As Abo turned away from the fallen Moro boy, Kalayo's vision blurred with rage. The sight of the child's lifeless body, so much like his brother's death, ignited a fire within him that could no longer be contained.
With a primal roar carrying years of anguish, Kalayo lunged at Abo, his bolo raised high.
"You heartless bastard!" he screamed, bringing his blade down with all his might.
But Abo sensed the attack. He pivoted with fluid grace, causing Kalayo's blade to whistle past his ear by mere inches. In one smooth motion, Abo's bolo flashed upward like silver lightning, catching Kalayo's arm and drawing a line of crimson across his sleeve.
Kalayo staggered back, clutching his bleeding arm, his chest heaving with fury.
"How?" he gasped, shock momentarily overriding rage. "How do you always know?"
Abo's lips curled into a cold smile as he circled Kalayo like a predator toying with wounded prey.
"Your hatred makes you predictable, Kalayo. I can hear your rage from a league away."
He paused, tilting his head, listening to Kalayo's heartbeat.
"Why would you kill that innocent child?" Kalayo's voice cracked with raw anguish. "Do you need to haunt me with his ghost that badly?"
A slow, unsettling smile crept across Abo's scarred eyes.
"Nothing special. I just thought... 'Well, isn't this perfect timing?' The kid was right there, crying for mommy. Same helpless whimpering your brother made when I slit his throat."
"You're insane!" Kalayo roared and launched into a flurry of strikes — overhead, diagonal, thrust — each met by Abo's blade in a shower of sparks that illuminated their sweat-streaked faces.
Steel rang against steel in a symphony of violence as they danced their deadly ballet across the blood-soaked ground. Abo moved with fluid grace despite his blindness, but Kalayo fought with the raw fury of a man confronting his deepest nightmare.
"Init had such gentle hands, didn't he?" Abo said softly as he deflected a vicious swing. The force sent vibrations up their arms. "So small, so trusting. Even when the mud was killing him from the inside, eating away at his little stomach, he still smiled at us."
"Don't you dare speak his name!"
Kalayo's bolo came down in a crushing overhead strike, powered by years of suppressed rage. Abo sidestepped, but not quickly enough — the blade tore through cloth and flesh on his shoulder.
But Abo didn't flinch. Spinning with the momentum, his own weapon sliced Kalayo's ribs in a shallow but painful cut, sending blood spattering on the ground.
"Remember starving in that swamp? Crawling through muck for scraps while we left our brother behind, so desperate he chewed mud lumps thinking they were food." Abo's voice dripped with mocking pity. "Poor fool."
The memory hit Kalayo like a physical blow. The rage that followed was wild, uncontrolled — exactly what Abo expected.
Kalayo's next attack was a whirlwind of fury. But Abo ducked under a horizontal slash, came up inside Kalayo's guard, and drove his elbow into Kalayo's solar plexus.
Kalayo doubled over, gasping for air. Abo's knee shot toward his face.
But Kalayo caught it with both hands, twisted, and sent Abo sprawling.
Before Abo could recover, Kalayo's boot cracked into his ribs, echoing across the battlefield.
Abo rolled away, coughing violently, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth to mingle with dirt. But impossibly, he wore that terrible smile.
"Better," he wheezed struggling up. "You're finally fighting like you want to kill me."
Both climbed to their feet, circling once more — bloodied, breathing hard, neither willing to yield. The morning sun cast long shadows, painting the scene in gold and crimson.
"I remember how cold his little hand felt in mine," Abo continued, his voice now an eerie lullaby turned nightmare. "How his breath got shallow near the end. How he whispered your name just before the light went out in his eyes."
"SHUT UP!"
Kalayo's bolo found its mark between Abo's ribs. The blade slid in with terrible ease.
Abo fell forward into Kalayo's arms, like a brother returning home after a long absence. His mouth moved against Kalayo's shoulder.
"I couldn't tell."
Kalayo stiffened.
"What?"
But Abo's body was already slack, his breath shallow and wet.
The world narrowed.
Abo remembered hunger.
Not the dull ache they'd grown used to, but the hollowing kind — the kind that made six-year-old Init eat fistfuls of mud just to feel something in his belly.
He remembered the heat of Init's small hands clutching his own, the boy's whistling gasps of breath.
Kalayo's voice, raw with desperation:
"We need a healer."
So Abo returned to what he knew.
The fighting pit reeked of sweat, blood, and stale bets. Men jeered as the blind boy stepped into the dirt circle again, coins clinking as they placed wagers on how many blows a bony little blind rat could take before falling.
The pitmaster grinned at Abo's broken form — there was always profit in desperation.
Day after day, Abo let grown men break his bones for copper coins. He fought until his body was bruised from head to toe, each breath tasting of blood. Still, the healer's price remained distant as the moon.
One evening, as Abo spat teeth into the dirt, a shadow fell across him. The crowd hushed.
The Datu stood at the pit's edge, his silk robes untouched by filth. He tapped a fingernail against his gold-capped teeth.
"They tell me you fight for a dying boy. How… amusing."
Abo crawled forward, pressing his forehead to the blood-stained earth.
"Please, my lord. My brother—"
"Your brother?" Datu Katio's laughter rang like struck brass. "Let's make this interesting. Bring me these brothers of yours."
His smile showed too many teeth.
"I'll give you a real choice."
When the Datu's men dragged them before his throne, the terms were clear:
"Kill one before the torch burns out, or watch them both die slowly."
A guardsman lit a rush torch and planted it in the dirt. The flame began its steady descent.
Smoke. Fire.
Kalayo shouting. Init crying.
Abo's hands shook.
He had been blind all his life — but never like this. Never so completely.
The world narrowed to the thunder of his pulse, just as it had years ago when a thief pressed a knife to his sister's throat.
"Where's the gold?"
But Abo couldn't tell gold from dirt. He'd fumbled helplessly as his sister choked on her own blood.
Now history twisted like a knife in his gut.
Through the smoke, he couldn't tell their voices apart. Couldn't tell which shape was Kalayo, which was Init.
His arm swung.
A small gasp.
"Brother?"
Then silence.
Now, in Kalayo's arms, Abo understood the truth.
He'd spent years sharpening cruelty like a blade because it was easier to be a monster than to face the terrible accident of that moment.
Better to let Kalayo believe it was deliberate. Better to be hated than pitied.
Abo exhaled — one last rattling breath.
The rising sun painted Kalayo's face in gold and blood.
Somewhere, a bird sang.
Kalayo would live.
And Abo?
Abo would finally rest.