Dokeshi March ~ 9!

It was a scramble to collect their gear and move off the street. The abundance of dilapidated and abandoned buildings gave them countless places to hide, and they settled on a two-story storefront with almost an inch of dust coating the floor.

“I still don’t understand why you grabbed him.” Suki kept glancing back at the prone form of Fluffy Fingers, who would have to change his name after the fight. His scepter’s explosion had done severe damage to the hand wielding it. “You should have just left him for his people to deal with.”

“I want him to answer some questions.” Grant grunted with the effort of dragging the man up the stairs. He knew the clown was still alive, because his cultivation had only received credit for defeating a Vassal—not killing one. “If the system really is down, maybe we can get a straight answer for once.”

The two of them had to clear out a space in one of the cluttered rooms so all three of them could lay down. It was filled with broken furniture parts and rotten bolts of cloth, hinting at some form of upholstery store that had fallen on hard times.

Since the clown was still unconscious, Grant used a layer of the deteriorating fabric to form a makeshift bed. A spool of thick twine that had survived relatively intact was turned into bindings for the enemy Vassal. He didn’t look like much of a threat, but there was no sense in taking unnecessary chances.

After a few hours, the rioting outside started to die down. Grant had used the time to clean himself and his armor as best he could, but without a proper bath, he still felt gross. The self-awareness of what others might think about his smell was relatively new. His increase in mental cultivation, along with spending time around people and not farm animals, was evidently changing more than just his ability to cast spells.

“Here, take this.” Suki handed him one of the weaker healing potions from their stores. “You weren’t able to heal yourself this time, since it took so long to get the clown settled.”

She gave him a once-over, inspecting all the scratches and scrapes that had been bandaged quickly. “It wouldn’t do for you to get an infection at a time like this.”

She was right. Getting sick at any point this year would be detrimental to Grant's mission, so he drained the vial with no argument. It was lower quality, so the gritty taste wasn’t nearly as pleasant as the last potion he had taken. He glanced over at Fluffy Fingers, trying to figure out what to do with the unconscious figure. “What's the next step you want to take? Do you think we should stay in one spot for a while, or do you want to go searching for some food?”

“I will try to find something to eat out there. If I left it up to you, we’d end up eating a wedding cake or a whole pig.” Suki was halfway down the stairs before he could think of a reply. “You try to recuperate. That clown isn’t going anywhere.”

Grant turned to appraise the man’s condition. He was badly injured, and his arm was still bleeding from the stab wound Grant had inflicted during the fight. The mangled hand and arm had been cauterized by the heat of the explosion, but it would take more healing knowledge than he possessed to fix the broken clown. His current anatomical knowledge was surprisingly high, but it was used exclusively for dealing greater and more lethal wounds. Since he didn’t want the clown to bleed out before he could question him, he wrapped the hemorrhaging limb and applied a salve from his stores to the worst of the burns. It should be enough to keep the man alive.

<Don’t even think about sleeping for the next few days. Gotta get that mental cultivation boosted. You did a decent job fighting this clown, and I think you reached partial enlightenment with Iaijutsu. Let’s push that to the limit.> As soon as Sarge finished, a cloud of orange debris appeared in Grant’s vision. Not just rocks, but arrows, knives, orbs filled with irritants, even spoons—anything that Sarge could think of that the Vassals might be sending his way. <Here. We. Go!>

February Twenty Nine cleared the scabbard in a smooth motion that seamlessly deflected four of the sharper objects launched in his direction. It wasn’t enough to stop everything, but the fluid parry demonstrated his improvement from the last time they had trained. The impact from the other objects hurt, but he had managed to divert the ones aimed for his most vulnerable places, like his face.

<Good! Now, I want to adjust your thinking. There is more than just the edge of your sword. If you had angled your sword upwards a bit more, you could have deflected that spoon with the side of the blade, and a little more follow-through with your swing would have deflected the tail end of the arrow that hit you in your thigh.> Sarge paused to let Grant think about it for a moment.

<I know you’re tired, but this is necessary. Training your body to keep pushing through the exhaustion is a great way to improve you as a person in all respects. I know it’s hard right now, but everything is hard at the start. Everything worth having is difficult. By the time we’re done, you should be able to keep fighting for as long as the battle continues; be that a minute or a full day.>

“Sarge, what about proper recovery after a fight?” Grant rolled his shoulder to relieve some of the tension from swinging around his sword so much. He had just fought the Vassal, and the short break hadn’t been nearly long enough to recover. “I thought the lessons we learned in District February taught us that rest was important?”

<At your level then, yes. You’re no longer a mere mortal; you’re not even a cultivator. You’re a Wielder in the Summer cultivation ranks. Pushing yourself past your normal limits is required to ascend to the next level.> Sarge forced a new wave of objects to appear. <We can talk while you train. A master should be able to concentrate on his current fight while also being able to think of other things.>

The orange onslaught of miscellaneous ammunition darted at Grant, and this time, he deflected seven of the more dangerous items. A fork hit him in the nose, which hurt, but it was far better than what the dagger the width of his hand would have done to him.

He automatically re-sheathed his sword on reflex, and another wave appeared before he had an opportunity to catch his breath. He managed a sweeping motion with the blade tilted, knocking aside only six objects due to his exhaustion. The orb of caustic acid that impacted against his calf was reminiscent of the slime that had fallen on his face the last time they had trained, making it hard to concentrate when the orange-tinted spider the size of a large dog sprang at him out of the shadows.

<Don’t lose your concentration! In a real fight, you’ll still face opponents while people are throwing or shooting things at you!> Sarge couldn’t hold in the chuckle as Grant was quickly wrapped in a cocoon of silk and fell on his side. <Get up, and let’s try again.>

The next half an hour was filled with more training, with Grant getting more exhausted with each swing of his uchigatana. His body protested with each movement, but the pain slowly became background noise as he focused on where he wanted his sword to go. A constant barrage of objects flew at him, forcing Grant to adjust his movements around the various spiders, spear-wielders, and giant rats that pounced on him from the shadows. He used the attackers to block what he couldn’t deflect, and managed to even deflect some of the things toward the people and monsters attacking his flanks.

<Yes! That’s it! Use their own weapons against them!> Sarge increased the intensity, forcing Grant to speed up his movements until his sword was a blur of steel that swept around him like a wave of metal. <Good! Feel the Kenjutsu flow through you->

“That isn’t resting, you know.” Suki’s voice broke his concentration, but Sarge took pity on him and dissipated the constructs trying to kill him. “If you keep this up, you’ll be too exhausted to see straight.”

“I’m not allowed to sleep.” Grant stumbled a bit before sheathing his sword and sitting down. “The more I can put it off, and the more I can work on my mental cultivation, the better off I’ll be in the long run. If I don’t push myself, I will never be able to defeat Regent December, let alone all the other Lords and Ladies.”

Suki didn’t have an argument against that. Instead, she held up two brown burlap sacks before handing one over to Grant. “This is all I could find. The riots have calmed down some, but it doesn’t look like there was much to choose from in the first place.”

The shabby sacks contained a pitiful assortment of vegetables. Grant could barely contain the groan that fought to escape his lips when he pulled out a head of cauliflower. A few wilted carrots, a segment of a cabbage, and a surprisingly small potato rounded out the contents.

“You couldn't find any… meat?” Grant looked rather ridiculous when he stuck his head inside the bag, searching for more contents. “I am going to wither away if I can’t get some kind of meat soon.”

“You’re welcome for bringing you anything at all.” She grabbed the vegetables back from Grant and rummaged around for a bit, gathering the necessary items from their packs. “I can make us a soup from these that will make you forget there isn't any meat in it. I’ll just need a fire. The back room has a small stove we can use; you go find us some firewood.”

Grant shuffled through the building, collecting hunks of wood to burn inside the stove. In less than ten minutes, Suki had a pot boiling. Not knowing how to help, Grant went back to the room that held the clown. His breathing was still ragged, but some color had returned to his cheeks.

“Hey, wake up. It’s been long enough. I have questions, and you have answers.” Grant poked the clown in the nose. The prone man stirred and his eyelids cracked open, revealing bloodshot eyes. Fluffy Fingers jerked when he realized where he was, and that he was tied up. “Finally. Now that you are awake, we need to go over a few things.”

“Why should I tell you anything?” The Vassal’s voice was raspy, and he seemed to wince when he talked. “Do you have any water?”

“You can have some water if you answer some questions.” Grant grabbed his water skin and set it down next to the clown’s head. “I bandaged the worst of your wounds, but the sooner we are done here, the sooner you can get to a healer.”

“Gah! My hands!” Grant’s comment brought the damaged Vassal’s attention to his injuries. “What have you done? My fingers, my lovely fingers!”

“At least you realize how important it is for you to answer quickly. The faster you answer, the faster we can be on our way.” The clown gave Grant a shaky nod of agreement. “Good. Time to tell me how the Dokeshi's powers work. First, I want to know if I would have really died in the event that you had won and I broke the deal you tried to force on me.”

“I couldn’t force you to do anything.” The Vassal winced again, trying to wiggle what fingers he still had. “Everyone who makes a deal has to agree to it. If we try to force it on you or stipulate something silly, like ‘If you breathe, you agree’, it will rebound on us. It isn’t a fun feeling if the power rebounds.”

“That’s good to know, but you didn’t answer my question.” Grant shook the water skin near the clown’s head. “Would I actually have died? Do the deals you make truly hold that much power?”

A long moment of silence was his only answer, so Grant shrugged and started walking away with the water. He returned to the clown’s side as he broke down and started talking.

“…No. Only a deal made by the Dokeshi can kill.” Fluffy Fingers shifted so he could look at Grant. “Even that is a… recent addition. It wasn’t always that way; he figured out how to tap into the power of the barriers. He altered the system, but there was still enough power left over to enforce the agreements people entered into with him. The rest of us can only make deals that cause pain if you break them.”

He coughed, and a few flecks of blood splattered the old fabric next to the Vassal’s face. Grant took pity on him and gave him a few sips of water. “Now, why did everyone turn rabid when your scepter broke? I expect that kind of shift from animals, not people.”

“The people in District March are little better than vermin in the first place. They agreed to follow The Rules to live here, and this is how they act when we can’t make them do it,” Fluffy complained bitterly, gesturing with his broken hands. “The power required to enforce the system is too much for one Wielded Weapon to cover the whole District by itself. The Dokeshi broke up the District between all sixty of his Vassals. Our weapons enforce the system in whatever area we were assigned.”

Grant allowed him another sip of water. “When my weapon broke, everyone felt their agreements break, and they knew they didn’t have to fulfill their end of the bargain. For now, anyway. It won’t be long before the Dokeshi makes another weapon, or spreads the responsibility among those that are still functioning.”

“What you are telling me is that if I can destroy the weapons of the Vassals, I don’t have to follow the stupid turn-based fighting system?” Grant almost broke into a dance of joy. He hated being restricted like that. “At least I know what to do when I run into the range of another Vassal.”

“You can’t!” Fluffy Fingers coughed at his outburst. “It would throw the whole District into chaos!”

“Your mad jester has already doomed this District. Haven’t you noticed how terrible it is here?” Grant fingered a small tear in his pants where a rat had rent the fabric with its teeth. “The beasts and monsters of this whole area will eventually sweep over the entire area, and no one will be left alive.”

“It isn’t that bad.” The Vassal gazed into Grant’s eyes and realized how sure he was of his words. “Is it really that bad?”

“It’s even worse than Grant knows.” Suki must have been eavesdropping from just outside the room, because when she walked in, her face was set in stone. “Your fun and games have this District teetering on the precipice of doom. The people are starving, the monsters grow ever bolder, and no one can properly protect themselves under the strictures put forward by your leader. This place is an oil-soaked tinderbox, and anything could spark the end for all of you.”

Her voice grew passionate, and she started gesturing with the bowls of soup in her hands. “All of you have forgotten your purpose. The role of the Houses, Wielders, and Vassals isn’t to constrain or limit your people. You are the foundation to uplift them in the good times, their shield when they need protection, their sword when they need deliverance, and their judge when they stray from the path of the righteous.”

“Suki-” Grant tried to appeal to her, but she ignored him and the soup that splattered over the edges of the bowls in her furor.

“Instead, you grind these people under your heels until they are little better than animals: trapped like rats in a corner. No wonder they rebel as soon as humanly possible. It’s time for a sword to cut out the sickness of this diseased District.” Her eyes darted to Grant but quickly shot back to the face of the clown. “Now, we should eat before this gets cold.”

Grant took the reduced portion of soup from her and sat to eat in silence. Suki’s words had struck a nerve inside him, and he wasn’t sure what to think about it. Was that his true purpose? Had the Leap Sorcerers of yore made February Twenty Nine to be the sword that cut the cruel bindings choking the life out of the people?

If his true calling in life was to make the world better for everyone, he was willing and excited to accept that fate.