The training dummy shattered into splinters when it hit the wall. Lethaltooth maintained her stance, her chest heaving and her fists aching. She had lost track of how long she had been training. It had at least been through the night.
She had lost her edge. She should have known, after two decades of raising children instead of slitting throats. She was fine in a fight, but fights were not the only things to be concerned about. It wasn’t a fight that caused her husband to be arrested by Clan Sasaki enforcers, and it wasn’t a fight that caused her son to be kidnapped by another enforcer. Ambushes and shakedowns. Things she should have been able to prevent.
She turned to the next training dummy. Destroying them wouldn’t actually help sharpen her senses, but it would help her process just how utterly furious she was.
There are inconsistencies, Haruko had signed when she showed the flash drive’s contents to Lethaltooth and Silentsign. In the message between those who are presumably Asaki and Nobuko, Asaki says that she knows that Takahiko can’t be brought back. But in the video, she is ranting about learning necromancy. The books in the second video are genuine necromantic texts in Innistradi, but why would Asaki buy books that she can’t read?
Her fist met the wooden training dummy. It was easier to repair and strengthen wooden objects with magic than to get the higher-tech or fancier options. Splinters were easier to pick out of injured skin than shards of metal.
And why was that camera set up in that room to catch the two women having a discussion? Silentsign had asked afterwards. How would they not know it was there? Why wouldn’t they turn it off? Especially if it was this incriminating.
She spun and kicked the training dummy, sending it into the wall of the training yard. Once more, her chest heaved from the exertion. She was...how old was she now? Sixty-eight, sixty-nine years old? Maybe she was seventy already? It was hard to remember. Ayame had always been the one to keep count, and she had been dead for eighteen years now.
This whole thing was set up by someone, Lethaltooth had agreed. Even if it’s not Hanzo, clearly he benefits from this mess, so anyone who wants him to gain leverage on Koda is equally suspect.
Another training dummy was reduced to splinters before Lethaltooth was even aware that she had set it up to take it down. Her shoulders slumped slightly. Her anger had been burned. She was just leaning on the same skills, the same magic, the same training. And that clearly wasn’t cutting it. With the multiverse opening up more broadly, sticking to the magic and talents of one particular plane was going to leave her with more and more blind spots. She needed to...
She needed to do what her son did. She had traveled several planes as of late, but she hadn’t actually used anything from them. She needed to take what she could learn from other planes and use them to protect her family. Much like items in the Kit that had been handed down to her son. If she still had the Kit herself, maybe this wouldn’t have happened...or she could make people pay for it faster. But she would not derive her son of that tool. Not when he needed it most now.
She had a few options. There were cycling Omenpaths nearby that led to Eldraine, Theros, and – far more rarely – Odithis. There was one in Arán Park that led to Arcavios, specifically to the basement of Strixhaven University’s first-year dorms, which was under constant watch and protection by the Dokuchi because those poor kids did not need the stress of random people showing up in the basement. There was also the Thunder Junction Omenpath over on Hyozan turf.
But the one that drew her attention most was the New Capennan Omenpath on Dokuchi turf. The one that was controlled by the gang on the Towashi side and the Brokers on the other. Her son had done a damn good job as Dokuchi boss of making sure that the Brokers knew their place and didn’t try pushing through anymore. It was a tense and uneasy truce. Every truce was tense and uneasy, that’s what made it a truce instead of peace.
She made her decision and headed back inside to inform her husband.
New Capenna was bright, but in a distinctly different way from how bright Towashi was. Towashi was brightly-lit by neon lights and hologram advertisements. New Capenna was lit only by the sun in the spot where the Omenpath connecting them lay. The few Brokers keeping an eye on it saw the serpentine design of the wax seal on her “papers” and knew better than to ask questions. That was a good thing from whatever deal her son had come to with their boss.
Lethaltooth brought up the 3D map of New Capenna that had been built into her gauntlet’s tech. She had plenty of places to investigate, explore, and, most importantly, source proper additions to a new Kit from. From where she stood, she knew that the most promising tools would be found in the lower levels of this city, the “Caldaia”. She could probably figure out a way down from here...
Her gaze drifted over to a nearby train stop. That would be much faster if the trains going from Towashi to Eigan Town or Sokenzanshi were comparable to the ones here. Her pocket was decently weighted with some of the Halo that the Dokuchi had acquired from the Mukotai after that gang’s collapse, to say nothing of the more casual currency that she had converted from the kinsen given to her by her son. Reparations to our gang from the noble bastards who bled us, he had said.
She approached the ticket master, a leonin who looked as exhausted as she felt, and spoke with him briefly before handing over an appropriately-sized bottle of Halo. His eyes widened as he examined it, but he gave her a ticket – first-class seating, she noticed – and let her on board. She cursed under her breath in her first language and resolved to figure out how money worked here so she didn’t overpay again.
That regret, however, immediately disappeared when she sat down in a first-class seat and let out a low sigh as her old bones relaxed into the soft cushion. Okay, maybe there was a benefit to getting a more expensive seat. Especially since she could look out of the window and analyze buildings as the train went by.
Once the train started moving, it didn’t take long for the scenery to shift from a sunlit cityscape to a darker, fire-and-electricity-lit industrial city heart. This is what actually kept a city running so that the shining facade above could keep going. This was New Capenna’s equivalent of Towashi’s Undercity. This was where the working class spent their lives and this was where the most practical structures existed.
Lethaltooth stepped off of the train carefully. The buildings were primarily factories, warehouses, and apartment buildings, but there were other buildings carved out of the practical and turned into places for the everyday worker to grab a meal. Even the layout felt like the Undercity, with alleyways snaking between buildings. She saw humans down here, naturally, but also people that she recognized from descriptions as devils, viashino, and rhox. It was pleasant to not be the shortest one around, though she knew she was drawing attention as a lone nezumi wearing armor under a coat.
The cold temperature was probably the most unexpected part of New Capenna. Towashi’s weather was always mild and occasionally rain battered the layer between the Undercity and the “normal” upper city. But even down in the Caldaia, snowdrifts were shoveled up off of the sidewalks and roads.
Snow had even been cleared off of sturdy concrete benches scattered about. Lethaltooth settled down on one, sighed, and rubbed her face. She would get back up in a moment to start her search for supplies for a new Kit, but she was already growing tired. The downside of aging, though she was lucky to have lived this long to begin with.
At least she was not alone. An aged rhox with an impressive beard sat down on the bench with a soft sigh as well. The sturdy concrete had no complaint about either occupant.
“Long day?” the rhox asked, leaning back against the bench. Lethaltooth noted that they had a cane that seemed decently weighty. Good, it was important to have a weapon for self-defense. Lethaltooth herself was carrying a quick-draw katana hilt and some blinding powder, for example.
“Long month,” she admitted with a weary nod.
“Ah, I’ve had a few dozen of those.” The rhox pat the chest of their shirt and found a box of cigars in their pocket. They withdrew one and used a small spell to light the end. Based on the way it glowed, it seemed like there was Halo worked into it, which was very strange to think about when Lethaltooth remembered that Halo was a liquid. “Comes with being a single parent in my case. What about yours?”
“Not a single parent, but...” A pause. How much should she trust this stranger? “...Not a whole familial unit. Not like we wanted.” She sighed softly. “And with my children – particularly my older son – winding up in more danger... It’s frustrating since I can’t help them as much as I would have been able to ten or twenty years ago.”
They nodded and offered her a cigar as well. “As you get older, you need to change how you do things. Works for combat and protection just like everything else.”
She politely turned down the cigar. She had smoked more than enough in her youth; it was still evident in her voice. “That’s part of why I’m in this city. I can pray to the kami all I want, but ultimately I need something new to protect my family.”
The rhox tucked the cigar away and took a long drag from their own. “Can’t say I’m particularly familiar with ‘kami’, but it’s good to have someone keeping an eye on you while you watch out for yours. My child looks out for me as much as I look out for them, for instance. And it’s been a while since the people in this city have needed either of us, but... We still remain. That’s more than can be said about some of our contemporaries.”
Lethaltooth’s right ear twitched. She was familiar with the idea of kami taking on the forms of mortals. Perhaps spirits of other planes did the same. “What’s your child like?”
They smiled. “They are kind. They help at one of the soup kitchens down here. Making sure people get the food that they need, even if they can’t pay for all of it.”
That reminded her of her own children. All of them – Goldenscar, Koda, Ghostmark, and now Vasro – wanted to do their best to help people even outside of the scope of the family and the gang. Goldenscar and Koda both found it through working at Jinja Dokuchi, Ghostmark found it through repairing technology for people around the neighborhood, and Vasro found it through fixing problems for everyone in whatever ways he could. And she was proud of all four of them.
“What about your own?” the rhox asked, the conversation still moving forward as it should.
“My husband and I have four. Two sons and two daughters.” And also Satoru, but that was because Ayame had mentored him when he was still a teenager. She didn’t want to get into Ayame’s death with a stranger. “Our older two are first-rank kami priests and head one of the neighborhood shrines. Our younger son is a fixer of many things. And our youngest daughter helps make sure that things run smoothly in the neighborhood.” No need to bring up the criminal gang binding them all.
“Four! Goodness, you and your husband must have your hands full. How old are they?”
“Let’s see...Goldenscar just turned thirty-one, Koda is twenty-three, and Vasro and Ghostmark both just turned twenty-two. That’s to say nothing of all twenty of the children we raise through the orphanage, their ages range between three and twelve years.”
The rhox smiled. “Twenty orphans! Your family does so much, no wonder you’re so worried about them all. Especially as young as most of them are.”
Lethaltooth nodded. “We’ve made things work for years. We...finally got a break, so we have enough money to not just survive, but get the kids things that they want in addition to what they need. But still...I feel like if we get too comfortable, we’ll lose it and be back to bare minimum for survival again.” She sighed. “I feel like just buying a train ticket instead of walking down here was already too much, considering I can barely wrap my head around the idea of a liquid currency.”
“It is difficult to keep track of. My child manages to keep track of our finances without too much issue, but it’s still another thing on the ever-growing list.” The rhox paused. “You seem as though you need help from outside of your family to help keep them safe.”
“Help from who?” Lethaltooth asked rhetorically, leaning back against the concrete bench with a sigh. Getting up was going to suck. “The Imperial Court should never be trusted, even with my older son trying to change things for all of us. The rest of our...more extended family...are all struggling with their own things and relying on each other. It feels as though...”
“...As though you are alone to defend the hearth and home,” the rhox finished, their voice gentle and understanding.
She nodded slowly, staring up at the “roof” of the Caldaia rather than looking at the rhox. “Yes. It’s my family, but even we can’t always protect ourselves. Especially...” She swallowed a lump that was trying to build in her throat. “Especially with everything in the multiverse opening up this much. The threats have increased, but our ability to defend ourselves hasn’t. Add onto that the fact that I’m getting up in years, and...” Her voice cracked. “I can’t lose them. Not to people that I can take out first.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the rhox tilt their head. “You’re an assassin, then? You speak like one of those...what are they called nowadays...Maestros.”
Lethaltooth’s whiskers twitched. She finally looked at the rhox again to answer their question. “Talk about losing my edge... Yes. Retired. Been retired for a little under two decades now. Though I think I never should have done that to begin with. If I were still an active assassin...” She sighed again. “If I were still active, then maybe my elder son would not have been kidnapped by the family of one of his ‘suitors’. I could have slit all of their throats just for coming up with such a stupid, foolish, twisted idea.” Anger coiled in her gut once more like a viper ready to lash out.
The rhox nodded sympathetically. “And so you’re here to find something that could help.”
“Exactly. Something that I can use to keep my family safe. Tools, weapons, tech, magic, anything that will...” She took a deep breath. “Anything that will help me regain the skill and strength I had but twenty years ago.”
“...I have often felt the same way, though things are different for myself and my child. Long gone are the years when we had champions among the mortals.” The rhox finally took another drag of their cigar. “We were always worshiped as a pair, you see. There were no grand temples, just simple household shrines.”
Lethaltooth’s right ear twitched again. “Are you kami?” she finally asked.
“No,” the rhox denied with a small, secretive smile. They were still warm and comforting. They were a fellow parent looking out for their family, after all. “But we served a similar role. Old gods, now forgotten by most, still around thanks to the fact that the people of the city do still need us. Even if they have forgotten our names.”
An old god. From her own son’s travels and her own assembling of the initial Kit, Lethaltooth knew that gods sometimes served the same roles as kami on other planes – though typically they functioned more as myojin than the very personal neighborhood kami or even the Guardian Dragons.
But something still made Lethaltooth wary. After all, where there were kami, there were oni. And if gods served the functions of a kami, perhaps they also served a similar role to oni as well. Tread lightly. That had kept her and her family – minus Ayame, whose death was still her greatest failure – alive thus far.
“What was your role, back then?” she asked. Nostalgia usually got most people talking. It had just worked on her, after all.
“The hearth and the home. Of course, not everyone agreed which of us represented which during the time we were worshiped, but nowadays I’m the god of hearth and my child is the god of home.” Another drag on the cigar. The rhox was still peaceful. “I am the light left on so the house is not dark upon one’s return, the wafting scent from the kitchen, the chores completed before nightfall. I may not have a name to be referred to by anymore, but I still have that.”
Lethaltooth’s left ear twitched. Footsteps approaching on the concrete. Or rather, the clacking of hooves. A devil, around Lethaltooth’s height but much closer to her younger three children in age, was approaching the two. They still wore a simple shirt and a simple pair of trousers with suspenders. Their black hair was tied back out of their face. Their warm brown eyes widened a little in surprise when they saw Lethaltooth sitting with the rhox.
“This is my child,” the rhox said, gesturing to the devil with their cane. “The god of home, the work that goes into keeping the lights on and food in the fridge.”
The devil offered a nervous smile that reminded Lethaltooth of Ghostmark. “Greetings, ma’am,” they said with a small bow, as though Lethaltooth were the powerful being worthy of reverence here.
“A pleasure to meet you both.” Lethaltooth chose her words carefully. “I am Lethaltooth of Kagemachi in Towashi.”
“Lethaltooth,” the rhox repeated. “A very pointed name for a former assassin. Did you pick it yourself? That is common in this city now.”
“Of course. I chose several names through my life before settling on this one.” She smiled bitterly. “It’s something of a last line of defense for me nowadays.”
The devil looked to their parent. The rhox merely nodded once. It was the silent conversation of close family. Lethaltooth had often communicated similarly with both Ayame and Silentsign.
Finally, the devil spoke. “Can we help?”
Lethaltooth’s right ear twitched. Suspicion naturally colored her voice. “In what way?”
“We are not as powerful as we used to be,” the rhox began, “but we can still give our blessings and favors to mortals who act in the ways that we once did. We protected the hearth and home, and you seek to do the same.”
“...What’s the cost?”
“If we require help with protecting our home, we would like you to assist,” the God of Home piped up. “Especially on the personal side.”
“And,” the God of Hearth added, “if we were to visit your home, we would like to be welcomed in. Our hearth shall be yours as well.”
That was...simple. Almost alarmingly so. Deals that were too good to be true had colored many of the Dokuchi Reckoners’ early days as a gang under Bosses Hail-Fur and Puddlepaw. Deals with other gangs that turned into bad blood. And Boss Mazene following them up hadn’t helped in any case.
But...this was exactly what Lethaltooth needed. Something new, someone watching her back, so she could protect her family. These gods were not asking for bloody sacrifices like an oni. They were merely asking for the very thing her family already practiced: the welcoming of friends into their home. It wouldn’t even be the first time that gods from another plane came to visit. And if they upheld their end of this bargain.
She looked between the two gods, rhox and devil. “I accept.”
The rhox smiled warmly. The devil looked relieved. It was the devil, the God of Home, who spoke. “Then we grant you our boon.” They reached behind themself. It felt as though the fragile strings of reality twisted for a moment, like they did before a merge point manifested in Towashi’s cluttered streets.
But instead of two realms becoming one, a sword was drawn and offered with reverence.
It looked nothing like a katana or a wakizashi or any other sword from Kamigawa, instead bringing the swords of Odithis to Lethaltooth’s mind. It was greenish and golden and felt just as warm as the gods granting it. Intricate knotwork, or perhaps they were vines, were the main feature of the pommel and crossguard and ricasso. The knotwork of the ricasso led to two blades, each sharp-edged and mirroring each other, yet with a split where the fuller would have been. The grip was black leather carefully woven and wrapped, bringing a much-needed darkness to the otherwise-blinding blade.
Lethaltooth’s hand wrapped around the blade’s grip. There was power there, a power that she had never learned to wield yet one that felt familiar and comforting. Open sun-lit fields, a fresh breeze coiling through shaded forests, a fire burning in a fireplace and a forge.The serpentine tattoos on her arms animated, coiling beneath her fur. She welcomed all of it and felt the sword welcome her. She pulled the sword close to examine its most intricate details. As she did so, vines of light trailed after the sword for a moment after each move. Her right ear twitched again as one of the gods spoke.
“You will never be truly disarmed of this weapon,” the God of Hearth promised with a soft nod to her. “If it leaves your hand, you can recall it. You can also alter its appearance as you wish, but only in the form of a sword. We are not gods of warfare or the forge, after all.”
“Its magic will help you protect people, too,” the God of Home said. They shoved their hands in their pockets and scuffed the sidewalk with their hoof. “It can help you channel general magic involving the hearth and home, like magic that helps boost a garden or other natural stuff that creates food for people to eat. Oh, and vine growth, that’s probably the best offense stuff it can do besides...being a sword. It can also take the place of a lighter if you don’t have one and you’re trying to start a fire in a camp or home. And! Do you see the wisps of light there?” Once she nodded, they continued. “If you use that to grab someone, you can teleport them back somewhere safely behind you to get them out of the way.” They barely paused for a breath as they spoke. It reminded Lethaltooth of Vasro and the time he had explained Capennan combat instruments and their full illegality (instead of, he had stressed, their current mostly-illegal state) for a hundred years.
“Thank you,” Lethaltooth whispered, still examining the sword. “Both of you.”
There was another warm smile given to her from the rhox, the God of Hearth. “Of course. Good luck to you, Lethaltooth. We will be aiding as we can.” Then there was another slight warp in reality. Lethaltooth kept her gaze on the sword until the two gods had fully vanished. They deserved their dramatic exit, after all.
She had found exactly what she had been looking for. The beginnings of the new Kit.
You sat at the dining room table across from your father. Or, well, across from one of them. Silentsign, Pops, your nezumi dad. He smiled at you, and you smiled back, even though everything that was coming up made your stomach twist into knots. Toshiro the mastiff – not much of a puppy anymore – snoozed by your feet.
You raised your hands and signed. Nezumi sign language took a bit more effort for you than for a nezumi. “I’ve made an arrangement so you have a second watching your back during the next suitor party.” You didn’t want to have another suitor party. Or the inevitable third one. But work was work, and this was part of the price you were paying. At least you could be sure that your dad would be safe. You’d handle the payment later.
Pops tilted his head. You watched his clipped ear twitch as he signed. Ears, whiskers, tail, hands. The four main things to watch in nezumi sign language. “Who are they?”
“Renaissance of the Maestros. New Capennan. Very skilled assassin.” They were older than you in the same field of work as your parents used to be in. “Planeswalker. Professional.”
You had already asked Renaissance and confirmed this with them. Thank you for trusting me with this task, they had said over text. Trust. You supposed you were trusting them more than you trusted most business acquaintances. Or even your own family at times.
“I’d like to meet them so I can see how well I can work with them,” Pops signed back. “If you trust them, I will be nice.”
You nodded. “I’ll make the arrangements,” you promised. You looked up when you heard a knock on the door and then heard it open. “That must be Lily. She said she wanted to come by tonight. Excuse me.” After Pops nodded, you got up and gently prodded Toshiro with your foot to wake him up. He stretched and yawned, then padded after you as you slipped out of the kitchen and into the front hall.
Lily was waiting for you. She clearly had the family spark back based on the renewed confidence in her step. She still wore that same blend of robes and armor that you had come to consider her personal uniform. And she had...something wrapped in cloth in her arms.
You just gave her a side hug. “Hey Lily,” you whispered, letting some of your exhaustion slip into your voice. “Thanks for coming by. What did you want to talk about?”
She closed her eyes and let out a soft, exhausted sigh of her own for a moment within the hug, then perked back up. “A few things, but first, sit down so I can give you this.” She held up the thing in her arms.
You smiled and shook your head before you sat down as directed. “Do you want me to close my eyes and hold out my hands too?” you teased.
“That is entirely up to you.”
You opted not to and let the goddess gently set the bundle down in your lap. It was decently hefty, so you unwrapped the cloth with care. You inhaled when you saw the first bit of bone. Serpentine structure, no teeth, horns that curled just like the body and tail of the living being had.
You swallowed and gently held up the Thyrsian dragon skull. It was easily the size of a small dog. “Lily, this is...” You trailed off. You gently ran a thumb across the lower jaw of the skull.
She held up a hand. “I know that you have specific things you do to ask the skull spirit for permission for skull scrying,” she said. “But I figured that if anyone could blend the talents of skull scrying with knowledge of Thyrsian dragons, it would be you.”
You swallowed and gently set the skull back in your lap. “Thank you, Lily.” You didn’t know what else to say as you gazed at the skull in your hands and gently ran a thumb around the curve of one of its horns.
She sat down next to you. “You’re welcome, Koda.” She reached into one of the various pockets of her robes. If it were anyone else right now, you would have expected a weapon. But you knew that Lily didn’t keep weapons in her pockets. You were still confused when she removed a bag from her pocket and opened it to reveal the teeth that were meant to be part of the skull. “As you know, in Thyrsus, the teeth of dragons can be sown to create soldiers matching the species of the one who sows them. I also know that you have a strong aversion to the idea of creating people specifically to be soldiers.”
That you did, given what the Imperial Court and the noble families did to their clones. To ones like Redlash and the newly-named Quickpaw. To anyone they found useful enough to repeat over and over until the clones’ bodies gave out.
You also knew just how dangerous the Spartoi were when they first sprouted. They were aggressive and lashed out violently until the one who had sown them either calmed or killed them. It took several months in a one-on-one setting to help a Spartoi learn how to live, communicate, and work with others in combat rather than striking alone. This necessity for time, patience, and one-to-one training was why you had not mentioned this particularity of Thyrsus’s native dragons and their teeth to your vampiric fathers when the question of manpower ever came up.
“I am not asking you to help,” Lily said softly, “but I wanted to ask for your thoughts on what might happen if we changed the variables. A non-Thyrsian sowing the teeth in Thyrsian soil. A Thyrsian sowing the teeth in non-Thyrsian soil. A non-Thyrsian sowing the teeth in non-Thyrsian soil.”
You leaned back and tried to focus solely on the theoretical. “The way I see it, you have several other variables to consider, such as how close another plane is to Thyrsus both magically and in terms of placement in the Blind Eternities, or if the non-Thyrsian is of a species similar to a Thyrsian one or not.”
Lily was listening intently. The two of you had spent several years now going back and forth on magical theory and spell work. You both enjoyed the chance to poke holes into each other’s works.
“So what you’re actually testing is the similarity between a plane’s overall magic balance to see if you can replicate the results on another plane and whether the dragon tooth is capable of copying a non-Thyrsian species or if the cultural memory of the plane’s dragons will only create Spartoi from Thyrsians.” You paused. “But most of the mortal species were created after the Progenitor Dragon and Progenitor Hydra, right?”
She nodded. “Mythologically speaking, yes. And every mortal species of Thyrsus, including the gorgons and nymphai and lotus feeders, can create Spartoi matching them.”
You didn’t like what you were going to say next. But you needed to be honest. “This seems like something you’d have to actually test instead of leaving it in the theoretical.”
Lily remained quiet for a few moments. “...I’m aware,” she finally said. “I just didn’t want you to think that I was going into this without thinking.”
You snorted. “I don’t think I can accuse you of not thinking, Lily. Maybe I can accuse you of not knowing everything, but you do try to actually think about things.”
She laughed. It was an unsteady yet familiar sound. One that she had been trying to make more consistently ever since the two of you first met in Odithis several years back when you stole a kill from her. “Thank you, Koda. It’s nice to be able to speak with you about these things. You always find the blindspot.”
“I’d be a pretty shit assassin if I couldn’t.”
She put the teeth back into the bag. “...Would you like these?” she finally offered.
You had figured this question, this offer, had been coming. You wordlessly held out your hand, palm up. Once she deposited it in your grasp, you gently closed your fingers around it. You felt the teeth within. There were forty-six of various sizes and shapes. You could almost completely restore the Dokuchi Reckoners to pre-Phyrexian Invasion numbers if this worked.
But you just tucked the teeth away in the pocket of your armor. “Anything else you wanna talk about?” you prompted.
Lily fidgeted with her sleeve for a moment while she put the words together. “Cinder’s traveling without the spark.”
“Funny enough, so is Mum.” You weren’t too sure why your mother had decided to strike off on another trip, especially without Pops, but you knew better than to ask. “Maybe they’ll run into each other.”
Another laugh. “That would be something. The Exactor of Justice and the scariest woman I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. Like one of those stories you told me about mountain ronin with their sidekicks that they can’t get rid of. Except it’s my brother that’s the sidekick.” Lily finally stood up. “I’m pretty sure that’s everything, but I’ll text you if I think of something else. Have fun with your new skull friend.”
“I will,” you said with a nod. “Keep your own ass covered, Lily.”
She stepped outside of the door and planeswalked away in the familiar flurry of pages. You gently picked up the dragon skull again to stare into its empty eye sockets. “...You and I are going to become very good friends, Ismenios,” you whispered to it.
Within the bone, you felt the skull spirit awaken.
A late-night walk was never a safe thing for anyone in Towashi, regardless of one’s faction affiliation. Despite knowing this, Silentsign slipped through the alleyways and paused at small plants breaking through the cracks and taking their chances at growth. It was peaceful. These quiet moments of personal study were his favorite part of being in the city. Of course, every moment was quiet for the nezumi man.
He was only a few alleys away from the Cherry Blossom Orphanage when he was aware of an issue. He had seen movement ahead. He pressed himself close to the wall and crept forward to investigate.
The Undercity’s neon lights reflected easily off of the white armor of the Imperial enforcers on the street. They seemed to be searching for something, and the nezumi that typically lived on this street had taken cover to hide. The silver accents of their armor and the red sashes made it clear that these enforcers were here by orders of Clan Sasaki. They were wearing full helmets and masks, making it impossible for Silentsign to tell if they were saying anything.
Silentsign’s eyes narrowed. Clan Sasaki had recently lost one of their scions, Takahiko, because he had made the mistake of kidnapping Reckoners to torture and do...well, frankly, Silentsign didn’t know what else. And while the attack to rescue some Reckoners had led to Takahiko’s death, it seemed as though they were trying to tie it back to the Dokuchi Reckoners.
His fur bristled angrily when one of the enforcers grabbed the arm of a younger nezumi. Fear was clear on the boy’s face as the enforcer spoke to him. He recognized the boy as Chippedtooth. Chippedtooth’s mother worked in the marketplace on Okiba turf, and his father was an electrician that Silentsign had contracted to help with the lights in the orphanage before Koda learned how to do it. Whatever was going on, Silentsign refused to stand by while a child was being threatened. His options were simple: either attack and hope that Chippedtooth could get away in time without getting hurt, or step out and make himself a more notable target for arrest. But the former still put the child in danger.
So with his wakizashi still sheathed, Silentsign stepped out into the neon street.
The enforcer who was speaking to Chippedtooth turned in time to see Silentsign – or maybe only his obvious Reckoner tattoos on his bare arms – and let go of the child in favor of approaching the older nezumi aggressively. His hand grabbed Silentsign’s right arm with enough force to bruise outright. His jaw moved under his mask.
Slowly, so he wasn’t assumed to be reaching for a weapon or preparing a spell, Silentsign raised a hand to his left ear with a missing chunk out of the tip and tapped it twice. It was a fairly universal sign to indicate deafness across all of the sign languages in Kamigawa.
The enforcer’s eyes narrowed, but he turned and seemed to call out. Another enforcer came over with her own weapons still sheathed. Based on the differences in her helm, this one was a clone, and Silentsign briefly felt bad for her. He wasn’t surprised that Clan Sasaki used clone enforcers alongside non-clones. Those damn machines were possibly the worst things that the Saiba Futurists ever made.
The clone enforcer signed in the Kamigawan standard sign language. “I am Batch 593 Clone 354. You are being brought in for questioning by the authority of Clan Sasaki regarding the death of the young lord Takahiko Sasaki and its connection to the Reckoner gangs of Towashi.”
Silentsign used his free hand to sign. “Understood.” Chippedtooth had escaped, as had the rest of the nezumi who had been questioned. He had succeeded. He could deal with the consequences himself.
Clan Sasaki had a holding facility in Towashi. Silentsign wasn’t surprised – many of the richer Imperial noble clans did, after all – but he was surprised by how dark it was inside. Previous Imperial jails and prisons he had been in (and gotten out of, naturally) had been blindingly white and sterile enough to make even a Futurist scientist want to track muddy boots in. But the Sasaki facility was dark and dim, not standing out from any other building in the Undercity.
That made it more dangerous.
Silentsign was sitting in a room with his hands cuffed to the table. There was enough chain to move if he needed to sign, but not enough to weaponize. His sword had been taken from him but he hadn’t been searched any more thoroughly than that. Tucked into an inner pocket of his shirt was a communicator, so if he could just get to that, he could update Lethaltooth about what was going on.
The door opened. Batch 593 Clone 354 stepped through first, then stepped aside and held the door open for another enforcer, this one without a helmet or mask. The other enforcer sat down in the chair across the table from Silentsign and spoke.
He squinted at their mouth to try and make out the words. He recognized a few words – Reckoner, Sasaki, kill – but couldn’t make out much more. He raised his left hand a little from the table and tilted his head. It was the closest he could get to signing to indicate his deafness again at the moment.
The enforcer scowled and turned to speak to the clone woman. She didn’t even blink despite their agitation and just stepped forward to sign. Silentsign kept his gaze on her hands as she signed in Kamigawan standard. “Clan Sasaki is demanding information on which Dokuchi Reckoners were responsible for the death of Takahiko Sasaki and the escape of Clan Sasaki’s prisoners.”
Clan Sasaki’s prisoners. What a diplomatic way to say what was actually happening down there. But Silentsign wasn’t surprised. There was a reason so many Imperials didn’t consider Reckoners, nezumi, akki, and ogres to be people.
Silentsign tried to raise his hands to respond, but found the chain too short to effectively make any standard Kamigawan signs. But he still tried. “The Dokuchi Reckoners were not among the gangs captured. What makes you believe we were involved?”
The clone’s lips moved as she translated this for her superior. They scowled and shouted something, making the clone flinch. Silentsign carefully kept his expression neutral. The clone signed again. “Security footage captured serpent tattoos just before the cameras were taken down. The Dokuchi Reckoners are the gang who use snakes for their tattoo magic.”
“We’re only one gang who does so,” Silentsign corrected. “There are fourteen different Reckoner gangs who have snake tattoos.”
Upon being translated for the enforcer, they stood up from their chair, walked around the table, grabbed Silentsign by the back of the head, and smashed his nose into the steel. Silentsign grimaced slightly but stayed still until the enforcer sat back down. He raised his head to watch the hands of the clone enforcer, who now seemed far more nervous. Or at least, Silentsign assumed she was. It was still hard for him to read human body language. She listened to her superior, then signed again. “It will be easier for you if you just tell us what we want to know. Which Dokuchi Reckoners were involved in the young lord Takahiko Sasaki’s death?”
Easier. How many Reckoners heard that just before they were killed in Imperial prisons like this one? How many of Takahiko’s own victims were promised that things would be “easier” before he tortured them?
Silentsign responded. “The Dokuchi Reckoners were not involved in Takahiko Sasaki’s death.”
The enforcer threw their hands up and stormed out of the interrogation room once it was translated. Silentsign watched them leave. He ignored the blood dripping from his snout. Then he turned his attention back to the clone enforcer.
Her jaw worked for a moment before she signed again. “I’m sorry. I will try to make sure you get legal representation.” Legal representation. The phrase would have made him laugh if he knew how to do that. Silentsign assumed she was new, if she wasn’t jaded by how things actually worked among the Imperial Court’s noble clans.
Part of Silentsign was bitter about his son, Lethaltooth’s son, Ayame’s son, taking a place as the head of a noble house. But, he reminded himself, it was part of an effort to make things better in Kamigawa for everyone. A misguided effort if you asked Silentsign, but an effort nonetheless. It certainly put life back in the favor of Reckoners more than Lethaltooth and Silentsign’s last mission as Dokuchi Reckoners.
Once the clone enforcer left, Silentsign closed his eyes and crossed his legs in the chair, opting to meditate. He focused and tapped into the Serpent. Or rather, the memories stored within it. He went through his previous escapes from Imperial facilities. It had been many years, and there wasn’t much that could help right now. So he pivoted to the memories that Cunning and Moonshade had contributed from the very attack on Takahiko’s home prison that he was being interrogated about.
The most jarring difference, as always, was being able to hear.
Silentsign had been deaf from birth. His memories stored in the Serpent were similarly silent. But when tapping into the memories of others, he finally heard. And based on how much of it was the sound of metal meeting flesh, things being torn or crushed, and lots of yelling and screaming, he couldn’t say he was missing out on most of it. He focused on the visuals – seen through Moonshade’s eyes – as she, Cunning, Victory, and Vasro attacked the manor. The manor’s hallways were more like this holding facility’s, dark and narrower than was standard.
Silentsign then turned his memory from the Serpent and towards the way he had been brought in. He traced it back to get back to the door leading to the alleyway behind the building. Alleyway-facing doors on Imperial Court holding facilities were standard. It was always easier to make a Reckoner disappear if you never brought them through the front door, after all.
He pondered his options. Option one was to stay in the interrogation room. Option two was to escape quietly. No matter which happened, Clan Sasaki would definitely keep hunting for Dokuchi Reckoners – and Reckoners of other gangs – until they got their “revenge” on the gang for Takahiko’s death. Though, thinking about it, Silentsign figured that it was more about the escape of so many prisoners than it was about one particular scion.
He made his decision.
He took a deep breath. He flexed his hands. Then, like only a trained assassin could, he went loose in the hands and slipped out of the cuffs. He wiped his bloody nose on the back of his left hand and slid down out of the chair and to the floor. The door was unlocked, which made him more alert. The Imperial Court’s enforcers were often sloppy and vicious, but they weren’t complete idiots. This could reasonably be plausible deniability for killing Reckoners who “attempted to escape”, knowing how things were when Clan Hayashi was calling the shots.
Regardless, Silentsign slipped out into the hallway and investigated. There were other interrogation rooms in this hallway, then an evidence room where he reclaimed his wakizashi, and finally he was among the holding cells that he had been dragged past. He peered into a few and was glad to see that they were empty. That was one less issue that he would have to deal with.
He kept an eye out for enforcers as he crept through the halls. Modern security buildings had quiet alarms with no light indicator. He kept glancing over his shoulder just in case.
And it was a good thing that he did. An intercessor turned the corner with their staff already up and a furious look on their face. Their mouth moved like they were shouting something just before they gestured broadly with their staff. Silentsign spun and drew his wakizashi in time to slice through the ofuda-like magic. Some of it got past his blade.
The pain was searing and tore at him without drawing blood, but Silentsign grit his teeth and kept retreating down the hall. He needed to get to the door leading back outside.
Another wave of intercessor magic hit him. His breathing hitched from the pain as it passed through him. He stumbled. His right shoulder hit the wall. He felt a crackle in his pocket from the communicator. He scrambled to quickly fish it out before it tried to electrocute him. He fumbled and nearly dropped it. It crackled again, then something jumped from the communicator to a wall outlet beside him.
Silentsign looked over his shoulder at the intercessor in time to watch arms made of energy burst down from the ceiling, wrap around the intercessor, and go off, plunging the entire building into darkness and dropping the now-fried body to the ground.
Glad that wasn’t me. Silentsign looked down at his communicator again when a burst of power jumped from the wall socket and back into it without harming him. He quickly typed a Hello? into the text bar, then forced himself back up to his feet and kept running.
He ducked around a corner and checked the device again, finding his message deleted and replaced with a response from...whatever was in the communicator. Who are you?
A simple question. Silentsign deleted it and typed his response. Silentsign of the Dokuchi. And you? Then he tucked it away and kept moving. He wasn’t too far from the back door, just a few more halls away.
Silentsign slid to a stop when he saw two enforcers in front of him in the darkness, their swords lit up with yellow light; kami magic, undoubtedly. The interrogator and Batch 593 Clone 354. He held his wakizashi out in front of him and took a deep breath. The blade glowed purple as he reached up to his ancestral kami for aid. The nezumi that had come before him in Towashi’s streets gave their power.
The interrogator struck first. They charged and swung low to hit him. He jumped up over the blade and brought his wakizashi down, but they raised their gauntlet and blocked the blow. In the corner of Silentsign’s eye, he saw the clone hesitating. The interrogator seemed to shout at her before they swung at Silentsign again, cutting down on his options for dodging away or backtracking. Even whatever power was in the communicator didn’t seem to be able to do much at the moment.
He blocked and retaliated as much as he was able. But his years had been catching up to him.
Silentsign’s back hit the wall.
The interrogator’s blade swung down.
He raised his sword to block the last blow.
And another sword sprouted from the interrogator’s chest.
The interrogator gasped for breath just before the blade was ripped out and they were kicked to the ground. Behind them, the clone stood, her eyes wide and her blade stained with Imperial blood.
Silentsign slowly lowered his blade and raised a hand to sign. “Why?”
“Call me crazy,” the clone signed with a trembling hand, “but I don’t think the ‘good guys’ beat up an old man, regardless of whether or not he was involved in the death of a nobleman.”
So she did still have that young naivety. She couldn’t have been too old then, regardless of the age that the original her had been. Silentsign briefly wondered if this was why Kaizen had rescued Redlash. There was something so strange about looking at an Imperial enforcer, realizing they’re a clone of a grown adult, and then realizing that they were only a few years out of the cloning machine.
Either way, he signed again. “Then let’s leave. They won’t find you if you come with me.”
She hesitated and looked around. He watched several expressions cross her face – fear, regret, anxiety – until she settled on something resembling determination. She nodded. “Lead the way.”
Silentsign nodded back and pushed away from the wall. He headed down the hall towards the way out again, this time with the clone following him.
Once they made it out to the alleyway behind the building, instead of heading towards the street, he led the way deeper into the darkness where even the neon lights didn’t touch. Only once they were far away from the prison-like building did he check the communicator again. He found a new message waiting for him. I am Frank, an escapee from Duskmourn. Are we safe?
Yes, he typed back. The intercessor that hurt me and seemed to hit you is dead. Thank you for your help.
He watched as the response was slowly typed by whatever it was that was inside of the communicator. That hurt too much. Will they do that again?
Only if they catch us, and I don’t see that happening again for a while. Losing an entire building to electrical failure, alongside losing an intercessor and an interrogator, put Clan Sasaki back quite a bit. Those particular “trainings” were not universal among Imperial enforcers, so they’d have to start from scratch again. And Clan Sasaki did not have the seemingly-endless funds that Clan Hayashi did. This was quite the decisive blow on top of Takahiko’s death and Koda’s very definitive rejection of Hanzo Sasaki.
Part of him wondered why they had chosen to move against the Reckoners. Usually it would be their allies, Clan Kimura, that caused trouble for the gangs. But that was something he could investigate later. First, he had to make it back to his wife and kids.
The Cherry Blossom Orphanage was still standing. Silentsign always assumed the worst when he left, and coming home to see everything just as he left it was always a relief. Even if it changed and grew strangely inside and developed a surprising new floor internally, at least it still looked the same from the outside.
He opened the door and stepped inside first. His wakizashi was sheathed once more and his communicator was safetly stashed in his pocket after a few more conversations with Frank the communicator demon.
Lethaltooth was waiting for him. She raced forward and hugged him tightly, then pulled away to sign frantically in the nezumi sign language. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Silentsign offered her a smile. He knew that wouldn’t do much considering his nose and snout were still bloodied, but he tried. “Ran into some trouble with Clan Sasaki’s enforcers. Set them back a bit, but we should keep an eye out for retaliation from them and Clan Kimura’s enforcers.” He gestured to the clone enforcer who stood nervously beside him. “This is one of the clones, she helped me escape.”
Lethaltooth continued to sign in nezumi while she spoke verbally to the clone enforcer. “Thank you for helping my husband. You look exhausted. Let’s get you settled in so you can rest.” She gave Silentsign a pointed look and didn’t speak while she signed again. “And you should also rest, dear husband, or I’ll tie you to the bed.”
He smirked. “You say that like that’s a threat, love,” he joked, tail twitching to indicate laughter.
Lethaltooth rolled her eyes. Her ears twitched to indicate that it was a good-natured eye roll. “You’re a terrible flirt. Of course, that’s why I married you.” She returned her attention to the clone enforcer to help her.
Silentsign dipped out of the conversation and headed towards the stairs. He intended to take a long shower and search the communications network for any word from his sons.
Spot-Tail was not one of the children who took to stealth easily. His coloration – white and red, like almost every other kitsune – already made it difficult, and he just couldn’t get his footsteps to be as silent as Cloudshadow or Takuroshi. But he had learned a different kind of stealth: being overlooked while others talked. He had read many accounts in the orphanage’s library of Dokuchi Reckoners and other spies who posed as servants to gather information, because nobility just overlooked servants while confiding in each other, as though they were alone. So Spot-Tail had learned how to lurk.
Koda hadn’t come back yet. There was a war in Torrezon. The place that Calisto came from. It was getting bad. Koda had gone to help. And based on the quiet, worried tone of Goldenscar and Lethaltooth’s voices, they hadn’t heard from him.
Spot-Tail was quiet as he helped Silentsign clean the living room, sorting books back onto shelves and picking up the toys of the younger kids. The deaf nezumi obviously wouldn’t hear him, but he didn’t want to miss something from the hushed discussion in the kitchen that he was already straining to catch.
“...not quiet this long...”
“...experienced with going dark...”
“...not a good idea anyway...”
“...necessary...operation safety...”
“...Benkei...”
Spot-Tail frowned. He didn’t like that he was only catching fragments. So he took over rearranging the cushions on the couches and chairs from Silentsign to get closer to the kitchen.
“...have faith in your younger brother, Goldenscar,” Lethaltooth was quietly advising. “Haruko is with him, and he made a point to get several omamori before leaving. The kami are watching over him, as will the planeswalkers.”
“I know that they can look after him, but I hate that I can’t,” Goldenscar admitted, keeping her voice down. “He should have let me come with him.”
“And leave Jinja Dokuchi without a priest and force Ghostmark to become the boss if both of you were to die?” Lethaltooth countered. Spot-Tail knew just how pragmatic the older nezumi was, given how much longer she had been a Reckoner compared to her daughter.
A soft sigh. “I know, Mum. But...if he gets captured...”
“Then he’ll slaughter them. Your brother has no problems with shedding blood to defend himself and others. He’s proven that time and time again, even when we wished that he didn’t need to.”
Spot-Tail also knew that. After all, it had been Koda who rescued him from an oni cult just a year ago. As Spot-Tail worked, the memory stirred.
Nine-year-old Spot-Tail had been playing outside of the orphanage with some other neighborhood kids. He was the only one of the orphans who tried to speak with other kids around. Mostly because he could tease them right back without getting nervous or tripping over his words. They had just gotten done kicking a ball around when a strange human man showed up and took Spot-Tail by the arm, feigning being the kitsune’s parent to take him. Spot-Tail had kicked and yowled and screamed like he had been taught; he even got the man across the brow with a claw before he was restrained and dragged away.
He had been taken to where Dokuchi and Hyozan territory met, not far from Itachi’s Noodle Bar. Every child raised by the Dokuchi learned where that line was. But he was dragged to a very, very deep basement and tossed into a dog cage while the human man and his fellow cultists began the rite to summon their oni master to this side of the realm.
Spot-Tail was terrified. He had heard stories from the other kids, the ones who had been rescued from oni cults like the soratami siblings and Flower-Nose, about what oni cults did with prisoners. He would be sacrified to this oni in order to feed it. He curled up at the back of the dog cage and tried to stay quiet.
The oni had been horrible. Massive. Bulging muscles that would never have worked on a physical body. Sharp teeth – too many sharp teeth. It glowed with the barely-constrained power of a wildfire. Every flame in the basement glowed brighter as it manifested.
And then the flames were snuffed out.
Spot-Tail clenched his eyes shut. He heard yelling. He heard bodies dropping to the floor. For a moment, he was terrified that the oni was slaughtering its own worshipers. The snarling from the oni covered whatever else there was.
Then he heard the cage door softly open and felt two skeletal arms pull him out of the cage and into a hug. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Haruko’s golden mask among the cloak of shadows protecting him. Then he looked towards where the oni had been.
Koda was standing there with his back to Haruko and Spot-Tail. In his left hand was one of his many daggers. In his right hand was a black katana with a golden edge. Spot-Tail had seen that sword on display in the room that the adults didn’t let the kids get into. It was important to Koda, Lethaltooth had explained to him and Voteko and Takuroshi – the oldest kids – one night. It was all that remained of Koda’s own mother.
Koda was glaring up at the oni, who snarled at him. And he snarled right back. “Take this lesson back to the kakuriyo. Don’t touch our kids.”
Spot-Tail was swept away by Haruko before the oni lunged. He could hear the fight behind them as the two disappeared into the shadows and emerged in Itachi’s Noodle Bar. Itachi, an older nezumi man, didn’t ask questions as the two appeared on the Dokuchi side of the sitting space. He just prepared some dinner for them. Two bowls of the hot mess that Koda usually ordered for himself and Haruko, and one bowl of spicy ramen for Spot-Tail.
There wasn’t a question that Koda would come back. And no one even looked up when he stepped out of the shadows a few moments later, a bit of blood on the cuirass of his Reckoner armor and his weapons visibly sheathed on his hip. He just sat down on the bar stool next to Spot-Tail’s like he hadn’t just killed an oni. “You okay, kiddo?” he asked, keeping his voice down.
Spot-Tail smiled shakily. “I’m okay. You and Haruko showed up really quickly.”
“That’s what we do,” Haruko signed before she picked up her entire bowl of ramen and pulled it into the shadows of her cloak.
Koda shook his head. “I’m never going to get used to you doing that,” he said to his kami partner. Then he turned his attention back to Spot-Tail. “You did a very good job with alerting everyone that you were being grabbed, and I’m sorry I didn’t get there fast enough to stop it entirely.”
Spot-Tail leaned over faster than he should have and hugged Koda. “Thank you for saving me,” he mumbled as he buried his face against the part of Koda’s armor that didn’t have blood on it.
Koda paused for a beat before he hugged Spot-Tail back. “Always, kiddo. I will always save you.”
Spot-Tail quietly took a deep breath and went back to tidying. He knew that no matter what happened in Torrezon, Koda would come home.
Koda sat up on the couch immediately. He had been watching Captain Storm chase after Bantenso until Bantenso finally won and got up on the fridge, but he recognized the voice. He was up off of the couch and through the living room, dining room, and kitchen before anyone else even registered the new-to-them voice.
The two nezumi were somewhere in their sixties, but might have been older. Both were armed and armored similarly, though the one who had called out was a few inches taller than her husband.
Koda dropped to his knees and hugged his adopted parents tightly. Lethaltooth and Silentsign hugged him back. “Welcome home,” he said when he pulled away, signing in nezumi sign language as he spoke. “Did you two enjoy your trip?”
“Oh, most definitely,” Lethaltooth said, signing as well for Silentsign’s sake. “We brought more kids, by the way.” She turned and gestured for whoever was waiting to come in as well. Koda got to his feet as the new kids arrived.
The first thing he noticed was that they were on the older end. The younger two were probably around eight years old, while the oldest was probably around twelve, though it was hard to tell with angels. Then he noticed what each of them were – a reaper Valkyrie, two gorgons (one with legs and one without, who also had a snake across her shoulders), a goblin, an elf, and an orc. Some were injured and others were disabled.
Lethaltooth handled the introductions. “These are Frigg” – the Valkyrie, obviously from Kaldheim – “Wytha” – the gorgon with legs, probably from Ravnica – “Iaso and Panakeia” – the gorgon without legs, obviously from Theros, and her snake companion – “Torzi and Ileth” – the goblin and the elf, maybe Fioran – “and Aykan” – the orc, possibly from Tarkir.
“Nice to meet you all,” Koda said with a smile, still signing as he spoke. “Welcome home.”
Not that Ayame Hayashi was too surprised. She had become the second-in-command under Tukebe when she was sixteen and took over when he stepped down the moment she turned eighteen. She had launched the youngling program so that Dokuchi Reckoners could fully join the gang yet still be mentored by the age of sixteen. The young had a type of energy that she did not anymore, at the age of forty.
But Satoru Umezawa, a teenage boy whose voice hadn’t even fully cracked yet, stood before her at fifteen years old. He was the spitting image of his father Daichi and had the same temper as his mother Keiko. He already smelled of blood, poison, and technology, the three core parts of a Reckoner.
That was the moment that Ayame took him under her wing, to teach him about being not a Reckoner, but a Reckoner boss, and the pains that one would face from such a position.
A year later, Ayame held a little bundle in her arms as she gave orders to her waiting Reckoners. Satoru, now at sixteen and far less scrawny than he had been before, stood dutifully by her side, his prosthetic hands folded behind himself as he learned how to give orders hands-on. When the little girl in the bundle that Ayame held became fussy, Satoru took her so Ayame could focus on work. Despite the dangers of the life of a Reckoner, there were still always children to look after, and Satoru found himself gravitating towards those sorts of duties despite his position as a Reckoner boss.
Maybe one day, he’d take in one of his own. He had already learned the news of his infertility young, so having a biological child – as much as he wanted one in the future – was impossible. But maybe helping to take care of this child as his younger sibling would help fill that pit.
Satoru was twenty-one when he got the news about Ayame’s murder. He had grown into his own as a Reckoner boss, but he still dropped everything to take off across Towashi towards Dokuchi territory. Ayame’s child had already gotten the news, and Lethaltooth and Silentsign had taken her in, but Satoru dropped to his knees and let her cling to him and sob for as long as she needed.
It was the least he could do.
Satoru, at twenty-three years old, was the first one that Ayame’s child told about being transgender. It wasn’t a surprise, as Satoru had already gone through the song and dance of transitioning socially and, for the most part, medically as well, and Ayame’s child knew this.
Koda was seven when he introduced himself by his new name, and a quick-witted little bastard already. Satoru barely managed to not laugh when Koda showed him the kanji he had settled on for his name. Naming oneself “orphan” was a step up from Satoru naming himself the equivalent of “the guy who knows things” with the kanji he used for his name.
So it was Satoru who was with Koda when he told Lethaltooth and Silentsign, along with Goldenscar and Ghostmark. He was there to celebrate afterwards when it all went well, even acquiring a cake (or, more accurately, stealing, because he wasn’t above stealing desserts) so they could both eat until they got sick.
Satoru was the only person outside of the Dokuchi Reckoners who was allowed to sit in on the Reckoner tattoo ceremony. He was a tattoo mage for his own gang, so of course he knew the basics already. And Koda, at thirteen, had wanted a family member he knew well to be there when Flinttooth gave him the first of the serpentine tattoos that would define his life from then onward. So Satoru, at twenty-nine, got to watch as Koda Hayashi officially became a Dokuchi Reckoner youngling.
“Take care of my little brother, Benkei,” Satoru said as he finally went to leave, pausing only to address the man that would be Koda’s mentor.
“Until my dying breath,” Benkei Oda agreed.
Neither of them knew how accurate that would be.
“Let me kill Sakai,” Satoru, at thirty-one, had snarled over the frequency during a moment stolen in the terrible business of being the Hyozan boss. “I’ll have him dead by lunch. Lethaltooth, I will ask you for nothing else-”
“What Koda needs,” the elderly nezumi, probably in her early sixties at this point (though Satoru never knew how old Koda’s adopted parents were), “is support and safety, not vengeance. He will be able to get vengeance on his own time, when he’s ready. But right now, he needs his family. Myself, Silentsign, you, Goldenscar, and Ghostmark.”
Fifteen. Fifteen years old, and Koda had barely survived three months of torture that killed seventeen grown Dokuchi a month in, had bonded with a kami to escape, and had gone completely silent, speaking to no one – not even with nezumi sign language.
Satoru took a deep breath. Lethaltooth was right. Typically, if a nezumi made it to old age, they usually were. “I’ll be there in an hour.”
Thirty-three and seventeen were Satoru and Koda’s ages, respectively, when Koda became the youngest Dokuchi Reckoner boss on record. And the Dokuchi Reckoners were obsessive about their records. He had beat his own mother as youngest by a year, not even technically out of youngling training. But Mei’s illness had finally gotten worse, and she would need to dedicate most of her time to fighting it, so Koda Hayashi became the second Boss Hayashi.
And he was a natural at it. He was sharpened by years of being a Reckoner already and quick-witted from childhood, so it was difficult for other Reckoner bosses to not take him seriously as he poked holes into things and made a name for his gang once more. Satoru didn’t go easy on him, but the verbal push-and-shove as they hashed out a non-intervention deal was fantastic. It was almost as if Satoru were once more arguing with Ayame herself, except that Koda also had a temper that Ayame didn’t have. Even Greasefang, who was dating Koda’s sister by this point, had to give it to Koda that he was doing a damn fine job at keeping family and Reckoner boss dynamics separate. He was cold, calm, and firm in what he wanted.
Satoru knew that Ayame would be proud of Koda if she were still alive.
Satoru took in a lieutenant shorly after Koda became the Dokuchi boss, a young man who was sixteen named Hideo who needed a mentor, guidance, a parent. Hideo was like Satoru and Koda both in a lot of ways – quick as a whip, sour attitude, well-suited for the life of a Reckoner. Hideo filled a hole in Satoru’s heart where the idea of a family of his own was poked.
Even Koda had approved of Hideo as Satoru’s son and lieutenant when the two met, and getting Koda’s approval was a monumental task in and of itself since he became Dokuchi boss. Koda did not hesitate to give his approval to Hideo after dueling the younger man for practice just once.
But Reckoners were not allowed to stay happy for long.
The Phyrexian invasion five years later was sudden and harsh. While Kamigawa was used to the tales of the Kami War, they were unused to fighting their own people. The Imperial Court’s samurai fell first, quickly compleated. It took the combined forces of the Reckoner gangs and Saiba Futurists to fight back the wave in Towashi. The Dokuchi Reckoners were along the rooftops, cutting down as many invaders as they could, while the Okibas and Hyozans, among other gangs, handled the street-level fights. Satoru himself fought alongside Goro-Goro, an akki from the Sokenzan mountains.
But even with all of this, Reckoners and Futurists also fell to the invasion.
It was only after the invasion finally stopped all at once, when the bodies of the fallen Reckoners were recovered, that Satoru found Hideo’s body. Koda was the one to recover it, half-compleated and covered in oil.
Koda knelt down beside Satoru and made sure that the shadows hid his brother while he cried.
