Before we can get more than ten steps away from the cover of the station, Feint is waving me on and veering towards the brightly lit shelter of a wide-front fashion outlet right on Main Street. Rain scalds the brick roads around me in merciless waves. Fighters with the elemental specialization for water create scattered, insulated bubbles on rooftops and along the street, but everyone else is left to defend themselves with disposable flimsplast umbrellas. And I don’t even have one of those.

Drowning in the rain, I take another analytical glance at the fifty-story arena looming over the nearby cityscape. Huge livestreams tower above the nearby cityscape, shimmering and cascading down the tower’s glass facades with real-time updates of battles happening inside. The roar of the distant stands is loud enough to be heard even from a quarter mile down Main Street. I scan the streams more intently, pulling out my JOY and using it to magnify the distant projections. Looks like they’re about halfway to the night’s main event. Just a couple more matches until Gami is set to appear. According to the posters I’ve seen around town, it’s the first time in months that anyone in the major league has dared to challenge him. The arena is going to be packed more than ever. It’s a perfect storm of cover. I don’t care about the fight- just the window of opportunity it creates. I just have to get there in time.

Other passengers coming off the metro are heading straight for the arena. I’m about to join the flow when I realize Feint didn’t just stop under the fashion outlet- she strode right on in, and left me out in the rain. Hissing out a curse in village slang that draws a few curious looks, I dash across the street, chasing her wet footprints up to the doors. My head whips back to the waiting arena as another echoed roar booms through the clouds, even louder than the last. Inside, Feint is browsing jackets and scarves. I don’t have time for this.

Raising a hand to shield my eyes, I take off running down the sidewalk, skirting past other pedestrians while my sneakers smash through inch-deep puddles. A chime over the doors goes off behind me as Feint bursts out. A moment’s pause as she searches for me.

“Tay! What the hell are you doing?”

I don’t slow. Hairs raise along the back of my neck as the Metro Blockhouse looms ahead. And the feeling only sharpens the closer I get to the shadow of the great arena, entering the retro rings of streets that spool out from its base. A couple seconds more, and I’m close enough to feel the mist sloughing off the M’s vast front façade. Ahead, the crowds coagulate into a dense river that’s constantly pushing into the main entry hall. The home of the capital’s ruling elite extends for dozens of vertical stories above like a human terrarium. I’m about to join the people heading inside when an iron grip snags my collar and throws me off the street and into a wall beneath the awning of a ludicrously packed alleyside noodle bar. The orange neon logo of a dragon with a steaming bowl of spicy noodles illuminates Feint’s exasperated face as she steps in front of me, rain pouring behind.

“Hey, dumbass. What the hell is your rush?”

I shove her back and stand. “My rush is that I’m trying to get us moving, and you’re stopping to browse an Id Co. catalog.”

Feint motions at her waterlogged clothes, then at my equally ravaged state. “And where exactly are you planning on going looking like that?”

I tip my chin towards the arena.

She blinks twice, dumbfounded. “You’re not serious. Did you listen to anything I told you in the jail? The Champion wants you dead.” A hint of true, icy apprehension enters her voice. “If you go in there, if he’s around, if he even decides to walk downstairs…”

“He won’t. And I know better than you what’ll happen if we’re caught.”

“I appreciate the enthusiasm, hot stuff. But no.”

Her hand drives into the wound in my stomach before I can blink. I double over with a gasp, falling into the deeper shadows beside the bar’s tarp doorway. Feint pushes forward and pins me against the wall with one hand. Yellow eyes, hooded in threat, as she makes her point clear.

“Don’t even,” I gnash out first. “You’re not going to kill me.”

“You’re awfully sure of that,” she murmurs.

“I’ve got my reasons.” A couple of the bar’s patron stall under the awning as they exit the bar. Two of them glance over at Feint and me, positioned just close enough imply something else entirely. Grimacing and forcing down the pain roiling in my stomach, I stare right back and cock my head to the side, deadpan flat. “Y’all mind?”

Feint watches them go. “Reasons.”

“That gym you stabbed me in was the last place besides my aunt’s office at the M where I could’ve found anything about her. This is all that’s left. Your intern clearance would make my life way easier, but I’m going in there and finding her whether you’re with me or not.” I breathe out hard through my nose, keeping my body perfectly still when she still doesn’t release me. “Gami is fighting tonight, literally in minutes. I’ve been seeing the posters all around town. Most or all of the major league will be watching, even if just as a formality, and so will anyone else who’s important enough to have hired you. Which means they won’t be watching what’s going on in the M itself. Not for another half hour, at least.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“If one person who knows your face sees you in there, you are dead, Tay. And by proxy, because I stupidly decided to keep you alive, that means I’d be dead too.”

“You think I’d be doing this if I had any other option?”

She refuses to waver. “No, which is why I’m trying to stop you from doing it at all. It’s my neck on the line too. Whatever you think you’re going to accomplish by going into the M, it’s not going to end well.”

Another roar erupts from the apex level of the Metro Blockhouse, hidden in the stormclouds. Right across the street, unending crowds continue to pour into the ground floor of the arena. The main event is about to start. I can’t let this chance pass. Not when it’s my only link left to Aunt Jolie.

No matter the risk, I have to take it. It’s now or never.

“Sorry, Feint. But you’re not going to stop me. Catch up or finish your job.”

I snap a kick at her shin, sending her sprawling to the ground. Her fingers claw at my sweater as she falls. She hits the concrete and instantly recovers her footing with a handspring, but I’m already halfway down an alley splitting away from the noodle bar. Neon ambiance flashes past on either side. Tight brick walls, clinking classes, blaring stream screens. Then I’m back out in the storm and slipping into the thickest throng of tourists, stripping off Dad’s jacket and tucking it under my arm. I throw a look back over my shoulder before the alley disappears behind a curtain of rain; Feint hasn’t followed yet.

I pick up the pace. Up the arena’s eighteen marble steps, each etched with iconography depicting the capital’s most famous scions of the eighteen JOY classes. Eyes on the hive of bureaucracy above the entry levels. I double check to make sure my JOY is powered on before I cross under the massive doors to the atrium.

The arena’s ambiance washes over me in a wave of golden light as I pass inside. Every surface gleams. Gold and brown, black and white, lacquer over showboating crimson carpets. Retro spotlights beam down from a ceiling so high it might as well not exist. State-of-the-art projector screens flash to life on motion sensors as rainbreakers and jackets are doffed, informing the incoming river of humanity with live feeds of real-time events higher in the tower while sharp-suited greeters process admissions and give directions.

My eyes roam up and down, left and right, drinking it all in. My feet start wandering on their own before I shake my head and center back on where I need to find, remembering the assassin who’s hot on my tail. This place is a museum of nostalgia. My instincts tug at me to slow down and absorb the new sights, the sounds, the subtle beats and nods in the arena’s custom soundtrack that plays from speakers hidden in the floor. To go approach one of the minor league pros I can see heading out into the city and ask for an autograph like the little kids, to take in the holographic monuments of past champions captured in their most iconic moments. But I can’t linger. The people who want me dead own this place now. I’m jumping straight into the dragon’s maw without a backup plan.

So focus, Tetsuka. Just like Dad taught you. Slow it down. Breathe. Ignore the noise, the nerves tingling in my spine, that uneasy vague sense that I am being watched and the fangs are closing in around me. Focus only on what I need. Aunt Jolie works on the upper levels. Not sure which level exactly, but it has to be over forty. So I need a way up- a discrete one.

Only then do I release the quiet breath I was holding, letting my senses rush back in. I open my eyes with fresh awareness, flick left-right over shorter heads until I spot a bank of several lifts for employees and tourists at the far end of the tower. I’m about to head towards them when I finally hear her drifting up behind me; a silence that slices invisibly through the crowds until it gets close enough to throw a friendly arm over my shoulder.

Feint’s face smarts from a fresh friction rash, courtesy of the concrete and my foot. She growls through a friendly smile. “Tay, I swear to god, I really am going to kill you.”

It’s so loud around us that the words don’t even matter. Just the friendly body language behind them. I play into the act, brushing a length of white hair behind my ears, nodding at the terminal ahead. “How high do those go?”

She just sighs. “Depends on where we’re heading.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Take it as whatever you want. Can we get a move on? I’d rather not get tortured tonight. I already have to deal with you.”

We pass between another pair of huge pillars, breaking out into a brief opening between the crowds. There’s a hubbub in the lift terminal at the far end of the tower, several news stream crews with floating spherecams aimed at one of the more decorated lifts. Excited murmurs start drifting our way. Someone important is coming down. Probably major league, going by the anticipated tones. I start reaching out for Feint to pull her along faster. My fingers brush against her sleeve at the exact moment a sensual, patrician accent calls out from behind us.

“Now if that isn’t a surprise and a half. There’s a pale face I never expected to see out in public.”

Feint goes shock still beside me. Slowly, she takes her arm back and turns on one heel. I follow to see an older girl in her late university years standing behind us with a hand on her hip, pink eyes and catlike irises dancing with amusement.

“Your brother so rarely speaks of you these days,” the girl continues, addressing Feint. Her full lips quirk in a tempting smile. “How have you been, Cal?”