“Now you’re thinking,” the man at the fire said as Yama turned a corner. “Be careful, wouldn’t want you to make too many good decisions in one day,” he taunted at another
Yama knocked at Kiril’s door, sending the specter into the wind. “Leave it at the door!” Undeterred, Yama knocked again. “I fucking swear I will torch you!” Kiril growled angrily before opening the door.
Yama thought Kiril looked like an apple core with his gaunt form and exposed ribs, a particularly nasty one with scattered pink and white burn marks. “You think just because you’re big I can’t burn you, Kikuchi?”
Yama held up his hands in surrender. “I need to know about what the Bratva wants in this castle.”
“Why in the burning hells do you care? If you want to know, go ask Medvedev or Balderson, they’re running point on whatever’s going on.” Kiril flicked his hand at Yama, embers dancing around the fingertips. “Now get out of my face,” he said, turning back to his room.
Yama shoved his hand forward to catch the door. “I think they’re doing fleshbending in the tunnels below,” he said, hoping Kiril cared about more than just cigarettes.
Kiril spun to Yama, eyes wide. “Fleshbending? Nononononono, don’t tell me that’s what that airhead Hayes found in the tunnels.”
Yama considered socking the little pyro for insulting his friend but decided against it. “Me, Okoro, and Walker all saw it,” Yama lied, “and Facia and Skulley.”
Kiril’s shoulders practically sloughed off him, loosening like an unstrung bow. “Facia saw it as well?” He opened the door. “Well, shit, she’s practically an imperial treasure.”
Yama strode cautiously into Kiril’s room like each discarded piece of trash was a trip mine. A tall, smudge-caked rainbow bong stood sentry on his table with several ash trays surrounding it, while a nearby trashcan poured spent cigarettes boxes onto the floor. “You want?” Kiril asked, pointing the bong at Yama.
Yama raised his hand. “I’ll pass.”
Kiril scoffed before he lit the carburetor with a conjured spark. “Your loss. I am going to get you to hit before this tournament is over.” He inhaled the rising smoke. “Now, fleshbending, was it?”
“Altan and some surgeons are using Bratva medical supplies to make ghouls below the castle.”
Kiril shrugged before grabbing a cigarette. “Maybe they’re making something for the next trials.”
“Next trials? It’s the final eight pairing off next.”
“Maybe they’re gonna eliminate four of us in a big trial before the wedding happens.” Kiril scratched his neck as if loosening a tie. “God, am I going to have to wear a suit?”
The thought made Yama’s neck scratchy. “I don’t think it is. We saw an Eitri stone down there—”
Kiril leaned forward, nearly out of his seat. “An Eitri stone?”
“Yea, a red one.”
“Fuck. Two in one place, what are the odds?” Kiril took a drag. “What were they using it for?”
“To stabilize the ghouls,” Yama said. “Facia said it looked better than what she could do.”
“Shit, if it’s that good then it must really be an Eitri stone.” Kiril sighed. “That torches the idea of it being for some trials. You don’t use an Eitri when a simple two-marrow bender from Nerconor will do just fine. Begs the question, what are they cooking with it?”
“We all seem to think the captain is making shock troopers with them.”
“And paying the Bratva a bloody arm and a leg for the biomaterials,” Kiril muttered.
Yama arched a brow. “I thought the supplies were gifts of entry.”
Kiril shook his head. “No,” he said slowly. “We offered to build a bunch of hospitals, so it would look legit instead of shady. But, if the khan or his captain were to say”—he shrugged—”order an army of ghouls, it would provide cover to bring in medical supplies.”
“Do you know anything about what Medvedev and Balderson are planning? They’re your bosses.”
Kiril rolled his eyes. “Don’t fucking remind me,” he muttered. “But yea, I happen to be invited to Bratva leadership conferences as Medvedev’s mutt, and he wouldn’t stop talking about his Tatan project.”
“Anything else? What about Balderson?”
Kiril shook his head. “Balderson was tasked by Emperor Sigmund to be his eyes in the northwest after his victories in the Vorlung region,” Kiril explained. “He’s Sigmund’s man, was, anyway. Regardless, he wasn’t at any of those conferences.”
“What did he bring for the khan?”
“A goddamned cryonics facility,” Kiril chuckled, a hollow, dry thing like ash flaking off burnt wood, “because of fucking course he did. Balderson thought he was playing Sigmund and the Bratva, but he got played by Altan. Gotta admit, that Altan’s a shrewd little stallion.”
Yama looked to the heavens and sighed, hands forming the gesture of ribs at his stomach. “Of course, for transporting the ghouls,” he said before reaching for the bong, which didn’t look so bad in the face of an undead horde. That the Northmen—the largest of the empires—had only sent one contestant should have raised some alarms in Yama’s mind, but now it made sense. The one they had sent had been willing to give Altan just what he wanted. “May I?”
Kiril smiled. “Of course. Come over here and I’ll light it for ya,” he said as he packed the carb before sticking it back in. “Try that on for size Kikuchi.”
Yama placed his mouth over the end of the bong and sucked in the rising vapor, letting it climb past his lips, up his tongue, and down his throat. The vapor went down like a mischievous little smoke imp that prodded lightly at every part of Yama, diving into the gaps between his muscles and loosening the knots therein. Yama’s shoulders slumped as he sank into the chair before the rest of his body did the same. “Wow.”
Kiril grinned as he took the bong and inhaled the remaining vapor. “Pretty good stuff, isn’t it?”
Yama coughed twice as the little smoke goblin left his body. “Yea, that’s good shit.”
“Look,” Kiril said, rubbing his hands together, “I want to help you, I do, but you want to cross the bratva and while I’ve got problems, they’ve got leverage.”
Yama remembered Kiril’s interaction with Igor. “Orina?”
Kiril shook his head. “She’s my fence, my agent in the twisted, fucked up ways that people like us have agents,” he looked away, throat bobbing, “and she’s my baby momma.”
Yama furrowed his brow. “You’re a dad?”
Kiril forced himself to meet Yama’s eye and nodded, once. “Not planned, but yea,” he chopped his leg at the knee, “little ankle biter named Igor.” He held up his dex, showing a small child with pale skin and fiery tufts of red hair. Yama had been in enough grinding slogs to know the sharp planes of the boy’s cheeks were from malnutrition and his bubbling, grey blood simmered beneath his skin.
“Guess he gets the charm from the mother,” Yama said, trying to lighten the mood.
Kiril laughed and set the dex on the table. “Grigori knew of me, then found out about him. Now the kid’s somewhere in Petrobinskand Grigori is saying if I step out of line, the kid will suffer. Been like this for six months now, how they got me here.” He held up the gem on his necklace. “I’m their ace, and if I let this fall through, they’ll do more than cut his calories. I wish I could help, truly, but until my kid is safe, fik tam.”
Yama had put it upon himself to never harm a child, in or out of combat. He had been a small child once and it was those small mercies laid one on top of the last that had seen him to 88. He knew the universe didn’t hold the same sympathy, that most of his employers would bleed a little redder from the small bodies if it meant their own ledger was black. He gripped his pants tight, lest he hurl Kiril’s bong across the room. The depravity, the cowardice!
Danzo could get there in a day, Yama reasoned, taking a picture of the picture just in case. And probably another to track down the kid.
But that would pull him off getting to whatever else is going on in the lab.
I don’t need to get him more involved in this mess. He’s not even supposed to be here.
It’s a fucking kid; he’d be mad if I didn’t send him.
“Well well, look who’s starting to think things through,” the campfire specter said from behind Yama, burning a marshmallow with a lighter. “It’s ok to use Danzo-nii for this one.”
“Fuck off,” Yama growled, causing the man to vanish.
“Say something?” Kiril asked.
Yama shook his head. “No. Just thinking things through. You know Danzo Maeda?”
“Not personally.” Kiril narrowed his eyes at Yama. “Isn’t he your brother? How did that happen by the way, because you’re huge and he—”
“Not the point,” Yama said through his teeth. “He’s in the castle. If I told him, he’d go to Petrobinsk and find your kid. If anyone can, it’s him.”
Kiril’s eyes widened. “You’d do that?” Yama nodded. “Well, I’d be in your debt then.”
“Get rid of the Bratva and we’ll be even,” Yama said before moving to the door.
An orange-sized fireball hovered in the doorway. “Find Igor first, then we’ll talk.”
Yama nodded. “Of course,” he said before leaving the room, not wanting to see what else Kiril could do besides out of body pyromancies.
Yama felt light as he returned to his room to find Danzo. God, all these servants know I’m high, Yama thought before giggling. Don’t giggle, that will just give it away even more, Yama chided himself, which just made him laugh. Yama stopped himself before marching one foot in front of the other. Now nobody will know I am high, Yama told himself.
Yama knocked on his door three times before remembering it was his door and simply opened it, revealing Danzo, whose hand was outstretched to do the same. “Are you high or something?”
He knows, Yama thought in horror as he gingerly closed the door behind him. Asha, Brianna, Ginevra, and Maria all sat with a cup of tea on the table and someone’s dex projecting a map at the center.
“What are you back here for?” the cyclops asked. “Shouldn’t you be railing the princess over a railing after your little stunt?”
Ginevra slapped Danzo on the arm. “Have some manners!” she hissed. “But he’s right, why aren’t you railing the princess in a supply closet?” Her tone was casual, as if it was the suggested location she took offense to.
As an assassin, there was probably something to that thread, but Yama didn’t interrogate it. That would get nowhere fast and, more likely than not, lead to dark unsavory places rather quickly, especially with Danzo on oar duty. “I might be able to get Kiril to knock off Balderson and Medvedev and slow the shipments,” Yama said, hoping he didn’t slur any of the words or stare too long at anyone.
“Well, tell us, oh Sword Saint!” Danzo exclaimed.
“Medvedev is holding his kid hostage somewhere in Petrobisk,” Yama said as he held up the picture of the boy. “I was thinking you”—Yama pointed to Danzo—”could go get him.”
“It would be my honor.” Danzo downed the rest of his drink in one gulp before moving to the door. “I’ll get Varden on the way out to make it go faster.”
That’s Ginevra’s partner, Yama remembered. “You two have anybody you want to get involved?” he asked, glaring at Asha and Brianna.
Brianna bounced a glare to Asha. “Do we? I didn’t bring anybody.”
Asha rubbed her nose. “No, Bri,” she said with a sigh. “It’s just us.”
“Will you four be enough to complete”—Yama gestured to the projection on the table—”whatever ghoulish gambit you have cooking?”
Maria nodded. “The girls have been most industrious in their little plan.”
“Great. I’m going back to the arena, see yourselves out when you’re done,” Yama said before leaving.
Yama arrived at the viewing suite, loading a plate as the screens cut to a side by side of Orphiel and Anu. When he wasn’t in his jackal form, Anu was average—maybe smaller than average—and the juxtaposition made it glaringly apparent. I hope he can get that jackal working before Orphiel clobbers him, Yama thought morosely as he ate a piece of shrimp.
“At the drop of my hand, you may begin!” Not-Altan-Number-7 yelled.
Dark wisps swirled around Anu as Orphiel hefted his hammer from the ground. They congealed into a nine-foot column of darkness around him before molding into the jagged, obsidian jackal. Anu was a monument of death, his golden staff topped with a crescent of pale stone materializing in his hands. Sharp, black shards hovered around him like locusts
Anu swung low at Orphiel’s feet as the giant barreled towards him. Orphiel leapt over the staff, but Anu turned the staff in his palms before bringing the scything end across Orphiel’s ankle. The Nerconorian winced and yanked his torn ankle off the metal. The two cockroach-like micro-guts along his calf shifted to his knees and hissed as they began their mending, allowing the giant to swing his heavy maul down on Anu without issue.
Overextended, it was clear to all that Anu could only lift the end of his staff in a hope to block the hammer coming his way. Black sand flew from his jagged skin and into the hammer’s path, slowing it with the friction of the grains. The hammer dipped and bowed, shaking the arena as its ribcage-styled head fell to the ground like a bomb.
“How heavy did you make it?” Yama asked Jochi beside him on the railing.
Jochi didn’t bother turning from the spectacle and only grinned. “Try 3000 pounds,” he said as Anu leapt back, twirling his staff in the air as he landed.
Holy shit, Yama thought before Anu sent a barrage of sand at Orphiel’s face, using the opening to slide the crescent into Orphiel’s gut.
“That doesn’t look good!” Ganbataar exclaimed as Anu slid the blade through Orphiel’s body, creating a trickle of pale pink blood. “Is the ref going to call it?”
“NO!” Orphiel bellowed as Anu’s blade stopped at his navel.
Is he creating that much new tendon? Yama wondered, flabbergasted at the protect before Orphiel yanked the staff from Anu’s grasp. The Jackal peppered the Nerconorian with another barrage of sand, but Orphiel’s hand found Anu’s neck and dug in. Dropping his hammer sent another ripple through the stadium as Orphiel used his free hand to grab Anu’s hamstring, cracking the obsidian as he found purchase.
Orphiel cleaned the giant above his shoulders in a single motion before hurling him to the ground, kicking up a geyser of gravel and black glass. Anu twitched on the ground before Orphiel grabbed his hammer and placed it on his chest, pinning him. Anu writhed and tried to push the weight from his chest before his arms flopped to the side, spent.
Orphiel moved away from Anu, allowing the drones to see the gash across his stomach with only a stain of blood around it. “THIS IS OVER!” Orphiel bellowed into the crowd before turning on the referee. “OVER!”
The referee didn’t bother to lift Orphiel’s hand above his head, not that he could. Oprhiel instead grabbed his hammer and held it above like a boxing belt. “Unreal! I can’t even believe I doubted him for a second,” Ganbataar exclaimed.
“Zere is a reason why he is ze favorite to win it all. Do you zink anybody zat we’ve seen has a chance of winning when he just shrugged off a C-section?”
“I don’t know Charley, but after today I think the khan would be a fool to not have him fight the Sword Saint.”
By the Father no, anybody else, Yama thought despondently. If I so much as touch blades with that hammer, my sword is going to turn to shrapnel.
“You make a good point my Tatan friend! A battle of brutes.”
The crowd roared in approval. “KI-KU-CHI! KI-KU-CHI! KI-KU-CHI!” When a drone flew to the suite and zoomed in on Yama, he forced a smile to his face and raised Uzumaki into the air. Why the hell did I just accept the challenge? Yama lamented as Orphiel raised his enormous maul with one hand and pointed it back at him.
“And it seems ze challenge is set!”
When Otganbayar stood, Yama took the opportunity to disappear. “It seems like we have quite the match to look forward to in the next round, but let’s not be too hasty. The final round of the day, and one I have been looking forward to most eagerly, is about to begin. The Eternal Champion, Jira Kano versus the Golden Emissary, Genji Lee!”
Kano strode out first, plates of black ceramic scales resting over a blood orange kimono. At his hip was a short wakizashi of the same scheme and in one hand he carried a matching katana, clutched angrily like a briefcase by a businessman late to an important meeting. In his other hand he held a black helmet by the knotted chinstrap—complete with the hanging shikoro neck guards—and a blood-orange half-face mask resting inside. Fine knotwork secured Kano’s panoply to him and when he galloped around the arena’s edge, he made no noise save for the sound of his feet against the gravel. Painted on the breast plate was the Nimese Eternal Empire’s insignia, a black sun with four wisps in the cardinal directions and a blood-orange crescent pinning the western wisp. As he walked out, Kano slid the ceramic mask over his face before putting the helmet on. Bastard, wearing that armor here, Yama thought
Lee strode out after Kano had completed a lap around the arena, still in his ornate hanfu. He bore no weapon, and Yama worried only for a moment before he remembered the blades of air Lee had made at dinner the first night.
Kano trudged over to Lee as the cameras zoomed in on them. “Do you still want my blade?”
Lee nodded. “And have you considered your prize?”
“One of your blades will do,” Kano said as if agreeing to an appetizer.
Lee grinned and extended his hand. “Very well.”
Kano took the hand and both men returned to their side of the arena. Lee put himself through a series of stretches that made Yama’s old and rigid body wince, while Kano simply stood with his hand on his weapon. “At the drop of my hand, you may begin!” Number Eight called out.
Lee beat the air at his hands into shimmering scimitars while Kano stood nonplussed at the little alterism, pointing his katana forward like a rhino horn. Lee spun in the air, crashing his first blade into Kano’s as the second one sought his gut, a strike that Yama knew wouldn’t land.
Predictably, Kano stepped back as if gliding on the concrete, slashing the Elf at the end of his rotation. Lee sidestepped and made his body parallel to Kano, leaving the samurai staring at nothing. Lee sent his forearm out like a divine messenger at Kano’s neck, his message no more than perish. A twinge of jealousy shot through Yama before he dismissed it. If Lee triumphed over Kano, then so be it.
The blade bit into the edge of Kano’s neck before he deflected the blade by shrugging up his pauldron. When Lee withdrew his blade, speckles of grey clung to the field of air like a pox.
“Ze Golden Emissary carries a message and it is Die! Die! Die!”
Kano reared back, elbowing the groove between Lee’s nose and eye. The Golden Emissary hastily conjured a rushing wind between him and the samurai, using the force of the cutting winds to push himself back. Lee glided to a halt ten feet away before he looked disdainfully at his torn garment and ripped it from his body. Muscle lines ran down his arm, gleaming in the artificial sunlight like thousands of strands of golden threat. With a flick of the wrist, he conjured amber flames around his upper half, binding it tight to him like a cloak in winter.
“Well, things just got hot!” Gambataar exclaimed as Lee rushed towards Kano on a torrent of wind. The two men met, their blades parting with only a kiss as they slid past each other. Lee beat Kano’s blade to the ground, pinning it as its companion sought Kano’s neck.
Kano clamped his arm down on the approaching blade and yanked it back, ripping the blade from Lee’s hand, vanishing as it left his grasp. Yama could almost hear Lee’s eyes widen before Kano landed a skin rippling hook to his face. Flames licked at Kano’s sleeve before he batted them away and trudged ahead, stabbing through the slab of earth Lee hastily raised in front of him and burying his blade in Lee’s kidney.
Otganbayar shot to the railing. “Yes!”
The blades of wind and the cloak of fire around Lee fizzled into the air while the slab of earth crumbled to dust. A small golden flame danced at the wound’s entrance, but with the blade still embedded, Yama knew Lee could not cauterize it. A gout of fire sputtered in Lee’s hand, only for Kano to bat it aside. “Your tricks buy you seconds, but I, am, Eternal!” Kano yelled in Aurcourian before he slid his blade to Lee’s nipple.
Golden blood poured from the gash as nurses rushed onto the field. Kano withdrew his blade and cast the blood onto the ground in golden drops. Nurses caught Lee as he slumped forward, their hands racing through a sign language of needle and thread as they patched the wound.
“Victor by stoppage, The Eternal Champion, Jira Kano!” the referee exclaimed.
Otganbayar held his hand in the air, clapping it first with Batu and Bolor and then Batbayar. “Yes!” he exclaimed again before he returned to the balcony where a drone waited for him.
The khan tapped an earpiece as the drone’s green light came on. “Yes, that’s good,” he said, as if feigning a call before he turned to the drone. “The Golden Emissary will live,” Otganbayar told the crowd as Lee was carried out of the arena. “That concludes our first slate of matches, and what a slate it was! My advisors and I have prepared the next round of matches and I think you will all be pleased,” Otganbayar said before the screens cut to show the next matchups.
First Day
Kiril vs Maria
Yama vs Orphiel
Second Day
Kano vs Batu
Heidi vs Ginevra
To say it was a surprise would have been a lie as it was how Yama would pair the contestants. That wasn’t to say they were comforting choices. How Maria was going to get around Kiril’s fire, he did not know and how he was going to deal with Orphiel…he’d figure it out. Figure Batu will win his, with how tenacious he is, Yama reasoned. He had not control of the battles his lord wished to make and if Batu beat Kano, Yama would have to beat Batu to cement himself and his brothers over Kano and his ilk. And seeing Heidi and Ginevra go at it, that will be good, he thought, smiling.
The crowd roared in approval, shouting each of the eight candidates’ names with nearly equal vigor. At least someone thinks I can do it, Yama thought before leaving the suite.
A samurai must be unfaltering in his endeavors
A faltering support is of no use
The Tenets of Tenshi