In a damp, dark basement, two injured souls could be seen dangling from ropes; their bodies so severely hurt as to be destroyed beyond repair. Missing fingers and one without an eye, they clung to life desperately. With cloth around their mouths there was little they could do but accept the torment they were being given by Tomoe. They disrespected and betrayed him, and to defy a member of the Midnight Cult was to defy HER. The Joyan wouldn't tolerate that, and without any mercy he decided that the best course of action would be to punish these heathens ceaselessly until they understood the might that they were up against. Tomoe was a preacher of goodness in the world, and all goodness led back to HER teachings. While he wouldn't proclaim to know HER or HER message, he felt confident that he was knowledgeable enough to know HER general message.

"I'm going to give you idiots one last chance. Either ya work for me, or ya die as horribly as your buddies have."

The words stirred the tortured duo before him, their faces filled with fear and frustration. They knew that there would be nothing they could do in this situation other than serve or die, and thus nodded their heads to the best of their ability.

"Very good.", Tomoe replied, a spark of joy filling his features as he cut his new pets loose.

"Become my dogs, and hunt for loot.", he continued, severing their arm bindings with his sword and allowing them the freedom to finally move with their bleeding limbs.

With a blade pointed at the starving animals before him, Tomoe commanded them with threats of violence to leave in search of commoners and nobles alike to hunt. Treasure always the endgame, and in this case, he would train them to be obedient or else suffer the consequences. Following closely behind, he would observe this new method of training for his underlings.

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"Go forth, and raise hell.", Tomoe spoke, leaving the abandoned building they were in to venture out into the world.

Raising his sword as if commanding an army, he sent his foolish and reckless drones out into the world. Crocus was its own economy, filled to burst with treasures. Not to mention with the approach of the party to celebrate the 'victory' over the Seraphim, there were even more riches than ever before, all centralized into this one area for this one point in history. Those more ignorant on the black market and in pawn shops would pay absurd amounts of money for what might amount to very little, merely because they appear more eccentric or are foreign to the land of Fiore.

Proud of the 'training' he had dished out upon his thugs, Tomoe watched as the mentally broken underlings scavenged and pillaged for valuables. They would break through windows with rocks and wooden planks, robbing citizens blind. It didn't amount to much in the poor districts, but with their collective ambitions moving them upwards into the working districts of Crocus, they would eventually assault even juicier prey: workers. People who were just trying to get by would find themselves attacked and pilfered of their belongings without a word or a hint of mercy.

It was all going according to plan. And then, with the clanking of armor, the Rune Knights appeared to bring an end to the chaos. All at once Tomoe's optimism vanished, replaced by a sigh of frustration and a furrowed brow.

"Fight them how you wish. Fight them, or else die pointlessly by my hand.", the Joyan warrior commanded.

Having successfully trained them like animals, they responded the only way they knew how anymore: by charging the four Rune Knights in front of them with their rusty knives and unprotected bodies. They growled as they approached, their wounds visible and visibly shaking some of the knights. As they clashed, it was over in an instant.

Of course there was no way that mere peasants could even attempt to hold off trained knights for more than a few seconds. They were cut down like the dogs they were trained to be, and Tomoe expected this. Sadly, what he wasn't expecting was for two of the knights to break off from their formation to search the pockets and bodies of the feral thieves. There, they found the haul that the pair had collected for the day, and it was this that set Tomoe off. As the two other knights approached him defensively and asked the Joyan to surrender, all he could think of was how government officials tried to plunder the loot of peasants for their own gain. It was another example of social inequality, and such evil was not the world that SHE stood to guide.

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"So be it.", Tomoe spoke aloud, and drew his sword with the crashing of thunder.

Moments later, the knights rushed him with their own swords, and clashed against his. The moment that the Joyan blocked their advances one after the other, the two knights recoiled in agony as the earth-shattering quaking of thunder filled their eardrums. Instantly they had lost any type of hearing they were once capable of, but Tomoe knew it wouldn't last long. In the moment in which weakness was seen in their stances, he lunged forth at the first knight, striking his throat with the tip of his electrically-enhanced sword and puncturing him. As he fell to the floor, his partner who had yet to overcome his new ailment, had raised a feeble guard in protest against the samurai's assault. It was all for nothing, however, when a second clash against the knight's blade resulted in its fracture. Cleaving steel apart, the Kusanagi would strike straight through the pitiful weapon of the knight and deliver a roaring slash down his midsection. In moments, both that had pursued Tomoe had fallen, and there were only two left.

The thieving knights had just stood up from their looting spree upon noticing their allies' defeat and subsequent death. They looked on with concern, drawing their swords and slowly starting to spread out. The key word being 'slowly', is what Tomoe would define as their fatal mistake.

"Oh, I don't think so.", the rogue muttered lowly before pointing his sword straight ahead towards the duo.

With a slash into thin air, a ripple of lightning formed in the shape of the cut he made and rocketed forth. With speed that couldn't be reacted to, the arc slashed straight through the feeble armor of the low-ranking knights and into their bodies underneath. With the flying of steel and blood alike, both knights were rendered unconscious and in critical condition at the very least.

Not a single thought more was paid to the pathetic guards of Crocus, ignoring their bleeding carcasses as he scavenged the knights for the goods they had stolen. Tomoe ruminated briefly on how ironic it was that they had stolen from those who had stolen, and laughed to himself at the notion.

After picking up all of the loot obtained throughout the venture, Tomoe sighed with relief before hearing the clanking of more metal and shouting approaching his location.

"Well, it was a nice experiment while it lasted. Later, guys.", he muttered while waving at the corpses of his former underlings.

Admittedly the whole thing did meet a disappointing end, but Tomoe figured that this would serve to power further endeavors in the future. With that, he dashed off into the shadows to hide from the Rune Knights until things cooled off again.

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Exit

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