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 theflicker 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.
