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pauking5 · 2 months

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Addicting Taste Chapter 11

Pairing: Enishi Yukishiro x fem reader oc

Genre: strangers to lovers, mutual pining, found love, fluff, spice, a lot of teasing, angst

Word count: 32.3k+

TW: blood, stabbing, violence, brief mentions of torture and kidnapping

A/N: Hello... So, first thing's first, Addicting Taste kinda went on a hiatus (against my wishes) since I was in a pretty bad slump writing-wise, emotionally, mentally. But, gear up for hopefully back to back chapters this month. Managed to draw out some pain for these ones.

I realise Chapter 10 was a bit of a wholesome, extremely loooong read, but I hope you liked it. I don't know if people even read it since it's been radio silent on that front, but I hope some of you still are. For now, please welcome insane mayhem, a mess of feelings, hopefully great plot and a few new characters. Enjoy the revelations.

For Nina. Hope you're happy wherever you are.

Playlist: Up In Flames - Ruelle, Atlantis - Sleep Token, Radioactive - Imagine Dragons, The Grey - Bad Omens, Viva La Vida - Sofia Karlberg (Acoustic Version), Alibi - Sevdaliza, Pablio Vittar, Yseult, Start A Riot - Duckwrth, Shaboozey, Lovesong - Adele, Carnival of Rust - Poets of the Fall, The Love You Want - Sleep Token

"You."

The sly snake looked down at you with sheer delight like the very sire of satan he was. That victorious smirk sitting idly on his face was enough to make your hands shoot out to grab onto his neck and twist it backwards. That would've been possible if your wrists didn't get yanked back by the harsh pull of the metal shackles restraining you to the stone walls behind.

He bent down to you, tilting his head with sheer amusement etched on his lips at your struggle. There was a blackness in his eyes that consumed his orbs like a toxin, brimming in dark pools of oil, much like the one burning in the lamp one of his men was holding in the corner.

"Pleasure to see you again, kiddo."

"The pleasure will be mine once I stomp my foot all over your face," you spit back, continuing to pull on those chains to get as close to him as they could let you without splitting your hands away from the base of your palms.

"Ah, ah, ah," he stopped you, moving his finger from left to right right in your face, like he was ordering an animal, a pet, to stand down and know its place.

You were no damn pet but more of a wild animal at the moment. And you bit fucking hard if provoked. And by gods, he provoked every cell in your body with just that wiggling finger.

Before he had a chance to reel back on his feet, your head jerked forwards and you caught his finger with your teeth, gripping onto his pointer with wolfish strength. Terror flashed in his eyes for a brief moment, so fast and fearsome you might have just missed it. Rugged arms were on your shoulders in an instant, rough fingers digging into your skin to pull you back to your place against the wall. While more of his men tried to restrain you, pushing you to your knees, the reptile pulled on his precious little digit to shake your hold off like you were a stinging bug but your sharp teeth hung on damn tight, dragging the skin over the bone with each agitated flail of his hands. Your teeth dug into it more and more, determined to rip it off his hand or at least detach it from his hand a little, but with the resistance behind pulling on your shoulders and your throat, you kept to it until you felt a crack between your canines, tasting iron on your tongue.

Blood, you smirked.

Satisfied, you relaxed your mouth and let go reeling back, letting him reef his bloodied, damaged finger back to his chest in pain.

He's going to have a hard time doing anything with it for a while. Good for him. Would've bit his whole hand off if I had a bigger mouth.

Spitting the leftover blood in your mouth before it started tasting like poison, your gaze turned back to his, dark eyes now watching you in alert. He didn't expect you to attack so soon or even at all. You could see it on his face. Whatever he had planned facing you, it all fell down the minute you bared your teeth literally.

A guard handed him a cloth to wrap around his injured finger, while another stomped your way. He unwrapped your chains from the wall behind dragging you along with them. You fought against it but it was useless. His hands reached up to lock the chains to the rusty hooks on the ceiling, securing you in the middle of the dark cell. Your hands were pulled above your head making you rise to your feet, unable to move too much in any side.

Standing to your full height, your bruised hands fell bound together in front of you, keeping you still like a lamb about to be butchered. The good thing was that it let you make an estimate of your wounds. Sharp pain pulsed through the numbness in your legs and in every other part of your body that was still recovering from almost being crushed to pieces by the wooden carriage. Most of your right side suffered deeper injuries since you were thrown against the walls more times than you could count. A lot of bones felt broken - a few lower ribs, a collar bone, twisted elbow and opposite ankle among the main major ones - but you were sure there were more you couldn't see or feel. Crumpled up on the floor you didn't feel the pain so bad, but standing on shaky legs, swaying lightly, drawing sharp breaths through your parched throat, you felt it all.

All you wanted to do was lay down and cry it all out. But you couldn't collapse to the ground in front of this life-sucking serpent before you found out what he wanted or where you were. Any sliver of information was more valuable than anything right now.

"Why am I here?"

"For my entertainment and curiosity," spoke the Snake, tightening the cloth around his wound until he was satisfied it was tight enough.

"What is this? The fucking circus gathering?" you laughed dryly, chains jangling as you wiped the leftover blood from his finger still on your cracked lips with the back of your palm. "Thought you had better taste."

"Smart mouth she has. Quite like her mother," he harked a broken laugh that bounced off the echo in the cell. "You'll be quiet and docile in no time."

Docile? Am I getting married off or something?

"For what?"

"For my plans."

From where you were standing, his plans looked to be nowhere in particular. Or you were still dazed from that solid hit to the back of your head before these people kidnapped you. Either way, his words made no sense. What could he possibly want with you? Why was he working with the Triads for that matter? More and more questions pooled in, rendering you profoundly confused.

"I'm not sure I'm following."

"A little birdie told me you were quite the rouse in Edo not that long ago."

Your breath caught in your throat, heartbeat suddenly too loud in your ears.

That's what this is about.

Barairo me, not me.

"The Crimson Rose of Yokohama they called you," he said, crossing his arms over his chest, drawing closer to you. "A teenage girl laying death to men more dangerous and lethal than the demons of hell walking the earth, the very best mercenaries in Japan."

"That bird of yours must be mistaken," you chuckled, trying to play the fool a little longer. But that dry chuckle fell unsure from your lips. a weak distraction in face of his conviction that he had the right person. He was confident it was you and had confirmation of it.

"I don't think so." He paced around you, circling you like you were the serpent's precious prey. "You see," he stopped right behind you, shadow leaning over your shoulder, his heinous whisper falling right in your ear. "You're here to fight for me, sweetheart."

You snorted. A fits of chuckles bordering on strangled laughter escaped your throat in a meager attempt to seem saner than you looked. He was crazy, maybe even borderline delusional, if he thought for one second you would do that for him of all people.

Rounded back to your front, he steered clear within a couple cautionary steps away from you, as if he anticipated another surprise attack of yours. His eyes raked your arms, legs, even your mouth, looking for a sign that there was any on the way at all.

He fears me. Good. I can use that to my advantage.

"In your dreams."

You punctuated your words with a good tug on the chains making sure to rattle them loud enough. Whatever those fucked up illusions of his were, they were not lined up in your program today, tomorrow or ever in the near future. You might have been up on the hire for anyone a few months ago, willing to do dirty work for whoever paid more. But the only people you fought for now were your own.

"Well," he turned for the door of the cell, nodding to his men on the other side of the iron bars. The door creaked open with a shriek, metal scraping the floor of the corridor lit with torches. Before he stepped out fully, his head craned back to you. "I hope you're ready. My dreams have a habit of coming to fruition lately."

"Do they include working with the Triads?"

"Ah, so you know," he nodded to himself, not once denying your accusation. "Saves me a lot of explaining to do. I am indeed."

"Why?"

That was kind of a loaded question. One he answered with a response that didn't really give you anything to work with - a goddamn shit-eating grin that went right to the pit of disgust already drawing in your stomach since the very first light flickered over his face. With that limiting conversation and a grin that gave you nothing, he left, taking the guards with him.

You didn't move until their steps faded away and all that was left in the air was silence and the light crackle of the torches. Blowing a breath you didn't know you were holding, you sank to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Everything hurt and pulsed uncontrollably along the rhythm of your rapidly beating heart. Some of your injuries ached more, alerting you they needed some attention now. Looking around the dark confinement, you noticed the small glow of light falling on a good portion of your cell. The only impediment was that is fell near the door

Pulling your feet from under you, you drew as close to the amber twinkle as your chains could let you before they tugged your wrists back painfully.

In that thin fragment of light, the long velvet skirt that was a beautiful ruby red at the start of the night was now a wet brown shade with patches of mud and grass sticking to it. Shoving it off your leg, you found a line of cuts and bruises all around each side you rotated your leg in, some of them deeper and dark red still bleeding, others just light grazes almost closed up. Your ankle looked like it felt - destroyed. Almost shattered, still usable if you ignored the angry purple swelling around it. Checking your other leg, you found the same grazes from your knee downwards but it didn't look as bad as your other leg. You gave it a test roll receiving less pain in response.

Your attention moved to your chest, feeling it too compressed with every breath you took. The corset manage to hold your middle together, protecting important organs. From what you could see there were no tears in it so nothing got inside or where it shouldn't be. And to think I doubted the extra double cover. But with every inhale of air, the boning pressed too hard against those few ribs that were broken. There was no way you could undo the laces, at least a little, since your hands couldn't reach behind.

Arms-wise, there were a few more cuts peeking through the ripped sleeves and some bruises. Your right elbow spasmed numbly, twisted inwards. You had to put it back and soon. This was not the best place to do it, nor did you have enough space to move it since both of your hands were chained, but it was worth a shot.

Getting up on your knees was harder this time around, all adrenaline to start a fight gone. Levelling your arms together, parallel to each other, you moved so your elbow was as straight as you could get it in that angle. Your left palm caught onto your right wrist to hold it in place.

I just need to pop it in. Nice and easy. It shouldn't hurt that bad.

You took a deep breath to steel yourself, then all at once drove your body forwards as if you pushed your hands into dough to mold it into shape. Though you weren't pushing into soft dough but repositioning your own arm in its right location. Pushing your shoulder and wrist towards each other, you moved your elbow back into place. Teeth grinding, you swallowed your scream and sniffled the tears away as the spasms were replaced by shooting pain, continuing to push forwards relentlessly until it clicked back in.

"Fuck," you hissed, sinking back on the floor, hands drawn above you by the chains. Head falling on your suspended arms, you sighed.

What now?

Wait?

Try to escape?

Fight them when they come back?

None of those options were viable routes to take in your condition. Your thoughts barely aligned in order with the pain coursing through you and your body took way too much damage tonight to stand up to anyone without ripping fresh scars. For now, as much as you hated it, just waiting was the best call.

For a while, you just let it hurt. You felt the torture throb through your body ruthlessly, slow and cruel, turning into soreness, discomfort that you couldn't move more. The laborious breaths leaving you went from aching gasps to much more controllable exhales. The minute some of the pain receded to mere stabbing sensations and your head cleared a little, you turned to planning.

From what you could gather, the way to the outside world had to be on the left, since that reptile and his guards took off that way. Then what was on your right? Your eyes shot up to find that the burning torch upfront was the only light source you could see alight. The rest of them on the right were not burning, drenching that area in complete darkness. You just prayed whatever awaited you down there was better than this - being locked up in a cage like a wild animal waiting to be domesticated or sold off for your services.

Your eyes widened with another thundering thought that caught your breath.

The boys.

Were they okay? You hoped they woke up and weren't laying still on the cold, wet and muddy ground of the forest. They must have woken up by now. They took worse damage in battle than that tumbling carriage could inflict on them. They weren't pussies to lie in pain until it passed on, though the scope of their injuries did worry you. One was barely breathing while the other looked on the verge of death when you reached him.

That self-righteous mop of hair worried you the most. To think he called you an idiot before it all went sideways. You chuckled dryly with a shake of your head reminded of the insults thrown around before the impact. Even when you were close to embracing death several times, he was talking your ear off about your shitty life choices like a worrisome mother would her rebel child. Absolutely convinced was he that you only made mistakes back there at the club. You came to learn that was just his nature - worrying about others before himself.

Thoughts bounced back and forth in the cold air carried down by the wind currents. The wind howled down here just as loud as outside, scaring the shit out of you when it started sounding like a real wild beast was down there, patrolling around to make sure no one left their deathtrap. Some torches ceased burning, drawing to a smoky kindle until no more light shone inside your cell at all. Only darkness and cold surrounded you, both crawling down your spine with rippling chills. The ripped velvet sleeves and the wet dress did little to keep you warm. But little was better than nothing. Shivers still shook you well, still with the searing pain inside the cold felt bearable for now.

At least this is confirmation they only took me, you sighed, burying your head into the small crevice of your tied hands, ready to give in to exhaustion.

Before you let the night take you in her arms, one last thought came through that just about managed to warm you up from deep within with a faint spark of hope.

I hope the boys are okay.

The rainstorm howled, blowing leaves and twigs everywhere it touched down upon. It was relentless, billowing above the tall tree line, shaking the wilderness down to the depths of the woods, ripping apart over him as if he was part of the forest. Like he was some kind of new addition to the open clearing full of wet, wilted greenery. One that wasn't as dead as the nature around him, waiting for the freeze of winter, but he was near becoming one with it.

He wasn't quite dead. Though it looked that way. His ashen locks were matted to his face, slapped dark with mud, dirt and scorched splinters of wood tangled in every strand, way darker than the paleness of his face and the bleeding parts of his body where his clothes were torn to shreds.

If that was how death looked, crimson like a flower of the purest bloom, soft skinned like a blanket of snow, yet so silver dressed resembling the finest royal jewels - then this death was painfully beautiful. Stealing your breath away and welcoming you with warm arms at the same time. A death that was, but wasn't.

Because he wasn't knocking on her doors just yet.

One moment he was still, as if turned to stone. The next, he drew in a gasping breath like it was his very first. His chest was hurting, moving, taking all of his breaths in and pumping the blood around his body as it normally should, but hurting like a motherfucker. He was alive, in piercing pain and trapped in his mind for extra safety, but on all other fronts, he was alive and breathing.

Somewhere between diving in and out of unconsciousness and awareness of endless pain, something moved above him. He couldn't open his eyes, eyelids weighing more than he could lift at the moment. He couldn't hear anything besides that ringing drowning the world out. But he could sense his surroundings. He could always count on sensing the energy around him when his senses failed to work with him.

It, or a person from the light motion, moved around frantically for a while then landed on top of him. He felt that, together with the blinding pain at the hard press of their body against his. If he could move, he would've pushed them away. But he felt desperation in that weak grip around him, so deep and tormented, hanging onto him for dear life, that it made him feel frustrated he couldn't gauge the situation at all.

One moment, the person pressed tightly into him as if in fear. He felt frail shaking wrapping around his arms then his shoulders, doing their best to reach him. Continual and beyond desperate, the shaking stopped on his face, around his cheeks, and he finally felt something beside the pain running through him - warmth. A warmth that was so familiar to him he tried moving something, anything to reach and comfort it. Then suddenly, the weight on his chest was replaced by a hollow emptiness. The person was gone. He couldn't feel them anymore. That's when his hearing started working again, converting the irritating ringing in his ears into muffled movement, rustling and grunting nearby. Really close by.

Something was happening. He had to open his damned eyes and look. Slowly, infuriatingly at that, all his other paralyzed senses started coming to but not his sight. He could feel the sloshy mud under his fingertips, smell it and the rain, taste the blood on his tongue. His sight took its sweet time even as his gut kept telling him to move it and take a fucking look at what was happening, but by the time he did it all turned quiet. The only thing he could hear was the beat of his heart and the rainfall hitting the ground beside him.

His lashes fluttered open, eyes meeting the blackened sky, raining down hard on his face. Trying to move was pointless when his whole body protested against it, tendrils of sharp pain bursting out in waves upon a single jerk of a finger. Moving was necessary, not a need but a must. Even so, his body just refused his orders firing one after the other. It wouldn't work like that - pushing himself in all sides expecting it to work with him. So he took it slow, slower than babies would.

He blinked away the heavy raindrops falling in his eyes, trying to clear the remaining haze of darkness away. Before he managed to gain back his sight properly, that darkness edged back in his vision, trying to pull him under with the irritating pounding in his temple. He couldn't let it take him again when an urgent need to get the fuck up and regain his bearings shook him to the bone.

He sat and sat, waiting for the pain to ebb away a little, enduring the cold rainfall drenching the rest of his clothes. Until the last shred of his patience finally burned to a crisp. Survival was his only friend for the longest but this was not the time to sit nicely with it. It was time to move. With a long grunt, he dragged his arms towards his chest and tried to push his upper body to sit at least on his elbows. Once that was manageable, he moved his head too, raising it in sync with the bend of his abdomen, hunching forwards with a shaky gasp. That was a mistake that only stirred the pounding in his head to unbearable throbbing.

"Fuck's sake," he hissed, managing to throw a hand to his head.

It hurt everywhere, but that spot near his temple hurt the most. His fingers pried and prodded, touching the soft, mellow skin there until he came to the conclusion that was a nasty gash that's been bleeding for a good while. Judging by the stinging around it, he's been laying there for even longer and rainwater bacteria was making itself rather comfortable.

Blinking away the woozy feeling keeping his body hostage to an imbalance he wasn't accustomed to, he focused his eyes in front of him. Embers burned all around - remnants of what was left of the wooden carriage. Some of them still sputtered, swallowing the remains of dry vegetation around them that wasn't completely soaked, others died down to a smoky kindle. Whipping his head to the right a little too fast that he saw his past, present and future in one dizzying flash, he caught sight of a body laying a few feet away. Zeroing in on it, he tried to figure out who it was but by gods if he could even see straight or make out the outline of the bush next to him at all.

Time to take a stroll and find out, he thought, willing his body to move towards that suspicious hunk of meat laying still in the mud.

In one brisk move, he moved to his knees. Way better than laying down in the mud and getting buried under it. But that's where he got stuck. Standing up properly was out of the question. He had to do it like he's never done it before. One foot before the other. One knee straightened fully then the other. He moved with the grace of a newborn calf, shaky and unstable on his feet, but at last he was standing. He took one step ahead of his head catching up with the rapid motion and nearly toppled over, putting way too much trust that it would be that easy to move. After all, he took several tumbles in a wooden box that nearly capsized with him inside it before his body collided with something hard and finally stopped the endless rolling, ending up in this situation in the first place.

Balancing his weight for a good minute, he tested a few more steps to get the blood flowing around before he took off in the direction of the body. The closer he got, the more it resembled a man. Dusty blonde hair peaked out from under heaps of wet maple leaves and mud and he recognized him instantly - blondie.

He fell to his knees, leaning over him. The upper right side of his suit was torn apart completely, burns climbing up his arms over his shoulder in small craters. He was scraped good, a few deep cuts on his face and light grazes over the side of his neck, but he was still breathing. Unknowingly, Enishi released a sigh of relief. At one point, somewhere in the tug of war between them, he started feeling for the guy because of you and your endless nagging for them to get along and grow a pair -

Wait.

You.

Where were you?

His feet acted on autopilot, lifting him up off the ground to take him along the open radius of the clearing, from the scattered pieces of wood still burning on the main road that got separated from the main frame of the carriage, going as far as the last fragments of the benches inside laying in the deeper opening of the forest. He called your name over and over, voice hoarse like it wasn't his own, whirling around every which side like a madman.

He scoured every corner. Lifted every side door or bench residue still standing propped on the ground, thinking you'd be stuck or hurt under it. Checked every bush and raise of greenery in case you were hiding. The rain just poured harder, making the blood on his head run down his face, extinguishing the fires still burning, except the one that sputtered to life in his chest the more he searched for you just to find nothing.

Not one sight of you, as if you disappeared without a trace.

Nothing at all.

In one breath, he was back at blondie's side, shaking his shoulders ready to yell bloody murder. The blond grunted in pain but Enishi couldn't care less about that. If he didn't open those fucking deer-in-distress eyes in the next few seconds, he would be as good as dead. The blonde continued grunting with no sign of waking up. Before he could stop himself, an angry palm planted on the other's cheek, the force of it forcing his head to the side and pulling a rough cough from him, finally awake and conscious.

"What the fuck," he groaned, his own world spinning to above and beyond.

"Miyu's gone. Wake the fuck up," growled Enishi.

That deep growl startled him enough to open his eyes wide. He took in his surroundings, then the angry, profusely bleeding gray haired man holding him by his collar at a close raging angle. Then his words registered and his mouth fell open.

"What do you mean Miyu's gone?"

"Hate to break it to you, but we were kinda hit from the back by a fucking fireball. I'm here. You're here. She's not. Now where the fuck is she?"

Cho groaned in response. "How the fuck am I supposed to know? I've been unconscious until you hit me." At that he paused and narrowed in on Enishi, brows furrowed in anger. "Why the fuck did you hit me?"

"Just felt like it."

Cho turned sideways and spit the blood out of his mouth before pushing the rough hands around his neck away. Enishi's grip never loosened, only tightened until his knuckles cracked.

"Get your hands off me."

"Or what?"

Before he saw it coming, a fist collided with the side of his head, the bleeding one. His sight got blurrier than it was as he fell backwards. He tried his hardest to shake it off, struggling back to his feet. When his eyes landed on the blond, barely standing himself but standing nonetheless, his jaw ticked and he saw red.

Two steps was all it took and he was pushing him against a tree bark with all his might. Lightning flashed above, drenching him in white, making him look like a bloodied ghost set on vengeance that's been overdue for a long time. Way too long.

Enishi's right fist connected with Cho's cheek before he could counter the attack. With that first blow multiple followed, all punches relentless and more powerful than the previous. Each punch held his rage for the past few days heading straight for the blond. One dug into his chin for hurting you all those years ago with empty lies. Another two cut his cheek open for letting him stay under his roof and feeding him when he didn't deserve it the treatment, giving him way too many chances to redeem himself. An uppercut for playing around with you like you were a toy to break his patience.

Pinning him into the bark of the tree with each strike, Enishi was set upon drilling his body into that hollow bark until he became one with it.

Cho let him send blow after blow until he got his world to stop spinning enough to respond. As soon as the side of his face started going numb and the blood in his mouth felt fresh, his hand lifted to catch Enishi's fist in his, longer fingers digging over his, all while launching his other hand to catch his arm, switching places to throw him into the tree bark instead. He dug his knee into Enishi's chest hard, then without hesitation kicked him down into a puddle of sludge he landed into face first.

The time to play nice ended the minute he smacked the blond awake. He wanted a fight? He was going to get one to remember.

This was what they were both waiting for. The anger they had towards each other just kept rising these past few days. Their instincts only knew violence and destruction for the longest time and they tempered those down enough. Each craved to see the other in pain for a multitude of reasons, most of them surrounding their dispute over you, others simply for futile fun of the moment.

It was time to put their powers to the test.

No mercy. No outside interruptions. Just them and their fists.

Enishi got up from the mud pummeling into Cho with a rough tackle, sending him into the ground hard enough to knock the air out of him. Taking advantage of how dazed he was, he climbed on top, bruised hands finding his grazed neck, pressing down with all his strength to cut his air supply. He didn't want to kill him. That hate harbored in his chest was heavy and punishing when he needed it to be but this wasn't the case for it to unlock. He just wanted to make the bastard feel the pain until he gave up on his own. A small part of him wanted to see him beg for it.

Cho struggled under his hold, hands thrashing around to find something he could use against the brute strangling him. He searched and searched ignoring the murderous gaze set on him. As soon as his palm connected with the length of a tree branch he lifted it up and flung it hard into Enishi's shoulder sending him flying off of him. He didn't give himself a chance to catch his breath before he pressed him into the ground with his foot and got a hold of his arm to twist it backwards at an inhumane angle without stopping until Enishi howled in pain. Even after he yelled in agony, he continued twisting with a wicked smirk on his face, finally satisfied to see him in pain.

The sword thief wasn't one to engage in extreme violence unless he was provoked. Enishi did a lot of that lately, especially when it came to playing around with you, acting like a saint afterwards. You were too peaceful to hurt him. Way too kind to him even in that hateful gaze after the stupid games he played. So he took it upon himself to teach him a lesson. Just because the lesson proved rewarding to Cho's ego, it did not mean he really wanted the guy to suffer for long. Just a little more would do him immense satisfaction.

Cho's victory was short lived. He might have been one of the Ten Swords but he lacked one thing Enishi held close - combat intellect. Something so inconsequential to a normal sword connoisseur but so trivial to a double blade wielder.

Enishi's right arm sneaked out from under him, grabbing a good hold of Cho's thigh as his leg kicked the back of his knee to hurl him back to the ground, letting go of his twisted arm in the process. The blond barely hit the ground before getting back up again, ready to send another kick Enishi's way. He intercepted it and sent one from the ground, angling his body sideways and kicking his leg high enough to hit the side of Cho's neck. He followed up with an elbow in his chest and an uppercut meant to cut off that annoying smirk on his face. He stumbled, colliding with another tree and almost lost his footing falling beside it.

Enishi gave him a second too long. A second that had Cho slide over the mud and kick his legs from under him. He fell backwards, flipping back up on his legs to grab onto Cho's neck once more. Though this time, Cho's hands flew to Enishi's neck too.

The sound of horses galloping went over their heads, both males busy with killing the other or doing more significant damage than the fireball or the carriage crash could. They both squeezed each other, pressing their dirty, bloodied fingers against whatever spots they caught, reluctant to let go and find a better one. They kept going at it until the shot of a gun echoed loud through their still ringing ears, stopping their brawl.

Moving on alert, their heads swiveled in sync behind them to see Wu and a few of the other gang members just looking at them and the disaster around with wide eyes. The older man approached, looking both of them dead in the eyes. In all the years he's worked with him, Enishi has never seen the man more angry than he did now.

"Pardon my language, but what the hell are you two doing right now?" He paused to look around, previous anger turning into worry with each injury he discovered. "And where's madame?"

At the mention of you they sobered up. Both of them let go very adamantly of each other and stepped away, putting some much needed space between them. They were both covered in mud from head to toe, with the occasional bleeding wounds sparkling through, clothes completely ripped apart now, worse than the rolling through the bushes left them.

Cho wiped away the blood on his lips. Enishi touched his wound again, tampering the blood flowing from his head with what was left of the sleeve of his suit. They gave each other one more look of seething rage deciding that this wasn't over. But it was a battle to fight another time.

"I don't know where she is. She was with us before we got hit," replied Enishi, looking down at the ground. Then he pushed a question of his own towards the old man. "How are you here?"

He didn't leave anything but the location with him and specifically told him not to follow in case the Triads showed up. Which they did. But he couldn't risk losing all his resources in one night. Though he did lose an important one. One he insisted stayed back but acted against his orders again.

"Madame came to find me before you left. She told me to come looking for you with back up in case you didn't get back by midnight."

She felt something was wrong, he realized, his chest filling up with dread. You were antsy and jumpy all day but he pushed it past to all the stress you've been under with the mission itself and what the result of it could mean for you. That and the bothersome confession he pushed in your arms without thinking a few nights ago.

"We need to find her," said Cho, holding his shoulder in pain. Now that the adrenaline was all gone, eliminated completely in their mini rage match, they felt the aftereffects of the crash tenfold, beyond the power of their punches.

"Master Enishi, the roads are all empty," said Wu. "It's been a good few hours since you left for the city. We won't find anything out here until morning."

The old man was right. With the pouring rain and the mud running liquid on the ground, all tracks were most likely covered by dirt puddles. They had no shot at finding anything now. Safest bet was going back and coming again tomorrow when the mud was dried up and it wasn't so damn cold. The wound on his temple agreed with him, thundering just once, hard enough that it sent his vision swimming and he stumbled over his steps. Cho's hands shot out to steady him before he took a splash in another puddle, this time of his own doing.

If he was able to stand on his own two legs, he would rip those twigs off his body and beat him with them for having the audacity to act all friendly after he tried to kill him. He did push a sarcastic remark only for his pained groans to cut through.

"Worried about me, blondie?"

"I'm worried about Miyu, not about you, Mr. Prince of the Frogs. How hard did you hit your head?"

Using the hand that wasn't holding upright the grunting mess deadset on ending his life mere moments ago, he got a hold of the side of his head to inspect his wound. Enishi just winced in response to his useless prodding, jerking it back from his hold. That sent his sight spinning like a swiveling chair would.

"We need to get back," urged the blonde, throwing Enishi's arm over his good shoulder. "We're no good to her like this, especially you."

That was the hard truth he had to swallow down his dry throat and make peace with for now. They had to get back. He couldn't do shit with injuries, much less find you. Even if the anger gripping him in cold waves at the thought of having to leave without you was suffocating. Not knowing if you were okay, not knowing what the fuck happened that you were nowhere to be found.

"Fine," he rasped out. "But we're back here the minute it lights up."

"Couldn't agree more," said Cho, helping him walk to the carriage.

Before they boarded Wu's transport, he cast a look back at the darkened clearing hoping to find something else. A clue or a hint that you were still there, lying somewhere he couldn't see or reach, hidden down some rabbit hole he couldn't spot.

Enishi wasn't one to believe in hope, praying to god for things, wishing on a shooting star or that sort of optimistic activities until you. He prayed that he didn't have to leave yet. He hoped that he would find you if he scoured the area better now, not in the morning when tracks might still be scattered under rainwater seas. As the storm rained down harder and the fog settled over the last burning embers of the carriage, he found nothing to hold onto. Nothing in the rubbles or the dense trees or even the other side of the road covered by trees upon trees.

Nothing at all.

No you.

You couldn't tell how long you've been out of it. There was no indicator of measuring the time down in this endless cave. Not one flicker of light shone through any crack in the stone wall. Not even a lost, thin ray of sun down the rock corridor. The only source of time passing were the lit torches to your left, burning up, flaring to wild flames, going out one by one until darkness was all that remained.

The strong, cold air current wafting through the iron bars, howling on the surrounding echo like a lone wolf, never got warmer. Not even a degree above the ice hanging in the air. The underground was supposed to be warmer than the world above the strips of grass and dirt, not colder than sheathed metal blades.

Pangs of hot pain surged endlessly through your body, alternating in your middle or the swollen ankle, waking you up at times only to switch position. As much as one could move chained to the ceiling before falling back into weary slumber.

Wake up. Shift. Sleep. A routine for a sleep that was neither restful or peaceful, escaping and calming like actual sleep should be. It was just enough rest to replenish your lost energy and pass the time in some other way that didn't involve staring at the iron bars ahead, watching how humidity condensed from the ceiling and dripped down the rusty poles until they gathered in puddles, drifting along the cracks in the ground with annoying plinks. You even started counting those at one point, unable to ignore the smell of dampness coming with the humid condensation.

Then you wondered, if a flood was to suddenly occur, what would it become of you? Would that snake come down to unchain and save you since he deemed you so trivial to his plans? He would rather save his own reptilian skin. What would become of you? Chained to the walls of a cavernous cell, swallowed by the water, lost in the drift heading down into the heart of a place that was somewhere but nowhere.

Upon all of that swirl of endless doom thinking to keep you awake and alert to any change around, you fell back into sleep, floating in the emptiness of your tired mind and the different scenarios it cooked up from nothing.

A loud clang shook you from the depths of a dreamless sleep. Keys rattled against the metal rods in front, clinking into each other with a disturbing noise that swam in your ears way too deep to ignore it and continue that excuse of a thing you called sleeping. Blinking your eyes open took a while. Coming to terms with the fact that you've slept with your head against the shackles for a long time took less. Your neck ached, your back coiled from a night's rest like a horse cursed to sleep upright in a barn for his whole life. At least they had hay to curl around.

The keys continued jangling in the lock, smashing into each other as if that infernal noise could make the door open alone. Finally, the metal frame was thrown open with a screech that might as well have been a train's horn. The owner of the keys stepped inside, heading for your spot in the middle of the cell. Your sensitive ears caught up with his footfalls stopping short of an arm's reach, chained arms reach. Cracking an eye open then the other, you were met with the dirty boots of a guard. He reached above you and fiddled with the chains until they were unlocked from the ceiling and thrown to the ground behind you, striking the stone floor with another clang that broke your hearing.

"Up," said the guard gruffly.

What if you didn't obey? Would he do something about it or would he just leave you the fuck alone?

As you debated your very limited stack of choices, you peered behind the guard, noticing two more stationed by, waiting. The three of them all wore commando gear - tight black shirts, vests ticked with small tanto knives inside and out, short range dao swords at the joined hilt on their hips, and dark green pants - staying incognito and on the ready for a fight at all times.

The one in front of you looked easy enough to take on - tall but scrawny in muscle mass, less armed and more sure of his authority in the way he puffed his chest. But the ones behind him looked brawny and skilled, armed to the brim with more muscles than they had weapons on hand. One of them tapped his boot impatiently as if he had better places to be. The other just seemed bored out of his mind, staring gaping holes through you. All odds combined, those two would definitely be harder to take down and they would probably skewer you before you took a step towards freedom anyway. Injured, dazed and unprepared, that was a big no go.

"Today, wench."

Rude prude.

You shot him a look that went ignored as he picked up your chains, wrapping the ends around his fists to pull you up to your feet faster than your legs could catch up. Stumbling over your steps out of the cell, your direction was almost changed for the wall upfront if it wasn't for one of the muscly guards reaching out to catch you before you could face plant in it, relocating you back on your feet a little more gently than the prick in charge could ever aspire to be.

"Easy there," he called to him before he glanced down at you. "She's important to the boss."

Important? Just how important am I to that reptile?

Bossy shoes just dismissed him and took off down the right from your cell with a huff. Guess it's time to find out what's down there.

The rest of the torches lined on the walls were now all lit up, all the way to the bottom of the long tunnel you turned for, leaping wildly with every lost gust of wind blowing through. Your extremely welcoming committee put hurry in his step, descending down a wide row of stairs with a short walkway in between every few steps. There were more cells littered all across your right but they were all empty. You didn't see one soul in any of them.

Sassy pants made sure to pull on the length of your chains a little harder at every last step before your foot landed on the flat surface, silently hoping you would stumble and break your neck faster. He seemed to have a lot of resentment towards you, holding his chin up high and mighty, but that was probably how he acted around all women.

As a precaution, you drew your shackles closer and pulled just as hard whenever he was about to step on the next row of stairs. Looking down ahead, you were about halfway down into the tunnel. It was a long way down and an even longer one back up and your growing nerves didn't like it one bit. The arrogant prick picked up his pace, running two steps at a time and you decided enough is enough. If he wanted a donkey he should've asked his boss for one.

You wrapped your fingers around the chains and pulled on your end, a little harder than you wanted. He nearly took a tumble backwards. To your disappointment, he didn't. Cracking his head from side to side, he blew out an annoyed breath. His temper seemed to run shorter than you gave him credit for and you were glad because that's exactly what you were trying to do - irritate and divide.

Nothing gives me more satisfaction than seeing men about to lose their marbles.

You let out an accidental snort that you instantly regretted. Slowly turning to you, he wrapped the remaining chain length putting safe distance between you around his arms, and he did pull harder, directing you straight into the stone wall this time. You crashed into it face forwards, getting the wind knocked out of you. The torch above your head rattled dangerously, sure that another thud would tip it over on top of your head to set you on fire.

In a delayed show of his authority and power, the guard pressed deep into your back, bladed elbow pushing you against the murky wall of the cave. You could taste the copper staining the tunnel top to bottom in dark orange spots, glowing amber in the light of the torch flame. Turning your head with a remark at the ready, you swallowed the words right back down your throat upon the sight of a sharp knife, drawn out of the nothingness behind you. Inching towards the corner of your eye, it sweetly caressed the side of your face downwards like the lips of a lover would, if those were deadly lips that could kill on a swift cut. The blade sat close enough to cut your cheek open if pressed against the skin, but far enough to keep writhing against the restraint behind you. No amount of struggling or pushing against him lessened his hold on you.

"I don't care how important you are to the boss. Try that shit again and I'll make sure to pull you down there backwards with this rusty chain wrapped around your throat until you beg me to stop," he spoke, marking his threat by snaking the tip of his knife against your cheek in small waves. Stopping at the edge of your lips with a thin prick of the blade, he spoke again, asking for your word of obedience. "Understood?"

You grunted, trying to shake him off and make him shove his words where the sun doesn't shine. He only pressed harder into your back, his hot breath fanning your ear. Tremors of disgust erupted all over your nape. You didn't need to see his face to know he was smirking like the righteous dick he thought he was being. So in true balanced nature you paid the warm welcome right back.

Before he saw it coming, you threw a head butt into his face hard. So hard you felt a crack in the back of your head. He did fall backwards on his ass this time, clutching the bridge of his nose in pain, blood seeping out through his fingers, falling splat on the floor in spots darker than the copper stains.

Think twice before trying to manhandle me, you moron. I hope you stop breathing properly.

The guards behind him snickered at the expense of their fallen colleague, enjoying the show more than you wanted them to. One of them moved to get a hold of your chain, while the other gripped your arm securely, almost as tight as the chains pulling on your wrists.

"Go get that checked out," said one of them chuckling heartily, before leading you down the last few flights of stairs.

The farther down you went, the colder it got. Keeping the icy chills at bay when they rattled the very bones in your body was a lost game. As you came to a long corridor leading to an arch entrance, you heard chatter and laughter. Female chatter and laughter. The closer you got to the archway, the louder and hardly unmistakable it got, cheerful and so full of life, unlike anything you've noticed so far in this place.

Rounding the corner below the arch, the guards walked you through into a well lit cave of some sort, much brighter than the dark corridors you traveled through. Rows of tall stone columns stood both at your left and right, all carved in from top to bottom, resembling the ones holding up the western monuments you used to learn about as a kid.

A much bigger fire blazed in firestone pits dug low behind them, so bright that it felt like the very sun was burning in the room. This cave was bigger than a theatre, stretching from the entrance all the way to the far end where you found the very source of the laughter.

There, a small lifted stone platform hosted a long table filled with food and people, some chatting away with merry in their voice, others just silently enjoying the food. All of them were women. Different nationalities, even different accents from what you could hear echoing back to you.

With the high columns touching the ceiling and the fire burning on the side painting them in a fair golden glow, it felt like you were looking at an army of goddesses having their holy dinner underground before bringing rueful battle above the earth. A painting brought to life and motion that took your breath away.

One of the guards took your hands into his rough hold and brought out a key. He gave you a look in fair warning not to try anything similar to what you did to his comrade since he might not be as lenient as him. A quick glance between his raw gaze and the sword sheathed at his side had you slump in defeat. Not that you could try anything that fast anyway. Trustful that you would behave, but wary it could be a trap, he inserted the key in the rusty lock and took off your shackles.

"Go and meet the others," he instructed. "We'll come collect you when it's time for you to go back to your cell."

Rubbing your aching wrists over the red indents left by the restraints, you turned to the masses and made your way over the long aisle as well as you could walk with a twisted ankle. The closer you got to the platform, some pairs of eyes took notice of your presence and the chatter drew to a mere shushing, until all eyes were trained on you like you walked the walk of shame. You noticed all of them were dressed in combat clothing. You wore a muddy, torn off occasion dress.

Way to make a first impression. I look like a damsel seeking refuge in a highly secured fortress. They might as well shoot me down now before I knock.

You walked a bit more then faltered in your step. All eyes were on yours except a pair that gave you their back. A familiar hunched over back, gobbling up food faster than your ears could cope with the sound. It was the hair that confused you. Dark mauve, almost black tangled wet locks of hair, longer and dirtier than you remembered her to keep it.

It can't be... you shook your head. There's no way it's her.

Sensing the quiet in the room, the girl you were ogling stopped eating, lifting her head to the girls in front of her.

"What? What happened?" she spoke, her voice coming out muffled through the bites still stuck in her mouth waiting to be munched away at. "Why did you all stop talking?"

Even her voice... That low, extremely pissed voice that could drop kick your attitude to outer space. It sounds exactly the same as hers.

Her hair, her voice, the very way she was leaned over the table. People don't share habits like those. Those traits could only belong to her. The possibility that it was her was as big as trying to latch a rope around a boar's neck. But all your senses believed it was her. It couldn't be anyone else.

What the fuck is this?

The girl opposite her, watching your every move since her eyes laid on you, nodded her head your way.

"We have new company," she said, low and sharp in Chinese.

The girl with mauve hair finally turned to you with an expression you couldn't decipher. One that you didn't need to because you knew that face all too well. You staggered backwards with a gasp of shock. At first glance, she quickly looked at you, dismissing your existence to turn back to the table. Then she choked, coughing up food and turned back to you once more. Upon seeing you, fully seeing you, her eyes blinked in surprise then in utter shock, doing several takes before the leftover food in her mouth ended up being spat on the floor.

In one breath, she was up and running towards you at full speed, closing the distance between you faster than you could comprehend what was happening. Her arms engulfed you in a bone-crushing hug, almost taking your lungs away in it. Since she was taller, your arms wound up around her middle. You breathed in her scent, going beyond the dirt and potentially dried blood stench, unable to catch a whiff of that special citrusy perfume she used to lather herself in. Regardless, you dug your head in the crook of her neck, pulling her deeper into your hold.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" she whispered, pulling away slightly to look at you every which way to make sure it was really you.

That was the same thing you did, smacking her cheeks together and looking deep into her golden brown eyes like she wasn't real and just a figment of your imagination. But it was her. It really was her.

Lyla. My Lyla.

Her hands moved from your shoulders to the top of your head, brushing through leftover leaves and twigs you failed to notice were strung in your hair like you were mother nature's plod.

"I could ask you the same thing," you said, still confused as to what was going on.

"Are you going to introduce us to your friend?" asked the girl facing Lyla's empty seat. She wore a smile now, as if she waited for Lyla's approval of your arrival before accepting it herself.

"Yeah, of course," she laughed nervously, ungluing herself away from you. She walked you to the table where you were in everyone's field of vision.

"This is Miyu. She's one of the best assassins in the business I know, and an even better friend," she squeezed you closer looking at you affectionately. That squeeze, as loving and well-intended it was, it made you wince in pain, reminding you of the broken ribs that have gone forgotten in your reunion.

"Oh my god," she gasped. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," you grunted. "Can you just unlace this death trap of a corset a little?"

Said and done. She was behind you in a heartbeat, undoing Enishi's exemplary work on your corset a little so you could breathe. She unlaced it halfway then dug her fingers through the sides, pulling the fabric carcass wider until you tapped her arm that it was good enough. You bent over and breathed some fresh air in good gulps. As fresh as musty, humid cave air can be.

"How are you here?"

"I teleported myself here, Lyla," you deadpanned, straightening back up. She frowned and you instantly felt bad for the remark.

"I don't know," you sighed. "I was on a mission, some shit with a flying fireball happened and I woke up here."

"They took you too," she said.

The icy glare in her eyes alone, directed right behind at the archway you came through moments ago, shook a chill down your spine.

"What do you mean they took me? Too? What's going on?"

At each confused question, the wariness painting the faces around morphed into something else. Something that made them avoid

"You may want to sit down."

Another girl, much younger than the others, pulled out a chair for you and Lyla helped you over to it. She got an empty plate, filling it up with food for you as she started explaining what was actually going on in as less information and detail as was humanly possible. If abductions and arson ever went hand in hand as small talk topics, but alas.

"We've all been taken away. Kidnapped mid-mission, taken from our homes in the dead of night or literally just being ambushed while travelling around the continent."

The words coming out of her mouth made your blood run cold. Your eyes landed on the girl before you whose light nod confirmed the grim affirmations.

"All of us are really skilled assassins in our fields of expertise," continued Lyla. "Knives, guns, swords. Name your pick and someone at this table can show you the ropes. They picked us for their exclusive underground fight club."

That explains the dried blood spots on the floor from the arch entrance all the way to the far end where the dirt ground met the stone platform. But it sure doesn't explain why they were taken away, against their will, for such an unexplainable reason. The clubs you fought at, though many, were all on a consent basis from what you remembered. After all, that's how you met Lyla.

Rewinding the clock back a good decade to a few days after your parents disappeared, most of your relatives that were still alive in Yokohama refused to take you in. They treated you like you weren't part of the family. Like your parents didn't work their backs for the whole family tree line at times, always lending your aunts money or helping your uncles out with their rude specimens of children whenever they could. Being the sole survivor of the Hikari mansion massacre wasn't seen as a good omen, as if a wretched curse was following you around and would bring about their deaths too if they took you in. The doors shut tighter and faster at the sight of you, sometimes before you even knocked, treated like a stranger by your own kin and blood. And family became the very last thing you could count on.

Walking for days, hopping merchant carts from city to city, you somehow ended up in Central Edo. Begging around for food or some kind of work on the outskirts was the initial plan. But as soon as you arrived, you caught wind of fight clubs in the area being open to anyone, no matter their age or background. A fresh start from zero.

You heard it was easy money to make and even easier to track people through since most of the bigshots in the city frequented it. You attended it that day, undercover in case you'd be kicked out, only to find that most of the fighters in the ring were girls around your age. The audience sitting in on the matches loved to talk of anything and everything - crimes, mafia hits, unfinished business with snobs in high society. Nothing stayed private there. Thinking you'd find some information on your parents and have a roof over your head while going at it, you entered it that same night.

That's where you found her, sharpening her knives in a lone corner of the shared living quarters in the sewers underneath the city. Black Canary they called her. Whenever she was in the ring to fight, you'd hear that scream of hers, high-pitched like a bird of prey on the ready to send your ears into audible wreckage, symbolic of her reigning victory. She was one of the best the club ever had, keeping the public throwing stacks of money in bet tickets until they ran out, leaving the fight club with empty pockets.

Beside that triumphant scream, she didn't speak a word. She never ate, slept or trained with everyone else. All she had was fighting and the sharp blades of her knives.

With time, you learned to catch up on her habits. The way she sharpened her knives in the same pattern, up from the hilts, twice for each blade. How she trained in the tunnels far out instead of joining with the rest in the ring. That she would always come out to the weapons table when it was empty, after everyone else has already eaten, to eat by herself.

At first, you just watched her from a dark corner. After a while of building up the courage, you'd purposefully eat slower than the rest and stay around longer until she showed up, to keep her company. The first times you did it, she would get angry, shoot you a look full of hatred and leave the table with her plate untouched as if you disrespected her space or something. But as you grew older and matured, time passed and you were the only girl left around as the rest went on their ways. Only then did she welcome your presence.

Her name was the first word she ever spoke to you. Not the stage name they called her by after a successful kill that earned betting money to corrupt city officials. Her real name. The one her mother baptized her with on the cold winter's night that she was born. The name she never wanted to give up.

She never even gave her real name to anyone before you, she told you. Little by little, she spent more time with you and she opened up. You came to learn she had one of the nicest voices you've ever heard and that contrary to her silence she talked, a whole lot. But only with you and a few close friends.

Since then, you've trained together, fought together, moved ships together when the time was right. You've been at each other's side like sisters, guarding each other's back no matter what. Maybe you weren't bound by blood, but you were bound by that bond of found sisterhood. She became the only family you had left in the world, a home that you could always run to when the world got too much. The kind you'd risk anything for upon a simple ask. Even your life.

After you've left Japan, you lost contact with her for good reason, trying to protect that very bond you had since you had a moving target on your back. As good as it was to see her now, you wished it was under better and safer circumstances because these ones confused you greatly. Hell, the last few days have been confusing as fuck for you but this was next level fuckery you couldn't wrap your head around even with higher intellect.

"I don't understand why they kidnapped you all like this and forced you in here," you said, looking down at the ground like the stone floor would split open and a valid answer for why they were all gathered here would pop out on a stalagmite spear.

This was the work of the Triads for sure. But why? They were the reason you ran away in the first place. They had ties to your parents too. What could they possibly want with an underground fight club?

"Last I checked, they asked people if they wanted to join before they followed them around and took them by force," you added, subtly relating your personal experience with the Triads that hasn't been as much fun as they advertised.

"I was taken during a surprise raid of theirs in the West zone, almost off the border," spoke a girl to your left, sat at the far end of the table. Her gentle, melodious voice had your eyes snap from the ground to her instantly.

Two long, brunette braids split up to sit on each side of her shoulders. Small silver ringlets decorated random waves of the braids in her hair, from the top to the very last strand, tied tightly with leather laces at the spiky ends.

"My name's Yana. They also call me Qiang, like the spear I wield," she said with a smile.

You could tell she was confident in her wielding, much like the scabs and calluses on her hands as she extended one for you to shake. Your own palm wrapped around hers in a shake that dominated yours. Even her hold was hard like the wood used to make the base of the qiang.

"They surely didn't ask me to join their wretched cause before they set fire to my village, burning it to the ground," she said. Her eyes fell on the fire burning in the pits below, like she was living that nightmare once more.

"I fought back to protect my own, trying to help my family flee before the flames swallowed our home. I thought they were out for treasures or the small fortunes gathered together in our small quarters. But the minute I went out to fight they turned on me. Before I could know my family was safe, they hauled me away and shoved me in here."

"I'm sorry," you uttered underneath your breath, unable to process what they were capable of.

"Ah," she shook her head with a somber smile. "There's no need for that. You'll hear worse stories than mine."

Before you could make sense of her words or even begin to absorb the lengths of her story, someone else took the lead in sharing theirs.

"I'm Marissa," said the girl next to Yana. Her voice was much deeper and manlier than you expected it to sound.

The first person you noticed when you walked in the cave was her. As did she, her eyes instantly connecting with yours across the length of the rock gallery when you entered with the guards. Her blue eyes, colder than the Sea of the Arctic could ever aspire to be, pierced you in intimidation upon that first glance. Her face looked hardened by battle, used to it if you'd assume it, paler and reddish in tone around her cheekbones. Beside the tall bridge of her nose, her cheeks sat high like they were cut from hard rock cobalt.

One look at her told you she was a warrior of the caliber legends talked about, that ate battle for breakfast, won it by lunch and threw a feast fit for a queen at dinner.

Among her foreign features, what struck you the most was her ginger hair, glowing a bright auburn with the moving flicker of the firestone. It was the kind of shade you'd find on a really expensive material like imperial silk, so unique and beautiful that you'd dress her up in the finest of those silks just to see how bright she could glow.

"As you can tell, I'm not from around here," she spoke roughly in broken Chinese. Coughing dryly, she switched to Japanese in which she seemed much more confident, thing that caught you by surprise.

"I'm from Siberia. They caught me at a fortress in the North, digging up some ancient alcohol the monks were raving about," she laughed and you had to laugh with her, the rest of the table following suit. The girls seemed to be familiar with her story, certainly hearing it every now and then. It got you curious too.

"They call me the Axe Woman. I don't even wield an axe. It's more of a halberd."

She chugged down a mug of what smelled like hardcore alcohol. The scent of it wafted your way. Sensing your eyes on it like a hawk, she offered it to you with a small grin. You shook your hands in refusal but she insisted, pushing it into your hands.

"Have a gulp. You look like you need it."

You took it and had a tentative sip before you chugged it all down in one long gulp. The raw spirit went down your throat, burning out the chills wracking you all night, warming you right up. Finishing it up to the very last drop, you eyed to the bottom of the wooden cup looking for some more. That was unlike anything you've ever had before, somewhere between expensive bar liquor and ages old spirit brewed in the heart of the countryside. So strong and flavory, going right to where you needed some quick liquid smoothness.

Wiping your lips of the leftover drops, you held it back to her only for her smile to crack away into a really threatening sneer.

"I didn't mean the whole thing. That was the last of it."

A sacred rule of yours regarding alcohol was to never drink the last alcohol at the table because it could always be the last for a long time coming. A rule you forgot about that now made your hold on the mug tremble.

A loud hiccup escaped your lips out of nervousness for what could follow that threat. You jumped over your rule and drank the last of the alcohol at the table and from the looks of it there would be violent consequences since Marissa didn't seem to play about her liquor. After all, she did get caught and thrown down here as she was looking for some.

Debating your chances against her broader, much taller form had your stomach growl in protest. Then a huge burp came out from the depths of your throat before you could stop it. The eyes around the table rounded wide, all directed at you like you've committed the utmost final sin. You cursed yourself for being so selfish.

They're going to skin me alive for a mug of alcohol.

If they write that on my stone I'll become the laughingstock of pooping pigeons.

Maybe that plea could be my last words.

If I get the right to any last words.

Just when you thought the world was about to end for good, the whole table erupted in hysterics at your expense. They were just playing with you. Your face must have given away your stupid thoughts because even Marissa threw her head back howling, hand hitting the table in utter amusement that you weren't following along the trick.

"Don't worry. I had enough for today," she smirked in teasing, her shoulders rolling with a few more giggles. "Your face was priceless."

Your shoulders fell with a sigh. "Very funny. I nearly said a prayer with the last drops of it stuck in my throat."

"I love alcohol, but not enough to kill a sister. You're one of us now."

That made a smile fall on your lips. You've been here for a shitload of a few minutes and they already took you in as one of their own. The feelings were mutual, nods already falling in agreement with Marissa's words.

Suffering unites people in the worst of times. But how much of it did these girls go through that a simple good word and a laugh with you had them swear your name off their killing lists? From the fading scars on their faces and hands, way too much of it crossed their paths. The ones laying under the surface, deep in their souls, must be hurting worse. You could see it in their eyes - the haunting moments they lived in here.

The table quieted down and everyone went back to enjoying their food. Once the coast was clear of volunteers, it was someone else's turn to tell their story. Nothing could have prepared you for this one.

"I'm Mai," spoke the girl next to you. She was the one that pulled your chair over with a small smile.

A tiny thing she was, not a year above sixteen years of age. A young girl. You were a teenage girl too when you started fighting, much more younger, but at least you fought willingly and on your own terms.

"I've been here the longest," she said, cutting through your train of thoughts. She looked down at her plate with a small twitch of her lips that could barely be a smile.

Your heart thrummed in your chest at her words.

The longest? A child has been here for the longest?

"How?" was the only thing you could mutter, unable to get over the shock of what she was telling you, like it was a fable, far from reality.

"My parents used to work for the Triads. They were two of the best assassins they had. After they had me, they wanted to pull out and live a normal life but the bosses just wouldn't let them go. They ran away to protect me but the troops caught up to us," she said, her soft brown eyes filling up with unshed tears.

"They took me as revenge. It's been almost ten years since then."

What kind of animals do this shit?

"They kept me here and trained me, had me fight sometimes, welcome the newcomers. I don't go to the upper world though. It's always been off limits to me. I keep hoping that one day they'll let us all go. I don't even remember how it feels like to see the sunlight," she said, mumbling the last part as she sniffled away an angry, stray tear before it could fall away from her face.

She's been held down in this cold cave, with barely enough food to eat or a real bed to sleep in, as a killing machine for them?

For ten years?

Those weren't people. Those were mad devils walking the earth with no scruples and a slithering tail in place of a spine. These demons captured a young girl and locked her up in a fighting cave, making her call it a home when she should be in an actual home, in the comfort and the warmth of her parents' loving embrace, exploring the beauties of the world.

Your parents were snatched away, leaving you to fend for yourself in the unknown dangerous world. But they didn't take you like this, without allowing you time with them. But to steal a child that's barely been in the world for so little, taking away her right to live a life... This... this was madness. A madness that fueled your rage for the Triads even more.

"Can I hug you?" you asked, before even registering the words spilling out. "I just... you remind me so much of me."

At first she hesitated. You could see it on her face - a wonder for the comfort that she barely got to feel. Arms stretching out with a smile, you hoped she could look past the roadkill look you sported and get in there.

She passed you a slow nod and you rushed to engulf her in a delicate, gentle hug, hoping you could let her feel some of the warmth she's missed all these years she's been locked in this hollow lifeless pit. She probably hasn't had one of these in a while since she melted into your hold within an instant, burying her head in the crook of your neck. You squeezed her as hard as your wounds would let you, ignoring the stabbing pain under your ribs. The pain you were feeling didn't even compare to what she must have gone through. So you held her close, carding a hand through her soft locks, feeling her bury closer in your arms.

Maybe the others weren't the soft type. The assassin job usually meant killing off your softness in order to get things done quick and less messy. But no matter how much you or Barairo tried to get rid of this gentle side of you, it never worked. You never let the rage consume you to the point of no return. Perhaps it was the luck of being raised for more than half of your life by loving parents, a thing not many can say. Maybe keeping this kindness was what paid respects to their memory. Whatever the reason, you hung tight onto it, never letting go. You'd be dead and gone before you let that happen.

Your heart ached for her. This shred of kindness, as small and insignificant as it was, was all you've been missing growing up on the streets of Edo. Alone, scared, with no future in sight. A young girl left to fend for herself with no place to call her home, nowhere to turn to.

Pulling back from each other, you brushed her ebony hair back softly, the very way your mother used to.

"You're brave, Mai. So brave. Braver than I ever was back then," you said, cupping the side of her face. "Hold that close to your heart."

Her cheek leaned into your hand like a tigress letting herself be tamed. You could feel the anger she kept inside, but from the looks of it she was better at controlling it than you did.

The rest of the girls at the table introduced themselves and told you about their abductions. Every one of these girls braved through the odds to survive and live as best as they could, every story more tragic and painful to listen to. At one point you noticed something that raked chills down your spine. All the reasons for which they were taken blurred into a disgusting pattern that shook you to your core - they were all taken for their skills in battle. For being good, undetectable assassins in their local areas. For their expertise. For their unparalleled strength. None of them were housewives or farmers. All of them were powerful warriors.

Why they took only girls was a mystery beyond you. These girls were all well known in their fields and could hold their own against an army if they wanted to. And you found out that's exactly what most of the women at this table did if they had chance - they put up a battle in front of this unforeseen danger. Some fought legions to protect their own and keep the danger at bay for as long as they could. Others were taken as they carried out the only job they knew, trying to survive the days the only way they could, even if that meant taking a filthy life off the face of the earth in exchange for one more day or one more week to win the roof over their heads and the small meals they could barely afford to stay alive.

They were brought here to fight for their lives at the will of that smug serpent lounging in the luxurious comfort of the upper world without a worry in the universe, as if nothing and no one could take the world from under his feet.

What they called the upper world was the very world promised to them. The world they came into as little girls, to grow and blossom into amazing women and fearsome warriors, to become forces of nature that wished to protect and aid, not at all divide and conquer. The very world they now looked to from beneath the layer of the earth above this cavern, as if they were already dead corpses waiting to be absorbed a level lower than the one hosting their pain and anger at the moment.

They had a lot of it - rage. The pure kind that could tear through anything and wreak havoc on the world. You could feel it flow from them as they shared their individual stories of becoming and their changed endings before they even got to live the lives they had planned. And they had a lot waiting for them. Daughters, sisters, wives, engaged to be married to their chosen ones. So much that was taken away. So much they might never get back.

But not even channeling all that anger nor their skills, could help them get out of this hell. Twenty souls, beside you, all trapped in this dungeon until the lord of the house spoke of their use or freedom. A freedom which, from their small lettings, often came at the price of death in battle.

"You said they make you fight."

Your voice cut through the sea of silence hanging over the table, carrying out like a wake up call of what they were about to go through again and again, in a never ending cycle, as if they did not know anything of it before you mentioned it. You could tell from the way they avoided your eyes that they tried to forget about that part, fighting against the reminder of their fate at least now as they shared a meal together.

"Who do they pick against who? What are the rules? Do you get anything when you win a fight?"

Your questions shot out one after another before your brain could catch up to them. Yana simply smiled at you. A smile so full of regret and yet filled with endless compassion, that you were starting to grow fond of. She must have smiled a lot more before she was thrown in this shithole.

"They pick one of us at random," she said, picking your questions up in order. "Against outsiders mostly. Mercenaries, other assassins, big shots in the other mafias. People they have a bone to steal from, targets they want killed or taken care of. They've never had us fight amongst ourselves and for that we're a little grateful."

"Rules are simple. You fight, kill or get killed."

Her smile fell at the last one and you felt your heart twitch painfully in your chest. She didn't have to go into that one to know that some of them did refuse to fight or died in the fight. That thought alone made your insides twist and churn, not in hunger but in horror with another realization.

There were more of them locked down here and some of them didn't survive it.

Yana must have read the miserable sensation coursing through you right on your face. She gave you no time to dwell on it before continuing with more answers, though you dreaded having asked those questions now. But she needed you to know what waited for you.

"Winning a fight doesn't do much. We did agree to ask for similar things, like a full meal or a week of no fights so we could rest and heal."

The table filled with food in front of you was someone's well-earned meal, shared well with every hungry stomach. The very food you were eating was fought for with blood, sweat and wounds that were probably not healed yet.

Unable to help it, you scoured the table trying to spot the one who gave herself to battle to earn this feast. All of them were decked in bruises and cuts, some more recent, others scabbed over. You searched each girl for new, fresh wounds from left to right. Then your eyes laid on Lyla who was slurping noodle bowls by the second beside you, who turned awfully quiet all of a sudden.

Then it hit you - Lyla eats like that only after a fight. You knew her appetite was as big as a sailor fleet after her fists were locked in someone's face. Raking your eyes over her, you didn't notice it before but her eyebrow was indeed split open, as was her lower lip. Fresh cuts were littered between purple bruises on her arms too, one darker than the other as they peeked from under her torn sleeves. Her hair fell from the messy ponytail, some pieces drenched in the stench of dried blood.

Feeling eyes on her, she stopped slurping her soup, turning to you with a noodle hanging from her mouth.

"What?" she mumbled, slurping the noodle in with a pop.

"It was you this time wasn't it?" you asked, looking down at your plate in guilt.

"I did what I had to do," she shrugged. Her eyes landed on your plate that sat untouched this whole time, letting out a long sigh at your stubbornness.

"Miyu, please eat. You're hurt and this is the best we'll be getting for a while. There's no need for guilt-sulking and all that humble bullcrap. Eat. Please."

Her pleas fell on deaf ears. Your hand moved on autopilot. Grabbing a cloth, you raised it to her split eyebrow dabbing the blood away. She slumped in her seat and let you take care of it, knowing you'll just pester her about it until she did it, which would probably be never. She had a bad habit of letting her injuries dry up and heal by themselves, deeming it natural and less burdensome than patching herself up properly.

"Miyu," she groaned like a child, a few seconds away from shoving food in your mouth herself.

"Okay, fine," you smacked the cloth down on the table. "I'll eat."

Looking down at your plate, you saw it was ticked up with roasted chicken thighs and mashed potatoes. Dying of starvation didn't seem so bad considering it was food from the enemy. But the meatballs Enishi shoved in you before the mission were long digested. Your stomach grumbled dangerously at the sight of the chicken, the roasted smell, the way it looked so appetizing, and you couldn't deny it any longer.

Launching yourself into it, you ate that chicken like you've never had it before, chewing it on all sides like a famished wolf that finally found edible prey to eat. The meat was so tender and well cooked, you couldn't help a moan at the taste. A few girls snickered at the way you were eating, slurping the meat off the bone by the second like it was jelly.

"Slow down there, rosy," giggled Lyla.

Once you were finished with the chicken, your fork headed for the potatoes. Yana pushed a bowl of stew your way too.

Too busy inhaling the food, you failed to hear the echoing click of heels rapidly making their way along the corridor. Everyone stopped eating in a similar manner to when you entered, diverting their eyes away from the food and to the figure standing behind you. You stopped eating too, feeling someone standing there, glaring daggers into your nape.

"You're in my seat," spoke another female voice, much more pitchy and annoying than any you've ever heard.

Turning around slightly, you were faced with the very bitch from the Shanghai Club you tried so hard to kill all night before you ended up in this place.

What a surprise.

Patting your lips with a tissue, you placed it swiftly on the table and got up from your seat facing her. Her face was still swollen, cuts and bruises decorating her all over from forehead down to her uncovered neckline.

"I thought I killed you," you smirked at her, crossing your arms over your chest.

"And I thought they burned you alive in that carriage along with your boyfriends," she sneered, like the evil vamp she was. "I guess we don't all get what we want."

You chuckled dryly at her, averting your eyes away from her irritating presence. That remark was enough to rail you up. Before she saw it coming, your smirk fell and your fist connected with her face, throwing her to the ground.

The night was still dark when they got back to the mansion.

Enishi made his way right to the office with the help of one of his men while Wu helped Cho out of the carriage. The older man gathered all men on duty in the room, instructing them to bring medical supplies and send for the doctor from the village, then started working on Enishi's head wound.

If there was something Enishi hated with a passion in the whole world, it was people fussing over him. Even when he simply scraped his knee on a grocery run with Tomoe and she rushed him home, he would berate her that he was capable of taking care of himself well enough, not in the need of anyone else's help. In those times, she would angle him down with a look of warning and lecture him that being hurt wasn't a weakness but a strength, a sign reminding him that he was human too. That was the same look the old man gave him, though less lecturing and more annoyed as he kept telling him to sit still. Sitting still was not in his itinerary for the night.

It took a while. At one point, he thought that Wu was moving slow on purpose, testing his patience. Wound cleaned and bandaged, he called over some of his men, delegating tasks of immediate execution and precaution, taking it from the beginning of it all.

He had to be quiet about what happened at the club, giving away only necessary details where needed.

"I want information on everything that moves inside and outside of Shanghai. Imports, exports, hidden shipments. I want to know about all of it," he demanded, tone strict and without a sliver of mercy. "Every little detail about people or stuff that's not where it should be, you have it going through my ears as soon as possible."

They all nodded, taking off out the door one by one as soon as they were handed work and locations. He sent some men back to the club to scope out anything suspicious or of interest, warning them to keep a safe distance and not get found out. If that happened, they were completely on their own and he could do nothing more for them.

Whoever sent the carriage ablaze believed all three of you were taken care of, set on fire to mere ashes tossed in the wind. Letting them believe that some more would get him places much faster.

The rest of his men were gathered in the room, but he failed to see a few.

"Is everyone here?" he asked Wu.

"Yes," he said, sticking a bandage over Enishi's wound. "Except the ones you just sent out and my own."

His fingers stopped prodding at his wound pulling back to look at Enishi's face for any leftover cuts left untreated.

Enishi's eyes bounced around, doing a mental count of how many men he left on duty, the ones that were off tonight and the ones he's already deployed. Some of them were definitely missing from today's force.

"Who did you take with you in town two days ago?"

"Just my crew. The twins, Kano, Liu and Yao."

The twins he just sent out to gather intel from the club, knowing they were the most silent weapons he had. He turned around looking for the rest, finding only Kano and Yao, loudly bickering about something in the corner as always. Those two could never get along and he always sent them out on missions together on purpose, hoping they would sort out their shit.

He kept twisting around Wu, trying to spot everyone only to fail at it. Wu himself turned around and looked for his own.

"Liu's not here," he concluded. Then his eyes widened to the size of rice balls. "I haven't seen him since we went out in the city and relayed info to you and madame a few nights ago."

Liu's been one of the older recruits Enishi picked out at the start of the mafia ensemble. He was good at finding out important information fast and promptly, often the one at the helm of interrogations. Liu made people talk quicker than he expected them to.

Enishi didn't know a lot about the guy himself. Lately, he placed him under Wu's directive since he had more connections and could reach a wider spread of information inland outside of the mansion walls.

Falling in his seat, he tapped his fingers on the wooden arms of the chair in deep thinking, zoning out of the ruckus and mobilization around the office. Someone talked in the wrong ear about his plans. He's suspected it for a while as he investigated the missing shipments, but after tonight, he knew for sure that he had a mole walking freely within his walls. Someone he's fed generously, gave a roof over their head, a warm bed at night and a secure and well-paid job to do. Someone who was ungrateful and selfish enough to throw all that away and sing at someone else's table about things that should've never left these walls.

The timing of Liu's sudden disappearance was too obvious and in plain sight not to fall under the suspicion that he was involved in tonight's shitshow. Not just that, but having been with Wu to gather intel on your parents, adding his presence the night Wu told you that, he knew enough about you to hand you over to the Triads and set up a trap to get you killed without anyone suspecting anything.

"Bastard," he muttered under his breath. "Send your men after him. I have a feeling he has something to do with everything going to shit tonight."

"On it," he nodded, leaving him be.

Leaning on the back rest, he propped his head back and closed his eyes for a second. It felt like this night just wouldn't come to an end. It started so well that he himself was hopeful it would finally get you somewhere, that the false leads ended there at that wretched club. In turn, it all changed for the worst.

Enishi got up to walk around and stretch his legs a little, ending up in front of Cho. The village doctor was taking care of his shoulder, stitching up the open grazes slithering down to his side. He took a peek at it since it was uncovered, noticing that the whole of his right backside was covered in a long burn, bruised on the sides. The blond winced in pain wherever the doctor touched him, unable to keep still.

"You good?"

"Been worse."

Enishi's head turned to look at the window catching dawn on the slow rise. The doctor finally finished his job, helping Cho pull on his shirt to cover his back. He got up, walking beside Enishi,

"You're going back out there, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "You should stay back. That thing on your back looks nasty."

"Your head being split open is nastier."

"Are you worried about me again?"

"I'm worried you'll miss out on clues since you can't see straight enough to send a punch properly."

"I don't think you want me to send a punch your way properly," said Enishi with a smirk, grabbing his kimono. "Meet me out front when you're ready to go."

Enishi left, taking a few more men with him, leaving the blonde confused with his mouth agape. He thought he had that quarrel in his hand only to be fooled. Enishi never went full on with his punches. He did made Cho believe he gave it his all though.

They were out riding back to the scene as soon as the sun rose up. They took horses this time, wary of carriages for the time being. The horses got there much faster and the rain stopped too, drawing to a slow drizzle.

Dismounting at the scene of the crash, the smoke still ebbed from the rest of the bigger remains. A low cloud of fog settled with the temperature change, but the endless puddles of rain were almost absorbed into the ground. That was a positive, but the slippery, muddy ground not so much.

"I'll take the right," said Cho, heading for the other side of the clearing.

Enishi nodded, moving to the site of the crash. "I'll take the left."

Splitting up was better than nothing. They searched and searched, flipping over even the doors or the wheels of the carriage that were still in solid state. Enishi found nothing. Not even a ripped piece of fabric from your dress or a loose thread hanging from a branch floating lonely in the wind. He looked for your necklace too in case you lost it here. But he found no track or lead on you, like you were never here in the first place.

They rejoiced on the main road as the rest of the men kept searching.

"Anything?" asked Cho, a glint of hope in his eyes that only shattered when it landed on his search partner.

Enishi shook his head discouraged. "You?"

"Nope."

"How did she even just disappear into thin air like that?"

"I don't know."

He replayed the events of the night up until the crash and from when he woke up. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't grasp what happened. He knew there was a part of tonight that was missing from his head. a part that might have been ripped away by the pain he was in. That hole between the crash and him waking up was pissing him off. He knew something happened but he couldn't recall it back.

He looked back at the bush he rolled through. Pinning down the place he was laying in and the spot he found Cho in, he looked for a way to measure the spot you would have been in after the carriage broke into pieces. Walking around the splotches of mud, he followed his gut and took off towards the woods. Something about the woods bothered him.

Thinking hard on it, he got a few steps away then it hit him like a flash of lightning touched his head - he did feel something happen. The person crashing into his chest, shaking him awake desperately and the rustles around him until everything went eerily quiet.

"It was her," he spoke breathlessly alerting the blonde.

"What are you talking about?"

"Before I woke up, I felt something. She tried to shake me awake. One moment she was grabbing onto me then the next she was gone."

His head started pounding and he had to hold onto it. That wasn't all. He saw you too, kicking and screaming through the haze as someone threw you over their shoulder. Then he blacked out again.

"I saw her."

"You saw her?! What do you mean?"

"Someone hauled her up and took her away," he groaned as he was spilling detail after detail he couldn't recall witnessing before.

"At least now we know she was here. We just need to figure out who took her."

Pacing around, Enishi took a look at the rubbles again. His eyes drew back to the road, mentally piecing together the events of the night leading up to the crash. That fireball came from the direction they left from - the club. A planned attack? Maybe. From which side present last night? The Triads? The Daos? The men behind that traitorous scum he killed? That was the mystery Enishi couldn't solve.

They were barely half an hour away when it happened. It definitely had to be someone from there. The Triads were barely armed but someone back there was loaded, both inside and outside to ensure their own safety - a mafia. If anyone had access to a catapult and incendiary ammunition on the side of town it was them.

Upon seeing the grim smirk on Enishi's face, Cho shuddered. Whenever he had that look on his face, it was either good or bad news, for him or for someone else. The blond didn't feel like playing the lottery right now so he just asked.

"What are you thinking?"

Enishi's gaze lifted up to him with a deeper grin.

"I think we need to pay the Daos a little visit."

Violence is never the answer. But it sure looked like it when this cross-legged, brunette, excuse of a human being opened her mouth.

You couldn't hold back when she spoke like it was her who ordered the attack on you and the boys and the heartless way she said it was enough to make your blood boil with rage. Once your punch flew her way, your hands wound up around her neck, planning to choke her until she spilled all her useless words and bitchy attitude out.

"What the fuck did you just say?" you gritted, pressing harder into her neck.

"Exactly what you heard," she spoke through gasping breaths. "You were all supposed to perish with that one fireball."

"How about you perish by my own two hands?"

Hooking a hand into her lacy top, you got up and dragged her along on the floor until you reached one of the stone pillars on the side. The girls watched with mouths open from the table as you lifted her up to it, smacking her head into it multiple times. That irritating grin on her face never fell away, even as you bashed her face in pretty well with just that one punch, splitting her lip open right next to the previous damage you made back at the club.

Upon hearing the ruckus, the guards came back down but never intervened, sitting at the entrance with smug looks on their faces, just enjoying their temporary entertainment.

So focused on strangling the living daylights out of her, she dug a powerful punch of her own right into your broken ribs. The pain spread worse than before, pulsing with every heartbeat in your chest. You winced and let go of her to hold onto your side, pinning her down with another murderous look.

Dirty little ass bitch. Just wait until I step on your face.

Determined to do just that, you kept your hand on your side, spinning a roundhouse kick her way. She stepped backwards, but the tip of your boots still scrapped her nose good enough to give her a nosebleed. You didn't give her time to fall back in attack, following up with a reverse side kick sending her right into another stone pillar.

"Damn, girl," howled Marissa. "You can fight in a dress and look badass in it too? Where did you get it?"

"I made it."

"Consider me putting in an order."

Your eyes widened. Your first customer just made an appearance. One you were excited as hell to dress up from the get go.

"Really?" you asked, facing her.

"If you're free of charge?"

"For you, anytime," you smirked.

In your customer scouting haze, you left your back open giving your denigrated sister an opportunity to run and jump on it. She wrapped her legs around your torso and her slinky hands around your throat trying to cut your air supply off, squeezing hard on all fronts.

Why is she like a bug you just can't kill?

Running backwards, you shoved her against a pillar, rolling for another fall and another, until she finally slid off your back grunting in pain. But she didn't slide off without grabbing onto the length of your hair to haul you on the ground instead. She wrapped a fist into it, pulling on it whichever side she wanted. Your hands wound up over hers trying to pry them away, aimlessly kicking at her until something shiny glinted in your peripheral and all your movement ceased.

She had a knife on hand. When she swiped the blade off the table, you had no idea, but before you could kick it away she flipped the handle upwards and thrust it hard into your thigh, making sure to plunge it deep through the material of your dress. Blood seeped out from the edges staining the ruby red a deeper, darker shade. You cried out in pain, letting a hand fall from her wrist tugging on your hair to sit around your new wound. Coupled with the jostle in your ribs, it hurt like a motherfucker.

The girls got up from the table in a haste, heading for you with shouts to stop her but the guards ran their way to keep them aside, pulling their swords out. They wouldn't get involved. They had no reason to as long as you both were breathing and not on the edge of death. This was unsolved business between you and her.

Her deft fingers, scarred from playing the violin, now inched deeper into your scalp with violent intent. Pulling your hair to her, she got closer and grinned widely in your face before making a tight fist and sending it to you with her empty hand while the other kept you in place. She kept going and going like she was following a written score on her instrument, replacing a musical sheet of paper with your face, drawing the notes with her knuckles instead of a pencil.

When she was satisfied with the bruises forming on your face and the black eye she gave you, matching the very damage you did to her face she stopped, leaning down to you. This time, her eyes were far from soulless, like they appeared back at the club. They were full of venom and spite.

"This is what you get for sticking your nose where you don't belong. You can't kill me in here. I'm the only one that can walk in and out of here unharmed while you all rot down here like rats." Turning her venomous sight on them, her tongue rolled with more insults at the address of the girls. "After all, that's why he collected you all. To eat up the trash and clean up the mess, getting scraps from above for food," she laughed. "Just like rats."

She had a lot of nerve to say these things when any of those girls could just wrap their hand around her wrists to snap them in two, making sure she would never play that wretched violin ever again. Why none of them did it yet was a question you were burning to ask. Once you finished this.

Spitting out the blood swimming in your mouth, you turned up a smirk of yours as your hand wrapped around the handle of the knife, silently bracing yourself for the pain to come.

"I may not be able to kill you," you grunted, twisting the knife upwards and out of your leg. Your blood dripped off the knife, inaugurating the stone floors with your presence.

"But I can make sure you keep your fucking mouth shut."

Faster than she could catch up on your move, you pulled out the knife from your thigh, flipping the handle and plunged it into her arm. You went deeper than she had the courage to stab you, making sure the hilt went through until it touched her skin like a wall decoration.

She shrieked, letting go of your hair to draw backwards until she reached the empty table, putting distance between you. She pulled the knife out and stood right back up, grabbing as many unused knives as she could find on top of the table. Pushing yourself up to stand with a bad ankle and a bleeding thigh, wheezing with the sharp air you drew in, you scoured the place for anything you could use to defend yourself. You ended up with the chair closest to you that looked worse for wear in your hands. You smashed it on the floor and broke it into pieces, grabbing a good hold on the longest parts.

She has knives and I have... wood.

Real inventive.

I can make a pyre and burn her on it. Maybe then she'll finally die. Big maybe to test out.

Your plan remained unfinished as she started throwing the knives at you one by one. The wooden planks flew out to catch them before they impaled deeply in your skin, wishing to keep the stabbing count at one and done. You let her throw all of them, avoiding the lower ones and paring the upper ones to the side, sending them right into the burning firestone at the side. She kept at it until she had no more blades to throw, seething as she looked at the forks stabbed in the meat as if she was tempted to throw those too, food included.

"Nice try, but you missed" you yelled, taking her attention away.

She smirked at you like a viper. "Check again."

What? I don't need to check again... Your eyes drifted around your arms, your heaving torso, front and back, then stopped at your legs. Indeed, there was another knife sledged in your leg. Right beside the gash she already gave you.

You've got to be shitting me.

The adrenaline of the moment might be what kept you from feeling that second knife embed into your thigh so close to the other one. It looked way deeper than the first. Your leg turned numb too, which wasn't a good sign.

On one more rage spurt, you threw the wooden logs in your hands at her, then collapsed on the floor. The first log missed but the next smacked her right across the face and you couldn't help a snort.

"Okay, this ends now," yelled a guard, finally moving to break the fight apart. He took to the brunette's aid, instructing the girls on what to do unless they wanted to bear consequences.

"One of you go pick up the new catch and help her to her cell. The rest go back to eating. If you're not done in the next ten minutes, there will be no more food for you this week, fights won or not."

That was a punishment that should've been yours, not theirs. You started the brawl in the first place.

With that warning, they left the way they came, taking the wench with them. Once they were out of sight, you let out a sigh that hurt like hell under your smashed ribs. Lyla ran over to you, followed by the rest each firing hundreds of questions at you. You waved them off unable to focus on any of them but the numbing feeling in your leg.

"Go eat guys. You need it more than me." You shot Lyla a look as you sauntered up on your legs unsteady, holding onto a pillar. "You too Lyla. I've got this."

"Where's your cell?" she asked, clearly not convinced by your words. You debated lying but she knew how far your white lies went. Not one of them went past her, no matter how hard you tried.

"About twenty-five rows of stairs upwards?"

"You've got it my ass. That's where mine is too."

She walked back to the table, packing some more food and fruits in a cloth for later, wrapping the edges tight into a small bundle. Coming right back, she hauled your arm over her shoulders.

"See you later, guys. Enjoy."

"Bye ladies," you smiled as best as you could, saluting them over Lyla's shoulder.

"Thank you Lyla! Take care," they all said in unison.

Barely, but somehow, you managed to climb all those flights of stairs. With Lyla's help and countless curses dropped here and there when the knife that was still in your leg moved in the slightest. Lyla advised against pulling it out, letting it feel numb rather than hurt.

The further you got from the bottom of the tunnel, the more looks you threw behind. You've had enough of heights to last you a lifetime. A fall from this far up would have your body shatter into pieces like a mug falling on the floor. Not something you were eager to try out.

"Stop looking down there or I'll drop you," said Lyla with a low grunt. She moved to grab you better, trying to take most of the weight off your wounded leg, almost losing the hold of the food package in the process.

"Sorry. This is one long tunnel. How deep in the ground are we?"

"I don't know and I don't wish to know."

Her tone told you she was pissed. Way more than the usual amount.

"Are you mad at me?"

She stopped walking, glancing at you briefly. "You're the smartest person I know." You were about to thank her for the surprising compliment when she continued. "But sometimes, you're the biggest idiot I've ever met."

Your mouth fell closed.

"I didn't mean to start a fight. And I mean, she asked for it."

"She does ask for it on the regular, but that doesn't mean you go and give it to her. Ignoring is a thing, you know."

"Oh, come on. You can't tell me that wasn't a highly requested punch session by the way you were all cheering me on."

She sighed. You had a point.

"Aim for her tongue next time."

Hopping along the long corridor, you finally reached your cell. The door was left open for you. Not for escaping but for containing. The chains were gone however, for now, but they might be back soon.

"Is your cell really up here?" you asked, suspicious if she was telling the truth.

"Right next to you," she pointed to your right.

Your brows drew together in confusion. "Why did I not hear you while I was here?"

"I was probably downstairs fighting. Those take a while."

Lyla helped you sit down against the wall, then moved to place the food pack somewhere that wasn't wet and dirty.

"Can you," you gestured to the knife poking out of your upper thigh.

"I think it decorates pretty well. Matches the dress...," she paused, tilting her head to the side, "or what's left of it."

You looked her dead in the eyes.

"Can you just fucking pull it out?"

"Yep."

She wrapped her hand around it and in one swift pull the knife was out. You caught a hold of the velvet around your arm, ripping the sleeve from the seams and wrapped it around as soon as the blood started seeping out. Lyla slumped against the metal bars next to you, watching you patch yourself up.

"That was fun," she said, a hint of a smile on her face. Despite her scolding, she did enjoy the fight back there. Your enjoyment of the quarrel was gone by now.

"If that's your definition of fun," you huffed, tying the material tighter around your thigh, "then you're not right in the head."

"That makes two of us sweetie." Your hands stopped, eyes ogling her for the meaning of her words. "Heard you've been rolling around in bed with the very crime lord of Shanghai."

When, where and from who does one find out such news?

Considerably shocked, you decided to deny all allegations upon further evidence.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"News travels fast in this shithole. People talked of sightings of him alongside a really conniving, skilled Japanese assassin, that's been assisting him on his recent missions."

Evidence proven.

"Did they really call me conniving and skilled?"

"I knew it," she gasped loudly. "They didn't say that. I just happened to hear of a poster your face was drawn on. The descriptions varied but I knew it had to be you."

"How?"

"Oh, I don't know," she clapped her hands together. "Wild hair, wears mostly Western clothing, wields two golden pistols engraved with roses. Want me to say more?"

If Lyla could tell it was you from mere hearsay, you've been in the visor of the Triads for longer than you thought you were hidden well. Unfathomable to think that news travelled down in this cavern that was practically nowhere, but not to yours or Enishi's ears.

"Now tell me. What's going on between you two?"

"I'm not rolling around. We just..." you paused, at a loss for words. You tried looking for at least one word that described the relationship between you and Enishi but came up blank in the mess of every other cursed thing you wanted to call it.

"You just..." Lyla pressed on, a knowing look already on her face. But she waited for you to spell it out.

Good to know she still hasn't lost that nosiness and love for humiliation.

"We just live together. I'm his weapons person. We fight together." Your gaze fell back on your leg, fingers moving to undo the knot of your bandage and wrap it once more, trying to evade the obvious. "That's about it."

"And they were housemates," she concluded.

You shook your head with a laugh. "Trust me, there's nothing nice about living with him under the same roof."

That was the wrong lie to utter.

There were nice things about living together with Enishi under the same roof. The fact that he offered you your own room, giving you privacy and a space away from mafia things unless you wanted to be a part of it. The fact that you had a kitchen all to yourself, available at all times, night and day, as well as access to other amenities. He also trained you and taught you how to wield a sword properly. He made you tea sometimes and had deep talks about life with you in the middle of the night when nightmares kept you awake.

So, in all truth, there were more nice things outweighing the bad ones when it came to sharing a roof with him.

A small smile rose on your lips, much like a flower opening her petals after the rain to welcome the warmth of sunrays. Upon seeing it Lyla just couldn't leave it alone.

"It feels like there's something you're not telling me," she pried in like a cat looking for treats, scratching your leg until you gave them to her.

You drew in a breath. "It's complicated."

"If men weren't complicated, the world would be such a nice place."

There was immense truth in that.

"What about you? Still playing the queen of hearts or did some nice chap tame you yet?"

"Oh, no, no. I'm too wild to be tamed by a pair of balls and a dick."

"Last time I checked, you loved a pair of balls and a dick at night."

"I still do. But there's nothing you can do about it when you're down in a dungeon," she spoke, looking away through the metal bars with a sadness in her eyes that a pang of it rang through your own heart.

"Although, there is a guard here that I managed to get under with my charms. He supplies us with clothes and extra food, even outside world news sometimes. That's how I found out about you and that guy."

"Putting those skills to good use, I see."

"Oh, I didn't get into his pants yet."

That is news. Lyla was never one to wait too long before calling it like it is and having a good lay. If anything, it was her who dictated how a catch would go and not the other way around. But then again, who would sleep with someone down in this humid, smelly cave?

"How long has it been?"

"Way too long. My lady parts are riveting every time I see him and what's worse," she leaned in to whisper as if she was afraid of a higher power or the very guard she had the hots for listening in to the conversation. "He's not even my type. It must be the worst thing about being stuck here."

That begged the question...

"How long have you been down here?"

"A while," she sighed, settling in next to you. "They took me on a mission about two years ago. I was out doing the rounds for this man working in the arms trade. I was just supposed to guard and check a shipment but it was a set up. I was too blind to notice since I walked into it alone and without cover."

"Why did you go alone?"

"Because he specified it was a one person job. And he told me he was going to pay me a quarter of what he got for them. From what he was saying, it was a big shipment from overseas. It sounded like good money since no one was hiring assassins at the time."

She's been down here for two years. It's been two years since you haven't heard from her. Two years that she spent here in this pit of vipers by herself without a way to get out.

If I knew she disappeared, if I knew what happened...

But there was no way of knowing. You left and cut all ties with everyone you knew, including her, not just for yours but her safety as well. And look where that landed you both - right in the hands of the Triads for god knows what plans they had with you beside their exclusive fight club.

Leaving did more worse than good. I could've been there for her. I should've been there for her.

"I'm sorry," you said, head diving into the ground. It seemed like sorry was the only thing you could say, regret seeping through your bones like it was right at home ever since you've woken up in this dungeon.

She shook her head with a small smile on her rosy lips. "It's okay. I'm more sorry they managed to get you in here since you're not exactly an easy person to catch. What happened?"

With a grunt, you leaned behind on the stone wall to sit up in a better position that didn't hurt your middle upon simply breathing. Thinking of a place to start, since you had a duty to catch her up on everything that's happened since you've last seen each other, you struggled to pick just one thing. There was a whole amalgam of things that happened leading up to last night. Recalling one or the other would send the average human being into brain damage.

"It's a long story."

"As you can see, we have all the time in the world."

Focusing on the night before, you started with the whole mission, its objective, that was a complete fail, and how it ended with a giant fireball being thrown at you in the middle of the road. You then continued with the whole reason why you left your life behind, your search for your parents, meeting Enishi on a not so random encounter, stumbling over Cho in the midst of it all. You told her all of it.

When you got to the reunion with the blond, she stopped you. She was well acquainted with his existence - well, his existence pre-forgiveness and the redeeming talking sessions you've had in the past week. The Cho she knew was the rugged version of the man you knew now. Not that far behind this matured, upgraded version of him, but closer to the one that left you hanging in a gun warehouse to fend for yourself against a whole mafia.

"Hold on," she stopped you, blinking rapidly. "Cho Sawagejo?! The fucker that left you for money and a shiny sword job?"

You nodded lightly.

"Please tell me you held him at gun point and made him apologize with tears in his eyes."

Letting out a nervous laugh, you looked away trying to avert your eyes from the grenade next to you that was a word away from being armed and thrown out.

"About that.."

She knew that look. It was the look you had when you were too kind to people and just forgave whatever fucker did you wrong, no matter how wrong or twisted the consequences of their actions backfired on you instead of their sorry ass.

"Miyu... No. No, no, no, no. Please tell me you didn't."

"I'm not sure what you're asking."

"You know damn well what I'm asking. You welcomed him back with open arms after that shit? What the hell?! If you weren't injured right now, I myself would give you a beating."

Instead of a smack you knew was headed your way, she flicked a green grape at you, hitting you right between the eyes. If that had been one of her knives it would've hurt more. Thankfully, it wasn't.

"He's different now," you tried to convince her, dusting the grape off to pop it in your mouth. "Still has that potty mouth of his, but he's been repenting on his wrongs and he kinda did right by them."

"What if that's what he wants you to believe?"

"He wouldn't," you shook your head. "If he did, he wouldn't have made countless amends with me, Lyla. If you met him now, you'd see that too."

"If I met him, I'd break his legs and carve out his balls with his own swords and hang them on the hilts like tassels," she said, completely determined on doing it if she felt like it. You imagined that happening and cracked a smile.

"And your prince? How did he react to all this?"

You blew a huffed breath, trying to release some of the pressure in your tense shoulders. Upon revisiting the past few days after Cho's arrival, you got a whole migraine. Way too much happened, but amongst everything, the insane display of 'I'm a man and I came to claim what's mine' between the two ambulant testosterone, war-waging beings was sticking out the most.

"God, it was like watching the fucking war for the jungle in front of your very own eyes," you pointed two fingers to your eyes to emphasize the point.

"They were at each other's throats every minute of the day. That only filled up the mansion with the kind of tension you genuinely don't need to be around. Kitchen, garden, even my room!" you huffed throwing your hands up in annoyance. "I wanted to dig a hole in the ground and crawl out of it only when they got bored of playing useless alpha male games with each other, keeping me as leverage in the middle."

"Mhm. One question."

You nodded at her to shoot it out.

"Which one did you fuck?"

"LYLA!" you screeched, leaning over to smack her arm. Her eyebrows only raised further, demanding an answer.

"None of them," you lied, but she caught up on it before you even registered the denial slipping past your lips.

"You did bone one of them! I can see it all over your face. Oh god," she gasped. "Was it gray haired dude? A wanted mafia lord?! Way to go, sister," she smacked your arm excitedly. "Now that I think about it, you did always have a thing for older guys."

"We're the same age," you pushed her hand away with a huff. "I am never talking about my life with you ever again."

"Was it good? Is it big?"

"Is what big?" you blinked up at her confused.

Putting up her palms parallel to each other, she grinned devilishly then started widening the gap between them, looking between the imaginary air pocket between her wiggling fingers and your flustered face as you figured out just what she was asking.

"Tell me when to stop," she pressed as she kept widening the gap to an insane length that looked almost inhumane to even perceive. How does that even fit inside -

"LYLA! OH GOD. He's big okay. He's alright," you hissed, running a hand down your face in embarrassment.

Knowing him, he was probably panicking right about now or gutting Cho for looking at him wrong, and I'm here talking about his-

Dear lord, I have sinned.

"How big? Come on humor me."

The current size she was left on was... close enough. But she didn't need to know that, so you slapped her hands away.

"Filling. That's all I'm going to say."

She leaned back with a satisfied smile. "That's good enough for me."

"What are you even going to do with that information?"

"That's for me to know only."

Suspicious... But it's Lyla. If there's nothing dirty coming out of her mouth every five minutes something must be really wrong. Then again, you missed this kind of girl talk and most of all, you missed her. Overtaken by another wave of sadness, you beckoned her over for another hug.

"Come here," you opened your arms. "I missed this so much."

She smiled and scooched closer, falling into your arms extremely careful not to rattle your new injuries. Your hands wrapped around her, just as careful not to press on any of hers.

"I missed you too, fiery rose," she sighed in your shoulder. "In a fucked up way, I'm really glad you're here and alive. And getting criminal dick-"

"Shut up," you laughed and smacked her shoulder.

"He must be really good in bed if you're keeping quiet about it."

"I kinda wish she stabbed me in the ear so I wouldn't have to hear any of this."

"You'd still have one I'd talk away endlessly about dick," she giggled.

She leaned into your ear and proceeded to annoyingly continue to catalogue all types and sizes she's been through, hoping you would cave in and tell her more if she got you flustered enough. But you zipped it up with a secretive smile. That was only for you to know.

By nightfall, a handful of Enishi's men armed themselves with blades from head to toe and took off marching over to the Daos territory on the outskirts of Shanghai.

Enishi stopped his small task force in the forest overlooking the path in front of the casino, regrouping in the shadows. While they hopped off their transport and checked all their weapons, he stalked forward, raven eyes surveying the scene. There were guards all around, from the front walkway to the sides, each carrying long swords. Revolvers hung in the belts of some, attached loosely next to sets of knives.

Seems like they expect company, he thought. The last time he was there, they had way less security around. Now the big guys were spurn up in front of the door, towering over it, while the rest had their own version of blackjack going on the side of the doors on top of barrels of rum. They slapped cards down as if they were playing inside the crystal-ticked casino walls with the rest of the high society they were supposed to guard.

Walking back to his men, he beckoned them closer for one last callout before going in to ruin the party. Cho had one last check over his blades then sheathed his katanas and made his way next to him.

"What's the plan?" asked the blond.

Enishi just glanced at him with a serious jaw tilt. The kind that meant controlled disaster was on its way. Though he was surprised to see the seriousness morph into a raving grin upon the words leaving Enishi's mouth.

"Was thinking of leaving plans aside tonight."

That was a first. He always carried plans at the ready in all forms, having a side save for every failed one, but all of a sudden they were all extinct from his calendar. He didn't even bother planning ahead this time, knowing all he had to do was get inside and have a heart to heart with the chief of the Daos.

"I like that," smirked Cho, looking forward to having some fun tonight. His katanas, though borrowed, liked seeing slashed skin rather than their metallic casing.

"There's no plan, but you don't kill anyone until I give the okay."

There might have been no plans in store, but they had to do this the right way or shit could go sideways tonight too. And he didn't want it to. Cho sulked, dropping the hilts of his swords back down till the metal tsubas clicked against their hold.

"That's not fun."

"I'm not looking for a war," said Enishi, hoisting his sword on his back. "Unless they give me a reason to start one."

A war was not in his cards. But if they liked to play with fire he was going to torch them good, have them think twice about where their loyalty stood at when it came to taking one of his on his territory. All he needed was a wrong move and the Dao lineage would cease existence for good tonight, right in this hedonist place crawling with liars and traitors. A tempting gamble to take.

With a swift nod, his pack of mercenaries took to the sides of the building. Moving stealthily, they took the guards by surprise, knocking them out before they could call out to the ones on the front. It didn't take long for the sides and the back to be secured, each squadron sending a glint of their blade in signal that the perimeter was clear. All sides besides the entrance.

Walking out of the shadows with Cho at his side, they marched all the way to the front doors. Two of the four muscular brutes guarding the tall, slick black doors, stepped out to block the path with a cross of their blades.

"You are forbidden access," sneered one of them, looking down at Enishi.

"I'm here to talk to your boss. We've got some unfinished business."

The guard leaned down, his sneering face falling in front of Enishi's with a scowl.

"Forbidden." He spat each syllable as if it would make him look of much higher authority.

Talking was a lost cause from the get-go. Enishi sent him a smirk before his fist connected with his face, shoving the giant to the ground. The thug sauntered back on his legs and got a hold of Enishi's neck hauling him against the door, punching his abdomen multiple times, the next fist diving harder than the previous.

Cho took on the other one with a clash of his katanas, slashing his chest open then his back, getting rid of him right away. The other two came at the blond, swiveling around to corner him. They sent their blades on par with his arms lifting the katanas upwards to catch them both. They both pressed down on his swords, his muscles straining under their combined strength. His right side throbbed with new hot pain, shaking the hold on his attack katana.

On the other side, Enishi grappled with the troll that was double his size. He grabbed a hold of the his face and thrust his head right into his, shocking him a enough to a punch of his own, cracking his nose open. He struck and struck, until his face turned to a bloody mess, but even then the brute continued sneering at him. He smiled baring his giant teeth before he smacked Enishi right back in the wall beside the door.

Cho couldn't hold the pressure any longer. At once, he thrusted his swords upwards shoving both giants off of him. Turning the hilt of his attack katana in his right, he shoved it in the torso of the one closest, using the recoil to send the blade through his comrade. The katana embedded in that bulky torso like it cut through a hunk of meat, blood leaking beside the edges to land on the ground with loud splotches.

Smirking in triumph, thinking that would end at least one of his opponents, he gasped in shock. The thug stood his ground catching a hold of the blade margin and tugged Cho forwards while he pulled on the blade backwards trying to get it out. The other threw his sword at him from behind falling right on his defense katana, getting him stuck between the two. His defence blade was completely useless without the balance of his attack partner in his other hand.

"Fuck this."

With a low sweep he kicked the legs from under the giant on his right and as he fell he drew his sword out and slashed open a big gash across his chest. Sparring the other one, he sent double cuts that sliced open the skin above his thighs, then defended using the pair of swords together. The thug got tired and with the first opening he saw he slashed both katanas in opposite ways across chest, bringing them back to slither parallel through his middle once more. Breathing heavily, he fixed up his bad shoulder with a roll, checking the two were eliminated for good.

Enishi had enough of his own dance partner. He drew out his hands going for a chokehold around the brute's long neck, squeezing harder than it was meant for a quick knock out. At this point he wanted him dead and gone, no matter the way he went about it.

The brute laced on his arms, trying to ply them off the trunk of his neck but before he could, Enishi moved behind him and delivered the final blow right to the back of his head then twisted his neck, falling to the floor with him.

Cho ambled his way to Enishi who was heaving breaths like he chased the wilderness in the forest for a hunt session.

"Rusty much?" joked Cho.

"I said no killing," deadpanned Enishi, looking over at the bloody mess behind him.

"That one looks pretty dead to me," said Cho, pointing at the grizzly Enishi dueled with.

Ignoring him, he marched up throwing the doors open. He walked the long corridor coming to the small staircase only to be faced with a full house. All tables were occupied and armed. If he had to take a guess, most of the clan was present in the casino tonight. Suddenly, the purging of the Daos didn't seem like such a bad idea at the moment.

"Swords out," he roared to the troops behind.

The blond clocked him with a raised eyebrow. "You think?"

"Just shut up and fight. Don't get killed."

All hell broke loose.

The men sent their women to the back hallways then broke out their weapons to take over. Enishi led his men right into the fire, unsheathing his wato to wade through the suited bodies trying to stop him. They all failed miserably as he advanced, sending slash after slash before they could even lift their guns and point them at him, cutting through them three at a time. What went past him fell in the care of his mercenaries, tearing through the masses with the intent of not letting anyone escape.

Cho followed Enishi, moving towards the heavily weaponized side. He spotted them loading up to shoot. Quick on his feet, he kicked the guns out of the hands closest to him, tearing his blade through the rest of the barrels pointed at him, slicing through the cheap metal casing. Whoever supplied their weapons did a shit job at it.

Enishi dove through the bladed side, disarming as many as they fell in front of him, slashing the rest to shreds. Silver bullets still flew his way, bouncing off the edge of his steel with a single flick of his wrist. He moved side to side, avoiding all shots, taking down his opponents faster than they saw him coming.

The gunfire rang deafeningly over the clang of swords, drowning the angry shouts and the grunting cries of pain from both sides. The pungent scent of opium rapidly altered with the burning stench of gunpowder and the spoor of blood already in the air. Despite Enishi's wishes for a somewhat peaceful fight, the casino turned into a raging battlefield quicker than he intended it to. As much as he tried to avoid it, war was upon them. He could still control the outcome of this battle. If it didn't escalate to a point of no return.

With both of them on the attack, they ended up cornered in front of the crystal bar. Cho landed back to back with Enishi, defending each other's blind spots.

"Having Miyu here would've been so helpful," grunted the blond as his swords were dug into him by two men, each paring down their jian over his defence cross.

"She's the reason we're here in the first place," gritted Enishi, shoving off his own assailants with his wato, sending them tumbling into the bar.

"We need to get through to the hallways. If he runs off before we get to him," he grunted, curling his blade to cut up another running thug, throwing his sword away before crashing a bottle over his head, "we will never find her."

Enishi's men managed to overpower the rest of the Daos. Leaving them to take care of the main salon, he made his way through the hallway with the blond at his back, fighting the ones pooling in the front and the others coming from the back.

He buried through the force coming from up ahead. Jumping with a kick to the right to shove one into the wall, he used the boost to throw his leg up and ram it down over the head of the next one. Landing back on the ground, he barely caught the sword coming his way, wato clinging dangerously low on its hilt. That blade wasn't just any blade. A quick glance at the amber peeking under the stripes of the hilt and he recognized it. It was an odachi made from olden Japanese steel, its blade almost a meter long, curving wide like the arch of a bow.

Three more thugs coming down had them in their amateur hold. All of their handles were amber and black as onyx, the blades as sharp as if they just rolled out of the factory. That was steel made on special order, two pairs in amber, two pairs in black. Steel he just so happened to hold in his own two hands a few months ago, right before his weapons warehouse got broken into. They weren't marked with a seal yet, but he gave the measurements and details to the craftsmen himself.

Interesting, he thought, lifting a quizzical eyebrow. I wonder where they got those.

The swords came barreling down on him at the same time. They wanted to overpower him in that compact corridor. They wielded the swords messily, treating them like the shorter range blades they used on a day to day basis. That gave him an advantage. He whizzed through them, using their slow speed to smack the swords out of their hands. Soon enough they were all disarmed, inching for their pocket knives. Enishi kicked some away, spinning in reverse with a flip that sent the small knives right in the walls. The rest flew at once, aimed at his chest. One swing of his sword had the edge catch their tips with a screech, directing them into the wall.

Cho cleared the back and came to Enishi's side. Those four were the last one standing between them and their leader, the rest of the hallway cleared both ways.

Sharing a quick look, they got hold of a strategy to finish this quickly. Enishi went high, Cho went low. They wasted enough time as it is. Any more of it would have the chief running away. Two punches ricocheting from one guy into the other to knock them out cold and four slashes later, they got through those four too.

They ran all the way to the back until the room with the golden seven came into view. Without hesitation, Enishi stepped back and ran, kicking down the door in full force ripping it off its hinges, stepping over it once it crashed with a thud on the other side. Thankfully, the man he was looking for was still there. Standing right at the top of the poker table presumably in the middle of a game, his nose was stuffed with tissues, the imprint of a familiar heel left across the bridge of his nose. The look on his face gave him away - he was completely oblivious to the chaos happening in his casino.

At the sight of the two, he stood up throwing his cards on the table. One move of his fingers and the rest of his men in the room drew out in a line surrounding the table to protect him.

"Came to die again?"

"Where is she?"

"Ah, looking for that bitch that broke my nose? Unfortunately, you won't find her here."

Something moved in his peripheral. A quick look had him find Liu right in the corner about to sneak out behind them while Enishi was busy with the Daos. Cho stepped up to him, trapping him between the cross of his blades. The rest of the men around the room pulled out theirs, though not even those belonged to them. What some of them gripped in their hands were the long hilt nagamaki swords, these too part of Enishi's custom missing weaponry.

"Nice blades you got there," he spoke, voice laced with amusement at the shit he was seeing. "Where'd you get them?"

"Downtown through a really great trades person," he smiled widely, proud with himself as if he was the one who made and bought them. "If you wanted to ask me about weapons you could have done so without breaking down my door."

"Those weapons belong to me. They were stolen from my warehouse."

At his words, the chief of the Daos paled over like the cloth laying on the side of the table, stained with drops of his blood.

"Let me take a wild guess," spoke Enishi, lowering his sword. "The work of the Snake, isn't it?"

He gulped confirming Enishi's suspicions.

"How much did you pay him for all those custom made weapons? Ten? Fifteen?"

His head inclined to the side. He paid more.

"Double then? Thirty?"

"Twenty."

He laughed in his face. "Twenty for a shipment worth fifty million in raw cash. And I thought he would've used his head and charged more to get some profit. I guess he's not that great at trades as you thought he was."

That last remark was all it took for him to explode. Exactly what Enishi wanted. Stroke the lion then throw him the bone instead of the meat and see how desperate he becomes that he'll lick the very bone like the meat was still on it.

"Kill them," he rasped out to his men.

Looking back at Cho, he nodded to him to keep on Liu while he dealt with the seven leftover men in his way. He took on the two nagamaki wielders first, noticing their hold on the handles were wrong from the very start. Kicking their wrists one by one, they let go of the blades, staggering backwards. The others came at him with the odachi swords. Thrusting his wato, he caught all of them on the edge. Holding them off, he threw his leg upwards rotating it to the side to hit the weaponless men to the side. Moving his sword in a circle above his head, he gathered all the odachi, shifting the wato to press down on them. One kick above the five hilts was all it took to knock them over, getting the blades out of their useless hands.

Throwing the blades to the floor with his own, he let them come at him giving them a fair chance at a fight. They circled him, taking turns. The first one came at him with a sharp fist. He let him run into his friend on the opposite side, knocking him out cold. Returning with more anger, Enishi let him try two more punches before he slid the legs from under him watching as he hit a chair, cracking his skull open.

Three more left.

Another one came at him with one of the discarded odachi. He tried balancing the long range blade, treating it like a mere sword. He had difficulty moving it for a slash because of the smaller handle, letting the blade fall downwards. Enishi waded the messy slashes, getting closer until he caught a hold of his wrist. A hit to his throat had him choke, another one to his chest took his air away, the last one to his stomach had him fall to his knees.

The other two took off running towards the door. Cho threw one of his katanas swiftly, hitting one of them right in the back. The rest of Enishi's crew wound up by the door stopping the other one in his tracks.

Picking up his sword from the floor, he walked up to the leader of the Daos, his fallen kin that have almost gone extinct.

"Why are you really here?" he asked, standing tall in the face of the Shanghai mafia like his own would raise from the dead and come to his aid. "My men will end all of you-"

"Your men are dead. As for why I'm here," he smirked wickedly his way, "I came to finish what my girl started last night."

"You would go so far for a whore like her? Shanghai is crawling with them."

Those words were all it took for him to close the distance to him, booting his blade away to the side to sink his own sword in that hunk of an arm, silver edge curving deep enough to draw spurts of blood out of him. Hitting the back of his knees, the brute crumbled to the floor together with his superiority complex. His left hand latched onto his shirt, making sure his ears were open to hear him loud and clear.

"I would tear every inch of flesh off your body if it brought me even one soul closer to finding her."

The hold on his blade was steady, way more stable than the anger coursing through his veins. But his wato sat sheathed way too long, sheltered away from its lust for chaos, deeply yearning to taste blood and cut flesh down to the bone the way it was made to.

He had the leader of a bigger mafia kneeling right at his feet. There was a time when the pride and power that came with this sight was all he ever wanted to witness, but right now it didn't matter at all to him. Tonight, he wasn't out for blood or power or to retrieve his stolen weapons or to seek revenge. Tonight, he was out for you.

"Where is she?"

The chief of the Daos just smirked in his face, disregarding the blade slashing down his arm, severing through ligaments more and more by the minute. Enishi's wrist moved slow, digging it deeper until he trembled the way his pulse pounded through him.

"You don't know why they took her do you?"

Enishi's body stopped moving altogether. Searching those evil empty black eyes proved useless, finding only amusement at his torment in them. He let his guard down, letting the brute continue with his taunting.

"They not only took her for who she is, but more for what she is."

"What is that supposed to mean? What is she to them? Why do they want her so badly?"

Each question had him roar deeper in his face. The kneeling brute simply laughed, drops of blood flying from his lips to paint the green of the poker table in crimson stains. The rising tide of rage inside of him was reaching dangerous heights, moments away from falling over the world to swallow it whole. He needed solid information, not words in the wind.

The sword coiled back against Enishi's hold, craving for much more than his owner could give it, denying its unquenchable thirst for shriveling him to pieces with one blow. His fingers twitched on the handle, wanting nothing more than to slash it across his chest and watch the life drain from him. But reason knocked into him sober. He needed this fucker alive.

"Answer me!"

"She's something that was supposed to die a long time ago. A whisper of an existence that could end us and what we stand for. You should thank me for getting rid of her instead of going to battle with my clan."

"Most of your clan is gone," he thundered, his voice drawing low, seething with disgust for his kind. "I'm nothing like you or the other rats crawling around my city thinking you own it."

"We're more alike than you think."

"If you thought for one moment that I stood with you and this world of criminals, you're wrong."

"Is that what you told her too? She still joined you despite knowing that she's always been against it since this world is what took her parents away? The very thing that destroyed her life and had her wander the streets as no one's child?"

His jaw crunched tight, teeth grinding over each other with rage that got harder to contain inside.

"Even if she doesn't know it yet, she will be what kills us. They took her to prevent that from ever happening. To make her bend to their will before she gets out of control again."

Nothing this man was saying made any sense. You were just a skilled assassin that sometimes went rampage when extremely pissed off. But even so, under all his empty words, Enishi felt there was more this man wasn't letting on. Despite all the questions he came here with, there was only one he could bring himself to ask.

"Where is she?"

"You're asking the wrong mafia," he grinned. Enishi's hold loosened in the slightest. His eyes brimmed with mischief, gleeful that he knew more than the man cutting through his arm, unable to finish the job he started.

"You think we were the only ones part of the charade at the club last night?"

There were more parts involved. Enishi knew that. But none of his men got back with new intel to help identify them.

"All I need is a name," he bargained. "Then you're free to rot in a cell under the commander in chief for the rest of your miserable life."

That seemed like a good enough bargain to take. A name for a life of isolation. Death was an option too. The easy way out. A luxury he wasn't keen on offering so soon. Too bad the man kneeling at his feet took his own fate in his hands.

"What good if my whole mafia is gone?"

Before he could ask or demand anything else, the man pulled a hidden knife and plunged it deep within his chest. Enishi's eyes went wide with surprise, watching as he slid off his blade, falling backwards, choking on his last words with painful gasps.

"I hope you never find her."

Just like that, the captain of the ship died with his own crew and the rest of the words Enishi needed to hear were lost forever. He came here with questions only to leave with so many more. Questions that drowned his head up until this moment.

An eerie silence settled in the room. The smoking tray of opium in the middle of the poker table drew to a small vapor. The lights above flickered empty. The hallways of the casino were no longer packed with lively chatter and the sound of plastic coins being thrown around roulettes for bets. It was all quiet like the dark night outside.

Enishi's mind stopped running too. Wiping his wato clean, he sheathed it back in its hold, turning to his men who were awaiting further orders. He kept his eyes trained on the floor, like he lost the final battle but won the war, successfully eliminating the Daos and their leader, but losing all tracks that could lead to you. His men looked just as lost and conflicted, grateful to have some action in a while, but at what cost if they didn't find what they came looking for. Nonetheless, he delivered them tasks like it was the daily custom.

"Search the casino for our stolen weaponry. Take Liu in for questioning. Make sure there's no trace of our tracks here."

"And the women?" asked one of them. He could read the question on his face. Won't they talk?

"Let them go. Pay them if they need it to stay quiet. It doesn't matter how much, just make sure they're tended to."

The force dispersed to each their own. Picking up a chair, he set it upright feeling the need to sit down and recall his bearings back to him. Cho handed Liu to the crew and approached him wearily, sheathing his katanas back in their hold inside his coat.

"You have a weird look on your face. What's going on?"

"Something doesn't add up," he shook his head. "Why do they know so much about her?"

"You did have a spy planted in. For several years apparently," he added.

"It still doesn't explain why they know more about her and we don't. The disappearance of her family, her life as an assassin and the one outside of it. They knew about all of it, no matter how much she covered her tracks up. They watched her from a distance, giving her the impression they were nowhere near and consider her a threat for some fucked up reason." He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "Did anything he say ring a bell to you at all?"

"No," sighed Cho just as frustrated himself. "It sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me."

"It feels like there's a bigger puzzle we're not seeing. That this was just a piece of it that doesn't fit anywhere or we're not even looking at the right one or... I don't even know anymore."

Cho frowned at his words. He's not seen Enishi this conflicted and all over the place over anything. Not even in the past week when his loathing levels were at their highest.

"Let's hope that traitor has more to give us."

He hesitated at first, but his hand still landed on Enishi's shoulder in an encouraging pat that wasn't that well received. Enishi straightened and shot the blond a look of disgust.

"What are you doing?" he asked, eyeing the hand splayed on his shoulder with imaginary knives about to be shot into each finger separately. Maybe Cho was over the fight in the woods, as if they didn't attempt to kill each other. It would take much more than some help for Enishi to return the favor of blind trust.

"Nothing," mumbled the blond, hand flying away to scratch his neck instead.

Enishi's eyes narrowed in on him trying to gauge out his intentions. Last night, they were at each other's throats and now he was being cordial and kind of supportive. Maybe it was because they were looking for you that the lines between their mutual hatred and the care they had for you were blurring together in an odd bond of sorts. Nevertheless, it creeped him out.

His eyes fell on the poker table, mind instantly running over to the memory of you sat right beside his spot, playing the chief of the Daos with just one hand. An smile broke out on his face seeing the money in the corner, reminded of the stacks of money you had him splurge, only to lose them all in your escape before you got skewered to bits and pieces.

"What's got you smiling so wide?"

"We've been here before. Me and her. About a month ago or so," he smiled slyly, recalling that day. "We came to get intel and left a mess behind us, but before that, she played them at poker."

The blond sat down in a chair with a smile, sharing something of his own. "She always had a thing for betting. It's so hard to pull her away after she sits down to call in a game. All or nothing."

He laughed at that, shaking his head. "She had me give her stacks of money to buy inside since the game was already ongoing."

"How much did you give her?"

"Two million," he chuckled. "Two million and what looked like one more half on the table. She won it all fair and square with one hand. She didn't even get to gather the money before they were on us and we had to run off."

He did remember you stacking some spare bills in your corset before he tugged on your hand to run away. The very corset he helped you lace before crashing the party, only to then rip it off of you that same night.

"That was the same night we...," he paused, debating on whether he should even say anything.

"The same night you...," pushed the blond, eager to find out what happened.

Too bad he would have to stay curious. Enishi's eyes dove at him with a teasing wink, amused at his childish scoff.

As if I'll tell you of all people what happened that night, he smirked to himself. That's for us to know.

"Have a look around, see if you find anything of help to us," he said, patting his shoulder in a similar manner. He deserved it since he had his back tonight.

Before he turned back to searching, he picked up a light blue chip from the table. The highest value you could play in poker. Holding it to the small light in the room, he smiled softly at it, then pocketed it safely on the inside of his kimono.

Ready to turn and leave, it was only by chance that his eyes landed on the open hand the fallen leader never got to play. Next to a red ten of hearts, a jack, a king and an ace, sat the queen card - your winning hand that night. Not thinking too much about it, he gathered the hand, picking up those five cards, storing them safely next to the blue chip.

Even a pigsty has more amenities.

The cell was a nice place. If you looked past the small pot left in the corner for a makeshift medieval toilet, the stench of rotten things you hoped was just leftover food and the occasional rodent visitors that resembled anything but how they actually looked like above, on the streets of Shanghai. You had your fair share of those beasts hopping from place to place in hiding but these ones liked to hiss and stare you down as if you intruded their very own sanctuary or something.

It's been days.

How could one be able to tell that the day turned into night in that underground stone cage with no sliver of light visible?

When the gust of wind blowing through got considerably colder and the torches went out completely om both sides of the walls.

Some nights, you sat and waited for the torches to be lit up again. Truthful to your assumptions, a guard came down early, from the looks of his lightly armed body, tasked with lighting up the long row of torches from top to bottom. The last lucury of the upper world they gave you. Though you wondered if the firestone down in the pit, how the girls called that horrors cave, burned at all times like an undying flame of hope, or if that one too was extinguished when no one was there and there was no hope to look for at all.

After your brawl with the violinist, you were welcomed down in the pit like you won the war against evil. As it turns out, her name is Li Wen, a walking-talking specimen of envy personified. One that was extremely hated by all the inhabitants of the pit. Her temperament at the club was dodgy, but her personality is just as such. She is just like she plays her violin, insatiable and almost never satisfied, always on the look for more. Whether she gets it or takes it herself.

What she said the night before as she tried to use your body as a darts mat was true - she did have the power to whizz between the upper world and the pit at her own personal will, or when the Snake sent her to check on his esteemed guests. That sole advantage itself turned her into an enemy, since she mostly came around to draw her claws at the girls or execute his orders.

In her eyes she was just like him, a fighter for a greater cause, thing that gave her no semblance of respect towards them. But not even the smallest bone in her body had the power and resilience these women had in their soul.

She wasn't the one going to war with death almost nightly in order to earn her right to keep on living and a meal to survive off, wondering when the next one will come. She is part of the pit. But she will never be part of the family that's made a unique promise of protection to each other.

That is the biggest ick that she will never be able to swallow down her thick reptile throat. Not as long as she sides with the wrong people.

That same night, you sat with the girls and told them your own story. Bottom to top, past to present. Everything.

For the first time in your life, you felt like someone actually listened. For the first time, someone was able to even relate to your struggle, understanding the length and impact of the things you've gone through. For the first time, someone was able to see the scars that refused to heal, scabbing over on the surface but still hurting deep within a place that would never be able to forget the pain, the loss, the shattered hope. Because they were the same unhealed scars that all these girls shared in one way or another, having been through hell and beyond.

Connecting through a bond was one thing. A bond could be just that, a one-off unique connection. But this was so much more because connecting through pain was another thing altogether.

As you talked and shared parts of your souls with each other in stories, things you liked, things you hated; honesty and trust wound up tied together in that blazing pit. Those two things, so small but so significant, were the only things that helped them endure the fear and pain of this infinite inferno, and the only things still standing real and true to their nature within the wild hellfire scorching the world.

That was what Li Wen was missing. She was free to share her story and join the family at one point until she alienated herself from the collective acceptance. This sisterhood will be something she will always long for, something she will never have the guts to sacrifice herself for.

After your heart to heart with everyone, their daily training session started. They spread out to their own corners individually or searched for sparing partners. Still healing from your injuries, you decided to keep to the side just watching. As your eyes walked around, you noticed that a lot of them still used their weapon instincts, sending their fists like they wielded their arms.

Yana was probably the best at breaking free from the hold of her weapon. She used aerial moves and kicks with her spear which made it easier to adapt to a life without one. Though she still parried the ground for balance and often lost her fighting stance.

Lyla knew some martial arts. Where she would normally train her arms to extend, open her palms to aim her knives and strike, she now sent rigid hits with the heel of her palm using that built up strength in her forearms. Kick-wise, she struggled with the direction she wanted her foot to land in, which should hopefully be through the enemy's throat and not beside it.

Marissa struggled. You could tell she leaned on her halberd for support a lot because her current hits went lucky-go wide instead of target-focused. There was immense weight packed in her punch but no technique. Her sparring partner was one of the stone columns but even so, she had much strength but couldn't send it through. You knew she had the power to.

Stretching up and out of your humble seat on the side, you walked up to her. Sensing you approach, she turned around. Her height was questionable while she was sat down at the table but being this close to her had you stumble a step backwards.

"What's up, shorty?"

"Uhm," you paused, looking for a way to say it without getting smashed or something.

Come on, Miyu. It's just Marissa. Your big, friendly giant that could mince and marinate you if she had her halberd on hand. Though she might just do well enough smashing your head between her palms.

"Can I see your fist?"

"My fist?" she asked confused. You nodded. Unsure but trusting, she held out her fist to you. Even her hand was bigger than yours.

Taking a hold of it, you moved her fingers in a better position, locking them in with her thumb, directing her to the stone column she was bruising her knuckles in.

"Don't clench your fingers. Swing with the muscles in your shoulder, not the ones in your forearms and angle your body parallel to your opponent." You nodded to the pillar. "Try it now."

Her eyebrow lifted, lacking assurance at your directions, but she did get in the stance.

"Send it on your exhale," you added in a small voice.

Her icy eyes narrowed in on you prompting you to take another step backwards, hands held up in defence to let her do her thing. She debated it but in the end she tried it your way. Taking a long, deep breath in, she spun from the right and swung wide going right for the column on the exhale. Her fist drove into the stone with a loud crack, chipping off a quarter of the pillar to dust and rocks that fell right into the firestone behind it. The others stopped training, looking over to see what happened. Shocked, she looked her fist over on every which side only to find no bleeding creases or pink indents of damaged skin on any of her knuckles. Then her blue eyes fell on you, sparkling like dew drops on plant leaves in the early morning.

"How?"

"All you were missing was technique," you said, a small smile tugging at your lips. In return, she smiled just as big.

Moving to sit in front of her, hands held together behind your back, you motioned her to come at you.

Maybe Enishi's emotionally torturing, training techniques rubbed off on you. Or maybe you were batshit crazy since even the girls looked at you as if you've grown a head. But something just told you to do it and give her a good moving target to really test out her new set of skills.

"I can't do that," she shook her head, taking a step back refusing to attack you.

Her eyes fell on the dried blood stains littered all over your dress, stopping at the still fresh scratches on your face.

You beckoned her again. "Just trust me."

"What if I hurt you?"

"You won't."

You said that with so much confidence it surprised even you.

Marissa finally got into position and prepared for a moving punch. Her left foot pressed backwards while her right set up. With one step, she was right in front of your face, her huge fist headed for serious damage. You let her come as close as possible, just a few inches away from your face before you moved to the side, grabbing a hold of her forearm to push her forwards. She stumbled, turning to you with a guilty look on her face.

"You hesitated," you said, standing to the side.

"Because I don't want to -"

"Your enemy won't give you time to find a reason to hurt them," you argued. "You have to do it."

Softly caressing the knife won't make it not want to kill you. That was its sole purpose after all and what Enishi tried to teach you all along. Maybe you did learn something from his philosophy lessons, often coming as a package with the physical training.

"You need to strike first. No mercy. No remorse."

She sighed, tall shoulders dropping with the realization you were right. Ignoring your injured leg, you moved into a fighting stance, similar to the ones Enishi took with you.

"Now come at me for real this time."

Stop defending. Just attack.

And she did. She sent fist after fist, one more powerful than the other. Your body struggled to handle her speed but you willed it to in order to keep up and give her a real shot at it. Once you were happy with the form of her punches and she realized how well she sent them you both stopped. Holding up her fists side to side, she smiled widely at them. You simply bowed your head at her in respect.

Before you could spin back to your chair, the rest of them flocked your way asking for guidance.

"Can you help me too?" asked Mai, showing you her small fists.

Yana stomped over too, tapping your shoulder. "Can you help me with the kicks? I want to learn that reverse one you did to Li Wen's nose."

"Guys, guys, calm down! I'm no martial arts master," you waved your hands away. "I can't fight better than any of you. Not now anyway."

"But someone did teach you," said Lyla with a smirk.

Damn it.

You knew who she was referring to. There were two of them who tried busting off their asses to train you in hand to hand, close and far combat, including weaponry wielding. You failed weaponry... but you did overpower both of them in combat the last time you trained together. And that one was a no mercy match to the death you won fair and square.

These girls were experts in their individual weapons of choice. But they lacked combat technique. The kind of combat technique you ate at breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past two months and a half like it was the fucking military service trials.

If anyone could give them an extra chance at packing a deadly punch or a lethal kick and get hurt less, it was you.

"Fine," you blew a breath, whistling the stray locks of hair falling in front of your face. They cheered loudly, clapping you in the back excitedly.

"Get in a line."

A few days later, you were leading their training sessions from the sidelines, without getting involved until your ankle healed some more. Your ribs still hurt, but not enough to stop you from sparring with your hands here and there, correcting stances or acting as a moving target from time to time. Taking everything you learned from the sword master extraordinaire and placing it on different training, tailored to every girl and her fighting style, you managed to get them out of the rut.

Their forms got better than their wielding impulses, stronger than their sparing opponents, faster at laying a lethal blow if needed. Surprise after surprise came as you coached each one into changing little things that led them to big ones in such a short amount of time.

Marissa's punches became hunks of deadly power. Yana's aerials you molded following Enishi's. Lyla's flexibility went into quick attacks. All of them evolved.

On a well-deserved break, you sat around, passing mugs of water from the bucket that was brought down by the guards once a day.

"How do they announce a fight? Or who's turn it is?" you asked no one in particular. Already used to your question rounds, Yana picked it up like she was the pit's unofficial guide.

"You see the golden gong in the back?" she pointed behind you.

Your head whipped around to find a golden plate hooked up on two stands, reflecting the flickers of the fire around the pit. You've been here for days but have not taken notice of the percussion instrument at all, as if it just spawned there from nowhere. Not a lot of things to notice in a cave underground.

"Has that always been here or am I tripping? Are we sure those grapes weren't edibles?"

Laughter echoed around you in ripples of snorts and giggles. Another thing you grew to love in these past few days was making these girls laugh. An actual belly-flopping, cheeks hurting, eyes leaking laugh. Some of them haven't howled a true, joyous laugh in ages from how rusty their laughs sounded, but they welcomed your jokes nonetheless.

"It has," laughed Yana. "When they have someone ready for a fight, they come down and hit the gong. Another person has a bowl filled with our names written on thin paper strips and they just call it out."

"Is there an audience too?"

"We're allowed to sit in sometimes. The guards always sit in and place bets on the winning head."

That's disgusting. Placing bets as if they've ever been put in their shoes.

"Li Wen usually stands to the side-"

"If she's in the mood for being spat at, that is," added Marissa. "Someone always gets punched in the face and she is always right in the sputter of their blood."

You grimaced at that until you realised she deserved the bloody shower every once in a while.

"What about the lord of the house?"

"The Snake doesn't come down here."

Wait.

He abducted all of these girls for his own personal fight club only to not participate at all? Not even to sit in the audience to see his problems eradicated?

That doesn't make any sense.

"He didn't come for any of them? Any at all?"

"Nope," said Yuki, your other Japanese compatriot. She's been down there for the past seven years and could not recall at least one time he showed up. "Not one of them."

That same night, the call for a fight came through. The gong was hit, ringing deep in your ear drums, stopping you mid-training session.

This one had your name on it.

"Crimson Rose," called out the guard, looking for you in the crowd.

Of course they don't use real names in here.

You walked out from between the girls, dirty velvet rolling out behind your heeled steps. Chin help up high, arms crossed and jaw tightened to an angle that could cut, you gave him your most confident front. Deep inside, that courageous front was replaced for eating the walls trying to find an escape route out of this hellhole.

The guard walked down to you, stopping short of a few steps. He had a patch over his nose. It was the guard you head banged into a few days ago.

His eyes raked your body top to bottom, enjoyment disgustingly visible on his face at every curve he stopped at, only pausing his shameless perusal to look at your face. He must've read the fake façade you put up in your eyes, lips turning up with a devilish smirk.

"You're overdue for a welcome fight, rosy."

It's been a week since the night you disappeared. A week he wanted to throw to oblivion like that would just so happen to bring you right back. If only it was that easy to get you back.

Over the past few days, he's grown restless, much more than he used to be. Every word uttered the wrong way, any gaze focused on him for too long, the very sound of footsteps rolling down the hallways. All of these had him bust a nerve that never stopped ticking since he woke up that night in the middle of the woods and you were nowhere to be found.

Wherever he sat down, his eyes closed automatically. Tired didn't even begin to describe how he felt. But no matter how exhausted he was, he couldn't give into it at all. He would go into his room for a quick shower then return back to the office. Any accidental glances falling on his neatly made bed made him take a tempting step towards it only to turn for the door just as fast, like the very thought of sleeping in some semblance of comfort disgusted him. His body begged for overdue rest but he refused it time and time again. It wasn't the time to rest. Not until he found you or at the very least heard of your whereabouts, but so far he had nothing. No leads, no tracks to follow up on. Absolutely fucking nothing.

He's been up even at night searching for any word of you, the rest of the missing artillery, accidental sightings of your parents. It was all a never-ending circle of things to search for that never ceased from piling up on his desk or in his head, and he came to understand there was a second thing he hated the most in the world, beside people fretting over him. His office. This room held him mostly at his worst and he was sick of it. So sick he just jumped out of his seat with a long sigh, setting out on a walk.

Anywhere but here will do, he thought, pushing the doors behind him closed in hopes everything else that's been storming up his nerves for the past week would remain inside those doors if he shut them tight enough.

The sun brimmed bright down the hallway. A small breeze found her way inside through the open curtain, whistling it open like the veil on the prow of a boat. Light warmth drenched the air of midday, notes of the first blooms of camellias hanging sweet on the breeze.

December turned to January in the past week but the weather was so bright and pleasingly warm it was hard to tell the cold season was even present at all. As if winter skipped it's turn and let spring take it away just for this once. The ice still hugged the roads stubbornly in the crisp of morning and the scent of snow hung deeper in the night air, but no snow fell from the sky. Not even on a sudden hailing or with the gust of a storm.

That first fall of snow refused to come. He was sort of thankful for its delay. Not that it would hinder his plans or anything. His reason for it... was stupid really. He didn't want to catch the first snowfall without you.

He wasn't an idiot. He knew the meaning behind catching the first fall of snow with someone, especially if you had feelings for them. But above that foolish meaning, he knew how much you would have loved to see it.

That lone, brief thought of you basking in the white glow of a snowflake flurry brought his steps right in front of your room. Busy putting all his manpower in motion to find you, he was mostly cooped up in that office he dreaded so much. That and he couldn't find it in him to go inside your room and not see you there, either stitching up something or being cooped up in your bed with Koru with a soft smile on your face. Thinking of the feline, he realised that even she disappeared without a trace, somewhere in the depths of the mansion, probably looking for you.

His hand reached out for the door handle on a whim only to stop midair.

She's not in there, his mind echoed.

Squeezing his eyes shut, his hand fell flat on the wooden door, and he let out a shaky breath. Even if you weren't in there, so many things of yours were. Pushing open the double doors, he took a wary step in your room to convince himself of the emptiness in the space.

One look around and the eerie silence got drowned in a deep chuckle.

Everything was a mess. Just the way you liked it. Pieces of cut up and unrolled material were still strewn over the work station you made for yourself in the corner, some falling over the chair like you were still working on stuff. Clothes were thrown every which way on hangers falling from the sides of your wardrobe and laying in front of it on the floor. He couldn't even tell where the laundry began and where it ended.

A chilly gust of wind blew in prompting him to turn for the window. It was cracked open. It didn't pass through his mind to check it before. You probably left it open to change the stuffy air in the room until you were out on mission. Moving to close it, he noticed the wooden pane was ajar, just a crack wide enough to lay your bedding out for some fresh air.

That's when it hit him harder - this was so domestic. Laying your bedding out. Cooking in the kitchen. Even simply just walking the hallways in a worn out shirt of yours. Like you've always lived here and this was the daily custom for as long as ever.

He grabbed your bedding, dusting it off the leaves and twigs that blew in from outside before he pulled the dirty covers off, throwing them in the corner for laundry, changing them for new ones. Then he folded them neatly, patting them down, moving to place them on your bed when he paused. On top of the white sheet lay a book he hasn't seen in a long time. Placing your bedding down in a corner, he leaned over and reached for it.

Wuthering Heights? his eyes widened at the title. Wasn't this in the library?

He turned it over on the side, surprised to see loads of paper edges hanging messily, stacked inside between the pages. Your writing peaked out on the sides of a few. He debated on whether he should open it and read some of them or not. It seemed almost too personal to even be holding it as if his hands would taint it and deem it unreadable for you.

Unbeknownst to anyone, he was an avid reader. He read all of the books in his library four, if not even five times. At times to just pass the time, to do research, to learn more about people and what drove them, maybe even to catch some surprising truths about himself. But out of his whole collection, this book was the hardest read he's ever come across. And he's read heavy shit like political thrillers and war tactic books. But this one, as poetic and straightforward of a novel it was, it remained a mystery to him and no matter how many times he's read it, tried to dissect it and understand it, he never could. This book was one of the biggest enigmas he couldn't solve.

In the end, curiosity got the best of him. He sat down on the edge of your bed and opened the book, flipping through it until he landed on the page where the last paper note hung loosely, nearly slipping out. Even the writing on it looked rushed, possibly written in a haste. It was near the middle and it looked like the last annotated note in the book.

She never got to finish it.

That thought alone angered him. Then he started reading the page and his mood instantly turned from sour to amusing.

The last quote underlined was Heathcliff's, mid-rage match with Catherine. The corner of his mouth upturned at the familiarity of the scene, happening between the two of you for the entirety of the previous week. Constant back and forth, making each other try to fall for one another but failing miserably to communicate like normal human beings. Taking a step forward with you only to fall three more behind.

His eyes fell on the quote above the note that was stuck in the middle of the spread.

"I have not broken your heart- you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine."

The quote was highlighted angrily, black pencil running all around the quote like it swallowed it whole, a total contrast to the other pages his fingers skimmed across. His eyes fell on the note below it and his breath caught in his throat, pulse thudding in his ears like a drum.

I broke your heart? You broke it first. You played with me the way you wanted. You chased me down like I was an animal to be hunted. You're no better than them. The government, the Triads, Battosai. Name the devils we've been battling for so long and they're all just like you. But you're worse. Because as much as I want to hate you and wish you hell worse than the one you've been living in, for everything you did and said to me, for lying to me... I can't bring myself to do that. My heart doesn't let me. It beats for you and only you and I can't drown that annoying rhythm out of my head every time I see you. It just gets louder when you look at me with so many emotions I can't understand. When you hold my hand so gently before every mission. When you take care of me even after I push you away. When you're being you. Good or evil, selfish or caring, angering me to the world's end or catching my world when it comes crashing down. She's addicted to you wholly. To every part of you. I can't even wish for that beating to cease, even if at times I wanted it to with my whole being, because I know it would hurt you. And I can't bear seeing you in any kind of pain. That is how you broke my heart. You know whay the funny thing is? That you're what I've been running from my entire life. You're everything I loathe the most in the world. And yet, despite all this, you're all I want at the same time. This... is how I broke mine.

A shaky breath he's been holding in since he read the very first word finally left him. All he could feel was pain. Pain unlike any other he's ever experienced, flooding his heart like a poison arrow that just about missed the most vital point but embedded deep enough to spread its venom like burning embers kindled to burn inside of his chest.

That note was something he was never meant to find. Addressed to him, through and through, but not to be discovered like this, in a book he couldn't understand. Because now, as his eyes darted over the words again and again at breakneck speed, he felt guilty. Guiltier than the weight of all the people he's ever sent to the afterlife with the edge of his blade could ever make him feel. This was a different type of guilt - the kind that made him feel like he was suffocating upon breathing just fine.

Having absorbed the words like a second skin, the note fell from his hand, falling right on the pages he found it stuck between. At once, he shut the book closed.

He's never looked at it in this way but having read what you've left for secret keepsake, what should've never ended up in his hands, he was nothing less than scared. That gut-wrenching fear that leapt at him whenever Tomoe decided to haunt him and laugh in his face at his idiocy, now unleashed at just the mere thought of you, way stronger and crippling than he's ever felt it course through him.

Feeling like he was intruding way too much, he placed the book back on your bed like simply touching it seared the skin of his palms. He checked the bedding once more and turned for the door. Then he paused.

Turning back to the scope of your room he glanced at it again. Contrary to the joke his mind played on him before he entered, you were here.

In every corner of the room where a part of you lingered like you just touched it. Not just in the room but even outside of it, as far as the rest of the mansion spread. In every tile of the kitchen where your feet padded tirelessly to cook up some new recipe you heard Wu talk about. In the hallways, floorboards creaking under your feet as you gazed at that favorite painting of yours that started becoming his favorite too. In his office, where you fell asleep more comfortably and cozily than in the warmth and comfort of your own bed. Outside in the garden, where you trained restlessly or down in the armory where you spent time studying weapons and learning more about them. Even in his room where he tricked you into using his shower, his mirror, his towels, his clothes, his bed.

You were everywhere.

And he realized there was one more spot you edged your way in, way before you even stepped foot on the premises of this house. A place that was so full of life despite him thinking it was as dead as the crunched leaves on the ground.

A place that beat wild, calm, out of control, ragged, steady, rumbled, bled.

A place that was so full of you he could never get you out unless he gave himself over to the hands of death like it would take him if he had a different reason this time around. But even then, when he stopped breathing and his blood ran cold, you would still be in there, keeping the walls of it together.

All his life, he's built his inner defences map by map, wreathing sharp blades around his heart like the ones on the walls in the office, in the shape of a crown that could somehow guard the last piece of humanity he had left after Tomoe died. He fought with his all to protect it, turned against anyone who tried to get too close, marred everyone he didn't want to lose before he got too attached. He did all this only for all those defences to uncover one by one and fall down at your feet the minute you stepped into his life.

You came in like a storm unlike the ones already on his shore, rumbling wild with promise of disaster, reaching out through cracks he didn't even realise were left wide open. He was so wrong about you being a tempest that would stop at nothing to destroy him. You did the complete opposite of it, saving that piece of him rather than killing it when he gave you every reason to because there, in your kind and gentle hands that have seen so much evil but did so much more good in return, that locked up humanity of his was set free. In the palm of your hands, he felt alive again.

Because his heart was yours. Every little part of it.

And he hated that it wasn't his own heart that broke that night instead of yours.

Thank you for reading :)

#addicting taste #enishi yukishiro #rurouni kenshin #enishi yukishiro x reader #enishi yukishiro x you #enishi yukishiro fanfiction

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