by Nikita Thorn
Zengoro looked at her. She nodded, and then glanced at Seiki.
“He can stay,” said her clan leader.
She shifted uneasily, for the first time showing any outward emotion. “Zen… For this…”
“It’s all right. He can stay.”
The houshi girl knelt down on the floor and slowly pulled out an item from her sleeve, her hands nearly trembling. At first it looked like a coil of thick silver rope, until Seiki noticed that it had sharp curved blades over its whole length.
Tsuru Nyobo no Akogare [unique]. +45 attack +19 defense +25 speed. Cursed by the tragic situation of the Crane Wife who is to be forever separated from her family, with each connected attack, the user is teleported just out of sight of the target.
Seiki had only heard of one whip in the game: one of the lost uniques. This was the one.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Yearning of the Crane Wife.”
There was only the slightest hint of breathlessness in Zengoro’s voice as he identified the piece. Grabbing the handle, he lifted the whip to inspect it, causing the rest of the weapon to gracefully uncoil like a docile serpent.
“It was in our resource box,” said Hanna. “Only Sumika uses the box and she said she would be off the whole Festival week to do her thing, so it would have been a few days before we discovered it.”
Zengoro simply gave a thoughtful nod.
Seiki, on the other hand, felt as if someone had turned the world upside down. This unique was one that the Society only had an artist’s impression of. Comparing that to the piece in front of him, the artist had done a passable job, even when the size and shape of the teeth on the whip were wrong and the color of the piece was a little off. The Yearning of the Crane Wife was a whip of pure silver, made of interlocking metal parts to allow it to bend, but, where one piece ended and another began, Seiki could not quite tell from their intricate shapes. Along the whole length of the whip were slim, featherlike blades. The tip was a long sharp point, like the beak of a crane. The handle, made of the same material, had a hand guard in the shape of folded wings. The whole piece glimmered with a prismatic shine wherever it caught the light.
Unlike some of the other uniques, the whip seemed to have been meticulously designed, but Seiki could not tell if there was something inherently special about the weapon or if it was simply because he knew it was a lost unique that it appeared to carry extra majesty and mystique.
“I see you weren’t expecting this either,” said Zengoro.
Seiki looked up and saw the Rogami leader studying him. This was most likely why the man had made him stay: to gauge how involved he was in Gin’s operation.
Zengoro shifted his gaze back to the item, a slightly troubled expression clouding his face. “I thought I had a pretty good idea what Gin was doing, but this is throwing me off again.”
The man was still doing an impressive job in hiding his excitement about having a lost unique unexpectedly show up in his clan territory. Seiki had to give him credit for his composure.
“Yearning of the Crane Wife,” said Hanna under her breath, as pretty much everyone was compelled to do so when seeing a particular unique weapon for the first time. “It’s based on a folk tale, isn’t it?”
“This thing has never been looted in the live version.” Zengoro looked at Seiki again. “But you already know that, too.”
“I saw it at the Society’s exhibition,” said Seiki, which was not a lie. After the unexpected invasion, the exhibition had eventually gone on as planned, although it was only in time for the last day of the Festival.
“Is the loot log for this thing still blank?” asked Zengoro.
“I believe so,” said Hanna. “But I can check again.”
If every player started out with a blank inventory, and this particular item had never been looted from anywhere, it was natural to ask where it had come from in the first place.
Seiki, however, realized he had a perfect answer for the question. If the whip had been looted by a player who escaped the entire log system, it would not have registered in the loot log. Ippei was probably right. This explanation was the simplest one that could account for all anomalies.
Zengoro grimaced. “Now why would Gin want to give me this? And who hired him to do it? Oh, no, this isn’t his own doing. The man’s here for laughs. You give him something entertaining to do and he’ll probably do it free of charge.”
The last bit was probably meant for Seiki, and he found the man looking at him again to see if he would contradict it.
Zengoro nodded. “Okay, you knew Gin was up to something, you didn’t know it was this. I thought I was going to find a key, or maybe a high-leveled scroll or weapon that someone else looted, like the White Cranes, and then the next thing will be Akihisa barking outside our main territory.”
Seiki recalled the name. It was Akihisa, leader of the Fuoka Army.
“We lost almost a third of our resources from that rogue siege. Of course, I looked into the matter,” said Zengoro with a bitter chuckle.
That answered Seiki’s question before he could even form it. The one-sided conversation was getting a little unnerving and Seiki drew an uneasy breath.
“Well, I’m not going to say no to a free unique.” Zengoro suddenly laughed. “Hanna, get everyone in, will you? Time-threes and up. And, Shu, get the seats ready.”
There was indeed a fourth person in the room. Following Zengoro’s gaze, Seiki turned to see a ninja coming out of Camouflage: Shuei of the Rogami Clan [Level 28], a young man with cropped hair in simple black.
The man had been sitting under the southward window, not too far away. Perhaps this was the standard procedure when receiving guests: always have an extra pair of eyes on standby, who could kill them immediately should they attempt an invitation.
Shuei leapt to his feet and stretched his legs. “Get the attendants to do it,” he muttered as he grabbed the floor cushions from the pile in the corner and started throwing them onto the floor in three separate rows. “Twenty-five should do?”
“Yeah. Not everyone’s in.” Zengoro turned to Seiki and smiled. “You’ll see how I make good on my word right now.”
Seiki glanced at the number of extra seats being arranged. “It doesn’t have to be a public event.”
Zengoro laughed. “We’ve got some wild characters here who can’t remember two lines of instructions. You gotta burn it into their memory.”
Seiki suspected this was a lie, but the man had promised an incredible deal, which was everything he had hoped for, and now he had also learned that Gin had come bearing the most ridiculous gift for the Rogami Clan. He supposed he would need to let things follow their natural course.
The more members a clan had, the more ranked members it could have; and the higher the rank, the more clan troops the member could command, which was a direct multiplication of the number of troops the member had personally unlocked. If he remembered correctly, the White Cranes had five ranks, and so Rogami’s so-called ‘time-threes’ were probably mid-ranked clan officers.
With a silent signal from Zengoro, Hanna put away the unique whip and sat down beside her clan leader. What message had been put out must have been through the clan’s internal communication system, and not before long footsteps and voices started filling the stairwell.
Shuei went to the doorway and waited like an impatient kindergarten teaching assistant. One by one, the Rogami officers filed in, all unfamiliar faces so far. Seiki took a quick look at their labels.
Kadano of the Rogami Clan [Level 27]
Piko of the Rogami Clan [Level 28]
Chahara of the Rogami Clan [Level 25]
Tega of the Rogami Clan [Level 24]
There were many more. Seiki counted nearly two dozen, a few more men than women. Quite a number of them were wearing upgraded Shinshioka armor sets, but there were as many unfamiliar pieces in the mix, including the largest gold-trimmed shoulderguards he had ever s
een. Their levels, as expected, matched the polished looks of someone who had been playing long enough to put together a creative set of gear. The surprising thing was that none of them had any visible weapons on their persons. Seiki wondered if it was a clan rule, and whether the fact they had let him carry his openly had been yet another form of courtesy.
Even with more than half the seats filled, Seiki still did not recognize any of them. This was not true the other way round, as it was clear the Rogami officers all knew exactly who he was.
Chahara, a man with a ponytail, grinned at his clan leader. “Is this judgment time, Zen?”
“This better be good,” said Tega. “I was in the middle of something of a romantic rendezvous, if you know what I mean.”
Someone else laughed and called him a liar.
Seiki watched them casually take their seats. Hanna was whispering something to her clan leader, who, in turn, was nodding at each and every one of his clan officers as they came in.
Shuei continued waving his clan mates in. “Hurry up. We don’t have all day, and the patch is gonna start soon.”
“Shiyo said she’s doing something,” said a girl labeled Naya of the Rogami Clan [Level 23].
“That’s fine,” said Shuei.
The girl found an empty cushion to sit down on, before adding. “She’ll pop in in the middle of the Banquet though.”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” Shuei turned back to directing traffic. “Okay, I’m sorry, Akio, this is time-threes and up only.”
“But I want to see,” protested someone from outside the room.
“Work harder, Akio,” shouted Zengoro with a laugh. “You’re this close to a promotion.”
The clan leader was now reading a piece of paper handed to him by Hanna, leaving Seiki nothing to do except to observe the newcomers filing into the room. At the very least, the mood was far from hostile. In fact, it felt more like showing up at an acquaintance’s house and suddenly being dragged into a private party where he knew no one, including the host.
Some of the Rogami clan members were staring at him, mostly out of curiosity. Some were outright friendly. Tatsuke of the Rogami Clan [Level 24], who was most likely a samurai judging from the red-trimmed haidate on his thighs that were part of the Shinshioka set, openly grinned at him. “Walked right into the wolf’s den, didn’t you?” For some reason the man seemed to approve.
Someone else in the crowd shouted, “Hey, Tega. A hundred gold. Pay up.”
Seiki had a feeling he was the subject of the wager, although he could not guess if it was whether he would really show up at the territory or whether Zengoro would kill him on the spot.
The atmosphere changed slightly when another figure entered, at least for Seiki. Rieko strode in silently, her icy gaze intent on boring a hole through his skull. It was not surprising she would be a ranked officer, considering that she was Level 27. She found a cushion in the middle to sit down. A girl next to her attempted to start a conversation, but was ignored by the obake.
One of the last people to enter was a well-built young man in a casual yukata, lazily worn over his armor, and Seiki realized this was going to be trickier than he expected.
Kojiro of the Rogami Clan [Level 23] stopped at the door as soon as he spotted Seiki.
“What is he doing here?” cried the samurai, his voice harsh with anger.
Zengoro glanced at the newcomer. “Sit down, Koji.”
“You don’t understand.” Kojiro cried. “This is the—”
“I said, sit down, Koji.” Zengoro did not raise his voice, but the added edge immediately quieted the buzzing conversation in the room.
“Don’t make a scene,” said Shuei quietly as he slid the door shut.
Kojiro gritted his teeth, glared at the ninja, before finally sitting down on the nearest cushion.
The Rogami leader paid Kojiro no more attention as he addressed his officers. “Thanks for coming. I have an announcement to make, and this is going to be short and sweet.” He gave a little nodding gesture. “This is Seiki. From now on, no one touches him, or his friends. If you don’t know who his friends are, this probably doesn’t concern you in the first place. In the future, you see him in trouble, you ask if he wants a hand. He says yes, you give it. All right? That’s all. You have questions, ask Hanna or Shu and they’ll explain.”
A slightly confused murmur rose from the crowd. Rieko grew pale with rage, but she bit her lips and remained silent.
Kojiro sprang to his feet, his face flushed red. “Hey, you can’t do this.”
“Whoa,” Shuei raised a hand to block the samurai’s path as he was about to dash into the middle of the room.
The ninja apparently held some authority, and his gesture was enough to stop the young man, but not enough to prevent him from pointing at Seiki. “You think you can suck up to Zengoro and this will all go away? You coward.”
Zengoro let out a sigh. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Koji. You need this more than he does.”
A few oohs rose in the crowd. The girl in the front row clasped her hand over her mouth, her eyes widening.
Kojiro glared at his clan leader. “What the hell do you mean?”
“The only reason you’re even ranked is because you were one of the first to join the clan,” said Zengoro. “When was the last time you turned in a clan quest? I could promote just about anyone else in your place and the clan would be better of.” He glanced at Seiki, a casual smile suddenly creeping onto his lips. Then he dropped the volume of his voice while still making sure it was loud enough for everyone in the room. “Actually, now that it has come to that, you want his job?”
More buzz rose among the officers. Seiki wanted to curse, both because of the implication of where it was all eventually heading, and because he had not seen it coming.
“That last time was a cheat, you bastard,” Kojiro yelled. A violent whish of air sounded next to him and the oversized mass of the Oni Cleaver appeared in his hand, its metal rings jangling on the giant rectangular blade.
Someone let out a loud curse as excited exclamations went through the crowd.
Zengoro shifted his gaze back at his clan member. “What did I say about drawing here? Stop making a fool of yourself. This man can wipe the floor with your useless ass with nothing but his bare hands.”
Kojiro let out a strangled roar as he pointed his blade at Seiki. “You. Outside. Now.”
More excited vocalizing and curses followed. A look from their clan leader, however, silenced them once more.
“Get up,” yelled Kojiro.
Zengoro turned to look at Seiki. “You don’t have to accept. You can walk out right now and my word still holds.”
The man was smiling. At that moment Seiki finally realized what Zengoro had been doing all along.
He had provoked Kojiro on purpose. While Zengoro had the intention to keep his word, he knew the deal would raise some eyebrows, and so he was making Seiki earn it in front of the rest of the clan.
But that was not all there was. Zengoro could have simply made it part of the condition: win and prove himself, and they would call it quits. Instead, he had done it the other way around. The challenge had been set up as an inherently unfair fight, and the man had forced the decision onto Seiki to accept the terms out of his own volition.
The situation, by design, only allowed for one possible answer. Zengoro knew this, and he knew Seiki knew this.
Seiki met his eyes, horrified yet somehow fascinated. This, however, was essentially what he had asked for. “Okay.”
Zengoro nodded. “All right. Listen, Koji. If he wins, you shut up about this for good.”
Kojiro ignored his clan leader. “Out! Now!”
“Not here.” Zengoro turned toward the group. “Tournament ground. It starts in five minutes.”
The room burst into excited whoops as everyone leapt to their feet. A few people rushed to the northside windows to shout to their clan mates who had no
t been invited to the meeting. “Tournament ground. Go save me a good spot!”
Seiki looked at Zengoro again. He had no idea where their so-called tournament ground was, but from the group’s reaction, it must be large enough for the majority of the clan members to watch. This had upped the stakes and the pressure, but, at the same time, had the benefit of making sure no one could ever go back on their word.
Kojiro had already stormed out, and most of the clan officers had followed him down the stairs.
“We have a dedicated space for duels and PVP practice,” said Zengoro casually, as if he was just giving a tour of the facilities. He pointed in the direction of a building Seiki could not see from the middle of the hall, which most likely meant the large single-storied building on the left of the main path coming from the front gate. “We’ll wait a bit till everyone settles in.”
The ninja Shuei had already gone off to handle the organization of the event. The houshi girl Hanna went to the personal inventory box to store the unique whip, leaving Seiki to follow Zengoro down the stairs.
There was no further conversation the whole short journey to their destination, although the Rogami leader glanced at Seiki as they walked past the Yureimusha, as if to show appreciation of the fact that he had left its main weapon.
The clan’s tournament ground was indeed the building Seiki had expected. The structure was single-storied, with a slanted black roof running its whole width, and took up nearly the entire eastern side of the territory. A gray pebble trail broke out from the main path, leading to its front double bamboo doors, which were now left wide open.
“Did I miss it?” A Level 14 clan member was running in from the front gate, who had presumably gotten a message from his clan mates about what was about to happen.
Another person poked his head out the front door of the building and waved. “Go through the side door. The front is packed.”