Page 122 of Dragon 7

Defeat filled his gaze. Still, he tried to raise the empty gun anyway.

“Enough.” Kenji kicked it out of his hand.

The gun skidded across the tilting floor and vanished under a crate.

The Fox's empty fingers spasmed in the air where it had been. “Wait.”

Kenji got to my side.

The Fox’s bottom lip quivered. “You both passed the test.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“This war. . .w-was to see if you both could truly sit on the throne alone and now—”

“Shut the fuck up.” Kenji sneered. “We started the war. You hid and pitted our own brother against us. Whatever you have to say now. . .let it be a prayer to whatever god will listen to you before you die.”

“Y-your mother.” The Fox shivered. “She would be disappointed right now. She would never want you to kill me—”

“My mother is part of the reason why we won tonight. Her people helped. Her bloodline gave me a beast. And her guidance helped me pick the strongest woman to ever walk this planet.”

The Fox’s mouth parted.

“You wanted to meet my Tiger?” Kenji spat on the floor. “You could never be in the same space as her.”

I smiled. “Never.”

Then, my brother looked at me. "Have your fun, Hiro."

"We kill him together."

"No." Kenji put his view back on our father. "Do it alone. . .for Nura."

Pain hit my heart.

And then she was there.

Nura’s ghost stood in the cabin between me and our father. Her dark brown skin glowed from a light that lived nowhere in this red cabin.

For the first time, she wore a white gown that rippled in no wind. The bullet was gone from the side of her head. The blood was gone too. There was only her face, and her parted lips, and the smile she had given me in my father's hospital room in the half-second before the world took her away.

Nura looked at me, and she nodded.

“I’ll do it for Nura.” I yanked my knife out of its sheath.

“Wait! Hold on! We are family!” The Fox scrambled backward along the bulkhead, his good hand clawing at the floor, his ruined arm dragging, his useless legs pushing him nowhere. He hit the corner. He had run out of plane. “You are my sons! Flesh of my flesh! I am your father!”

“Nura.” I crouched in front of my father. “That was her name. Did you know that?”

“W-what?”

"And then there’s Sora." I slashed at his chest.

He shrieked and threw himself sideways along the wall, and Kenji was already there—standing in his path, a wall of my brother, blocking the way without lifting a hand. “You won’t escape this. Tonight you die on this plane, and no one will ever remember who the Fox was.”

“Please!! There is no honor in killing your kin!” The Fox reversed and clawed the other direction.

I was on him before he made two feet. "Nao."