Life Debt - The Story of Natsumi

Chapter 1: Raid

It was a nice day out. The temperature was pleasant, there was a slight breeze, and the birds were chirping happily. But you have to remember the key word, was. It was a nice day until they came to my village. It was a nice day until almost everything I knew was destroyed. It was a nice day, but all of my nice days were about to end. I fell as I was trying to escape. The sword was coming down extremely quick, and it was bad enough I already had a slash across my left arm. My life was about to end, and to be truthful, I'm not ready. I don't want to die.

BANG!

I never felt the blade of the katana hit my back. Instead, I heard a gunshot. "It's not very gentlemanly to attack a young lady," someone said. I looked up to see a suave man with a rifle slung across his shoulders glaring at the bandits who were attacking me. His gaze shifted to me and his look softened up a bit and he offered me a smirk. It took me a few moments for it to register in my mind that this man was saving my life.

I then watched as he lifted his rifle again, but he instead rushed one of the soldiers and beat him across the back with it. As another bandit went to attack the man, he hit him under his jaw with the butt of his gun. This man was definitely skilled if he could take on three men at the same time and then scare them off without a problem. Three bandits were gone, but there must have been at least twenty more scattered about my village.

"C'mon, we have to get outta here," my savior urged as he grabbed my arm and pulled me up. I couldn't help but wince. He grabbed my injured arm. The man must have noticed because her shifted his grip lower more towards my wrist. My mind was foggy and I couldn't process all that was happening right now. I just obediently followed him as he ran towards the treeline.

After our 'escape', if that's even a way to put it, he had sat me down on the ground and he began to attempt to patch up my arm. In my opinon, he was doing pretty good at it too, but I know nothing about medicince, so I couldn't really say anything.

"So the name's Magoichi Saika, and you are?" the man suddenly asked as he was finishing wrapping the bandages on my arm.

"N-Natsumi. Natsumi Hirano," I replied. I had finally found my voice after a while. Magoichi chuckled as he tied the last knot on my bandages.

"I swore that you were mute for a while," he said with a smile. He had been trying to chat with me for the past hour, but it was difficult for me to come up with a reply for what seemed like forever. I would mostly just nod or shake my head to Magoichi's questions whenever he asked me something. Maybe exchanging names was what I needed to help clear my mind.

"I'm sorry I haven't been talking," I started. "I... I just don't what came over me and-" I cut myself short and suddenly stood up. "My parents."

"What?

"My parents! I need to know if they're okay!" I exclaimed, turning to Magoichi. "Please, take me back!" Magoichi gave me a look as if I was crazy, but instead he sighed and stood up beside me.

"Those guys should be gone by now," he began. He paused looked at me straight in the eyes. "But you're not gonna like what you see."

((A/N: First chapter of my first story is finally up, yay! It's really short, yeah, but it's the introduction and I think it's a damn good intro to the story I have planned out for Natsumi. Thank you for reading!))