Eighteen days had come and gone following the battle at Bianjing. Since then, a few more battles had taken place, with Aotoshi trying hard to punish Akuni’s 61st Regimen for trying to push toward Heiseshu. Most recently, Shirei’s fleet had once more fought against Zenpan and Kadaina’s regiment at Northwell. As this was happening, Kunshu was sitting in his throne room, playing another round of shadow chess as the string quartet played a solemn piece in the background.
Just as Kunshu delivered a checkmate, finding how to deliver it in eleven moves once the opening revealed itself, Shirei opened the doors to the throne room. His black eye had mostly healed by this point, but some bruising still remained.
“What news do you bring to me today, Shirei?” the emperor asked his commander.
“Unfortunately, we have sustained another loss in Northwell,” Shirei informed him. “We didn’t fall for an ambush this time. They hit us with a false flag operation. We finally had a chance to do proper combat, but our forces were too depleted.”
The king slowly rose from his throne.
“Another loss, you say?” he began, obviously holding back his rage. “Depleted troops?”
“We only had six-hundred men, my liege,” Shirei corroborated.
“Six-hundred men?” Kunshu continued, his rage growing more apparent. “What happened to the other six-thousand men I had assigned to you?”
“General Dreschler took them. He claimed he needed more men to go up against General Mahando. Otherwise, they’d make it to Heiseshu.”
“General Dreschler took them,” the emperor stood in his place. “That tactless bastard of a general!” Suddenly, Kunshu tossed his chessboard across the room, the glass pieces shattering as they slammed into the ground. The string quartet stopped playing in response to this sudden outburst.
“He thinks he needs thirty-thousand men to stop a few troops from reaching a POW camp?” Kunshu continued. “Well, he’ll need thirty-million to keep me from reaching him! Shirei, I want you to send a message to Dreschler announcing that General Garret Toyo will be taking his place in charge of our 113th regiment and that he is to come to Antemouth immediately. He will be dealt with accordingly. I have bigger fish to fry while I wait. Bring in the assassin, Shirei.”
“As you wish, my liege.”
Shirei exited the room and, a few minutes later, a very beautiful woman entered. She had short black hair and yellow eyes with thin pupils. Her figure was slender and she had very few scars on her body, except for one under her right knee. The most noticeable thing about her, however, was her smile. It was a very wicked grin whenever she wore it, and right now it was on full display. This was often the first sight a client of hers would see. Any who worked with her knew that, although her demands were high, her work was unmatched among Crenon’s bounty hunters.
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“Mirikiteki Shikaku, at your service,” the assassin said as she bowed before her emperor. Even somebody with as high of a status as Mirikiteki knew their place in the pecking order of Kunshu’s Aotoshi. In her case, however, her fear of Kunshu was doubled with an admiration of his tenacity.
“I have a job for you, Ms. Shikaku,” Kunshu began. “I couldn’t rely on anybody else to do this, but I trust you are able to complete this task.”
“I trust that the spoils will be worth the trouble, then?” Mirikiteki continued.
“Of course,” the emperor answered. “We can’t have it any other way, now can we?”
Kunshu handed Mirikiteki a large roll of cash. The bills totaled out to about five-hundred twenty-five Aotoshi Rands*.
“I am at your command, my lord,” Mirikiteki agreed.
“There is a young boy in the 154th regiment of Akuni,” Kunshu began. “His name is Yukan Kenshi, and he’s the great-grandson of Oji Kenshi.”
“I didn’t realize that the Kenshis were still around,” the assassin chimed in. “I thought those weaklings were long gone.”
“Pests are much harder to get rid of than you think,” the emperor remarked. “Either way, you’ll need to get him away from the rest of the Akuni military. The trouble is that he has a pair of people that will be glued to his side at all times. They are his annoyingly adept girlfriend, Ite Daitan, and his dangerously attentive ally, Kadaina Meiji, the co-commander of the 154th regiment. Kadaina’s mentor, the general of the 154th, is Zenpan Imoru. Avoid him at all costs if you wish to succeed.”
“How do you want me to get rid of him once I get him alone?” Mirikiteki asked him.
“You will not be making the fatal blow,” Kunshu clarified. “Instead, you will bring him to Fort Yaoseyun. Once he is held hostage there, I will arrive and finish him off myself.”
Kunshu unsheathed the Alpha Blade as he spoke. It was a massive specimen, almost as tall as Mirikiteki. The heart at the end of the blade had once atrophied due to a lack of blood fueling it, but since Kunshu had claimed the blade it had swollen back up to its size during the Great Trifecta War. It has even started to pulse slightly as if it were still alive.
“We can use this to distract Akuni’s military,” Kunshu continued. “This will force them to focus on the fort, trying in vain to save Yukan.”
“Understood,” Mirikiteki commented. “I must admit, I haven’t had a bounty that needed to be brought to somebody alive in a while, but I’m sure I could knock the rust off rather quickly for this. Farewell for now.”
The assassin then left Kunshu’s chamber.
The next day, General Dreschler arrived in Antemouth and entered his emperor’s throne room. Nobody ever saw him leave the palace that day, or ever again for that matter.