"Just honest."
As she left the platform, Taro approached with water.
"Great lord, the poison—"
"Didn't take. This body is irritatingly resilient."
"That's... good?"
"Is it? Surviving everything means nothing has weight." I drank the water, tasted the minerals in it, the fear-sweat from Taro's hands on the cup. "Next fight?"
"A foreign swordsman, great lord. They say he knows a hundred styles."
"Everyone says that. Usually means they know one style badly and make things up."
---
**Fourth Round: The Foreign Collector**
I was wrong. He actually did know multiple styles. Wilhelm, a European who'd somehow ended up here, collecting sword techniques like others collected pottery.
"The Crimson-Eyed Demon," he said in accented Japanese. "I have heard the stories."
"They're mostly true but less interesting than they sound."
He drew a longsword—European make but modified with a katana's curve. Interesting.
"Shall we dance?"
"If we must."
