Confrontation

After parting ways with the old man, Tetsuya returned to the depths of the town where he had found the girl sobbing into her hands on a dirt path leaning against the natural environment embodied in a simple tree. She was no longer crying, but still not anywhere near enthusiastic or happy until she saw Tetsuya return with the leather wallet and the ointment bottle she desperately needed for her grandmother as far as she told him. Her face lit up with happiness as Tetsuya handed her the items. She clutched them immediately and held onto them for dear life.

"...You… you… you did it!" She blurted out.

"...Anything to help." He said, a sheepish, nervous smile on his face. He wasn't sure how to handle intense praise, but he tried to be as humble as possible. However, his eyes widened when she reached into her wallet, taking out a handful of Belly in her hand and giving the currency to him.

He was in a state of disbelief. The money was quite unlike anything he'd ever seen. A payout as generous as 1,110 Belly from a single task would be something unheard of from the practical yard work he did for his aunt and uncle along the farm, where pushing barrels of oil after his arms hurt for days and towing tires only earned him 500 Belly. Wherever the money had come from, Tetsuya believed it was fair to assume the girl came from a background of currency, or at least higher standing than he did.

"...Thanks ya so much!" Tetsuya said, faltering for words to describe his gratefulness.

"...No problem. It's the best I can do since you returned the leather wallet and the bottle ointment I asked for." The girl stood up. "My name's Sarah."

She extended her hand forward to Tetsuya and he lightly shook hands with her, just staring at the Belly he was given, still in disbelief about the currency. He eventually took his eyes off it and focused on her.

"...Oh, right. I think I forgot to introduce myself. My name's Tetsuya." He introduced.

"...It's a pleasure to meet you, Tetsuya. If you ever need me to do anything, just tell me. I'll be more than happy to do it after what you did for me. Those bandits have been terrorizing everyone. It's the first time in a while I've seen someone stand up to one. How'd you do it?" Sarah asked.

"...I'm not really sure. I just… well… used my backbone, I guess." Tetsuya trailed off.

"...Backbone. I've never heard that one before. Well, stay safe out there. I've got to take this ointment to my grandmother, and quick. See you later!" Sarah said, beginning to jog by. In a moment's notice, she was gone. Tetsuya couldn't even wave goodbye.

"...Whew. All that… for Belly." Tetsuya said, looking down at the Belly in his hands. Before he knew it, it was super dark. It was best for him to be getting home. He knew his aunt and uncle would be worried sick about him. He worked on getting home, navigating his way through the dirt path.

Before long, Tetsuya had arrived home. His aunt and uncle were already up, and they stood with disappointed interlocked eyes with him.

"...Sneaking out. What did we tell you about that, huh?" His uncle snapped, catching him alert. Tetsuya released a weak sigh, shaking his head.

"My bad. I was… erm, running an extra errand." Tetsuya kicked at the floorboards slightly. His aunt and uncle didn't seem to buy the attempt at lying, though. They instead saw straight through it.

"...Running an extra errand? For who and what?" His aunt pressed. There was some silence. Tetsuro peeked from behind, a curious eye on Tetsuya.

It'd be hard to keep up his lie. Tetsuya had to tell the truth, and he did, furled lips unfurling once he realized he was pressed into a tough corner.

"...Alright. I was running an extra errand for a girl I met along a path. I wasn't supposed to, but… she wanted me 'ta get a leather wallet or something from a bandit, and I ended up punching one of 'em out… erm, to get it." Tetsuya explained, somewhat timid in his disposition.

"...Whaat?!? You… you punched someone out?!? A bandit?!? Do you know what that means?" His uncle erupted. There was a momentary brief of silence, and Tetsuro seemed to get giddy hearing what Tetsuya did.

"Bandits around this place of town will find where we live and steal from us all because of YOU! I told you to do as you are told, not to go around starting wars!" His uncle furiously continued, a commanding pointing finger aimed straight at Tetsuya.

"...I'm s-sorry… but I had to. She gave me 1,100 Belly, y'see?" Tetsuya splayed out his hands to show his aunt and uncle the money he received. It didn't change their reactions. They were both furious, angry, and upset.

"...That's nothing compared to the risk you had to take. I hope you realize what you've done will have severe consequences for us. We'll have to move to another town… better yet, take a boat to another town after years of trying to make a living here. Those bandits will stop at nothing once they find you." His uncle explained, pacing around anxiously.

"...My bad." Tetsuya gulped, sighing. Realizing what the consequences of his actions imposed upon his extended family, he shamefully returned the currency to the insides of his pockets.

"...You know what? We'll get this sorted tomorrow. Those bandits shouldn't know where we are. But as soon as it hits the crack of dawn, you better be up so we can get started on leaving." His uncle commanded, a stern look on his face as he stopped pacing around.

"...Right. Got it." Tetsuya gave a firm nod. There was some silence and worry present in the house as Tetsuya treaded off alongside his cousin to his room, sliding into his adjacent bed while his cousin slid into his respective bed as well. Silence existed between the two of them as neither of them were too sure what to say about what happened until Tetsuro's voice broke the silence.

"...So, you punched a bandit out, huh? What was it like?" Tetsuro curiously asked, giddy.

"...Huh? Well… it wasn't really fun or anything. But I had to punch 'em out because they were tryin' to threaten me, and I wasn't gon' let them do that." Tetsuya explained, turning over in his bed to look at his cousin, who looked to be as energized as ever, eager to hear more about the story.

"...Tell me more, tell me more! Why didja punch him out in the first place?" Tetsuro inquired, a look of curiosity smitten on his face.

"...Well…" Tetsuya recollected his memory before speaking further, remembering the girl that was sobbing on the dirt path. "There was a girl named Sarah who wanted me to take back some stuffs she lost to some bandits in exchange for some Belly. But, er… I accidentally got entangled with the wrong guys and I guess I've gotta worry about 'em spotting me."

"That sounds pretty exciting." Tetsuro said excitedly. Tetsuya rolled his eyes.

"Not really… if you ask me, it's pretty bad. I've put a lot of people around me in danger, and now I'll prolly be reapin' the consequences for it soon." Tetsuya explained.

"...Reaping the consequences? You mean… the bandits you aggravated will come after us?" Tetsuro asked, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek.

"...Yeah, in all likeliness, they will…" Tetsuya trailed off.

There were no more words exchanged between the two. For the rest of the night, there was just pure silence. Tetsuya slept well through his worries that confronted him in the form of nightmares and woke up the next day to find that the house seemed completely empty and no noise was present.

It was strange. When he walked through the house after getting his bearings together, he found that there was disturbance outside. Upon walking to find the source, he saw a group of men clad in black hassling his aunt and uncle as well as other villagers accompanied by a large man wearing a red coat.

The man appeared menacing. The bandits seemed to be interrogating each and every villager they came across, pillaging them of their possessions.

Tetsuya didn't like what he saw, but he felt like he had no other option but to watch as a lumbering man, seemingly the leader of the bandits, passed by, asserting dominance through slow, gradual strides. The man was well-built and well defined, likely the leader of the bandits, differentiated by his red coat and his head of black hair coupled with an eyepatch covering his eye.

"...Hehe. Look at 'em, all scared!" A bandit said amongst the pack, a troublesome, ill-mannered smile on his face.

"...We've gotta find that punk who punched one of us out. We'd ought to teach 'im a lesson!" Another bandit said, unrolling his sleeves to show his arms. The other bandits posessed various knives and weapons such as loaded revolvers, making them dangerous. They closely threatened villagers with them, demanding to know the whereabouts of Tetsuya, but no one seemed to cough out or produce valuable information.

Tetsuya breathed a sigh of relief, but he was still concerned for his aunt and uncle as he watched in secrecy. Tetsuro seemed to be nowhere to be found, which worried him severely. He didn't want his cousin to be caught up in the crossfire, and certainly didn't want anyone to be hurt. There was a moment of indecision on his behalf as he spectated what went on from his position of bystanding.

"...No, you can't!" A man called out. The voice seemed familiar, but Tetsuya's eyes and ears struggled to identify exactly who the voice belonged to.

The man? His uncle. Tetsuya's eyes widened in shock once he realized.

"...The boy you're looking for is… is my nephew, and I won't allow you to lay a finger on him." His uncle said, seemingly out of breath, gasping for air as if the very confirmation of blood relation had taken ages of his life away from him.

The bandits' reaction to such a revelation couldn't ― and wouldn't be good. He had to do something, and quickly!

"Though my nephew isn't the brightest, I'm more than willing to defend him. So direct your attention from him and onto me… because if you dare hunt after that boy, you'll have a lot to hear from me!" His uncle boldly continued, his declaration able to be heard around the entire village.

Tetsuya was ready to step in as the bandits neared around his uncle, chuckling after hearing his small disposition, ear-to-ear smiles giving away that they didn't take the lodged threat too seriously.

But deep inside… deep through all of their surface-level and superficial smiles, they still held great enough of a grudge against the catalyst to their coming to the village once more to rough up Tetsuya's uncle. Two bandits from behind grabbed the old man, holding him still in place to pillage him of his belongings so the bandit boss, defined by his huge stature and red overcoat, could do the favors.

"...Huh? Y-you… you all wait! Wait, l-let… let go of me!" Tetsuya could hear his uncle say, defenseless. As the scene unfolded before Tetsuya's eyes, something in the young boy changed before he knew it.

He could feel his hands tightening and his blood pressure increasing and tripling. Any former doubt within Tetsuya's mind dissolved.

Tetsuya dashed right over, ignoring any obstruction in his way. He focused solely on the man pillaging his uncle and the man only, making no mistake in who he marked as his target. In one decisive stroke, he sent his fist across the face of the man from a running jump.

SMACK!

The bandit boss, the toughest and largest of them all, crashed into the floor. The fifteen-year-old boy, Tetsuya, had decommissioned the bandit boss in little to no time with just the brute power of his fist, operating from pure adrenaline and nothing more. It took a while for the bandit boss to get up.

In that time, Tetsuya turned to his uncle, serious and focused, a face of willing and brave proportions affixed to his person. It was practically what defined him in the heat of the moment.

"...Let my uncle go!" Tetsuya shouted to the bandits holding his uncle with a quick pivot to them. They looked to be shocked, panicking lightly as they let go of the boy's uncle, unhanding him swiftly. The bandits scurried away, panicked, confused, and lost. Upon doing so, Tetsuya's uncle stumbled forward.

"...Are you alright? I saw what happened, and I'm sorry… this is all my fault."

"...How did you do what you… no, that's besides the point. You need to leave RIGHT now! This is no area for you to be getting involved. You'll die! These bandits are up to no good. They have knives, weapons, and…"

Before Tetsuya's uncle could finish, the bandit boss, monumental in the extent of his size and ferocity, brought himself off the ground, dusting himself off with his hands while staring down at Tetsuya, oversized in comparison to the boy.

"Who… WHO the HELL are you?!?" The bandit boss shouted at the top of his lungs at Tetsuya, gasping for breath.

There was silence. The boy turned around to face the bandit boss and relinquished his guard for a moment to prioritize defending his uncle, keeping him behind.

"...I… my name… it's… it's Tetsuya. Just… I don't want any trouble, alright? Can you leave this village alone? You can even take… you can even take me if you want so badly." Tetsuya forced out, intimidated by the stakes of the situation.

The bandits around the bandit boss appeared to be shaken and confused at how their leader was momentarily bested, appearing human for just a slight moment until he got off the ground. Gradually, though, they returned to their overconfident, arrogant, and entitled stances, smirking ear-to-ear maliciously at Tetsuya. They crowded around the boy and his uncle, outnumbering him in large amounts.

A bead of sweat took shape on Tetsuya's forehead as he was reminded of how desperate and hopeless his situation was. The bandits surrounding his uncle and himself possessed a dangerous arsenal of weapons that could decisively finish the job if Tetsuya wasn't careful. One wrong move and he was dead. He could see twitches in their body movements implying they were ready to get their blades, guns, and other undesirables in the situation. Tetsuya only gulped for what they had in store for him before speaking suddenly:

"...Wait! I don't want any trouble, alright? Don't… don't draw any weapons out on me. I'm sorry!"

"...Sorry? Is that so?" The bandit boss rhetorically asked, a hand on the side of his cheek. He was slow to remove his hand. But upon doing so, something gapingly obvious became clear.

A welt was on the side of the bandit boss's face. All the bandits, villagers, and bystanders nearby took notice of it. The villagers appeared to be hiding their presence. Tetsuya nearly forgot his own kind was around him by how much the bandits had taken swarms of high population and magnitude, occupying the area like a plague. He would've hoped the villagers would have his back, but it seemed they were intimidated.

"...Sorry won't cut it. But I'm pissed by how you sent me to the ground earlier… I'd ought to crush you personally, you shithead." The angry behemoth of a bandit propositioned with predominance, tone hinting he wasn't playing around.

And Tetsuya had no reason to believe he was playing around.

He was serious. The eyes of the young, outnumbered boy widened double-fold as the bandits began to close in, homing in on him to possibly jump him and his uncle.

But the behemoth himself ― the boss of them all stopped them, a single motion of his gigantic hand enough to stop them all from committing a senseless murder in the broad daylight of the village in their overwhelming population compared to Tetsuya and his uncle ― the only ones brave enough to seemingly combat all of them.

"...I want to fight this munchkin again. The munchkin who punched me to the ground… must've been a damn fluke. One thing I'll give you is that you're strong… but that won't happen again. I'll tear you up. One-on-one. No interference… and I swear if one of you intervenes… I'll beat the living shit outta ya. Got it?"

All the bandits surrounding consented with a nod or audible form of confirmation accompanied by a cue of making space for the battle to commence.

This was it. Tetsuya knew it was his moment. His time to finally fight it out with the source of terror that threatened the village. Tense, splitting crosshairs of silence passed through as he looked up at the bandit boss ― the biggest of them all and by far the toughest by what he could assure looks confirmed. Every opponent had a weakness. To assure his uncle's safety, an idea entered the mind of the conscientious boy up to that point, turning around to face him.

"...Uncle. I need 'ta fight this battle by myself." He said suddenly, giving an ear-to-ear smile despite the circumstances of his situation.

"...On your own?!? Are you… are you crazy?!? You'll die against that man! You were lucky the first time not to be dead when you hit him… that man fought five men with his fists and survived to live the tale. You'll be lucky if you even scratch him in a fistfight!" Tetsuya's uncle verbally countered, a look of protective anger etched on his face at the irrationality of Tetsuya's words.

"I'm sorry… but I need to do this. It's the only way I'll be able to tell I'm ready."

"...Ready for what?"

"...To become a free man, of course. I want to venture the world one day… and I'm tired of staying in this village all the time waitin' for something interestin' to happen. I want to become a man who can defend 'imself without havin' 'ta always rely on someone else and be completely free." Tetsuya explained, facing the ground rather than his uncle's eyes.

"I didn't wanna worry you guys, but… I believe being a free man is the best thing my future holds in store. So I'm willing to do anything for it… even if it means beating this schmuck." Tetsuya finished, a dastard smirk on his face.

He sensed the anger of the bandit boss growing from the remark he had just made and tried to withhold his laughter.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!? A SCHMUCK?!? I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT A SCHMUCK IS! C'MERE!"

Reverberated the bloodlusted bandit leader.

No time left. It was time for Tetsuya to fight.

"I'm sorry, unc. But I need to do this…" Tetsuya gave his uncle a light push, and let him sink into the crowd of villagers, isolating his loved one away from him intentionally.

He turned around to face the bandit leader, looking up to face the bloodlusting monstrosity of a leader who led by the power of fear.

"Is that how you treat the people around you? Threatening to kill your own followers, eh? Type'a leader are you, anyways?' Rhetorically asked Tetsuya in the presence of the boss in an attempt to anger him further.

"...That's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! Die!" The boss yelled, attempting to swipe his hand across Tetsuya's head for a quick clutch of the boy's neck. He only swiped at air.

Tetsuya managed to swiftly avoid the ferocious attack cast onto him by crouching under the hand of the boss. A passionate look rested in his eye and he equipped a troublesome, tenacious smile upon his face, eyeing the leader of the bandit crew that threatened his village notoriously from his crouching position.

"...It's my destiny to become someone who is free… and so I shall become that by proving it here!"