Super Exciting Bounty Hunting Mission!

[Nick]

It was another one of those "This'll toughen you up" exercises from Goro, who still didn't seem to respect that Suzuko was strong and mighty (she wasn't) despite the fact that she was a newly minted Fuyubushi. Technically speaking it was a contract from the Bounty Hunter's Guild who took contracts from the world over, but with their base of operations being in Heart, it was often Heart Samurai that took their contracts unless the person paying the bounty specifically requested an unaffiliated person take care of things. These sorts of things did strengthen the empire though, as the money from the bounty payout went at least partially back into the empire's coffers and could be used for good! ...Even if the grim business of bounty hunting wasn't exactly something that those with weak temperaments would find enjoyment in.

Not that Suzuko was one of weak temperament, of course, and she definitely wasn't feeling kind of gross about the ordeal, but supposedly the man they were 'hunting' had agreed to come along peacefully, which was better, right? It definitely wasn't causing her to think that if he was willing to come along peacefully maybe it meant he was actually sorry for whatever had caused him to have a bounty put on his head in the first place, which maybe meant whatever punishment was worth hiring two samurai to travel all the way to Rock Country to extract him for was too harsh or extreme... And it also definitely didn't have her thinking that maybe, just maybe, he was completely and totally innocent, and just wanted the chance to turn himself in peacefully and argue that he didn't deserve any kind of sentencing at all.

Of course, she did raise this to Goro, not that she was thinking about it the entire trip over, who reassured her that certainly if he had a bounty on his head, he had some kind of dark and shady past. Clearly, if he was willing to turn himself in without any kind of fight, that meant he didn't really have much to live for anyway, which made the job even more respectable! ...Suzuko kind of felt the opposite, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt sad that this person she'd never met before maybe just had nothing to live for any more, and this was his way of ending his own life via capital punishment... Of course, she had no idea if that's what his sentencing actually was, though generally speaking the Guild didn't care if a body was brought back alive or not.

But, maybe she'd get a chance to ask him, maybe he'd have some kind of insight, or maybe he'd scare her and make her realize that he was some kind of freaky criminal after all. Of course, that was entirely dependent on if it went as smoothly as Goro said it would, and he could well have just been lying to her as some kind of test, or worse, he might have made this whole trip up just to make Suzuko sweat and be anxious. She didn't need help with that.

Regardless, now they waited quietly at a local branch of the Bounty Hunter's Guild where they were supposed to meet the person they were meant to bring back to the main branch in Heart. Exciting!