"Don't even think about interfering," Valeria said through her raven. "Let the gentlemen have a fair duel."

Ciro's response came with a curt nod and a bitter smirk. "I would not dream of it." He gestured at Penumbria's brick walls, where Tenver fiercely battled the climbing monstrosities. "Were I to attempt to intrude..."

Further words were unneeded, and 'twas best not to speak more aloud, lest that Puppet whore of a detective broadcast his speech to other lords. It would be hard enough to justify what he'd already said today; no need to make it harder.

Shifting his attention, the Emperor of the World looked upon the two combatants with mild interest. He had to give his enemy some credit for their audacity – even if it would not change the final outcome. "The man with the Talent of the Duelist, Ferrero...he becomes stronger in one-on-one confrontations, does he not?"

It was with a flourish and a bow that the crow answered. "Indeed, Your Highness!"

Ciro grimaced in disgust. "Dueling is a common Talent." He waved his arms at the city. "There are probably dozens of men and women with that same useless ability in Penumbria alone. An improvement to your physical ability when dueling means little if you can't hurt your opponent – and the Ranks of these two men are quite uneven."

"Correct," Valeria admitted. "Ferrero's Talent is of the 10th Rank."

"Nayt's Talent of Hanging is of the 3rd." Ciro regarded the bird suspiciously. "Even if the Puppet Duelist miraculously landed a blow, given their difference in Ranks, reality itself would not allow his blade to inflict violence upon the Hangman. It would be as if he were being repelled by a magnet."

"Correct again, Your Highness! How wise you are!" The bird clapped its wings together, producing no sound whatsoever. "Yet he did parry your Hangman's weapon."

"That he did," Ciro acknowledged, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. "That he did." He returned his gaze to the two swordsmen standing at the edge of the city.

On one side stood Nayt, the Empire's mightiest Hangman aside from the Dark Captain himself. A man born with a rare Talent only twelve people had awakened to in the past fifty years, and with his ability increased to the – unprecedented for an Imperial elf – nearly peerless 3rd Rank.

On the other side was a Puppet with a mediocre 10th Rank Talent possessed by thousands of other people.

'He's not special in any way. What is the Painter's plan? Why bother setting up this confrontation? Ferrero is far too weak to serve as a last line of defense.'

Ciro shook his head and smirked. "Ah, well. It would simply not do to worry over a minor issue such as this. The Little Painter went out of his way to set up this show for me, and it would be a disservice if I weren't to enjoy it."

With that, the Emperor of the World loudly clapped his hands together. "The stage is set and the players are ready – NOW GIVE YOUR EMPEROR ONE HELL OF A SHOW!"

Both swordsmen answered the call by falling into fencing stances and pointing their sharp rapiers at each other. They stood as eerie mirrors of one another, both showing the same style of footwork: leading foot pointed at the opponent, back foot pointed 90 degrees away from their front, and both knees bent.

Nayt was usually slow to do anything without Orbs as an incentive. Here, however, he thought so quickly and so intently that it was a struggle for Ciro to follow his thoughts even with the Lord Realm's help.

'I need to find out how he managed to deflect my attack despite his weaker Talent,' the elven Hangman began. 'Then I have to kill him fast before he has the chance to do anything else unexpected. Think – how was he able to win our last exchange?'

The outcome of any sword fight could always be explained with a simple series of questions.

1. What was the distance between the two fencers?

2. What were their feet doing during the exchange?

3. What angle did they approach from?

4. What Talent influenced the clash?

Yet answering those questions brought Nayt no closer to understanding Ferrero's mysterious parry.

1) They had been within two steps from each other.

'Two steps makes one lunge,' Nayt thought, repeating the basics as if ensuring he hadn't lost his mind. 'My attack came from the right distance.'

2) Nayt's feet had been in a perfect, flawless lunge. His front foot pointed forward as his opponent, his back foot pointing sideways and straightened to give his movement an explosive quality. Moreover, his arm had been fully extended before the move to give it more accuracy.

'My footwork was perfect and my blade was aimed straight for his heart.'

3) The Puppet Duelist had utilized a clever angle, encircling Nayt's straight thrust and using the strongest part of his blade – the one nearest to the guard – in order to push the weakest part of the Elf's weapon – the one nearest to the tip. By nudging it ever so slightly to the side, he used the Hangman's own strength against him, making Nayt miss his intended target entirely.

'His angle was flawless, true, but even that wouldn't explain how he pushed my blade.' Nayt absently touched the injury near his chest. It was the smallest of cuts...but it was also proof that the impossible had occurred. 'Nor would it explain how he hurt me. Not when–

4) Nayt's Talent was of the 3rd Rank, while the Puppet's Talent was of the 10th Ranking.

Their clash shouldn't have ended this way. It went against the very basis of how the world worked. Even if the Puppet's Dueling Talent caused his physical capabilities to skyrocket in one-on-one confrontations, he wouldn't have been able to use it to overcome Nayt as their blades were wrestling for dominance, much less to inflict harm.

'Yet I still bleed,' Nayt noted, with a disinterested curiosity. 'I wonder...why? Does this mean–'

"I owe Adam a favor," the Puppet declared, "and I intend to repay it with your blood, Hangman. Are you curious as to how a mere commoner such as myself can stand up to you?"

Nayt regarded the Duelist with a mixture of admiration and pity. Admiration, because his skill with the sword was undeniable.

And pity, because it wouldn't matter.

"Nah, I'll pass," the Hangman told him. "Been in too many fights, Puppet. Seen people with strange quirks to their Talents. Bothering with an explanation only gets you killed. Survived too many fights to care about the how."

Nayt angled his blade high. 'Should I rush for an attack? But I still don't know what he's hiding.' "Mystery and victory befit me better than knowledge and defeat."

With a hint of arrogance, Ferrero's lips quirked upward. "You'll live cursed by the eternal curiosity behind my secret."

"Ehhh...mayhaps so," the Elf admitted, shrugging. His eyes narrowed. "But I'll still live."

At the declaration, Nayt placed the tip of his blade between two fingers and declared: "Ignite." His fingers snapped thunderously, creating a cascade of sparks that exploded outward from the steel and spawned a small blue flame on his sword. With an air of sullen laziness on his face, he tested the blade against the air twice, as if ensuring that the flame would remain alit.

Then he turned his dead eyes to the Puppet.

"You won't even do me the courtesy of telling me how your Talent works?" Ferrero asked, in a tone of mock outrage. "Most unkind, seeing as how I offered to do the same for you. Why, the Imperial ignorance of sportsmanship is simply–"

The elven Hangman burst forward, his flaming sword glaring at Ferrero's chest.

Ciro was delighted to witness it. 'I'm glad that he isn't the type to waste time lecturing his opponent about his abilities,' the Emperor thought, with a note of almost brotherly pride. 'And that he isn't attempting to restore his lost pride by giving the Puppet a chance to fight at his best. Nayt is so lovingly pragmatic!'

Of course, the Emperor himself was fully aware of his Hangman's Talent. When Nayt's created flames vanish, whatever they were touching would immediately perish. However, they also had a range limit; else he could have brought death upon the world with but a single flame.

The Talent's limit and precision both depended on the size of the flame. A large flame would kill an adult man, while a small ember was enough to 'kill' a limb.

Originally, it only did the former – either extinguishing a person's life entirely, or leaving them otherwise unharmed. Nayt's ability to turn blows incapable of killing someone into killing part of their body was a showcase of his genius. He had refined his already-brilliant Talent into one with more varied uses by redefining his own definition of 'life.'

It was by witnessing him that Ciro came to understand much about how the First Painter's gifts functioned. Not even the research given by the Dragons of Old had known of that. Nayt was a stardust genius who would've been allowed the honor of captaincy were it not for Valente.

Ciro knew that better than most. After all, Nayt had first bared his fangs against him.

Even now, the memory brought a smile to his face – and a phantom pain to where his burn scars had once been. 'I wonder...were my Talent not ranked so much higher than his, would he have succeeded in killing me then?'

His thought was interrupted as Puppet and Hangman crossed blades.

Once more, just as inexplicably, the Puppet Duelist's blade circled around the other's like an ensnaring snake, pushing the tip of the Hangman's weapon aside before delivering a thrust at the man.

It shouldn't have mattered. Whatever Talent the Puppet was using to enhance his reflexes, he shouldn't have been able to injure an opponent of higher Rank. Ferrero's sword should have stopped short of the elf, as if forestalled by the hand of fate itself.

Yet it didn't.

Nayt's eyes snapped open with a sudden realization of danger. He retreated with a series of hopping steps, never turning his back on his opponent. The elf's blade remained raised as he backed away...

While a superficial injury bled from his chest.

'How did he manage to hurt me?' Nayt pondered. Able to read his thoughts with the Lord Realm, the Emperor mirrored his servant's confusion. 'It matters little. My flames still touched him – this match is over.' On this too, Ciro agreed.

Though the Puppet had somehow conquered their first dance, a subtle ember had leapt from the Hangman's blade and onto the duelist's shoulder. Even now the flickering ember surged forward, almost invisible to the naked eye, heralding Ferrero's inevitable end.

A second later, it vanished.

"Farewell, strong duelist," Nayt muttered, so low that only the Emperor could hear his lamentations. "Mayhaps in another life, I will afford you the fair duel you deserve. I–"

Ferrero – inexplicably alive – launched himself forward.

This was no dying burst of energy. His feet remained planted in that same impeccable L-shaped stance, and he advanced using practiced footwork. The Puppet finished with a fierce lunge that yet again shattered their difference in Rank, scoring a slight wound on the Hangman once more.

'How is he alive?' Nayt thought, with a calmness that surprised even Ciro. The elf's heart raced with the development, yet his mind sharpened into a frighteningly clear, singular focus – his opponent. 'He should be dead. The only way he could dispel my Talent's ability is if his Rank was higher than mine...So then, how...?'

Ferrero let out a theatrical laugh. He abandoned his stance to bow, sweeping low, as if performing before a majestic audience.

"Kill him now!" Ciro shouted. "He's defenseless!"

Nayt didn't move. He continued to study his opponent in silence, not offering the Emperor so much as a reply.

"Oh?" Valeria remarked, through the Raven. "My, my. I had no idea the Hangmen could refuse your orders."

Ciro grit his teeth. 'They can't. Is this insubordination...or is he so focused he can't even hear me?'

When the Puppet Duelist lifted his head again, there was arrogance in his tone and politeness in his words. "Fear not, good sir, I'd never curse your life with curiosity to plague your days!" he declared, projecting his voice as if for an invisible audience. "My dear Hangman, the truth is quite simple! I shall explain now, despite your denials!"

Nayt watched the man's movements with a mixture of cautious concern and, rather unfortunately, genuine curiosity. 'How did he manage it?' the Hangman wondered.

Ciro cried out again, "KILL HIM NOW!". He was met with silence – as well as the Detective's taunting. "What's the matter, Your Highness?" Valeria gloated. "Are you getting nervous?"

Thus was the play's next stage set: a bloody battlefield, surrounded by an audience of corpses and synchronized crows, with a backdrop of monsters being nailed to the ground by giant arrows raining down from atop Penumbria's highest tower.

And standing at its center was the nobody who laid claim to the title of leading man for tonight's play. Beneath an invisible spotlight, there was Ferrero, the Puppet Duelist.

He projected his voice, enunciating his words loudly and with unnatural pauses between them, as if to ensure even the furthest seats from this nonexistent stage could hear him clearly. His declaration came out with a flourish of his sword accompanying each syllable.

"YOU CANNOT SLAY ME – FOR I AM NOT ALIVE!"

The murder of crows laughed synchronously, like a harrowing echo surrounding them from behind, the sides, and everywhere at once. "Judging by his tone, I'd say our duelist is in the zone now," quoth the Raven.

Ciro glared at the largest of the birds and saw beyond it, thinking of Valeria, the detective. 'You must have understood the extent of Nayt's Talent after his clash with the elven wench from Gama,' he thought angrily. 'And whether by pure guess or thorough research, you discovered how his Talent can differentiate between what it 'kills' and what it doesn't – you know about his perception of life.'

Whether Puppets were alive or not was a matter for debate. Most taverns across the capital were bustling with songs describing them as monsters that only mimicked the appearance of life rather than truthfully exhibiting it. The Puppets' enemies often used their supposed lack of life to justify massacres.

Ciro himself cared little for the idea, and was eternally baffled by his subjects' insistence on debating the matter. Why should questions of the Puppets' souls matter in the slightest? They were dangerous, and needed to be eliminated. He would and had killed human cities for the same crime.

But it was convenient for the thought to remain popular, so the Emperor encouraged it. Much easier to mobilize people in a future eradication of the Puppet Mines if they believed they were slaughtering monstrous automatons.

'Never did I think that it would backfire like this,' Ciro regretted.

Nayt wasn't immune to Imperial propaganda merely because he misliked the Empire. Constant torrents of information have a way of infiltrating even the most guarded minds.

'For his Talent to work properly, he would need to completely rethink how he views the Puppets,' Ciro considered. 'That isn't something you can do in a matter of minutes. Even he–'

"It seems that I do not consider you to be alive," Nayt said to Ferrero. His voice showed disinterest in their fight, yet muted curiosity at this new discovery, as if he were a stranger to his own feelings. "That's something of a problem. If I don't respect your right to life, then my Talent won't be able to snuff it out."

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Nayt seemed unperturbed by this development. Peering into his mind, the Emperor saw only one real concern from the elf – 'Why am I wasting my time playing along with these theatrics?'

It was troubling. 'I mislike this,' thought Ciro. 'That Puppet might make things... difficult.'

"This folly of yours is most troublesome!" Ferrero proclaimed, with a dramatic flourish, each word pronounced like it were a new edict from a city lord.

"How–will–you–overcome–" The duelist slicked back his hair and whipped head backwards, returning with a wide, cocky grin "–ME?"

'Ah, missed the meter in that one,' thought the Puppet. My master would be ashamed. I'd better not miss another.'

Nayt yawned. "Eh. I'll manage somehow, I guess."

To all present, the elf's voice remained as dispassionate as it had ever been. Yet to Ciro, there was something he could not hide. An intensity that silently burned behind his eyes – and a distant thought the Hangman tried to hide even from himself.

'I hope you can keep surprising me, Puppet.'

"I am a Hangman of the 3rd Rank," Nayt began. "When it comes to a simple contest, I'm still far, far stronger. And if you happen to survive a straight duel through some unknown sorcery..."

The Elf's grip tightened around his sword. "Then I will come to respect you enough to kill you."

Ciro appreciated this enough to feel a measure of relief. 'Even now, you continue to amaze me, Elf." He brought his hands together in a gesture of thunderous applause. 'If only more of your kind were like you, mayhaps I wouldn't have slaughtered them.'

On this Ferrero appeared to adopt a change of some sort that the Emperor could not quite place. "Still, Hangman, you have yet to earn my trust!" the duelist declared, his lips curling into a sly grin.

"Twice have I struck, yet you have not once hit." He pointed first at Nayt's light wounds, then at his own lack thereof. Throughout it all, the Puppet projected his voice, shouted, and gave fierce emotion to his claims that seemed to ill-match his smile. Every word danced with a movement of his body, a fierce pump of his fists, a needless overturn of his neck. "Among all swordsmen, my blade alone defies the stars above."

Ciro grit his teeth – this wretch knew of the elf's past ambitions? 'Don't pay heed to him, Nayt!"

"Beneath the skies and above the waves," Ferrero continued, "from dragons old to kinslayers of now, without a rival I alone stand tall."

The Emperor noticed the mention of the skies and started searching through the man's memories. 'What does your kind know, Puppet? Who told you?'

He was so focused on the duelist that he almost missed the change within Nayt.

To Ciro's surprise and concern, Ferrero's childish taunt appeared to stir some genuine feelings inside the elf's cold heart. Memories came to him in a flare of long-buried emotion–

Inspiring memories of Ciro's own. A poem that his courtiers had once composed.

Buried within the sands of time lay ruins, Of one great swordsman, a proud soul, long lost. Though now, just gravestone lingers, bored, unmoved, On the elf's canvas, in the darkest nights, And in the fiercest battles, once again, That ghostly sight, the harrowing mirage, For but a moment, it lived again.

Given name and form, stood the elf's most forlorn, the blade of death – Nayt the Hangman.

"Allow me to correct that misunderstanding of yours, then," said the elf. "Witness the insurmountable gap between us, Puppet."

"First I shall witness; then I shall surmount!"

For the first time in over a decade, Nayt fought without relying on his Talent as a crutch. His dueling expertise manifested in full, and the weaker swordsman chose to face him head-on.

Ciro froze. Even with the enhanced reflexes befitting of someone with a Talent of the 1st Rank, were it not for his Lord Talent allowing him inside into their minds, he would have been at a loss for what he now witnessed.

This was because much of their duel existed not only in the reality of what they did – but also in the reality of what they didn't.

Their physical chess started when the two were a distance of four steps across from each other.

'My Talent is of the 3rd Rank and his of the 10th,' Nayt thought, approaching with his blade thrusting at the Puppet. 'My reflexes are sharper, my legs faster, my shoulders stronger – this will end here. But if he can somehow match my physical superiority...then he won't bother trying to parry me.'

Nayt's thoughts were both clear and concise on this point. Whatever sorcery the Puppet had displayed last time, surprise played a huge part in that result. The Puppet's Talent of Dueling was still low-ranked enough that, even in a one-on-one contest, he could not physically match a Hangman of the 3rd.

It only brought him close enough that he could distantly watch Nayt's back.

Such was the misfortune of those not chosen by the gods of fate that their Emperor had enslaved.

As long as the Hangman could predict his opponent's opening move, their duel would end in a single exchange.

'But you also know that I'm expecting a parry after our last exchange,' Nayt thought. ''And you know that if I'm stronger. If I prepare accordingly, then force my attack through, you won't be able to defend it. Which means your only option is...a Counter.'

In a duel between swordsmen, especially one where both were wielding fast thrusting swords such as the rapier, their blades often moved too quickly for either person to truly see. As opposed to reacting, predicting was their best defense.

The most basic, most important trained response for a swordsman is to bring their sword arm to the outside. That way, their own blade no longer blocks the opponent's attack from reaching them. Instead, they curved their wrist so that their opponent will stab themselves if they move forward.

It was like a simple threat in chess. Move a piece a certain way, and it will be captured.

'He can get around the difference in our speeds like this,' Nayt considered. 'It's the most logical move for him to do.'

The elf crept forward, now within two steps from his opponent. Two steps of distance also translated into one lunge away, and Nayt straightened his back leg to demonstrate this.

As he expected, Ferrero held his arm up in a counter. Nayt instinctively shifted his target from the Puppet's chest to the blade he held. Once it had been knocked aside, there would be nothing protecting him from the Hangman's thrust.

'Think more highly of me, will you?' Ferrero thought, half in annoyance and half in satisfaction.

Despite having his thoughts hastened from the Lord Realm, Ciro only came to understand what had unfolded when Ferrero shouted, "The score is three for Puppet, none for elf!"

The Hangman had suffered another cut. Yet this one, albeit superficial, was deeper than the others – in more ways than one.

Nayt retreated, his blade held high above his head, its tip still pointed at the enemy for safety. He drew a deep breath and attempted to still his racing thoughts.

'He predicted I would anticipate a counter, then dodged my beat-attack by encircling my blade,' the Hangman noted coldly. 'Troublesome bastard. It doesn't matter how much faster I am – if I end up hitting empty air, my arm is going to need a second before I can move it in a different direction. But if he had gotten that prediction wrong, I would've killed him. This Puppet is such a reckless gambler...he's such an annoying bastard...he's–'

"Hmm, you're rather good."

The words escaped Nayt's before he could seal them away. 'Why did I say that?' "Guess that was a decent read." 'Why am I complimenting the man I'm about to kill?'

"I was confident that a swordsman of your level would anticipate my counter," Ferrero replied.

'Why...why is my face twitching at his words?' Nayt thought. Unpracticed muscles struggled against an old, almost dormant reflex – and the Emperor froze at the implication.

It mattered not for the elf. He forced himself to focus on the duel, rather than on his surging emotions.

'Let's see...we're both using rapiers of similar length,' the Hangman considered. 'He has quality footwork, perhaps even better than mine. But he's still weaker and slower. The only way he's been able to land hits has been by hard-reading my next move. In a match like this...I should aim to prolong our exchanges. Increase the number of correct guesses he has to make.'

It was a simple, straightforward, yet brutally effective idea. Their last exchange had ended unfavorably because Nayt aimed to settle it within one do-or-die exchange, and had been predicted properly. But if he instead slowed down the pace of the fight, establishing gradual footholds along the path to murder...

Everything came back to those four key questions.

1. What was the distance between the two fencers?

2. What were their feet doing during the exchange?

3. What angle did they approach from?

4. What Talent influenced the clash?

The exchange that ultimately ended it all would be like a final test or sorts. And though their physical ability and general skill with the blade strongly influenced its result...so did the answers to each of those questions.

'His plan is to stay on my level by countering every single action I make,' Nayt surmised. He took a half-step forward, moving only his front foot and not his back foot. 'So if I make smaller movements, aim for less gain by giving fewer openings...I can increase the number of correct guesses he must make from one to over a dozen. No matter how good he is, no matter what kind of sorcery he's using to counteract the difference in Talents, he'll make a mistake along the way.'

The elf moved with cold, calculating malice. He fought by attempting to deflect the Puppet's sword without committing to a lunge.

Like before, Ferrero's sword dodged the attack by circling away. Unlike before, the Hangman hadn't attacked with a lunge yet. Nayt approached from a distance just beyond it – three steps away – and was out of the range for a reprisal.

'I just have to slowly win the small battles...'

Ferrero's arm began to tire as pressure from the elf's sword strikes mounted.

Create a safe distance...'

Now that Nayt had made it apparent he was refusing to engage in a direct exchange, Ferrero was forced to pull his blade back slightly to strengthen his defense and reduce the strain on his arm. This, combined with his slowed steps, allowed the Hangman to redefine the distance that a single lunge would cover.

'Good. Now I can reach him with a lunge, but he cannot reach me.'

Slowly, methodically, certainly...

...The Hangman established his superiority.

"This makes it three to one," the Hangman said, as he delivered a shallow cut. There was no need to risk going for a deeper thrust than that just yet.

It was here that the Emperor shouted, "NAYT! KILL HIM NOW!" Ciro didn't bother with keeping up a royal, composed tone. This wasn't the time for it. 'Why isn't he ending it? Don't tell me–!'

The Raven cackled. "What's wrong, Your Highness? Does your elf refuse to kill?"

Ciro elected not to answer, instead turning his attention towards the duel. His tightened grip had started drawing blood from the inside of his palms. Upon noticing this, the Emperor of the World forced himself to take a deep breath. 'Stay calm. Nayt hasn't done anything foolhardy yet.'

"Good!" the Puppet shouted back – still theatrically, though his breath was strained. "Yet you should not rejoice for one small hit, for I have claimed more victories than you."

Nayt instantly thought of many reasonable objections to that. For one, this was a battlefield, not a sport. For another, the single cut he had inflicted upon the Puppet was far worse than the three he'd received combined.

Yet what he said was, "A temporary matter. Time will avenge this injustice with your death, Puppet."

Ferrero brightened at this response. "I've said it once before, did you not hear? You cannot slay me, for I am not alive!"

Yet this too would fall to the cruel reaper known as time. With every lengthy exchange of blades, with every fiercely contested inch of dueling ground, the Hangman began to look at his opponent in a different light.

'What a curious beast you are, Elf,' Ciro thought, mildly awestruck. 'Even after all this time, despite peering into your thoughts for over a decade, knowing firsthand how you view the world...seeing it actually happen is rather shocking.'

Until now, Nayt had seen the Puppet as an 'it' rather than a 'he.' Yet more than the idea of a soul, more than the belief in his ancient elven gods, he was a purer sort of creature:

A swordsman. An athlete dedicated to his craft as if it were an art. To him, a literal inanimate log of dead wood that somehow skillfully wielded a blade was more alive than any person who could not do the same.

Because deep inside, this was what life meant to him.

Ciro grit his teeth. 'That he can adapt his mindset in this way is equal parts a blessing and a curse."

"Two to three!" the Hangman muttered after a hotly debated exchange.

"Three to three!" the elf declared after another strike.

"Four to three! The lead is mine now, Puppet!" Nayt shouted, pumping his fist.

Yet the surging thrill brought forth a new concern to the forefront of his mind. 'Why am I not going for the kill? I'm retreating after each strike...why?'

There was something happening that he couldn't quite comprehend.

His confusion echoed within Ciro, adding onto the Emperor's ever-growing frustration. "Kill the Duelist already! Skewer his heart! Whatever he did before isn't working anymore!" Such was his annoyance that he once again contemplated using his Talent to collapse the continent into a massive black hole.

"WHY ARE YOU NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY?"

It surprised Ciro to realize that it wasn't he who had shouted this.

Rather, the one who'd voiced his rightful fury had been one of the crows.

"What is wrong with you?!" exclaimed the Valeria-Crow. "Why aren't you fighting at your best?! Kill the Hangman already! We have not the time to waste!"

The wounded Puppet stood up, dusting off his clothes and brushing away the blood dripping from his lips. With a sincere tone, he said, "Forgive me, Valeria. I hate to fail you so."

That was a deeper truth in the duelist's heart, more private than the detective could ever know. Yet truer still was that there was one person who – above all others – he could not fail.

His master.

"To win a duel, yet not give them a chance? To such a fate, my master would say nay!" Ferrero said, arrogance and confidence blending into a swordsman.

He raised his arm skyward. "That is not the way of a great champion!" His fist unfurled into an accusation to Gods themselves, only a single finger pointing up. "A Champion's Duel – Must be En-ter-tain-ing!"

A burst of annoyance flickered through the Emperor. The phrase triggered deep memories within him, a confrontation with another flamboyant, dramatic swordsman many years ago. 'The Merry Man...'

His mood only soured further when he read Nayt's thoughts and emotions. Despite himself, as the Hangman witnessed Ferrero's audacity on full display...Nayt found a measure of satisfaction swelling within him.

"Let us dance then, Champion."