It was the day after his talk with Thirty-Seven when the Bugs began to arrive. They came not in ones and twos or large, marching units but in two long lines, each alien moving with a cohesion best attributed to career soldiers. Ryu heard them more than he saw them in the dark maze of tunnels, but he felt the creep of foreboding all the same. The Bugs had come for war.
“Follow,” Thirty-Seven said. Ryu walked after the Bug after a moment of hesitation. The dawning of a new day meant another life was to be snuffed, and Ryu was considering offering up his own. Better to die himself than live a puppet for a monster. And monsters the Bugs were.
The Bugs possessed a cruelty almost invisible to the naked eye. They did not torture or kill for their own amusement, nor did they fly off into sudden rages or madness. Their cruelty was a creeping, callous thing that chilled the edges of Ryu’s limbs with its intensity. It was not enough to force him to slaughter his own kind. No, for his efforts, they would reward him by taking his body from him. The worst part was they took no joy in the matter. It was as simple a declaration as the sun rising in the morning. Ryu hated them.
It was easy to hate a singular entity. One only had to summon a name, face, and identity to taste their own flavor of loathing. Hells, even hating a particular group of individuals was simple, but to hate an entire species? Such things were best left to the mass murderers of the world. For Ryu, a man who had met dozens of sentient species in the Rings, his hate for the Bugs seemed almost villainous, and perhaps it was.
The Bugs, however, was a species dominated by a singular will. To hate humanity was to gather millions of unique identities and throw them under a dark umbrella. The Bugs, on the other hand, had no such individuality, or at least, Ryu could not see it. They had no personal beliefs, opinions, or motivations beyond the will of the One, and they would see its commands done without hesitation. The worst part of it all? The One’s successor would receive its predecessor’s goals and motivations, which in this case was the subjugation of the human race.
Better to be dead, indeed. He had little time to decide. Did he wager his life over his hopes of escape?
A choice between dying without trying and fighting to the end is no choice at all, his Shard Twin said. For once, Ryu agreed. His soul was stained by the blood of innocents, and to die now was to rest without atonement. It was not his time to rest.
Thirty-Seven led him to the same empty warehouse as before, and Ryu sighed. He would watch and learn, and then one day, he would escape this place and return to raze it to the ground. Strength would become his mistress until the day the One rattled its death throes at his feet.
To fight monsters, man became monstrous, and so it was.
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Twenty steps to the stairs, fifty-seven to the end of the first hall, a right turn, and then one hundred and sixty-eight to the next tunnel. Ryu ran the numbers through his mind time and again, hoping that if he rubbed them together hard enough, the spark of inspiration might reach him. It took Forty-Three six seconds to burn a corpse, perhaps less if it put real power in it. Thirty-Seven’s movements were faster than his own with Soul Eater. Time and again, he rummaged, searched, and prayed for a plan, but if any heard, they ignored him. Well, save for one…
“Brother,” Ender said, his voice gliding through the confines of his Shard Realm, “we must break the manacles.”
Ryu turned to look at his twisted mirror. “Simple as that, eh?”
Ender smiled. “No, but it has to come first. Thirty-Seven will catch us without the speed of Soul Eater.”
“I agree, but the manacles are most likely Qi-infused steel. If it's high enough grade, not even a Master Class could break it.”
“You think they will remove them when their spawn tries to claim your soul? You need not worry, brother. The pest will fall to my will.”
Ryu scratched at his beard. Ender had a… warped sense of confidence. He was as skilled a fighter as any, but he believed his martial prowess extended to all situations. “Perhaps,” Ryu said. “I am unsure how the process works.”
“Ask the Bug.”
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“And if they do remove them? I can’t even fight off Thirty-Seven, and who knows how many of the monsters will be there?”
Ender growled, and a long, one-sided axe appeared in his hand. “Then we will train.”
Ryu shook his head. “That’s not enough.”
Ender laughed. “You do not understand, brother. The Shard Realm is a magnificent place. You can summon almost anything in this place that is not living, and as long as your will commands it so, it will retain its properties. Summon a wall of this Qi-infused steel.”
Ryu concentrated, envisioning a wall of the rare material. Along one wall of his empty Shard Realm, a thick sheet of gleaming steel rippled into existence. He looked around at the empty, white room and sucked at his gums. This was the home of a demon- his demon-, and as such, it deserved its own hellish landscape.
White empty walls shattered, and leaning trees took their place, their leaves hanging like the knotted beards of wizened men. The floor beneath their feet melted. It swirled and changed into ankle-deep water and patches of wet ground. A starry night sky replaced the ceiling, the bright celestials above their private audience. The round, yellow moon hung above, its body full as if it had devoured a few of its nearby companions. The scent of mud, regret, and death floated by on the humid breeze. Air filled Ryu’s lungs like thick soup.
The swamp of the Fifth Ring was the only hell Ryu had ever loved, and now it would never leave him. Simpler times those, just a man fighting madness on his lonesome.
“Good,” Ender said, and Ryu remembered his fight had not ceased, only taken on a different form.
“It felt fitting.”
“Indeed,” his Twin said. “It is us alone once more, brother, and the monsters have returned, lurking on every side. We will punish their insolence.”
“Perhaps, but why the metal wall?” he asked, nodding at the structure in question.
Ender smiled. “Punch it.”
Ryu shrugged. “Okay.” Black smoke curled around his wrist, and he punched the metal wall. A small dent was the only sign of his efforts.
“Our timing has been wrong this whole time, brother. Watch.” Ender readied himself, and black smoke leaked from his lips, curled around his waist, and drifted around his legs a moment before Ryu would have triggered it. His Twin’s blow left a large dent in the wall.
“I see what you mean. Soul Eater only has one second of use per soul, and I’ve been triggering it too late in my blows,” Ryu said.
“Yes,” Ender said. “And I’ve triggered it too early, I think. And that’s just for punches. What of kicks, knees, and swings of the axe? We have neglected our training too long, thinking ourselves masters of the Technique. It is no wonder you have not achieved Insight and upgraded it.”
Ryu sighed. Always another problem, but then, if gaining power was easy, it would be a pursuit best left to fools and folk too clever to enjoy a challenge. He surveyed the metal sheet, drew in a breath of charming swamp stink, and turned to Ender. “Throw a punch, but slow it down. And don’t use Soul Eater.”
Ender flashed a dangerous smile. “I understand.” He set his feet, twisted his hips, and-
“Stop. There, as you turn your hips.”
His Twin nodded. “Yes, I believe that is the best moment, as well.”
“If we miss, however, the power will be too much. We will overextend and perhaps even stumble forward.” Ryu frowned. Stupid risks killed even the most dangerous of fighters, and he was unwilling to die to such a thing. Much better to die on one’s own terms, he believed. If only death agreed.
“We will be too fast to be dodged,” Ender said.
“Perhaps.” Ryu’s frown did not disappear. It seemed foolish to worry about Technique application while the threat to his people marched in the tunnels outside of his cell, but what was a man to do? Not just any sort of violence could solve problems. No, violence needed to be swift and brutal enough to be unafraid of reprisal to be effective, and Ryu was a man who understood where his talents laid, regardless of his enthusiasm for said talents.
“And what of Headsman, brother? It is a Technique of your own devising, after all.”
“What of it?” Ryu shrugged. “An axe to finish the job. That’s all.”
Ender smiled a crooked grin. “And how injured does an enemy need to be to die under its strength?”
“The intricacies of Headsman are best left until after our escape,” Ryu said, his eyes scanning the swamp. “Best to focus on Soul Eater.”
The mud of the swamp rippled, and the metal wall disappeared. In the center of his Shard Realm, a new wall appeared. A thicker one burst a few feet behind it, and then an even thicker one appeared after that.
“And this is?”
It was Ryu’s turn to smirk, but his lips only twitched. “We’ll get through the first and then the second,” he said, walking up to the third. He rapped on it. “As for the third, well, I’ve heard of Qi-infused steel armor that was like a wall of steel. I can only imagine the carapace of the Eight being stronger.”
Ender barked a laugh, and Ryu realized violence was the thread that tied them together. He surveyed his Shard Twin from the side of his eye. Ever since the Technique Battle for Headsman, Ender had seemed… subdued, but Ryu’s bloodlust and confidence had only grown. Curious, that.
It was a shame, then, that curiosity killed as many men as stupid risks. Ryu needed his edge now more than ever, and if he honed his and dulled Ender’s, then so what? It was a problem he’d leave to his future self. After he escaped.