“Door.”

At my word, Cal slings a credit chit at the keypad by the stateroom door without even looking. Over-the-shoulder throw, perfect aim, chased by an appreciative high-low whistle as the metal hisses open to reveal an ornately appointed hallway and Nabuna’s familiar bulk. The greaser’s finger is paused just above the pad on the other side.

He huffs a hazy cloud of smoke as he eyes us from the doorway. Eyes me in particular. Noting the glow I exude, the illuminated skin and hair. The fact that I’m standing at all, just two weeks after my last surgery. Then his eyes trail down to the silver credit chit that bounces between his feet. By the time he looks back up, I’m already limping to get past him with Cal’s help. She bears the weight of my left arm as we sidle by and into the hall.

“Been waiting on you, greaser.”

“Good to see you too,” Nabuna says with no shortage of sarcasm. He takes a slow drag on the lighter, shoves his hands in his pockets, and follows us into the tower’s interior. Kicks a foot through the gentle aura of ki that gushes quietly around me. “This is looking better than that black shit you were using at the undergrounds. What’s your range?”

“Felt you when you got to the block.”

He does the mental math of the distance to the Orange’s outer border. Follows it with a quick guestimation of how many people fill the towers, brothels, clubs, and offices between here and there that I had to pick through to recognize the uniquely sleazy signature of his ki. The amount of concrete and hard metal separation. “…And not even a thank you for busting you outta this joint.”

I chuckle. “Where’s Jolie? She said she’d be coming to rehab today.”

Ecstatic energy pulses in my veins, a poor fit for the creaky and battered vessel it currently inhabits- though that’s quickly changing now that my ki has reawakened. My body is reknitting at a ravenous pace to keep up with the state of my soul, feasting on the excess spiritual energy I create just by existing. I create more than anyone I’ve ever met. Other ki fighters don’t glow like I do. They don’t walk off injuries like mine. They have to strain their souls to generate even a single ki blast of the caliber that I release simply because I’ve got too much power swirling inside me.

Gripe all he will, even Nabuna is shocked by my progress. Another week’s healing has me on my feet in control of my legs, albeit shakily. But my body is still a lockjaw mess ravaged top-to-bottom by tiger stripes of scar tissue. No part of me was left unscathed by the ambush. I’m scarred up worse than my father was by his second decade of rule. Restorative work was only that. I insisted on the fastest recovery possible, meaning zero cosmetic treatments. It’s not the smoothest or most aesthetically pleasing solution. I think it fits me better, though. Sends a message that I like.

I’ve survived these scars, I can survive you.

I thought that Cal might think the scars were ugly. Stupid to worry about, in retrospect. She said so verbatim when I asked her in a moment of weakness in front of the mirror, the first day I was allowed to stand.

Nabuna shrugs off my earlier question and slows his pace to match my limp. “As for our mutual acquaintance, I don’t ask and someone as important as Jojo don’t fucken tell to people like me. She’s probably talking with the Executor again. Hell if I know.”

“And you’re here because you ran out of poker money?” Cal chuckles.

“That cuts deep, chica. But I respect it.” Nabuna chuckles under his breath. “I see why Blanco keeps you around.”

As we reach a cross intersection of wood panels and wine-colored carpets, Nabuna waves us around a hard left corner. We’re deep in the heart of the Orange’s central towers, the guarded towers where Dynasty conducts its clandestine deals with overcity corporations and prestigious clients. Leaguers who don’t want to be seen visiting the undercity, rich members of influential families, that ilk. Muted wealth surrounds us beneath a veneer of dim lighting fit for the midnight hours. Corridors of wine-colored carpets, dark wood paneling, and brassy trim stand mostly empty. Only a handful of black-and-orange draped guards linger at rare open doorways, and only once do a pair of scantily-clad servants dart across our path. Nabuna spares a passing look at one of them.

“I coulda pissed off when I saw what kind of trouble you lot are tangled up with, but I’ve got dirt in the game now. I’m here until Blanco is back in fighting shape. Which means I’m both of your bosses for the foreseeable future. Even you, Feint.”

Cal’s eyebrows raise dangerously. I glare down at her until sees me and rolls her eyes.

Nabuna grunts. “I’ll pretend you weren’t about to sass me for doing my job and instead remind you that I am perhaps the only person in this block who doesn’t have a personal reason to take a swing at you, Goldeneyes.” He pauses and nods to a hulking Martial Artist who stands outside a massive lacquer-trimmed door, tugging his cap low while we pass. “Hard as it may be to believe, I do in fact know what I’m doing. I take pride in my work. That includes you two.” He looks over the scar tissue that mauls my glowing body. “You been on your feet a few days already. Been itching to lift, I can tell.”

I shoot a wild grin back. “Been itching for a hell of a lot more than lifting.”

“Did you just start glowing brighter?”

“It’s… a ki fighter thing.”

“No shit. You got that much extra juice going through you?” His bushy eyebrows narrow as he waves a more cautious hand through my passive aura. “Ain’t never seen nothin’ like that before. Hostia, how haven’t you exploded yet?”

I just shrug. He whistles and skips on to Cal.

“Okay. So we don’t start on level zero for you. Feint?”

Cal shrugs. “Worry about her first.”

Nabuna swears something I don’t catch and crosses a finger over his chest. “Shoulda known better when Jojo said she wanted me to run your rehab. Easy money, she said. My ass. You two are above my paygrade.”

“I already know where the gym is, if you want to leave now,” Cal sarcastically adds.

“Thank you chica, but I’m on the clock and the Jolie Mons has me on a leash. I’m about as free as a bullet in the chamber.” He straightens his shoulders as we head down more narrow corridors that take us closer to the edge of the staff-only areas, towards the loading docks that feed illegal drugs and more into the heart of the Orange. Wood paneling transitions smoothly into simple sheet metal. Brassy lamps and grandiose architecture to flat concrete utilitarianism.

“Normally I’d have to yell at the boys I trained to keep pushing when it hurts, but you’re the complete opposite,” Nabuna warns, coming to a stop before a massive hangar bay door. “So if I tell you to do something, you don’t do more. It’s a process. Not a race.” Puffing a final haze of smoke, he extinguishes his lighter by grinding it against the steel walls. It’s far from the only smudge. “If I catch you two sneaking off to hit the gym when I’m not around, I’ll be having words with Jolie Mons. And we both know what she can be like when someone breaks the rules.”

Then he ducks under the half-rolled bay door, and I’m back in my element.

Staring over a church of iron. Listening to the clanking choir of reracking weights. Hit by the humid incense of sweat and hard work in the air. Its warrior worshippers are Dynasty’s off-the-clock enforcers and hired mercenaries. Its chapel an old covert shipping dock, one cavernous wall totally open to the Abyss, black-and-orange spray paint in lieu of stained glass. Pews of benches and hymnals of steel. And that’s only half the space. Not one, but nine recreational fighting squares with top-tier repulsorfield boundaries fill the rest of the jury-rigged gymnasium. All but one of the squares are already taken by dueling pairs. Savage fighters with brutish technique meant for breaking bones and collecting debts. My eyes fix on the action.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” Nabuna chuckles. He motions for us to follow him towards the empty square, where a lone shirtless figure hot off a workout sits reclined on the sandstone steps. Vaguely familiar features. “Jolie Mons wanted me to start you both on weights, but that won’t get you in fighting shape. So I found you a bone to play with instead.” His battered shoes squeak to a stop. “Blanco, Feint, meet Yuki.”

Sweat drenches the young man who waits for us, yet that doesn’t keep me from recognizing him. Long, straight blonde hair hangs almost to his waist; draping bangs plastered to his cheeks. Crystal-blue eyes like mountain riverwater flash with surprise when he sees me coming. An orange-colored pendant dangles above the thin, dynamic muscles of his chest. He’s long and lean. A dancer, not a brawler. Two bladeless hilts hang on opposite sides of his belt, strapped securely above dark trousers that shift and fan around his legs like the traditional robes from my home villages. A blade bag rests on the floor beside him with a variety of manual training weapons. Duelist-classed, and going by the physically impossible chill of the bottle in his hands, an Ice Elemental too. High-bred looks that preempt the voice of an imperious prince of blades; yet the friendly cordiality in his tone is anything but.

“The Ghost of the Vents in the flesh,” Yuki says as he stands. “I always thought you’d be my airport girl, the one who got away. Never imagined I’d see you again after that gala. Especially not so soon.”

I clasp his forearm in fighting tradition, looking up into his eyes. “Any of those pickup lines work out for you?”

A wounded smile slashes his face. “Gods, no. I’m not that desperate. I hope.” He gives me a quick up-down glance. Faintly appreciative in the way all boys are with me, growing more respectful as he sees the extent of my scarring. “All the hearsay about a white-haired prodigy roving around the Vents was your doing, I take it?”

“Mah, for the most part.”

“Love that accent, by the way. Reminds me of home.”

“Really? You’re from the villages?”

“Some of my family was, generations back. Though I haven’t seen them in ages.” Not bothering to grab a shirt, Yuki towels off his hands on his pants and starts fashioning his hair into a high tail. He nods to Nabuna. “Apologies for dragging my feet. You should have told me it was the Ghost who wanted my time. And Feint.”

Cal barely perks up at the mention of her alias. Dressed in a black-dyed clone of the stretchmesh singlet and loose fighting pants I wear, she keeps her hands cooly in her pockets as she eyes the murderous trail of stares that’s been building behind us. A disdainful smirk flits across her lips.

“Y’know,” she says, sparing a lazy glance at the free weights, “I hate to bring up the elephant in the room when we’re already neck deep, but the boys in orange aren’t exactly my biggest fans after what I did to Gist last year.”

“They’re under strict orders not to kill you,” Yuki says.

“Plenty of wiggle room in wording like that.”

“Should push come to shove, I’m sure a girl of your reputation can handle a beating or two.”

That gets her attention.

Eyes narrowing at the challenge in his tone, Cal shucks her jacket and tosses it to Nabuna. “I’m up first.”

He steps aside with an alacrity I’ve only ever seen Jolie inspire. “You the boss.”

Yuki’s closed-lip grin is all primness as she stalks past, close to a foot shorter than him. A cold enmity there, that of professionals on opposite sides of the same industry. They might not have butted heads personally, but there’s a history between their employers that they’re both bound to.

“I’ve heard you and the Ghost have been licking your wounds in our staterooms for a few weeks now,” he says, watching Cal’s back as she ascends to the square. “Shall we take it slow? I wouldn’t want to risk injuring you.”

He arches an eyebrow as she keeps walking straight towards the still-on repulsorfield. The shimmering translucent barriers are capable of eating one of my ki blasts at full power without even flickering. “You know, the barrier is still…”

He trails off as an ellipsoid hole forms in the repulsorfield in front of Cal. She strides right through, waving her Relic for Yuki’s benefit.

“Go as easy as you like,” she drawls, all business. “Let’s get started. Tay doesn’t have all night on her legs.”

Grabbing his bag, Yuki surges up the steps to join her. Nabuna comes back with two creaky folding chairs and plops down in one while they choose their armaments. Yuki draws the twin hilts from his belts and uses his Elemental class to solidify two blunted ice blades from the moisture in the air. Cal fishes through his bag and grabs a simple staff, favoring her right arm. The left is still recovering from poison and tremors faintly, as much a detriment to her as my legs still are to me.

Nabuna fishes another lighter from his pocket, offers it to me, then strikes it after I decline. “You fought with Feint much?”

“Enough.”

“She good as the news says?”

I smirk. “You’ll see.”

They’re already squaring off at the center line, ten feet apart. One of Yuki’s blades balances upright behind his back. The other drops in a tip-drag stance as he spreads his feet, leaving a thin mark on the sandstone. A foreign duel-wielding technique I’ve never seen before. It looks like what’d normally be a disrespectful opening against anyone who knows how to fight, but the guise is just that. A cover that holds until the frame the duel begins.

Yuki cuts the façade and flashes at Cal in a blur of movement. A testing strike, a brazen litmus test of an attack delivered at top speed with zero finesse meant to gauge an opponent’s capabilities faster than the traditional, circling dance of confined combat. His left-hand blade cleaves up from the ground in a diagonal slash. Faster than Thane, maybe. But even if he has a loose idea of how Cal’s Relic works, that knowledge and the experience of fighting against it are entirely different things.

A lesson he learns the moment his blades vanish mid-swing, not even a second into the fight.

Cal upends him. She just kicks his legs out like she’s scuffing something off her sneaker. Nabuna winces in sympathy as Yuki hits the ground. He gets up gracefully, face smarting while Cal throws me a coy smirk.

“That’s only going to work once,” Yuki chuckles.

Turning back to the square, Cal flips the staff in one hand like she’s tossing a knife. “Feel free to try a little harder. I wouldn’t want to risk injuring you.”

“I was talking about the punish for rushing, but yes, you’ve convinced me.” Conceding the fight with a curt bow, Yuki rummages through his bag and chooses a pair of handmade wooden training blades that Cal’s Relic can’t dispel. He flips one to a reverse grip and nods to Cal. “Again?”

He lasts a little longer the second time, at least. Small groups of Dynasty fighters slow their workouts to watch while Yuki shoves one of his blades against the sandstone, using it to push back up. Cold now, no longer mirthful as he wipes a loose strand of hair from his eyes.

“One more,” he says, shaking his head.

Even using weapons Cal can’t dispel, even in an environment and battlefield that an assassin would never allow to happen in the wild, I’m struck by just how Cal manages to outmaneuver an opponent who is, in my pretty experienced judgement, a capable fighter. Her technique is like an extension of her personality. Misdirecting, toggling her Relic to upset Yuki’s balance at seemingly random intervals by cutting off the passive enhancements of his classes, letting him overextend repeatedly while cataloguing his weaknesses until she chooses which to drive home. She takes no step without a plan for it in mind. The logical opposite to my instinctive style, mixed with her brother’s seemingly breadthless mastery of weapons and logic. And then a flair all her own thrown over top.

Soon, I realize she’s not really fighting for herself. She’s seeing if Yuki will be the grindstone we need. Pushing him until he reveals what’s really beneath the swashbuckling charisma. The fifth time she drops the syndicate swordfighter, his façade bares its first crack with an amused grimace.

“Again, if you don’t mind.”

And again, and again. Eight rounds, then ten. I’m surprised Cal sticks around so long.

“That trinket truly is something else,” I hear Yuki mutter between rounds, splashing water over his face. “Game for more?”

She is.

They’re running each other ragged by the time the twentieth round starts. Yuki’s long since shut off his JOY, finally pitting the human limits of his body against Cal, who’s been doing it from the start. The packs of Dynasty enforcers stopping by to watch continue to grow in size. There’s shouts of support and jeers for both fighters. Cal is no longer the focus of the crowd’s derision. Barely breaking five feet tall, armed with nothing but her brother’s signature weapon, she’s almost an underdog. There’s whoops as she dismantles Yuki with a flourishing dual-wielding sequence after disarming the Duelist of one of his own weapons.

All the enmity between the two was sweated out at some point over the previous hour. Mottled with bruises, they chat amicably between the next round like they’re catching up over caf. Someone tosses them jugs of water from the crowd. Cal take one and dump it over her head, ice and all. Hoots and hollers at that.

More rounds. Twenty, twenty-five. When they just crest the thirtieth and Cal downs Yuki after a grueling fight that goes completely to its eight-minute time, he stays down for good, gasping for breath while the begrudging adulation of the onlookers washes over them. They clasp hands and she helps haul the taller fighter to his feet. The repulsorfield falls and she saunters down the steps on her own while Dynasty fighters jump up to clap Yuki on the back. There are whistles. Shouts of appreciation for Cal. Someone chucks her a towel. Another hands her a better jacket; Dynasty duroweave with orange highlights. She plays the attention off with her particular breed of charisma. Smirking smiles and coy humility that only end when she finds me in the crowd.

She bumps my fist and nods back at Yuki. “He’ll do.”