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Musashi smiled and bowed as Cai told him what to do. He wasn't in too much trouble but he decided to keep it low key from here on out while remaining in Xia Pi. He wandered back to his room, taking many side routs along the way just to get some more fresh air. He unlocked his door and sat down in the corner on the floor. He wasn't used to sleeping on a bed just yet so he figured he'd just place a pillow on the floor to sit on and rest. He kept his sword leaning against his shoulder and his wakizashi on his lap with his legs crossed. As he rested he thought about the thief. He didn't feel guilty for killing the man but the way Xing Cai reacted bothered him. His sleep was light, as it usually was, and the slightest noise outside his room woke him up. He didn't shutter, just simply would open his eyes and fiercely look to the door. Eventually he fell into a deeper sleep but was awakened by a knock at the door. He stood up and answered the door. It was a guard and he did not look happy. "What's the meaning of this?" Musashi said, "Lady Cai said I could stay unhastled."

The soldier stared him in the eye and said, "I saw what you did... You did the right thing in defending yourself. That man was unstable. But what bothers me is that someone like you can exist! He didn't stand a chance in hell against you, anyone looking at the way you moved would know that you had already beaten him before the fight even began. Someone like you should not be allowed in Shu unless you serve it. I am in no position to ask you to join but I want to give you the choice to join us or leave. The men are uneasy with you around..."

"Say no more." Musashi said, "I will not join you. It's no offense to you, just I have a problem with serving anyone at all other than my own cause. You don't have to worry about me, I will leave here soon enough, but unless Lady Cai orders it, I will leave by my own free will." The soldier frowned and turned around quickly then left. Musashi gave him the answer that he didn't want and was rather upset about it. Musashi closed the door and took his seat again, to sleep the rest of the night away.

"Wanna go get some drinks and have a good time?" Zhou Cang asked Guan Xing as Lady Cai left.

Guan Xing shook his head. "Nah," he rejected. "I'm exhausted, I'm goin' straight to bed."

Zhou Cang shrugged and went off. Guan Xing went into his room and barely had time to remove his armor before going to bed. Later, Zhou Cang returned to his own quarters in a drunken stupor. By morning, surely Cang would have a hangover.

||Here. It's not much, but I wanted to use the small spaz that you guys gave me to make a post.||

Xing Cai turned her head when she heard Musashi's voice, half-surprised to see him still dressed for sleep. The reason why she wasn't so surprised was thanks to her father. One didn't have to take much thought to know exactly why this was so. She listened to what he said and nodded soon afterwards, thinking deeply about the samurai's words. It was true, in a way. The men of Shu drew their courage from the officers and the hope of restoring the Han back into its original ways. However the men that they were fighting against were different and didn't appear to hold the same prospects of battle. Their type of loyalty was different. It wasn't neccesarily held out of respect and binding of blood. Not the way that the Shu army was.

"I understand where you are coming from." Cai answered as she looked Musashi fully in the eyes, just as she always did when she was talking to someone. It was dishonorable not to show someone respect by not looking at their eyes when you were talking to them. "These people are not like anything that these soldiers have faced up against before. If the young commander and his army that we faced earlier is nothing like this Oda Nobunaga then I fear to think of what will happen. I would gladly accept any words that you have to say to me, for I know that what you have said already is sadly true."

||Oh, and about the sleeping clothes part, I just meant that Musashi looked messy since you said that he hadn't bothered to fix himself up or anything.||

Musashi was certainly going to help her with this information. While it wasn't a lot, sometimes the smallest bit of information proved to be the most vital. In this case every bit was going to be proven very useful. Watch out for her neck? Cai nodded, a thoughtful look paused in her eyes. While she didn't quite understand why the men would want her head, she knew that having the head of your enemy to these people most likely had something to do with honor and status. It was just the same as defeating the most enemies, only in these foreigner's eyes, you would want their head to keep as a prize.

"I thank you deeply," Cai placed on hand against her cleavage and gave the samurai a small bow of respect. "The words that you have spoken to me should certainly be of great help to us in the future." She should take this moment to go and spread this information around. Or, she should gather the men up and tell this. She would tell them later once everyone was awake, many of the men would still me sleepy and might forget what she would tell them. "Please excuse me, and thank you again Musashi."

Turning around Cai walked through the streets, being sure that her people weren't too rattled before returning to her military duties. She checked the supplies that they had and was happy to see that their food supplies and most of their weapons were coming in well. And repairs were going well. Hopefully Xia Pi would be able to hold up well and wouldn't have to go through another attack like that, although inside Cai knew that this wasn't true.

Yoshitsune and Benkei followed behind on their horses and waited for something to happen. The fire volley would certainly get things moving in the city and pretty soon they would be able to fight. However, this seemed like it would be a long siege battle, not really a battle where there would be troops fighting troops on the field. Both of them hated that kind of fight so they decided that they would skirt around the city and scale the walls. They would attack from inside while the others attack from outside. It was a good plan, but they needed to get inside first. Yoshitsune nodded to Benkei and the two of them backed off out of sight from the city and circled around to the western part of the territory then headed east again. Xia Pi was back in sight and they quickly approached it. The walls were taller than they thought, but not impossible to scale. They would need a couple of grappeling hooks, one for Yoshitsune and two for Benkei just to compensate for his size and weight. They waited at the base of the wall until the entire army inside the city had its attention focused on Date's army. Once that happened they would be able to scale the wall relatively unnoticed.

Date grinned an evil grin as he looked up at the young lady. He recognised her from before. She was one of the two comanders that shot bags of gunpowder at his army before! As she pointed her fork at him he grinned even larger. This time he wasn't at the front line but was more in the middle of his army, sending men forward to storm the gate and build ladders to climb the walls. His musketeers readied their weapons for the advance and the archers strung their bows for another volley. "No fire this time! Fire your arrows from left to right and shoot three, one after another after another! Keep the pressure on her and don't let them think!" He shouted out his orders as he looked at the young lady. He raised his right hand, sword in hand, and pointed his weapon to her with a grin. "She's going to have to fight to get to me if she wants to fight... I am not going to allow her to fight me at full strength." Normally he would have rushed forward, but not this time, not with an injured arm.

Musashi was busy walking around after his conversation with Cai when suddenly a volley of fire arrows was launched at he city and he just so happened to be standing under where a few of them were to land. They fell quickly but uniformally. With a small smirk he placed his hand on his short sword and waited for them to come to him. They were upon him quickly and he slashed out once for each arrow, cutting it down before it could do any damage. The sheer force from his slashes was enough to extinguish the flames and the arrows were rendered useless once they had dropped to the ground. He quickly looked around and ran back to his room. He grabbed his bag that he had brought with him and ran back out to the western wall. "Figures, I had a feeling Date wouldn't give up so easily..." He knew that the main gate would be swarming with Japanese soldiers by now but he knew that he had to get out of the city right away for several reasons, one of which was that he was a foreinger and the soldiers would find it hard to resist attacking him while the city was under attack and he really didn't want anymore dead Chinese bodies here that were killed by his hand.

He ran to the stairs and ascended the wall quickly, dodging troops that were scrambling around trying to assess the situation. There were no troops that could be seen on this side of the wall so Musashi would use this opportunity to escape. He reached into his bag and pulled out a rope, which he fastened to a part of the wall. He looked down and just as he did so he could see two men standing at the bottom of the wall and it was then that he noticed the grappeling hooks on the wall. Normally he would just descend and face them down there, but these men seemed different... They weren't part of Date's army, though they were definitely Japanese. He figured that they were just two men, what damage would they do if he let them climb to the top of the wall? He waited for them to climb up patiently.

Guan Xing was alerted as soon as the sound of death filled his ears and chaos filled the streets. Fires sprung up sparatically from the fire arrows and soldiers fell in dissaray from the confusion. Guan Zing ran out into the streets, barely in any clothing at all.

"Put out those fires!" he yelled out at a soldiers near him. "Secure the gates, and for the heaven's sakes, fire back at them," he directed to the archers around him as well.

Zhou Can stumbled out of his stupor, his ears rang from the party in the tavern before. He had engaged in a drinking contest with some soldiers, won, but at a high cost. The chaos around him was drowned out by the buzz in his ears and ringing in his head. He rubbed his eyes, then suddenly caught realization of what was going on, they were under attack.

"Give me my horse," he mumbled. "And my armor, and my spear, and my sword." He swung around wildly confused, if not more confused than the men. "Do something about these fires, we will all burn to deat before we can fight them if you don't."

His words were grumbles mostly, but around him, his command was heard. His aides and runners went out immediatly to carry out his task. How could they have been caught off guard so easily? Wasn't there any posts? Then he remembered where the post was, with him, and drunk.