Salad Tossing

It may sound absurd but don't be naive

Even heroes have the right to bleed

The village is a relaxing burst of green when he first took a breather at the curved slope of a burrowing mountain path. His first taste of village air made him wonder if the winds gathered here differently, flocking to one side and hovering to another, seeping into the leaves and harvesting the scent of growth, dirt, and stillness.

Only a hint of excitingly charged sunlight was present then, as the winds drafted by his figure. The sunrise was nearly at the end of dawn, and morning would come in fast to melt it away. Everything around him seemed to be stuck in a verdant pause, lively yet so quiet. Perhaps the earthly scene was to be left undisturbed for a bit longer if it hadn't been for the steady clacking of a hooves working tirelessly down the path he came from.

Terith turned to meet the solemn eyes of an old man whose straw hat tilted to one side, shadowing the wrinkles on his cheekbones. He sported a lazy smile as he took in Terith's questioningly youthful stare.

"Where you off to, young man?" he asked, the wheels of his horse cart stopping at a low scratching sound.

Terith produced a small white note from the edge of his sleeve, undoing the neat folds and bringing its request to light. The sunrise trickled from its edges and had managed to illuminate the words with a warm orange glow. When the old man seemed satisfied, he lowered the paper and traced the folded valleys again, dipping it into his coat pocket.

There was the sound of an aging chuckle as his horse idly ate at the bent grass. "Ah...so you're a wizard then?"

Terith gave an embarrassed nod, knowing how he hasn't really come to terms with his position in that particular society. Fellows like him who offer their services to strange requests like this might be considered wizards, putting their lifelines at risks at the whims of magic and battle, but the term just seemed so foreign in his head that it left a funny impression of mages firing fancy elements and circles glowing with the scribbles of ancient enchantments.

When he looks down at his sword, he was hardly any of that. It rattled in its sheath as he tucked it further into his belt.

"I guess you can call me that." he sighed, to which the old man met with an enthusiastic expression. Terith watched the way gramps popped open the back of his cart with surprise, cluelessly following his pestering that they'd ride the path to the village together, allowing himself the liberty of sitting with a few bouncing baskets as they rolled down the slope.

There was an inviting silence as they watched the low fields slowly appearing across the sunny panorama. Terith could hear himself going breathless for a short second, thoughts of his sister's paintings panning across his memory as the scene unraveled at them, gentle yet sure, like brushstrokes on a canvas.

At one point, the old man told him his name.

"My name is Rick, but folks down there like to call me Old Rick, because you know, can't hide my grays any longer." he said, huffing slightly as he slashed the ropes.

He wondered if there was any point of hiding himself under another name. Perhaps no harm would be dealt, for what damage a slip on the lips could cause? Yet he remembers how insistent Hyouga had been when he explained the forfronts of identity, eyes boring into his soul, as if burning all traces of his former birthright.

"...I call myself Torian Pace." is what he says.

Old Rick does not reply, but he seemed pleased, leaving nothing but a chuckle and a tilt to his straw hat to reverberate in his thoughts.

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

The trail felt thematic than anything at that moment, as if their silence melted snugly into the spaces of the forest canopies. There wasn't much to be said between them, but the lack of conversation seemed to be the product of an unsaid agreement, a mutual need to just take in the morning before it spilled over the brim.

When the dirt road and the bumpy rocks smoothed into a worn out path, an old wooden sign came into view,slightly crumbling off its rusty nails. The letters were starting to loose their readability due to rain, perhaps, but there were still pigments of black ink curling lightly as Terith narrowed his eyes.

"Wel...come?" he mouthed, squinting harshly at it.

The horse made a pleased sound as the cart came to a slow stop, Rick's head tilted one way to lend Terith a glance. Old Rick hadn't uttered a word after their introduction, but when he did speak, the old man added a chuckle before his sentences, and ended them with a wrinkled hand tipping the edge of his farmer hat.

"The fields are just over yonder." he said, his hand offering a small basis of direction as he stretched it out towards the blurry greenery sitting harmlessly at the far left. "Be careful, folks aren't sure what's going on, but we hope you'll be able to find the reason, the harvest doesn't wait for any of us."

Terith quietly ushered himself out of the cart, making sure not to trample any of the several baskets as he weaved his way through, landing in a puff of dirt. He gave Old Rick a careful smile and an assuring nod. "Bad weeds still have roots. I'm sure this one isn't so different."

"Haha! My, youth nowadays sure got a lot going for them..." he tightened his wrinkled smile into a grin, "When you're done, come drop by, my cottage has a red door, and my wife can serve you something."

The old man pulled on the ropes and sent his horse into a slow pace with a whinny, his voice folded over as the distance between them grew. "Best regards Torian!"

Terith watched the horse cart disappear into a corner before he started walking, his thumb glossing over the embellishments on his sword's hilt.

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

Dirt gathered in herds over his shoes as he neared the fields with discrestion. The thought of plants throbbing with black shadows was already more or less an obvious warning of dangerous magic involved. And judging by Old Rick's indiscreet suprise at the term wizard, then perhaps the village wasn't much for the magic borne, that things like this were too complex for the simple farmer.

He quickly shrugged off the impending sense of prejudice that wormed into his thoughts, noting that even farmers had their fair share of roles to fill, in the sense that they were filling holes in the ground with stuff that were needed by society, eventually, when they've grown into edible things. They'd be able to consider that magic in itself, for patience was a thin wire and they must've poured all their effort to thicken their's.

Patient, though, was not becoming of this particular 'wizard', because the only ever consistent thought he allowed himself to keep was the future feeling of filling two empty things: one being the burrowing space of his pocket, and the other being the hole in stomach, devoid of its regular rations since this morning.

He stopped walking when he felt another thunderous rumble jumbling up his insides. Terith hunched over just a bit, groaning through a tightened jaw. "Dammit." he mumbled, rising to a crooked stance as he eyed the hence ahead of him.

The fields were overlooking him from the horizon, beds of plowed soil curving upward. You'd really need to blink twice to otherwise notice the faint black pulse lining the plants at the far back, blurred through the colors of red, green, and yellow.

His thumb eased his sword out of its sheath as he unhinged the lock, the click of metal registering in his mind as a jolt of lightning, rushing him awake as he took a step. Something was wrong. Terribly. The ground felt unnatural to him as he stood, almost as if it was alive, breathing, seeping in his very being and bursting with coiled energy.

And it was the tomato patch that was the first to react. Scarlets were coated in dark malice as their humanoid bodies rose from their toiled soil rows. Terith could feel a number of eyes narrowing at his figure as the hoard approached on stumpy legs.

The sound of his blade being drawn was exhilarating yet somewhat jarring as he heard the voice of Yasusada falling flat to a sheer sadistic muse.

'Here comes your meal, Teri.'

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

There's a moment of pause as Terith tried to gather himself after Yasusada dropped that unforgivable opinion of his like a nuclear bomb. Though he couldn't do much to deny that there really was hunger plowing at his guts, that snarky comment was uncalled for and it ticked him off, the urge to beat up the incoming tomato pulps and reduce them into liquid growing even more serious than any manly carnage he managed to derive out of hunger.

Crazily enough, Terith didn't manage to blurt out a retort and he delved right into the focus of the humanoid plants, who were all groaning like zombies about how they wanted to stick some roots into his skin, gross.There wasn't much communication between the two, but Yasusada was earnestly beaming in approval and had already clicked his fingers beforehand, firing off that protective aura that made little Teri-boy just a tad bit more tanky.

Terith owed the spirit many things, and while his sword slashed through the red, sticky flesh of such rotten tomatoes, he believed he owned Yasusada an equal amount of sarcasm that would put the the great cannons of pirate ships in terms of savagery to shame.

Cannon, much like the wrath of a certain sadist living in his head, was also associated with the word fire, and much to his chagrin, by the time the word fully sunk into his memory, a continuous stream of ketchup started hurdling towards him, echoes of unsatisfied cackling rattled the grounds as the demented overgrowths decided that it wasn't enough, and thus, with their arms looped together in a neat bunch, five of them kept barfing up tomato blood, while the other five were rushing towards his settlement, their vines swinging like warped fingers. 

In all of that unsavory action, Terith managed himself quite professionally, slinking through the onslaught of ketchup with the finesse of a man whose dodge was trained by the ungodly speed of a mountain man (Hyouga was his name). That was until the unseen trail of slippery red stuff crawled under his shoes and made him slip despite his efforts, landing him in a thump of dry dirt and the numbing pain of being pooled by a senseless stream of tomato juices. 

"Ugh." he huffed, his figure matted by ketchup, making him seem like he bathed in a blood bath. Then again, the red stuff was considerably just the blood of demon plants, no surprise, he raised his sword in excitement and desperation as he swatted the ketchup that gathered over his arms. 

The cannons stopped blowing their fuses moments ago, favoring laughter over attacking. Shame that they weren't too smart, and shame on them for wasting this much condiment. Terith thought of all the fries he could've eaten with this and growled, an unforgiving look swirling in his eyes.


"DO YOU GUYS EVEN KNOW HOW TO TOMATO?!" he barked, slashing his swords at the clawing vines that wanted to grab at his limbs. His foot work was slow and precise, stalking the patch of overgrowns, and when they found caution, they all made a move to blast him off their sights with more cannons. 

But they realize things too soon, much too soon. By the time it was ketchup falls for them, it was tomato slices for Terith. His leg muscles worked more on instinct rather over anything else, and instinct ruled his reactions like a king's scepter. An energy settled in his ankles that allowed him hurdle himself upwards, besting the low range of the tomatoes. Their vines poked out of the stream, lathered generously in the slippery stuff and it was by his luck that the plant vines were thickened entanglements of their roots and stems, allowing him to slide himself nicely as he balanced his way through the nets of stems. 

His sword sunk deep into one of the tomatoes who was standing unfortunately near him, squishing a bit of his face and making him call out in a scream of petrified horror. The ground shook with the sound of rolling tomatoes as they made a move to strangle Terith. The sunlight had dimmed as their shadows cornered his eyesight.

Regrettably, there were no means of revenge for them because, as blinded as he was then, that didn't give him a reason to not hesitate to gather his blade and whip it across their soft torsos, cutting through them like a hot butter knife. He dully noted how easily it was to hack himself through their bodies, chopping them individually into four cleanly cut pieces of tomato. 

The one behind him cowered with the sound of shaking leaves. And Terith gladly made sure that the last thing it'd see was his face covered in the blood of his brothers who dared defy his hunger-ensued sadism. There was a smile, then a sword, then sunlight, then blankness -the fleeting sound of a knife cutting through a ripe vegetable hollowed over the wind.

He puffed out a long, steady breath before wiping off the ketchup that sprayed all over his face. 

'Coming to the dark side, are we?' Yasusada pried, his words giving hint to the present smile he wore on his translucent face.

Terith tossed him a careless grin before turning to meet the eager eyes of yellowing corns, their dark auras manifesting across the fields. 'You're not the only one who can play sadist here.' he taunted back.

Yasusada blew out a low whisper before ebbing back into his silence. 'Remind me to give you a crash course, you've still got a long way ahead of you, Teri.' he said, clearly pleased.

He offered the spirit a shrug, his cloak caked in red filth as it shook with his shoulders. 'I guess we'll see.'

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

One step out of the tomato patch doesn't end up in only corn fields, unfortunately, because as he fixated his vision over the entirety of the plowed fields, there were more tomatoes popping out of the far corner, mingling in with the corns as they all stood on their legs, wobbling their bodies and swinging their leaves as they prepare their strategies within hushed mumbles, sounding like smart zombies who've recently discovered that there were other languages other than caveman.

A lapsing rumble shook his insides with an excitement that he could only classify as weird and untimely. He didn't understand why he was getting so worked up over fighting plants. Perhaps his hunger was beyond compensation that his body wanted more than just one serving. Terith readied his blade with a practiced stance, ages in clash with Hyouga primarily being the source of all his whimsies and fight styles.

"BANZAI!" he spat, wiping off the injuries he gained from the rattle of ketchup earlier before. And as if to make it a point, he did it another time, egging on the fact that his enemies didn't seem to be aware of the weight of relief the word had on him. "Rise Up and Refuse!" was what he screamed next, an extra drive of adrenaline causing his blood to boil.

Then, all at once, the first herd of corn raged at him as he observed them carefully, running on their flimsy legs, while the others stood by, readying their catapults loaded with kernel. The tomatoes seemed very much wary of him, as they continued to devise a plan behind the charging army of corn. He stared at them blankly before digging a heel into the dirt, propelling himself towards the charging armada with his fingers woven tightly around his blade's grip. Their bodies were rough and painful as they slammed at the spaces beside him, causing the ground to boom and dirt to flutter off the ground in waves.

With an assurance to the lesser spirit residing in his skull, his silver blade disappeared in a puff of smoke, and what remained in his hands was the smooth surface of a familiar wooden sword. He raised it triumphantly as he mentally gave the lesser imprint a pat on the head as he spun around to dodge a corn cob who really wanted to form a crater in the ground as it slammed face first. Their motions were slow and careful, and easy enough to interpret what came before and after. His bokken met the cob's rear and it was sent flying into the former patch of tomatoes, now a heap of tomato slices. A few other cobs formed a trio that gathered over his form, slapping themselves on the ground, wanting to trap him, but their leg gaps were wide enough for him to slide himself peacefully underneath, hitting them one after the other, watching them land on each other as they piled on top of the tomato slices.

Pain fluttered across his back, stinging a bundle of nerves in his hip as he failed to notice the kernels flying at him in a steady rain. His torso met half the fury of one straight, and he was glad there wasn't much to endure knowing that the plants weren't fancy elements. But Terith couldn't be too cautious, so his instincts take over and its sharp enough to out run the kernels hurling towards him, jumping upwards at the last shot.

Another war cry caused his throat to turn dry as he healed himself fervently, landing atop one cob that attempted to body flap itself and drag Terith with it. A narrow dodge, but it wasn't in naught as he composed himself just as the plant bent over. Sinking his heel in its back and sinking it further into the ground, its body digging into a conveniently dug hole -must've been a former hole of a plowed row.

The sound of kernel hurdling at bullet speed prompted him to take care of the cob in the hole like a baseball, slapping his bokken on its rear and sending him off with the other cobs before he made a run for it, dragging his legs across the fields as fast as he could possibly manage.

"Haaaaa!"

Terith dove head first into the impending doom of kernel lunging at him, but he no longer cared, because there was nothing more careless than a man running on pure hunger. His bokken met some of the stream of corn and threw them off to one side, the wood cracking under his palm as he did so.

The spirit didn't have much left, he thought, briefly running a calloused thumb across its surface before taking one big aim at the corn cobs who've abandoned all thoughts and have decided it was to smash his face right then and there, they bent over, forceful, powerful, but just a second slower than him. Terith landed behind their neat row with haste, a swing of his bokken sending them all flying in a comical domino effect. It pressed against their bottoms with a crunchy pop and no soon did he see them being mixed into the tomatoes he cut earlier on, a lively toss of red and gold baking in the sunlight.

Groans of frustration took him by surprise as an angry patch of overgrown tomatoes loomed over him with their shadows drowning him in malice. They were missing the essentials like pitchforks and torches, but he was sure they were ready to trample him with any reserves they've cooked up.

The skin of bokken's magic peeled off his blade and revealed the uncanny shine of Yamanbagiri, the blade spinning idly as his wrist circled. "Well then...I wonder who's gonna become salad first?" he spoke, shrugging his shoulders to illicit a sharp crackle from them.

"Will it be little ol' me?"

The plants immediately fired a torpedo of kernel and ketchup, he buried a heel in the ground, tacking stance.

"Or little ol' you?"

it may sound absurd but dont be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

The sun was nestling closely to the dipping valleys of the mountains by the time Terith lowered his sword with a sore arm. Pieces of vegetables that were torn apart were littered at his feet, a mixture of reds and yellows that closely resembled the sunset that was layered across the sky. He wasn't sure how long he'd been at it, but he was sure that that was the longest time he spent chopping up vegetables.

He decided to poke at the remaining bodies of plants with what little strength he had left, watching them roll away limply, like what normal plants would do. As he watched them through a blue-eyed stare, a rush of recollection flooded his thoughts, and he met all of them wholeheartedly, relishing the feeling of the adrenaline that once fueled his veins with a gentle smile.
The tomatoes were persistent, flopping like crazy and spewing out their insides with a force, the remaining cobs stayed at the far back, reloading their catapults with their own kernels. But his breath was easy as he called for the imprint Souji from the busy catacombs in his head, and the spirit almost sounded relieved to have been called out, not needing much of a conversation to understand his vessel's plea. And with Souji's approval, a new wash of strength filled the barren threads in his being, weaving through and giving that much needed push.

He ran up against the upcoming stream of food, slashing at the corns to get them out of his face whilst taking the ketchup head on with a mental note that his skin, though not necessary, could use the benefit of being lathered in a healthy shlop of tomato. As he charged, he was headbutt first with a round and tender tomato demon, he spat out blood like a faucet as he recuperated by driving his sword through the monster's head, dragging it across its insides and cutting it cleanly in half.

Terith sported a crooked grin as he spat out the blood that gathered in his mouth, the rest he lapped off with his wrist. He gave the demons one last look before charging into their pack for a last time, slicing his way through everything that stepped into his path, over and over, carving his way through the vegetables with nothing more but the premise of food after the battle driving his senses.

"Hh...ha....haa....BAN...ZAI!" he screeched, narrowly dodging another belly flop to his side.

It proved difficult, a war unlike he'd ever seen, but it never in a million eons could it compare to the brutality of Shizuo Hyouga and his skills despite being a mountain man. Another tomato neared him with the intention of burying him in a large crater and Souji managed to slip his voice though the barrier of Terith's resolution that prevented him from hearing anything else apart from his own heartbeats.

'Teri-boy, there's one behind you.'

'DON'T CALL ME THAT!' He snapped, his sword lopping off the other half of the tomato's body in one fell swoop. He stabbed it's remaining bottom half, producing a soft sloshing sound as it melted into a mess.

Souji's chuckle falls to deaf ears as the young man paid more attention to his swings, messy and roundabout as he hacked through their soft bodies. Bruises covered in ketchup slithered across his arm and legs and he still felt that he wasn't done yet. He kept cutting, slicing a torso for every flop, and lopping of a limb for every cannon. It seemed to go on for as long as he could remember, his mind no longer keeping tabs of the minutes that flew by.

Every now and then, he'd scream that one word that heal of his battle wounds, but every now and then too, he'd forget and the feeling of being just above the breaking point was exciting.

The last remaining minutes was him and three remaining cobs, his limbs now critically injured. Catapults were readied, but they were all shaken from fighting, and not too soon, he'd be hanging over the edge of a collapse, but he wasn't going to exhaust himself yet.

He had one more trump card.

Time seemed to compensate for his bravery as everything slowed, his motions suddenly heightened to a better sense. Souji must've been smiling as his exiting left the space in his head hollow. A short inhale spoke as his beginning to the Sandanzuki, and as soon as that breath left his chest, the cobs were on the ground, laid out in two pieces. He watched them grovel, trying to recover themselves, but chances are better served for the deserving.

And Terith stabbed them all individually because these demonic plants were in no way deserving -their limbs flew off their hinges and their bodies were divided into three proper portions before their movement ceased, stilling the hour with the sounds of his heart slowing.


A knock found itself tapping sharply against the door of Old Rick's rickety cottage, an establishment that he'd always call home, no matter how much cracks appear in the whitewashed walls. He opened it with hesitance, but a smile grew on his face as he saw Torian standing with his back against the sunlight. His body was lathered in a red substance with a considerably earthy smell sticking to his skin. His cloak was off his shoulders now, but it was being held together like a bag by one arm as he seemed to have carried his harvest all the way there.

Old Rick unhooked the several locks on his door and ushered him inside. His daughter was curious and his wife was horrified, but all was taken in light humor as Old Rick said, "This young man went to collect tomatoes t'day, he's got a bag, so looks like we're having tomato soup t'night!"

To which his daughter visibly lit up from in glee, his wife was still caught in a few headlights, but he'd assume she'd settle down a few minutes later.

Though Torian was adamant to explain the real outcome of the so-called harvest, he was quickly pushed into the small shower with his sore arm sporting a towel. Old Rick must've taken his cloak with the remnants of the scuffle he had earlier.

"You just clean up there while we prepare dinner, 'kay?" he heard him say.

Torian's fingers brushed over the towel as he wiped off the tomato on his cheek. It was warm and smelt like summer. The water in the tub was full and just the right temperature, and clothes were waiting for him at one corner, tucked neatly into two folds.

Though battered and bruised, Terith managed a hearty smile as he realized that he was expected, and it'd been a long time since he's been treated like a guest. And although he wasn't a foreigner to these kinds of humility, he certainly felt like it was healing a good deal of whatever broken part of him there was before.

Later that evening, he'd eat dinner with Old Rick and his wife Mary, their daughter Margarette beaming with questions like the curious little bumpkin she was. And it'd all be etched into his memory, waves of nostalgia satisfying the hunger in his soul that he never knew he had.

He missed them, dearly, his sisters were surely leading a rescue at that point, searching the city for his whereabouts. Thoughts of his family stayed with him for a while that day, and even as he slept in a guest room and woke up at the next sunrise, all he ever saw were dreams of him and that little hill house he called home, his father rocking back and forth in his old chair with his four-year old self sitting peacefully on his old lap.


"Come join us for another meal the next time you pass by." Mary humbly urged, handing him his clothing which was washed and ironed, folded and starched, too.

Margarette followed at her tail with his cloak loosely hanging off her shoulders, he clicked it off her with a chuckle. "Come back soon okay, mister Tomi?" she said, eyes seeking for a premise, and she gets one in the form of a smile.

"Then I hope little Margie gets taller so I can play with her."

The thought was quite new to him, perhaps because he was the one making these kinds of would-be wishes when he was her age, back in the day. Though he admits it was a little awkward at first, he merely imagined a younger sibling and put himself in his sister's position, and a gentle familial softness made him enjoy Margie's company even more.

"Okay!" she beamed, her cheeks red with happiness.

Old Rick sauntered by with his horse cart, baskets of brocolli being towed behind him. Torian saw this as signal to say goodbye and he promptly pat Margie on the head and bowed politely at Mary, who nodded with a patient smile.

He waved them a brief farewell before he hopped into the driver's seat with Old Rick, shielding his eyes with the shadows of his hood as the sun rose farther into the distance.

"It's gonna be a long trip back to Talonia, you know."

"Take as long as you want Old Rick, I've got all the time in the world."

"My, my." Rick huffed with a steady chuckle.

And as their trip across the burrowing mountains crackled on, there was nothing else to be shared but mutual silence, the sounds of the wind the only real conversation both were willing to listen to before Talonia could be seen right across the bordering trees.