(Author's note: For those following my story, I do apologize for the significant delay. I won't delve into it, but my attention had to be diverted to other things for quite some time. That said, I threw some more content in this chapter; please enjoy.)
1st Person | Kaiser's PoV
The meeting drags on for some time, but nothing of great importance is brought up — before I know it, I'm starting to zone out.
Kensai steps toward me. "My lord, you have one final matter to address before we adjourn."
I tilt my head.
"The Eighth Seat. When would you like to evaluate the candidates?"
Hm. Well…if I'm going to act like Kaiser, I need to think like him; and right now, I'm thinking that this is something that'll come back to bite me if I put it off.
< NOW. >
Every Hierarchy jolts.
"Wait, what? Now? Now-now?" Lyssa blurts.
Sable mutters, "Och, we're doin' this at bloody two a.m?"
Kensai bows. "A prompt decision, my lord. Very well." He turns: "My fellow Hierarchies — you'd find it best to present your strongest."
The room explodes into motion, the Hierarchies immediately talking over one another.
Crownmind rises first. "I have one prepared," she says. "Yánmei, my Mistblade. If strength is required, she will suffice."
Sable thumps the table. "Aye, I've got me one," she declares, flipping her hair back with a grin. "Name's Yenlang. 'Er fists like anvils, and a temper tae match." She shoots a smug glance at Crownmind, who merely ignores her.
Øneblitz catapults out of his chair. "My lord," he beams, "allow me to present Vortex. The fastest duelist in my entire battalion. He moves like lightning! Very, very sexy lightning."
Sable snorts. "Is that how ye judge yer fighters now? Sex appeal?"
Øneblitz shrugs. "Everything is a battle, sister, even looks."
Crownmind coughs quietly behind one sleeve.
Ori-9 stands last. "I will present myself."
Alyssa leans back, her fingers drumming the armrest. "Ambitious little android."
"I am qualified," Ori-9 replies.
Sable grins. "Bold o' ye, lass." Øneblitz gives a supportive whistle.
Rook hesitantly raises a hand. "If I may, something has just occurred to me. Perhaps the test should include—"
Øneblitz immediately talks over him, waving both hands. "Ahn-ahn! Sit down, my friend. You cannot make suggestions to Kaiser dressed like that."
Rook blinks. "What's wrong with my outfit?"
"Everything," Øneblitz says, gesturing emphatically. "Them baggy purple pants? Blue hightops? That coat—ehh, God forbid. You look like ya lost a bet."
He's not wrong. Rook's fit is kinda trash.
Sable points and cackles, "Yer tie's an eyesore, Rook!"
Rook folds his arms defensively. "I like my clothes."
"That makes one of ye," Sable retorts.
Kensai clears his throat once, causing silence to fall over the room once more. "My lord, shall we proceed to the field?" I give him a nod, and we depart the throne room.
I follow Kensai through torchlit corridors, the Hierarchies following in a small procession.
Crownmind smokes from her pipe, Sable walks with swagger while giggling, Øneblitz hums an upbeat rhythm, and Ori-9 stays silent. They follow close, while the rest of the Hierarchies trail behind.
We reach a set of obsidian doors. Kensai pushes them open, and moonlight floods the hallway.
Outside stretches a massive valley blanketed in white flowers, their petals glowing faintly under the night sky. A soft breeze sends ripples across the field.
"The Garden of Trials," Kensai announces. "Traditionally used for strength evaluations, and today will be no different." He steps forward. "We will summon the candidates now, one from each of the volunteering Hierarchies."
Kensai lifts a hand. "Signal your generals."
Sable moves first. She closes her eyes and places two fingers on her temple. "Yenlang… come, hen."
The temperature drops instantly. Frost rolls outward from a single point in the field, creeping across flowers in a widening circle. Then—CRASH! A hulking silhouette slams into the ground with the force of a 18-wheeler. Shards of ice explode outward, glittering beneath the moonlight.
When the frost settles, a towering woman steps forward, breath misting the air. Aside from her broad shoulders and overall build, she looks a lot like Sable. Her hair has streaks of dark blue, and her knuckles are wrapped in bandages. She also has marks on her body, but hers are blue, with one streak on each side of her face.
Her eyes are icy, and her clothes are a little more revealing than Sable's: whereas the winter fox opted for decent coverings, Yenlang decided that a tight crop top and low-waisted jeans were an appropriate battle uniform.
Not that I'm complaining, of course.
"Yenlang, reporting," she growls.
Next, Crownmind. She inhales, opens her palm, and whispers: "Yánmei. Lái ba."A thin ribbon of pink smoke unspools from her sleeve. It rises, twists, and a woman steps out of it.
A crescent blade lies strapped to each of Yánmei's thighs. She looks like a shorter version of crownmind, even the same outfit, except her robes are pink.
She bows silently toward me. Crownmind folds her hands.
Øneblitz goes third. "Ay! Vortex!" he shouts, clapping once. "Show them the thunder!"
A crack splits the air. Blue-black lightning erupts beside him, spiraling from the sky and exploding with immense fury. When the flash dies, a slim man stands where the bolt struck. He wears a sharp black dress shirt, and a slim black tie hangs slightly loosened at his collar, partly tucked beneath a fitted harness of belts and clasps. A grin rests on his face.
His hair is a fall of dark, ropy dreads, some tied back, others dangling around his face. The most striking feature is his glowing blue eye, the other hidden beneath a tangle of locs. He holds something in the palm of his gloved hands, what looks to be a small black orb.
He says nothing, but gives me a respectful bow.
And last, Ori-9. She doesn't move, and her face is expressionless.
"I present myself."
Sable mutters, "Ach, that's intimidatin' on its own."
Øneblitz chuckles. "Minimalist! Eh! I like it!"
Right as the words leave his lips, the field settles. Hakuryū Kensai steps forward.
His wooden geta touch the ground, and the grass beneath them flattens; not crushed, but combed. He walks past me without a glance.
He stops at the center of the field and turns, his hair drifting over one shoulder, eyes calm. Four candidates face him.
Kensai smiles.
"Very well. Let us keep this simple."
He lifts one hand, his palm open. "For the next five minutes, I will not pursue victory. I will simply move as needed."
"These are the rules," he says, folding his hands behind his back. "All four of you will engage me at once. I will not chase you. I will not seek you out. I will not use lethal force, nor will I employ my higher techniques."
"However," he adds, "if you strike at me, I will respond. If you are rendered incapable of continuing, or if you yield—explicitly or otherwise—you are disqualified." His smile doesn't change. "There will be no shame in this. The condition for success is survival."
He raises two fingers. "If you remain standing after five minutes, you qualify for consideration. Multiple candidates may pass." His eyes shift toward me. "In such a case, Lord Kaiser will decide."
Lord Kaiser. The words still land strangely on me, but I feel myself beginning to adjust.
Kensai steps back, giving them space. "Take your stances when ready," he says. "And do try to enjoy yourselves."
The four of them spread out without a word. Yenlang plants a hand on her hip, tilting her chin forward in a defiant scowl. Yánmei folds her hands into the sleeves of her robe. Ori-9 crosses her arms, her gaze locked on Kensai.
Vortex just smiles. He rocks gently on his heels, hands clasped behind his back, fidgeting with the small black orb.
Kensai inclines his head.
"Begin."
Yenlang and Yánmei move at the same instant. Yánmei vanishes—pop, a bloom of pink smoke and drifting cherry-blossom petals marking where she was. The air ripples behind Kensai a moment later as she reappears mid-swing, her twin crescent blades flashing toward his neck in a scissoring arc.
At the same time, Yenlang takes a single step. One foot slides forward as she drops her weight low. Raw power washes over the field as frost explodes outward from beneath her heel. She covers the distance to Kensai in an instant, her fist driving up in a rising strike aimed for Kensai's ribs.
They should have hit. Any other person on the receiving end of these attacks would be dead before they could blink.
But Hakuryū Kensai—the Martial Arts God—is the exception.
The way he moves is difficult to describe, and his moveset is what gave me troubles when I fought him sometime ago. He's not fast—not visibly. He simply isn't where the blows expect him to be.
His left hand comes up and catches Yenlang's fist mid-swing, his fingers closing around her knuckles, the frost on her skin hissing as it meets his warmth. At the same time, he dips his head just enough that Yánmei's blades shear through empty air, powerful enough to hear the whisper of displaced wind.
Then Kensai turns. He pivots on the ball of his foot and throws, causing Yenlang to leave the ground with a surprised look.
Her body arcs across the field, trailing shards of ice before she slams into the earth with a thunderous crack. Soil erupts in a brown-white plume, frost exploding outward on impact.
From the sidelines, Sable lets out a nervous laugh. "Ach, she'll be fine. Sturdy as stone, that one!"
Yánmei doesn't pause. She presses the advantage instantly, whirling her blades in tight patterns. Each slash leaves behind streaks of glowing pink haze, petals scattering with every step as she blinks in and out of short-range teleports, attacking from impossible-to-predict angles.
Kensai avoids them all. He doesn't retreat, nor does he advance. Instead, he adjusts his posture accordingly: a half step here, a tilt of the shoulder there. His movements are economical to the point of absurdity. Yánmei's blades pass so close they tug at the loose fabric of his kimono.
Their dance is beautiful. Yánmei spins low, then high, blades crossing in a X aimed for his collar. Kensai turns sideways, the attack skimming past his chest, and for a moment they are so close their sleeves brush. His foot shifts and Yánmei stumbles, the momentum stolen out from under her.
She recovers instantly, smoke bursting as she repositions, reappearing above him with both blades raised—
Kensai lifts two fingers. Tap.
The strike lands on her wrist, the force rippling through her arm. Yánmei's blades fly from her grip, embedding themselves in the dirt several yards away as she flips backward, landing in a crouch.
Vortex's grin widens just a touch. Ori-9's flickering eyes are tracking every micro-movement.
I've been so enamored with the fight that something is just now clicking: Why aren't Ori-9 and Vortex fighting? There must be something I'm missing. Call me crazy, but it feels like those two have a silent agreement of sorts.
Kensai straightens as his eyes settle on Yánmei.
"Do you yield?"
Yánmei answers by shaking her head. Kensai exhales and steps forward.
His body lowers, shifting his weight in a way that tells me he's about to end this without a spectacle, some refined joint lock or pressure technique meant to force surrender—
The ground explodes.
A jagged pillar of ice erupts between them with a shriek, forcing Kensai to hop back. Then another pillar spears upward. Then a third. Each one forms in rapid succession.
Yenlang's work. The ice anticipates his moves, cutting off angles of attack. Yánmei doesn't waste the opening.
She blinks through pink smoke, reappearing beside her fallen blades and snatching them from the ground in one smooth motion. The edges hum as they spin back into her grip.
Kensai slips between two ice spires and vanishes from her sight.
He's there. Behind one of the frozen pillars, already moving, his palm angled toward Yánmei's shoulder.
A blur of white and blue crashes in from the side. Yenlang intercepts him mid-strike, her forearms plated in ice that cracks as it meets his hand. The impact sends a shockwave through the grass, frost and dirt spiraling outward.
She doesn't stop. Yenlang unleashes a relentless barrage of heavy, crushing blows that carry the full weight of her frame and the mass of reinforced ice.
Kensai weaves. He slips between attacks by incredibly small margins.
Yenlang snarls and commits to an overhand smash meant to end the exchange—and for the briefest instant, I see it.
So does Kensai.
"There," he says softly.
He ducks beneath the swing and drives an open palm straight into Yenlang's stomach. Ice blossoms instantly as she reacts, layering over her core in a desperate shield.
It shatters anyway.
The impact sends her flying backward through her own forest of ice. Pillars explode as her body tears through them, the cascading shards glimmering in the moonlight. She crashes to the ground hard enough to crater the earth, dust and frost billowing into a thick cloud.
Kensai is already moving. He emerges from the dust in a single step, hand raised—
Yenlang slams her foot into the ground. A wall of ice spikes detonates forward in a roaring surge, dozens of jagged lances racing toward Kensai in a lethal wave. He hops back, then back again, his kimono fluttering as the spikes slam into the space he just vacated.
Instead of frustration, Kensai laughs; a bright, genuine sound.
"Brilliant!" he says, his eyes shining. "You two know how to stay in the fight!"
Yánmei appears atop one of the ice spires in a puff of pink smoke, her robes fluttering like banners. Yenlang vaults over the wall from the opposite side, frost trailing from her limbs.
They move together this time.
Then Kensai pauses. He looks past them. My attention snaps to the same place.
Ori-9 has uncrossed her arms. That alone is enough to pull my attention completely away from the clash.
She steps forward once. The air compresses.
A sound tears through the field, a violent, mechanical shriek. The noise hits, a concussive WHRRR–KRAAAM that rattles the air.
The space Kensai occupies detonates.
A focused blast of incandescent force slams into the ground, not spreading outward but drilling downward, carving a perfectly circular crater as earth liquefies and stone glows white-hot at the edges. The shockwave ripples across the field in a ring, flattening flowers, ripping ice shards from the air, sending petals and debris spiraling skyward.
The heat washes over us a half-second later. Yánmei and Yenlang are forced back mid-motion, boots carving in the ground as they brace against the blast.
Where Kensai stood, there is only smoke. Ori-9 lowers her arm.
My gaze flicks to Vortex. He hasn't moved an inch, still just smiling.
The smoke begins to thin. And somewhere inside it, I already know Kensai is smiling too.
The smoke twists, bright at its core, rolling in slow, boiling coils.
Then Kensai steps out of it. He laughs and dusts a bit of ash from his sleeve. "Excellent timing," he says cheerfully. "That would've been troublesome if I'd stayed."
Ori-9 clicks her tongue. "Tch."
It's quiet now, almost swallowed by the aftermath.
And now that she's moved, I finally see her.
She's fair-skinned, touched by a light tan, with jet-black hair spilling loose along the sides of her face. A dark baseball cap sits low on her head, shadowing her eyes, her hair pulled into a short, high ponytail that juts from the back of the cap and sways faintly as she exhales.
Her eyes glow a dim, tired orange—unnaturally steady, ringed with subtle darkness that makes her look perpetually exhausted.
She wears a black leotard that clings close to her frame, paired with low-waisted, light grey sweatpants. Her build is slim, muscle packed tight beneath skin.
Her arms are something else entirely, purely cybernetic. Glistening black metal replaces flesh from shoulder to fingertip, segmented plating sliding over internal mechanisms that glow molten orange at the joints and sockets. The light pulses softly, like a furnace.
As the smoke clears, her right arm moves. It clicks, then whirs.
The elongated railgun structure that formed her forearm retracts in smooth stages: barrel plates folding inward, glowing lines dimming as the weapon compacts itself back into a humanoid limb.
By the time the last piece locks into place, her hand flexes once. Kensai turns toward her fully now, eyes bright with interest.
"Very nice," he says approvingly. "You even compensated for my movement delay."
Ori-9 doesn't respond. She just stares at him.
As the dust finally settles across the Garden of Trials, I feel the shape of the contest shift again; not toward resolution, but escalation.
Three in the fight, with one more yet to enter. And by my estimate, roughly three minutes remain.
I wonder who will take the eighth seat.