One With Nature

Opinions: 1

It has been a couple of years since I made the new sword - which Yang named 'Shé' as an ironic reference to how it was made to resist Orochi's poison - and things have been... relatively fine.

Yang is still training but that's mainly out of her own choice. She goes out every now and then to hunt something that remained from the age of mystics.

She was also growing, she's almost as tall as Yu now. Which is something I'm glad for. I don't want her eternally stuck in the form of a child like Shuten.

... on the other hand, I don't want her ending like Ibuki either. At least not without proper clothing.

Anyway, I was looking for her outside the cave. She went out to get some fresh air after dinner. I found her near a bond of water at the forest.

She was doing that same swing like usual at the lake. Her strikes were strong enough to cause a small waves in the water.

I was gonna come in and ask her how she's doing but I stopped when I noticed movement. Yang must have noticed the same thing because her next slash was directed at where the noise was coming from.

"AAAH!" Someone cried out as they fell out of the bushes.

It was... a boy? He looked Yang's age though I'm not sure. He was wearing rags and had a basket tied behind his back. His hair was black and tied in a bun.

"What are you doing here?" Yang asked, her sword held high.

"I-I'm sorry! I'm just here to gather herbs! Please spare my life!" The boy begged as he got on his knees.

Yang growled with a glare but she just turned back to the bond and began training again. "Do what you want. Bother me and you'll die."

The boy got up from his knees and hesitantly walked around, looking for flowers and plants. He was about to pick up a purple flower.

"That one is poisonous," Yang suddenly commented without stopping her training, making the boy retract his hand. "What are you searching for?"

"L-Like I said. I'm looking for-"

"I meant specifically. Are you just looking for fancy tea or something useful?" Yang asked.

"Oh," the boy looked down hesitantly. "W-Well... someone I know began coughing lately and I heard there's some herbs here that might help and-"

"Pick the white flowers with yellow inside and mix them with tea," Yang cut him off again.

(Yu's lessons really paid off) I thought to myself remembering how Yang once came back from picking plants with a stomachache. Turned out she ate some of the flowers she found.

Yu spend the whole next week drilling knowledge about herbs into Yang.

"A-Ah! Alright! Thank you!" The boy went and picked the flowers Yang described and placed them in the basket.

"Go away now," Yang growled.

The boy bowed. "Thank you again!" He cried out before running away.

When the boy was gone, I walked out of hiding. "That was nice of you. You see? Humans aren't-"

"He didn't try to fight for his life. He was an annoyance."

I groaned as I received the same response every time the subject of humans came up. But I'm not worried. She's just going through a phase or something.

... right?

(A/N: REALLY IMPORTANT!

I wanted to say: most of you must have noticed Yang's not so friendly opinion on humans and how Zack isn't really... doing much about it.

I wanted to say that there's a lore-related reason for that and I'm not just making him ignorant. I assure you there's an explanation.)