Chapter Forty-nine: Kattobing

Kotori found Yuma alone in the kitchen with his back to the door, staring at the glowing coals in the fireplace. His hair was mussed and damp, and from the way his shoulders and elbows moved, he was rubbing his hands together. She sat at the table, upon which sat Yuma's father's sword.

"Lord Kaito's jaw was very nearly broken," she said conversationally, "but I realigned it without any particular difficulty."

There was no sound from the man in the chair. She didn't expect one, exactly.

"He wouldn't tell me how he was injured, but I suspect he's coming down with a lung infirmity from being in the rain so long. He coughed up some blood."

She'd seen Kaito in the hallway, hand to his cheek and a half-scowl on his face as he followed the captain into the Shrine. Ryoga hadn't cared whether Kaito's jaw functioned properly or not, but Kotori berated him to no readily apparent effect before she grabbed Kaito's face and Healed him. He'd pulled away and immediately went into a coughing fit, splattering blood and saliva all over the stone floor. For some reason, Ryoga didn't even seem surprised; more incredibly, he didn't make a snide comment. He remained silent as he settled himself on the edge of his bed and gestured for Kotori to put Kaito – now breathing raggedly – in the nearby chair. She didn't, and left them to discuss whatever it is Ryoga was keen to discuss. Neither wanted her help, that much was clear.

Yuma ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. It wasn't difficult to figure out how Kaito's jaw ended up the way it had. "I didn't mean to… hit him. Gods, I've never really hit anyone, and I wanted to hurt him so much more." His shaky laugh had more than a hint of a suppressed sob in it. "I don't understand, Kotori. I've been so… so angry."

His calloused hand was freezing as Kotori knelt by his chair and gripped it. He gripped hers back weakly. "So much has happened these past few months, Yuma." She reached up to wipe the streaks of moisture from his face. Not all of it was cold rainwater. "You're scared. Rio-" A lump welled in her throat and she coughed quietly, struggling to keep her voice from quivering. Yuma's hand tightened around hers and she took comfort in it as much as she prayed she was comforting Yuma. "Rio's gone, and the captain is… he's… I think he's doing stupid things because he's lost his purpose and he doesn't know what else to do."

This time, Yuma didn't suppress his sob as he pulled his hand away and covered his face. She knelt by his side, knees going numb on the cold stone floor, and let him cry. Five minutes passed, ten, fifteen- and he finally looked up again with bloodshot eyes. "I am scared."

"Me too," she murmured, taking his hand again. It was wet and gritty from his salty tears.

"I feel like…" He stared into the faded coals in the fireplace again and knitted his brows as though trying to see something far away. "I don't want to go back to the Astral Kingdom yet. Not like this." He turned back to Kotori and gripped her hand with both of his. "It makes my stomach churn, but what the captain has planned… seems like something I need to do. And I don't like it. I don't like it at all, Kotori. Because I think I'm going to… I have to…"

Die. The word didn't need to be said aloud. Yuma fought Fate with every decision he made. He wanted to carve out his own future. "You don't have to do anything, Yuma."

Yuma tried to take a deep breath and ended up hiccupping instead. "I would rather do whatever they want me to do than sit around and do nothing." He wiped his face with his free hand and climbed shakily to his feet. She knew who they were.

"Where are you going?"

"I need to apologize to Kaito for attacking him." He narrowed his eyes at the ceiling. "And then I'm going to pray until I can contact the Astral World."

It was such a long shot that Kotori wasn't sure Yuma would be able to do it at all. Very few people managed the level of concentration necessary to enter the Astral World in spirit. Yuma's stress and anxiety and guilt would hinder his progress tremendously. "Why?"

Yuma's lips twitched in a dry smile. "I have a lot of questions that I want answered before I let them string me along to whatever Fate they've had in mind for me from the start."


A cold, steady drizzle fell on the deck of the ship, percolating through Akari's dress and doing nothing to make her any less pissed off than she already was. And, given that she had been dragged top deck and tied back-to-back with Chris by what she assumed was a band of river pirates before being settled off to the side of the ship like a large sack of grain, she was plenty pissed.

"Stop squirming," Chris muttered. "These knots aren't going to give for anything less than a blade slicing through them."

"Our hands are touching. I don't like it."

He sighed and she could practically hear him roll his eyes.

Chris was unusually calm through the whole process, not struggling and not even drawing his sword. He didn't move as a particularly short man with a high voice and annoyingly bright clothing tied them together first, then their feet, all while carrying on a nonsensical conversation with himself under his breath. Now the man stood next to a thin, much taller man wearing a long black coat, caressing a cutlass like it was his child. Yamikawa, she'd heard the short man call him, and it didn't mean anything to her but it seemed to mean something to Chris by the way he breathed sharply upon hearing the name.

"He's an infamous river pirate," Chris had whispered, and Akari stifled a groan with difficulty. It was one thing after another in her life lately; being kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, forced into swearing allegiance to a kingdom she couldn't care less about, marrying this unhelpful man, discovering that her father had been murdered by a Barian lord… and now kidnapped by a river pirate who was apparently very good at what he did.

"We're in quite an unpleasant situation," Yamikawa said after watching them from the ship railing for a while.

"Tell me about it."

"What do you hope to achieve by taking us prisoner?" Chris said as though Akari hadn't spoken. "I'm sure you've heard about my father. He will never pay any sum to get me back."

"Maybe he won't," Yamikawa said, and his calmness rivalled Chris's, "but imagine how much you two would fetch if we turned you over to the right people in Heartland."

"What the hell would anyone in Heartland want with us?" Akari demanded, straining against the rope as she tried to face Yamikawa.

She stopped struggling when Yamikawa squatted next to her on the balls of his feet. He regarded her with a tilt of his head. "You might know things, Lady Arclight. You do have a close working relationship with certain high-ranking Barian lords."

"It's Lady Tsukumo and I'm gonna-"

"The Barians took over my kingdom," Chris cut in, and he sounded terse now. "I have no say in what goes on there anymore and nothing a common pirate tries in order to get us to talk is going to make us worth anything."

Yamikawa slowly straightened up and casually wiped the rain from his hair. "I'm anything but a common pirate, Lord Arclight. I actually prefer the term privateer."

Chris snorted, an odd sound from him. "A privateer is contracted legally by a wartime government. Only one government exists on this entire continent, and they sure as hell didn't hire you."

An unpleasant grin appeared on Yamikawa's face, showing rather pointed teeth. "Is that so." He nodded toward the short man. "Tokunosuke, take our guests below deck and out of the rain. It won't do for them to get sick."

The man – Tokunosuke – scowled at Akari and Chris before gripping the rope, hauling them clumsily to their bound feet. Akari figured they could probably take this short man – even tied together – if Chris cooperated with her, but Chris merely coughed quietly and shuffled backward, stumbling into her as they were dragged below deck once more.


"I'm not a tactician," Kaito said after a long moment of staring at Captain Kamishiro's plans for an invasion of the Astral Kingdom, "but even to me, this seems particularly stupid."

The captain merely crossed his arms and lifted an eyebrow, which Kaito took as in invitation to tell him on what grounds he was stupid, of which there were several.

"For one" –Kaito jabbed a finger at a bridge over the Revise River- "assuming Lord Vector doesn't have this bridge heavily guarded, which he will, you're also assuming he won't have the surrounding three villages watched. Or his front gate. Or the hallways, or the throne room, and, most importantly, that he will be in the throne room to begin with."

No response.

Kaito closed his eyes in frustration for a moment. "Second, you're planning to do this whole damn mission with, what, fewer than twelve people?" He straightened up and placed a hand on his hip. "Which leads me to my third issue – did any of them actually agree to this or did you just assume that they'd be all for charging right at a Barian mage? I'm curious, because it seems like there's a lot of assuming going on here, and it seems uncharacteristically moronic of a Dragoon warrior to base his battle strategy off some baseless assumptions."

"Vector will be in the throne room," Ryoga said tonelessly.

Whatever had happened to him in the past couple of weeks had made him more intolerably arrogant than before. It pissed Kaito off. "You sound so sure of yourself."

"I am." Ryoga sat up, drawing the map closer to himself. "Your second point was the thing that rendered all of your other concerns invalid. There won't be just a handful of us." He traced his finger in a circle over three areas scattered throughout the Astral Kingdom: one along the river bordering Heartland, one along the northeastern river, and one not too far west from the Shrine. "You see, not all of the Astral Guard was in the palace during the invasion."

You have to be kidding me. "Three small outposts of exiled soldiers aren't going to be sufficient to mount an assault against arguably the most powerful Barian lord."

"They won't be mounting an assault," Ryoga said curtly.

It took Kaito exactly seven seconds to figure out what Ryoga meant by that, and just as his mouth opened in stunned disbelief, there was a knock at the door and Yuma pushed it open.

"Captain," he murmured, entering the room as he closed the door behind him.

"Lieutenant," Ryoga replied without looking at him. "What is it?"

Yuma cleared his throat and stared at the ground. "I wanted to- to apologize for hitting you, Lord Kaito, and I…" He gritted his teeth. "I beg your forgiveness."

Kaito considered denying the man his forgiveness – despite the Healing, his jaw was still sore – but he was still bewildered over what had happened between Yuma and the captain and even more so about why the captain was so eager to let everyone who might be willing to mount a counterattack against the Barian Empire charge headlong into an attack at one lord. "Whatever." He thrust a finger at the map. "Do you know about this?"

Yuma's eyes flickered toward the map. "Yes."

"And you're okay with this?" Kaito demanded.

"Yeah." Yuma shifted uncomfortably. "I'll do whatever I'm needed to do."

Kaito backhanded him squarely across the face. As far as he was concerned, it was equal payment for the sore jaw Yuma had left him with, and Yuma deserved it far more at the moment. It didn't seem to faze him, however; he rubbed his cheek, eyes narrowed, but didn't say anything else. Which was fine; Kaito had plenty to say.

"The hell is going on with you people?" He turned to the captain. "You've turned into a suicidal maniac who's willing to sacrifice dozens of people to kill one lord when there are six more sitting on top of the rest of their empire" –he turned to Yuma- "and you – you've fucking… given up." He held out his hands. "This is ludicrous."

"Maybe you should-"

Ryoga's terse response stopped abruptly, and his entire body seized up. Every sign of life in his eyes vanished instantly, but he still breathed – slowly, almost imperceptibly, but enough to make the strand of hair that had fallen over his nose flutter slightly with each exhale.

"What's happening?" Yuma murmured, approaching the man cautiously. "Ryoga?"

"I don't think he's going to answer," Kaito said as Yuma shook Ryoga's shoulder gently. "He looks like he's gone into a trance."

"I've never seen anyone go into a trance so suddenly." Yuma licked his lips and sat next to the captain on the bed, reaching tenderly for his face. "Hey."

It reminded Kaito of the time he and Ryoga had rescued Astral and Yuma from the Barians. Ryoga had touched Yuma's face just as affectionately, had brushed Yuma's hair out of his eyes the same way Yuma was now doing to Ryoga's.

No more killing, Yuma had whispered back then. I don't want any more killing.

"Kattobing," Kaito said quietly.

Yuma turned his head back toward Kaito. "What?"

Kaito cleared his throat and turned his back on Yuma. "Your sister wanted me to tell you… to kattobing."

"Akari…?" Yuma's voice was full of relief. "You… you talked to Sis? She's okay?"

"She's doing fine. She's just worried about you." Kaito knew all too well what it was like to be an older sibling worrying for a younger brother. Except in his case, Haruto wasn't fine. He was Durbe's prisoner, and Kaito needed to gain the Dragon's power in order to save him. He didn't have time to waste, but he needed Ryoga and Astral's help deciphering the legend again. There was something they had missed the first time. Ryoga didn't seem like he would be particularly helpful in this state, though. Gods, his chest was killing him. He hoped fervently that he wasn't sick. "What does it mean? Kattobing?"

"It was our dad's thing," Yuma mumbled. "It didn't really have… a meaning. Don't give up. Do your best. That sort of thing." He sighed. "But he always told us to make our own future. No matter what."

"Is this the future you want?"

Yuma didn't need to speak for Kaito to know what the answer would be. Yuma didn't want this. Yuma was afraid of Ryoga now.

"Everyone's going to die if you don't stop him," Kaito said evenly.

"What can I do?"

Kaito folded his arms as he turned to face Yuma, whose hand now gripped Ryoga's. "This isn't him." By Yuma's unsurprised expression, Kaito knew he felt the same. "Get the real him back."


Mizael was just getting to sleep when Durbe seized up next to him, loud, pained whining noises slipping from his mouth. Unsure of what to do, Mizael sat up and pulled Durbe with him, wrapping him in his arms. Durbe's whimpers gave way to soft sobs, and his fingers clenched the back of Mizael's nightclothes while his face pressed into Mizael's chest.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered hoarsely.

Gently, Mizael pried Durbe off. "You know that we can't keep this sleeping arrangement going for much longer, Durbe. Especially if you're going to wake up this noisily every time."

"I know, I know, I-" Durbe hunched over and pulled his knees to his chest. He reminded Mizael of a small child trying to comfort himself. "It's hard to sleep because I… I see them. Every night. Every night I see them, and they just look at me and I see their accusations."

"Who?"

Durbe scratched at his stringy hair with a trembling hand. He hadn't washed his hair in nearly a week. "Alit. Gilag. Kaid. Everyone who died because of me."

No matter how much Mizael tried to tell him otherwise, Durbe was convinced that he was responsible for Alit and Gilag's deaths. And Durbe often uttered the other name, Kaid, in his sleep but refused to tell Mizael who Kaid was. "Who is Kaid, and why were you responsible for his death?"

He didn't expect an answer this time either, but Durbe's mouth quivered before he turned his back on Mizael and sat on the edge of the bed. He sniffed. "My little brother."

In the thirty years they had known each other, Mizael couldn't recall a time when Durbe had mentioned having a brother. All he knew about Durbe's childhood, he realized, was that Durbe was from a small village in the Waste and that his village had been hit with a deadly plague before Durbe left it. Surely Durbe didn't think that he was responsible for the plague that must have killed his brother. "Unless you summoned that plague to your village, I don't think you were responsible for it."

"He died and my parents died and everyone in my entire goddamn village died except me. I had to watch. I had to watch as everyone I loved died and… and I ran away. I ran away and became the thing I hated most, thinking foolishly that I could make things better for my kingdom but I... God." He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. "It wasn't a plague, Mizael."

"I don't understand."

"It was poison." Durbe turned back to him, eyes dull. He reached for Mizael's hand, and Mizael let him have it. "It was the same poison that almost killed you."

Mizael's hand twitched involuntarily and he resisted the suddenly overpowering urge to pull away from Durbe. This explained so much, and yet offered no answers to some of Mizael's more burning questions. "Why did you survive, then?" he whispered. "Why is your blood the only immunity?"

"I don't know." Durbe shook his head and looked up at Mizael desperately. "I saw them, Mizael. In the Waste, when Gilag and I went back to find the plant that produces the poison. They are so filled with a demand for justice for the wrongs done against them that they are tied to that place. Forever to thirst for vengeance, never to find peace." His breathing quickened and he shuddered. "They said the Seven Lords were responsible, using my village as an experiment." He rested his head on his pillow, tears flowing sideways across the bridge of his nose. "I'm no better than the other lords, they said. I turned my back on them, abandoned them, and committed genocide of my own."

Settling back on the bed, Mizael rested his head on his own pillow until he was looking at Durbe again. "Is this why you are so worked up about me being sick? You'd watched everyone you loved die to this poison and you didn't want to lose someone else you… someone else you care about?"

Durbe reached out shakily and tucked a strand of Mizael's hair behind his ear. "Please don't die, Mizael."

"That's the plan." Mizael attempted to give Durbe a wry smile, but the lord's eyes closed.

"Dragoons had a deeply ingrained religious system," Durbe murmured, thumb absently brushing Mizael's marks. Mizael frowned at the sudden change in conversation. "They had four major symbols. The Earth, which gave their bodies life and welcomed them back after their deaths. The Astral World, which created their souls and promised their rebirth. The Forest, which gave them shelter and sustenance. And the Mountain, which was where the gods communed with them."

Mizael didn't understand what Durbe was going on about, or what this had to do with anything they had been talking about. But when he voiced this confusion out loud, Durbe opened his eyes again.

"These four symbols were everything to them," Durbe whispered. "They would have etched them onto the four seals that protected their village."

A weary warrior approaches the Mountain of the Gods.

It finally clicked.

The Mountain of the Gods wasn't a literal mountain. It was one of the four seals buried deep within what was once the Dragoon Village.

"How do you-"

"I see it, in my dreams." Durbe's gaze didn't meet Mizael's. "When they stand there, watching me, it's in the middle of that forest. Except there's a mountain to the north, clearly visible, though the mountains are in actuality to the west. It's never made sense before, but…" He closed his eyes once more and slid closer to Mizael, linking their hands together. "For the Dragon to awaken, the Dragoons had to die. That was their purpose, to protect the seal until time came for it to be broken." He sounded so calm, despite his quivering hand and the stray tears dripping from his eyelashes.

"Why would the gods create an entire race of people to be massacred like cattle?" Mizael mused.

"I don't know. I probably never will. But Mizael, if that was their purpose… then what is ours?"

His pale, dry lips, cracked and bleeding, were close to Mizael's, and Mizael felt his heart clench in his chest, felt a pleasant shudder run through his body. "How long must we wait, Durbe?"

Durbe's lips curled upward in a humorless smile, millimeters from Mizael's now. "The broken soul must be the one to approach the Mountain of the Gods."

"Then I will go in the morning, and soon I will no longer be a broken soul," Mizael whispered, closing the gap.


Kazuma sat at the edge of a pier in a stiff wooden chair, fishing rod in hand as Ryoga approached. Not even a ripple disrupted the glassy surface of the water.

"I can't help you."

"I'm sorry about your wife."

The man didn't respond.

"You told me about the world between worlds. How do I get there?"

"You don't."

"Are there even any fish in this lake?"

"No."

Ryoga crossed his arms and stared down at the man who gave Yuma so many of his striking features – a strong jaw, messy hair, tanned skin. He'd broken so many rules to help Ryoga – to save his son from having to fulfill his horrible Fate – but now he wouldn't help? "You said the world between worlds is one where things that could have been exist. I need to get there."

"You don't," Kazuma repeated.

"My sister is there."

"Your sister is dead."

Ryoga's fingernails dug into his skin. It didn't hurt. Nothing did, here. "Is that it, then? If I die, I can reach that world."

Kazuma turned to look at him, lips pressed together. "Give up on trying to enter that world. It's a world of dreams, not of reality. A world of hypotheticals. Just… a dream."

There was something in the way Kazuma emphasized the word that caught Ryoga's attention, but before he could speak, a soft voice behind him cut in.

"It is good that you have stopped interfering, Kazuma."

Not one but four figures stood behind Ryoga. One was Rabelais; the second, a small, thin figure with blindingly white-blue hair in a flowing dress; the third was taller even than Rabelais, with long, slicked back hair in the same shade of white-blue, tattoos on their prominent cheekbones. The fourth was the monstrous figure of Shark Drake.

"Ena," Kazuma said, brows furrowed. "Rabelais." He paused. "Eliphas."

The tall god crossed their arms and stared down at Ryoga, who stared right back, trying valiantly to ignore the pounding in his chest. "Are you trying to renege on your oaths, Ryoga Kamishiro? Again?"

Ryoga clenched his jaw but remained silent.

"He just wants to be with his sister, Eliphas," Kazuma said.

"Going back on his oaths is a good way to end up in Barian World instead of with his sister," Ena said in the same quiet voice.

"I would rather burn in the fires of Barian World than live here for eternity." Ryoga turned his back on them and pulled his arms to his chest. "Because at least I would be able to feel again."

"Don't speak to her that way," Rabelais said icily. "And don't turn your back to us. Face us."

Ryoga half-turned. "What more could you possibly want from me?"

"Yuma Tsukumo," Eliphas said simply.

"What about him?" Ryoga demanded, ignoring Kazuma's sharp breath.

"He is trying to discard our plans for him. You ruined him. You must fix him."

"Not a chance."

"We created him to serve us."

This was too much for Ryoga. He should have stopped to think about what he was saying – he was speaking to the gods, after all – but months, years of pent-up frustration escaped him before he could help himself. "To serve you? That was exactly what he did for his entire life! He served you!" Rabelais opened their mouth, but Ena placed a hand on their arm to silence them, and Ryoga plowed ahead. "I've listened to him cry himself to sleep at night because he's terrified for his soul. I've heard his desperate prayers, asking for forgiveness for what he's done. I've watched as his faith and happiness and optimism melted away, day after day, replaced with despair and sorrow and hopelessness and anger. I've seen him so consumed with grief that he's tried to kill himself. Because he's scared! You- none of you give a damn about Yuma Tsukumo! None of you give a damn about any of us!"

"That's enough," Eliphas said quietly. Ryoga was surprised that he'd managed to spout off his entire tirade almost uninterrupted, but now he had to face the consequences of speaking that way directly to the gods. Kazuma wouldn't even look at him now. "It isn't often when we miscalculate. But never did we dream that Yuma Tsukumo would be so corrupted by a half-Barian that it would derail our plans to this degree." They chuckled. It was a bizarre sound, coming from such an expressionless face. "It is interesting, how human Yuma Tsukumo ended up being."

Ryoga laughed mirthlessly, body shaking in fury. "What did you think was going to happen? If you wanted him to remain your perfect puppet messiah, then you shouldn't have given him the capacity to feel like a human!"

"Ryoga," Kazuma murmured, but Ryoga was undeterred. He was furious; they had the audacity to blame Ryoga for corrupting Yuma when they were the ones who created Yuma to be like a human in the first place. Corrupted – it was ridiculous. He hadn't corrupted Yuma; Yuma had exercised his free will, had exercised it better than anyone Ryoga had ever known, and because of Yuma's heart and empathy, he suffered that much more from grief and loss.

But now it made sense. His shoulders shook, and even he was surprised to hear the laughter escape him. "That's it, isn't it? You took some of your magic stardust and crafted your perfect creation, your little savior out of it, and you were proud of yourselves because this thing you created was going to destroy the Barians."

"Yuma Tsukumo will destroy the Barians," Eliphas said curtly.

"I can't imagine how much it must have galled you when he shared a bed with a Barian instead of destroying it," Ryoga said, allowing the corners of his mouth to twitch upward. "And a half-Barian, half-Dragoon man, nonetheless."

"You vile abomination-" Rabelais started forward but Ena placed her hand on their shoulder.

"Don't lose your temper over this, Rabelais."

"You all have the right to," Ryoga cut in. "You're angry that two of your failed creations are finding a way out of your bonds of Fate and leaving you with less control over the future of this planet and this empty world."

Shark Drake hadn't spoken for the entirety of the conversation. Ryoga had almost forgotten it was there. "I have already freed you, Ryoga Kamishiro. It was part of our contract."

"No." Ryoga shook his head and smiled. Freedom from the bonds of Fate. "What was my Fate? I get to choose between eternal servitude and eternal damnation? Because that's what eternity is shaping up to be either way."

"Are you dissatisfied?" Ena seemed to be the calmest of this circle of gods. She sounded more curious than angry, unlike Rabelais and Eliphas.

"I don't care about myself anymore, but I refuse to sit idly by while you keep making Yuma suffer." He turned away again, and this time he didn't look back. "I'm going to gain control of my body again and find my own way to save my world. To hell with your Fate, you soulless bastards."