Kasai had left his horse at the temporary stables and was now storming through the camp. Many fires flared up and bit their masters as he passed. He knew he was supposed to control his emotions, but his anger almost always got the best of him. And being thrust into war was not going to help his anger one bit.
A soldier ran through the camp, not even noticing Kasai as he walked. Just as the soldier was about to hit him, he knocked the guy into a tent causing it to collapse underneath him and on any one in it. “What do you think you doing?” the soldier yelled, but shrank back in fear when he saw who he yelled at. He knew who wore the flame red robes, the fiery sword, Faia, the dark skin of someone spending many times near a large flame, and the burning phoenix on the arm. “Sorry, Misuta-Kasai. I did not even recognize.”
Kasai ignored his apology and continued. He walked the rest of the way to the middle of the camp without anymore incidents and found an elegant tent. The fabric was a deep purple, had gold trimming, and a bug net over the entrance. Pushing aside the net, he entered the tent. Sitting on thick pillows inside were his brother and sister, the other four Warriors, and someone he thought he would never see again: Sensei Gogyou, the last Warrior of his generation. He was a wrinkled old man that looked as if he was about to croak at any time, but Kasai knew differently. Sensei was not to be messed with because underneath his old appearance he was the most skilled Warrior there was.
He bowed deeply to his former teacher before sitting on an empty pillow between Mizu and Yochi He tried to hide his anger from Sensei Gogyou, but he knew it was futile because Sensei sensed everything.
“Control your anger, Kasai,” Sensei said sternly, but not unkindly. Kasai took a deep breath and let it go. Slowly he felt the anger begin to ebb away. He remembered Sensei’s training when he was younger. At that time, seven years ago, the breathing meditations he was forced never seemed to work, if anything, they made him more angry.
He would sit in some deep forest shrine doing meditations with Sensei or with any of the other monks for hours on end. He was never allowed a reprieve for bathroom or food. But soon he learned that if he never learned to control his anger he would be stuck doing this until he was as old and wrinkled as Sensei. After that the meditations calmed all his anger and he was able to rise in the rank as a Warrior.
Though he had learned to master his anger, he had not yet learned to keep it under lock and key. There were many times when his anger bested him, and when that happened things were liable to burn.
With his anger under control again, Kasai sighed and starred up at Sensei. No one said a thing for along time. They all sat there listening to people to and fro in the camp. Finally after about an hour, as the sun started to slowly sink below the horizon, Sensei said, “You have learned well, my disciples. Patience is the key to victory in any war.” With a deep sigh he slowly got to his feet and stood before his students. “I am sure you all have many questions about this war. So, ask away.”
“Why are we at war with the Yoijians, Sensei?” Mizu said, asking the question on everyone’s minds.
“Many of their troops have been raiding many of the villages on their borders,” Sensei replied. “Though their government has denied any claims to these attacks we have reasonable suspicion that they are issuing the attacks.” He reached inside his robes and pulled out a piece of parchment. “We found this on one of the men that a villagers killed. It says: ‘’Take all the food, weapons, an supplies in the village. Spare no mercy for any villager. Signed, The YEO.’” He put the parchment back into his robes and starred at his students again. “We suspect ‘YEO’ is the Yoijian Emperor Orlison. Any more questions?”
“Yoijian is a small nation,” Tei said. “Our empire could easily defeat them without us.”
“Now we come to the reason you are needed. We realize that Yoijian is a small nation and that we could easily defeat them. The only problem with going to war with Yoijian is there would many deaths and miles of destruction. So, the Emperor has summoned you to enter their country and end this war with minimal deaths.”
“You want us to go their and negotiate treaty?” Yochi asked.
“If it were that simple, Yochi, we would not have summoned you. No, your task will not be diplomatic. You are to go over there and kill their corrupt leader.”
All the Warriors looked startled. Even Tei was flabbergasted. For killing under the Warrior Code was only done in times of defending peace and sometimes not even then. For a Warrior, normally a symbolic peace maker, to be hired as an assassin was never heard of.
“Unless any of you have anymore comments, we will prepare you for the journey,” Sensei said calmly. Everyone had many outraged complaints about this, but they were all too shocked to say anything. “Follow me then.” Sensei walked out of the tent. Slowly the four Elemental Warriors stood up and followed him outside.
***
Mizu: Sea
Tei: Wind
Yochi: Earth
Kasai/Faia: Fire
Sensei: Teacher
Gogyou: The five Elements of Japanese Culture: Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and Steel
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Very sorry for the supremely late review.
It's hard to tell who is who here. "He" could stand for the soldier or Kasai. Same thing goes for "the guy." Also, in my opinion, you should nix "the guy" all together. It's a very modern term that bounces me right out of the story.
Put this and the lines after it in a new paragraph.
"Croak" is another modern term here. You could replace it with "die" or something less strong.
Since you just referred to Sensei in the lines above, it can be a moment before the reader realizes who is moving.
In my opinion, the information in these paragraphs should be switched. We don't get the shocked reaction we could get because you've said what the Warrior's normal job is after you say what their new job is.
A way to incorporate that information would be to stick it into Kasai's flashback. Saying something like he needed to master his anger to fulfill the task of peacekeeping the Warriors normally held. (I wouldn't use that exact wording. I was just trying to get all the information in the right order.)
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Terms: You tend to use some rather modern language and terms in this chapter. Compared to the rather formal language of the past three chapters, it's really out of place. I find modern language out of place in fantasy anyway, and when compared to the past, it's really too much.
Proper names: I really can't say this enough: Make sure you put proper names in to avoid confusion. I tend to be one of those people who dislikes re-typing a character's proper name myself, but, when you are dealing with multiple characters of the same gender having a conversation you don't really have a choice.
Information order: It's really best to give the reader a key piece of information before that information gets twisted in one way or another. That way, the seed has been planted and we are just as shocked as the characters when a twist comes around.
Characters: Number 1, you are missing any mention of Kasai's brother and sister in this chapter. They show up once and then do not speak. Since introducing a character usually means they have dialogue, it's often best to not introduce any character unless you have a speaking roll for them. If you don't, they fade into the background. And since this meeting is mostly about the Warriors, I would simply remove them.
Number 2, I find that Kasai's character is a bit flat in here. The flash-back doesn't give us as much insight to his character as the other three have. It's nice that one of them it's perfectly mannered, but, still. Actually, because he doesn't suppress his emotions, you haven't delved into them. Just because a character is fiery doesn't mean that he doesn't have deeper emotions.
If you have any questions, PM me.
#c25a7c ">~Rosey