The door to the shop opened. A demon walked in and took a look at his surroundings. He was surprised that a store of this caliber had chosen to open in a run down area like the one under their control. Perhaps he wanted protection from Empire 88. The demon looked to the man, who was dressed in some parody of a butler uniform.
"Are you the owner?" He asked.
"I am." The man admitted. "How may I serve you today?"
Thinking that he had time to spare, he decided to sample the wares instead of getting on with his business. The demon took a seat. "One cup of Gyokuro."
The man started to prepare the tea. His every action flowed into another smoothly, as if making tea was second nature to him. All the while, he explained the tea to his one man audience. Though the demon already knew most of the information, he let the man ramble on. It didn't hurt to be polite. The man could have been nervous.
With the first sip of his drink, the demon knew that he would be coming back. But first, he had to handle business. The demon gestured at the man to come closer. The man complied.
"I am here to handle business. Every store in this area must prepare a tribute for the Dragon. We will take a percentage of your earnings each month, starting next month. In return, the gangsters of E88 will not darken your doorstep." The demon took another sip. "This is not optional. You have already benefited from our protection by choosing to operate here."
The man hummed. "Very well. As long as you can guarantee that I don't face any trouble from thugs from either gang, this is a deal I can accept."
"Worry not. The strength of the Dragon is feared by all. That alone is deterrence enough. Simply do your part and you will thrive."
The man nodded before pulling out a slip of paper. He handed it over to the demon.
The demon looked down at the paper and winced. He did not expect the price to be this exorbitant. "Can you not count the tea as part of the tribute?"
The man chuckled. "You told me to prepare a tribute for the Dragon. You mentioned nothing about a demon."
"Max, what have you done?"
Oni Lee was staring in horror at the collapsed warehouse. Even through the debris and rubble, the blood was flowing freely enough to be visible. I had the feeling that things were going to go wrong very soon. Standing up, I held Brenda by the shoulders. "Go back to my store and lock the doors. I need to handle something."
She stared into my eyes, searching for something. Whatever it was, it looked like she found it because she nodded and scampered off. I turned to face the demon. "What do you think I've done?"
"This isn't something to be joked about!" Oni Lee flung his hand to the side in anger. "When I'd heard about what Matsuda had done, I disengaged from the E88 as soon as I could and returned. I would have undone this wrong for you." His head turned to the side, hiding his expression as he clenched his fist tightly. "It didn't have to come to this."
An undercurrent of rage flowed through me. "I couldn't have waited even a second longer. If they got their hands on her…" I grit my teeth hard enough that I tasted blood. "Are you saying that you wanted this to end without bloodshed? Are you trying to protect them, even after what they've done?"
"I was trying to protect you!" I took a step back, stunned at his admission. "I don't care about Matsuda! Obviously! He's a remnant of the older gangs that were subsumed by the ABB. The only reason he has a position of power is due to his influence over his old gang members." He shook his head. "I don't think you understand the position that you're in."
"What do you mean?" I asked with a frown.
"To me, it is just and fair that you did whatever you wanted to them. In a way, they had broken the unwritten rules by targeting the family of a cape. It doesn't matter if the cape is unmasked or even participating." He took off his mask and looked me straight in the eyes. "But this isn't about me. It's about Lung! Do you think that he'll take this lying down? By killing his men, you have taken from the Dragon, impugned on his honor and damaged his image. In retaliation, he will raze your store and slaughter your family before burning you away. He has to, or he'll look weak."
"I want to see him try." Despite my strong words, my voice trembled.
"I won't let it come to that." Oni Lee put his mask back on. He pulled out the tanto that he had sheathed into his belt. "I cannot save you from the Dragon. He's already been informed about this. But I told him that I would do it instead. At least…in this way…Kaori will be spared his wrath if I'm the one who defeats you."
I see. This was his Samurai honor bullshit. In a roundabout way, I could understand what he was trying to do. Damage control. He couldn't save me but he could save my sister. Oni Lee was just trying to do what he thought was best. I could respect that.
"Do we really have to do this? Just let me fight Lung myself. Step aside. Are we not friends?" I pleaded.
"I do this because we're friends." His voice was thick with sorrow. Though he held his dagger at the ready, his eyes betrayed his true emotions. "You cannot defeat Lung. Nobody can. They might slow him down, trick him or restrain him, but they'll never defeat him. Worry not. She will be cared for. Prepare yourself!"
I threw myself at the side right as he said that. That was the right decision as a tanto stabbed into where I was. Before I could collect myself, he teleported above me with his knife facing down. Right as he was about to connect, I swung my leg and shot out a blade of air. It didn't connect as he disappeared once again. I turned to punch at my side, but before I could, a burst of pain blossomed in my abdominals. A thin line of blood trickled down.
I tried to roll forwards but couldn't do so in time as another slash connected with my back. My arm went up, only to be cut once more by Oni Lee. Over and over again, he would disappear and reappear in my blindspots to cut at me. I could sense when he appeared, but I couldn't react fast enough. His teleportation was instantaneous. I might have been faster than him overall, but his repositioning speed was just too fast. Now I knew why he could hold off Empire 88 by himself.
I tried over and over again to react to his slashes. Knowing where he was didn't help when he could always just appear at another spot. To put it bluntly, he was going too quickly for my Kenbunshoku Haki to detect. But I couldn't just let it end here. Was all my training useless because a power could no-sell it? I don't fucking think so. But first, I needed to buy time. Every one of my muscles tensed and hardened. His knife bounced off my body with a clang.
He reappeared in front of me. "That's inconvenient. What kind of martial arts allows you to harden your body to the extent that a knife can't penetrate your defenses?"
"I call it Tekkai." I answered lightly. "Every muscle in my body is hardened to the point that it becomes as hard as iron."
I could feel him frowning from behind his mask. He tilted his head and regarded me. "You know that sounds chuuni as fuck. Who the hell is teaching you these techniques? It almost sounds like you gimped the iron shirt technique from the Shaolin monks."
The groan came before I could stop it. "Really? That's what you focus on?"
"Just going for banter when I see the chance to. Everyone else I fight is so uncivilized. They just scream racist things in anger when I cut them." The demon admitted with levity. "Now prepare yourself."
He tried using the same tactic again. I could feel the impacts as his knife bounced off each and every time. We were effectively in a stalemate. He couldn't hurt me but I couldn't catch him. This was fucking stupid. Why was he still trying to slash at me when he knew he couldn't get through?
He stopped in front of me. "I see. I understand how it works. You've tensed all your muscles to the point that they're hard enough to act as a defense. But you can't move like that…can you? And I don't think you can do it indefinitely either. Very well. Prepare yourself!"
He continued to do his teleportation slash trick over and over. I hated to admit it, but he's right. It takes a lot of concentration to deploy Tekkai. It wasn't meant to be held indefinitely, but at the point of impact. But because I couldn't react to his teleportation, I had to keep holding on to it. Something had to change, right as he slashed me once again, I took that window of opportunity when he was bouncing off to lash out my fist at his sternum. With a choke and gasp, he flew back and rolled on the ground.
"Tekkai Kempo."
"Not helping your case." He grimaced in pain and stood up. "That's surprising. I guess I was wrong about you not being able to m-" Oni Lee disappeared mid sentence and slashed at my side. I couldn't react on time and receive a cut, though not as deep as the previous ones. "Ah. How ingenious. You've traded defense for mobility. But I bet you can't move as fast as you normally would in this state. How will you defeat me when your defense is half baked and your mobility is useless?"
He was right. Tekkai Kempo wouldn't cut it here. I continued to weather the barrage of knife strikes. It was getting too much for me to endure this onslaught from him. Was this really the thing that would do me in? Confident in his victory, his attacks became more vicious and intense. He was trying to hammer down my defenses in a battle of attrition instead of doing it in one blow. I still had to protect Brenda. This couldn't be the end.
Then I felt it. As if time had paused, I closed my eyes. For the first time since the fight began, I truly concentrated on what I could feel. Oni Lee was like an annoying fly, constantly disappearing and reappearing within my sensory range. But was that all I could sense? I had to dig deeper if I wanted to win. The myriad colors that represented my Kenbunshoku Haki induced vision wobbled and blurred as I felt something happening. My brain felt like it was stretched thin but…
From the back!
I ducked downwards and let the knife sail over me.
The right side!
My hand pushed down on the knife before it could stab me.
Above!
I flipped up in a bicycle kick that hit his hand, flinging the knife away.
Below!
He reappeared beneath me with his knife as I let gravity take hold. Just as he was about to cut me, I snapped my leg and created an air blade at the last second, sending it crashing into my foe. It didn't cut through him, but blunted as it was, it still bent his body like a bow before he slammed into the ground, creating a cloud of dust.
The demon chuckled deeply. "Shit. Did you actually get better at sensing me through our fight?"
I frowned in thought. He was right. I could feel my Kenbunshoku Haki improving rapidly as the fight went on. What happened? I never experienced this during my time as a mercenary and I had fought plenty of people. "Guess you were a good training opponent."
He laid on the ground with more dignity than I had ever seen anyone else maintain in that position. The demon wheezed with a gasping breath.. "I can't believe you beat me. Please believe me. I really was just trying to protect Brenda. But that's a moot point now. The observer from the ABB will have reported my loss to the Dragon. The only way she'll be safe is if you defeat Lung."
I sighed and looked down at my ruined clothes. "Would have been a lot easier if you didn't cut me up first."
"Then how would I know you were ready?" He chuckled. before wincing in pain. "Can you defeat Lung? It won't be easy. He's the strongest for a reason. Regeneration, escalation and fire manipulation. There's a reason he managed to beat down the entire Protectorate ENE by himself."
"I guess I'll find out." My voice dripped with uncertainty. Never planned on fighting the giant rage dragon, but I guess life has a way of screwing with you.
"You'll want to confront him in his lair. Otherwise, he'll come after your shop and your sister to find you." Oni Lee's tone was light, but the trembling of his hands showed how he really felt. Was it from the pain, or fear?. "At least that way, I can still try to find a way to protect your sister. It's likely that he'll stop caring once you're dead."
"Fine." I walked off to my doom.
"But defeating me after reaching in deep during a battle is chuuni as fuck!" Oni Lee cackled as I was walking away.
Damnit. He ruined a cool moment.