“Gentlemen…” Ryo stopped ahead of Remi with full confidence, holding back an enormous grin and knowing now exactly what had Remi so excited. “He has arrived.”

“Ah, master Ryo!” The boy bowed slightly in his direction. When the two irritable men had shifted their attention he took the opportunity to steal away and tend to some more agreeable, paying customers.

“Master Ryo, is it?” The dark-skinned one spoke with a deep voice.

“Yes, Master Ryo!” Remi mocked, rolling her eyes.

“Another boy, eh? Well at least you look like you belong here!” The man spat on the counter in the bartender’s direction, who ignored the insult. “Listen and listen well. I’ve been in these parts from the beginning. From the Fall. I watched good men suffer and die. Men who toiled beside me and fought next to me in the famine riots. We worked to bring order to our people! We established territories and created law! We pushed any and every degenerate freak out we could find, and none hardly dared to crawl their way back in. But now!” He sneered at Ryo. “Now we have people like you. Men of the people, you are: kings of the freaks! We live decent lives for too short a time when we hear that some gallant heroes have moved in next door, the Coalition. ‘Everyone deserves a chance,’ are the whispers we hear from our good homes and next thing we know we got foreigners and freaks cramming their way through. And there’s naught to do about it, ‘cause the second I raise my fist to defend my land you’ll be there…” He raised a trembling finger at Ryo. “You people with your twisted righteousness!”

Ryo eyed the two men evenly. “Certainly a tale of woe, my friends. Tell me, do these foreigners and freaks bother you other than by way of sight?”

“Do they what!” the dark-haired man bellowed. “They connive, plunder, and rape! They have for years! I’ve seen them with my own eyes, and there’s no greater proof than the Americans that hold a quarter of our land hostage, those blighted demons in the Company! Do you not recall the way they raked our land after the Fall destroyed our good capital? Our food, our wealth, and our dignity—gone! And the freaks are hardly the better. Those spawns of unnatural power, they’ve been plotting war, they have. Even the most common of them are well known killers and harbingers of chaos! They join whatever side befits their lust for it. You think our people want a war? No, no, we’ve been close enough. I know the stench of it in the air, and believe me, I can smell it.” He shuffled closer to Ryo as he spoke. “I dare you, boy master, to look every woman in my village in the eye and tell them these demons deserve redemption, where one in two that still lives have endured their violent nature in the worst of ways.”

Remi was silent. Ryo clenched his jaw. “That is a cruel injustice and an absolute evil. You should know, friend, that such crimes are punished in our borders. Do you know where you stand right now?” Ryo stretched out his hand to the entrance. “You stand in the province of the Coalition, the biggest stretch of neutral land in Japan. Our motives are not spurred by hatred or greed. We fight for the lives of the defenseless, and there are no better enforcers than us Kaijin.” Ryo glanced at Remi, who began to glow with pride. “You’ll find no atrocities tolerated here. We shelter everyone burdened by conflict, whether they were born here or not, and regardless of their gifts. The Arisen are welcome among them. And all are treated and judged as equals.” Ryo paused. He knew exactly how the men would respond to his next statement. “Your people of the Yiga clan are always welcome to join hands with us.”