CW: Blood & gore, explicit violence, mentions of cannibalism, mentions of torture & murder, implied s*icide/s*icidality.
QAQ
“You will prepare my equipment, Rin.”
Rin openly smirks when he sees Sang’s eyes bulge out of their sockets; his expression warped in utter dismay.
The two tyros are standing in the Faceless Devil’s private chambers in the underground, watching their mentor calmly working on a piece of beautiful calligraphy. They were called in around noon and told only that there may be combat during Masao’s meeting in the evening. No other details were spared for Sang.
“But…Chief, that is the senior tyro’s duty,” Sang protests, shooting Rin a poisonous glare. “I have always prepared your equipment.”
“Indeed you have, Sang,” Masao says, sweeping his brush across the parchment. “Thus, Rin should learn such duties. In the future, you will both be responsible for each other’s equipment, not only your own. This is what it means to be comrade in arms.”
Sang’s lips purses so tightly they turn white. “And this has nothing to do with him being your son?”
Masao’s hand pauses mid-air. His sharp hawkish eyes fix upon Sang. The senior tyro blenches and bows his head, muttering a half-hearted apology.
“Do you believe that I adhere to the absurd blood biases of the Empire?” Masao’s tone is clipped, cool. “I created the Otsuki name for all to adopt, irrespective of heritage. If one is given extra responsibilities, it is because one has earned it.”
Sang swallows hard and bows his head lower. “Yes, Chief. Please forgive my presumptions.”
“You are a skilled and loyal tyro, Sang. Do not sully your efforts by acting on puerile emotions.” Masao sweeps his hand through the air, dismissing them both. “Go now. You have your assignments. Rin, have my sword and armour prepared by sunset.”
Rin grins and folds his arms, basking in Sang’s glower as though it were the sun. “I’ll have it ready within the hour.”
As promised, Rin prepares Masao’s equipment by the hour’s end. He spends extra time going over everything twice, checking for any vulnerabilities in the light armour and ensuring the sword is free of nicks and a dull edge.
Satisfied, he lays everything out for the Devil upon his bed and leaves the old man to his calligraphy. Though Rin was warned not to come to the meeting tonight, he plans on doing so anyway; eager to get a ringside seat to what will truly be a dramatic confrontation.
He spends the rest of the afternoon loitering in the High District, hooded and under a thin disguise. The Hwan Estate bustles with the upper echelon of Hanjuyang, even court officials from the Blue Plains; all gathered for the inauguration of the new Governor of Hanjuyang.
The proceedings are carried out in the vast green of the estate, with ostentatious spring-themed decorations. It almost reminds Rin of an extravagant wedding, the kind that he’d imagined for his own with Jun, but probably will never see. With these complicated thoughts, Rin watches the inauguration from a nearby pagoda tree, well hidden by the thick green foliage.
The little lord is dressed in formal Yatoro courtwear: a beautiful sea-blue haori and a rich navy robe beneath. His shoulder-length hair has been swept back into a neat ponytail, allowing his golden eyes to shimmer in the sunlight unhindered. The way he carries himself, with pride and elegance both, gives him a mature air that’s far from the youth Rin first met in the Slums. The weathers of time and blood have not worn him down, but rather gifted him a boldness, a gravitas, that is often absent in youth.
Even First Lord Hwan Sun, the Minister of Military Affairs, has affixed his attention upon his son – the son whom he’d once so flippantly dismissed as weak. His austere expression poorly veils his surprise, like he cannot recognise the man his son has become.
Rin stays just long enough to see Jun sworn in. And then he returns to his own world, feeling more conflicted than ever.
***
When the meeting time draws near, the raven makes his way to Hanjuyang Cemetery. On the northern side, there is a teahouse that sells incense and offerings for the dead. It’s here, long past closing, where Masao had arranged to meet his so-called informant. In truth, the informant is Bo, who is dressed like a grizzled mercenary. She’d been asked to come along for her ability to disappear within a blink of an eye, a useful trait for such a subterfuge.
Rin settles in a tree across the unpaved road, perched on the lowest branch with his feet swinging free. In the shadows of the night, he is near invisible.
Bo arrives first. Just after sundown. She shambles like a man, head ducked low, and the lower half of her face obscured by a scarf. The Spymaster pauses at the door, glances around furtively, and disappears inside.
Within minutes, Masao arrives. Unlike Bo, he walks in the open with his face bare. Even though he has on a stranger’s face, it’s clear who he is by the way he carries himself: one with authority and great power. He’s in his usual plain wear, a grey robe that makes him look like a holy man. Rin knows that beneath the layers, Masao has ready armour and arms; fully prepared to fight should their plan go awry.
Masao doesn’t bother to look around. He strides straight into the teahouse as though he were on a casual outing, and never once looks back.
The night deepens and the minutes tick by. Even as the teahouse windows glow with lantern light, there is no sign of Hwan Sun or the Silverswords.
Almost half an hour passes before Rin catches movement up the road. From the direction of the High District, a small squad of Silverswords, marching up the road with their blue-tinged blades drawn.
However, it’s not Hwan Sun leading the charge. It’s his ever present and loyal manservant – Zev.
Rin stiffens in surprise. Unease prickling in his chest. Hwan Sun wouldn’t put Zev in charge of such an important mission – to capture the Faceless Devil himself. At the very least, it should have been the Captain of the Silverswords leading the charge, not a manservant, no matter how talented at martial arts he is. Something isn’t right.
As the Rat watches on, said manservant gestures to the guards and they quickly surround the teahouse, blocking all visible escape points. Zev sheds his outer robe, revealing light armour and a katana hanging from his waist. His face is like a cold mask of bloodlust and rage, barely contained within its frozen borders. Such an expression is strange upon this man’s face, which is usually so flat and apathetic. But now, he’s transformed into someone who knows death well, and his heavy aura strikes fear into even those he commands.
Zev comes to a stop outside the front door, hand resting upon his katana. “OTSUKI!” Three syllables, howled with so much rage and loathing, it barely sounds human at all. It’s a rusted metal blade, violently ground against another in preparation for battle. “Surrender yourself or accept your death!”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Zev instantly zeroes in on the shorter man, his bared teeth glinting like fangs in the white moonlight.
“What’s this now?” Masao says in mock surprise. “I was expecting my old friend, Hwan Sun, but instead I am met with his yapping pup. How disappointing.”
“The lord is busy running an empire,” Zev seethes, hands visibly shaking. “Unfortunately, you will have to deal with me in his stead.”
Masao glances at those shaking hands and a brow rises in interest. “What is your want with me, boy?”
“Vas Eshar.”
There’s a flicker in Masao’s smooth countenance. A fleeting glimpse of regret or anger. “What of it?”
Zev grips the hilt of his blade, fingers white from the tremendous pressure. “Twenty years ago at Vas Eshar. You and your beasts descended upon the city like a plague. Do you remember it?”
“I remember attempting to liberate a city under the Mother’s oppressive rule, yes.”
“Liberate?” Zev barks, eyes bulging in shock. “Liberate?!” He paces before his two prisoners, restlessly raking a hand through his white hair. His glasses flash with every sharp turn of the heel. “I will tell you what your liberation looks like, Otsuki. And listen well, because when my tale ends, so does your life.”
Instead of responding combatively, Masao calmly watches the agitated man, giving him the attention he demands. “I am listening.” Behind him, with both arms held fast by two guards, Bo shoots Masao a worried look.
Zev draws his katana, still sheathed, and whips Masao across the face with it. A sickening crack as Masao’s head snaps to the side, but to his credit, he remains standing. Unshaken.
Zev pants lightly, a sliver of his rage sated by the violence. He continues pacing. And he tells his tale in a grating, tremulous voice. “When you attacked Vas Eshar, there was a fifteen year old boy living in the High District with his mother, father, and older brother. They were good people. His mother was a teacher in the People’s District, and during her free time, she ran a small school for the destitute, teaching them to read and write so that they may find employment. His brother was a Healer who had served proudly under the Dragon General during the Aswi Chadan campaign. He was a good brother. The best brother.” Zev’s voice breaks, cracks, but he pushes on, driven by his barely contained rage. “Deriz was a man who valued life and sought to preserve it. He did no wrong.”
A sudden gust of wind stirs the trees, and they shiver and sway, susurating and murmuring like agitated onlookers. Somewhere nearby, a mournful cry from an unknown beast.
“And the boy’s father. He was a civil servant who worked with the Administration Division stationed at Vas Eshar. He had been highly commended, promoted for his tireless work, and as such, he had afforded his family a better life even without a second name. He ensured the safety of his people, that they should have the necessities to survive the war like food and shelter and medicine. He was not a fighter nor was he military – he was a simple city official.”
“An admirable family,” Masao comments, without a hint of irony.
Zev strikes the Devil across the fact again, this time with more fervour. When Masao stumbles, the Westerner grabs him by the throat, keeping him aloft. His face, contorted and warped by his immense hatred. “You have no right to admire them, Otsuki. Keep your filthy mouth shut.”
Masao gazes at Zev with a steady eye, dark bruises already blooming upon his cheeks.
The manservant shoves Masao as he releases him, and continues pacing. Every step like a ticking metronome to his speech. “The day the Devils descended upon Vas Eshar was the day the boy lost everything. Those beasts did naught to check who they tore apart. As long as they saw blue, it was enough to warrant a fate worse than death.”
Zev’s steps falter. He stops before Masao, hands clenched, head bowed, his shoulders taut and trembling. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. Cold. “I woke to find them dragging my family from their beds. They’d received a report, they said. That my father was a powerful imperial agent, and my mother and brother were aiding him. Those beasts claimed my father knew the location of bio-weapons, hidden at Vas Eshar. But this was a performance. They had no true reason to hang my family on a rack like wild game and flayed them whilst they still lived. And as they salted their skinless flesh, I could naught but sit there on the street, paralysed, unable to move a single muscle. They didn’t die for hours. For days. And when they took their last breath, I was frozen to the ground by my own piss. I thought it was apropos. My soul had died with them, so my body should too.”
When Zev raises his face to Masao, his expression is distant and cold. As though this story was about another, and not himself. “If not for my lord taking Vas Eshar back from the claws of the terrorists, I would have died without knowing vengeance. But now. Now, I have you, Ostuki. And you shall pay for your grievous transgressions. For all the families you have destroyed. The cities you have plundered. You are like those Devils. Using liberation to guise your true intent.” Zev draws his blade from the sheathe in one, sharp motion. The metal rings when it’s freed. The sheathe is tossed to the side. “Ruination.”
He flicks a hand at the Silverswords and they all step back, forming a circle around Zev and Masao. Bo too, is wrenched off to the side. Every pair of eyes are fixed upon the two men who share this bloodied history.
Masao stands before Zev, grim and pale. The Westerner’s tale seems to have shaken him, but he doesn’t appear surprised. Perhaps, it is a tale he knows well, repeated throughout the city of Vas Eshar during his so-called Liberation.
Rin grips a tree branch, heart pounding in his ears. Is this what will happen to Hanjuyang too?
But then he remembers what happened to Nuwa, and he releases his breath in a sharp exhale. No. What happened to Zev could have been an outlier. Or he could be lying. Whatever the case, Rin would much rather an out-of-touch asshole like the Faceless Devil over a tyrannical monster like the Mother. The Devil he knows, understands. The Mother is a dangerous enigma he could never hope to solve.
“What would you have me do?” Masao says, plainly. “Should I kneel in repentance? Or should I offer you my head?”
Zev gestures to one of the Silverswords who returns Masao his sword. “We shall have a duel, you and I. A duel to the death.”
“Honourable,” Masao says, pulling his blade from its sheath. Moonlight glances off the red steel. “Then I shall accept your challenge. To the death.”
“This has nothing to do with honour. This is justice.”
The last syllable echoes across the cemetery before Zev launches into a flurry of aggressive attacks; like a roaring inferno happening upon dry kindling, his attacks are violent fury, instantly forcing Masao on the defensive.
Fire and water. Two martial styles that are wholly opposite, yet as the two warring men strike blade to blade, they seem oddly at harmony. Like a choreographed dance, one that is vicious, but in sync and well practised.
At some time, the ground evens out. Masao and Zev are equally on the offense – a risk with fire forms, most of one’s energy is exerted in the first seconds of the fight. But Masao too had expended much energy fending off the blaze, and so from this point on, there is no telling who would win this duel.
There is one crucial detail however. Only one of them is driven by his emotions. And the Devil uses this to his advantage.
“In truth,” Masao pants, dodging another explosive blow from the younger man. “I do not remember your family. I certainly do not remember you. There will always be collateral during wartime, and while I am sorry for what happened to you, we liberated Vas Eshar for the people. People like you who are subjugated by the Empire.”
As the Devil predicted, his words bellows the wild fires of Zev’s rage, and the manservant bursts into another bout of crazed attacks. His katana is a mere blur as he focuses entirely on Masao’s head. He’s aiming for the deathblow with every strike – and failing.
“I was subjugated by the Otsuki terrorists!” Zev howls, pure loathing contorting his face into something inhuman. “No longer! I WILL BE VINDICATED!”
As effective a fuel rage is however, it does little to preserve the vast amount of energy Zev consumes as he launches another infernal attack. By the end of the round, the Westerner’s stamina is near depleted, and his movements become sloppy and inaccurate. Masao now has the upper hand.
“Vindication you shall never find,” Masao says, easily parrying Zev’s clumsy strike. “Because you are on the wrong side. Will you be an enslaved beast for your imperial owners? Or will you learn to stand on two feet and know your own worth?”
“You had stripped my worth away. You stole my home and my name. I was nothing. And my lord…he has given me everything!”
Zev swings his blade towards Masao, an easy, predictable arc. A child could defend such an attack. And yet, as Masao brings his own blade up to meet the other’s, there’s a terrible SNAP and half the blade goes flying. Zev’s blade completes its arc, unhindered, and slices through Masao’s wrist, severing his hand entirely.
There’s a moment of shock. Even Zev pauses as a spray of blood splatters against his robe. Masao staggers back, staring wild-eyed at the bloodied stump where his hand once was. His face blanches, turns white then grey, and his legs buckle.
“NO!” In a few savage motions, Bo incapacitates her captors and charges into the ring. She grabs the wounded Devil and throws him over her shoulder, bright red blood cascading down her back like a gory waterfall.
She waves her arm and vanishes from sight. One can only hear her heavy boots pounding against the dirt road and the wet splattering of blood, more distant by the second.
Zev’s the first one to break out of his trance. He stabs his blade into the severed hand that still clings onto the broken sword, pinning it to the ground. “FIND HIM!” he screams, tears dampening his blood-flecked cheeks. “FIND HIM AND BRING ME HIS HEAD!”
Try as they might, the Silverswords are unable to catch a fleeing ghost, and all that can be heard are Zev’s anguished screams.
***
When death comes for him, dawn spills into the Sweet Brier Inn like scattered embers. He doesn’t move from where he sits, drinking and gazing blindly into the ashen hearth, where the flames had long flickered out. Patrons and Roses have either retired to their rooms or stumbled home drunk, leaving the tavern silent and empty.
He spent the quiet hours of the early morning ruminating on his failures. His family. His saviour. He knew this was his only opportunity to repair his brokenness, but now the Devil has slipped from his grasp, his reason for continuing too has flickered out.
“Zev.” A voice, like a sigh in an empty well, disturbs the silence.
My lord will be disappointed, Zev thinks, draining his nth glass of Northern whiskey. He grabs the half-empty bottle and refills his drink, all the way to the rim. Maybe on another day, he would regret leaving his lord before fulfilling his service to him. At this moment however, he feels nothing but numb grief.
“You gave me more time than I expected,” he says, heavy-lidded eyes fixed upon the hearth. “Are my guards dead?”
“Merely unconscious.”
“Then I must thank you.”
A giant masked figure enters his periphery. She is dressed like the dead, head to toe in white, and it would be ghastly if not for those warm amber eyes peering above the mask. A splash of colour upon this monochrome spectre.
“Have you made your peace?” Bo asks, drawing a dagger from her sleeve.
The Westerner hums over the rim of his glass, unmoved by the sight of a weapon. “I do hope you have considered the implications.”
“I have.”
“Your master has not.”
There’s a short pause, before Bo says, truthfully, “No.”
Zev laughs without humour. “This is his personal vendetta.”
“Yes.”
“You would place him on the throne?”
The rebel bristles. “We intend to destroy the throne. Our world has no need for tyrants or empires – all will be equal, no matter blood or name.”
“And he, who would create this utopia, risks his vision for a wounded ego–”
While Bo silently agrees, the irascible Masao heard naught an iota of her reasoning. She has her orders, he told her, and as Spymaster, she is obliged to them. “You took a swordmaster’s hand.”
“He took my family. Destroyed my home.”
“It was not he who razed your kin.”
“If we are to entertain the sins of the soldier, then we would be sharing this drink instead of ill intent.” Zev drains his glass and rises to his feet. He tosses the dregs into the dying hearth, inciting flames anew. The look he casts at his killer is one of a dying man, fighting to extend his final breath. “I tire of this discourse. Let us end our business before the bartender returns and sees fit to expel us.”
He picks up his discarded katana and draws the blade. The revived hearth catches on the blue steel and for a split second, the Westerner’s hazel eyes glow Hino blue.
A crackle and a snap.
And both soldiers of their colours, make their offensive.
With uncanny agility for one so large, Bo side-steps the vicious arc of blue and strikes out at the exposed belly with her dagger.
Zev steps back too late and the blade nicks his skin. A small bloom of red stains his drink-stained undershirt, but he nary bats an eye. He responds with wild attacks, following the arrhythmic dance of the flames, and Bo might have been forced onto her back foot if not for the man’s inebriation.
He’s sloppy. Drunk. And wounded in spirit. He fights with death’s ghastly breath upon his nape, and she can tell that he welcomes it.
No sooner than she realises his death wish, does the manservant drop his blade mid-strike. And Bo, already in the process of making her own attack, is unable to stop the trajectory of her hand. Something wells in her. A desperate regret; especially as she glances at his eyes. The blue dies in his hazels, leaving a desolate field of acceptance.
She jerks her hand to the side. Strikes outside of the lethal zones. The red blade sinks into soft flesh, and everything becomes still.
Zev stumbles back, clutching his wound as blood spurts through his fingers. He glances down at the trail of blood that follows his every step and he sighs.
“Why did you drop your sword?” Bo frowns, sheathing her dagger. “Why do you not fight?”
Zev’s leg hits the chair and he drops down heavily. For now, he is numb, but when the shock wears off, the pain will steal his senses. He slumps, one hand falling limply to his side. Dangling like a dead limb. Dark lashes fall low, slicing his gaze in half.
“It is wearisome,” he sighs.
Bo clenches her hands into angry fists. “What is?”
“Life. War. Vengeance. It is wearisome.”
“What of your master? You would abandon your duties?”
A faint smile, touched with regret, dances upon his lips. “He would not miss me.”
“You would regret leaving him,” Bo says, and after a hesitation, she moves to the vacant seat beside him. “He is family to you, is he not?”
“Are you in the habit of making such wild assumptions?”
“It is how I feel about my master.”
A weak huff of laughter jolts the man and his face drains of colour. The pain creeps in now, starting as a burning throb in his side, and becoming more unbearable by the breath. He slumps lower in his seat and the hand upon his wound slackens. Blood flows unhindered, splattering gorily upon the creaking wooden floorboards.
“I do not look upon my master as family. But as a man,” he admits, tremulously.
The spymaster stoops down to pick up the whiskey bottle and takes a deep swig. “He does not see you in the same way.”
“No. He has made it abundantly clear.”
She passes him the bottle but it almost slips from his grasp. The giantess saves the drink and brings it to the dying man’s bloodless lips.
Zev takes a greedy drink. When she withdraws her hand, there is but a sip remaining. He gives her a grateful nod and leans back, already dipping into the groggy borders of oblivion. “I could not give them a proper burial,” he laments, glazed eyes flitting about blindly. Perhaps he is witnessing the past upon the flame-cast walls; and when Bo follows his line of sight, she can imagine what he might be seeing. “Before I could return to my senses, they were devoured by the starvelings.” His lips quiver. “My mother was consumed by her own students. I could not mourn her. I could not mourn them. Not while I knew they sat in some wretch’s belly. Not while I knew they would never be vindicated.
“Perhaps, I can find peace,” he continues, his voice a mere wisp upon his laboured breath. “If I should find my family in the Underworld, I can beg forgiveness for failing them.”
“I am certain. You are already forgiven, Zev.”
Bo’s kind words go unheard as his eyes flutter close and the last vestiges of life steadily drip from his still body.
here you go again, making us cry almost all of the tears of our body…. 🥲
Everything’s fiiiiiiine ^_^ <33
😭😭😭😭
Thank you for the chapter!! <3
Thank you for reading dondon!! <333