They are here. Yamato was the first of the two to sense as a number of heavily armed soldier started to charge up the long flight of stairs heading towards the young lord’s chambers. I count about twenty sets of feet outside.

Without any warning other than his partner’s a smaller group of well-dressed soldiers cut their way through the sliding door to Hayate’s quarters. They young lord sprang into action in a flurry of blurred movements. He unleashed his sword and violently leapt across the room impaling the first of the Shoguns men. His eyes darted from left to right as he scanned his enemies. He was correct, this was indeed a cleanup squad based upon their gear and lack of introduction. It seemed that the Amatsukami warranted a level of discretion on the Shoguns part and couldn’t be openly addressed in public. But no matter how Hiruzen wanted to play this Hayate wouldn’t make it easy.

It doesn’t look like Hiruzen wants to talk about this. How did he even hear about us so fast? Yamato questioned as he thought about the situation.

His web of information runs deep and he has many informants all across the land. That just means that even my family is not to be trusted. Hayate answered his partner.

The young lord tore his blade from the chest of the man causing his wound to erupt into a geyser of viscera and gore. It covered the young clansman in crimson filth as he brought himself to his feet eye balling his next target. The rest of the soldier didn’t seem to be intimidated by this as they all charged him at once. Quickly Hayate shuffled around narrowly dodging the cold steel of his enemies, and with a lightning quick flick of his wrist separated two of his enemies from their heads. As their still expression ridden faces rolled across the floor you could see a panicked look overcome the rest of the poor sons of bitches that thought this would be a good idea.

“Tell Hiruzen if he wants to keep us here like prisoners in plain sight he will have to kill me where I stand!” Hayate screamed flicking the blood off his katana. The veins in his neck poked out and bulged as he strained his point across to the frightened men. He had only dispatched of three of the soldiers and many more stood around him circling like a pack of hungry dogs. He bared his teeth and a few of the men left presumably to relay Hayate’s words back to the bulk of the Shoguns forces outside.

The next few seconds seemed to stretch on into eternity as Hayate dodged and counter attacked against the rest of the initial soldiers until it was only him still standing in the room. Blood and gore painted all the walls and ceiling of his bedroom. He let loose a slight sigh of relief until suddenly and without any warning an awful smell filled Hayate’s nostrils.

Smoke…