Amazon Apocalypse 6: Chapter 39

I waited to see if anyone else would challenge me after my display of power, but the crowd was silent. A-Grades didn’t grow on trees, but one of them could have been watching the match in the same way I’d been.

When no such hidden powerhouse appeared, I realized I was overthinking things. I stepped off the arena and joined Sakura, who was wolfing down some of Bridget’s healing biscuits to treat her bruises. I helped her bandage the worst of her injuries and get back on her feet. Meanwhile, the pit’s local healer was treating Kogai’s injuries.

“I didn’t expect you to come rushing in to save me.” Sakura’s face was shrouded in a heated cherry-red blush.

“You can’t expect me to watch you being beaten up without doing something. Besides, what happened to doing things quietly and cleanly?” I stroked one of Sakura’s horns gently to distract her from the bruise I was bandaging.

She let out a series of short, sharp moans. “W-worth it. I was told that winning a few fights would make the Miyamoto Clan take us seriously. Though if I’d known you were going to swoop in and rescue me like that, I would have started more than just an arena fight.”

She leaned into my side, taking great comfort in my presence as I took comfort in hers. Unfortunately, the two of us weren’t alone.

We waited for Kogai to wake up, which took him about twenty minutes. He rolled around on the floor a few times, clutching his forehead and groaning.

“We should help him. I need him to introduce us to the rest of the family,” Sakura said.

“Fine...” I grumbled and rummaged around in my bag of holding for a healing potion. I ended up tossing a few low-grade ones I’d purchased in the Mucaria pocket realm to Kogai. “Drink up.”

Kogai picked up one of the potions, gave it a sniff, then downed three of them in a row like they were shot glasses. He winced at the terrible flavor, but his bruises started healing until they were only a little worse than Sakura’s.

“So, Kogai? A deal is a deal. If I make a good showing in the ring, you help me find my father.” Sakura gave Kogai a hard look.

Kogai grimaced. It looked like he was about to say something about Sakura not being the one to beat him, but then he glanced at me, and I raised an eyebrow.

He wisely kept any comments like that to himself.

“Fine. A deal is a deal. You can stay in my castle, and I’ll invite some people from the family over to ask around.” Kogai did his best not to meet my gaze.

“Carter’s coming too,” Sakura insisted.

Kogai grimaced again. “The strong take what they want, while the weak endure what they must. Never thought I’d be on the weak side of things...”

“I’m only here to help Sakura. You can pretend I’m not even present.” I wrapped an arm around Sakura’s waist.

Kogai let out a defeated sigh, then led us out of the city.

***

An hour later, we arrived at Kogai’s castle. From the looks of things, he was the lord of this local province. I’d probably embarrassed him in his own city, but he’d been asking for something like that to happen ever since he decided to step into the fighting pits and accept challenges.

“I’ll have to ask around and bring over guests from other branches of the clan to figure out where this father of yours is staying, if he’s even here on Onibushi,” Kogai said.

“He should be. I think he’s related to an ongoing project by at least one member of our family to establish a presence on a newly integrated world. That’s where my branch of the family has been staying lately,” Sakura explained.

“A newly integrated world... fine. I’ll ask about that too. This is going to be a pain.” Kogai sighed.

“I can make it worth your while if you help Sakura. And if you don’t want to help...” I let my words trail off innocently.

Kogai glanced at me again with a defeated expression, and I tossed him a bag of holding. He peered inside to find some of the bribes I’d prepared, which took the form of precious metals and some of the weapons I hadn’t given to Sakura to sell. Back in Crownhill, I made certain to pack gifts worthy of a king.

“Use some of those to lure the appropriate family members here to your castle for a chat. The ones you don’t use as bribes will be yours to keep.” I nodded to him and the bag.

Kogai’s eyes lit up, and he seemed to regain some of his lost energy.

He yelled at some servants, who were a smaller, green-skinned, goblin-like race. They scurried over to show us the private rooms in the guest wing of the castle. This place was surprisingly cosy-looking compared to the austere stone defenses the Samhain Clan favored.

“The only thing I can’t get over is the lack of chairs. What’s with these things?” I asked, poking a cushion on the ground.

“They’re cushions for sitting. They’re comfortable,” Sakura insisted, though I was skeptical.

I ended up making a proper chair while we waited for Kogai to come back with news. It reminded me a lot of my time in New Kyoto, where I'd had to do the same. I really should have known to bring normal furniture after what I’d seen there.

Once done with the chair, I realized my time was probably better spent spying on our host. From talking during the trip to his castle, he seemed to appreciate Sakura's skill, even though she'd lost. The same couldn’t be said for me, despite my bribe. But that was alright. I didn't need him to like me, just do what Sakura asked him to.

I put my cloak back on and used shadowrealm stride to find him in the castle. He was hunched over a desk with a brush and inkwell, slowly penning a letter. After reappearing in the physical world, I tried to read it but had no luck. The symbols looked like rows of pictographs to me.

I thought at first that I just couldn’t read the language, but my Forerunner title should have granted me universal literacy, albeit with more concentration than the spoken language required.

Despite concentrating, it still looked like nonsense to me. I realized the problem after nearly a minute of staring.

“Your handwriting is atrocious. I can’t read a damn thing,” I said over Kogai’s shoulder.

Kogai whipped his head around, shocked and surprised at my sudden appearance.

“How the hell did you get behind me?” Kogai asked. He glanced at the locked door beside him. It was still locked, though bypassing that would have taken me hardly a thought.

“Give me the brush. Tell me what you want to say, and I’ll write it for you.” I held out my hand.

Kogai grumbled, then crumpled up the half-written letter and tossed it aside, where it joined a dozen other attempts at writing scattered around the room.

It took me a few attempts to adjust to writing characters I’d never seen before, but once they started flowing, my hand moved as efficiently as though I were writing in my native tongue. I still preferred pens to brushes, but there was something to be said for the innate beauty of writing that looked more like art than blocks of text. The oni language was surprisingly elegant, given their brutish nature. Perhaps they hadn't always been this way.

Kogai did his best to dictate a letter, but I ended up coming up with most of the text myself.

“It seems rude to begin a letter with ‘Hey, asshole, get your rear to my castle tomorrow morning.’ Let me tone it down a little,” I suggested.

Kogai leaned back, arms folded behind his head. “Suit yourself. All I want is to invite a few family members over to get plastered so I can ask them about Sakura’s father. That’s all I promised, and that’s all I’m going to do.”

I finished the first letter, then Kogai got up to look for something to drink. He seemed tipsy when he came back, so I ended up penning the rest of the letters entirely on my own. We gave the letters to the castle servants, who would run off to deliver them.

***

Sakura and I remained Kogai’s guests for two days before the first Miyamoto family members arrived. They came in force, four B-Grades all at once, along with a small army of C-Grades trailing behind them.

They looked less like they were here for a small family reunion, and more like they were going to storm the castle by force. I was scratching my head at the strange and unexpected gathering until I heard them yelling.

“Brother Kogai has been possessed! Out of the way, servants! A polite and thoughtful spirit has taken over his body!” one of the Miyamoto clan members shouted.

“No, he has clearly been replaced by an imposter!” another shouted.

“For once, I could actually read what he wrote me! Something is clearly wrong. Let’s smash down these gates and get to the bottom of this!” said a third.

I pinched my brow. Apparently, I’d gone a bit too far in making Kogai sound more articulate and inviting. It looked like he had a reputation to maintain.

There was only one good solution to this. The true culprit behind Kogai’s recent changes needed to be revealed.

So, naturally, I put the blame on Sakura.

I put my cloak back on and went to find her. After all, she needed to introduce herself to her family sooner or later.

A few minutes into my search, Kogai appeared. He held a huge fruit bowl in one hand, except instead of fruit, it was filled with sweet-smelling liquor. He hefted it drunkenly while Sakura steadied him.

“Calm down, all of you. I’m responsible for summoning you here,” Sakura said to the band of angry relatives.

“The mastermind reveals herself! Attack!” One of the C-Grades near the gates raised a bow and fired an arrow, which Sakura effortlessly swatted out of the air with the back of her hand.

“Stop that. We’re cousins, or so I’ve heard. Kogai is my cousin too, and after a pit fight defeat, he agreed to help me look for my father. That's what this sudden party is about,” Sakura explained.

There was much muttering and grumbling after that. The crowd of Miyamoto clan members seemed disappointed in the outcome. Perhaps they’d all been looking forward to besieging Kogai’s castle and having a big fight.

In the end, everyone piled into Kogai's castle for something that was surprisingly reminiscent of a family barbecue. The only difference was that there were servants to do all the cooking, and there was a bit more violence involved as various family members sparred in Kogai’s courtyard.

I was tempted to slip away and spend my time elsewhere. This felt a bit too much like meeting Sakura’s family for my comfort. She would be able to do this part of the plan without me, and I could even come up with reasonable excuses to look for Sakura’s father elsewhere or figure out who was behind the New Kyoto plot.

But at the end of the day, I knew all my excuses were merely that. So, I reluctantly decided to suffer through the family barbecue.

“Hey there, I’m Carter. I’m Sakura’s boyfriend.” I walked around and shook hands with a bunch of oni warriors. My hands got a bit greasy in the process, but such was the price of a family barbecue.

“You look a little soft and squishy to marry a Miyamoto clanswoman. You aren’t some opportunist clinging to Sakura’s family name, are you?” Asked one of Sakura’s cousins. He was an oni who looked somewhere in his thirties, but he was high C-Grade, which meant he could be well over a hundred years old.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. When I met Sakura, I didn’t even know you guys had a clan over here. As for being an opportunist? I have my own castle. I don’t need one of yours.” I shrugged.

“Fine, but are you strong? More than one young handsome kid with delusions of being a warrior has gotten his head smashed in the first time a real fight came around. Or their pelvis on their wedding night. Only a real man deserves to marry into the Miyamoto family.” The oni warrior glowered at me. Kogai was trying to get his attention, waving his hands in a negative gesture. But the C-Grade warrior was oblivious.

Meanwhile, I sighed. “Alright, fine. Let’s go over there where we won’t make a mess.”

I trounced him in a sparring match and hoped the loss would sting enough nobody else would challenge me. I was wrong.

I ended up spending most of the barbecue fighting Sakura’s family members while she did the talking. I adjusted my cloak to raise my level a bit further to the start of the B-Grade when I realized I was going to have to fight every C-Grade present. But even that didn’t stop the challenges coming my way one after another. I didn’t have much time to chat anyone up at all with all the fighting.

I was in a bit of a tough situation at the moment. I had hoped to pry a bit further into what was happening in New Kyoto while searching for Sakura’s father. In truth, I probably would have been a bit rougher in search of this information if it weren’t for Sakura. Family was an important thing, and Sakura’s family seemed to be nearly as extensive as Myrina’s.

I wouldn’t pull my punches when I found out who was behind the subversion of Kyoto and eventually war with Crownhill, but for Sakura’s sake, I wanted to play nice with as much of her family as possible. Kogai knew my actual level, but he wisely kept it to himself.

I had a hunch that being too flashy might bring some real Miyamoto powerhouses down for a visit and a spar. That sort of thing would be a lot more tedious than just fighting off a few C-Grades and early B-Grades.

Eventually, the family barbecue wound to a close. The people fighting me were among the last to leave. Apparently, trying to whack me with one of those kanabos had been the party’s main attraction. Despite trying for several hours, nobody had managed it. I was once again thankful for grinding so many levels in my dodge proficiency.

“Well, looks like the party’s over. Hopefully, you got what you wanted, Sakura. I need a drink.” Kogai tossed aside the small ceremonial bowl he’d been using to drink alcohol with during the party and replaced it with the huge one he’d been drinking from before the party. After a few big gulps, he rolled over and went to sleep in the middle of the courtyard.

Nearby, his castle servants scurried about cleaning up the mess all the guests had made during their brief stay. Several dozen paper walls had been torn apart, and some of the fence posts had been knocked over. It looked terrible right now, but from the efficient way the servants went about repairs, this wasn’t the first time they’d cleaned up after a barbecue like this.

I walked up to Sakura while wiping some of the dust off my cloak thanks to all the fighting.

“I wasn’t able to ask anyone much of anything. I hope you had better luck than I.”

Sakura wore a grim expression. “I did. The good news is I think I know where my father is. And I know who is behind all the stuff in New Kyoto, too. The bad news is they’re one of the strongest and most irritable branches of the family. They’ll never respond to an invitation from someone of Kogai’s power, which means we’re going to have to go to them.”