On the same night as the attack, while Jon and his new assassin buddies trudged up the hill to the brothel, Damian sipped the most expensive stuff available at the bar from a glass cup of mesmerizing design, swishing the liquid fire around and admiring its toxic fragrance with a sniff.

“Another,” he told the bartender, who topped up his glass from a fine bottle.

The ground floor of the brothel was usually a rowdy drinking place, but tonight, it was empty. The usual patrons had fled at the sound of battle, while the girls were sent into the cellar for hiding. Now, it was just him and the bartender.

The brothel’s doors flew open with a kick. So the lad won, after all, he concluded.

“Quill!” Alyssa shouted. She marched up to him, and they both well knew what it was she wanted.

Before she got to him, Damian wryly turned his head towards the bartender. “The strongest stuff you’ve got, lad.”

With a nod, the bartender took out a bottle from under the table. He didn’t even take out a glass; Alyssa appreciated the understanding. Reaching the bar, she switched targets and swiped the bottle from the countertop, popped off the cork, took a seat on one of the stools, and took a swig. She leaned back on the bar, sighing for a long, long moment, letting the alcohol’s fire worm its way through her system.

“My stump hurts,” she said. “The Lady rushed me here and I didn’t even get a chance to complain.”

“Where’s the lad?” Damian asked. That was when Amani poked her head through the door. “And who’s the lass?” he added.

“My new assistant.” Alyssa gestured for Amani to come inside. “Sit down with us.”

“Kittari?” Damian asked. “Did you liberate her from somewhere?”

Amani stopped in her tracks, just steps away from her seat. She glared at Damian. Something about the word ‘liberate’ had struck a bad chord in her. “I’m indebted to Mr. Fuze,” she replied.

Damian raised his hands. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. “I didn’t mean to offend, lass.”

He turned away, hoping the girl would let it go at that.

Well, she did. Perhaps she was a little more abrasive than she wanted to be, but this she only admitted to herself. She took a stool beside Alyssa, watching her take a swig from such a bulky-looking bottle of liquor.

Alyssa saw this. “You want a sip?”

“It doesn’t smell good,” Amani said — a roundabout way of saying ‘no.’

“Suit yourself.” Alyssa took another swig — and then three more — before she remembered that introductions were in order. Now was the best time, after all, at least while they were waiting for Jon.

“Damian Quill, Amani,” she said nodding to each one. The two only nodded, but without facing each other or even meeting eyes. “Former director, newcomer,” Alyssa continued, adding of their job histories or lack thereof.

The two only nodded again. Well, it was a little disappointing. She’d hoped Quill’s outgoing character would bring something out of Amani — make her more sociable, maybe — but instead, Amani’s aura of seriousness managed to shut him up. That was truly unexpected.

Once again, Alyssa’s hope to have a decent conversation partner had been dashed.

— Quill? Decent conversation? Heh.

Still, it was strange, wasn’t it? Certainly, Quill had picked the wrong choice of words earlier, but it shouldn’t have resulted in some instant animosity in Amani towards Quill. She couldn’t possibly so intolerant towards people who’d just passingly and accidentally rubbed her off wrong, right?… Or, that might actually be the case?

The truth, however, wasn’t something she could’ve imagined. Damian and Amani realized something about each other within that short exchange of theirs, you see, and it put the both of them on guard against the other.

Damian wore a wooden mask at all times, only sometimes exposing his mouth to eat and drink. On the other hand, Amani had a certain special role in her tribe — you can guess, can’t you? — so she wore certain trinkets on herself at all times. Colorful cords with knots in them, for instance; most people would just pass these off as oddities of cultural fashion, but to the tribes of the Aranai, these knots communicated a particular language only passed down to the children of a select class of spiritual leaders.

She wore one such knotted cord as a bracelet.

She took one look at Damian’s mask and realized it was an Aranai death mask. There weren’t just catkin in the Aranai, so he could just be plain human, but that wasn’t the point. This man was either dead, purely kept alive by some kind of advanced necromancy, or he was a desert ranger sent away and forced to wander the earth beyond his mortal years — in which case, he was a criminal condemned of a high crime.

Such wanderers were feared in the Aranai. They did not form bands, but crossing paths with one of them was like brushing against death. If they took interest in you, you were at their mercy.

On the other hand, Damian had passingly sized up Amani — not for any disrespectful reason, of course, but knowing who was breathing the same air as you was the difference between life and death around here.

He wished he hadn’t looked. The moment his eyes had landed on the bracelet on her wrist, he’d quickly looked away. He knew what those knots meant, and, well, the short of it was that the girl could turn him into sand if she so wished it. At the same time, she was exactly the type of person that he was never allowed to disrespect, let alone hurt. If anything, she was the type of the person he should be grateful for, because it was such a person, a long time ago, who’d given him his second chance.

… Which begged the question: what was a priestess like her doing in the Theater? They were supposed to be gentle, oozing a mother’s kindness. Instead, she was out here, and she didn’t mind being in the service of a murder factory.

Life back there must have gotten harder. He was right to leave it.

On one hand was a man to be feared. On the other was a girl to be revered.

Amid them was just a tired young woman enjoying her drink.

The doors slammed open once more, and through them came Jon, Jiraya, and a woman hanging onto their shoulders between them. Her feet dragged across the floor as they carried her in.

Amani stood up at this sight, whereas Alyssa and Damian looked at it like they saw it every other day. Damian did spare a glance towards the bartender, though, tilting his head to make the lad go and assist the newcomers.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The bartender ran around the counter and cleared a table for Jon and Jiraya to put her on. As soon as the weight was off Jon’s shoulder and the bartender had fully taken over the role of ad hoc surgeon, he shuffled over to Alyssa and Damian, sitting between them. Damian and Alyssa turned back to the bar, welcoming their new drinking companion with a sort of cool acknowledgement.

Jon felt Amani’s eyes, however, track him with the concern of a child looking upon a wounded parent. She was still standing there, not knowing what to do. He looked over his shoulder, straight at her. “You like standing?” he said.

Amani took his dry humor as a sign that he was fine. He should be. He killed a hundred people in a day, after all, so he must be fine. She sat down.

“Well, Jon, how was it?” Alyssa asked. She offered her bottle, but he reached over the counter and took a glass, opting to pour himself a small share. Tsk, she hoped for an indirect kiss like a dumb damsel. She was already stooping this low for the sake of any amount of entertainment, but she still couldn’t get any!

“Level 9,” he said, “and this.”

He let the magic chain travel around his arm like a snake, raising its ‘head’ in the air — then he retracted it.

Damian whistled. “An artifact? Impressive find. I’m almost jealous.”

“Is it rare?” Jon asked.

“Most people would see one at least once in their life,” Alyssa replied. “That one looks like new craftsmanship. I see the Kittari are still busy hammering out new props.”

“They’ll never stop!” Damian chuckled. “Ah, that reminds me, don’t you need to take a rest, lad? It’s been a long night, after all, and it seems you’ve” — he leaned back, eyeing the Kittari assassins — “made a few interesting acquaintances.”

He happened to catch a glimpse of Amani staring at the assassins. Ah, of course, kinship between races was felt much stronger when in foreign lands.

… But what Amani was feeling was not kinship, but utter disbelief. She recognized those people — but would they recognize her? What would she do if they did?

Jiraya noticed her staring rather quickly — the man’s counterintelligence skill set hadn’t rusted even after months at sea — but, what’s this, hold on, did he know her?

They held eyes for a split second … before turning away, feigning disinterest. There were matters about home that they were both interested in, but it just wouldn’t do to discuss it aloud in this kind of place.

This wasn’t an ideal world, however, because the next pair of eyes that Jiraya met was Jon’s.

Jon looked at him, then briefly towards Amani, then back at him. He saw them.

Cat’s out of the bag … but it wasn’t a cat worth killing for. Jiraya had caught Amani’s concern for Jon when he showed weakness, which meant that the man was more likely to be an ally going forward than not. A priestess’s vested interest was to care, no matter her tragedies, and even if the folk tradition of taking a priestess’s interest as one’s own was dying out — well, being put down — it was still well and alive in Jiraya’s old bones.

Doing so would surely bring him good luck, or maybe very bad luck against his enemies. Either would work in his current position, really.

So, Jiraya just nodded towards Jon, and after a momentary pause, Jon nodded back, turning back towards his drink.

In the middle of the night, amid the noise of the Order’s personnel moving through the district and flooding into the harbor, Jiraya snuck into Amani’s room, sliding in through the window.

He sat on the floor, cross-legged, and placed a sword in front of him, handle pointing forward. This only meant one thing for any native of the Aranai: kill me. Amani stood before him.

“How’s my friend?” Amani asked.

“She is not doing too well, I’m sorry to report,” Jiraya said, his head hung low. He didn’t dare look up.

“Is she well-fed?”

“She is.”

“Cared for?”

“She is not.”

“Is it her father?”

“It is.”

Amani breathed a deep sigh. She paced away, drowning in repeating thoughts; no good. She sat on the edge of her bed, hoping to silence a flurry of worry. Jiraya still refused to move.

“We can’t do anything from here,” she said, “and I am indebted to Mr. Fuze.”

She looked at Jiraya. His pitiful figure infuriated her. She got up and briskly walked, stopping before him once again — and she kicked the grip of the sword. It spun towards him, and she stepped on the blade, firmly putting the grip in the middle of his vision.

“I find it disgusting that you’d rather die by my hand than make yourself useful to Kayshar,” she said. The tone of her voice remained steady, but the face she was making was nothing short of seethingly furious. “Look at me.”

He looked up, finally coming to see her face, addled by both anger and sadness, finally making him realize that he’d made a mistake in assuming that he had well and truly failed.

— I’m still alive.

While he lived, he could still act. Futility? Powerlessness? These things held no sway over one’s agency. Neither failure nor success dictated one’s autonomy of mind and freedom of spirit; it was the ability to decide and follow through, regardless of the calculations and the numbers.

The grip of the sword called to him. Eight of the Ten Blades were dead. Their transient allies in this part of the world had no vested interest in the affairs of the Kittari. They had no army.

No doubt, they had no chance of winning — but futility, powerlessness? These things held no sway when they would rather be dead than live in any other alternative.

Amani stepped off the blade, and Jiraya reached out to take it in his grip.

“What should we do now?” Jiraya asked.

“I don’t know,” Amani replied, but it had an edge of determination contrary to her words. “I have a debt towards Mr. Fuze. I wish to return the favor first before anything.”

“You seem to hold a favorable impression of him.”

“He rescued me from wicked slavery twice.”

“I see. He’s a virtuous man” —

“I suppose that puts the total body count at around 150 in direct relation to me.”

She smirked, and Jiraya didn’t know what to feel about that. It was like … she was proud of it, somehow. T-truly, after experiencing the tragedies that she had, watching everyone she had ever loved be put to the collar or blade, it would be a miracle if she didn’t accrue — well — imperfections along the way.

“He’s quite strong,” Jiraya remarked. “No, terrifyingly versatile is the better word. I had tipped him about the magic weapon I had caught a glimpse of. Of course, I knew it was powerful, but I didn’t think he would be able to master it as quickly as he did.”

Amani had never witnessed Jon be as terrifying as Jiraya claimed. Certainly, she’d seen him use martial techniques in such an expert manner, but Jiraya spoke of dozens of Jon killing dozens of men in mere seconds; the numbers were a little inflated, but it surely felt that way.

She was curious about it, but she was confident she’d see it firsthand, someday, so there was no need to hurry. “If only we could bring such a person’s power to bear against our own enemies,” she absently muttered. It would be convenient, but it was also a selfish wish, and she didn’t want to impose such a thing on her two-time savior.

[Why not ask?]

Amani nearly jumped back at Ravena’s whisper-like message. In the darkness of her room, illuminated only by moonlight, it was truly as if shadows were crawling in the corners of the room.

But … ask? “Would he really listen to me?” she said aloud. Jiraya was puzzled about her mutterings — hold on, was she speaking to Her right now? He better hold his tongue.

[The whole world is my charge, and I cannot turn a blind eye to the Aranai.]

Amani was about to jump in joy —

[For you in particular, however, you wish … for a wish, do you not?]

Right. Of course. The Lady never entreated anyone one-sidedly. She never intruded without premise, and She never granted gifts without promise.

“What shall I do?” Amani said.

For a while, Ravena didn’t answer. Amani waited patiently. She sat cross-legged, matching Jiraya, electing to sit on the cold floor rather than wait in comfort for the Lady’s reply.

— An hour passed.

[Interesting. Well, I shall leave it to Jon to decide, my cute priestess.]

She was going to ask Jon anyway, but this wasn’t a useless reply by any measure — if Jon agreed, Ravena wouldn’t stop him.

Could it be … that they had a chance?

“Jiraya,” she said sternly.

“Yes.”

“There are enemies to all Kittari in this city. We will be in service to the Theater here to eliminate them. What of Mira?”

“She is recovering. She will be in fighting condition within a week.”

Amani smiled. “Good. Very good.” She stood up. “Goodnight, Jiraya. Let’s speak to our friends about this when the sun rises.”