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It’s the fifth job this week. At this rate, Fai has been averaging a job a day, and then some change, what with the other assignments Ashura has been giving him. But this one interests him a little more. It might not have to go the way his jobs normally go, provided Fai can outsmart and outpace the target. And truthfully, he has little doubt he’ll be able to do so. Once upon a time, years ago, she was in the industry with him, after all. Now, she’s shifted career paths, and he can often hear her on local radio stations. She hasn’t become an international star, yet, but if she can stay out of trouble, perhaps she might.He enters the Tiger Club in the expected attire—a dress shirt, slacks, a little fashionable jacket that’s too heavy to actually wear. The club goers dance on the main floor, which is lit beneath thick, colorful panels, giving the floor a pretty mosaic effect when viewed from above. He approaches the stairs, and two bouncers look at him, expectant.“Oh, dear,” Fai huffs. He holds up a finger and opens his wallet, fishing through it until he finds the card in question: a matte black card with a tiger etched into it. They scan it under a blacklight, and upon finding it to be legitimate, they nod, and let him through. “Thank you, boys! Sorry for the trouble.”He finds the stairs and moseys on up, feeling the bass humming through the handrail. The second floor is for paying members only, full of private rooms with locking doors. Many others in his industry are regulars, since it’s considered neutral territory. He primarily visits for business, although sometimes he takes Chii for fun—hers, that is, since it’s a bit too bustling for his tastes. He personally prefers a quieter scene.Fai walks off to the private room on his itinerary and knocks. From inside, he hears a woman’s voice ask, “Is it Shogo?”, and Fai simply waits, bouncing on the balls of his heels. A thin slit appears in the door, and he meets the eyes of one of Primera’s bodyguards. “Well, who is it?”“Blond guy,” the bodyguard says gruffly. “What’s your business?”“Here to see an old friend,” Fai announces, in a sing-song lilt. “Tell her it’s Fai!”Some muttering goes on, but after a little bit, he is granted entry. Fai steps inside the room. At the center of the floor, there is a large glass panel, and they can see the activity on the floor beneath them. Primera sits in a velvet chair, as pretty as usual, with her hair cascading down in blue waves. She taps her feet impatiently, not quite seeming to register Fai there beyond how she might notice a useless piece of furniture: inconsequential, maybe a bit annoying. He isn’t the person she has been hoping to see.“You haven’t been here in a while,” Primera mutters. “If you’re looking for news on Yuuko, I don’t know anything.”“I wasn’t going to ask. Are people pestering you?”Primera looks sour. “They’ve been coming out of the woodwork all month! I only went to her parties a couple times—we weren’t friends. If she wants to disappear so badly, I say people just let her.”“Certainly,” Fai agrees. “I don’t quite think they’re worried for her well-being, though, if we’re being honest. You know our world.”Primera wordlessly pinches her thumb and fingers together, pantomiming money. Fai laughs and nods.“And I don’t know anything about the Wolf, either!” she adds. “That isn’t my world anymore!”“Oh, Primera—it’s just the old rumor mill doing what it does,” Fai reminds her.“What are you up to, anyway?” Primera mutters. “Work or pleasure?”“The latter, but ‘pleasure’ might be a stretch,” Fai laughs. “I’m waiting for Chii. I heard you were here, so I thought I’d visit in the meantime.”“Who told you I was here?”“You’re a bit of a celebrity,” he reminds her playfully. “There’s a line outside, awfully chatty. People saw you enter.”Primera actually looks at him, then, evidently wooed by the comment. “I really am a celebrity, now, aren’t I?”Beneath them, the club rages and dances—lights flashing and bouncing. Fai notices a leash in her hand, it leading to a collar around the neck of a young, nervous girl who gives him a terrified, urgent look. She has her hands bound behind her, and her legs similarly bound. The tape over her mouth keeps her from communicating much, but Fai imagines he gets the gist of what the child would say. He takes a seat, props his chin in his hand, rests his elbow on one knee.“You have a pet, Primera,” Fai observes lightly.“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she mutters. She yanks at the leash and the girl makes a muffled sound of distress. “She’s apparently a violinist.”“Oh? How lovely.”“Is it?” Primera counters. “Nobody even knows who she is.”Fai merely smiles and says, “I can’t imagine Shogo will be happy to know you’ve taken his new client.”“He shouldn’t have dumped me to take this kid,” Primera replies, pouting.“Business is business, no?” Fai asks. “I’m sure it wasn’t personal.”“He was my b— manager for five years, and then he just walks out?” Primera asks, bristling. “For this kid ? Tell me it isn’t personal.”“Ahhh, that must be hard. It sounds like you had a close working relationship.”Fai knows he’s being facetious. It has never been a mystery that Primera and Shogo were involved on a personal level, but there are certain niceties he’s expected to follow, and so he does. Primera glowers and shrugs, swallowing down whatever retort was initially in her throat.“Do you know where Shogo is?” she asks. “I invited him.”“Shogo? No, I’m afraid we don’t keep in touch.”“If this kid is really that important to him, won’t he show up?”Fai tilts his head.“Come now, Primera,” he chides. “A girl like you doesn’t need to take such drastic measures to get an ex-manager back.”Primera appears to be fighting her reactions—annoyed but clearly flattered, judging from how her posture changes. She lifts her chin, and in that quick movement, Fai makes his play—he instantly has a gun pointed between her eyes, barely a foot from her head. All of her guards spring forward rigidly, but stop short at Primera’s quick order: “Stop!”They hesitantly pull back, recognizing the danger of the situation. If they make a move on Fai, Primera will be dead in an instant. Her hostage lets out a small squeak of shock. Primera’s face hardens like an animal’s, baring teeth.“You tricked me,” she hisses. “It was work, after all.”Fai smiles at her with ease.“Yes,” he admits, “but I’d rather not have to kill such a beautiful girl. Why don’t you let the kid go?”He waits. Both of them stay put, the only visible motion being Primera’s nervous, fast breathing. Fai is as still as death, smile unchanging, never reaching the eyes. The child looks back and forth between them, wide-eyed.“Fine,” she says. “I’ll let her go. I don’t care!”When she lets go of the leash, Fai stops aiming for her, adjusts the safety. She quickly backs away where she’s sitting, swallowing, looking at him with both fear and anger. Fai approaches the young violinist, kneeling on the floor. He checks his pocket for a knife and frowns, realizing he’s forgotten one, and makes do with his house keys, splitting the binds with them. The violinist quickly stretches her limbs out, making a few moves at once—she unhooks the collar from her neck with one hand and rips the tape off her mouth with the other. She then jumps forward, grabbing onto Fai’s sleeve, clinging close.“This wasn’t personal,” Fai tells Primera as kindly as possible. “You know how it is—work is work.”“You’re so full of shit I could—”“ Primera! ” shouts a voice from the first floor of the club. Primera’s eyes clear, instantly having forgotten the threat and slight against her. She jumps up from her seat. “Primera, where the fuck are you? What did you do?”“Shogo!” Primera exclaims, and she bounds off, leaving the door to the room open in her wake.The hostage and Fai stare after her for a moment, watching the reunion—Primera and Shogo simultaneously run at each other with such force that both of them nearly fall over. Shogo pulls her up and holds her face in his hands, wild-eyed with concern—“Don’t kidnap anybody—you’re lucky no one caught wind!”—while Primera promptly starts crying—“But you stopped taking my calls—what was I supposed to do?”—and so Fai breathes out a sigh of relief. It’s a good day when he doesn’t have to really kill someone, especially a former colleague.He turns to the girl and smiles. “Well then—let’s get you home.”The car is completely silent for a few blocks—the partition raised, the music somewhat muted. The girl stares ahead at seemingly nothing, shellshocked. Fai can’t help but want to soothe the child, feeling pity for her, but he decides the best way to do this is to be quite casual, to reroute Sakura away from the ordeal she just faced. He says, “You’re an incredible player, Miss Kinomoto.”The girl jumps, startled at the sound. She looks nervously over at Fai, deciding to focus on the man’s hands. The skin around her mouth is red and irritated from where it was taped. She picks at her nails. “Y—you know who I am?”“Sakura Kinomoto! My employer is a big fan,” Fai explains. He smiles cheekily. “Of course, I am too. I could never make a violin sing the way you do, especially not at your age. It’s really something!”“Oh—um—thank you, Mister, uh…” Sakura glances up, brows raised. Despite the oddness of their meeting, she’s curious. Fai waves a hand.“No need to be so formal. Just Fai.”“Fai! Okay.” Sakura nods. “Um—you can call me Sakura. You play, too?”“Not as much as I used to,” Fai admits with a wink. “Don’t ever get old, Sakura. You’ll find your time no longer belongs to you.”Sakura releases a little huff of a laugh. She continues picking at her nails, but the conversation evidently slows her pace, calms her down a little. She asks, “What did you like to play, when you could? I’ve been practicing some Schubert.”It’s a perfectly innocent question, but it takes Fai a moment to respond. Most of the time, when he completes a job, it’s an awfully silent affair: a quiet night ride home in the car, spent resting his eyes, thinking about tomorrow. He smiles at the girl.“I always enjoyed the Romantic composers,” he says. “I liked Paganini, although I found him challenging. His history fascinated me, legends and all.” “The Devil’s violinist,” Sakura says. After a thoughtful silence, she adds, “I always thought his life was a sad one. He could make the violin make any sound he wanted, but it was so bad for his health. He could’ve lived a much longer life. Schubert, too.”“There’s always a price,” Fai hums. “Don’t overwork yourself. Learn from their mistakes. And, of course, avoid any mercurial treatments, right?”Sakura snorts, smiles, and looks down at her lap.“My dad makes sure I don’t practice all the time,” she says. “He says I need other hobbies, so I’ve been taking pictures. That’s how Primera found me—I was at the gardens near the museum district—oh!”Sakura puts up a finger, checks her coat pocket, and retrieves an interesting looking camera: bright pink, littered in floral stickers. After checking it over and finding it intact, she puts it safely back. As the seconds pass following, her face slowly falls. She clears her throat.“I’m sorry for asking this,” she starts, “but were you really going to shoot her?”“Hm? Primera?” Fai asks, tilting his head to the side. “Of course not. We’re old friends.”Sakura immediately relaxes, relieved. “Thank goodness! Okay. I—uh—I thought, you know,” she trails off, briefly wide-eyed. She shudders suddenly. “I—I didn’t want to see anybody die.” Fai smiles at her gently. “Of course not. I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt, either. I had to do something a bit dramatic to keep everyone safe, but I apologize for frightening you.”Sakura swallows and nods, whispering her thanks. She turns her head and looks out the window, watching the city pass by through the glass, all a blur of artificial lights. Fai briefly rolls down the partition, and requests La Campanella for the rest of the ride, since they won’t have time for anything longer. The first spirited peals of violin bounce through the speakers, and Fai listens, conducting something invisible with his hands. Sakura sways slightly, head nodding, as if the music pulls her this way and that. They exchange a grin, neither embarrassed because their enthusiasm has found a friend in the other, and continue as they are.They reach the pier: the place Primera had demanded Sakura’s family meet her to exchange the ransom for their daughter. Sakura’s father and brother stand, eyeing the car. Her father looks worried, but her brother looks ready to pounce on the first person he deems responsible for the whole affair. One of Fei Wang Reed’s representatives is standing with them, no doubt the middle man for everything. The car parks. Sakura looks at Fai, expectant, but he shakes his head—he has to go, and the job is already over for him. She has one hand on the door, but she stops, visibly summoning the courage to tell him something.“There’s always more time,” Sakura blurts out. “If you really wanted, you could start playing again.”“You’re a good kid, Sakura,” Fai says honestly.Fai remains in the car, politely waving goodbye. Sakura curtsies politely at Fai after she gets out of the car, and immediately rushes into the arms of her father and brother. Fai watches the hush money change hands and he rolls down the partition, making a motion to the driver. His journey home commences, the car as empty as it should be, the job finished. The music’s volume rises, nudged up at Fai’s request. He rolls down a window, leans back in his seat. The night air spills in with beautiful sound.  Fai arrives on time to his appointment with Tomoyo Daidouji, who is second in line for the Daidouji empire. Her older sister, Kendappa, runs their family’s many business ventures, but Tomoyo is infinitely more accessible, and arguably just as knowledgeable on some matters. Kendappa is notoriously hard to get in a room, not unlike Ashura. The Daidouji family might be the lowest ranking amongst the big four families of the underworld, but they’re still good allies to have. By Fai’s best estimates, his own family is only ranked above theirs by a small margin.Fai finds the restaurant in question—one of many the Daidouji family owns—in a unique state of transience, half-finished, as it isn’t open to the public yet. It’s a funny little building with one wall lined in glass bricks, creating the illusion of light filtered through water. A series of vivid red booths—surely a remnant of the previous owners’ decor, since the Daidouji restaurants always run with purple—line this particular wall, with Tomoyo seated at one in the center. She brightens up when she sees him, waving excitedly.“Hyuuuuuuuuu!” Fai faux-whistles. He could never quite whistle, so he’s taken to vocalizing the sound. The acoustics in the space are slightly fresher and crisper once he clears enough space from the doorway; his hyuuuu echoes back at him. “What an interesting place for a meeting! A new restaurant?”“It’s going to be the next restaurant, but we haven’t done much to it, yet,” Tomoyo admits. The gears visibly turn in her head, quick to be distracted by the project at hand. “I’m trying to convince Kendappa to keep the glass bricks, since they’re so cute, but she thinks they look cheap. What are your thoughts?”“They’re charming,” Fai decides. “Very retro.”“Right? I don’t see the big deal about looking cheap, anyway. We aren’t even Michelin starred—oh, I’m rambling! Don’t let me talk about food service to you! Please sit with me!”“Well, I just can’t turn down an invitation from a pretty woman.”He takes the seat across from her in the center booth, making note of a familiar bodyguard in one booth—clearly Souma, judging from the color and cut of her hair—and a second person, most likely another bodyguard, perhaps new. The man sitting behind Tomoyo in his own booth is so tall that his entire head is visible over the back of the seat. Fai sees a single earring dangling from one side—a small, black hoop.Tomoyo seems to notice Fai’s attention. She says, “You’ll have to pardon my team. Kendappa has bumped me to two, now. We’ve all been on high alert since Yuuko disappeared, and, well— I know you won’t do anything, but…”“I have that silly little reputation,” Fai supplies, grinning. He waves a hand. “Don’t worry. Your sister loves you. Why would I be offended?”“Oh, good. I knew you’d understand,” she exhales, shoulders loosening with relief. Tomoyo’s face takes on a certain seriousness after a second, and she looks up at him. “I know this was short notice, but I had a dream to discuss with you.”“Ahhhh… Those dreams of yours,” Fai hums.She looks serious enough that Fai decides against teasing her, despite his instinct. He nods encouragingly, hoping for more. But instead, Tomoyo asks, “Fai, are you a Gemini?”He smiles. Of course. For as long as he’s known her, Tomoyo has always been interested in astrology. “Yes,” he says, “although I don’t know much more. I know you’ve asked in the past.”“We’ll do your birth chart another time,” she decides, and she returns to her focus. “Anyway, in a dream we were at a round table, seated with all of these figures in shadow. The center of the table was on fire, and the flames were slowly spreading outwards. We kept trying to leave the table, but something would drag us back to it, like a magnet.”Tomoyo pantomimes this, drawing her hands apart and then close again. Fai listens, faintly interested. Tomoyo believes her dreams are premonitions. Fai has some agnostic beliefs on the matter—regardless of the truth, her instincts are good, and so it is only wise to pay attention.“The fire was getting hotter and closer. I knew we were going to die if we stayed, but we couldn’t move. I didn’t know why. And then, I could see it—a web of threads strung across the table from neck to neck. I could see all the people, no longer in shadow. Our families and associates were all trapped, literally tied to each other. Because we each kept trying to get up and run the opposite way, we were pulling each other back into the chairs. I was tied to my sister. I tried to tell her what was happening, but the fire was massive, and roaring, and she couldn’t hear me. I was screaming, trying to tell the others at the table, but no one could hear.”Tomoyo looks somewhat far away as she speaks. She folds her small hands over her throat, as if still trying to pull herself free.“Then I saw you,” she says. “You were seated beside me. You stood up from the table without pulling, and across from you, I saw something strange—an identical twin. Or I thought it was you, but you were calling him Fai. So I suppose it wasn’t you.”Fai’s mouth is suddenly dry, his mind briefly dizzied. He has to consciously think about whether or not he’s still smiling attentively. He feels as if something has pushed him from his head and body, that he is suddenly observing everything from just a few feet of distance, watching his puppet body hum thoughtfully, just as it normally would.“Then I saw something—this huge hand shot down from the ceiling, reached into the fire, and grabbed all the threads at once, pulling them into the flames. And then I woke up,” she says, and with this, she shrugs. “I’m not sure what it means, but be careful. I had a bad feeling. But it makes sense that you’d have a twin in my dream, being a Gemini and all.”“You know a lot about astrology, Tomoyo,” he hears himself tell her.“I’m gay. I’m required to know,” Tomoyo says. “I’m surprised you don’t know much.”“Whatever on earth could you be implying?”Tomoyo giggles at this. The bodyguard behind her—the tall one with the earring—stirs slightly. Fai realizes the man is suppressing a snort. Interesting. In the booth behind Fai, he cannot hear anything from Souma; she’s quite practiced from years of mostly guarding Kendappa, and silent as death. Thinking this way—thinking of work—taps Fai slightly back into himself. The smile grows sly.“There has still been no sign of Yuuko,” Fai says, shifting gears, putting out feelers. “People are beginning to talk—they think she’s dead.”“Oh, she isn’t,” Tomoyo says easily, shaking her head. She says it with such certainty that Fai looks at her, expectant.“You haven’t had another dream, have you?” Fai asks.“Not yet,” she says. “When I do, I’ll be sure to tell you.”Fai can see just a trace of the bodyguard’s head, a sliver of his profile. For just a second, Fai catches the sharp end of an amused smile.  The Celes city house is somewhat removed from public life—a large, dark penthouse thirty stories up from the ground. Fai ducks in, recognized and let in by the security guards. They nod at him as he comes in, heading straight for the elevator, spewing his regular sort of comments: how nice to see you, have you been working out, so sorry—have to run! He boards the elevator and turns a key to access the additional panel—the one that leads to the place that was once his home.When he arrives, he ducks in, nodding politely at the woman who takes his coat at the door. She appears to be new. Fai wonders if Chii bullied the last one into quitting—she had seemed too nice.“Mr. Celes is in his study,” the woman tells Fai. Her glance is nervous, and a bit confused, as if she is not sure where Fai fits in when it comes to the family. It isn’t terribly unexpected. Ashura might be his legal guardian, but their relationship is not the sort where he would call him his father. Fai knows Ashura would never call him his son. The circumstances of his adoption were not conducive to it; he had been too old. “He asks you to meet him there.”The woman smiles awkwardly and disappears with Fai’s coat, off to whatever duties await her. Fai thinks, sadly, that she won’t last long in this house.Fai turns to his right and ascends the staircase. He scans the walls as he walks, checking for anything new. The usual suspects are still there: the official Celes family tree, pictures of the family before Shashi died, and the old maps of the village Ashura’s father had come from—tributes to the dead, Fai thinks. There are no images of him or anything current, just images from a paused time.He drifts down the hall, reaching its end, where Ashura’s study sits with the door left open. When he reaches the threshold, he sees Ashura sitting in his favorite Chesterfield armchair—the blue leather one—with his laptop in use. The older man glances up without moving his head and gestures to the other open armchair, also in blue. Fai, understanding this invitation, enters and sits. Ashura is typing, forever at work, even at such a late hour.“Look at you—busy man!” Fai greets.Ashura chuckles and closes the laptop shut. He gives Fai his full attention, scanning him over, offering a quick, firm, closed-mouth smile. It is as much as Ashura usually gives, and not much more.“You look well,” he says.“I’ve been eating kale,” Fai says—a half joke, given that it’s true.“Shashi loved that sort of thing,” Ashura says—Shashi, his late wife. Fai never met her; she had passed shortly before he was absorbed into the Celes family. “Rabbit food. I prefer meat.”“Everything has its place,” Fai decides mildly.“How have you been faring?” Ashura asks. “I’ve had you quite busy these past few months.”Indeed, he has. Ashura is the one who sets both Chii and Fai’s workloads. Every job they receive is funneled through Ashura. Neither of them ever meet their clients directly, at least not when it comes to the wetwork. Ashura simply gives them the necessary information and sends them on their way. But Fai’s schedule has been more active than usual—not only has he been doing the usual jobs, but Ashura has had him running unrelated errands more often: meeting with fences, contractors, all sorts of middlemen.In truth, Fai is fairly exhausted. It’s a lot of work. He has been sleeping five hours a night at most. But when he looks at Ashura, he decides the truth has no place in their conversation. What matters, instead, is that Fai can do the job given to him, that he feels he has earned his place. So he smiles and shrugs.“Oh, I like being busy,” Fai says. “I’ve enjoyed it. It’s nice to have a chat with people, of course, versus the usual.”He pantomimes something gruesome—snapping a neck. Ashura doesn’t laugh at this, but he smiles and nods.“Good. I know I have been asking for quite a lot.” Ashura glances toward the door for a moment. “Chii—she’s too bullheaded. She cannot speak nicely to people. I cannot count on her when I step down. You’re a chameleon; everyone likes you. Of course, it isn't enough to be well-liked.”Fai simply watches the older man, waiting.“The Celes empire needs to be captained by someone dedicated," Ashura continues. "Someone who can commit every part of their life to this family, who will act in the interests of its survival, even if it means making difficult decisions."Fai’s smile is quick, easy. “I will do whatever you need. Just ask.”“Good.” Ashura nods, smiles in return. He points behind him, at a table piled with books and rolled up blueprints—the plans for the future gallery. There is also one odd item out: a padded envelope, labeled with a date, and the distinct stamped C seal for Celes . “We have film for the photographer, and I am expecting a package from the Reeds. Make the trade tomorrow and report back.”After a moment, Fai gets out of the chair, collecting the envelope. He turns back, something prickling in his mind. The Celes tradition: still shrouded in mystery.“My thirty-fifth is soon,” he reminds Ashura. “I still don’t know what you’ll need from me before I take over.”“Put it out of your mind for now,” Ashura replies mildly. “Just enjoy the present.”“If you insist,” Fai says. “Goodnight, sir.”“Goodnight.”Ashura merely nods, and opens his laptop again.  Fei Wang Reed is, to Fai’s knowledge, the biggest player in the game. It’s hard to be accurate, of course—the underworld is not exactly known for having open, public records—but Fai imagines this to be the truth. He has the most manpower, the most resources, and the best intelligence gathering. The services he offers are indispensable to most of the underworld, and so making deals and alliances with him is unavoidable. To be in his bad graces is a kiss of death, in no uncertain terms. And so Fai makes the journey to the studio across town to use those services and nurture the small but steady relationship he has developed with Reed’s people.Ashura never sends Chii on errands like this, not to Fai’s knowledge. She doesn’t have a particularly good bedside manner. But Fai does, even when it comes to challenging people, much like the woman he anticipates seeing: Xing Huo, who is just a step removed from being Fei Wang Reed’s right hand man. Fai has been dealing with her for a few years, now. She isn’t outwardly unpleasant, but she is quite cold. He hopes to warm her up a little with time.When he arrives, he finds Xing Huo sitting quietly at the front desk of the studio, doing something on a tablet. She’s in her standard attire: grim black from head to toe, her red bat-shaped hairpin the sole exception. She glances up when he arrives.“Looking lovely today, Xing Huo!” Fai cheers. “I have something for Syaoran. Can you get this to him?”He hands her the padded envelope. Xing Huo opens a drawer at the desk, puts the envelope in, and locks the drawer with a key.“How is he, anyway?” Fai asks.Xing Huo casts Fai a curious but uncomprehending look, as if the question is nonsensical. She decides to ignore it altogether. She rolls her chair backward and leans down, opening a second drawer with a different key, and she produces a large folder of her own.“I was told to expect you,” she says flatly. She gets up and locks the door to the studio, flipping the sign— closed —and leads Fai out of the storefront, to the back, to a small room without windows. She flips on the lights and they take a seat at a table. She neatly empties the contents of the folder, fans through them for a moment, and then puts them on the table between them both. “Everything is as it was: the Ichihara properties are still closed off, and appear to be undergoing construction. We can’t safely get any closer than we already have.”“Ahhh—Doumeki’s archery is such a pain, eh?”Xing Huo looks quite serious, nodding. “He shoots down the drones, too.”“Hmm… Yuuko must be hiding something big for all this fuss, eh?”“Perhaps.”Yuuko Ichihara has always been an interesting character. No one quite knows where she came from, how she came into this life, or if she even knows how the business works, especially since her husband died. If the rumors have any merit, when he was alive, she didn’t do much work at all, and preferred spending most of her time luxuriating in her house, tending to plants, having philosophers and celebrities over for drinks and outrageous parties. Before her husband passed, Yuuko was known as an incredibly active socialite. Ashura has been awaiting developments on her activity, given that she dropped off the radar quite suddenly. If she is no longer in the game, so to speak, then she has incredibly valuable resources up for grabs.Xing Huo points at several images—Yuuko Ichihara’s home, the gate padlocked, the lot full of vans. But curiously, the entire house is completely obscured, hidden by a massive tarp. Fai leans in, squinting, trying to find some small sliver of the house, but there’s nothing: only the tarps. He picks through the photographs. Nothing has changed since the last time. The vans indicate construction, to his eyes, but the size of the tarp is absurd, as big as a circus tent, as if someone is hiding the entire house from prying eyes.“The Ichihara warehouse is similar,” Xing Huo continues. She flips to another series of images—a large warehouse near the port side of town, similarly obscured by a tarp, and similarly dotted with dozens of vans. It’s used for storage and other things, as far as Fai knows, ranging from rare artifacts to a few small counterfeiting operations.“The Shop is the same,” she finishes, and she shows him the final image—Yuuko’s little storefront, simply called The Shop, the one that has always been quite a mystery, given that no one has been able to pinpoint what, exactly, she sells from it. Some say she grants any wish from it, but Fai personally has taken this to be in a hedonistic sense, given her reputation for vice. This building, too, is completely hidden.“But no sign of Yuuko?” Fai asks.“Still none,” Xing Huo confirms. “Her help does still appear to be doing the shopping.”Xing Huo retrieves another photograph—Watanuki, who has been Yuuko’s live-in help for several years, emerging from a grocery store. At his side—Doumeki, Yuuko’s favorite assassin, apparently helping in this task. Fai considers the funny look between the pair in the picture, one of loving irritation from Watanuki, one of unreadable quality from Doumeki. They sift through several photographs of the pair walking together.“Clow died a month ago,” Fai reflects. “She hasn’t been seen since the funeral. What are people saying? I’m sure you’ve heard things from the rumor mill, Xing Huo.”He smiles at her encouragingly. Xing Huo tilts her head, considering.“Some believe it’s merely construction,” she says. “Some believe these places must remind her too much of Clow—hence the construction. Some believe conditions have gotten bad enough that the buildings had to be cordoned off for public safety. And some believe she’s killed herself, and that her former staff is taking everything from her estate before authorities catch wind.”“Hyuuuu! And what do you think?”“It is not worth guessing when it comes to her,” Xing Huo says simply. “I am sure the truth will be just as curious as these theories.”“Very wise, Xing Huo.”Xing Huo neatly returns the photographs to the folder. Fai takes it, tucking it into his messenger bag. They leave the room, re-emerging into the storefront. Fai’s eyes adjust to the bright light, looking around. The studio is over-cluttered in artistic decorations: framed photographs of all sorts, various camera models, instructional guides, types of film, the rest. On its face, the business is legitimate—they develop traditional photography, and are one of the only places left in the city still doing so—but the charges are exorbitant by design. The majority of their clientele are people like Fai, and they pay in cash.An unfortunate reality of the killing industry is this: clients want proof. An unfortunate reality of modern technology is this: it isn’t terribly wise to get this proof by taking a picture with a phone, or even a digital camera. Data can be too easily tracked, found, traced backwards to a source. The safest, simplest way is traditional film. Once the client is satisfied, everything can be destroyed, never to be seen again. And so, with these sorts of stakes, any worthwhile assassin in the city goes to Reed Keepsakes and asks for Syaoran.“I can’t stay, so you’ll have to thank Syaoran for me,” Fai says before he leaves. “So long!”In the basement, where Syaoran works in his dark room, he grimly removes an image from its solution and hangs it beside a series of others. It is the sort of grisly image he works with constantly: photographs of corpses, proof of a job’s completion.  The summons is unusual. Fai receives it after he completes a job, wipes the sweat from his brow, and feels the familiar vibration of his work phone. The message is from Ashura—a location, and a time. For the first time in Fai’s career, he is going to meet a client. He has always wondered what the experience is like—to some degree, he has preferred not knowing. Will emotions run high? We are not the only ones being presented with the job, Ashura warns. Prepare for competition. I’ll dress for the occasion, Fai texts back, thinking about which suit would be best.They are set to meet the following evening. The location is unfamiliar to him, but that part of the city is quite old, rich with history. Fei Wang Reed and Clow Reed once owned most of the area, but Clow had managed to shake his brother’s name off the properties, replacing it with Yuuko’s. Fei Wang never recovered from the slight while Clow lived, and it’s doubtful he would release that grudge, even with Clow dead. If anything, he probably has it solely against Yuuko, now. The Celes family has always been safe to do business in the area—Fai is not worried for his own safety—but he can’t help but wonder if the entire summons is a trap for someone else.Fai snaps a few pictures of the target as proof and calls a car. The ride home is about an hour; he spends it unsure of whether or not to stay awake. He massages his brow, forehead resting against the window. He should wear the blue suit. His mind swims aimlessly, too tired for thoughts more complex than that.When he arrives at the location, he discovers it is the illusive Clover bar—a bar no one can find without an explicit invitation, mainly patronized by people like Fai, who operate under the table. His heart thumps nervously in his chest. The job must be bigger than he even anticipated. Fai enters, giving the correct code at the door, and walks into a hazy room, everything full of smoke. After a second of adjusting his eyes to the dim light, what he sees gives a brief shock.At the center of the room is a massive, circular table. Around it, each person turns to the door to see him enter. Fai can recognize and name not only the assassins, but the heads of nearly every crime family in the city: Fei Wang Reed, Kendappa Daidouji, and even Ashura. Someone is missing, of course: Yuuko Ichihara.Fai loosens his posture, leans into the mannerisms that make him appear non-threatening to others—his gangly body, his toothy smile, his effeminate body language, his visible queerness—and many simply look away, having dismissed him. This is good. Fai counts on people’s prejudices to keep him safe, unobserved, written off—and in a room like this, he does not want to be noticed.“Over here,” Chii calls, and Fai, grateful for the distraction, approaches. It takes him a moment to even spot her—she’s in a proper dress for once, but she’s still popping her chewing gum like a child. He is both confused and relieved to see her—he hadn’t realized everyone would be there. He takes a seat at the circular table, sitting beside her. Everyone else is dressed at a comparably formal level: dresses and suits.“Your first prom, too, Chii?” Fai asks. “I’m scared no one’s going to ask us to dance.”“Yeah—I mean, that’s, like, pretty likely for you ,” Chii deadpans. Before he can even ask his actual question, she answers it: “Nothing’s happened yet. We’re waiting to find out.”Fai decides to see who’s in their company, but when he sees the man sitting directly opposite, he is startled to see someone already staring back—a large, dark-haired man with a small, black hoop in one ear. Fai places him instantly: the bodyguard who sat behind Tomoyo Daidouji, amused in semi-profile. He looks completely out of his element—some sort of wild beast forced into formal wear—but he’s handsome. His stare is quite intense, though, and Fai finds himself considering an exit strategy. Without breaking eye contact, he unbuttons his collar, and then the button beneath it. The man’s eyes instinctively follow the movement, landing on Fai’s chest, and then back up to his face, puzzled.Fai winks and raises an eyebrow suggestively. The man’s face reddens slightly, eyes narrowing in irritation. He looks away, gripping his glass too tightly.With that, Fai is free to glance around the table, assessing the competition, putting names to the faces. Fei Wang Reed and his people—Kyle Rondart and Xing Huo. Ashura Celes—with Chii and Fai, of course. Kendappa Daidouji—with Souma and the man with the earring. Then Yuuko’s men—Doumeki and Watanuki, although Watanuki is the odd man out, not being in the killing industry. He keeps eyeing the door and leaning over, hissing things in Doumeki’s ear. But where is Yuuko Ichihara?A server begins flitting around the table, pouring glasses for everyone—champagne flutes. Fai thanks the server and glances at Chii without turning his head. “I think it’s showtime.”“What a circus,” Chii mutters under her breath.The door opens, and every set of eyes at the table turns to see the culprit: Yuuko Ichihara, dressed to the nines, carrying an already opened bottle of red wine. Everyone goes absolutely quiet. She is alive, after all. Beside him, Chii makes a small noise of shock. Fai looks to Ashura for guidance, notes the hard, unreadable quality of his gaze, and immediately chooses to be similarly unreadable—he keeps his smile steady, unwavering. Sometimes it is best to present one thing as another.Yuuko takes her seat at the only remaining chair at the table, drawing her sleepy eyes over the gathering. The room is tense, over-alert, awaiting cues. Yuuko takes a long swig from her bottle, and then smiles at the crowd.“You received my summons!” she says. “Very good, very good. As I mentioned, I have a rather unusual target, and it’ll require the best of the best, regardless of family.” She pauses, then, as if remembering herself, and laughs. “Ah—and how nice it is to see you all. Miss Daidouji—Mr. Reed—Mr. Celes—you all look quite well. I appreciate you agreeing to meet. A bit like herding cats with our lot, no?”“Can we get on with it?” the man with the earring suddenly asks, which only makes Yuuko’s eyes light up, evidently entertained. “If it’s a job, give us the job.”“Pardon Kurogane,” Kendappa Daidouji interjects, eyeing him sternly. “He’s eager to prove himself.”Yuuko merely laughs, unbothered, and waves it off.“He’s right—no need to bother with pleasantries. Yes—this is a difficult target—perhaps the most difficult any of you will ever have. Watanuki, please pass the envelopes. You will find the necessary information inside.”Watanuki, grumbling under his breath, gets up and places a thick envelope before each guest, and when he has finally passed them all out, he returns to his seat, arms crossed over his chest. At first, no one moves—but then the man—Kurogane, Fai reminds himself—begins opening it, and everyone follows suit. Fai unseals it without tearing the paper and promptly freezes at the face of the target in question. A second stillness fills the room, utter confusion.The target appears to be Yuuko Ichihara herself.Fei Wang Reed holds up the laminated photo, the same one in each of the envelopes, and asks, “Is this a joke?”Kendappa’s posture similarly straightens. “It must be,” she mutters. “The nerve of you—if this is it, we will be taking our leave.”Ashura, however, remains impassive. “Surely, Yuuko will explain.”Yuuko smiles at him and nods.“Since the death of my late husband, Clow, I have reconsidered my priorities,” she begins. “The empire I built with him is massive and invaluable. I gathered my resources, suppliers, and contacts because it was what Clow and I had wanted. But my marriage is over, and the future I desired is now impossible. What does one do with such a kingdom, and such a life? Is it a life?”Yuuko stands from her seat and takes another swig from the bottle, leaning one hand on the back of Watanuki’s chair. She studies the ceiling for a moment. Fai follows her gaze to the yellowed panels, which once must have been white, but have stained over time from smoke.“There is nothing tying me to this world any longer. But I don’t wish to die in the awful way ordinary people do. And so I present you with this challenge—if you can take it on, the reward will be great.” Yuuko smiles. “I will begin a sort of tournament in the coming weeks. The first to kill me after the start of it will win my entire empire.”“This is insane!” Watanuki exclaims, going pale, but she just pats him firmly on the shoulder.“In the envelope, you’ll find details of when the tournament begins, when it ends, where you might find me, the general rules, and the contract that binds you to participate. Mind you—if no one succeeds by the end of it, no harm done—you will be free to go about your regular lives. Please read the terms, and if you find them agreeable, sign. Watanuki will collect them.”To everyone’s shock, Doumeki immediately shuffles through the papers, signs one of them, and hands it to Watanuki: he will participate. Watanuki stares at the other, visibly baffled. Souma exchanges a brief, slightly appalled look with Kendappa. Rondart starts shuffling through the papers, himself, loudly muttering about the ridiculousness of the evening. Xing Huo’s big, black eyes move from Yuuko over to Fei Wong Reed, awaiting instructions. Both Ashura and Fei Wang Reed silently read the contracts, themselves. Chii tips her chair slightly backwards to disguise her own baffled laughter. Fai carefully remains just as he’s been since Yuuko’s arrival—his smile a useful mask.“You claim your empire will belong to the winner,” Fei Wang Reed says. “If one of my assassins wins on my behalf, does this mean they are entitled to some of the spoils? The terms are not clear.”“Oh, I believe the instructions are quite clear,” Yuuko says airily. “Spoils go to the winner. If your assassins are nice, they can give you some of it, but it’s their choice. If you want to be sure you’ll win, sign up. As for me, I’ll hopefully be dead—I don’t care what you do. I don’t care who wins. Sort it out amongst yourselves.”Some muttering churns around the table, groups speaking in whispers. Fai and Chii look expectantly at the man who will decide their fate, and Ashura decides this: “The contract is decent, and I’m curious about it. Sign up.”Without argument, Fai and Chii sign the contracts, and Watanuki comes to collect them. Fai scans the table, tallying what he can—it appears every assassin has signed up for the tournament except for Souma.The Reed assassins sit with their usual grim expressions, a predatory quality in their eyes. The lone Ichihara assassin—Doumeki—sits buttering a dinner roll, despite Fai not having seen dinner rolls anywhere in the room. Kurogane sits looking fairly smug but unable to move much, his dress shirt being a touch too small for his muscular frame. Chii blows a bubble with her gum and Fai keeps smiling idly, and then Watanuki finally sits down once more, countenance colored by lingering shock.But suddenly, something even more unexpected happens: Fei Wang Reed signs a contract, himself, and slides it towards the middle of the table.“It has been too long since I dipped a toe in the water,” he says.Kendappa slides her signed contract toward the middle of the table in silence, expression serious.And then, Ashura slides his signed contract towards the middle of the table, Fai not having even heard him sign it. He says nothing, of course, and merely smiles at Yuuko. Fai’s mouth feels dry. When he looks at Chii, her expression is unreadable, but she has stopped chewing her gum. Ashura has not done a job in the industry in at least fifteen years.Yuuko whistles, impressed. She puts down her bottle and picks up a champagne flute.“Well, then!” she starts, beaming. “A toast to death!”Everyone toasts.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In the car ride home, a tense, heavy silence blankets the Celes family—although from an outsider’s eyes, it would all look quite normal. Ashura is already working on something on his laptop, Chii is picking at her nails, and Fai is looking out the window with a muted smile. Chii is the one to break the rhythm, wondering, “Do we think  Watanuki comes with the deal when we win?"Fai raises an amused brow. “He is a remarkable chef, actually. He could be useful.”“Ugh, fine.” Chii rolls her eyes. “He has a face that makes me want to, like, fight him.”“He’s not an assassin, Chii. You’d kill him,” Fai chides.“Whatever,” she huffs. “Anyway, this tournament was definitely news to him, right? He seemed really shocked.”“He’s no actor, so I agree,” Fai says, because he knows it to be the truth. Watanuki simply is what he is, undisguised. Every time he has had to consult the Ichihara family, he has had to maneuver past Watanuki, and he has done it enough times that the man barely pings on Fai’s radar. “This was a surprise to him.”“Speaking of surprises,” Chii starts, and she slowly turns her gaze towards her father, “why did you join, Daddy?”Ashura’s smile is understated, not reaching his eyes. “Some choices must be made prudently. I don’t wish to participate, but I will do it as a formality. I’m not sure I believe Reed has the same motivation, but I imagine Daidouji does.”“But you know we’ll win,” Chii chides. She props her sunglasses up on the top of her head, small red indents on the bridge of her nose. “We’ll get it done ourselves. Don’t worry about it. Right, Fai?”“Right.”“And there’s, like, no universe where we wouldn’t give it all over. I mean, what do Fai and I know about running any of this without you? Nothing.”“That isn’t quite true,” Ashura returns, seeming faintly amused.Fai merely smiles and shrugs. He meets Ashura’s eyes for just a moment, sharing a knowing look. He leans back in his seat. Fai wonders if the other assassins are in similar car rides home, developing initial strategies, nursing private worries. He would love to be a fly on the wall.Chii opens up the envelope again and scans it, tilting it so Fai can read with her when she notices his wandering eyes. When he re-reads the fine print, he finds everything as he remembered it— 
Players cannot discuss or share details about the tournament with outside parties.
The tournament will begin on the summer solstice at 0000hrs. It will end at 23:59hrs.
The target will be in one of two locations (the Ichihara residence, or the Ichihara warehouse).
Players are permitted to take any action in the duration of tournament of choosing. No injury, death, property damage, etc. will be pursued legally.
If no player successfully eliminates the target, no players will receive reward or compensation.
If no player successfully eliminates the target, the target may host another tournament at another time of choosing.
Players cannot attack, wound, kill, etc. target before the tournament begins or after the tournament ends. Compensation and rewards will only be given in the context of the tournament.
Players cannot attack, wound, kill, etc. fellow players before the tournament begins. (Players found violating rules will be disqualified.)
All players will be responsible for their own medical care and costs; the target assumes no legal responsibility or liability.
 Fai’s gut roils unpleasantly. The rules are too simple, too broad, too easy. If no action will have legal ramifications, it will permit the worst sorts of offenses. He knows he’ll protect his family, and that their combined efforts will likely be enough to get them through it in one piece, but how close will they cut it?The car drops him off at his house. Chii pulls a face, and Ashura’s face remains neutral. Fai wishes them all a goodnight and gracefully disappears into his house, bolting the doors. He goes upstairs to his bedroom and looks out the window for a moment, the one overlooking both his backyard and his neighbor’s. His neighbor’s back porch is cluttered with the obvious remnants of what was a party the night prior, still not cleaned. It looks like such a startlingly normal life that it seems unachievable. He wonders about what Chii claims Ashura said—that they aren’t suited for civilian life—and considers that it might be true. If they knew the sort of things that kept him up, his neighbors would be horrified. And this will keep him up for weeks. The summer solstice is in just under a month.He rubs his eyes. In the dark, weblike patterns that form behind his eyelids, he sees the face of the man with the earring—handsome and stern, with eyes the color of blood.  “Who’s active in the area?” Chii rages as soon as Fai picks up: no preamble. “Someone poached my job!”It doesn’t startle him. He asks, “Which job?”“The perv,” Chii snaps.“Ah, right,” Fai hums. “That one.”His memory is jogged—someone put a hit out for a chronic upskirter, a man who had been harassing a large portion of the population and posting the pictures on various social media platforms. Fai had been a little disappointed the job wasn’t his, but it doesn’t confuse him why it wasn’t—when someone wants a job done rather colorfully, Chii is the go-to. Fai is the go-to for mercy killings, fast and clean. This target wasn’t a particularly well-liked man.“It’s possible the client requested a hit from multiple people—it’s rare, but not unheard of,” Fai muses. “Where are you, anyway?”“Around, like, your neck of the woods,” Chii grumbles.“Well, you know I never take local jobs.”“Okay—well, I haven’t memorized your life, Fai,” Chii sighs. “But—““But?”“It’s—look, I’m coming over!”“Of course, Chii,” Fai says: no teasing. She doesn’t make those requests often, so something must be bothering her.“Make us some drinks,” Chii says, which is her version of a farewell. She hangs up.Fai looks out the window at the dark city, the nightlife humming along, streetlights casting a cool light onto sidewalks. He likes his apartment and his area of the city. There’s a large queer population. His neighbors like him; he’s quiet and doesn’t attract much attention. No one ever gives him any trouble. It’s rather nice; when he was younger, trouble was all he got. But here, he’s just the friendly eccentric on the block.Fai fixes up two vodka sodas. The one he makes Chii is quite strong, the way she likes it. When he lets her in, she kicks her shoes off by the entrance and beelines for his living room, dropping into the loveseat, facedown, heaving a dramatic sigh. Fai watches her with a fond smile.“Come now,” Fai says. “It can’t be that bad. Now you have the night off.”She kicks her feet, grumbling a wordless complaint. Fai realizes she’s still holding onto her trademark: a metal baseball bat. Fai approaches and gently takes it from her, returning it to the vestibule. He comes back into the room with their drinks and takes a seat in the recliner nearby. She peels her face off a cushion and snatches her glass off the coffee table, taking a sip.“Okay, so it was, like, really fast. Like, I don’t know–twenty seconds,” she tells him. “Who do we know who’s that fast?”Fai blinks. “I need more information. How did they do it?”“They—” Chii glares into the middle distance, brow furrowed. The detail she is about to share irritates her more than it concerns her, judging from its bitter delivery: “They beheaded the guy.”Something comes to mind immediately, but Fai dismisses the thought. It’s only gossip, isn’t it?“Well, we can at least eliminate some suspects,” Fai decides. He begins counting people on his fingers. “Not us.” Obvious. “Not Rondart.” Rondart favors poison. “Not Doumeki.” He likes arrows. “Not Souma.” She has her throwing stars, the ones shaped like crescent moons. “And Xing Huo is too slow.”“And not Seishiro,” Chii supplies. “He, like, makes an art installation out of this shit. This was pretty cut and dry. There wasn’t even much blood.”“I don’t suppose Fei Wang Reed has dipped his toes back in the water?” Fai wonders.Fei Wang Reed was absolutely brutal in his prime—a killer of unmatched speed and efficiency—but he hasn’t done a hit in at least a decade. He always outsources nowadays. Chii snorts.“I would’ve seen him,” she says. “The guy’s, like, the size of a building. And the cape? Come on.”They both simmer on it. She’s right.“I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist,” Fai slowly starts, eyeing his sister warily, “but it sounds like the Wolf of Suwa.”Chii’s gaze sharpens. She doesn’t dismiss the idea outright, but she says, “The Wolf disappeared right before we got into this—that was, what, twenty years ago? Why would they come back now ?”Fai winces, reminded of his age. Both he and Chii entered the killing industry when they were young—just teenagers. He had been living with the Celes family for only a few years at the time, still learning the rules of a world entirely unfamiliar to him. He had been unsteady on his feet, frightened, puking after each job for longer than he’d like to admit, much to Chii’s amusement. Chii had taken to the work, unflinching and vicious, like a child breaking dolls. But she was always dutiful in her own way, helping Fai clean up whatever mess he made before Ashura could see it.The Wolf of Suwa had just vanished from the industry entirely when they started, still never identified by Fei Wang Reed’s sources, and thus not identified across their scene at large. The Wolf had been named for the style of their kills—jagged, rapid beheadings done with what must have been an old and slightly blunted sword, judging from the quality of the cut. They had dominated the industry for only five short years, and simply vanished. Everyone assumed the Wolf had simply died, perhaps finally ensnared in the teeth of their own brutal lifestyle. It was some time ago.“Perhaps we are dealing with someone new to our city—a copycat,” Fai suggests. He sips his drink and wiggles the glass, smiling at her. “People can be fans of the most unexpected things.”“I don’t know,” Chii complains. “How could there even be a fan? It’s gotta be someone in our circle—someone who’d even know what to copy. Like, normal people don’t even know about this.”“Hmm. That’s an interesting thought. That might complicate this tournament business, if we have to contend with a new Wolf,” Fai suggests.“I guess. Whatever. Daddy should’ve told me other people were on it,” Chii huffs, pouting. “I like simple jobs where all I have to think about is, you know, the job . You know I hate competition—too annoying.”He gets up from the recliner with a question: “Food?”“None of that rabbit shit you gave me last time.”“All sorts of animals eat carrots, Chii—not only rabbits. And there was a dip. I’m not a monster.”She pulls a face at him. He disappears into the kitchen. As he rummages his fridge, he can hear the sweet sounds of his neighbors next door having some sort of gathering in their backyard. Someone has opened a can of something. A fire is crackling—they’re finally using the fire pit. Fai smiles to himself. It’s all very nice, very quaint. He can even hear the crickets. From the next room, Chii groans into a pillow and gets up, following him into the room. She leans against a counter and watches him gather odds and ends, finishing up her drink with a loud sigh.“I hate this place,” she complains. “You don’t even have staff around to help you. I’ll never understand why you moved here.”“It’s a nice area. People are friendly.”“It gives me the creeps,” she mutters. “All of this neighborly stuff. Good manners—small talk— hi, how are you’s— it doesn’t mean anything in the end. I don’t know why you waste your time pretending otherwise. I mean, like, what’s your goal?”Fai glances over his shoulder, smiling. “Hm? I have no goal.”“Come on! You always do. Did you move out here to—what—find a boyfriend? Settle down?” Chii asks, and the way she asks it has a particular bite—thinly veiled scorn. “You know it can’t happen. That’s not how our life works.”Fai decides not to bite back. “Oh, I know.”“I just think you should move back home,” Chii mumbles. “Daddy says we weren’t meant for civilian life.”“Aw—do you miss me, Chii?” Fai asks, and she goes red, looking embarrassed and furious. How dare he suggest something so mundane? “I’ll visit more often. Would that make you feel better?”“You’re so annoying,” she snaps. But before she leaves the room, she says, “I want the prosciutto. Bring it out.”“Of course, my liege,” Fai says, performing a mock curtsy.  Ashura gives him his next assignment: he must visit the Ichihara warehouse. They haven’t been able to get their normal surveillance on the area—with Fei Wang Reed and his group in the running, any intelligence they purchase is likely redacted–and so their best bet is on foot. Fai is reasonably good at not drawing attention to himself, blending in, and so he goes.“Keep your wits about you,” Ashura had warned mildly, “but I have faith you’ll be fine. Report back later.”Fai thinks about the photographs Xing Huo showed him—the Ichihara buildings obscured and shrouded. A misdirection of sorts, Fai assumes. But there’s no telling where he should be looking instead. He knows Chii will be off scouting around the Ichihara mansion, given the same message as Fai, but Chii is a different sort of beast. The warning had only seemed like a challenge to her, the sort she never refused. Be careful today, he starts to text her, but then he thinks better of it, knowing she will be insulted by his concern.Fai gets dressed in something sporty and unassuming—something that would paint him as nothing more than a runner making his normal rounds. He fixes a baseball cap on his head and pauses in the mirror, trying to imagine his presentation from the eyes of a stranger. He doesn’t look like himself.He ducks out of the house and takes a car part of the way. Outside the tinted windows, the sun is bright, and the people are living their ordinary lives—walking dogs, sitting outside cafes, taking pictures in front of monuments. He thinks about how many jobs he has done out here. There was a fountain where he staged an accident—a target who “tripped” and “drowned”, with a blood alcohol level high enough to warrant it believable.“Here is good,” Fai suddenly says. The driver glances at him in the rearview mirror and quietly pulls off to the side of the road, blinkers on. Fai pats the headrest and flashes him a big, toothy smile. “I’ll call later. Ta-ta for now!”They’re about a mile from the location. Fai exits, beginning the play: he starts jogging on the path beside the water. The port side of town is pleasant. Fai hasn’t been in the area since he started picking up more of Ashura’s dry assignments. The air is salty and the breeze is good. He passes a few other joggers on the way, warning them as he does so, and keeps his eyes ahead. The Ichihara warehouse does not stand out from its surroundings, especially now that the tarp has been removed. From a distance, Fai tries to see what might be different, but it looks the same as it did before: a big, old brick building obscured by some scaffolding. It has been apparently under construction for at least a year.By the time Fai is three blocks away, he waits at an intersection for the light to change in his favor. As he stands, jogging in place, he sees a tall man jogging across the street from the opposite corner—a man with a black earring. As soon as Fai has the light, he beelines across the road.“Hyuuuuuu!” Fai calls. “A nice day for a jog, eh?”Kurogane’s eyes widen when he realizes he’s been spotted. He whirls around and almost snaps, but he stops and assesses the other’s outfit, realizing that he and Fai have come to the location with the exact same strategy. He loses a little steam and turns around again, looking at the warehouse. They’re about two blocks away on the ground. They begin running beside each other, and weave a path away from the main jogging course—a smaller series of alleyways that will lead them to the warehouse, but isolated from the general traffic.“What was that stupid noise you made?” Kurogane asks, barely out of breath, as soon as they lose the crowd.“Oh, my whistling?”“That’s not whistling.”“Well, I think that’s subjective,” Fai muses. He smiles at the man. “Look at you, doing your homework already. You must be a smart cookie.”“I’m not being smart,” Kurogane corrects. “It’s obviously a hornet’s nest, and I came out here to poke it. But you shouldn’t be here.”“Oh, you’re sweet,” Fai teases, “but I wouldn’t worry about me. I’m a little more worried about the nest you’re about to poke.”Kurogane shoots him an odd, long look. Fai can’t seem to read him. And then Kurogane sighs, looking away.“If the lady set some traps, I want to see what they are,” he grumbles. “Then we’ll have some idea what to expect when this thing kicks off.”“Would it not be wiser to wait for someone else to test this, and just watch from a distance?” Fai asks. “Why don’t we just jog off and make a day of it, handsome?”“I have a name,” Kurogane says, bristling. “It’s Kurogane.”“And I’m Fai.”“I know.”“You seem to know a bit about me,” Fai hums. “Are you a fan of mine?”“Not right now, no,” Kurogane mutters.Fai laughs. He feels something in his gut shuddering to life, stirred up in the water. He wants to stick his nose in Kurogane’s business. He can’t quite help himself, even if he knows it’s an unwise choice. Kurogane is very nice looking, and Fai has a weakness for men who could probably break him in two with one hand.Their pace slows, and they halt to a walk. They round the corner into another narrow alleyway. They can see part of the Ichihara warehouse through it, in all its usual glory—windows boarded up, graffiti tags added for color. Fai notices a subtle movement from the top of a building nearby, and Kurogane seems to notice something from another direction, judging by the rapid and calculated path his eyes take.“Oh my! I think we’ve found the hornets,” Fai says, his voice lilting, sing-song. He sees a movement in the dark, in one of the windows of the warehouse ahead. Kurogane suddenly unsheathes a large, black blade, and Fai raises his brows. “That’s a big one. Are you compensating for something?”Kurogane shoots him a sour look. “Are you ?”“I’m perfectly average,” Fai replies. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Why don’t we compare later?”Kurogane goes red to the ears and scowls again. He doesn’t run with the barb, this time—instead, they both jump out of the way, moving instinctively from the path of something sharp. Fai sees a huge throwing star on the ground, having apparently been launched with such force that it’s half-way lodged into the pavement, still intact, visibly vibrating. Fai thinks of the only assassin he knows who uses throwing stars—Souma—but he knows it can’t be her. They’re the wrong shape—hers are distinct. And even if she wanted to attack Fai, she wouldn’t do it with Kurogane so physically close by—she’s too cautious to endanger one of her own.Fai reaches towards his holster to grab his gun, only to find he doesn’t have it. It’s empty. He pulls his hand from it, unable to wipe the surprise off his face. Kurogane’s eyes spin from his holster to his empty hand and to his face, flabbergasted.“You came unarmed ?” Kurogane snaps.“Not necessarily,” Fai says, smile wobbling on his face. How stupid of him. How could he be so unprepared? Has he really been so busy, that he would forget something so basic? “A man’s greatest weapon is his mind.”“Then you’re in fucking trouble.”“So rude–”Kurogane suddenly yanks Fai out of the way, and a star whizzes past his ear, crashing into the side of the building where his head once was. He notices something wet on the side of his neck. He touches it, curious, and his hand comes away slightly bloody—the star could’ve caused much more damage. He briefly meets Kurogane’s eyes and grabs the man’s sleeve, bolting off, both of them sliding behind a green dumpster, catching their breath. They peer up in quick shifts, assessing the situation. There are two “hornets”—one aiming at them from a roof, and one aiming at them from a sixth floor window.Fai and Kurogane have a fire escape just above them—and what appears to be an emergency exit on a second story, already propped open. The other building also has an open window on the first floor. Fai rapidly forms a plan. Kurogane’s taller—he should take the fire escape—it’ll be easier for him to access. If Fai’s fast, he can get to the window on the other building, mostly unscathed—but he’ll need a better weapon than his hands.“The rooftop one’s mine,” Kurogane says, as if having formed the exact same plan, and he makes an unexpected gesture: Fai finds Kurogane handing him a knife, apparently a spare. Fai looks at him, brows raised. It’s a gesture he would maybe expect from Chii ( maybe ), but not from a total stranger–and especially not one who will be his opponent in under a month. But Kurogane doesn’t appear hung up on this. He just waits, the seconds ticking between them, and waves it a little more insistently until Fai accepts it. “So how fast are you?”“Is it a competition?” Fai asks.“Hardly,” Kurogane scoffs. “I’ll win.”Kurogane’s grin is a surprise—slightly devious, cocky, challenging. Fai’s heart takes off sputtering, a genuine smile shocked out of him.“We’ll see,” he replies.He doesn’t want to break eye contact, but Kurogane leaps up, clambering onto the fire escape, and after Fai takes a moment to ogle the other hand’s impressive arm muscles, he forces himself back into action, and dashes across the alley, knocking the screen from the window and hopping into what appears to be storage for some sort of book seller. It’s normal for this area—none of these buildings are residential.He feels acutely aware of his heartbeat as he moves, rapidly weaving through, seeking the exit to a hallway. He rushes to the end of the hall and finds two options: an elevator or the stairs. He takes less than a second to choose the latter—it’ll take him less time—and he bounds up, calculating which room it ought to be, based on what he had seen from the alley. The person in question is most likely on the move already, and Fai finds himself facing the man in the stairwell. He dodges a star. Outside, he hears a metallic crash, like something getting thrown into the dumpster from a great height.It’s barely been a minute and Kurogane already has him beat—but no matter. Both Fai and the man glance at the window, towards the noise, and back at each other.“Who’s paying you?” Fai asks. The man shoots another star his way in response, clearly uninterested in engaging otherwise. Fai dodges it, and hears it smash the window behind him. “Hyuuuuuuu! Careful! You could hurt somebody like that.”Fai lunges ahead, grabbing the man by the collar, and shoves him to the floor. He brings the blade to the man’s throat.“I’m giving you a chance,” Fai says. “Who gave you this assignment?”“Eat my shit,” the man hisses, and he spits in Fai’s face.Fai slits his throat in a single, fluid motion. He jumps back as soon as it’s done, wiping the spit off his face and the blood off the blade before he clicks it shut. He shudders for just a second. Fai has become used to guns. They’re efficient. They’re distant. They’re fast. He has no urge to prolong the process or anyone’s suffering. Work with a knife is intimate, close, painstaking, messy—he’ll use one if he has to, but it’s not his preferred way. He waits until the stairwell is still and silent, and then he squats down, turning the man’s pockets inside out, seeking evidence of some kind. He finds a collection of throwing stars and sees a telltale emblem printed on it: a circle with a stylized bat printed in the center, upside down.“Fei Wang Reed,” Fai hums to himself. He decides to take the collection with him. Ashura will find it interesting. He goes back down the stairs and exits the way he came—through the window, although he’s careful to replace the screen.By the time he comes back out, he finds Kurogane facing one of the brick walls, pulling at the throwing star still lodged in it. He glances over his shoulder at Fai, and looks away when he doesn’t see anything amiss. He says, “I told you I was faster.”Fai heaves his most dramatic sigh. “You win, you win.”Kurogane frees the star from the wall. He twirls it idly in his hand, tilting it in the light, as if searching for something. After apparently finding it, he glances up, eyes shooting immediately to the spot behind Fai’s ear, where the star had actually cut him. Fai instinctively angles his head the other way and hands Kurogane back his other knife–the one that was a little less impressive in size than the first. But Kurogane doesn’t reach for it.“You didn’t have to lend me this,” Fai says, honestly. “Thank you.”Kurogane shrugs. “Keep it.”“Why?”“You clearly need it more than I do.”They study one another in silence. Kurogane looks handsome in the wake of action—his face has color, and his eyes are bright, vivid. They look autumnal red in the sunlight, both beautiful and earthly. Fai puts the knife back in his pocket, accepting the gift. He suddenly follows an unusual instinct and takes his phone from his pocket—his personal phone, not his work one—and holds it out to the other.Kurogane looks at him like he’s grown a few extra heads. “What is this?”“My phone, handsome,” Fai chides. “Give me your number.”Kurogane frowns. “We’re on opposing sides.”“So?” Fai asks. “It didn’t stop you from helping me.”Kurogane continues to stare. “This is stupid.”“Isn’t it?” Fai asks.After a few more seconds, Kurogane reaches forward, taking the phone. He fiddles with it, adds himself as a contact, and promptly hands it back, face slightly flushed, not meeting the other man’s eyes. Fai pockets the phone. He’s overcome with a strange mixture of giddiness and shyness, uncertain which is stronger, but the result is the same—they share a casual, comfortable silence. They stroll down the rest of the alley in step together, finally able to do what they meant to do when they arrived: see the Ichihara warehouse.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When he visits the Celes city home, he finds the same woman taking his coat at the door. She seems more settled than before, more confident when she tells Fai where he’ll find Ashura. Maybe she’ll last longer than he thought. Before he bounds up the stairs, he flashes her an approving smile, and he takes the stairs two at a time.

He can’t describe the mood he’s in, but he’s nearly weightless. Maybe he’s really tired; maybe all of this work is getting to him; maybe he’s just in a lovely mood. He pokes his head into Ashura’s study, and Ashura is in typical form—typing away at something. He glances up and doesn’t pause his work. Fai instantly understands the type of visit this is. He must report his findings and leave. So he doesn’t come in all the way, and doesn’t take a seat.

“The warehouse doesn’t appear any different,” Fai says from the threshold. “There is a little more graffiti than before, but nothing seems to have improved from the outside.”

“I see,” Ashura says, continuing to type. “What conclusions have you drawn?”

“It was a simple misdirection.” Ashura hums a noncommittal note, nodding. Fai clears his throat. “There was an ambush, but nothing unmanageable.”

He reflexively tucks some of his hair behind his ear, where he’s fixed on a small strip of gauze from the star that cut him. Ashura merely glances up at this.

“Ichihara’s men?”

“Fei Wang Reed’s, or at least someone using his weapons,” Fai replies. “It seems someone is already breaking the tournament rules, eh?”

“Indeed,” Ashura decides. “If anyone might break them, it would be him. It does not bode well for the future.”

“Did he send men to Yuuko’s house outside the city, too?” Fai asks.

“I am not sure. I haven’t received Chii’s report.”

“She isn’t back, yet?”

“No, but I think she may have gotten carried away with some other things.” Ashura flashes Fai a meaningful look. “Mind waiting a bit for her?”

“Of course.”

Fai looks at the blue light reflecting in Ashura’s glasses, the digital glow on his face from the screen. Some old instinct bites at him. He should mention Kurogane, that the man had had the same exact plan as they did, that he made some sort of alliance with him. But as he looks at Ashura, Fai finds himself unwilling to share this information. He isn’t even sure, himself, what the alliance actually entails yet. Best to keep his cards close until he has more information. He smiles when the older man looks up from the screen again.

“Don’t you have a job for me, in the meantime?” he asks.

“It can wait,” Ashura replies. “Soon, I’ll have no work for you at all.”

“You’re right. The date is approaching soon,” Fai says. “Fitting that it’s the day of the tournament, no? Or perhaps a little too coincidental.”

Ashura briefly looks away from his screen to flash Fai a closed-mouth smile, although his eyes are terribly sharp. “I see you’ve been having thoughts,” he suggests. “Would you like to share?”

“I’m curious if the tournament will get in the way of the Celes tradition,” Fai replies, as it’s true. “It’s hard to say, given that no one will tell me what the tradition is. Can’t I have a hint, sir?”

“Don’t waste your time worrying about this,” Ashura says. “The tournament won’t interfere—rather, it will only make the process easier. That is the most I can tell you.”

Fai gets an uneasy, restless feeling. What on earth does that mean?

They bid one another a good night and Fai heads out of the room, but he spots Chii coming up the stairs at last, moving like she made a stop at a bar on the way back. She pops her gum when she walks by him, disappearing into her father’s study. Fai decides to wait, remembering what Ashura asked. Perhaps she ran into trouble on her search today, too. He looks through his contacts again, studying Kurogane’s entry. The area code isn’t local—offhand, he doesn’t recognize it. He selects Kurogane’s entry and sends a text:

So you have my number, too. :-) -F

He doesn’t receive an immediate answer. He leans against the wall of the hallway, switches between checking his phone and the door to Ashura’s study. The adrenaline of the day is fading. He’s beginning to feel aware of his exhaustion, the effort it takes to move his body, the lingering tightness of his muscles. He can feel the cut behind his ear, faintly hot, stinging slightly from the pressure of the seat behind him. Kurogane was right—his reflexes weren’t ideal. If Kurogane hadn’t made the choice to pull him from harm’s way, Fai would have simply died, bested by an obvious trap.

Why

had

he saved him? If Kurogane wants to really win this tournament, he should have let him take the hit. Why didn’t he?

The door opens and Chii re-emerges. Fai notices a loose quality to her movement. Her meeting with Ashura is about as short as his was—perhaps five minutes—and she comes out, sticking her tongue out at him when she sees him. She smells like cocktails, fruity. He puts his phone in his pocket and simply walks with her, matching her pace, feigning innocence.

“There was something unexpected in my investigation today,” Fai says in a low voice, offering a meaningful pause. “There was an ambush, to my surprise.”

She glowers at him. “So? It’s not my fault you weren’t, like, prepared.”

“Certainly not, but I have a feeling you faced similar circumstances. Did you?”

“No,” Chii says. “It was fucking boring! Nothing was there! So I went out to Tiger Club. Did you, like, traumatize Primera recently, by the way?”

“I think a little, yes.”

“That’s what happens when you kidnap people,” Chii huffs. “Why was she so surprised?”

They pause at the staircase—the one leading to the uppermost floor of the penthouse, where Chii lives. She has full control of the top floor, her own keys for it, but as she looks up, Fai can see a faint trace of dread in her eyes. There will be a lot of stairs, even for a sober person. He wordlessly stands a little closer than before, offering an elbow.

“I don’t need your help,” she complains. “I’m fine!”

“I’ll just walk beside you, then, since you’re fine,” Fai says. “I’m sure you won’t mind.”

She grabs the railing and takes the stairs just a bit more slowly than usual, despite her best efforts, glaring at him whenever he tries to steady her. About halfway up, she gives up, and throws an arm around his shoulder. They go up together, Chii muttering her usual complaints. When they finally reach the top of the stairs, Chii leans against the nearby wall to support her weight, slightly out of breath. She unlocks the top bolt and pauses before she reaches the second.

“Don’t tell anybody,” she warns, shooting him a threatening look. “It’s embarrassing. I have an image.”

“Of course. But you’ll drink some water and eat something, right?”

“Ugh! Yes. Now shoo.”

Fai laughs a little, but he does what she asks—he turns, and he leaves. He hears a slight commotion inside, and the distinct sound of Hideki’s voice. Everything will be alright—Hideki will fix her up, as he always does. Fai makes the journey down the stairs, something brewing in his mind. Chii should have encountered trouble if he did. She should’ve been ambushed. Why would Fei Wang Reed’s people target one place, but not another? Is there information they don’t yet know? As Fai gets down the stairs and waits for his coat to be returned, something vibrates in his pocket. He pulls out his personal phone, a shot of glee rumbling in him. Kurogane has answered him.

When he opens the text, it’s about as barebones as one can imagine, like a message from an old man:

OK.

Fai snorts and puts his phone away.
  
It’s a typical job. Fai follows the man for about half a day, careful to keep a safe distance: Burugaru. He’s a senator’s son, much too old to act how he’s acting, no matter the setting. He has been causing trouble for some of Ashura’s suppliers, given Burugaru’s bullheaded nature. He’s certainly been a problem for some prominent women in the area, or, at the very least, this is what Fai knows from tapping into local gossip. He’s found it’s relatively easy to get an ear on the ground and track the pulse of things; women, in particular, are quick to share with him. It’s always been that way, as far back as Fai can recall. He knows why, of course. He’s often a co-conspirator amongst them, after all.

Fai doesn’t know the client on this one. The file was pretty thin. But Fai knows enough to know what he ought to do. And so he enters the bar Burugaru has been in for about an hour, heading straight for the bar on the second floor, where he finds his target already drunk, surrounded by a pack of his own men, a beautiful woman in his lap. Fai and the woman make eye contact, both slightly startled, but Fai continues as expected. He finds a small opening at the bar near Burugaru and leans in, waving to get one fairly busy bartender’s attention.

“You look like those things in front of a car dealership,” the man tells Fai. He acts the part out, waving his arms straight up in the air, and bursts out laughing. “You know, the inflatable things that wiggle? Ha!”

The woman half-sitting on his lap has to move slightly to accommodate the movement, meeting Fai’s eyes with a mix of amusement and disdain. Burugaru bangs on the counter, suddenly, snapping, “

Hey

, get this guy a drink already!”

A slight hush falls around the bar, startled by the noise. A young bartender, harried and tired, approaches Fai. Her black hair is half in the bun and half out of it on top of her head. “What can I get for you?”

“Gumby’s with me,” Burugaru announces. It takes an effort for Fai not to grimace at the nickname, but he manages well enough. “Put him on my tab.”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you,” Fai replies, flashing the man a smile. “Allow me to think a bit.”

“Well, I want another one! And speed it up already,” Burugaru complains, drumming impatient fingers on the bar. He gives Fai a searching look, seeking a companion for his outrage. “This bar’s become such a joke. They’re hiring fucking kids. It’s like, do you want a good tip or not?”

The woman in Burugaru’s lap shifts slightly, a surge of something flashing briefly in her dark eyes before it fades. Fai winks at her before he shrugs at Burugaru, his smile remaining easy, natural, almost neutral.

“I imagine they’re all doing the best they can,” Fai says mildly. “We have all the time in the world to drink, don’t we? There’s no rush.”

“Gumby gets it,” Burugaru exclaims. He tilts his head back and howls like some sort of wild dog. A few of his lackeys follow suit, howling in unison. Fai recalls a detail on Burugaru’s file–that the man is forty-three–and wonders if the same thought is going through his date’s head. Burugaru grabs her thigh, and she laughs lightly–fake, of course–Fai could sniff that out even without watching her face–but Burugaru seems none the wiser. “Should we keep him around for tonight?”

Burugaru’s date eyes Fai with some curiosity, and then she nods.

“Very sweet of you,” Fai says. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the restrooms are, would you? I’ve never been here. It’s a maze.”

The woman smiles.

“I can show you the way,” she says. “I think I’ll freshen up a moment, anyway. Excuse us, please.”

She hops off his lap and disappears, guiding Fai away from the man, who continues complaining and carrying on without them, inviting the unfortunate people in his vicinity into his antics. The poor bartender stares daggers at him whenever he turns his head away. Fai wonders if he should be worried that the bartender will poach this job from him, poisoning Burugaru herself.

For a moment, the pair simply stands at that distance, too far for Burugaru to see them, and they study him. Then they look at one another, catching their matching disdain, and they burst out laughing.

“You look lovely, Kiishimu,” Fai tells her, leaning in as they both kiss one another’s cheeks, “but what on earth are you doing here?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” Kiishimu says, shrugging. She flutters long eyelashes at him. “And what are you doing here, Fai?”

“Well, nothing whatsoever,” Fai says, fluttering his eyelashes back.

They exchange a sly smile, snickering. Kiishimu mostly works for the Daidoujis nowadays–she doesn’t do jobs anymore. So Fai wonders why she might be here herself, with no Daidouji client apparent to his eyes. After a moment, Kiishimu sobers slightly, glancing back at Burugaru, as if she senses his question.

“Burugaru is a real brute,” she tells him, “but he can still do a world of damage. On that ancient phone of his, he has thousands of

pictures

, if you catch my drift. They’re an arsenal at his disposal. He will blackmail anyone he wishes into cooperating with him, if only so the

pictures

remain private.”

Fai’s smile twitches across his face. He understands what she’s telling him, why she’s been degrading herself with this man’s company. He wonders, idly, if she is actually his client on this one. “Ah, I see. He must have other copies elsewhere, no?”

“No,” he doesn’t, Kiishimu replies. She gives him a long, meaningful look. “I need that phone. If we’re both up to nothing, then maybe our

nothings

can collaborate?”

Fai tilts his head left and right and then sighs, making a show of giving in. “My weakness! You know I can never refuse the request of a beautiful woman.”

“Thank you.” She kisses him on the cheek and pauses, not pulling away immediately. He follows the path of her eyes to a different corner of the bar–one he has noticed, himself, but he merely smiles at her, squeezing her shoulder with a nod.

“Nothing to worry about with that one,” Fai says. “So: shall we?”

They return to the bar. Fai finally makes an order–a vodka soda–and sips it as slowly as possible, watching Burugaru down several drinks in quick succession. Fai takes his time, twirling his glass so that the ice in it moves and makes sound. It’s a fairly strong one; this bartender has a heavy hand. Burugaru is out of sorts, barely able to hold his glass properly, shouting excitedly at everything. Kiishimu sits on his lap, smiling and laughing, encouraging him to keep going. Whenever she meets Fai’s eyes, there’s a glint of something sharp and jagged in her gaze. He merely smiles back, waiting. There will be a chance, eventually.

Fai has been in situations like this countless times: riding the fringe of something absurd. Fai has wined and dined many of his targets, simply by virtue of showing up in the same place as they did, none of them ever suspecting that there was more to their meeting than serendipity. At times, it’s the only way to find an opening. The people assigned to him are the sorts who have too much to lose. If they’re to separate from their own entourages, often peopled by bodyguards, they must have a reason: no fear of threat. It’s a basic pattern–one many powerful people follow, from Fai’s experience. Having power can blur the boundaries of possibility; some believe they’re too large to be tripped, too smart to be surprised, too strong to be beaten.

Fai checks his back pocket and pulls out a carton, waving it with a quick tilt of his wrist. He smiles at Burugaru.

“I was about to step out for one,” he says. “Care to join me?”

Burugaru’s face lights up. He nods.

“Boss, want me to–” one of his people starts, but Burugaru waves a hand, dismissing him.

“What? Babysit me for

Gumby

?” he slurs, laughing. “Forget it!”

Kiishimu gracefully–or as gracefully as she can manage it–hands Burugaru off to Fai, who slings a heavy arm across his shoulders, dragging his feet as they descend the stairs together.

“You had quite a group with you,” Fai says. “Are you important?”

“Dad’s a senator,” Burugaru says, hiccuping. “But I think I’m pretty important, too. When we get outside, I’ll show you what I mean.”

“Oh? And what will you show me?”

“A secret.” Burugaru snickers. Fai leads them towards the back of the bar, where the restrooms are right beside the exit into the alley in the back. Fai shoulders the door open and sets Burugaru against the wall. He shakes out his arms and legs, having strained to shoulder Burugaru’s nearly dead weight for the journey down. Burugaru slowly sinks against the brick facade behind him, laughing. “You really look like that inflatable arm guy, I swear!”

“So you’ve been telling me,” Fai says. “What did you want to show me?”

Fai snatches two cigarettes from the pack. He hasn’t smoked regularly in a few years, but he indulges every now and then. He offers Burugaru one and lights it. Burugaru exhales a long, smokey breath, looking sated. He takes out his phone from his pocket, the appearance of which makes Fai immediately less skeptical about Kiishimu’s words. It’s a flip phone with a light silver finish, at least ten years old by now. If this is the device holding all the images, it’s unlikely it’s synced up to anything else automatically. But Fai needs to know more. There’s a chance he’s already uploaded the SIM card’s contents somewhere, after all. Burugaru turns it around, and Fai immediately sees something he nearly flinches away from: a picture of Kiishimu, utterly naked, washed out, the flash on, her pupils reflecting cold red. Burugaru grins up at Fai.

“That girl in there–Kiishimu–she’s a bodyguard for one of those mob families. You wouldn’t know it, right?” Burugaru asks, looking conspiratorial.

Fai feigns surprise, lighting his cigarette.

“But it’s not just her. You name some girl–any girl–I probably have her on here. All kinds,” Burugaru says, sucking his teeth. “Models–celebrities–heiresses–even regular girls–you name one, I bet I have her on here. This phone’s the gateway to Heaven.”

Fai wonders if he’s still smiling. He asks, “That old thing? I’m shocked it even works.”

“Nokia’s durable,” Burugaru says, as if the matter is more personal than it appears.

“You could sell those files for a pretty penny, if what you’re saying is true,” Fai suggests. Burugaru grins, nodding. “Ah, I see. Then surely you have the pictures backed up elsewhere–after all, it would be awfully foolish not to. Imagine the money you could be losing.”

“I don’t need one, yet. This phone’s gonna outlast me.” Burugaru laughs, slapping his knee. “I’ll have a site in the works once I figure out that computer stuff. But come on, Gumby. Tell me a girl, and I probably have her.”

“Hmm… Who is your personal favorite?”

“Personal favorite…” Burugaru thinks, and then he snaps his fingers, looking down into his phone. The opening clears, a perfect window, time slowing to accommodate it. “There’s this high school–”

Fai fires at his target just once. The sound is muted, the silencer more or less doing its job. Burugaru remains pressed against the wall, slouching forward, his cigarette falling from his fingers. Fai grinds the butt out under his heel, snatching Burugaru’s dropped phone off the ground. He pockets it, stands up straight, and promptly fires a shot at random behind him. He hears a surprised gasp of breath. When he turns towards the darkness of the alley, he sees Kurogane stepping into the light, looking slightly surprised, having ducked a flying bullet. Fai smiles at him, waving with a little flirty wiggling of the fingers.

“Have you been having fun, handsome?” Fai asks. “You’ve been following me for long enough.”

Kurogane stares back, stubborn. “I wasn’t trying to hide it.”

“Well, I certainly hope not, given how obvious you were,” Fai chides. “You wanted to really see me in action this time, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t get to see you fight how you normally would,” Kurogane says, shrugging. “I wanted to know what I signed up for.”

“Eh? You didn’t know?” Fai grins. “You just agreed based on my good looks, then? That’s not very smart.”

Kurogane glares at him, brow furrowed. Kurogane glances subtly to Burugaru’s body, lying still in the dark. It’s relatively covered, all things considered. Kurogane then nods downwards, towards Fai’s pocket. “You took his phone. Souvenir?”

Fai takes it out, waves it at Kurogane. He makes a show of tossing and catching it repeatedly, watching to see at what point Kurogane might instinctively move to catch it, what sort of tells he might reveal. And it happens fairly quickly: when Fai tosses it without immediately shifting to catch it, Kurogane’s hand shoots out–but not before Fai beats him to it, closing his fist around the phone. Kurogane’s eyes narrow, his mouth in a tense line as Fai grins at him, winking.

“What a macabre thought,” Fai teases. “No, I don’t take trophies. This is a favor for a friend. Do

you

take trophies?”

“No,” Kurogane says, firmly and without hesitation. “It’s disrespectful.”

“It’s an arbitrary line, isn’t it?” Fai wonders. “Is anything we do considered respectful?”

“No, not if you’re sane.”

Fai leans against the alley wall, hands in his pockets. He keeps his eyes westward, where both the back door to the bar is and the direction of the nearest street. They have good enough cover at the moment. Kurogane keeps watching him, his eyes sharp. But they’re interrupted: Fai’s work phone vibrates in his pocket. He checks it; the cleanup will arrive shortly. He puts his phone away and flashes Kurogane an apologetic smile.

“The cleaners are coming. You ought to be on your way.” Fai acts this out, his index and middle finger ‘walking’ through the air. The smile turns cheeky. “Why don’t we make a date for the next time, eh? You and me? Could be fun!”

Kurogane frowns. He turns to leave, heading eastward. After only a few steps, he pauses, turns to look over his shoulder.

“I’ll leave it up to you, but don’t make it somewhere stupid,” he warns, and with that, he leaves.
  
Their first official meeting place is a bowling alley across town, a funny little spot where the majority of other lanes have been filled by packs of teenagers, people on dates, work socials, and a single lane occupied by a dedicated group of middle aged players with custom team t-shirts. They go mostly unnoticed, except for a brief fuss caused by whether or not the bowling shoes came in sizes large enough to fit either of them (yet by some trick of luck, the attendant finds a size 13 and 14). Fai sits at their table and watches Kurogane in motion, how the man tests a swing before committing to it, how he angles himself. In truth, Fai is also distracted by the scenery his companion provides—his muscular arms, how the veins on his forearms pop, how his well-fitting jeans sit when Kurogane bends. Fai heaves a dreamy sigh, unable to help himself.

Kurogane makes his first move, which is too high-powered, and promptly shoots the ball off into the gutter. Kurogane turns around, brow furrowed, and Fai quickly snaps out of his trance, smiling up at the man as he selects his second ball and, unfortunately, repeats the setup: the ball soars off in the gutter once more. Kurogane drops into his seat and takes a small, sulky sip of beer. Fai gets up, selects his ball, and immediately strikes in a single go. He rolls twice more, taking down nine of the ten pins: not perfect, but pretty decent, he thinks, for someone who hasn’t played in years. When he sits down again, beaming, Kurogane is red-faced, visibly irritated.

“Aww, don’t look so grouchy. I said we could use bumpers, but you didn’t want them,” Fai reminds him, smiling sweetly.

“Because you tricked me, you bastard!” Kurogane accuses. “You suggested it like

you

couldn’t bowl!”

Fai is unable to keep himself from laughing.

“Well, I never actually said I couldn’t, no?” Fai wonders. He flutters his eyelashes. “I could give you some pointers, big guy.”

Kurogane narrows his eyes. “We need to establish some parameters, first.”

“Oh? Do we need a safe word for bowling?”

“Don’t be a smartass,” Kurogane scolds. “About the alliance, obviously. We need clear terms.”

The frankness of the statement—so undisguised—surprises Fai enough that he briefly doesn’t know how to answer. He blinks, tilts his head to the left, and to the right, and then nods.

“Well, I reason we don’t kill each other, for starters. I imagine we share a bit of intel here and there—there’s no telling what Yuuko’s planning, so any information is useful.” He taps his nose. “And I promise not to bother anyone you care about if you don’t bother anyone I care about. How does that sound?”

“Deal. What do you know about Yuuko?”

Fai tilts his head. “What do you know? Let’s start there.”

“Clow Reed’s widow. That’s it,” Kurogane replies. “Don’t play around–tell me what you think of this whole thing.”

“It’s not an easy answer,” Fai says, relenting. “She has a huge network of resources at her disposal, but without Clow around, no one even knows if she can use them. People are waiting for her to slip so they can take the empire from her. I imagine she knows that. So I’m curious about her motivation, myself.”

“What’s your dad’s take?”

“It’s your turn to bowl, handsome,” Fai replies, pointing to the screen above their lane, which is keeping score. “Anyway, Ashura is a private man. It’s impossible to tell what he thinks. Even I don’t know.”

Kurogane gives Fai an odd look at this, but he gets up, setting his beer down on the table. He collects his ball and approaches the lane, lingering for a moment, and then he turns back to Fai, snapping his fingers impatiently. “Oi. You. Those pointers you were talking about.”

It surprises Fai that Kurogane isn’t too proud to ask—it’s interesting—and so he gets up without skipping a beat. They approach the lane together. Fai hears a chorus of pins being struck from the opposite end of the alley, and a group of teenagers breaking into excited shrieks. He smiles at the sound and then positions himself accordingly, his feet slightly staggered, the right behind the left.

“Your setup stance is important,” Fai explains. He nods down at his legs. “Notice my knees have a slight bend. If you’re right-handed, you’ll probably want to do what I’m doing—and if you’re not, you’ll want to mirror it.”

Kurogane looks quite serious—if a bit skeptical—but he follows along, apparently also right-handed. Fai nods his approval and demonstrates how to hold the ball, but when Kurogane mirrors it, he’s slightly off. Fai approaches and guides Kurogane’s right elbow, bringing it flush to his hip. By mere proximity, Fai gets a whiff of cologne—earthy, rich, but a touch of floral in the mix. An interesting note. He guides Kurogane’s left hand towards the ball to support it, notices a thick pane of scar tissue across the man’s left hand—as if it had been impaled by something, once upon a time. He taps Kurogane’s right shoulder, muttering, “You’ll want to drop this down. Your shoulders are quite tense, Kuro-pippi.”

“Kurogane,” Kurogane immediately corrects, voice a deep rumble—Fai feels it vibrate out from Kurogane’s chest and rattle against his own. Fai starts to guide the man’s arms to demonstrate a proper swing when something startles them both: the distinct, white flash of a camera. They both whirl around at the source, wide-eyed, and Fai instinctively starts to reach for his gun just as Kurogane reaches out, snatching the camera in his free hand. Fai is suddenly overwhelmed by confusion and embarrassment when the spots in his vision fade, and he sees just who photographed them.

“Sakura!” he exclaims. He quickly takes the camera from Kurogane and hands it back to the girl. “My, my—you really surprised us! I apologize for my companion. Catlike reflexes, eh?”

“Oh—um—it’s okay!” Sakura accepts her camera, looking equally embarrassed, her cheeks red. She looks up at Kurogane as if she’s encountered a giant, lumbering, questionably intelligent bear. “I should have asked, I’m so sorry! I was just so excited to see Fai, I snapped a picture without thinking. I’m here with—oh—hold on. Over here!”

She looks over her shoulder and waves at an approaching figure. To Fai’s additional bewilderment, he recognizes this person, too. Syaoran looks equally as horrified as Fai does, his eyes big and worried. When Sakura isn’t looking, Syaoran does a quick hand signal—an urgent ‘x’ over his mouth with his pointer fingers—and promptly drops it when the girl looks at him again. Syaoran reaches the group with a polite, wobbly smile. Fai had been told, some time ago, that this boy wasn’t permitted out on his own after a particular “incident”, the details of which Fai was never made aware. Has he snuck out for the night?

“This is Syaoran!” Sakura explains, appearing quite pleased. “We met at his photography studio. He’s really talented.”

“O-oh, my uncle owns it, and I just develop pictures,” Syaoran clarifies, genuinely bashful, quickly waving both his hands. “Sakura photographs a lot of plants and animals. If I’ve had a hand in producing any beautiful pictures, it’s only because Sakura took them.”

The two teenagers blush, flattered by one another. Given what Syaoran’s typical workload likely is, Fai senses the statement is more literal than figurative: some ordinary pictures of normal life versus grisly images of the dead. Fai smiles and offers the boy a hand. “Nice to meet you, Syaoran.”

Syaoran seems relieved at Fai’s play. He shakes his hand, and then pauses, glancing between Fai and Kurogane, the curiosity evident in his eyes. Fai quickly introduces another play, clapping one hand on Kurogane’s shoulder.

“And I apologize for this one’s manners,” Fai says quite sunnily. He flashes Kurogane a meaningful look, willing him to follow along. It’s better if this is their story—if Syaoran has any inkling that they’re actually working together, it could cause them trouble down the line. But if they present themselves unprofessionally, there’s a chance they can obscure that reality altogether: one thing as another. “I’ll let my

date

introduce himself.”

“I’m—” Something clicks. Kurogane clears his throat, a touch of color on his face. “It’s Kurogane.”

“Nice to meet you!” Sakura replies. “How do you know Fai?”

“We met at work,” Fai immediately offers. Kurogane nods his agreement, gesturing at the other. “He made quite the impression on me.”

“You stuck out, yourself,” Kurogane says. Fai makes a show of being flattered, flipping his hair. Sakura laughs lightly behind her hand, looking back and forth between them. Kurogane focuses on the girl. “But how do

you

know Fai?”

Sakura blinks up at him. She then glances over at Fai, continuing to blink. Fai sees the gears in her head turning, trying to concoct a story that does not involve the truth, given she has agreed to never publicly speak of it. And so Sakura says, with suddenly all the confidence in the world, “We’re both musicians! Fai plays the violin, too.”

Both Syaoran and Kurogane look at Fai in genuine surprise. Fai feels heat in his face, the kind that spreads to his ears. He smiles, like always, and waves a hand.

“What can I say?” Fai asks. “I’m very complex.”

Sakura, delighted, laughs and nods. She leans over, exchanging a few words with Syaoran. Seeing their chance, Fai leans in over Kurogane’s shoulder, muttering, “I suppose strategizing is off the table for tonight.”

“Obviously. Is there a reason we’re all pretending to be civilians?” Kurogane asks in a low voice, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, and if you’re a good boy, I might even tell you,” Fai replies, winking. Kurogane goes a little red, but he swallows down whatever retort he had brewing initially.

Sakura and Syaoran take the lane beside theirs, it being the only one available. Of course, this doesn’t bode well for an evening of strategizing in the original sense, but Fai recognizes it as an opportunity nonetheless. The children apparently know about bowling as much as Kurogane knows, so Fai decides to play teacher to the group as a whole. He demonstrates a good setup and a good swing. Kurogane immediately becomes a stronger player: he scores a spare on his next turn. Syaoran seems more interested in the logic of the game than in actually playing, but he still puts in a concerted effort. Sakura, bizarrely enough, doesn’t seem to retain anything in the way of strategy or technique. She closes her eyes when she swings, as if letting fate bowl for her, but she scores strikes with every round. She blushes a little when she turns away from the lane.

“I don’t know how I’m doing it,” she admits.

Kurogane makes a sour face to himself from where he sits. Fai leans across the table, steals a sip from the other man’s beer and hands it back to him, smiling cheekily.

“So I stuck out to you?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Kurogane replies. He snatches back his beer, eyes narrowed. “You were the most annoying one there.”

“But I grew on you, eh?”

“Don’t push it,” Kurogane complains. He glances past Fai, up at the screen describing their scores. Fai is in the lead, but it’s becoming closer. In the lane beside them, Sakura is beating Syaoran by a ridiculously large margin, although theirs is a less competitive game. “Was what the kid said true? You’re a musician?”

“Sakura was being generous,” Fai says, shrugging. “I played violin as a boy, but not anymore. There is no time to practice. Anyway, it’s my turn.”

Fai hops up and swings, scoring a spare as Sakura strikes. She beams at Fai and high fives him. Syaoran, sitting on one of the chairs in his own lane, watches Sakura with obvious affection in his face, warmth in his eyes. The pair are acting like normal teenagers, buoyant and spirited and preoccupied with one another. Fai returns to his seat. Kurogane gets up to take his turn—he strikes—and returns with an undeniable aura of smugness radiating off him. He’s now in the lead.

“You’re awfully competitive, eh?” Fai asks.

“Yeah. So?”

“I’m just keeping it in mind,” Fai says sweetly. “Tournament and all.”

In the end, Sakura’s score averages to an immaculate 300, even after three rounds, easily besting Syaoran’s 120. Kurogane and Fai, unfortunately, tie: they each average 180. Kurogane’s obvious irritation over failing to win, of course, only amuses Fai. The night seems to be drawing to a close, the other patrons beginning to trickle out. The group begins collecting their things. When Sakura checks her phone for her public transit options, she finds the only bus that goes to her house is suspended for the rest of the evening. Perhaps her first stroke of bad luck.

“I don’t have enough for a cab,” she frets as Syaoran starts tearing through his own wallet. She looks close to tears. “What do I do? I told Dad I’d be home before midnight. I’ll be in so much trouble.”

As Fai lets out a faux-whistle—

hyuuuuuu

—Kurogane clears his throat, arms crossed over his chest, and says, “I drove here. I could drop you kids off, if there’s no other option.”

“I’ll come with, of course,” Fai quickly offers, noting the slight alarm in Syaoran’s face. He grins at the boy. “We can drop you off, too, Syaoran. Wherever you’d like!”

“Only if we’re not imposing!” Sakura says worriedly. “But it would be a big help…”

Collecting themselves, they head out into the city night. They walk a short distance across the street into a parking garage, where they settle into Kurogane’s car—a little black hatchback devoid of bumper stickers or much in the way of personal touches. Fai takes the passenger’s seat and glances around it, wondering if this is a rented car or truly Kurogane’s own. He imagines it can’t be Kurogane’s, not if the man is smart, otherwise this choice—to ferry them all “home”—is a dangerous one. In fact, Fai isn’t quite sure what to make of Kurogane’s offer. It’s a generous one. Is he just secretly soft-hearted? It can’t be so, not in their line of work. Fai drums his fingers on the interior along to the song on the radio, brimming with questions.

Sakura is the first to be dropped off. Her home is at the end of a narrow one-way, just one of many brownstones with window boxes full of bright flowers: the historical district. If she does not personally have money for a cab, it’s certain that her father does. Kurogane moves slowly down the street so as not to sideswipe any parked cars, and stops, blinkers on, when Sakura sees her house. She pecks Syaoran on the cheek and fumbles her way out of the car, turning and waving goodbye at the door. When her father opens it and lets her in, Kurogane turns off his blinkers and resumes driving. With her gone, Fai promptly turns from his position in the passenger’s seat, eyes on Syaoran.

“A night out without a chaperone, eh?” Fai asks. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Syaoran! What would your dear old uncle think?”

“You can’t tell him!” Syaoran immediately blurts out, palms pressed together as if in prayer. “I—It was the first time we went out, okay? I won’t do it again.”

Kurogane glances at the child in his rearview mirror. Fai just laughs, shaking his head.

“Easy, easy! Now, why would I get in the way of a little teenage romance?” Fai wonders. He winks at the boy. “How about a deal—we won’t tell on you if you won’t tell on us. Are those fair terms?”

Syaoran’s brows raise. He glances between the two men. “You—you’d really let it go?”

“It’s nobody’s business but yours who you spend time with,” Kurogane offers plainly. “It’s the same for us.”

“I—um, wow.” Syaoran smiles a little. “Okay, it’s a deal.”

“Well, before we make it official, there’s just one other little pesky thing,” Fai says, pantomiming

little

by pressing his index finger and thumb together. “The picture Sakura took.”

“The film will be too damaged to develop,” Syaoran replies. “It’ll never see the light of day, I promise.”

“Wonderful, wonderful!” Fai replies, relaxing. “Now, where to, Syaoran?”

They drop Syaoran off some distance from public transit, so he can take the subway and walk back home without anyone spotting the group together. The boy is gracious and serious when he departs, vowing to someday repay the pair for their kindness. Fai just smiles at him and shakes his head—there’s no need. And with that, Fai and Kurogane are left alone in the car. Kurogane steals a glance his way.

“You’re not giving me your address,” he assumes.

“Hm? No, of course not,” Fai replies. He raises a suggestive eyebrow. “Unless you were planning to take this somewhere else. Were you? I’m considering it.”

“Tch.” Kurogane shoots him a look, face flushed in the dark. “Just tell me where to take you.”

Fai names his spot: another subway station, one he has used on a few occasions after a night out, one that won’t seem unusual for him to use if anyone has eyes on him. He rolls down his window, letting in the night breeze. It’s a beautiful evening, early enough in summer that the air is comfortable and cool. He tilts his head back and feels the breeze in his hair, shutting his eyes. It always soothes him, the sound and sensation of riding in a car. He remembers a distant time, when his mother would reach back from the passenger’s seat, smoothing his hair out of his eyes when he would doze off in the backseat, how she would do the same for his brother. It always comes to mind when he relaxes, settling in for the ride.

He listens to Kurogane navigating, emitting an occasional

tch

or

hm

to something on the road. How funny. Fai wonders about him. Of course, Fai wonders about a lot of things–why were they targeted at the warehouse? Why wasn’t Chii? Is the warehouse actually important? Were they actually Fei Wang Reed’s people–or did someone contract them

through

Fei Wang Reed? Fai needs to put out feelers, see what the gossip is. But how can he spare the time, given the meetings on his schedule, the jobs, the training, the tournament?

It’s too tiring to think about. The thoughts flicker suddenly, twisting on their side, changing shape. His responsibilities fly out the windows, debris left on the road stretching behind him. The road opens, the cars shuttling separate ways, leaving a wide clearing. On the road ahead of him, he sees the sun.

“Oi. You.” Hm? “Hey. Fai. Wake up.”

When he opens his eyes, he realizes they’re parked in a lot by the station, Kurogane gently jostling his shoulder. Fai squints, slightly dazed, trying to decide how they got here. He must have napped. He must need more sleep. Kurogane is just sitting behind the wheel, studying him in the dark, hand still on Fai’s shoulder.

“Oh, my,” Fai blurts out. He feels out of sorts, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He notices white hair stuck to Kurogane’s shirt—does he have a cat? “I still owe you an explanation for earlier, especially about the kids.”

“Not now.” Kurogane frowns and shakes his head. He points outside, at the lit up sign for the station. “Another time. Go home and sleep.”

Fai walks out, wits returning to him, and approaches the entrance into the subway station. He feels his heart thumping a rapid staccato in his chest, a strangely young feeling. He reaches the top of the stairs and can’t help but turn, for a moment, to look back out to where Kurogane is still parked, blinkers on, waiting for him to go before he, himself, drives off. Fai has one hand raised, for a moment, fighting their parting, until at last, he waves goodbye, and descends out of sight.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Fai enters a meeting with one of Ashura’s associates—a very handsome man named Sakon, who is largely the one managing the details of several gambling locations they’ve opened—and immediately finds himself in good spirits. Fai looks at their projected earnings in one of the meeting rooms, removed from the bustle of the busy gambling floor, where the drinks are made colorfully and money is always moving hands. The numbers Sakon has look good. The Celes family business has expanded into a few different legitimate avenues—gambling, dining, hospitality—and these ventures are developing well. Ashura will be pleased.“Care for something to drink?” Sakon asks. “Coffee, perhaps?”Fai glances up from the report, the offer catching his attention. People usually offer him alcohol. “Coffee would be lovely.”One of Sakon’s people quickly exits to fetch it. Sakon leans in over the table, giving Fai a wry smile. He says, “You look like you could use a pickmeup.”“I look tired, eh?”“You look like you’ve been a busy man,” Sakon replies. “How many plates does he have you spinning, nowadays?”Fai pretends to count on his fingers and promptly throws his hands up, having lost count. They both laugh. The coffee arrives shortly after; Fai takes his pale and sweetened, while Sakon only adds a couple sugars. He eyes Fai behind blond eyelashes, moving from Fai’s chest towards his face.“I know you can’t speak on it, but rumors say you’re in the running to take things over,” Sakon says. “I certainly wouldn’t mind. You’re a little nicer to look at, at least.”“It’s Ashura’s choice, not mine,” Fai says idly—best not to confirm anything one way or another. “But Sakon, I’m only a little nicer to look at? Ashura is almost sixty.”“Alright, alright—I was trying to be sly,” Sakon laughs. “If you want to know my full, unprofessional opinion, we can meet unprofessionally. Dinner, drinks, the works?”“Well, you know how busy I am,” Fai replies, winking.Fai collects his copy of the report and leaves. As soon as he gets into the car, he rests his head on the window and shuts his eyes. Sakon is right. Fai has been spinning many, many plates. How long has it been since he slept a full eight hours, or even six?Fai frowns from inside the car when the driver parks in front of his house. He can see a figure moving in the window, apparently tossing their feet up on the couch. Normally, such a sight would worry him more—an uninvited guest—but this is a very familiar one. He enters his house and takes off his shoes, hanging his coat up on the rack. He sees his visitor’s coat strewn on the floor and shakes his head as he picks it up, putting it where it should be.He discovers her in his living room, lounging on the sofa, writing something in a notebook. On the coffee table beside her, she has various items scattered out: a few opened bottles of various liquors, a few balled up pieces of lined paper, and a plate with a block of cheese—he blanches when he realizes which knife she’s been using to cut off slices: the one from Kurogane. But he decides to continue along as usual.“Hello, Chii,” Fai says. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”Chii glances at him, glances at her phone for the time, and then continues what she’s doing. “Why are you so late? I’ve been waiting, like, forever.”“Work,” he says. “What are you doing here?”“Waiting on you,” she returns. She turns a page in her notebook and resumes writing. “Daddy sent me to talk about strategy again.”The strategy. Ashura believes many of the groups will cannibalize themselves and each other. But he also thinks some of the players are, themselves, plants. He believes it of Doumeki—that his decision to enter the tournament was Yuuko’s doing, since it forces him to be almost every other competitor’s initial target, given his usual proximity to Yuuko. Ashura is certain Doumeki will not be where Yuuko actually is, when the tournament begins, and so they’ve excluded him from their planning for the most part—someone else will surely go after him, someone who is a little more simple-minded in their own planning.Fei Wang Reed’s group will pose some trouble. Each of them—Fei Wang Reed himself, Rondart, and Xing Huo—are unlikely to have the same motivation, even if they have entered the tournament, technically, with the same goal: absorbing Yuuko’s assets into their own existing empire. Rondart is likely to play dirty, and likely angling to win in order to head an empire of his own. Xing Huo is likely to play precisely by the rules, and to be fighting in her employer’s interests. And Fei Wang Reed is perhaps the most predictable of the bunch, since Ashura is quite sure he’ll kill his own if they get in his way, regardless of their history.The Daidoujis are the odd ones out, it seems. Souma was the only assassin to choose not to participate. Kendappa’s entry seems to have been made as a formality—she is better known for her skills on the harp than in combat, nowadays—rather than as a genuine bid. And then there is, of course, Kurogane.Ashura’s intel has not been able to recover anything of interest about him. He has no known history in the industry, but he has no known history anywhere they look. Of course, it’s likely Kurogane is a pseudonym—almost no one uses a real name in their field—but all evidence points to him being new, and, as Kendappa said during their summons, “eager to prove himself”. For this reason, Ashura assumes he’ll be the one to go after Doumeki, and that he’ll quickly be done in by someone else—perhaps Rondart or Xing Huo.Of course, Fai has his own theories on the matter.“The strategy,” Fai hums. “Alright—let’s hear it!”“Nothing’s totally changed since last time. We’re still, like, mostly gonna wait it out.” Chii tilts her glass at precarious angles as she speaks, glancing up at him to see if he’ll scold her for a potential spill. “But Daddy was thinking about something—we basically know every other competitor, don’t we? Except for that guy—the one with the earring.”Kurogane. Fai’s smile remains easy, fluid, maybe even curious. But undoubtedly, something in him changes, guarded, the wall rising high. “Ah, right. The new Daidouji man.”Chii nods. Then she takes another sip. “Everyone thinks he’s new to the scene. He’ll probably make some rookie mistakes and get himself killed.”“What a shame,” Fai says. “He’s awfully handsome. That sort never lasts long, here—except for me, of course.”“Ugh, enough,” Chii complains, and Fai turns to look at her again, grinning cheekily. “But, like, we know that isn’t true, right? It’s just what the guy wants us to think.”“Oh?” Fai tilts his head. “So what does Ashura believe?”“He hasn’t made up his mind,” Chii replies. “At least not to me.”“And what do you believe?”“That the guy’s fishy. I think he’s got his own game.”“Hmm. Well, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Fai hums. “That’s the way people are in this business. Everyone has their own agenda, no?”“Yeah,” Chii agrees, staring at him. “Right now, I’m trying to figure out what yours is.”“To get some sleep, actually,” Fai returns, half-honest.“Alright. Look. You know I don’t want to ask you what I have to ask,” Chii sighs, “but you’re just sleeping with him, right? I mean, he’s totally your type.”“Oh, my.” Fai laughs and eyes the table, counting the assorted liquors. “I’ve changed my mind. My new agenda is to get you to drink more water, actually. I’ll lead by example.”“I’m not drunk,” she complains.“Well, you must be, to ask me a question like that,” Fai returns.“But I’m right, aren’t I?” she asks.“No, Chii. There’s nothing going on,” he reassures her. “Clear the question from your mind.”She gives him a dim look, brow furrowed, blowing and popping a bubble with her chewing gum in his direction.“Whatever,” she grumbles. “It’s not my grave you’re digging, I guess.”Fai gets up and returns to his kitchen, pouring a glass of water from the filter. He considers his predicament, and weighs different possibilities. Perhaps Ashura really did send her here for some notes on strategy. But perhaps he sent her to get information, suspecting that Fai was withholding something. It’s no secret that Fai has a soft spot for her—that if he were to show his cards to anyone, it would be his sister. And yet Fai’s instinct tells him that neither of these things are true. He doesn’t think Ashura sent her. He thinks Chii is here by her own volition, using Ashura’s orders as cover, fishing for information for her own sake. But it’s impossible to know, and so it’s best to be collected, calm—to feign obliviousness in the usual way. And so Fai moves through his house maintaining a standard performance, meandering towards the kitchen.Chii follows him in, frowning. She hands him her glass and he puts it in the sink, gets a new one, and gives her some water. She tips her head back, downs half of it in a gulp. With her free hand, she keeps spinning Kurogane’s blade open and shut—vivid flashes of red and black.“Is this new?” she asks.“I found it in my collection recently, but I don’t remember buying it,” Fai says, scratching the back of his head. “At a certain point, it’s hard to keep track. Isn’t it stylish?”“It’s cool,” she admits.“I’m going to keep it in my regular rotation,” Fai tells her. “Don’t think you can steal it.”She huffs out a little sigh, and he lingers behind, laughing a little to himself. He hears her pass through the living room, gathering her things, and leaving, calling over her shoulder, “I haven’t told Daddy about the guy, on the off chance it is personal—but if it is, you should know better.”As the door shuts, he finally breathes a small sigh of relief. In her absence, Fai makes a few considerations. If Ashura truly knew about the alliance—the principle alone would upset him—Fai would not have been allowed to have a pleasant night in his own house to discuss it. He would have been summoned. And so Fai actually relaxes. If anyone truly knows anything, it’s Chii, and it’s obvious she isn’t even clear on what he’s doing.What is he doing, anyway?Fai double checks the doors and windows before he returns to the kitchen. He snatches Kurogane’s knife from the counter, flipping it open and shut repeatedly, the blade clicking in and out of place like the ticking of a clock.  On a clear table sits a startling collection: a gun, six tactical knives, mace, pepper spray, two pocket knives, a taser, and dog repellant. On each side of the table sit two people—Primera and Fai, in apparently opposite moods. Fai smiles at the singer, who simply glares at him. He doesn’t care for being unarmed, of course, but it was the only way Primera would agree to meet with him. Still, he feels a bit naked, given all of his normal weaponry is simply laid out bare between them—out of his own reach, but comfortably in Primera’s.He sits in the Tiger Club, in one of the private rooms he hasn’t personally used before, although Primera says it’s her favorite. The ceiling is cluttered with winding, glittery threads of silver lights. The walls are fully mirrored, the decor translucent and colorless. Everything looks spacey, vaguely futuristic. Primera, her hired guards, and Fai look positively out of place: too organic. Fai glances at their figures in the mirrored walls, how dizzying it is to see them reflected and reversed from so many angles. It’s a good room to choose, especially when meeting with someone potentially dangerous. Fai will give Primera that.“This is a curious little room, Primera,” Fai hums. “You didn’t want any surprises from me, eh?”“The last time I met with you, you pointed a gun at my head,” Primera says, pouting. “So, no—I don’t want surprises. And here I thought you were the nicer one.”“Aww, it wasn’t personal,” Fai chides, “and it all turned out well in the end, no? Did Shogo not return to you?”She settles back on a clear acrylic chair, reconsidering. “Hmmph. Still.”“I’m sorry for scaring you.”“You should be! Anyway, I’d rather keep this short,” Primera tells him. “Like I’ve told literally all of you who’ve decided to bug me for help—I’m a different girl, now. I can consult on something, but that’s all I’ll do. So what do you want?”“I have a project,” Fai starts.Primera’s eyes brighten a touch with curiosity. Fai fishes the schematics from his messenger bag and hands it over. Primera unrolls it in her lap and she hums with interest. She says, “This isn’t your usual weaponry. What am I supposed to do with this?”Fai smiles. “Tell me if this is viable. And who could make it.”“Wisdom isn’t free around here,” Primera reminds him.“I had a feeling,” Fai replies, and with that, he reaches into the bag, retrieving a fat stack of cash, the bills in hundreds. He places it on the clear glass table between them. Primera raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. Fai pretends to look sheepish, adding a second stack to the pile. When Primera doesn’t budge, Fai finally adds a third, punctuating it with this: “Well, that is as much as I can offer. I couldn’t add another stack if I wanted.”Seeming slightly more convinced, Primera nods at one of her guards, who takes the money and leaves with it. The rest remain standing stiff in the room, looking at the two through the mirrored walls. Fai meets one of their eyes in the mirror and subtly winks in the reflection as Primera returns to looking at the weapon Fai has designed. The singer squints and makes little noises to herself, trying to decide on an opinion.“What’s your goal with this thing?” she finally asks.“I would like a Plan Z,” he replies. “Ideally, I will not have to use it, but I’m not sure what to expect from my competition.”“It’ll probably work,” Primera says, nodding. “I’d just use it in the beginning, and maybe dose them afterwards. It never lasts as long as you think. And don’t accidentally dose yourself, obviously.”“Ha! I’ll keep it in mind.”“Ask Kiishimu about building it,” Primera adds. Fai finds himself pleased by this addition—Kiishimu will help him, no doubt, given their last interaction. “She’s a lot less busy nowadays, so the turnaround will be faster than usual.”“Hyuuuuuu! I knew you were an expert!”Primera tries not to look too pleased, although the comment affects her just about how ones like it always do: she puffs up, posture immediately improved, undeniably flattered. “Hmph! I didn’t have my reputation for nothing.”“Oh, of course.”“But I will say this: I don’t know what the whole competition’s about, but I can tell you everyone else who’s come to me has had more lethal things in mind.” Primera frowns at him. “Even Chii. So what are you doing?”“Well, we deal in death all the time,” Fai replies honestly, “and I expect to be against many friends. If I can avoid killing them, why wouldn’t I?”“It doesn’t matter who your friends are,” Primera reminds him, glancing up from the plan. “It’s not smart to be soft-hearted in this business—it’ll get you killed.”“Such brutal words from such a beautiful girl,” Fai replies, smiling.Primera rolls the schematic up and hands it back to Fai. The two look at one another for a few moments, Primera tilting her head, blue hair spilling prettily over her shoulder. She looks very much like a pop star, what with the colorful makeup and the glitter stars positioned beneath each eye. Back when she was in the same circles as Fai, she was tame in comparison, a face that could easily be forgotten in a crowd. But this new Primera is a different creature altogether, like some sort of tropical bird.“I know you’re going to take over for your dad,” Primera says. “It’s an open secret. Everyone knows. But do you even know what he’ll ask you to do, when the day arrives?”Fai tilts his head, the smile unchanged. His focus grows sharp teeth. “Do you?”Primera’s face flashes with something unmistakable, something worse than indifference or even hatred: pity.“There’s still time,” she tells him. “You have a few weeks, don’t you? Get out while you can. You could have a shot at a semi-normal life.”“Why would I want that?” he asks.“You’ve never thought about it?” she asks, her sincerity making Fai nervous. “Haven’t you ever wanted somebody else’s life? It’s all I used to think about, when I was on your side of things.”Fai thinks, immediately, of windows. He thinks of everything he’s witnessed from the wrong sides of different windows: the quaint gatherings his neighbors have around their firepit, the violinist reuniting with her loving family as Fai is driven away, the man waiting in his car for Fai to safely descend into the subway after an impromptu date before he leaves. The images startle him into standing, pushing himself from his chair.“That’s an interesting thought,” Fai tells her, smiling politely. “Thank you for your expertise, tonight, Primera. I won’t waste your time any further.”He collects his things, putting each weapon in its rightful place, and he exits, satisfied but uneasy. He has what he needs—and if he can have it fabricated in time, it’ll secure a last-ditch effort victory: no question. But she knows something he doesn’t. Does everyone? Is Fai the only one left in the dark? He emerges back into the city, feeling strangely spun around, even if he’s exited the Tiger Club more times than he can count. He watches cars move impatiently, the light having just turned green, someone honking. He thinks, for just a moment, that feels eyes on him from the opposite side of the street—his hand snaps towards the holster on his hip—but the cars clear, and he sees nothing at all.The driver takes him directly from Tiger Club to the concert hall, where he finds Ashura already seated, very much looking like a natural fit for the environment, what with his sleek suit and quiet primness. He takes his seat beside Ashura, smiling. Ashura leans in, having remembered something, and asks, “Did you send a bouquet?”“Of course,” Fai reassures him. “We aren’t animals.”“Good.” Ashura sits up straight again, and relaxes.The performance begins. Fai sits jittery and alert, truthfully quite excited when he spots a certain girl on the stage: the first violin, Sakura Kinomoto. He has seen her performances in videos, of course, but it’s a wonderful treat, seeing her perform in the flesh. She looks elegant and proper, here, upon the stage. She enters and approaches her chair along with three others, all who silently bow before the performance begins.She is clearly the odd one out amongst the quartet: the youngest, the most energetic, her short bob flying as she moves, the process of playing perhaps one that requires her entire body. The instrument wails and grieves and produces beautiful tones. The other players—the woman on the second violin, the man on the cello, and the final woman on the viola—all move as they play, each individual gears of a much larger machine. Fai can’t help himself: he subtly conducts with his index fingers, his hands mostly planted on each knee. He never wants to sit still when it comes to a thrilling piece—it seems to sway him.“Ah—Schubert,” Fai realizes. “Death and the Maiden.”The piece is partly a musical interpretation of a German poem by Matthias Claudius, a short conversation between a girl and death, in which the girl first pleads not to die, but death reassures her. The girl, no longer afraid, makes no additional pleas, and thus the poem ends, the two of them having reached an agreement—a peaceful and friendly end, rather than a terrifying one. Schubert had written a lied based on the piece, which he later incorporated into the second movement of this particular quartet—one which would sometimes be referred to, colloquially, by the root poem’s name. The piece outlines a longer exchange between death and the maiden, a moving and somewhat terrifying conversation between minor and major, a bid for an impossible bargain.“He was unwell at the time of writing,” Ashura reflects.“Ah, of course,” Fai agrees. “Terrible syphilis, spread to his mind.”“He died young,” Ashura mutters, sitting quite still. “Only thirty-one.”The age Shashi died, Fai thinks. He flashes Ashura a quick look of understanding. He pats his hand on the armrest between their seats and leans in again, offering Ashura this: “I’m sorry, sir.”He watches Sakura’s movements—jerky and spirited—and wonders about what Ashura will ask of him, what Ashura has planned. The job he had given Fai—to retrieve this girl from Primera—was not a normal one. It was a rescue, no kills required. Chii’s workload—equally “nice”, suspiciously so, at least by her standards. And he thinks, of course, about the bare pity on Primera’s face, how she tried to dissuade him. Something ahead will be difficult, he’s sure, but how? Fai glances at Ashura’s profile with his head slowly knocking this way and that to the music, sees the forlorn way the older man watches the performance, his attention a steady flame. It suddenly feels too close to watch: a look into a world Ashura never opens, names, shares. Fai shouldn’t witness it.Fai shuts his eyes, disappearing, listening to the strings ebb in and out, producing a somber melody. Sakura’s playing wheels out, persistent and urgent. Fai recalls her bowling with her eyes shut, somehow scoring strike after strike. How normal she seemed, then—how funny, how human. But her playing is inspired, elegant. The strings soften—one of the song’s sweeter clauses—and Fai imagines something very old behind his eyelids.Of course he has wished for another life. When Primera asked the question, he thought of each day he had woken up in the wrong room, the wrong house, the wrong family. But it became his life, nevertheless. And now, so many years down the line, he knows no other way. The strings suddenly shudder, marching inevitably forward, the central plea repeating, despite its futility.Fai opens his eyes, returning his gaze to the musicians, and to Sakura, who sways and thrashes, hair flying about, face pinched in sorrow, her violin making a compelling case for the maiden. It’s silly, of course, to think this way, to think that there is an alternative outcome. Fai knows how the poem ends, and how the song does. Death has the last word.  Fai arrives a few minutes late—best not to appear too excited—and hesitates before going inside. The choice of restaurant is curious to him, as it’s fairly out of the way of anyone’s known territory, and isn’t a Daidouji-owned venue. The Goalpost—a busy sports bar. For Fai, it’s uneasy territory, but he imagines that if anyone were trying to track him, they would never search here. He knows he looks the part for the evening—more casual than he likes to dress—but as he walks in, he knows he’ll never be able to play the part, not in reality. When he walks in, he feels swallowed up, the noise immense and the bar looking incredibly full. Is there some kind of game on? Fai has never been good at keeping track of that.The hostess at the front smiles at him, looking a little frazzled, as if keeping her head above water from the rush. The staff uniform is reminiscent of a cheerleading uniform. It all feels too heterosexual for Fai’s liking. He only half hears her, searching behind her for the person he agreed to meet.Kurogane is seated at the bar, also dressed for the occasion. He would blend in, Fai thinks, if he just wasn’t so tall. There are a few other patrons, but empty stools on either side of Kurogane, as if he naturally wards off company, even in spite of the huge crowd.“Sir?” the hostess says, and by her tone, he realizes she’s been repeating herself. “A table? The wait is about forty.”“No need,” Fai replies, smiling apologetically. “I’ll go to the bar.” He glances at the clips holding back her bangs—two silver butterflies and adds, before he can stop himself, “Adorable clips, by the way.”She reflexively touches them, smiling. “They were on sale, too!”Fai makes a vaguely impressed sound and waves goodbye before he heads off to the bar, trying to decide which stool to take. The bartender looks at him over her shoulder, holding up a hand to indicate she’ll just be a moment—she’s in the midst of helping someone else. Fai slides into the stool to Kurogane’s right and asks, “Did it have to be here?”“We aren’t doing another bowling alley,” Kurogane says flatly. “Anyway, no one would think to look for us here.”It may be true for Fai, but he wonders if it’s really true for Kurogane—and he wonders, in addition, what it means if Kurogane is hiding their alliance from his own people, too. Still, he pouts. “I don’t care for greasy bar food.”“So? Don’t order any.”“Can I get you started?” the bartender asks, handing Fai a laminated menu. “Pitchers are ten right now.”“Should we be bad?” Fai asks, fluttering his eyelashes at Kurogane, who only rolls his eyes a bit and shrugs. Fai smiles at the bartender. “We’ll be bad. Please bring a pitcher.”She disappears. Kurogane turns to him, apparently wasting no time: “Explain the kids.”“Ah, you really don’t waste time,” Fai laughs. “Syaoran is Fei Wang Reed’s nephew. He develops the photos we use for our clients—very sweet, very polite—but he isn’t supposed to be out on his own. And Sakura—well, she was a fun case. I had to rescue her from an old colleague. She’s a brilliant violinist.”“So why all the charades?” he asks. “You all knew each other.”“Well, I imagine Syaoran isn’t going to be forthcoming about it with Sakura. She really is a civilian,” Fai says, tapping his nose as he thinks. “And Sakura agreed not to discuss the case. It’s standard.”Kurogane raises a brow. “You pay people off?”“Oh, I suppose the Daidouji family does things differently,” Fai hums. “With the Celes family, we don’t talk about anything in public. Nothing can get back to us. We have to at least pretend we’re living normal, reputable lives. We’ve been running actual businesses since Ashura took over, after all.”“Normal lives?” Kurogane raises an eyebrow. “How’s that going for you?”“Ha! Better than you might think.”The pitcher appears with cups. Fai decides to keep the tab open, and he pours them each a cup. On multiple mounted television screens, there appears to be a football game playing. Something seems to go wrong in it, judging by the sudden chorus of boos from the patrons.“Was the double date part necessary?” Kurogane asks.“I think it was,” Fai replies, “but I also found it a little entertaining. I thought the awkwardness suited things.”“I bet you thought it’d get a rise out of me.”“Not really, although it would’ve been funny if you had. But you’re much more secure in yourself than you’d like me to think, no?” Fai winks. “Anyway, I think it’s a useful cover. I plan on using it, if truly pressed. I suggest you do the same.”Kurogane narrows his eyes at this, and then he looks away, taking a swig. It’s cheap beer. Fai wonders how much it would take for Kurogane to be properly drunk—pitchers and pitchers, he thinks."Yuuko’s up to something,” Kurogane suggests. “I don’t buy the whole death wish thing.”“Oh, I wouldn’t be so certain,” Fai sighs. “People can hide all kinds of things.”Kurogane levels a look at him. “What’s wrong with you?”Fai nearly spits out his drink, shocked into laughing. He has to wipe his mouth and lap with a napkin.“You’re so rude!” he scolds, but halfheartedly, snickering. “I’m not that easy. I’ll leave it to your imagination, big guy.”Kurogane shrugs. “I’m just trying to figure out why you entered the tournament.”“It would be good for the Celes family. It’s simple,” Fai says. “ You, on the other hand—I don’t understand your motivation. Is it the prize?”“I don’t give a shit about the prize. I just hate losing.”“Oh, I noticed,” Fai laughs. “So if you win, will you give me all the spoils? If you care so little.”“I’d have to see if Kendappa and Tomoyo want anything first,” Kurogane replies after a moment of thought, remarkably casual, as if they’re discussing picking up fast food on the way home. Somehow, he believes what Kurogane says, as nonsensical as it is. “Anyway, this is assuming you even live.”“Of course I’ll live,” Fai chides. “Have some faith.”Kurogane quirks a brow, wordlessly staring at the spot on Fai’s neck that has been covered—a thin strip. Fai waves a hand. Kurogane flashes him a dull, impatient look and takes another sip.“I went back to the warehouse,” Kurogane says, and Fai raises his brows. “Funny thing—there was nobody there, this time. No throwing stars. Nothing like that. I got close enough to look in the windows, even.”“Hyuuuu! So brave—going by yourself. Was there anything worthwhile?”“No,” Kurogane says. “It’s storage and shit. There are people working there—I’m guessing Clow’s old operation—so it doesn’t make sense for that to be our location for the tournament.”“I see you’ve been thinking about it,” Fai hums.“They were so annoying when we visited, I thought I’d try again,” Kurogane replies. “If they had people waiting for me again, I’d assume it was the spot, but there was nobody. Did you check out any of the other places from Yuuko’s file?”“Not personally, no,” Fai replies. “My sister saw the house in the country, but there was nothing to report.”“No ambush?”“Nope!”“Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?” Kurogane asks.“Perhaps. What’s your take?”“Someone’s being set up.”“Oh? Like who?”“You,” Kurogane says.Fai blinks at him at first, surprised by the comment, but not entirely. He has thought of it, himself. It is strange that he had so much trouble that day, especially since Chii didn’t. And it is strange that when Kurogane visited the site on his own, no one tried to stop him. Fai has wondered, on some level, if someone is trying to knock him out of the running before he can assume his next position. But Kurogane doesn’t know very much about Fai, and Fai isn’t particularly willing to reveal more of himself than he has to over these matters. It could jeopardize his transition to power, all things considered.“What a theory!” Fai says. “But what would anyone have against poor little old me?”“You tell me,” Kurogane returns.“Hmm… I’d like to maintain a little mystery, so I don’t think I will,” Fai laughs.“Fine.” Kurogane sighs. “Where do you have to go next?”“Why?” Fai asks. “You want to come along?”“ Somebody needs to cover your ass,” Kurogane replies.“You’re such a gentleman, thinking about my ass,” Fai suggests, grinning. At Kurogane’s stern expression, Fai adds, “Of course I’ll invite you, handsome. I promise.”Kurogane’s face takes on a pinch of color and he looks elsewhere. They close their tab at last, and pour out into the street, weaving past other passersby. Fai knows he’s tired out, that if he has any sense, he should be getting home and resting as soon as possible. But he hesitates to go. And Kurogane doesn’t seem to be in any rush, lingering on the sidewalk alongside him. He eyes cars passing on the street. Several cabs go by with their light out, unable to take either of them. Kurogane makes a small sound of annoyance: “Tch.”Fai would call his usual driver, but he knows the location will be too suspicious, that anyone who knows him will find it strange enough to make note of, and Fai would rather keep this to himself.This thing—the alliance with Kurogane where they meet in secret, talk shop, loosely strategize—at best, it’s a distraction from the tournament, and from the future. At worst—well, Fai doesn’t know. He’s attracted, sure, but Fai isn’t under any real illusion about how this should reasonably go. His life is not the sort where partnerships happen. Kurogane’s life is probably quite similar. And once the tournament starts, there is no telling what either of their futures will look like. He’ll be head of the Celes family, and Kurogane will—well, who knows?Fai pokes his head out, trying to see if any other cabs are on the way, and Kurogane—perhaps directed by some natural instinct—grips a firm hand on Fai’s shoulder, as if to stop him from falling into the street.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Despite the tournament beginning to creep closer, life in the Celes family continues as usual. Fai and Chii continue to take their normal jobs, Fai shouldering an increasing number of dry ones atop the typical workload. He takes a car out to the western edge of the city, awaiting his sister, who is completing a job—another pervert—her words, of course—not his.

Fai looks up at the building through tinted windows, several blocks from where they’ve parked in a half-occupied parking lot, the lights off. The cleanup crew has arrived, which means he has a few minutes before Chii joins them. He glances back down at his phone, where he has been writing and deleting a text message repeatedly. For whatever reason, he doesn’t want to leave Kurogane alone. It’s not entirely new—Fai has always been a flirt—but it feels slightly different, a magnetic pull he can’t resist.

They have to get to know each other the way normal people do—or, at least, a little closer to the way normal people do. And he interests Fai. He’s a smart, observant, principled man, despite his ornery exterior. Fai thinks of Kurogane taking notice of him during their first meeting, instantly registering him as a threat when many wouldn’t. He thinks of Kurogane arming him without hesitation on their second meeting, even letting him keep the knife. He thinks of Kurogane’s behavior towards the children in the bowling alley, his willingness to help keep them out of trouble with their respective guardians. And there is, of course, the obvious—Fai finds him terribly attractive. He heaves a long sigh, merely thinking about it, and he sends out a text:

Are you planning to stay in the city for long?

He looks out the window and sees Chii approaching, crossing the parking lot, a dying streetlight flickering in yellow above her. He beams at her when she gets into the back seat, tucking her vinyl suit into its cover. She pulls the compartment open on the middle seat and tosses her suit into the back.

“Hyuuuuu!” Fai faux-whistles. “That took a while—especially for you, Chii.”

She glowers. “It’s not my fault the crew took so long to show up. And I hate when you make that sound.”

“Eh? But that’s how I whistle.”

“It’s not whistling!” she corrects him, for probably the thousandth time.

The driver wordlessly turns off the blinkers and maneuvers back into the traffic of the night. Fai smiles and fishes a wipe out from his messenger bag. “You have a little something on your cheek. May I?”

Chii snatches it from his hand, rubbing her face clean. Fai laughs at her a little, shaking his head. She holds the used, bloodied wipe out to him, and he puts it in a ziplock bag, tucks it away. She eyes him for a moment, a sly smile beginning to take root. Fai knows whatever comes next, it won’t be good.

“Wanna see something?” she asks. “It’s a surprise. Close your eyes.”

“A way to torment me, no doubt,” Fai remarks with a laugh. Chii fishes a severed finger out of her pocket, still warm in its plastic bag, and uses it to poke Fai. He opens his eyes and looks down at it, promptly jumping out of his skin, pressing closer to the inside of the car door. He shuts his eyes again, grimacing. “Oh, terrible!”

“You’re such a wuss,” Chii laughs. “I can’t believe you never grew out of that. What kind of assassin

are

you, anyway?”

“A very nice one,” Fai says. “Put it away, pretty please? I’m your favorite brother.”

“Well, you’re, like, my

only

one, so it’s slim pickings.”

But she does put it away, back into the cooler they have in the backseat, tucked into the center console. Fai shudders one last time, his shoulders scrunched up to his ears, and he suggests, “If you want to traumatize me so badly, you at least owe me a couple hours out. I don’t have anything else on my to-do list for tonight—do you?”

Chii rolls her eyes, but she nods. “Deal. But I want the Tiger Club.”

“You must get bored of it, someday.”

“I mean, probably.”

The driver wordlessly begins changing his course. They settle into the backseat, both wired, if a bit weary.

“Did you tell Hideki it went well?” Fai asks.

She glances up, briefly searching Fai’s face for signs of intent. But he’s in his usual form—a placid, loose smile with perfectly neutral eyes. She shrugs. “He doesn’t need, like, a million check-ins. Do

you

text your assistants every little thing?”

“Well, I don’t have any living with me,” Fai says innocently. “I would keep them updated, though, if I did.”

“Whatever. I don’t need to do that. He minds his business, unlike you.”

Fai clutches his heart, feigning some sort of wound. They arrive at the Tiger Club after a few more minutes, and they make their way to the second floor, taking one of the private rooms for themselves. Chii gets a bottle of Goldschäger for kicks—when Ashura takes her anywhere, he never lets her order it, finding it personally distasteful. Fai doesn’t mind humoring a little rebellion in her at times. Some part of Chii is, perhaps, forever a teenager seeking independence, forging a unique identity at all costs. Her relationship with Hideki is just one part of it.

Hideki had been hired by her father. He was part of the clean-up crew, initially, and he amused her with his antics when they arrived to do their work. None of the others ever dared to speak to her, let alone look her in the eyes, but Hideki did both. Perhaps he had been braver than the others, or more stupid. Knowing what Fai does, now, he privately assumes the latter.

Fai pours a glass. He hands it to her, golden flakes glittering and moving, not yet settled, like the emptied out contents of a snowglobe.

“Your thirty-fifth is coming up,” she tells him. “It’ll be, like, the day of the tournament.”

“Summer solstice,” Fai agrees, smiling. “Think anyone will remember? I was hoping for some gift cards.”

She rolls her eyes. “Who cares? You know that’s not what I was talking about.”

“Ah, don’t remind me,” Fai sighs. Yes—she’s right. He does know. The time is drawing close. “Perhaps some things will be shaken up, given the circumstances. Perhaps

you

could take over, eh?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Chii scolds him. “

I’m

not the one he’s, like, training.”

Fai is quiet for a moment. He tilts his head at her and asks, “Do you know what I’m supposed to do, when that day comes?”

Her posture stiffens slightly. “Even if I did, you know I can’t tell you anything.”

“I thought I’d try, anyway,” Fai admits. “You’ve always bent some rules.”

“And look where it’s gotten me.” Chii gestures at the interior of the room, the space between them, the glass window overlooking the people dancing below. “It’s a

nice

cage, but...”

“Your father loves you,” Fai reminds her gently.

“So what?” she asks. “What good has it done me?”

Fai sees a flash of a memory—Hideki pleading with a peculiarly calm Ashura, his hand fixed to the table, the knife positioned over the base of his pinky. Fai shakes his head, shuddering, and has a long sip from his glass. Her glare flickers away from him. She slouches slightly where she sits, frowning, peering through the glass hole in the floor. People dance beneath them, lights flashing in neon. The colors flash across her face, changing beat by beat. The music is muted from where they are; the rooms are mostly soundproofed.

“Do you even

want

to take over?” she asks, a bit more quietly than she might ask other things.

“Well, it’s my duty,” Fai replies. “I don’t think anyone should

want

that power.”

“

I

want it,” Chii says, and she looks at him expectantly. “It was supposed to be me, you know. It would’ve been mine if Daddy hadn’t figured out about Hideki. You better pray he doesn’t find out what you’re up to with that Daidouji guy.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” Fai says innocently.

“Ugh, forget it. Let’s just drink.”

They toast, and they drink. After they’re brimming with enough alcohol, they exit the room, and dip down to the ground floor. Chii pushes into the crowd of dancers. She sways and moves, shaking her head from side to side. Whenever a stranger gets too close, her hair flies out, hitting them, thus creating a circle of space around her. Fai keeps an eye on her as he maneuvers away from the main crowd, having felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulls himself aside, toward a wall, and digs it out.

Kurogane’s response:

I’ll leave after we have a fair bowling match.

Fai can’t help but smile at the screen. Chii is right—he should know better—he’s seen how these things go—he knows what Ashura did to Hideki—he knows what nearly happened to Chii—and yet—and yet!

He won’t have much free time left, soon. He might as well make use of it, now, before it’s gone. When he’s head of the family, there’s no telling how busy he’ll be. But it’s nice, indulging this for the time being. He replies:

LOL. Good luck ;-)

Fai weaves back into the crowd in high spirits, finding Chii dancing alone, her hair swinging around her in long, blond ribbons. He catches one of her hands, and twirls her, laughing. They dance until the energy is out of their systems, and in the car ride home, Fai rests his head against the window, shutting his eyes, his thoughts pleasantly occupied. Beside him, knowing he isn’t watching her, Chii sits stony-faced, thinking of other things.
  
Fai is given the final location:

The Shop

. He only visited it once, ten years ago, when Ashura had sent him to retrieve Chii, but the exterior has not changed much since then—or, to be exact, the environment

around

it hasn’t, given that Fai’s mission is to see if the tarp that had been covering it had hidden any new changes. Fai decides to honor what Kurogane asked of him. He calls Kurogane as he’s heating up dinner, puts him on speakerphone: “Hi, Kuro-pippi.”

“For the last time, it’s

Kurogane

,” Kurogane’s voice crackles out, bouncing off the counter. Fai snickers.

“Oh, I know. I was thinking about you. How about a date?”

“Did you just call to bother me, or is this going anywhere?”

“I don’t know, stud. That’s up to you. Where do you want to take it?” Fai laughs. Kurogane makes some disgruntled noises. “I have a location, and I believe you asked to come along.”

Kurogane audibly sighs. He agrees to meet him about a mile away from the location. After Fai hangs up, he takes his meal from the microwave and pokes it, frowning. He left it in for at least a minute too long. It’s as solid as rock.

They meet about a mile south of

The Shop

, first, with Fai having left the driver some distance back for privacy. He spots Kurogane sitting outside a cafe, foot tapping impatiently, reading something, a half-consumed smoothie sweating on the table beside him. He’s in business casual dress, this time, the blazer slung lazily over his shoulder, the tie undone. He’s at least done as Fai asked; they both look like they’re heading to the same meeting. Fai approaches, leaning on the back of Kurogane’s chair, and looks over his shoulder to see what the man is reading. It appears to be a comic of some sort. Kurogane barely stirs, not startled. He asks, without turning his head, “Are you actually armed, this time?”

“Don’t you worry about me, big guy,” Fai says, patting his hip where his gun is, thankfully, actually in its holster. “It’s always interesting to see you dressed up, Kuro-chu.”

Kurogane looks up at Fai over his shoulder, frowning. “

Kurogane.

Don’t complain—it’s what you told me to wear.”

“Why would I complain?” Fai asks. “You clean up nicely.”

Kurogane rolls his eyes, but he sits up straighter than before, perhaps a little more flattered than he would admit.

Fai drops into the other open chair at the table. He pulls a napkin loose from its dispenser and begins sketching something on it: a miniature map of their destination. The Shop is unusual in many ways, including its location relative to other things. It’s in the business district, sandwiched between two large office buildings. A narrow but long alleyway marks a straight path towards the back of the house—a route that is neither visible nor known to anyone who might be walking by the front-facing facade. Fai knows the back alleys of the area well enough, however, to be aware of this option. Finishing his sketch, he slides it across the table. Kurogane leans over to look at it.

“Weird setup,” he notes, shutting his comics. He tucks the book into what is apparently quite a deep pocket in his pants. Kurogane points at the alley leading towards the back of the building, lightly tracing lines where the other buildings are implied. “There’s almost no space between these. We can only be funneled in from the front or back—no element of surprise. There’s no chance we aren’t getting ambushed on this one.”

“Certainly,” Fai agrees. He eyes Kurogane’s tie, hanging unevenly through his collar. “Well, we’ll need to do something about that, first.”

“About what?”

“Your tie!” he chides.

“Who cares?” Kurogane grumbles. “I was just going to get rid of it. It’s restrictive.”

“Yes, but professional,” Fai tells him. “May I?”

With a sigh, Kurogane nods. Fai adjusts it accordingly, and with that, they begin heading south. Overhead, the sun is becoming hotter, a white ball of heat. They begin weaving a path towards the business district, watching the surroundings change: the buildings grow taller, shinier; the people grow increasingly professional in dress; the coffee shops become less local. They begin to resemble everyone around them, if not for their own unusual heights. Kurogane assesses the scenery, skeptical.

“Why would she have a store here, of all places?”

“Mysterious, isn’t it?” Fai wonders. “You’re new to this city. You don’t know much. But before Clow died, she had all sorts of bacchanals at the shop. The guest list was always notable—celebrities, performers, artisans, academics—whoever interested her. It was really more of a clubhouse than anything else, in truth. I never saw her sell a thing.”

“So you’ve been there?”

Fai smiles at him. “It was a long, long time ago.”

Kurogane stares at him for a few moments. They continue on. Fai leads them down the first alley, the one that will eventually wind them towards the back of

The Shop

, and they both look up at the buildings around them, searching for figures in shadow along the rooftops, or any glimpse of something amiss. Fai watches for signs of motion from windows as they walk. In a good fifteen minutes, they’ll reach the final alley, where they can, perhaps, expect the worst.

“You know, I’m a bit sad the tournament starts so soon,” Fai admits.

“Why? I’m eager to get it over with.”

“That’s quite like you, eh?” Fai wonders, laughing. “But I can’t help wanting more time.”

“More time for what?”

“I don’t know. More time out and about. Relaxing. Enjoying life. I would’ve liked to bowl again.”

“You aren’t a dead man,” Kurogane scolds him. “Don’t speak like one.”

Fai is quiet for a moment. His smile softens, saddens. The sentence prickles something in his mind, an uneasy, loose thread. He stops walking. “Why are you really here with me, Kurogane?”

Kurogane pauses to look over his shoulder, evidently startled by his own name, finally spoken without the usual butchering. “Fai?”

“You don’t know me well enough to say things like that,” Fai says easily. “So what is your real play?”

Kurogane stares. “There’s no play.”

“There’s always a play. I’m not as foolish as you think.”

“You don’t know what I think,” Kurogane counters. “I knew you were smart, the second we met, but you’re missing something obvious.”

Fai notices it immediately: the gleam of metal hurling through the air. He yanks Kurogane downward, both of them ducking its path past their heads. The star vibrates in place, lodged in the wall. They both look at it and then look at each other. It’s already begun. Kurogane grabs Fai’s arm, firm, insistent.

“This conversation isn’t over,” he warns.

“Well, I suggest we table it for now,” Fai returns.

The next star goes flying at a strange angle, Fai quickly deducing he should be looking further back, up, and to the left. Kurogane looks there, too, but his gaze flies to something more suddenly pressing—a man barrelling towards them, a boxcutter in hand. He jumps to attention, blade already out in a smooth swipe up his own sleeve. Fai is briefly distracted, seeing Kurogane fight up close—he moves beautifully, fluidly, the knife an easy extension of his hand. Practiced moves—not at all like a newcomer to the field. Fai snaps back to the situation when he catches another glimpse of bright steel hurdling his way; he ducks from its path and retrieves the gun from his holster, adjusting the safety, searching the skyline for the culprit. He sees someone at the back corner of a rooftop, operating some sort of contraption. He understands, suddenly

.

“Oh, how novel!” Fai says aloud.

Beside him, Kurogane drags the knife out of the assailant’s arm, shooting Fai a look of puzzled irritation. “Mind speaking up? I’m a little busy.”

“They’re launching the stars at us, honey,” Fai shouts. “Not throwing them! They have some sort of cannon.”

“That explains some things.”

“Right?”

Kurogane ducks a strike, delivers a sharp knee to the assailant’s crotch, manages to kick him into the opposite wall just as Fai takes aim and fires. The stranger hits the wall in a bloody mess, Fai only looking long enough to see if he’s dead or not. The man drops, landing on his side, his boxcutter skidding across the alley. Fai points quickly to where he saw the launcher—the angle they need to be guarding themselves from—Kurogane yanks a dumpster to swipe a wider angle, so they can have a better buffer between themselves and the star launcher. They sink behind it, about to form some strategy forward, when Fai’s eyes move back towards the corpse. He notices something: the goldenrod corner of an envelope peeking from his pockets. Likely the person’s contract for this job. Someone’s sloppiness might answer a question for him.

“Oh!” Fai exclaims, lighting up. “Lucky us! I think I’ve found a clue!”

“Well, figure it out later,” Kurogane complains, poking his head around the edge of the dumpster. “I hear feet. Get ready.”

Fai pulls the envelope from the man’s pocket and immediately freezes at what he sees: an awfully familiar family crest, a

C

pressed into a wax seal. Beside him, Kurogane suddenly jumps up, shouting something. But Fai is distracted. He thinks, at first, it can’t be true. He must be mistaken. But it is the Celes crest, stamped personally by Ashura on his assignments, his reports, his jobs. If the person is doing a Celes job, then they surely would know who Fai is, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t that keep them from attacking? Or—

Would that be the point?

Something strikes him across the back of the head—Fai only avoids a harder hit by managing to shift at the last second—and Fai whirls around, knocking his attacker back with an elbow. He starts to aim at the man’s head, but he’s seized by an awful curiosity: “Is this a Celes or Reed job?”

“Take your pick,” the man snarls.

The man smacks the gun from Fai’s hands just as Fai pulls the trigger, and the bullet roars, shooting too close to Fai’s own head for his comfort. It’s an abrasive, hard sound, and Fai instinctively flinches back, away from it, only for the man to shove him into the ground, squeezing Fai by the throat. He slams Fai’s head into the gravel once, twice, thrice, maybe more—Fai loses count—when he opens his eyes, he sees flashes of the man’s face in shadow, and the bright summer sky above him in the distance, glorious and wonderful. Fai’s vision goes spotty. How strange, to die in these circumstances, to be left wondering if Ashura had put a hit out for

him.

But perhaps it’s better to die like this, not knowing.

Fai sees the motion happen in a vivid, red flash: Kurogane’s blade shoots out of nowhere, flying from the back of the assailant’s neck and emerging through the front with a fine spray of blood. The head is lopped off. It tumbles from the neck and falls merely feet from Fai’s own head. He is too horrified to make a noise, frozen in place. Kurogane grabs the body, which is still braced, not yet recognizing its own death, by the back of the shirt and yanks it off Fai. His red eyes are wild and sharp like an animal’s, Fai’s own animal ones staring back, too terrified to blink.

When they fought before, at the warehouse, Fai hadn’t actually seen what Kurogane could do. He had only learned that Kurogane was, indeed, fast. But this is too fast. Beheading a body takes more time, more force—it isn’t something that can be done so quickly and smoothly it resembles a hot knife to butter. Fai thinks of his sister calling him after a poached job, complaining that her target had been taken down in less than twenty seconds, completely beheaded. He thinks of constant whispers pouring in his ear over the past three months, things he discounted as idle gossip from a population eager for entertainment and ghost stories.

Then Fai turns his head to the side, sees his assailant’s severed head, gore and all, and promptly faints.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Fai dreams. It’s a dream he has had before, a memory, something he does not care to revisit in his waking life. He is small, the world looking enormously out of proportion to his younger eyes. It’s quite dark inside. They lost power. The house is getting cold. In his arms, he holds his twin brother, who stays asleep, his blond hair clotted with clumps of something red and pink. On the floor, his mother and grandmother lay face down, halos of dark blood coloring the floor around their heads. Fai is too afraid to touch them. He watches their backs, hoping to see the familiar rise and fall of a breath, however improbable, but it never comes. They remain still.

He tries the phones again, but there is nothing: not even a dial tone. He tries the lights, but nothing turns on. Fai tries the nightlights. He has always been terribly afraid of the dark, which his brother teased him for, despite sharing the exact same fear. His brother. On some level, Fai understands something: none of his family members are asleep, no matter how much he might wish it. The people responsible left him alive. He doesn’t know why. He can’t remember what happened.

Outside, the wind howls. The snow falls in heavy, fast clumps. If he is going to get help, he will have to wait for the storm to pass, first, and even then, there isn’t another house around for miles. Can he make this journey alone? Surely he can’t. He’s too small.

He sits in silence on the sofa near the bay window, the vinyl creaking under his weight. His grandmother had covered the furniture back when she had a dog, but even when the dog died, she had never taken the vinyl casing off, having planned to adopt another down the line. He has his brother in his arms, clutched tight, still warm and limp. The house creaks, the storm’s wind breaking against its walls. He waits. He doesn’t know how long. He begins imagining the storm will never stop, and he will never be able to get them help. He watches from another corner of the room. The tears fall, but he does not feel them.

The front door gives easily, having been left unlocked by the people who broke in earlier. A flurry of flakes spins inside, a wave of freezing air following. A large man steps inside. Fai sees it quite vividly: the man’s long, shiny black hair; how the vinyl suit over his clothes reflects the light; how the man walks in and approaches Fai’s mother’s body before he looks at everything else, getting on one knee, smoothing her bloodied, blond hair away from her face. He says nothing, silently putting a hand on her cheek. He shuts her eyes. She looks like she’s sleeping.

Fai makes a sound without meaning to, and the man snaps to attention, surprised, looking over his shoulder. Fai stays frozen on the couch, clinging to his brother’s body, watching the stranger in terror. Neither have expected to see one another. Fai should run, hide, and yet, he cannot move, let alone blink. The man approaches him slowly, crouching on the floor so they are each at eye level.

“Are you from Hell?” Fai asks.

The man turns, looking at the bodies on the floor, and the body beside Fai. He smiles at him with sad eyes.

“No,” the man says, “but I can understand your confusion.”

“There were others earlier,” Fai says. He tightens his hold over his brother’s body and squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself. “If you’re here to kill me, just do it.”

The man is silent for a few moments. He clears his throat, shaking his head.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says. “I heard something happened here, and I came to clean it up. I can’t say I was expecting to find anyone who was…”

“Alive,” Fai finishes.

The man nods. They both look at Fai’s brother.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Fai asks. “I think they’re all dead.”

“Yes,” the man agrees, nodding. “They can’t be helped. But the two of us—we’re still alive.”

Fai stares at him. “But why?”

The question seems to take the man by surprise. Something flashes in his face. “I don’t know why,” he admits. “But when we lose people we love, we must keep going for them. We can honor their lives by promising to take care of our own.”

“Did you lose someone you loved, too?”

The man’s smile seems to strain, his brow quivering. “Yes,” he says. “You are a child. This is not a pain you should already know.”

Fai looks down at his brother, the horrible wound that had cracked his skull apart. He looks at his mother, her shut eyes. He looks at his grandmother, her face turned away from him. He looks at the house around them, the evidence of his loving family: his drawings and his brother’s framed on the walls, report cards on the fridge with star-shaped magnets, the chairs and music stand still set up in the living room from the concerts he and his brother had put on for their family. Outside, the wind howls, wolflike and sorrowful. There is no one left. Why is he the only one remaining? How can he move forward, all alone in the world?

“We shouldn’t stay here,” the man tells him. He gives the boy an encouraging look, offering his hand. “Well, then—shall we go?”

Fai looks at the man’s hand, covered in a thin layer of clear vinyl. He sees his own hand outstretched towards it, bloody and small and shaking. Their hands connect.

“What’s your name?” the man asks.

Fai looks at his brother’s body, the face unrecognizable from its damage. And he looks at the man, one who he would later consider analogous to a father. He swallows.

“Fai,” he says.

“Fai,” the man repeats, nodding. “I’m Ashura.”

Yes. The circumstances of their meeting. An adult Fai remembers the rest of that night and what occurred after, each memory thudding in his mind like a heartbeat. Ashura had taken him home and a nice woman who worked for the family washed the gore from his hair. Chii had stared at him from the doorway, frowning, either unwilling or unable to approach him, a strange visitor in her house. They stared at one another, neither knowing what to do. She turned up her nose at first, told her father, “I won’t share a room with him”, and walked off.

“Don’t mind her,” Ashura reassured him. “She’s been adjusting to life without her mother.”

“Is her mother dead?” Fai asked.

After a moment, Ashura offered his honesty: he nodded.

Fai looked at the doorway where she had been standing previously. He thought about their twin griefs. Perhaps, with time, they would understand each other, maybe even grow on each other.

Everything grew on Fai, even though he spent those early years desperately clutching memories of his birth family. His journals were full of everything he remembered about them, no matter how insignificant. His mother was a journalist. She covered dangerous stories. She swore she was retiring after she finished her last one–a story she would, in fact, never finish. His father died when he was too young to remember him, but was apparently a gifted musician, and an eccentric character, at least based on how his mother and grandmother described him. His brother–his identical twin–was always more of the musical genius amongst them when it came to strings; Fai had always been better at piano.

But these pieces of his history–they felt somewhat hopeless to hold. He had no other living relatives left. And at times the grief was simply too great to withstand. Eventually, he put these journals away, and ceased thinking of his past, lest the weight of it destroyed his present. It was important that he could survive the present, that he could perform as expected, that he could prove his worth. Besides–all of that struggle did result in something genuine. He remembers the first time he made Chii laugh, how the sound was surprising and joyful and so very human. He remembers the first time Ashura trusted him with something substantial, how Fai understood, at last, that regardless of his history, he had found footing here, in this odd and often dangerous world. His connections to the Celes family had become easy, natural, ingrained.

Yes–yes–it’s true. It’s true that he has fought a lot of this life, that he has wished repeatedly for the impossible–for his birth family to return, somehow–but it’s true that he loves this family, that he cares about their safety and happiness, that he is willing to kill for that, even if no one understands his position, even if he has had no other choice.

Fai wakes up sweating, heart racing.

Where is he? He’s inside an unfamiliar apartment. The room smells different, stuffy, a bit of dander—a cat? He hears the sound of metal tinkering—some activity in a kitchen. But he knows these things cannot be right. He doesn’t have a cat. No one can be in the kitchen—he lives alone. He opens his eyes and tries, as his head pounds, to make sense of his surroundings. It’s a rather interesting room: purple walls, curtains in an abstract 70’s floral pattern, a bureau and a dresser in an unusual lilac finish. He takes note of the clock on the wall, a silver fixture shaped like a crescent moon. The lack of clutter and the room’s neatness indicates it isn’t lived in—probably a guest room. Where is his gun? He pats around his waist, but finds he doesn’t recognize the clothes he’s in. They’re too large. What is going on? Fai manages to roll out of the bed, landing on hands and knees, and scans the room for weapons.

Luckily, on the top of a nearby bureau, he finds most of his personal effects: his work phone, his personal phone, his wallet, a pocketknife, mace, the miniature spritz of his current cologne, and the knife Kurogane gave him—however, his gun is missing, as are his regular clothes. He checks his phones and finds them both still functioning. He opens his wallet and finds everything where it should be, his cards and cash accounted for. But the gun troubles him. Did someone want him less armed? Should he tell Ashura? Chii? No–if he does, he’s outing the alliance. And so Fai must act alone.

He grabs the knife and clicks it open, exiting the room, finding the door opens into a long, skinny hallway. At the end of it, he sees what appears to be a more open space: perhaps a kitchen and dining room combination. He glances at the walls as he begins to slowly move forward, scanning them for anything familiar. There are several artistic prints—either naked women or fairly fashionable ones.

As Fai creeps to the end of a hallway, nearing the kitchen, he hears the metallic sounds increasing in volume—he’s getting closer to the source, to who has brought him here. Someone grunts, as if trying to reach something that is simply too far away. He goes still, listening, and stays quiet when a large, white cat suddenly dashes across the kitchen, zipping in and out of view. A loud, insistent meow peals out.

“Just wait, Mokona,” a voice scolds the animal. “I’m busy, alright?”

Kurogane’s voice. Kurogane. He can see the man beheaded above him again, the effortless swipe of the blade, the unreadable look on Kurogane’s face when he stood there, pulling the headless body off Fai. Fai stands with his knife at the ready, heart pounding.

It’s true that Kurogane helped him. It’s true that Kurogane was at the scene of an ambush twice, that Kurogane saved his life, that he even armed him. But there is no coincidence in this world, and there is no good will without a motive. And as Fai stands in this stranger’s house, he assembles the pieces of a rather sordid puzzle. Kurogane is, undoubtedly, very experienced in this field. But he was lacking in the sort of intelligence Fai had at the ready. It would only have been too convenient for him to happen upon the same ambush as Fai, to save him, to even stage another one where Fai might learn that Ashura planned to kill him. It’s a strategic maneuver that makes much more sense than what Fai has, embarrassingly enough, been otherwise entertaining: genuine interest.

Fai makes his move in a wild rush, flying out from the hallway into the kitchen directly into Kurogane, who is apparently occupied with something at his dining room table, twisting to reach something behind him with his shirt pulled up to his neck, and unable to defend himself in time. They topple onto the tiled floor, two chairs sent scattered, legs up. Fai aims the knife at Kurogane’s throat just as the man punches him squarely in the gut, almost knocking the wind out of him. Fai winces but continues pinning the other man down, trying to jam the knife into his neck as Kurogane grabs the handle, fighting it, pushing it away from him. Their hands shake in the center. Nearby, the cat hisses and yowls, the hair on its back raised and spiked.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Kurogane snaps.

Kurogane shoves with enough force that Fai has to scramble backwards, lest he cut himself on his own weapon. Kurogane gains leverage, this time, pinning Fai to the floor. He struggles to snatch the knife away, Fai’s fingers wrapped around the hilt too tightly.

“I figured you out,” Fai says. Kurogane tries to pin his free hand down, but Fai bites him hard enough to draw blood. Kurogane shakes his free hand out, swearing. “You can’t trick me anymore. I won’t turn on Ashura.”

“He’s trying to kill you, idiot!” Kurogane retorts.

Fai knees Kurogane in the groin, and the shock briefly gives Fai room: he scrambles out from under the other man. Kurogane is knocked down, wincing, about to get back up, but he stops as the blade touches the side of his throat. Fai can kill Kurogane in an instant, and they both know it. Kurogane looks back at Fai, sweating but stubborn, frustration visible in his eyes. Both of them sit panting, trying to catch their breath; to Fai’s own shame, his eyes begin burning, the threat of tears looming. He thinks of the man who found him surrounded by carnage, who took him from it, dusted him off, gave him his life.

“You’re wrong,” Fai says.

“Aren’t you Ashura’s successor?” Kurogane asks, the metal still flush to his neck.

“I can’t speak on that,” Fai says: automatic, immediate, his easy answer.

“Fine. Then I’ll just speak in hypotheticals. If I were Ashura and you were my successor, I’d never let you put yourself in the running for this,” Kurogane says plainly. “I wouldn’t have you

apparently

spinning so many plates that you forget to arm yourself when you walk into a trap. And I sure as hell wouldn’t

send you into a trap

in the first place

.

Twice, even!”

Fai’s mask of a smile tightens across his face, armored.

“Well, let’s pretend you’re right,” Fai says. “Why would he do this?”

“You’re not fit for the job.”

Fai tilts his head. “How do you know?”

“Because you haven’t actually killed me,” Kurogane says.

Fai stares, the smile unchanged, but the hurt blooming monstrously within him. Kurogane is right. He doesn’t love to kill. He never has. It’s only been an unfortunate task he must complete for—approval. Survival. Safety. Fai slowly withdraws the blade, clicking it shut. They both pull themselves off the floor, sitting upright: Fai with his back against the refrigerator, and Kurogane with his back against the kitchen counter. Their legs are sprawled, Fai’s left leg looped into Kurogane’s. Kurogane reaches up on the counter, swiping an envelope off it—the familiar goldenrod color, the red

C

seal—and offers it to the other man.

“It was right beside you,” he explains. “Look it over, yourself.”

Fai reaches out and takes it, his hands feeling strangely limp. He examines its exterior again—the dried blood and dirt is a new addition. Evidence of the scuffle he missed. He slides his thumb under the lip, opening it, and peers inside. Immediately, something sinks within him. The glossy photographs look exactly like the sort Fai has seen for his own job assignments: recent pictures taken by someone who doesn’t know they’re being watched. He sees a man in his apartment, looking down from a window into his neighbor’s yard. He sees a man emerging from the Tiger Club, his eyes searching for something across the street. He sees a man standing before a subway station, looking over his shoulder at someone out of frame, his hand half-raised to wave goodbye.

It’s him. He was being tailed the entire time. How didn’t he realize? He swallows.

He sifts through the items until he finds the assignment slip, and searches it for something. He knows what these look like when he gets them—how they don’t seem to report much about what they’re truly requesting—and he seeks out the only thing that matters: the signature. It could be easy to forge a package like this, Fai reasons, but the signature—he would recognize it.

And there it is: Ashura’s.

He hangs his head, his body feeling terribly heavy. Fai hears himself laugh: a short, bitter sound. It’s puzzling, but maybe it isn’t. He isn’t truly Ashura’s son, even if he considers himself Chii’s brother. He’s always known that, on some level. If any of the Celes children are expendable, it’s him. Maybe the training was a sham. Maybe he was just being kept as busy as he was so that he’d slip, fall, be all the easier to remove from the scene. And he almost was, had he not happened into Kurogane when he did. Fai lifts his head and smiles sadly.

“I see,” he says.

He tosses the envelope aside, glossy pictures fluttering to the floor, the slip included. Kurogane says nothing at first, merely looking at Fai, something grim in his face. He reaches over, clasping a warm hand on Fai’s knee, squeezing it. They remain like that for nearly a minute, mostly still, Kurogane’s hand steady on the other man’s leg.

“What will you do?” he asks.

“I suppose I’ll see him soon to report back on today’s findings,” Fai replies. He makes a vague, flouncy gesture with his hand in the air.  “What else can I do?”

Kurogane furrows his brow. “He just tried to kill you. Are you out of your mind?”

“Perhaps.” Fai considers for a moment, tilting his head. “Is it any less dangerous than sharing a room with the Wolf of Suwa?”

Kurogane’s eyes briefly widen with shock, face going stiff. Fai just smiles expectantly. Kurogane settles after a few seconds, face clearing, perfectly calm.

“What do you think?” Kurogane returns.

“Well, common sense says you’re too young to be the Wolf—and that if you

were

the Wolf, you would have been a child at the time,” Fai replies. “But I have a feeling common sense has no place here.”

“I was eight,” Kurogane says: simple as that.

They both remain sitting, legs touching, Kurogane’s hand still resting on Fai’s leg. Eight years old. The Wolf’s career lasted five years. If what Kurogane says is true, he had stopped killing by age thirteen, and then had presumably dropped off the face of the earth for the past twenty years. Fai would have begun his career shortly after, before he himself had finished his own puberty. But it’s an outrageous story, isn’t it? That skilled a killer, only eight years old?

“Someone put a hit out on my family,” Kurogane continues. “My family had moved into the neighborhood and opened a restaurant. Fei Wang’s people had come by, asking for money and spies in exchange for permission to keep the business open. My parents were proud people. They refused.”

Fai feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise—a story that feels lived in—one he might actually understand.

“They had killed my father in the restaurant. There was nothing left of him but his hand—they had brought it to the house in a plastic bag. He had a tattoo on that arm. It was just proof that they completed the job, not that I knew at the time.”

Kurogane’s eyes take on a strange quality, one that Fai recognizes. When he looks at Fai, he’s fighting to see him, the present competing with other things. Something turns in Fai’s stomach.

“My mother was sick. When they came to the house that night, she didn’t fight back against anybody. She hid me under the kitchen sink, since I was small enough to fit in the cupboard. I could see everything through a crack. They were distracted. Talking shop. I crawled out and I took my father’s sword off the wall, and that was all I remember from that night. Apparently, they kept sending people out, and I just kept destroying them. I wanted to kill the person responsible.”

Fai’s head spins. It dawns on him, a wave building. That rule of the tournament.

“No injury or death will be pursued legally,” Fai mutters. “Of course you don’t care about the prize. You’re here to kill Fei Wang Reed.”

Kurogane stirs back to the present, as if a trance has been broken. He nods. The two men study one another with clear eyes, both having revealed more cards than they typically would like. Kurogane—a legend revived, seeking revenge. Fai—training to be the king of nothing, after all this time.

At last, Kurogane shakes out his head, heaves a sigh, and pulls himself up. “Can you do stitches?”

“Pardon?”

“I got hit in the back,” Kurogane says plainly. “I can’t reach it. So can you do stitches or not?”

Fai blinks at him. “I suppose, if it isn’t too severe. I’m squeamish.”

“Squeamish?”

“I know.” Fai smiles with embarrassment. He clears his throat. “But I can try.”

They both get back up, fixing their clothes, and Kurogane returns to the dining room table, where he has already laid out a suture kit. Fai washes his hands and glances over, taking note of a nearby bin full of evidence of a recent fixup: wipes, emptied wrappers, gauze that has turned brown from old blood. Kurogane picks the chairs back up, returning them to their proper place. They take a seat beside one another, Kurogane turning his back to Fai, pulling his shirt back over his head again. He sits backwards on the chair, resting his head on his forearms. Fai studies the man’s broad, rough back as he collects supplies, sterilizing everything in advance.

Kurogane has clearly had a warlike, wild life. Over the muscle, he is striped in scars of various shapes and sizes. But Fai sees the wound in need of obvious care: a gash by his left shoulder, not in a location where Kurogane could reasonably sew it shut himself. It’s luckily not a horrible wound, merely an inconvenient one. Fai can handle it.

The cat—Mokona—approaches them both, nudging its head into their legs, leaving a visible trail of white hair behind. The light pours in from the window nearby, the sunlight golden, filtered through the light green leaves of a tree just outside the apartment. It glitters across Kurogane’s open back, even highlighting a few floating dust particles in the air.

Fai hesitates to begin. He looks at his own hands and he looks at the back of Kurogane, sees the rise and fall of his ribcage as he breathes in, breathes out. How strange it is, Fai thinks, that this man is willing to trust him, given what he has done, given who he is. Fai is not even so sure he trusts himself, not with the questions in his mind. Yet, as he considers that, he realizes he might actually trust Kurogane.

Swallowing, Fai begins the work. It’s not what he’s used to doing. Fai does not actively put himself in situations that require much first aid. Most of his jobs allow him to be distant from the target, to reduce the risk of personal harm. On his early jobs, he needed to stitch himself up more often. He could never patch up the large wounds himself—Chii would do it for him, complaining all the while, albeit not seriously. Yet somehow, it feels important that he does this, and that he does it successfully. He leans in closer to keep the flesh together. Kurogane tenses slightly. If he’s uncomfortable, he isn’t saying so, but Fai notices the difference. He decides to offer a distraction.

“Well, what happened when I fainted?”

“I had to lug you around and fight one-handed,” Kurogane complains. “It was a pain in the ass.”

“Hyuuuuu! One-handed!”

“The guy with the star launcher was pretty annoying. That’s what hit me.” Kurogane takes a sharp little breath. Fai tries to move quickly, wary of making the process slower and more painful than it ought to be. “I took us as close to

The Shop

as I could without being seen and got a couple pictures, but not a ton. You were getting heavy.”

“Aww, you got pictures?” Fai asks, laughing. “So thoughtful—you did my homework for me.”

“Look, I did what I could,” Kurogane grumbles. He has his head hanging over the back of the chair rather casually. Mokona sits directly in front of him, peering curiously into his face. “Your shirt’s in the wash, by the way, but the suit is another story. They ripped the arm off. They weren’t messing around.”

“What a shame,” Fai murmurs, pouting. “I liked that suit.”

He completes the stitches and remains where he is at first, his hands still on Kurogane’s back. He traces an old scar along its path, an almost circular one. It’s a curious wound. He catches himself, realizing what he’s doing—surely, Kurogane should tell him to move—but Kurogane just stays in place, his head resting on his forearms, his breath even. Fai clears his throat, grasping Kurogane’s uninjured shoulder.

“All done, big guy,” he says. “I’d give you a lollipop, but I’m fresh out.”

Kurogane reaches back and up with his left hand, clasping it over Fai’s on his right shoulder. Fai goes still, surprised. He senses something not quite spoken, a lingering vibrato in the air, a question, an offering. Fai feels a tug within his chest, a thread pulled taut, something that could pour out of him if he was only tipped a fraction. He wants to move. He wants it to spill. But if it does, what will happen to him? And so Fai, swallowing, does the only thing he can–he stays where he is, their hands connected and warm.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

During Fai’s final visit back to the house in the city, the air feels different. It’s late; most of the lights are out. The same young woman takes his coat at the door, offering him the same information as before—

Mr. Celes is in his study

—and vanishing. Fai looks at the dim vestibule, turns to his right, and looks at the stairway, the top of it high enough that it becomes a black pit. He flicks the lights on and begins ascending. To his right, he passes the framed pictures on the wall—Ashura, Shashi, Chii—a suspended time, devoid of Fai. He remembers the last house where he lived with his mother, his grandmother’s house, where there were always pictures of him, his brother. He remembers the nightlight in the hallway, its soft golden light. He remembers his mother sitting patiently while he and his brother played their music for her, the fondness in her face. Old memories. He shakes his head, as if to shake them out with it.

Fai begins walking down the hall, seeing Ashura’s study at the end of it, the door only open by a slit. He passes by the room he once lived in, the guest bedroom that became his. He remembers afternoons spent with tutors, wondering if they understood what had happened to him, how he had happened to be there in the first place. He remembers waiting in the dark, lying rigid whenever he heard movement in the night. Every detail of the room is set in deep grooves in his mind, appearing more vivid than real life. He reaches the end, pulls open the door.

Ashura sits at his desk this time, facing away from the door. Fai traces the cold light outlining his profile as he steps inside. Without turning to look at him, Ashura shuts his laptop. He swivels slightly in his desk chair towards him.

“Hello, Fai,” he says. “What did you find?”

Fai’s smile comes quickly. “There appears to be major construction within

The Shop.

It’s what we suspected—that is likely our tournament location.”

“Construction?”

“Yes,” Fai says, nodding. He thinks of the images on his phone, taken hastily by someone else. “From the windows, I saw nothing but hallways. New.”

“A maze?”

“If anyone could make one in such a small place, it’s her,” Fai replies.

Ashura turns his chair fully and looks at Fai appraisingly, arms propped casually on the armrests. “Did you have trouble?”

“Fei Wang Reed sent more people out,” Fai replies, equally casual. He shrugs, smiling. “They were exceptionally motivated, this time. I lost a good suit.”

“Is that so?” Ashura asks. “Were they trying harder than usual?”

“Yes, but they were a bit sloppy.” Fai steps forward, placing the goldenrod envelope on Ashura’s desk, the Celes seal visible upon it, and steps back, smiling at him. He asks, “So do you care to explain this?”

The energy in the room changes immediately. Fai has been patient throughout his training. He has never questioned Ashura’s decisions. But they are running out of time, and Fai is unwilling to play along like usual. Ashura’s brows raise, the smile on his face still polite, restrained, in usual form.

“What exactly has confused you, Fai?” Ashura asks. “Everything you need is right there.”

“No it isn’t. You’ve been training me for years. Even if you had changed your mind, you wouldn’t do something so rash.” Fai tilts his head. “There’s a play being made here, even if I don’t understand it, so enlighten me.”

Ashura is quiet for a little bit.

“Being in charge means having to make difficult choices,” Ashura says, eyeing Fai meaningfully. “I have been tasked with a particularly difficult one, lately.”

Fai approaches him, open-palmed. “I’m a reasonable person. We can find another way out of whatever it is.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t true,” Ashura says sadly, shaking his head.

He sighs as he gets out of the swivel chair, reseating himself in the old Chesterfield, putting the envelope on the lampstand beside it. He sits, his palms pressed politely together, and looks up at the man he has more or less treated as a son since his arrival. Fai follows him, sitting in the other chair, staring steadily back.

“Fai, do you know what happened to my father?” Ashura asks.

“He died,” Fai says.

“Yes, but do you know

how

?”

Fai’s smile creaks across his face, dread in his stomach.

“In our family, the transition to power has always been important,” Ashura begins. “You see—people misunderstand power in this world. My daughter does. Most do. Power is not a tool. It is a burden, something that bloodies the hands. And so it must be captained by someone who understands this. In knowing the consequences of using power, we are able to use it with respect and principle. You see—my own father killed his grandfather to succeed him; my grandfather killed his father, before him, too.”

He turns his head, tilts his head upward when he looks at Fai, his smile half-hearted. “Don’t look so sad—I did it, too, and I loved my father. It isn’t a personal matter.”

“We can break with tradition,” Fai replies quickly, immediately understanding the insinuation. “We don’t have to do that. Surely we can avoid needless death.”

Ashura sits back in his chair, his eyes drifting towards the sliding glass door, outside which sits the balcony.

“I knew you would answer that way,” he muses. “That kind heart of yours was always your biggest trouble.”

Fai searches Ashura’s face for any tell that might suggest a mutable mind. But Ashura appears resigned, perhaps even grateful to have gotten the news off his chest.

“Unfortunately, we will have to do this the hard way, then. Ichihara’s tournament provides a unique opportunity. You might not be able to kill me under normal circumstances, but you might, if conditions were tweaked just so.”

Ashura holds his thumb and index finger just a tiny distance apart, squinting one eye.

“I thought you could use some encouragement, of course,” Ashura continues. “I mixed a few of our own people on the sites. I knew Fei Wang Reed’s people would never kill you, not unless there were unusual circumstances—but our own could at least give you a scare. Perhaps you would notice this. Perhaps you would become suspicious. Perhaps you would even begin keeping secrets from me.”

Fai sits up a little straighter, his heart skipping a worried beat. He looks elsewhere in the room, a warm flash of Kurogane blipping in and out in his mind’s eye.

“You’ve always been smart,” Ashura tells him. “It was smart of you to keep quiet about the Daidouji man. It was smart of you to sit back and watch to see if I would do anything about it. There is a chance I’d do to him what I did to Chii’s assistant, after all, if it was anything personal. And I won’t ask you to lie, Fai–I know it’s personal. But you know my rules.”

Fai cannot look at him. His eyes sting bitterly.

“I know what you’re doing,” Fai says, “but saying these things won’t change my stance. I won’t do it.”

“But it’s what I wish,” Ashura replies.

Fai massages his brow, eyes squeezed shut to hold in tears. Everything spins in his mind, quicker and blurrier and harder to make out clearly. Fai rises from his seat, having collected himself enough to open his eyes once more. He hesitates, hand reaching for the doorknob. A question rises and falls in his mind, unable to be properly formed aloud. Plenty of questions.

You always knew you’d ask this of me, didn’t you?

Or

Did you choose me so that you could spare Chii this burden?

Or

Is this why you even rescued me in the first place—to make me do this?

He clears his throat.

“I’m going to find another way,” Fai says. “Goodnight, sir.”

“Then I’ll wish you luck, I suppose,” Ashura muses. “Goodnight.”

Fai turns and leaves, quickly hopping down the stairs. The assistant—the girl he worried might be too nice, barely looks at him when she hands him back his coat. He shoulders it on, watches her disappear as he gets on the elevator—her dim expression, slowly drawn shut before the doors. He gets into the car, rolls up the partition, and curls up in the backseat. The tears finally surface, hot and irritating, and he lets them fall like snow, in silence.
  
Two days. The tournament will begin in two days. His birthday will pass in two days. He is supposed to kill Ashura in two days. Fai looks at the date on his phone with grim eyes. It is all too soon. He feels lost. But he has loose ends to address, ones that are at least somewhat more immediate than others–he visits Kiishimu in the Tiger Club, who kisses him once on each cheek and slides him something in a box, her eyes glinting knowingly. He checks the contents, satisfied. They’ve chosen a decent room, one not quite as disorienting at the one he shared with Primera. She watches him assess her work, her expression nonplussed.

“It’s quite stylish,” Fai tells her approvingly.

“Of course,” Kiishimu replies, nodding. “You wouldn’t use it if it wasn’t.”

“Ha! You know me well.” Fai grins, a little sheepish, since her assessment is true. “Thank you for this.”

She smiles. “You got me the phone. It was the least I could do.”

“What did you do with it? I can’t help but be curious.”

Kiishimu’s smile seems faraway, muted. She shrugs. “I have a girl working on some things. It’s no one else’s concern.”

“I thought it wouldn’t end there. Do you have plans for revenge, Kiishimu? I won’t interfere.”

“I know you won’t,” Kiishimu replies, “but those are plans to discuss another time, considering the circumstances.”

“Ah, right! I suppose I’ll have to pick your brain later,” Fai hums.

“Yes, you will,” she agrees, something somber reaching her eyes. “Good luck, old friend.”

“Thank you,” he says, flashing her a small smile. “Don’t look so sad–everything will turn out alright.”

Will it? He doesn’t know, but for the moment, he must believe it is true. They kiss one another goodbye on the cheek. Fai collects his things and leaves, his driver taking him to his second destination for the afternoon–

Reed Keepsakes

. When he arrives, he finds Xing Huo where she normally is, seated behind the front desk, glancing up at him from a tablet when he arrives. She sits up a little straighter when they see one another, nodding as Fai waves.

“Xing Huo!” he exclaims. “You look as lovely as always. Business is still running like usual, eh?”

“Yes,” Xing Huo confirms. “Your father’s casinos must still be operational, regardless of how close the date is.”

“Hyuuu! So perceptive.”

She slides her chair back slightly, unlocks a drawer, and begins rummaging through it. Fai approaches the counter, leaning on it, watching her sort through labeled folders. She finds something at last and fishes it out. For a moment, she doesn’t move, but merely sits there, staring at the sealed envelope. Then, without a word, she puts it on the counter and slides it toward him, eyeing him with curious but non judgemental eyes. He can’t bring himself to look in front of her, so he quickly puts the file into his bag and smiles at her.

“How is Syaoran?” Fai asks. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Xing Huo seems to be considering her answer. After a moment, she lowers her voice, and she suggests, “Perhaps you would like to view your file in our back room.”

“Do I have the time, after all?” He finds the clock on the wall and squints at it. He can make out the security cameras in each corner from his peripheral vision. Xing Huo doesn’t want eavesdroppers. He knows a hint when he hears one. “Well, I actually do. Shall we?”

She fixes the sign over the door and locks the front. They meander to the back, shutting themselves into the break room, away from any security cameras. They take a seat near one another. Xing Huo folds her hands on the table, casting Fai a steady gaze.

“Syaoran is leaving,” she says.

“He is?” Fai asks. He glances around the room, wary of a trap. Perhaps someone knows about the bowling evening, and is trying to get information on Syaoran. “Send him my regards.”

“I don’t wish to see Syaoran trapped here forever,” Xing Huo says flatly. Fai manages to stay smiling, but something sinks in his stomach, twisted and confused. Has he gotten Syaoran in trouble? How should he proceed? What is safe to say to her? “My employer punished him for sneaking out to see the girl.”

“Well, I hope he wasn’t punished too badly.”

Xing Huo’s gaze drops, and she studies the table. As she speaks, her interwoven fingers tense and tighten. “He lost an eye.”

The smile falters across Fai’s face. “He lost an

eye

?”

Xing Huo nods stiffly, eyes still focused on the table.

“Fei Wang Reed tore it out,” Xing Huo says, reciting it calmly, as if reading a report aloud. “He nearly died. No one is permitted to see him. And so I am sending Syaoran away–so he can grow up safely. When my employer learns, there will be consequences.”

Fai realizes he’s grasping Xing Huo’s hands before he has conscious awareness of doing so. She stares at him, equally perplexed. Startled, he lets go of her.

“Should you tell me this, Xing Huo?” Fai asks. “Should you trust me?”

“You have already kept his secrets,” she replies, nodding. Fai immediately thinks of the envelope he had found–there were pictures from outside the bowling alley, too. Of course they had seen Syaoran. Of course they knew what had happened. He can’t believe he hadn’t considered it sooner. “I thought I would tell you before the tournament. If something happens to me, I will not have another opportunity.”

“Where are you sending him?”

“He is in a safe house for now,” Xing Huo says, “and I will likely never learn the rest. None of us will. But it means he will have a chance at a normal life.”

“Do you think it’s possible?” Fai wonders. “Think of the sorts of things he’s seen already.”

“It is always possible.” Her certainty surprises him. Xing Huo gets up from her seat. “If you would like to view the file, I will give you privacy.” She pauses. “For the record, I did not put this under Mr. Celes’ tab.”

If this is true, she found the information herself, shielding the rest of the Celes family from knowing anyone wanted it in the first place. A protective measure. Something kind to do. “Well, I owe you a favor.”

“No,” she replies. “The nature of what I found will not be pleasant to you. Please excuse me.”

She politely bows her head and leaves before he can change her mind. Fai waits until the door is shut, until he can no longer hear Xing Huo’s footsteps nearby, and then he swallows, takes the large envelope from his messenger bag, and studies it for a moment. He is afraid to look, in truth. He does not know what he’ll find.

Swallowing, he opens it, and begins to read. It is a story he both knows and doesn’t–one he has both feared learning while simultaneously trying to piece it together. And it begins with his mother.

Twenty years ago, a young woman began causing trouble for the many kings of the underworld: Freya Hibiya. She was a pretty blonde who knew how to sweet talk the right people. She flirted with Fei Wang Reed over drinks, let Kendappa play the harp for her, entertained Clow Reed and Yuuko Ichihara with tall tales during one of their numerous parties in the Shop, and had dinners out with Ashura. She spoke little of her past. For her, yesterday was always full of tragedy: ghosts upon ghosts. And so she appeared on the scene quite suddenly, one day, and, upon charming everyone she met, easily found her place in this dangerous new world. She was smart and subtle and easily overlooked, which she would use to her advantage.

It was an open secret, of course, that Ashura Celes dated many women. He was never unprofessional–rather, he was incredibly courteous–but his wife had just died, and he still wanted to attend the same symphonies and operas they had always attended together. He merely wanted a partner, and Freya found him to be an interesting date: intelligent, polite, subtle, private. The time they spent able to speak spun loops in her mind, winding circles. He shared only a portion of what he felt, leaving her to wonder about the rest.

“Shashi played the cello when we first married,” he reflected of his late wife. “She had such a talent.”

To Freya, he seemed incredibly sad. She was curious about him. It seemed difficult to believe the things she had heard of this man, that he was once a hitman under his own father’s thumb. He just seemed like a grieving widow, politely trying to keep himself intact.

Some things were made quite clear: he could not offer her anything beyond the present moment. He was new in a field where he needed to prove himself, so he had to commit to that before anything else. It suited Freya’s purposes, so she agreed. And with that, they saw each other on and off–out for an elegant evening activity, and back to her house for anything beyond it. Of course, it wasn’t truly her house. She always rented month-to-month wherever she went, as she had to move often.

Freya took a long drive out into the country each weekend. She did not live there–it had become too dangerous to stay with her family–but she made the visits as often as possible. The twins were often asleep by the time she arrived, evidence of their day left around the house in drawings, homework, sheet music. They were good children, very bright, very sweet. Their father had died before they would form their first memories of him, and they had moved from place to place, depending on the sort of work Freya could find. At that time, they were living with Freya’s mother, who was happy to dote on them while Freya was otherwise occupied.

“They’re angels,” she would say. “I couldn’t ask for better children. If only you had been so well-behaved!”

“Well, you know I love trouble,” Freya laughed.

The twins woke in the morning, excited to see her. They had been practicing a song:

Liebestraum

by Liszt. One rushed over to the grand piano and the other gathered his violin. It was a delicate, sweet piece, spilling beautiful notes into their house in the country–the piano playing a calm, steady sound, not unlike rain; the violin a more melodic, sing-song quality. Freya watched her boys sway as they played, as if the music itself pulled them this way, that way. Their father had been the same way, his surroundings seemingly forgotten when it came to a piece he liked.

She, herself, had a piece in progress, but it was a different sort: something that could, upon its completion, connect certain names to certain deeds. It was her riskiest job to date, but Freya had never liked fluff pieces. In another life, she was sure she would have fit right in, sincerely, amongst the dredges of the underworld. They were interesting people. But the twins were young, and precious, and about as naive as their father was when he was living. She couldn’t endanger them. So to every new person she met, she was a single woman, childless, never married.

Of course, Freya was human. And she was not native to that world. As smart and adaptive as she was, she would inevitably miss signs that should have told her to stop, to pull back, to seek help. She didn’t notice the subtle change in the faces of people she spoke to, people she believed were fooled, people who had begun to be suspicious.

In their own private conversations, the many kings of the underworld wondered what to do about her. She was well-loved by Ashura Celes, which complicated matters. But if they let her continue the way she was, their entire world would soon be in grave danger. What could they do?

Yuuko, Clow’s bride of one year, suggested bribery. “Anyone can be swayed, if the price is high enough.”

Kendappa suggested blackmail. “We ought to gather more intelligence and see what we can leverage against her.”

Fei Wang Reed had another idea altogether. “I would like to handle this, myself.”

Clow’s smile wheeled out across the room, placid and lightly entertained, as it often was. If his brother had an idea about something, it certainly involved murder. But it wasn’t an unreasonable suggestion, given the stakes. He knew what people like Freya did, how they operated. Noble causes, quests for truth—these things did not die by bribery or threat. She would continue pursuing them in her own way, and would create problems no one would be capable of imagining down the line.

“Ashura is new in his post,” Clow told the group. “I say we allow my brother to handle this, and we see how Ashura responds. If he proves to be too weak, we might make a meal of the Celes empire.”

And so Fei Wang Reed had sent his people out, tailing Freya to the countryside, where they had gathered additional intelligence. Freya Hibiya was not her name, but Freya Fluorite was, and she was a freelance journalist. She was also a mother. She had a small, blond-haired son—a boy who played many instruments. Fei Wang Reed had looked at the pictures of the boy and thought that he looked strangely similar to Ashura’s own daughter—they could be related, if no one knew any better. But he thought little of it, otherwise; the child would die.

His people moved in slowly, many miles from the city. They cut the phone lines to the house. They cut the power. They moved in while everyone slept, shooting both Freya and her mother before they had a chance to call for help, to warn anyone. They could not find the boy at first. They went from room to room, and were surprised to find one with empty bunkbeds. They saw a small latch on the ceiling and pried it open, finding not one boy, but two identical twins hiding in the attic above the room. It had complicated already complex matters, but the only reasonable thing to do would be to kill them both. He hesitated. He was curious. If he left one alone, how would Ashura respond? Ashura’s own father would have killed the child without issue, but would Ashura? It could be a valuable test. Fei Wang Reed asked the boys which of them should live, and one stared in mute horror, the other volunteering himself to an early grave. The answer was easy. With that, he left.

The news reached the Celes empire. Ashura had to respond decisively. It was true–Ashura wanted to prove himself. He knew what people in this world valued: power, force, might, cunning. They were used to his father. They were not used to him. But his family was known for being the best in “cleaning up”, and so Ashura promptly volunteered this service, even visiting the scene himself. He had found Fai alive inside. Unlike his father, Ashura felt great pity for the boy, who seemed to regard the situation with uncomprehending shock. He simply could not kill him. Besides, his daughter was lonely in the home ever since Shashi died. And so Ashura adopted him.

Fai finds something else in the mix–clippings from a newspaper article–something about two twin boys with the promise of being virtuosos. He reads the caption beneath a black and white image. Two names. One he recognizes and knows. Another that promptly makes his mouth go dry. He hasn’t seen it in some time.

Fai feels quite ill at once, his body seeming too large to be his, the limbs all out of proportion, his vantage point simply too high. He is shocked to see Xing Huo in the room with him once more, as if having been called. She stares down at him, standing by the door, her face unreadable as she looks between the file in his hands and Fai’s eyes. She moves slowly, as if not trusting him to react rationally to anything else.

“Did you know?” he asks.

“I was a child at the time,” she says. “No, I did not know. And I will not share. But what will you do?”

“What will I do?” Fai echoes. Such strange words. An impossible question. He’s dizzy. He squints at her. “What should I do?”

“It is your choice.” Xing Huo thinks about it. “Do you know what they will ask of you in two days?”

“I can’t kill him,” says Fai’s mouth, nervously spilling secrets. Immediately, he’s horrified that he’s said it. Xing Huo, however, nods without surprise. Of course she’s known about it. It seems everyone has. His mouth keeps talking. “I can’t. Even knowing what I know. I just can’t do it.”

“It’s a cruel tradition,” Xing Huo replies, nodding once more.

“It can be changed, can’t it?”

“Time will tell,” she says. She glances up at the wall. Fai follows her gaze, landing on a clock overhead. He wonders if it’s broken until she speaks again: “You may not have noticed, but you have been in here for an hour.”

An hour? How? He immediately jumps out of the seat, shoving the file into his bag. She studies him in silence, a thought visibly brewing in her head, one Fai is both eager to ask about but afraid to hear all at once. He follows her back into the main room. She unlocks the front door, flips the sign back to

open

, and both of them study the world outside for a few seconds. Beneath the scaffolding, people pass on the sidewalks, pushing their grocery carts, taking their jogs, hopping off the buses. She holds the door open for him. As he slides through it, he leaves her with the only gift he can.

“Goodbye, Xing Huo,” Fai tells her. “You’ve been a good friend to me. For that, I am grateful. Thank you.”

She blinks at him, as if puzzled. But she raises her hand and waves goodbye, just once, and with that, Fai leaves.
  
Fai is the first in the car, the partition raised after a brief conversation with his driver. He sits in the back, checking idly on his supplies and equipment. There is no telling what the next twenty-four hours will look like for any of them. Fai would rather be over-prepared. He opens one of the coolers near his feet and gets an energy drink, cracking it open. He checks the time on his phone. The tournament begins in a little over a half hour.

Their first stop is the studio near the Tiger Club Chii occasionally uses, given how frequently she goes there late in the evening. Chii gets in, baseball bats strapped across her back like skis. He snorts when he sees her–it’s a bit ridiculous–but she merely sticks her tongue out at him. She steals an energy drink and settles into the seat beside him, kicking back, relaxing. When she tries the drink, however, her expression sours. She swallows with a grimace.

“Jesus, what’s the flavor? Battery acid?” she asks.

“Aww, it’s just the sugar-free kind.”

“Ugh! Of course it is,” she complains. “Whatever. I’ll drink it anyway.”

Fai sits back, watching her with fond, albeit tired eyes. “You’re in a good mood, eh?”

“Duh. It’s, like, the most interesting job we’ll ever get,” Chii says. “

You

seem totally miserable.”

“I don’t know what will happen today. There’s a good chance it’ll be a bloodbath,” he says. He takes a steady, long breath, gathering courage for what he wishes to say: “So allow me to be frank. We’re family. If anything happens, I want you to know that I love you.”

Chii stares in abject horror, as if Fai has detonated a bomb in the car. Fai feels similarly unsettled, but a fraction freer, some part of the truth voiced at last without layers of irony to protect it. “Oh my god.”

“I do understand,” Fai sighs. “I imagine it’s as awkward for me to say as it is for you to hear it. But don’t you think there’s something wrong with how we’ve been raised, that it’s so uncomfortable?”

“Cut it out,” she sputters.

“Would you ever say it to me?” he asks.

Chii glares at him, her mouth in a firm, flat line.

“It’s not that you wouldn’t, no?” he wonders. “Rather, you can’t.”

Chii looks away. Fai notices something minute: a slight sheen in her eyes, the line of her mouth twitching just once. It’s probably the most he’ll be able to get from her. He clears his throat.

“It’s alright,” he tells her. “You don’t have to say it back. I just needed you to know.”

She glares out the window. The city moves by, the districts changing outside. They’ll collect Ashura in about fifteen minutes. She finally surrenders a small nod.

“Well, glad to get that out of the way,” Fai says brightly. “So, Chii–your father wants me to kill him.”

Chii’s face does something strange: it instantly relaxes. Her posture loosens slightly. She takes a casual sip of her energy drink, wincing slightly at the taste, comfortably back to territory she doesn’t mind covering. “Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

Fai thinks of Primera’s pitying eyes when he saw her last. He smiles at his sister and nods. “It’s quite the predicament. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Sure,” Chii says. She aims a pretend gun at him: her thumb and index finger pointed, the rest folded. “Don’t miss.”

“That’s it?” Fai asks, blinking rapidly. “It doesn’t bother you?”

Chii blinks back at him, equally puzzled. “It’s not, like,

personal

.”

The car stops in front of the Celes penthouse, and Ashura emerges, dressed properly, as if off to attend a corporate event. He settles into the backseat, taking the spot to Fai’s left. Fai feels curiously calm when he looks at Ashura, something clearing his mind, focusing on the task at hand. Fai turns, opening a compartment in the back of the seat, making a show of searching for something, his back obscuring their view. They chatter around him idly.

“Do you even have a weapon?” Chii asks her father. “You look like you’re going to an office, Daddy.”

“Of course, dear. I’m always armed,” Ashura replies. “Are you excited?”

“Um, duh! We’re gonna win, obviously.”

“I know you’re confident, but don’t let your guard down,” he warns her.

Fai, ducking into the compartment in the back, affixes the gas mask to his face, and promptly activates the mechanism on the weapon Primera had eyes on several weeks ago, the one Kiishimu built for him to repay that favor. Instantly, the gas in the air, invisible, scentless, undetectable. Fai pulls himself from the compartment and sits properly, Chii looking at him with a raised brow. Ashura’s posture changes ever so slightly; his smile stretches, plastic.

“Do you really think Rondart would go that route?” Chii asks, surprised, uncomprehending. “I know he likes his little poisons, but that’s, like, overkill.”

“One can never be too safe,” Fai says, somewhat muffled.

“Have any for us?”

“I was checking to see if I did,” Fai says, “but I couldn’t find anything. I’m sorry!”

Chii’s grip on her energy drink loosens a touch. She looks at her own hand with surprise, squinting, and the can drops a centimeter without warning. Strange. She glances over at Fai again, scanning the gas mask. He beams at her through the film. Suddenly, she understands. She fights to open a window, but finds them locked–and when she tries the doors, they refuse to budge. She tries the partition, but it remains firmly shut.

“

Fai

!” Chii hisses, wild-eyed but clearly unable to stop the effects, her words lacking the bite Fai would expect, her posture loosening. “What the fuck is this?”

“Aww, you’ll be alright, Chii,” Fai tells her. “It won’t kill you.”

“Daddy!” she sputters, but her voice warbles, quieting by the second syllable. “I think we…”

Fai reaches out, catching the drink before it can drop and spill. Chii sags, sinking directly into him, fully asleep. Fai gently sets her back in her chair, adjusting her seatbelt. He looks over at Ashura, who is simply settling back in his chair, hands folded in his lap.

“I see you found that other way, after all,” Ashura says, seeming amused.

Fai nods. “I had meant to use it for the tournament, but you left me little choice.”

“We will wake up eventually,” he tells Fai, smiling at him. “There’s no telling what Chii will do. Perhaps she’ll try to take you out just for inconveniencing her. But I will find you, and you will do what I’ve asked of you.”

Fai smiles back, shaking his head. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

Ashura sighs, head dipping slightly to the side, eyes shutting.

“Have good dreams,” Fai replies, although there is no one awake to hear him.

Fai opens the smallest cooler near his feet, where he has two doses pre-measured for them both. He gulps, wincing when he sees the sizes of the needles, but he still manages to dose them appropriately. They’ll sleep for a while, perfectly safe. He hopes they sleep most of the day away. Hopefully the tournament will have been won before that’s even a risk. He opens the back windows, letting some of the air out, gathering that Chii and Ashura have been out for several minutes. He waits until the air tests clean, and finally rolls down the partition, giving the driver a thumbs up. The driver removes his gas mask. They nod at each other, Fai smiling.

“If anyone gives you trouble…” Fai starts.

“I know, I know–you threatened me,” the driver replies. “We’ve been over it.”

“Hyuuu! Good man,” Fai cheers, patting him on the shoulder. “Would you mind putting that Paganini piece on again?”

The driver simply nods, and the song begins. Fai settles in the back once more. To his left, Chii is asleep, her head landing on his shoulder. To his left, Ashura sleeps, his head tipped over the top of Fai’s. Fai listens to their calm breathing alongside the spirited, victorious peals of the violins. He heaves a long, satisfied sigh. Nothing is going to happen to his family. Nothing is going to happen to anyone he loves.

Fai arrives five minutes before midnight, making his way to

The Shop

alone. The sky is dark but yellowed from city lights, stars half-obscured. The moon carves a white crescent high overhead, casting a faint cool light along the edges of the earth. He sees the others already gathered, split into groups: Fei Wang Reed with his people: Xing Huo and Kyle Rondart, and Kendappa Daidouji with just one: Kurogane. The eyes all immediately turn to him, scan for the rest of the Celes family, and return to Fai once more, a question in each of them.

Fai mosies on forward, a little heavier on his feet than normal, made a touch bulkier by more ammunition and backup than he probably needs. Most of the others appear similarly over-prepared, almost comically so. Rondart looks like he’s a traveling, one-man pharmacy, what with all his vials. Xing Huo has knives strapped to nearly every physical surface of her body. Fei Wang Reed has an outrageously large sword beneath his cape, the sort that makes Fai want to make a particularly dirty joke, but he contains himself.

On the opposite end, Kendappa and Kurogane do not look quite as dramatic. Kendappa’s sashes have a slight metallic sheen, and upon second glance, Fai realizes her hairpins are Souma’s moon-shaped blades. Kurogane is similarly understated, appearing quite casual except for his choice of weapon.

Fai slides between the families, smiling and waving at each of them. Fei Wang Reed’s gaze is both dismissive and suspicious; Kendappa’s is curious, but reserved.

“Happy almost solstice, everyone!” Fai announces. “Miss Daidouji, I’m sure Tomoyo has something going on to celebrate it, eh?”

“She does,” Kendappa confirms, nodding politely. “Where are Mr. Celes and his daughter?”

“Oh, they’re running late,” Fai says, waving a hand. Fei Wang Reed and Kendappa glance at one another, skeptical. Xing Huo quietly takes a step towards him. Fai smiles, curious. “You’re looking as beautiful as always, Xing Huo.”

“It’s your birthday,” she says plainly. Her stare is clear and searching, a question in it: does he have some sort of plan? Fai tries to telegraph an answer with a subtle nod: he does.

“Thank you for remembering,” Fai says, winking at her. She nods silently, and takes a measured step back into her own fold, Fei Wang Reed and Kyle Rondart keeping hawklike eyes upon him. Fai smiles at them, waving one hand, fingers fluttering. Rondart sours, shaking his head, and looks elsewhere.

Fai turns to the man standing a short distance to his right, stepping casually closer. He gets a whiff of a pleasant, familiar cologne: the kind his date had worn at the bowling alley. Kurogane stands in typical form, arms crossed, looking rather grumpy. He’s dressed fittingly, clothes dark and plain and comfortable: no suits. He could easily be a jogger, if it weren’t for the odd accessory: the sword.

“Hey, hot stuff,” Fai greets him. “Got something in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?”

Kurogane stares at him for a moment, a wicked glint in his eyes. “Take your pick.”

“Hyuuu! Kuro-pippi, you’re naughty.” Fai teases, winking.

“Are they really running late?” Kurogane asks, voice slightly lowered, one brow raised.

“I’ll let you wonder,” Fai says. “But you’ll tell me if they show up, won’t you? Maybe give me a ring?”

“I’ll try, but my hands might be a little busy,” Kurogane reminds him, patting the hilt of his sword and nodding towards the nucleus of everyone else’s focus:

The Shop

. Fai follows the gesture. They look at the front of the building, the open door, Doumeki simply standing in front of it and eating a sandwich, looking out at them all with faint boredom, his compound bow held in his freehand. In theory, he’s one of the first barriers between the rest of the players and, at least in theory, Yuuko Ichihara. Of course, there’s no telling what it’ll be like inside, especially given the maze-like structure Fai could make out from the pictures Kurogane took. Fai checks his phone. Two minutes until midnight.

“We might lose each other, once it all starts,” Fai suggests. “I expect some parlor tricks on Yuuko’s side of things. Watch where you step.”

“Tch. I always do,” Kurogane says. He looks at Fai without turning his head. “Don’t die in there, alright?”

“Well, I’ll do my best not to,” Fai starts, and then he pauses, looks at his phone again. One minute until midnight. They’re running out of time. He summons his courage, adrenaline suddenly surging through him, and asks it: “Would you like to go out some time, after all of this?”

Kurogane blinks. “Are you fucking around like usual?”

“No, I’m quite serious,” Fai replies. “I like you. So, if all goes well and we live: would you?”

Kurogane promptly nods—no hesitation. Fai beams, pleased.

“So I did grow on you after all, eh?” he asks.

“Obviously,” Kurogane huffs. “Any idiot could figure that out. Why else would I put up with all your weird nicknames?”

“Eh? Weird? But it’s part of my charm!”

Doumeki finishes his sandwich, pocketing the wrapper. He looks out at the entire group a final time, heaving a tiny sigh. Fai watches the time change on his phone. It’s midnight. Without a word, Doumeki turns on his heel, walking into

The Shop

. The group looks at one another, their game faces set in stone: Fei Wang Reed’s suspicious stare, Xing Huo’s serious expression, Rondart’s scheming eyes, Kendappa’s observant gaze, Kurogane’s wolflike grin, Fai’s own casual smile. Curls of pungent, sweet smoke begin wafting out of the dark doorway, the interior of the building appearing utterly devoid of light. There is no telling what awaits them all.

“Well?” Fai smiles at the group, motioning forward. “Shall we, everyone?”

Kurogane puffs up to his full height, breaking the stillness amongst them, and follows Doumeki inside.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The Shop

is not exactly how Fai recalled it being, the last time he visited, back when he had been tasked with finding Chii and returning her home when she ran away. It was a strangely decorated place—black walls, black ceilings, intricate but macabre artwork, ceramic masks hanging on the walls in various sorts of grimaces, the lighting as dim as a dungeon. Today, as Fai walks in, he finds the general color scheme as it was–black is perhaps Yuuko’s signature–but the actual interior of the house is structurally changed.

Behind the thick, dark smoke, there are four identical corridors, each appearing to stretch further back into the building than should be possible, given its size. Each corridor is full of doors on each side, at least as far as he can reasonably see. At a certain point, it all vanishes into vague black shapes, obscured by faint smoke.

Doumeki has walked down the corridor closest to the western wall of the building, immediately followed by Kyle Rondart. Kurogane, about to follow after him, only pauses to glance back at Fai. Fai looks back. The building is getting hazier and hazier around them, the sharpness of each of their features blurred and obscured. Neither man quite knows what to say to the other, so they nod. Kurogane looks away, disappearing down the hall, and Fai glances back at the others. In all the smoke, and in his focus on Kurogane, he’s managed to lose track of the others. Kendappa is nowhere to be seen. He has not seen Fei Wang Reed or Xing Huo, either.

Perhaps it’s just as well. Yuuko won’t let herself be killed too easily. She will want it to be earned. And Fai has little doubt the others will begin doing just as Ashura predicted–cannibalizing their own–and so all Fai truly has to do, for now, is avoid the others and search for their target. Of course, once Chii and Ashura wake–well, he’ll worry about that if or when it’s necessary.

Fai paces the foyer, peering down each corridor, searching for something to lead him one way or another. When he reaches the eastern end of the building, he hears something peculiar: a small, sweet, high voice. It puzzles him. He shakes his head rapidly, at first, wondering if he’s imagined it, but when he goes still and listens again, he realizes he hasn’t. What is he hearing? Where is it coming from? It’s so faint that he realizes others might not even pick it up. Curious, he follows it, slowly drawing his way down the corridor. He looks at the walls on either side of him: matte black paint, with large, black ceramic masks hanging between the doors, their faces molded with an ever so slight difference–as he goes deeper into the hall, one wall of masks begins to grimace in anguish, and the opposite wall of masks begins to smile. The effect is instantly dizzying.

He makes a quick decision: he fetches Kurogane’s knife from his pocket and jabs a crude arrow-shape into the wall on his right, the sharp end pointing towards the end of the hall he entered in. He pockets it and keeps going, moving slowly, trying to discover which room it might be coming from. If he can move quietly enough, no one will hear him, and thus won’t quiet down the noise, and in effect he will be able to find them with less hassle. It’s a familiar sound, but a little unearthly, like an angel.

Fai walks past each door, stopping in front of them, waiting. Most are utterly silent. Fai suspects the rooms must be empty, for the most part–perhaps even unfinished–especially given how quickly the construction took place. He is sure that Yuuko will be in some area untouched by the changes, however it’s difficult to say where that might be. It all looks quite unfamiliar, the walls pressed close down the thin hall, the ceiling somehow so high that Fai is unable to see it.

The strange noise continues, emitting a soft, ghostly wail.

Fai’s pulse thumps loudly between his ears. He feels strange, spacey. He tries to focus on the world around him, squeezes the knife in his fist to focus on the feeling, tries to keep his feet on the earth. He begins walking as quickly as he can ahead, towards the noise. The masks between the doors grin and cringe, depending on which way he looks. He hears a thump from a room and pauses, popping the door open, only to find the room empty and silent. He steps in, scanning it, curious. It smells like sawdust. He uses the flashlight on his phone and sees a mouse scurrying, racing towards him. Fai stumbles backwards, back into the hallway, losing his footing. He falls and watches the mouse run along the corridor, disappearing. He quickly gets back up, shaking his head.

Which way had he come? He finds something carved into the wall–an arrow–but someone has added something–an arrow on the other end of it. It points both ways. It’s a little messier than he recalls it being, so much so that he wonders if he actually carved it. He looks worriedly at the walls, noticing a similar one carved into the one opposite him, slightly further back.

His head pounds. He tries to slow his breathing.

Stay calm,

he tells himself.

If I’m to get out of this alive, I need to stay calm. Think. What should I do?

If someone has managed to do all of this without him noticing, he’s in trouble. He doesn’t know which way to go. He swallows and turns back, the black hall stretching endlessly behind him, void of people. Then he turns, looking ahead of him, to a path that looks identical: long, vague, and quite dark. He stays still, stuck, afraid, until something happens once more–that odd noise, a siren’s call, the only thing that seems to beckon him in any direction whatsoever.

Fai follows it.
  
When Chii wakes up, she’s already pissed. Of course she is. She’s back in the penthouse, lying in her bed, her head pounding. It takes her very little time to recall what happened. She knows Fai drugged her, and drugged her father. Whatever he used, it didn’t smell like anything. Where is her father? If she’s here, the driver must have taken her home, and surely Hideki put her to bed, just as he’s done whenever she’s had a night out drinking. She rolls out from under the covers and stumbles, her footing unsteady, and the sound she makes is just enough to get her bedroom door flung open, Hideki instantly by her side. He moves to help her upright and she shakes him off, muttering

shoo

under her breath.

“You’re up already,” he says. “The driver seemed to think you’d be out much longer. How are you feeling?”

She bypasses his question, offering a more significant one: “What time is it?”

“It’s, uh–” Hideki checks his watch. “Okay, it’s about one in the morning.”

“Fuck. Okay. Okay.”

She has already lost an hour in the tournament, all because of–what was Fai even doing? Knocking her out to protect her? Who does he think she even is? She’s not some delicate, naive thing–she’s arguably more dangerous than Fai, at least by her own estimates. Who was the one to teach him, in earnest, how to do the wetwork? Sure, her father covered a good portion of it, but who actually

helped

Fai? Who tolerated it better from the jump? Her irritation climbs. She looks down at herself and realizes that her war gear has been traded for pajamas. At this, she begins piecing together what to do.

“Go get my stuff,” she orders. “Tell the driver we’re going back.”

“Chii, we don’t even know what he drugged you with,” Hideki argues. “I don’t think you should be out there.”

“Does it matter? I’m fine,” she huffs. “What about Daddy? Where is he?”

“The butler took him somewhere,” Hideki admits, scratching the back of his head. “It seemed like your dad had some, uh, contingency plan or something. I guess he must have planned for something like this.”

This does not surprise Chii. Her father is a careful man. But it bothers her, because it means that he has likely already recovered, and likely already back to the tournament. She has to make her way back, and quickly. She nods, and starts towards the bedroom door, only to realize Hideki is blocking her way.

“You shouldn’t go,” Hideki tells her. “It’s supposed to be dangerous, and we have no idea what’s in your system.”

“I’ve done jobs drunk off my ass,” Chii scolds. “This is barely different.”

Hideki, grimacing, remains in the doorway. Chii glowers. She can practically hear the time passing within her own mind, the seconds ticking. How many people have died, by now, in that house? Surely no one has won, yet. It could never be that easy. But it means she has to get to that house again so that she still has her chance. Yet Hideki just stands there. They find themselves in an unusual stalemate, neither wishing to push the other, yet still directly opposed.

“You told me these people are going to kill each other,” Hideki says carefully, pressing his palms together under his chin. “They’re not like your jobs. They’re as dangerous as you are. If you go there right now, you’re going to be at a huge disadvantage, and they could definitely hurt you.”

“So what?” she asks. “Every time I leave this house, someone can hurt me. Every job I take has the same risk. At least this would be

interesting.

I’ll be fine. Now move it.”

“This is–I don’t want you to go!” Hideki replies, exasperated. “I don’t see how you go into this and survive, okay? Please just go back to bed.”

Chii’s impatience flares. She shoves past him, ducking under one of his arms, and winces when she hears Hideki’s breath catch in his throat. She starts stripping down, replacing her clothes with her battle armor. She steps into her boots, fits her sling with baseball bats across her chest. She moves quickly, conscious of the time, wondering how much of the tournament she has already missed.

“If I get hurt, you’ll just patch me up like always,” she tells him. It’s been their routine for years–he’s the only person she lets near her when she’s faced some trouble, aside from Fai. “No big. Business as usual.”

“This isn’t business as usual,” Hideki argues, his voice tense, a flickering quality to it. He’s near an emotion Chii knows she cannot stomach. “These people are trained, too, Chii. They’re not your marks. Are you listening? I don’t want you to die. I really, really don’t want you to die.”

She pauses, hits the intercom by the door, and tells them to ready a car out front. Hideki watches her, helpless, a raw feeling so obvious on his face that Chii can’t stand looking at him directly. She sighs.

“Look, Fai got one over on me. I get it. You’re scared. But I’m just as capable of this as I’d be on any other job. I know these people. I know what to expect. I’m not exactly

defenseless

, alright? You don’t have to be so dramatic.”

“Caring about you is dramatic?”

“Jesus Christ, is everyone out to get me today?” she complains. “First Fai in the car, now you? I don’t have time for this shit.”

“I love you,” Hideki scolds. “Forgive me if I’m scared to lose you.”

She reaches up, cups his face in her hands, and stares up at him seriously. He looks the same as he always does–wonderfully ordinary, with strong brows, messy hair, a sincerity to his eyes that never seems to shake. She looks at him and thinks, just as she has thought over and over, hundreds of times, that he does not belong in this room, in this house, in this life. He ought to be roaming the world freely, pursuing his interests, worrying about ordinary things. And yet, he remains here, trapped in her life. He swallows, resting his hands atop hers.

The intercom crackles. The driver is ready.

“I’m going,” she tells him, and she makes good on her word.

The driver has the good sense to look embarrassed when Chii climbs into the backseat, both of their eyes meeting in the rearview mirror. He starts driving without asking the destination. Chii settles back, looking at her newest weapon for the tournament: a baseball bat with a rose gold finish, a metal box wired to it. She opens the mechanism, tracing the wires with her eyes, and shuts the mechanism once more. Maybe she’ll get to use it.

“You aren’t going to ask why I let it happen?” the driver finally asks.

“Why would I?” she counters. “Are you just eager to feed me Fai’s story? That he ‘threatened’ you? Come on.”

The driver glances away from the rearview, focusing on the road. Chii sees a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. She thinks of Hideki, asking her not to leave, just minutes ago. Chii wonders about the driver, if he has a family somewhere, if there is someone he calls after he drives her family around to complain about the work, what his life is outside of hers. She begins wondering about all the people orbiting her family, making their meals, cleaning their rooms, watering their plants, collecting their coats at the door. She wonders about all their futures, when the tournament ends, about what will change.

“I’m not pissed at you, FYI. Just Fai,” she tells him, which only makes the driver go pale. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?” he asks.

“Like shit.”

“Because you’re trying to comfort me,” the driver replies. “Are you going to die?”

“It’s possible,” Chii says, as she decides the truth can have a home somewhere, even fleetingly. “Fine. It’s more likely to happen than it’s been in the past. You happy?”

“No.” The driver glances at her again in the mirror. “Did you tell that boy?”

That boy–Hideki. Anyone who works for her family knows about Hideki’s story. Chii frowns, sitting back, looking out the window. The traffic at this time is fairly light. Last call in the city isn’t for about another hour; had she slept even a half hour more, there would be a rush of cabs.

“Hideki’s gonna be fine,” she says. “He knows a little bit. He doesn’t know everything. It’s better this way.”

The driver swallows. “If you think you’re going to die, how do you feel about it?”

“I don’t know. Fine. How should I feel?”

“I don’t know,” the driver replies. “It’s your life, not mine. Should I just turn the car around?”

“No,” she says. “You’re right. It’s my life. If you thought you were gonna die, what would you do with that time?”

The driver thinks. They slow to a stop at a redlight. Chii watches the driver’s hands dance on the wheel. “Get my affairs in order. Tell people I love them. Ask someone to feed the fish. Get a good burger. Maybe I’d pray, just for the hell of it.”

Chii laughs. “If there’s a god, I don’t think he’d take my calls.”

“You never know. What would you ask for?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Something impossible.”

The light goes green.

When they arrive at last, Chii sees her father disappear through the front door of

The Shop

. He beat her there. Of course he did. Before she gets out of the car, Chii hands the driver an envelope with Hideki’s name scrawled on it, and she nods at him.

“If I’m unlucky today, this is for him,” she says, and with that, she goes.

Kyle Rondart knows he isn’t a very popular man, but it’s not his fault. He just gets the worst jobs. It isn’t like he

wants

to have the kinds of targets he gets, but it’s all Fei Wang Reed ever assigns to him: children, the elderly, the ill. Kyle would rather have a challenge. And so this tournament is a welcome change.

Of course, he has no plans to turn his winnings over to anyone else. Only a fool would do that. He’ll take the spoils, make his own empire, and perhaps he won’t ever have to do the wetwork again himself. He can gather his own underlings, send them off to do the unpleasant work, and waste his time the way his own boss does, muttering foreboding comments while beautiful women serve him tea.

He goes after Doumeki. It’s the obvious thing to do, but sometimes the obvious thing is exactly the right thing. Doumeki has served Yuuko Ichihara just about as long as Watanuki has, which means Yuuko trusts him, which means Doumeki likely knows where she’s hidden herself in the labyrinth. If he wants a chance at winning, he has to kill Doumeki, and quickly. Kyle can barely make out the other man’s figure, it simply being reduced to a dark mass in a dark hall. Kyle glances back for a moment–did he hear footsteps behind him?–but he sees nothing, no one.

When he turns back, he has lost Doumeki entirely. He grinds his teeth, irritated, and continues moving ahead, listening intently for anything amiss. Doumeki’s footsteps aren’t entirely silent–as an archer, he is rarely close enough to his own targets to require that sort of quiet. If Kyle just concentrates and stays silent, himself, he’ll be able to track him.

Xing Huo thought it was a foolish idea, but she doesn’t understand the world how Kyle does. She lives a relatively cushioned life. When Fei Wang Reed sends her on jobs, he rarely asks her to kill someone she might pity. Kyle, on the other hand–he has never been afforded such niceties.

A door opens several yards ahead of him, on the left side of the wall. Kyle quickly speeds up, slipping into the room before the door shuts. He has to act fast. The room is utterly black, unlit, and Kyle touches a nearby wall only to find no light fixture. What has Yuuko done to this place? She won’t be in this room–but if Doumeki is–

Kyle fires his weapon in a wide circle around the dark room–poison darts–and relaxes when he hears a loud, deep thud–the familiar sound of a body striking the floor. He yanks a flashlight off his belt and flicks it on, the cold light shining across a room that looks utterly bare, the floors unfinished, no furniture in sight. He directs the light around slowly, wary of what he might discover. The light finds something: Doumeki lying face down, a single dart dug in his back.

“That was easy,” Kyle sighs.

It is, of course, the last thing he says. Merely seconds after, the room fills with an additional noise: a body collapsing to the floor, the head bouncing separately to the side. Kurogane stands back, wiping a fine spray of blood off his face, and frowns at Kyle Rondart’s body. A flashlight tumbles to the floor, rolling, a beam of light carving an uninterrupted path forward.

“Oi. You,” he grunts, approaching the other figure in the room. He squats down and touches the man’s wrist, still feeling a pulse. He pats Doumeki’s back and feels something tough under his shirt. A protective vest. The dart never truly hit him. “I know you’re not dead.”

“It was nice to pretend,” Doumeki says flatly. Kurogane can’t quite see him, but he can hear Doumeki shuffling, getting to his feet.

“Well, go pretend a little better,” Kurogane scolds. “People will catch on.”

“I don’t think they will,” Doumeki replies.

“Tch. You’re a pain,” Kurogane complains. “Plan still stands, right?”

“That depends on you,” Doumeki replies. He steps in front of the flashlight, picks it up, and shines it upwards under his chin, creating a ghostly effect. His expression remains flat as usual, so it does nothing to unnerve Kurogane. “What about Fai?”

“What do you mean,

what about Fai

?” Kurogane counters. At this, Doumeki shrugs, nonchalant. “I told you to leave him alone.”

“I will, unless he poses a problem.”

“Well, he won’t.”

Doumeki just shrugs again. “Then tell me where to play dead.”

Each of them hears the front door; their heads snap towards the sound. Doumeki preps an arrow just as Kurogane raises a hand, cautioning him to pause. They hear people speaking softly, one voice seemingly much more irritated than the other, although they can’t make out the words themselves. Kurogane, unable to decide if he should relax or panic, pulls out his phone, sending a relevant text:

Think your family made it.

Don’t kill them,

is Fai’s immediate reply.

OK.

“Over there,” Kurogane whispers to Doumeki. He points back to the corner where Doumeki initially lay down, feigning his death. “Leave the Celes people alone. I’ll keep going.”

Doumeki merely settles down, plopping on the floor, and yawns. Kurogane, on the other hand, exits and moves carefully, his ears open, listening for anything amiss. He doesn’t worry himself with the people at the door. The Celes family–whatever their mess is, he reasons it’s theirs to sort out, not his. So long as they keep out of his way, he’ll keep out of theirs.

He moves further down the hall. He has, in truth, been in this building before; he knows the basic layout. Even so, with Yuuko’s parlor tricks, it’s not entirely easy to find his way around. He can’t see terribly well, what with the fog machines running, and his eyes are stinging, irritated from what he assumes to be Yuuko’s ever-burning incense. The black interior, too, warps the appearance of the space; it is not clear how large the space truly is. Kurogane, in theory, does know that information, and yet, as he navigates through, it plays tricks on his perception.

Still, he keeps going. He has a goal and a target. If he moves carefully enough, patiently enough, and cunningly enough…

Wait,

he thinks, something prickling in his gut.

He hears a crash down the hall and bolts toward it, sword drawn.
  
Xing Huo’s earliest memory is this: her parents have died, and a massive, intimidating man decides to take her in. It would not be accurate to call it an adoption. Adopted children, to Xing Huo’s knowledge, are afforded some of the luxuries of childhood. Xing Huo, instead, is put to work by Fei Wang Reed. She learns, quite quickly, how to adapt. Her face goes still and she becomes unflappable. She minds her tongue. And for this, she is rewarded as a fly on the wall, collecting people’s secrets.

And Xing Huo would have been content to continue life as it had always been–staying in shadow, watching other people’s light–had it not been for what Fei Wang Reed did to young Syaoran. She still thinks of the sheer gore of it. Of course, the gore is not surprising; Xing Huo has been the cause of such things in the past; but the path of that gore, and its purpose–it stirred something within her. She saw herself in the child, trying to make sense of the shock of violence inflicted against him, just as she had tried to make sense of her parents’ death. The parallel had never been as clear in the past, but many things had been changing within her. She had been gathering information for Fai, learning about his mother, and it had given her insight into their world that had previously gone unexamined by her. She had not been the only one forced into this life. It seemed as if the majority of people she knew had been plucked out of lives that could have been quite harmless, had something else not interfered. She had begun seeing the paths of those lives stretching out before everyone she knew, and she wondered if there was some way, however improbable, to course correct the present.

There are benefits to being in Fei Wang Reed’s fold. Xing Huo knows all kinds of people who know how to do all kinds of things. And so as she looked upon the recovering Syaoran, pale in his bed with a nervous doctor beside him, quietly writing instructions to heal–Xing Huo decided that she had to know of at least someone who could send the child away, off to a better life.

It wasn’t fair, she thought, that he would be punished so harshly for doing the things that ordinary teenagers do. It was foolish of him to think he would not be caught, yes, but foolishness is also common to ordinary teenagers. And perhaps her choice to help him was foolish, itself, as she knew Fei Wang Reed would eventually learn, and would punish her gravely, yet she felt it was the right thing to do. Perhaps it was worth it, doing the right thing, after a lifetime of doing so many of the wrong things.

The night before she left for the tournament, she found Syoaran in his quarters, quietly packing a bag. He startled, at first, until he turned his head and saw her.

“Xing Huo,” he started. “It starts, soon, doesn’t it?”

Xing Huo nodded. “Do you know where you will go?”

“I do,” Syaoran confirmed. He hesitated. “Why aren’t you going with me?”

“I must attend the tournament,” she replied.

“But everyone will die,” Syaoran told her. “It’s what I’ve heard.”

“Yes, I have heard the same” Xing Huo agreed. She studied him. “You almost died.”

“But my uncle brought a doctor,” Syaoran said.

“It does not undo what he did.”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Why are you helping me?”

Xing Huo offered the truth as she knew it.

“If all of this doesn’t end now,” she said, “I fear there will never be another chance. And so I must try.”

As she moves through Yuuko’s shop with a blade ready in her hand, her eyes flicker about, seeking the largest shadows possible, the shadows belonging to her employer: Fei Wang Reed. Yuuko is not her primary concern, but she never was. Even so, Fei Wang is proving difficult to find. Xing Huo has been in this shop many, many times, but the interior is warped and strange to her, now, and she can barely understand how such a maze could fit in a building so small.

She sees a smaller shadow passing by, a strange noise from a distant place. What is that noise? She retreats, slightly, and listens. She hears something else, but it’s only Fai. She knows his footsteps; he walks gently. That other noise is something else entirely.

She weaves through the empty rooms in the house, slowly opening doors, glancing out of them, checking to see who passes. In her search, as she opens one door, she sees Rondart’s body lying still, his head lying a few feet from it. It’s not the work of anyone she personally knows. Perhaps the rumors are true, that the Wolf of Suwa has returned. Xing Huo sees Doumeki’s body somewhat nearby, lying flat. She doesn’t do anything at first, but watches, quickly noting by the tiny amount of movement that Doumeki is breathing. She tests him.

“I want to shut Rondart’s eyes,” Xing Huo says simply. “I have no intent to harm you. Please remain as you are; I won’t tell the others you are pretending.”

At this, Doumeki picks his head up, and the two stare at one another. Doumeki, seeming satisfied, plops his head back down. Xing Huo steps inside, moves Rondart’s head closer to his body, adjusts his glasses, shuts his eyes, and studies his corpse. They have never been terribly close, in truth, but Xing Huo never disliked him. He had to do work he hated, just as she did. Perhaps Rondart would be pleased by his cause of death, she thinks. It must have been quick. A mercy. At least he was taken out by someone who did not wish to prolong his pain.

“Goodbye, Rondart,” she tells him.

She exits the room through the door on the opposite side, pouring out into yet another hallway. It’s impossible to tell where she is, at this point. Each hallway is identical, each lined with the same set of masks. Xing Huo looks left and right. She sees no one. She hears footsteps, but it’s difficult to tell the direction. She opens the door once more, back to the room where Rondart lies dead and Doumeki plays dead, and she says, “I’m thinking of a number between one and ten.”

“Eight,” Doumeki says.

With that, Xing Huo shuts the door and takes a right down the hallway. She hears that strange sound again–it’s a high pitched noise, a bit beautiful, although she can’t discern its source. She moves along. From somewhere much further back, she hears an eruption of sound–a young woman shouting something–perhaps the Celes family has made it, after all–and as the sound erupts, another door opens, and she finds herself looking at the enormous, daunting figure of Fei Wang Reed. Each of them remains still at first, two hunters having spotted one another. Xing Huo is careful, her face still, her eyes betraying nothing. He takes a step towards her. Xing Huo does not move.

“Rondart is dead,” Xing Huo announces.

“Did you kill him?”

“No,” she says. “Why would I kill one of our own?”

The man continues towards her. “Why, indeed.”

Xing Huo is silent. She silently calculates her next moves. She can duck back into that room, roll out through the other side, and make a run for it. Doumeki might even spring up to help her. Xing Huo feels her foot step backward, as if moving on its own accord, as Fei Wang Reed’s black cape shifts with his next step forward. She sees his sword drawn, the metal hulking and massive, the blade itself thicker than her neck. She takes another step back–this time, consciously.

“Doumeki appears to be down,” Xing Huo tells him. “He had a dart in his back when I saw him.”

“I doubt Yuuko’s man would already be gone, so early into the game,” Fei Wang says. “Do you truly believe he’s dead, yourself?”

Her heart begins beating faster, her pulse thick in her ears. “I don’t understand the question.”

“Do you believe he is dead, or are you lying?”

Xing Huo’s mouth feels dry, her lips sticking to her teeth. He’s acting strangely. If he suspects her, he knows something. If he knows something, he might already know what she did for Syaoran. If he knows what she did for Syaoran…

He steps towards her. Xing Huo steps back. She clasps her blade tightly and thinks carefully, her face remaining perfectly still, a mask of indifference. She’ll open the door with her free hand and dive inside, jump over Rondart’s body, and count on fate to make Fei Wang Reed stumble over it.

“Syaoran has disappeared,” Fei Wang continues. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Perhaps he ran,” Xing Huo offers. “He is a teenager, prone to the wild choices teenagers make.”

“He is a compliant child, trained to do as I tell him,” Fei Wang counters. “As are you. Or have you forgotten?”

“I don’t understand,” she repeats.

“Sending Syaoran away was your doing, wasn’t it, Xing Huo?” he asks.

At this, Xing Huo makes her move–she flings the door open, leaps, and runs. Fei Wang Reed crashes after her, his sword slicing into the threshold, cracking the frame straight off. The wood clatters to the floor in his wake, splintered. As Xing Huo scrambles towards the door on the opposite side of the room, she glances back in time to see her employer stumble and fall over Rondart’s corpse. Her eyes meet Fei Wang’s for only a moment. Her heart thuds in her chest.

She told Syaoran the truth–that this was possibly their only chance. And it is true. It is likely the only chance they have to end the violent cycle of their life–the hurting, the pain, the destruction, and its endless replication. If she makes difficult choices, perhaps she can save them; perhaps she can even save herself.

The truth for Xing Huo is this: she has been compliant. It has afforded her safety amidst an otherwise lethal environment. But it has also had a great cost, one that she cannot easily quantify. It has cost her freedom, agency, joy. She has been bound by Fei Wang Reed’s plans and whims, and never by her own.

As Fei Wang Reed tries to find his footing, having fallen over Rondart’s body, Xing Huo hurls the first of her knives, and it cuts its path straight into the man’s shoulder, sinking into flesh. Fei Wang roars in pain, the sound a deep and beastly noise, and yanks the blade back out, tossing it aside. The blood spills out, rich and red, and he looks up at her with a wicked smile. Xing Huo blanches. Yes. He knows what she’s done. She will pay for it. She readies a longer blade and bolts.

Fei Wang Reed jumps up and barrels toward her, sword drawn, and Xing Huo dashes down the hall, whipping into another room, spilling into the hallway on its opposite side. She hears Fai shouting from somewhere, calling for his sister. She hears a woman screaming. Chii, perhaps? She hears that odd sound again from somewhere, something melodic and muffled. In her own distraction, she fails to shut the door behind her, and Fei Wang pours out after her, and he swings just as she does.

She plunges her knife into the meat of his neck and his sword slices into her side. She hears the cracking from her body, but doesn’t feel the pain. Ribs? She isn’t sure. She tries to run but goes dizzy, faltering, and suddenly sees the iron red of her own blood. It’s a bad wound, not one she can patch up. She recognizes this immediately. She readies another blade on her person and hits the first thing she sees–she slices through the back of his ankle, and he crashes loudly to the floor. Xing Huo rolls onto her back, panting, one hand over the wound. She feels something sloshing out of her, something she reasons should not normally see the light of day. The blood is warm and wet in her fingers, slippery. It’s a messy way to go, she thinks. She would have liked something neater. She feels numb, pleasantly so, something detaching itself in her heart. She rises from her body, watches it bleed out, watches Fei Wang Reed clutch his ankle and scream. She severed the tendon, she realizes. Perhaps she couldn’t kill him, but she certainly didn’t make it easy on him.

Fei Wang Reed manages to get on all fours, and he crawls over her, pulling the blade from his neck, and positioning it over her head. She looks at the blade and looks at his face. She only feels the strike for a second. Perhaps less. Outside her body, Xing Huo has already begun walking off, listening to the strange and beautiful sound she heard from before, no longer concerned with the tournament. The pain is gone. She escaped, after all.

Down the hall, another door opens, and the new Daidouji man exits a room. Kurogane’s eyes land on Fei Wang Reed’s hunched over figure, the blood-soaked corpse of Xing Huo lying with her eyes open. Kurogane recognizes the sword on the floor nearby, that emblem on it, the same sword that had killed his mother. His mind quiets. He thought, for most of his life, that he would feel rage in this moment–and yet he only feels something go still and certain within him. He approaches. Fei Wang Reed hears the floor creak and he quickly moves, grabbing his sword, trying to get upright but shouting in pain and surprise, falling once more. Kurogane sees the blood on the man’s ankle. He continues his approach.

“I have people everywhere in this world,” Fei Wang Reed warns.

“You’re not gonna have too many more people if you keep killing them,” Kurogane says, nodding towards Xing Huo’s corpse.

“Lay a hand on me, and I will make the fate you suffer worse than death.”

“Don’t worry,” Kurogane replies. “I won’t even touch you.”

In seconds, before Fei Wang Reed has a chance to react, his head goes flying off his shoulders, tumbling a few feet away. His body collapses beside Xing Huo’s. Kurogane walks calmly towards them, both, and he wipes the blood from his blade off on Fei Wang Reed’s cape. He stands there, looking at the corpses for a moment. He spent a good deal of his childhood absorbing sights like these, doing jobs no child should have had to do. The Daidouji family had run differently at the time, been more competitive, more brutal. Kurogane had been their greatest asset. Had it not been for Tomoyo’s intervention and persistent begging, he would have remained stuck in that life, bound to keep taking lives. This life–Fei Wang Reed’s–is the only one he truly wished to take. And it’s done, now. It’s done.

He hears Fai from somewhere in the building. It’s a shout unlike the other ones he’s been hearing–Fai has been shouting for his sister, searching for her–but the tone of this one is different. He’s found her, and something is wrong. Kurogane straightens his posture, keeps his sword at the ready, and goes searching.
  
Fai hears Chii enter long before he finds her. He finds himself darting in and out of rooms, hurrying down halls, confused and lost. He shouts for Chii. Where is she? He doesn’t think to call for Ashura–in truth, he doesn’t think Ashura would answer–but Chii–Chii would. Or it’s what he hopes, as he runs, worried and puzzled. He has found corpses in different rooms already. Rondart is dead. Doumeki is down, although Fai isn’t quite sure he’s dead. But Chii–where is Chii? He hears a woman screaming. Is it her, or another?

Fai stumbles out into a hallway, something dropping in his chest when he sees two additional corpses. One of them belongs to Fei Wang Reed, the head lying detached. The other belongs to Xing Huo, someone Fai had called a friend, even if she might not have used the word, herself. Fai swallows and approaches. He kneels down beside her and shuts her eyes for her. He feels a worried pain in his chest. It cannot have been Xing Huo screaming. It must be his sister.

“Rest well,” he says, and he gets up again. If Fei Wang is dead in this manner, Kurogane has to be somewhere. And if it’s not Kurogane–well, Fai thinks Kurogane will be awfully annoyed that someone took the kill from him.

“Chii?” Fai calls, again, even if he knows it’s fruitless.

Fai keeps trying the doors. He isn’t sure how long it takes, how long he’s been calling, how long he’s been searching, but he does, at long last, find the right one. When he opens it, something lurches in his stomach, and it is sheer luck that he doesn’t instantly get sick at the sight inside: Ashura standing, tall and straight, his black shoe pressed into Chii’s hand–Chii lying bloodied on the floor, a baseball bat out of reach, her hair splayed around her body like a tarp. Dead. Is she dead? She isn’t moving.

Fai immediately sees things in double, an old history repeating before his eyes. He remembers when he found his mother’s corpse, how her long hair hid her face, how the blood darkened and thickened in the fibers of the rug beneath her. The scenery flashes uncomfortably, unbearably. Back then, he had been so small, and Ashura had loomed so tall in that room–the tallest man he had ever seen in his young life–but back then–but back then–Ashura had bent down, moved the corpse’s hair away from her face, and he had shut her eyes before he ever said a word to him. It’s something Fai tries not to remember–that awful night–the night when–

“Don’t move,” Fai hears himself saying, his voice a rough croak. He finds himself afraid to look away from Ashura in a way he has never before–as if he looks away, the worst will happen. Chii remains still. Ashura regards Fai with something like a smile, but not quite. Curiosity. Strange.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Ashura asks. “What leverage do you have?”

His gun. His gun! Fai should be reaching for it, and yet, his bastard hands won’t move. He’s frozen in place, just staring, heart hammering in his chest. Chii looks just like his mother did. She flits in and out of his vision, replaced, reappearing, difficult to tell apart. Another body begins materializing in the room, a smaller one, the body of a child. Fai instinctively steps forward, taking his first movement into the room, and feels his legs shaking beneath him. He shakes his head rapidly, managing to get his gun out, the nose pointing sharply at Ashura’s head. It shakes in his hands. Ashura looks at it, and looks at Fai, and then looks at his own daughter, lying still on the ground.

“Is she alive?” Fai’s voice asks, brittle and strange, the words not quite his own, but they must be. It’s his voice, isn’t it? He can’t get a clear thought out. His head pounds.

“Did you know she would try to kill me, herself?” Ashura asks.

She tried to kill him? He didn’t know. No. That can’t be right. She loves Ashura, even if it’s not in a way Fai understands. She has always been loyal to the family, even if it cost her a true relationship with Hideki. She had a good life set up under Ashura’s rule. Why would she try to kill him? No. No. Something moves in Fai’s head–another image–a series of them–how she cleaned up after him whenever the jobs made him sick, how she covered for him when he couldn’t stomach it, how she sewed him together when he was too squeamish to fix himself, how she knew about Kurogane and kept it a secret–how over and over, she had been protecting them both from her father, how she had tried to make sure Fai was spared the fate given to her, given to Hideki.

When Fai blinks, the scenery around him is strange–doubled–tripled–multiple versions of Ashura smiling at him, sharklike–younger–older–blood-spattered–clean. Dozens of Chii’s lie dead or dying on the ground–the adolescent Chii who begrudgingly befriended him when Ashura brought him to the house–the teenage Chii who ran from home, convinced her father had killed Hideki–the adult Chii who knew the throne was no longer hers. Fai feels dizzy, hazy, frightened. He can’t seem to focus, to bring reality back into his eyes.

“Is she alive?” Fai repeats, no longer sure where to look.

One of the Ashura’s pretends to consider it. He suddenly grinds his heel down into the hand on the floor, and Chii emits a weak sound of pain. Instantly, the room shrinks down, simplifies, and Fai’s mind clears of clutter. He sees two people in the room: his adopted father, his adopted sister. His aim at Ashura becomes firmer, no longer shaking.

“Step away from her,” Fai warns.

Ashura merely smiles, taking a small step away. Chii’s hand is blackened with a shoeprint, the shape of her fingers slightly mangled, perhaps broken. Fai takes another step into the room.

“She was always more ambitious than you were,” Ashura sighs. “That boy of hers–I knew it would be a problem, of course, but there’s only so much I could do. I warned her. I warned you both. I have only ever tried to keep this family safe.”

“By destroying it?”

“A family is like a plant,” Ashura replies. “It requires some pruning.”

“Not in the way you’re suggesting,” Fai replies.

“If she had her way, killed me, and took over, our legacy would be history,” Ashura replies. “I have to preserve that before I leave.”

“How?” Fai asks. “You’ve nearly killed her. Is she not part of your legacy?”

“She lost her claim to it when she broke my rules.”

Fai adjusts the safety without thinking. Chii moves slightly on the floor, hand stretching towards her nearby baseball bat. From his peripheral vision, Fai realizes it isn’t her usual one–it’s a pretty unusual metallic finish, a dusty pink color–and there’s something odd on it–a small box affixed to one end. What is that? He sees Chii’s head slightly turn in his direction, one eye swollen shut, but the other flashing in his direction. Fai clears his throat, pointing the gun more firmly at Ashura, hands beginning to shake again. Something’s wrong, here. Ashura shouldn’t have attacked Chii. He wouldn’t. He loves her. But the date–what’s expected of Fai–

“Are you losing heart?” Ashura asks. “You’ve yet to fire.”

“You’re transparent, sir.”

“Oh? I am?”

“You’ve arranged your pieces too obviously,” Fai says. “I’m not a fool.”

Chii continues reaching towards the bat, inching her body slightly closer to it. Fai takes another step into the room, careful to keep Ashura’s eyes on him. He swallows, aiming between Ashura’s eyes.

“What will it take, then?” Ashura asks. “You have to grant my wish, Fai.”

“What you’ve asked of me is beyond cruel.”

“It’s a mercy.”

“You rescued me that night,” Fai reminds him. “I cannot kill you, no matter what you do, or how you ask me to do it. I’ve already lost one family. Don’t ask me to lose this one by my own hands.” Something burns in his eyes. “Please.”

The men study one another. At last, Ashura heaves a sigh, shaking his head. And with that, he approaches, swatting the gun out of Fai’s hands, and Fai jumps back. In a flash, Ashura has his weapons at the ready–twin metal batons, studded in jagged spikes, someone else’s blood half congealed on each of them, Fai immediately has Kurogane’s knife in hand, moving back, avoiding a strike to his stomach.

“You’re a lot like your mother was,” Ashura says. “Clever, but not clever enough.”

“You have no right to mention my mother,” Fai corrects.

Ashura smashes a hole into the wall behind Fai’s head, Fai having ducked it just in time. It takes Ashura a moment to pry it free, the spikes stuck in the drywall. Fai gets behind him, gets the blade to Ashura’s throat, drags him backwards. Ashura jerks his head back, smashing it into Fai’s, and they quickly find themselves rolling across the floor, dodging strikes and slashes.

“But I do,” Ashura replies. “I loved Freya. She was a true friend to me, back then, even if she was using me. Perhaps that is what love is, in this world. People using one another. Haven’t you ever considered it?”

On the opposite end of the room, Chii continues reaching for the baseball bat, struggling to crawl with core strength alone. Fai and Ashura tumble, dodging blows, inflicting them. Fai tries to avoid as much as he can, tries to keep his moves not lethal, but the stakes are becoming higher, and Ashura’s intent becomes increasingly obvious: he’s aiming to kill. Fai wipes blood from his mouth, heart pounding, trying to crawl some distance away.

“You’re bluffing,” Fai protests. “You don’t believe that’s love. You’re only trying to egg me on.”

“Open your eyes,” Ashura says lightly. “This is the real world. You deserve to know the truth.”

With this, Ashura lands a blow–Fai’s shin is cracked open, blood flowing, dark and red.

“I am going to kill you, Fai,” Ashura explains, perfectly calm, as if discussing a business plan with a partner. “Unfortunately, this may be the only way to make you grant my wish. Won’t you just do it? Spare us all the agony?”

“I can’t,” Fai hears himself say, a broken note, his voice like a child’s. Ashura hovers over him, a spiked baton at the ready, positioned to strike Fai in the head, to crack his skull open.

“Then I suppose both my children must die,” Ashura sighs.

“Fuck you,” another voice croacks from across the room, and the men startle, both heads swiveling at the source: Chii, having finally reached her baseball bat, flips open a switch. Fai recognizes the work at once–Primera’s sort of design. An explosive.

“Chii–”

Everything happens simultaneously: both Fai and Ashura try leaping back; Fai flings himself as close to the door as he can, covering his head and ears; Chii detonates the device attached to the bat, and a massive explosion ensues, so loud that Fai feels it more than he hears it, the shrapnel flung in all directions. The walls between corridors suffer a huge gash through them, the rooms exposed to open air, dust and smoke choking the atmosphere, debris obscuring the sights. Fai comes to beneath a chunk of drywall, his hands bloodied and hurt, his vision funny. His left eye feels strange and his vision is off; he instinctively covers it with his hand. His ears feel oddly full. He pushes the debris from his body and rolls out from beneath it, crawling into the remnants of a hallway. He calls out, but he cannot hear his own voice, let alone if anyone answers it.

“Chii?” he exclaims, his voice vibrating in his throat. Is she dead? He can’t see through the smoke. “Chii?”

He wanders blindly, crawling on hands and knees through what remains of

The Shop

. The air hurts to breathe; he manages to pull his undershirt up over his nose and mouth. He crawls into the remnant of a corridor, broken masks lying in various states of unease or gleeful pleasure. A macabre sight. He coughs and coughs. Is his sister alive? Is Ashura? Is Kurogane?

Speak of the devil–he sees the man stagger out from what remains of a doorway, coughing into his elbow. Kurogane. Handsome as always, disheveled, covered in blood and dust and bits of debris, everything swirling from his path. Both of them stare across the small hallway at each other through the dust and smoke, and after a moment of quiet awe–they’ve both made it, somehow–they notice something. The dust and smoke are slowly clearing, revealing the singularly intact structure in the shop–what appears to be a safe room, a large black cube.

Kurogane asks Fai something. Fai gestures lamely at his ears, shaking his head. Kurogane thinks, and then points at the safe room, gestures between them, and looks, expectant. Fai surmises the meaning of it and nods. They join together in the remnants of the hall, Fai slinging an arm around Kurogane’s shoulder, and they limp towards it, coughing, shirts pulled over their faces to protect their lungs. Kurogane pulls them both, Fai struggling to keep weight on one foot, and they approach the safe room.

Fai tries the door, and it gives, and he stares inside at a strange sight–Yuuko, sipping wine at her table, Kendappa, staring approvingly at Souma beside her, Syaoran, saddled with packed bags and a gauzy eyepatch, Watanuki, darting around with a tray of food, and Sakura Kinomoto, having just completed a performance on her violin. Each person in the room turns to attention at the men, and as Fai feels himself going dizzy and lax, he still feels Kurogane keeping him upright. Yuuko assesses them with amused, knowing eyes, and she smiles at them both. She gestures towards the two empty seats at her table. She says something to them both, something that encourages Kurogane to drag them both in and shut the door behind them. Sakura puts her violin aside and runs toward them, the concern all over her face. Fai relaxes, somehow, despite the chaos of the evening, despite the strangeness of it all. At last, he understands the muted noises he had been hearing since he arrived. Her violin. What song had she played?

“I think I need to rest,” Fai reasons sleepily, and with that, he drops.