He was the only one he trusted to check them out, and make sure they were not smuggling in anything, or that they were not working or any of his enemys. There was a lot of people he trusted, but not with this task, not with this country having so many enemys, and so many rules against things that were permitted inside the grounds.

He was walking the line slowly, searching their personal bags. He had already been forced to arrest three people for smuggling illegal things, and one more for being a spy. He was relieved as he got to the end of the line, and saw the bags of the last man. He leaned down, about to look in when someone ran in, and yelled "Captain we have a problem, their was an attack over in a town east of here." He nodded, and said, "Well men, I know we haven't trained you yet, but it looks like you will have to rely on what you already know, put your bags up, and get fitted for your armor, and once you get it you will head out, luckily for you, you have maybe weeks before you have to come out there, so lets hope you get in some training." After that he dropped the unexamined, and now forgotted bag, and left the room.

Charlotte let out a soft, quick sigh. She had a couple things in her bag that should be for her eyes only yet forgot they were in there. She had yet to be assigned a room, which was the tricky part of hiding her things. She lifted her bag onto her shoulder once again and started out of the room with the rest of the men to get fitted. She had years of practice binding herself and now, she looked like a perfect, typical male. She was quickly fitted, just like the rest of them and her bag was set in the pile with the rest of the bags. No one could tell she was ever a woman. And that's exactly what she wanted.

The whole unit went out together, following Soranami's commands from the very beginning.

Soranami gave his orders quickly, "Alright, you half follow me," He pointed to the right side, the side Charlotte was on. "You half follow Vincent here." He pointed to a man dressed in black armor, with dark red trim.

By this time he had changed into his armor. His was a dark gold full plate armor. It was lined with rubys, and emeralds, and even diamonds on certain parts. It was a black trim lining down the small creases that were made when the pieces were melted together to make this protective set. His sword was on his waist, and it's sheath was also gold, except instead of having black for its linnings, he had black words from a different language on it. He hated his armor, and sword, he thought they were to flashy, an unneeded feature for battle, but the king had insisted on it, and he was in no place to argue with the king.

He showed his soldiers which way they were to go, and ran in front of them, leading them to the city. When they were close they could see the smoke in the distance, and when they were closer still they could all smell the stench of burned flesh in the air. They came up on a hill overlooking the city, and down below was the city, but in ruin, it was decimated, nothing left but the burning buildings. "Look out for any surprise attacks, and search the city and the surrounding areas for any survivors, report to me if you find anything."

The 'teams' split sides, taking a chance to look at each other while they could, and got ready for the upcoming attack, whatever level of it there may be. Charlotte looked towards Soranami, waiting for their next command. And once it came, she nodded and was instantly on the move. The 'man' put her arm over her nose, blocking out the smell from her senses. It was an awful stench and was killing all of her other senses, but she continued to move closer to the burning. She had stuck by Soranami simply because of her location and he glanced over to the man beside her.

"What village is this?" she asked, turning her attention away again, watching out for the surprise attacks she just knew were coming.

Soranami looked at the man beside of him, and said, "This was the farming city Raython, they were important to us, they donated food when possible, and supplied us with good warriors. So we must find who did this, one for them, and two for the rest of the country, villany like this can not go without punishment." His eyes were angry at the people who did this, and he walked forward with more of a purpose now. "Alright split up, half come with me and search the outside, the rest go into the city and see what you find, I don't care how you split up, just do it." He walked off heading for the tree line that lead deeper into the country.

Charlotte scowled. Right, this village needs to be avenged, but when her village was taken out by the same people she was now working for, they could ignore it like nothing happened. Her village supplied plenty of goods to other villages and even gave some to the palace! The price of golden goods and weaved tapestries went up after her home was destroyed, but no one seemed to want to avenge them. She didn't see that as fair in any way. But she didn't dare speak or bring that up in anyway.

She split with the group, making sure to stay with Soranami once again and began to circle the town with another member of the new half of the team. The rest went inside to look around, trying to find any signs of survivors.

Soranami had no luck finding a trail, or any signs at all indicating which way they had gone. He wouldn't stop searching though, going over the same spots multiple times, just in case he, or someone else, overlooked what they were looking for. He crouched down a little after another hour, discovering a almost forgotten trail hidden by tall grass, and trees to close together for convient carriage travel. "Someone come here for a moment." When someone got there he asked, "Do you know, or anyone else know, where this trail leads, I don't quite remember where it leads..."

The soldiers inside the city did find a few survivors, but upon interrogation they revealed the attackers came and left too swiftly to really tell which way they went, and which way they came from. All they remembered was that there was only around 10 attackers here. The soldier who learned this pasted it on to someone, and told them to tell someone under Soranami's group at this time.

One of the male soldiers came up to Soranami and informed him where the path lead to, pointing forward and telling him exactly where it lead. "Should we report it, sir?" he asked. "Or should we follow it?" Charlotte, on the other hand, started down the path a few steps, leaning down to look at what were left of the foot prints. "Sir!" she called, looking back at Soranami. "They were on horseback. They could be long gone by now." She stood up and walked back to her commander, stopping several footsteps back, not needing or meaning to get too close.

Soranami scratched his chin for a few minutes, contemplating there next move. "I want our fastest two runners to head to the capital to report, the rest of us will head up to the next city and wait, see if we can't intercept them." He looked at the man who stopped a little away, realizing he was the on;y one who found the footsteps. "You," He pointed at the man, "What is your name?" He couldn't seem to remember ever learning this man's name, or remember checking for anything illegal in his bags...

"Charlot Tremblay, sir," the 'man' told him in an instant. Charlotte's practice was perfect and she internally smiled to herself. All that work on drilling the new name into her head paid off. She could have ruined the rest of her life if she answered with a different name. Her back straightened slightly now that she was being spoken to by her commanding officer. Her eyes darted around the area swiftly before returning to Soranami.

He nodded at the man's name, and smiled a little to himself, "Well you will now be in the front of the line, watching for signs of recent travel, that is when and if we decide to follow them." He turned around again, and gave the order to head north, and look for any cities that have similar traits, or might be in the way of the traveling bandit group.

"Yes sir," Charlotte muttered as he turned away from her to command the others in the unit. She waited as the other men seemed to hesitate at the command, but slowly began to move anyway. It seemed that they were going to be diving right into work with whatever they had learned in the past. 'Well this should be interesting,' Charlotte thought, watching the men scamper around for what they could find and got ready to go. Charlotte stepped forward to the empty space beside Soranami and glance to the side, watching him from the corner of her eyes. "Sir, how far will we be going?" 'he' asked softly.