Chapter 48
Kenji’s gaze drops to my hip.
“Toss it,” he says calmly. “We won’t disgrace this with gunfire.”
For half a second, I consider arguing. Consider just shooting him.
Then I don’t.
Because I want to finish this with my hands. Feel every second of his life end at my grip. I’m going to earn every drop of his blood.
I pull the gun free and flick it once in my hand before hurling it into the koi pond. It breaks the surface with a sharp splash, ripples racing outward as orange and white bodies scatter beneath the water.
Kenji nods, satisfied.
We step apart, shoes silent on gravel, cherry blossoms drifting lazily between us. Lantern light catches the lines of his face, familiar and unreadable. The garden seems to shrink, like it knows what’s coming.
We take our stances.
And we wait.
The stillness stretches, taut as a drawn bowstring.
Then, we move at the same time.
He comes in fast and low, all economy and intent, striking before my muscles fully register the motion. His elbow slams into my ribs, precise enough to steal my breath, and he pivots immediately, foot sweeping for my ankle.
I jump it—but he’s already there.
A palm strike snaps my head sideways. I taste blood. I stagger back into a stone lantern and barely catch myself before he’s on me again, driving a knee into my thigh that makes my leg buckle.
“Sloppy,” he murmurs, almost kindly.
I snarl and swing anyway, catching his jaw with the heel of my hand. It lands. Solid. He grunts, more surprised than hurt.
I press the advantage for half a heartbeat too long.
He punishes me for it.
Kenji grabs my wrist, twists, and uses my momentum to sling me into the gravel. I roll, coming up just in time to block a kick that would’ve caved my chest in. The impact rattles my arms to the bone.
We circle again, petals crunching underfoot.
I feint left. He doesn’t bite.
I lunge and he steps inside my reach and drives his forearm into my throat, shoving me backward toward the pond. My heel skids on slick stone and I windmill, barely keeping my balance as koi scatter beneath the surface.
He comes at me again, relentless.
A fist to my kidney. An elbow to my shoulder. A knee that slams into my already wounded side hard enough to make my vision spark.
I hit back where I can—an uppercut that snaps his head, a sharp kick to his shin—but he absorbs it, adjusts, and counters. Every move I make, he’s already anticipating the next one.
Because he taught me how to fight.
And he taught me where I fail.
And for one stupid, treacherous second, my body remembers something it shouldn’t.
His hand at my shoulder years ago, steady and firm, turning me an inch to the left.
“Again,” he’d said, not unkindly.
Not a weapon. Not an asset.
A student.
A girl who believed him when he said he was keeping her safe.
I spit blood onto the gravel and laugh breathlessly. “You always did hate when I improvised.”
“And you always confused improvisation with strategy,” he snaps back, driving me sideways into a wooden bridge railing.
The bridge creaks as we crash into it. Water splashes below. Lanterns sway overhead.
He pins me there for a moment, forearm pressing into my throat, eyes hard now. No fondness left. Just certainty.
“You could have ruled beside me,” he says quietly. “Instead, you chose chaos.”
I headbutt him. “Rule that. Fucking asshole.” I mutter the last two words.
It catches his nose and makes him curse as he stumbles back a step.
Not far.
Never far.
I don’t chase him. I reset, stance tight, breathing measured, and he does the same. The moment stretches again, taut, and deliberate.
Then he advances.
One step.
I step back.
Another.
I give him ground inch by inch, letting him think he’s herding me, letting him believe he’s dictating the terrain. Gravel crunches under my heel, then stone, then smooth tile as the garden gives way to the hotel entrance.
The glass doors loom behind me, reflecting two bloodied figures locked in a familiar geometry. Teacher and student. Predator and prey. It’s impossible to tell which is which anymore.
Kenji keeps coming, unhurried, confident, every movement sharp and contained. He wipes blood from his lip with his thumb, eyes bright now, alive in a way that makes my stomach twist.
“Good,” he says softly. “Let’s finish this properly.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer.
Kenji explodes forward, speed shocking even now, his palm slamming into my chest hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. I stagger back, barely getting my guard up before his elbow crashes into my shoulder, then my jaw.
I hit him back. A knee. A sharp hook that glances off his cheek. Not enough.
Never enough.
He catches my wrist, twists, and throws me across the patio. I slam into a low stone table, pain flaring white-hot through my back. I barely have time to roll before he’s there again, driving a kick into my ribs that lifts me off my feet.
I crash through the glass doors.
They shatter around me in a roar of breaking crystal as my body punches through, fragments exploding inward. I hit the tile hard and slide, skin tearing, glass biting into my arms, my side, my hands. My breath vanishes in a sharp, panicked gasp.
For a second, I can’t breathe.
The world narrows to pain and ringing.
I drag myself onto my hands and knees, lungs burning, vision swimming as blood drips onto the floor. Glass crunches under weight behind me.
Kenji steps through the wreckage slowly.
Deliberately.
Each footfall grinds shards into the tile as he circles me, calm as ever, unhurried, like he has all the time in the world. Like he’s enjoying this.
“You always struggled when the ground dropped out from under you,” he says mildly. “Too much emotion. Not enough patience.”
I bow my head, sucking in air, shoulders shaking.
And quietly, I curl my fingers around the glass beneath my palms.
Sharp. Jagged. Perfect.
It’s always a mistake to underestimate me. And I’m going to remind my old teacher of that fact.
I push up in one violent motion and sling my hands forward.
The shards tear through the air and into his face.
Kenji shouts, real surprise breaking through as glass cuts across his cheeks, embeds in his lips, slices into his eyes. One shard catches the inside of his mouth when he inhales, and blood sprays bright and sudden.
I don’t wait.
I run.
Boots pounding tile, I sprint across the hall as he roars behind me, half-blind and furious now. I slam through the first open doorway I see and skid to a stop inside—
A showroom with glass cases. Silk-lined walls. Spotlit displays of Japanese weapons arranged with reverent precision. Katana. Wakizashi. Naginata. Yari. Blades old and new, ceremonial, and lethal, all waiting behind pristine panes.
I turn, chest heaving, blood slicking my hands.
Kenji staggers into the doorway moments later, eyes red and streaming, blood smeared across his face. He wipes at it with shaking fingers, rage burning through the pain.
Our gazes lock across the room.
And now I’m done playing with my dinner. It’s time to eat.
I move first.
Not at him.
At the space.
I duck behind the nearest display as he charges, his strike shattering glass where my head was a second ago. Blades spill free, clattering across the floor in a sharp metallic rain. I roll, come up with a wakizashi in my hand, and slash low as he pivots.
He blocks, but barely.
The impact jars his arm. I see the flicker of irritation cross his face.
He retreats a step and his hand dips to his pocket where I know his marbles are.
He snaps the sling into place and fires.
The first one cracks past my head like a gunshot and obliterates the display behind me, glass exploding outward. The second shatters a pedestal at my feet, spraying shards up my legs.
Fast. Accurate. Deadly.
I move anyway.
Another marble screams past my ribs, close enough that I feel the pressure of it. I dive behind a case as the fourth punches straight through it, leaving a perfect, fist-sized hole in reinforced glass.
That’s why they’re deadly.
At distance, Kenji’s marbles are faster than bullets and quieter than gunfire—pure kinetic violence guided by muscle memory and calculation. No recoil. No warning. Just precision.
Up close, though, they’re useless.
The sling needs space. Arc. Room to breathe.
And I’m not giving him any of that.
I surge forward, collapsing the distance before he can reset, forcing him to abandon the weapon entirely as the fight turns brutal and close.
He curses and backpedals, trying to reset the sling, but the space collapses too fast. I slam into him before he can get another shot off, shoulder-first, driving him into a silk-lined wall.
Our bodies crashing through another display. A naginata skids across the floor. He grabs it one-handed and swings, the long blade whistling past my ribs close enough to kiss skin but only slicing my shirt.
I rip a polearm from the wall and jam it into the haft, redirecting the strike into another case. Glass explodes outward as we slam together again, fragments raining down around us.
He lands a hit to my shoulder.
I answer with a knee to his gut.
He grunts and I don’t stop.
I slam the butt of the weapon into his ribs. Once. Twice. The third time something gives. He exhales sharply, the sound wrong, pain finally breaking through discipline.
“There it is.”
He comes at me harder now, faster, frustration bleeding into his movements. Precision slips. He overcommits. Just once.
That’s all I need.
I step inside his guard and twist, catching his wrist mid-strike and snapping it down hard against the edge of a shattered case.
Bone pops and he shouts, real pain ripping loose as the weapon clatters from his hand.
“Improvising now?” I ask breathlessly.
He snarls and backhands me, but it’s sloppy. I take it, then bury the short blade into his side, just beneath the ribs.
Not deep enough to end it.
Deep enough to matter.
Blood blooms dark and fast across his shirt. He stumbles back, breathing ragged now, eyes wild.