Khakana looked at Nakato when she told him to let the man in the cart rot. Then he looked at the cart. A quick moment of searching later, he had taken two swords from the dead, and jammed the door shut. Nakato could see all the muscles in his back tighten as he bent the weapons around each other, growling from the strain before stepping back from the door to examine his handiwork. "Rot he will then," Khakana said, turning and walking past Nakato, ruffling her hair with a blood caked hand. "I will go take care of the slaves."
As he walked past, he picked up one of the barrels of water and a ladel and walked it over to where the slaves sat. He set the barrel down, and kneeled. The armor he had worn in the cavern and when dealing with the slavers had retracted into a strip along his spine somehow, leaving most of his body clean. His hands and face, however, were covered. He kneeled down and dug his hands into the hot sand, as if washing his hands in water. At first, the sand stuck to what wet blood there was on his hands, but with work it all started to fall away revealing relatively clean hands.
Then, once seemingly satisfied with the state of his hands, he opened up the barrel and began giving people water. They looked like children compared to him, and the complete change in face from what Nakato had seen up until now lead him to regard them as such. He didn't say anything when they drank, just watched quietly. When they cowered from him, he didn't growl or snarl. "Drink the water," He said, his deep voice smooth and unconcerned. It took a bit of coaxing, but eventually they all drank.
Except one. An older woman who had been with the convoy for as long as Nakato had been, and probably much longer. She lacked any notable features that would make her desirable as a slave, and the convoy often took frustrations out on her. She never fought, or complained, or even spoke for that matter. Every time she was knocked over, she would just get back up. She would eat what was given to her, drink when given water, but it wasn't hard to tell no one was home anymore. She didn't cower from Khakana, she just looked at him.
"You don't want the water?" Khakana asked, though his tone was rhetorical. He set the ladle down on the sand, going from a squat, to sitting awkwardly on the ground. His long legs bending awkwardly. The slave shook her head, and Khakana seemed to just stare. "Your story has been told, and you have no more words to write," He said, reaching down and helping her sit up properly. "Drink, one last time, so that you can have the strength to tell your story one last time," He said, brushing the slaves hair out of her face.
The softness was a dramatic contrast for what had only minutes previously been an unstoppable killing machine tearing Nakato and the Slave's captors apart. Now he was carefully caring for a broken woman, lifting the ladle of water to her lips again. She looked up at him, then at the ladle, and weakly started drinking. He just watched, everything else irrelevant to him. She stopped, her mouth moving but seemingly no sound. Khakana nodded, taking keys he must have pulled off one of the guards and releasing her from her bindings.
Finally, Khakana took a moment with the woman, taking her head in his hands and let out a deep breath. The woman's eyes, nose, and mouth flashed blue leaving each of those locations scorched. Her body slumped, and Khakana held her and laid her against the sand instead of just letting her drop. He finally get back up, standing at his full height and holding his hand out with the keys. "Let the others free at your discretion," He said, looking at Nakato. "Let me know if you face any difficulties."
