Meeting the Healing Sage

Meeting the Healing Sage

A few days passed since seeing Natsuki’s ridiculously large house, or rather mansion. My mother and I had been invited over for dinner; it was actually really nice. It gave me something to work for in my career since my mother seemed to really like it. Our house was fine, but it was small and held a lot of bad memories within it. As far as the movie thing went for the time being, I had finished most of the shoots required in the movie that I was co starring in and had a few days off. At the moment, the next set of shooting would begin after the preparations were made for it. Since it was only the city in this world, it wasn’t like the production crew would think that I could get lost between the first set of shots and the next. After all, places outside of the city were unknown to normal humans. They didn’t know about the past realm or the many areas of the forests.

It was still early in the morning and I had just woken up. I sat sideways on my bed with my arms resting on my knees and my gaze down as I decide on what I would do for the day. I was dressed in what I slept in, consisting of a pair of blue and red plaid boxers and a white tee shirt. It had been a few days since I had spoken to Izuya and I wondered what he was up to. The last place that we had gone together had been to the past realm where I was able to fight against some normal but slightly abnormal opponents. Even though I had a good time there, I felt like I needed a greater challenge than was given. Still, though I felt that, I knew that it might still be a bit too early to fight against Izumi-sensei again. The last attack and her ability to regenerate her stamina had really opened my eyes to the level that she fought on. I knew that if I couldn’t deal with that single attack, and froze up, then I wouldn’t be able to go all out against Izumi and hope to survive.

At any rate, I was presented with this day off. With the previous thoughts in mind, I decided that it would probably be good to train a little so that I didn’t get sloppy in my techniques and so that I could continue to work my way up to Izumi-sensei’s level. I had my choices of where to go, be it in the past realm, forest or city. Since it had been a while since I had gone to the past realm, I decided that I would see what was going on there. If I were lucky there might be a war or a legion of demons running around out the blue like when Izumi-sensei and I went.

With my destination in mind, my body stands and I proceed in proceeding with the day. Before getting dressed, I make sure to get breakfast together and sit down with my mom to have tea and the morning’s meal. I let her know that I would be out for a bit just so that he has a heads up. When breakfast was done, I clean up afterwards and head back to my room. After getting ready and dressed in a pair of baggy tan cloth pants tied at the ankles, a pair of tabi and a white shirt, I strap the Sword of Light on my back and stand in the middle of my room. Looking down, I perform several hand seals quickly before a white light engulfs my body and teleports me to the outskirts of Sai City.

I arrive in the past realm with my body coming out of the light. It is morning there and a soft breeze flows across the meadows that I appear in. Calmly I jog and begin my way into the city. After making it into the city’s gates I look around to realize that everything was seemingly fine there; life was proceeding as normal and there didn’t seem to be a demon plight around. I give a soft sigh as I wondered where I should go now, be it the town where the merchant tournament fights were going on or something else. In my roaming and upward looking around, I bump into a small fellow and stumble back slightly as I emit, “sorry!” I look down to see a tiny little man in a brown cloak. The little man looks up, a silver mustache noticeable as he smiles and assures, “oh it’s no problem at all.” He informs with a kind smile, “I’m a healer, so something like this is no worries.” Seeing the sword on my back, his eyes widen a bit as he asks, “you’re not part of the village militia are you?” I shake my head and comment, “no…” He smiles and continues, “are you a warrior.” A grin comes to my face and I give an arm pump as I advise, “yes!” He beams as he answers, “ah good good. I could use your help?” I raise an eyebrow and ask, “from a menacing threat?” He nods and answers, “yes?...” I grin, “okay cool, what’s wrong, old man?”

The old man motions to the road and advised that we walked as we talked. From his story, he explains that he was from a small village that was under assault by fiends and that Sai Village wouldn’t mobilize troops away from the city to help. He had come looking for mercenaries to help with it and wanted my help to gather together villagers to help him. “I would fight,” he explains, “but I can only heal, I don’t have any battle experience.” With a smile, I advise, “oh, don’t worry about that. We won’t even need to gather anyone. I’ll take care of everything myself.” Smiling and taking my word for it, the chibi comments, “well, the worst that can happen is you die… I could just heal you and bring you back!” With that said, he teleports the both of us within visual proximity of his village, where looking up, I notice smoke in the distance as it would seem the village was already under attack. “Oh no,” he notices at the same time as myself, “they’re back so soon! The village wasn’t prepared for an attack.” I emit a “tsk” as I waste no time, crouching, before my body flickers and vanishes, the wind trailing my body as I god speed towards and into the village.

Within the village there were about 20 entities in a mixture of bandits and wild animals. Instead of simply looting, they were in the process of destroying everything while attacking women and children. No mercy was being shown as normal everyday farmers and village folk run away from the village in an attempt to flee the incoming invaders. Among the assaulters, there was a group in the center of the village who were chasing after a girl, no older than 9 as she ran after her mother. The ground breaks between them and the girl as I appear after landing from an approach from above. A “what the…” is emitted by a large tubby assaulter after being cut off. My body already crouched with my hand is on the hilt of the blade that rested on my neck. My body swiftly shifts forwards as I slash in a step forwards, intercepting one of the bandits cutting across his chest. My body turns in a circle as the blade trails coming to a wolf that was running beside him. In a burst of speed, I thrust out at another wolf that turned from the other side. A mace attack comes from the side. My body steps into the attack as I parry it, bringing the blade across the rib cage of the attacker before I look to see who was next. During my attacks, I would make sure they were non fatal, since I only needed to put the bandits down, I didn’t want to kill t hem or the animals. Noticing this, the sage appears next to me and asks, “what are you doing? That won’t kill them?” Without turning to him, I answer, “killing someone is too permanent a punishment for me to give. I’ll beat them within an inch of their lives, but justice isn’t killing. If you kill someone, they can’t learn to be better; you just focus on healing and reviving the villagers.” With that, my body flickers and vanishes again as I move to the next place to attack from. I am able to utilize my fire and wind abilities to take out the bandits and animals in the area. I knew that since the sage could heal people that it wouldn’t be as bad as if he weren’t here.

It takes about fifteen minutes for me to wrap everything up before the bandits and animals are laid out and either unconscious or unable to move. Turning, I see the short little man in the process of healing villagers. Reaching down, I rip a portion of a bandit’s shirt to wipe my blade with it before lifting it up and sliding it into its sheath on my back. I walk back towards the sage and make the comment, “I would suggest warping these bandits to Sai Village. There should be a jail or something there for criminals. Either way, they need to be tried for their crimes.” The sage pauses in his healing and stands up and comments, “thank you for what you’ve done here.” With a grin, I assure that it was nothing, and in fact, it had been. The guys were pretty much normal humans. Tough and quick but still normal. The sage steps forwards and places his hand on me. Glowing rune symbols write on my chest before they fade into my body and goes away. He smiles and informs, “with this, I’ll give you a little bit of my power. When you need it, call out for the healing sage and you’ll be healed. It’ll take about a week for this power to recharge, so use it wisely.” With a smile, I nod and thank the short little old man before I turn heroically to the side and inform. “Well, with all well here, it is time for me to go… Live long and prosper!...” With that, I walk away from the village and towards the meadows.

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