The Empress’s hair swept the floor behind her like a raven’s tail. Twelve layers of red and purple silk clothed her in sheer luxury, below a snow white face of utter disdain. Cold eyes refused to greet them, staring up and past the kneeling Heroes like they were discarded rags in her way. Empress Sadako was far and away the most impressive, and most arrogant, Non-Hero that Pechorin and Shuixing had ever witnessed. Sofiane, however, had met several others of her archetype in other regions, and treated this as the bluster it was.

One of her attendants sounded a shrill horn and the court officials and bureaucrats and prison guards all kowtowed.

Their guard, Tatsuda, whispered sharply to them. “Bow.”

Shuixing did so instinctually. Pechorin did so deliberately. Sofiane did not bow at all. He could not make himself, even though he’d been the one to come up with the plan. Kneeling was one thing, but being asked to bow his head to the floor? He couldn’t do it. Bowing like that to a Non-Hero was unthinkable.

Empress Sadako sat down on the Hibiscus Throne and stared at Sofiane who stared straight back at her. She raised a single, burgundy-painted eyebrow. “A common criminal thinks she is above me?”

Shuixing pinched Sofiane’s leg to get him to bow down with them, but this just made him stand all the way up.

“The lowest ranked Hero is still more important than a Non-Hero, Empress or otherwise. That’s how things work,” Sofiane said, genuine indignation filling his voice.

He hadn’t expected his own violent reaction, but there was something so fundamentally wrong about submitting to a Non-Hero that it overrode the part of his brain screaming at him to stick to the plan.

“Is that so…” Empress Sadako said.

A small smirk crept onto her face. Sofiane didn’t like that. She was supposed to be afraid of him.

Raising a hand bedecked with gold and pearls, she motioned at one of the bureaucrats who fled the room.

“What, did you send him to go round up the rest of the expendable guards? You know I can kill them all, and you, in one hit, right?” Sofiane said, folding his arms.

The Empress raised a finger to her mouth to silently shush him and the room fell into uncomfortable silence. The court remained bowed and Shuixing and Pechorin did not join Sofiane in his defiance. This felt wrong, but the more wrong it felt, the more determined Sofiane was to not budge an inch. Fortunately, he did not have to wait long to find out what the Empress was up to.

A gold-colored monkey with flaming red streaks in its fur floated into the room on a nimbus cloud. He yawned lazily and scratched his butt as he looked at the tense chamber.

“What, did somebody get life imprisonment for farting again?” the Pengwu laughed.

“Your humor is tolerated, but not appreciated, Saruga,” Empress Sadako said.

“Aw, c’mon, it wouldn’t kill ya to laugh, Saddie. And if it did, you’d just respawn!” Saruga said before launching into an ooking monkey laugh.

Right around then, Sofiane finally realized what Empress Sadako’s insurance policy was. His heart sunk.

“Ah, the impetuous little girl has finally realized her predicament,” the Empress said, crossing her legs underneath the hefty folds of silk. “May I count on your continued cooperation in relaying my interests to the Yishang, monkey?”

“Sister, you’re a real pawful, take it from me. How can you keep squeezing a poor little monkey like this? Eventually the Yishang are gonna stop listening to me, y’know,” Saruga said, orbiting the Empress on his cloud.

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“Your addiction is your own business, not mine,” she said, producing a banana from the folds of her robe and tossing it to him. Saruga stood on his hands and caught it with his hind paws. Prying the peels open, the Pengwu monkey scarfed down a glowing, golden banana which caused him to scream and beat his chest.

“Ooh yeah! There it is. Ook ook!” Saruga said.

The Empress turned to Sofiane. “I surmise by your expression you’ve pieced together what our monkey friend here might tell the Yishang?”

The knuckles of Sofiane’s balled fists turned white.

“That the court case should be turned into a Yishang-sanctioned quest event…”

Pechorin, Shuixing, and Sofiane all knew that would mean no brute forcing their way out. This, Sofiane now realized, was how Empress Sadako had managed to keep Yuna at bay for so long. Every time the rebel general tried to mount a serious attack on Kazan-to and seize control of Shikijima, the Yishang stepped in and put up guide rails. Her lethal “attacks” would be turned into quest events with scripted endings. And so would their court case.

It had never occurred to Sofiane that Non-Heroes could manipulate things on this level, or that the Yishang would humor them. But if Yuna’s treatment was any indication, the Yishang would come down in favor of the Empress if Sofiane tried to avoid prosecution. In other words, he was on an even playing field with the Non-Hero Empress. He felt a deep revulsion and sickness at this that he’d only ever experienced once before: When he learned Natsuko’s bottle could kill him, and that it made her his equal. That was wrong. So totally, completely wrong.

“Now, bow,” Empress Sadako ordered.

Sofiane bowed before her. And even though it meant that they were now in an even more dire position, Pechorin couldn’t help but pop out a poem:

“Haughty purple lace,

Falls to the floor beneath silk—

Fall wind chills the hall.”

Gasps came from the assembled court and the Empress raised an eyebrow. The only sound was the shuffling of her robes as she crossed her arms.

“You,” she said, pointing with a gold-tipped finger at Pechorin. “Who are you?”

“Pechorin the Gunslinger,” he said. “Of the, “The Gunslinger” clan.”

Sofiane squinted at that, not sure if the “The Gunslinger” clan thing was a bit or not.

“I see. And does the The Gunslinger clan possess a legacy of poetry and art?” The Empress asked, her tone betraying nothing as to her intent.

“Allow me to tell you the story of my clan…”

Sofiane pinched his nose. “Gods-dammit…”

Pechorin delivered the director’s cut of his usual half-hour telling which included an excruciating extra fifteen minutes of spontaneous haiku appended to the story at moments Pechorin felt climatically emotional. Sofiane would’ve cut Pechorin off before he got going, but the Empress’ threats still echoed in his ears. He was thus a captive audience to Pechorin’s melodramatic flourishes.

“Kin felled by kin’s sword,

“Amidst the winter’s harsh chill—

“Blood stains snow crimson.”

The court exhaled in shock. Even the Empress listened in powerful silence. Sofiane tried not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Unlike Non-Heroes, he was aware the people Pechorin was describing had never existed, other than perhaps this dastardly brother who, if Pechorin did ever meet him—which was unlikely since Pechorin’s brother was a Sibe-lander Non-Hero—would act as though all of this had happened without it ever actually having happened. Both read from the same fake script.

Ugh. Anything related to the weirdness of the Mist and Entropy and the workings of the Yishang gave him a headache. Even Shui’s dimension-jumping sent him into a spiral. Why couldn’t everything be as neat and tidy as just killing progressively bigger and stronger monsters? Fuck thinking. Kill monster, get money, gain stats. Or drink yourself silly. Maybe firecrotch was more rational than Sofiane gave her credit for.

“Your story i-it… the pathos! The sublime horror of it all!” announced a swooning courtesan whose face had to be fanned to wake her up. This was only a tad more exaggerated a response than the rest of the Imperial Court who was fawning over Pechorin’s tale.

“Very good, The Gunslinger-san,” the Empress said. “If backstories were rooted in fact, the drama would be all the greater. Fictionality aside, your skill in verse has earned my respect, to say nothing of my court.”

Now that was intriguing, Sofiane thought. Not only did Empress Sadako know how to play the game by exploiting the Yishang’s priorities, she was also fully aware of Hero’s backstories being fake. He wasn’t sure whether he ought to be impressed with her, or scared that she was the first Non-Hero who had ever seemed like a credible threat. There was no bullshitting their way out of this. He’d have to warn Natsuko to be less Natsuko before she endangered them by doing anything too Natsuko-like.

“Now,” the Empress said, clapping her porcelain hands, “let us talk about your petition for citizenship.”