FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1

Ed lumbered out onto the deck, away from the closest thing to a toilet he could find in an emergency. Like thousands of sorority girls across the multiverse, unfortunately for whoever cleaned up around Lain's airship, this turned out to be a bucket in a broom closet. The prior statement is provable slander toward sorority girls, thus will be retracted. They never make it past the flower pot.

Jerk's food never shook anyone's world, unless your bedroom sat beneath a regular patron's bathroom. This wasn't the case now. The kind of tremors plaguing Ed were the sort that came up the way they went down.

Now, hugging the walls, watching his feet so he wouldn't catch a glimpse beyond the railings, Ed inched forward in search of another room. The broom closet he'd left wasn't an option. He needed plausible deniability for the mess, and it was smelly. Clouds zoomed in his peripheral vision, making him shut his eyes for a time, until he imagined himself blindly tumbling over a railing down the end of the path. He kept his nose against the wall instead.

His hand closed around a doorknob. Ed flung it open, stumbling through the door. It took him five minutes to traverse the two yard gap between here and the closet.

Here happened to be the bridge.

State of the art mechanisms, all beeping and flashing and telling whoever'd listen the oil needed changing and you could get a twenty percent discount at your nearest AutoZoom, crowded around an old fashioned ship's wheel. You could've told him Lain stole it off a pirate ship kiddie ride and Ed would've believed it. The wooden wheel did look like a theme prop, and Lain seemed like the kind of wolf who'd steal from children for the fuck of it. It was the only wooden thing in this room of electronics, not counting its polished floors and the way Lain glared at him. A cloaked figure wearing one of those novelty witches hats stood beside him. Ed blinked and he disappeared.

"Who—" Ed's search for the missing figure made him look out the bridge's window, which overlooked the bow, which overlooked a vast, whooshing ocean of clouds, “—was that," he gurgled.

"You and I are the only animals in here," Lain said, staring ahead, hands on his wheel.

"Oh."

"What do you want?"

"Solid ground beneath my feet." Ed narrowed his eyes, pondering. "Or a sick bag. What's this heap called, anyway?"

"Ask Stowhart. I didn't care to ask its name when I bought it."

"You really bought this ship? A Laputan airship?"

"How does one of your 'unique standing' typically acquire property?" Lain asked without looking at him.

"Th'same way you 'acquired' our lunch," Ed said, neglecting that he'd given it back. Nausea kept him glued to the nearest wall when he really wanted to use the pompous wolf's head the way a hammer uses grapes.

"Point made," he said. “If there's nothing else, you may leave now. If you'd like a quicker flight, stay put. I'm certain your riveting conversation will put me to sleep while I'm trying to steer."

"Fuckass," Ed grunted, shutting the door behind him. Whatever sobering effect his anger provided died the moment he saw beyond the ship's brass railings.

So continued his wall-hugging search for indoor shelter.

"Even better, he said. One more bastard t'torture for info, he said," Ed said, miming Masamune with crossed eyes, a wrinkled snout, and a nasally lisp he could've only performed without pinching his nose after years of practice.

"I'll give th'wolf prick somethin' ta turn his nose up at. Shove my flamin' hot dick down his throat. See how his elemancy handles that." Ed glanced around. “No homo, Mettled Warlord. On second thought, I'll let th'old man do it. He'd like it at least. Bet th'rich cocksucker'd like it too—"

Another doorknob greeted his fingers with its chilly touch. He closed his hand around it before Stowhart's fist closed around his. The large dog'd since taken his armor off. He now wore a thin blue sweater and matching slacks, commiserating in their mutual struggle to keep his valleys of muscle within their borders.

"What are you doing?"

"Lookin' for a place where I can sit without gettin' sick," Ed said. "This room don't got a chair or what? I'll settle for a waste basket. It'll pull double duty."

Stowhart paused, then, after deciding he'd rather not piece together what'd just been said to him, cleared his throat. "It's a storage room. Lots of sensitive, uh, equipment."

"Sensitive equipment?"

"Have you ever seen a caffeinated cheerleader at her favorite band's concert in a duct tape sports bra?"

Ed made a face that said he'd been cured of his nausea in favor of a different gastric sensation. "What?"

"In any case, I can't have you getting sick here. I'll take you somewhere you may rest easily until we land."

Ed, also forgetting the last few seconds in lieu of analyzing what he'd just heard, nodded. "Alright. I—WAIT!"

Stowhart stopped after releasing Ed's hand to lead the way. "What's wrong?"

"Hold," Ed said, groaning low, “Hold my hand, please? C'mon dude, don't make it weird."

Both men walked while holding hands, both of Ed's clutching one of Stowhart's. Neither spoke. They crossed the portside walkway like cautious snails traversing an arduous sand dune, and descended a flight of stairs as though spelunking an unmapped cavern. Ed didn't release Stowhart's hand until both feet touched the floor, who now knew what putting his hand in front of a steamroller felt like. He led him across the empty hallway, to the second door on the left, a distance Ed negotiated with careful tiptoes. Flying over one hundred miles per hour within a mechanical beast was still flying over one hundred miles per hour. It was, to his horror, even worse now that he couldn't see clouds breaking against the airship's wings like divvied cotton candy. Surreptitious machinery clanged behind each wall like clockwork phantoms wailing after midnight. Unseen engines growled in a thrum that shook the floor beneath his bare feet. They'd know first if Lain crashed. It'd be a memo signed “one fiery demise".

"After you," Stowhart said. He held the door open for him, bowing as though bestowing a great honor to an unworthy patron. Ed's placid expression as he rushed inside immediately transmogrified into stunned awe.

He'd never understood the term "man cave". A room with lots of somebody's favorite junk in it was just lived-in. You wouldn't call a woman's bedroom a "woman cave", nor would you call her walk-in closet a "witches lair", especially not if you were trying to get laid. Now, seeing this room, it clicked. This was a place where men hibernated. A covert, hole-and-corner kind of space where everyone knew its merrymaking occupants were not to be disturbed.

A long leather sofa sat in the middle of the room, an equally long coffee table carrying a smorgasbord of highly processed snack foods situated before it. The largest flat screen television Ed'd ever seen occupied the north-facing wall, mounted above a row of black wood shelving units loaded with memorabilia. Anime figurines. Jewel cases. Loose cartridges and ones in displays with condition grades on them. The middle two units were dedicated to gaming paraphernalia. Games, controllers, and every console Ed ever wanted lined their shelves.

Various devices flickered on and off, their colorful lights accompanied by a medley of standby jingles playing in chaotic harmony.

Framed posters festooned the west and eastern walls with explosions, bimbos, or both.

Arcade cabinets screeched for attention aside jukeboxes and gum ball machines.

Two portable fridges flanked the sofa.

Cold beer chilled inside both.

A single tear fell down Ed's left cheek. He prayed the Mettled Warlord prepared this for him in the afterlife, which wasn't to say he'd turn his nose up to the wives. That'd be blasphemous. Being betrothed to a bunch of women as an eternal reward simply lost its allure after Masamune showed him he could have all the fun without any of the headache with experienced whores and a bag of silver. It was probably cheaper in the long run too. He wouldn't have to listen to a hooker's problems for an eternity, for starters.

Stowhart moved around him and took two games from the middle unit. "I've got Battle Unifier II and Mecha Gargo Clash," he said, holding them up. "Which do you wanna play?"

Dread tore Ed out of his quiet approbation. He might as well've asked him to choose which of his children to execute.

"Which do you think I'd like better?" he asked.

"I meant which do you wanna play first," Stowhart said.

Ed shoved his suspicions into a mental trunk, locked it tight, and threw them into the ravine of willful ignorance. Today, he made a friend.

2

Ed leaned forward on the sofa, a controller gripped in his tense hands, two burly fighters beating each other on the screen ahead. Ignorant spectators would've mistaken his flawless combo execution for the kind of manic button-mashing controller warranties were made for.

“Don't you city adventurers carry guns?" he asked without looking away from the game.

"Sometimes," Stowhart answered. His posture mirrored Ed's, tongue hanging. Special moves flew back and forth to a choir of clashing sound effects, the announcer's voice rising as he counted down the last ten seconds of the round their falsetto.

"If that's th'case—" Ed suddenly jerked backwards after blocking high when Stowhart struck low, "—how come you don't carry any?"

"Guns are for warzones. The Wilds are a place where adventurers should test their might. Steel to steel. Fang to fang," Stowhart said, his face a mask of total concentration.

"That's dumb," Ed said, "wild animals use guns all th'time, if they can find 'em. Nobody cares about honor out here. It's all about survivin' till tomorrow."

"Why don't you use any, then?"

"Bullets eat our booze fund."

Stowhart hit Ed with an overhead, who blocked low. The following series of frame perfect links, cancels, and plinks juggled Ed's fighter from corner to corner, half health to zero, in a reverberating eruption of particle effects. Ed's fighter's screams became a faint echo.

The announcer shouted, “GORMAX WINS!!!" with frothy jubilation.

Both men stood sharply, Stowhart pumping his arms with a triumphant grunt, an anguished cry stopped in Ed's throat when something else caught his attention.

"What are those?" he asked, pointing to a shelf.

Storwhart followed his gaze and frowned. "Oh," he said. “Those are pills."

"Pills?"

"Capsules. Medicine. People take them when they're sick. Really. Check online if you don't believe me."

"I know what pills are, smart ass. You're sick?" he asked. Could Fate be so cruel as to tear them apart at their young fellowship's zenith?

"No!" Stowhart said. "They're Lain's. So are the glasses, the inhaler too."

Bitch fever was the only thing Lain could've had. He shouldn't've needed glasses, because he already had twenty-twenty vision for seeing the best ways to piss somebody off. The inhaler must've been filled with liquid malice, seeing how he breathed it with every word. Instead of verbalizing these ideas, Ed asked, "what's he got?"

"Nothing, anymore…but I keep his stuff around in case his symptoms reappear. Don't tell him, he'd get upset with me."

Ed couldn't imagine talking to Lain unless brass knuckles and good dental insurance were involved. "He'd get upset if a waiter put his fork on th'wrong side of his plate," he said.

Battle Unifier II's jazzy character select music played, the airship's inner mechanisms banging faintly in the background.

Ed and Stowhart laughed together.

"What," Stowhart giggled, "what does that even mean?"

"I don't know," Ed wheezed, "I just thought...y'kno...forks, dinner etiquette…"

"Like—" Stowhart began.

"—Salad forks!" they both said, pointing at one another before laughing again.

They sat heavily, teary-eyed and snickering.

"So, what do you hang around Masamune Kage for?" Stowhart asked.

"Hahaha," Ed said, then stopped as though the breaks were stomped and his funny bone wasn't wearing its seatbelt. "Wait what?"

"Is he your father? Or are the two of you," Stowhart trailed off, performing a hand gesture inimitable with a doughnut and a hot dog.

"No. NO!" Gods, NO. It's, I mean, well. It's complicated."

“It isn't complicated at all," Stowhart said, shaking his head. “First, decide which of you goes on top…"

He saw Ed's face, which knotted into the kind of expression that said maybe it wasn't such a great idea to tease a bear in a room full of very fragile, very expensive electronics.

"It can't be that difficult to explain."

Ed sighed.

"He bought me when I was eleven for two thousand gold, days after my friends and family were slain before my eyes."

Battle Unifier II's select music hit its trumpet solo.

"Um," Stowhart said, "see? That wasn't...difficult at all. You're his—" a certain five letter word beginning with “S" was melted out of his lexicon by the gamma ray of Ed's glare.

“I'm his apprentice," Ed grunted. “Or I'm supposed t'be, but I'm more like his caretaker. I make sure he doesn't blow all our dough on beer. Only half."

"How are you for money?"

"We're dirt broke. He blew the other half on hookers and drugs."

"Ah," Stowhart nodded. "Again, you've explained this all rather succinctly."

"Suswhatnow?"

"It means 'to the point'."

Ed committed this word to memory. If little victories carry you throughout the day, one-upping the old man's vocabulary took Ed through the stratosphere.

"There's gotta be more to it," Stowhart said, cycling through a cast of half-naked fighters with heteronormativly large biceps. "When I think of someone wanted in multiple countries for a king's ransom, infamous for slaying Underworld warlords and Overworld generals in sword combat, rumored to have seventy wives and hundreds of children—"

"Th'wives are bullshit. Never kept count of th'bastards he's fathered tho," Ed said.

"I expect someone—"

"Less like a drunk wild man without a razor who reeks of BO like chopped onions in the middle of June?"

“Very succinct," Stowhart said. He chose Gormax Hellsing again, a barbarian tiger wearing enough fabric to thread through a needle, glancing at Ed. "So, what's the story? Why's the old man doing the whole 'naked wild beast' thing in the Wilds instead of a hot tub with cam girls, in one of his family's villas? He's technically a noble; one of his relatives was my sword instructor at the Order."

Stowhart thought Ed lowered his head to collect his thoughts. He hated the mental image painted for him. Masamune, reaping the benefits of his noble bloodline to the fullest by fucking vapid whores without a condom, getting so wasted he woke up face first in a toilet every morning. It wasn't far from their usual shenanigans. All you had to do was replace the toilet with a muddy ditch. They served similar functions depending on the time of day.

"What'd your instructor say about him?"

"Nothing. Speaking his name around a Kage is social suicide. Real suicide too. Honor laws would exonerate him if he decided to cut my head off for asking."

"But you know they want him dead?"

"Everyone knows that."

Ed put his controller down, got himself a fourth and a fifth beer, then a sixth when Stowhart mistakenly took the fifth, and sat. He told Stowhart everything he knew.

3

Masamune Kage grew up around flowers. His mother, Tsubaki, ran a flower shop in High Lotus Village, the small, seaside colony that'd one day become Ashright kingdom's most lucrative eastern trade hub. Ties between the Kage and Ashright were still fragile back then. In exchange for allowing them to continue governing their lands, Ashright received a larger cut of raw goods than many believed fair. Oda Kage, then clan head, acquiesced to this lopsided deal to continue his father's work of buying the crown's favor. The alternative meant allowing the kingdom to run the place, and if anyone ever kept bloodthirsty wild animals, savage raiders, and nefarious pirates at bay, it was fat bureaucrats guarded by truncheon-wielding sailors.

No one knows exactly when Tsubaki and Oda Kage met, or how she fell pregnant with Masamune, although a flight of stairs definitely wasn't involved. Whatever happened between them left the stressed head very relieved. Oda didn't complain either.

Their affair continued throughout his childhood, putting his family on Madam Kage's, Oda's wife and mother of his firstborn twins, Masamura and Muramasa Kage, radar. Tsubaki bore her own set of twins, daughters Sakura and Sayuri, during a period when Oda supposedly hadn't set foot in her shop under threat of losing his family jewels. Wherever he'd stepped, the girls made it obvious he hadn't done so wearing a condom. Paternity tests weren't a major import back then. This might've worked in Oda's favor if blue fur didn't run in the family.

He never had another child. He never walked without a limp the day after Madam Kage saw the twins either, but nobody talks about that.

The Kage were an ancient warrior clan, with a history bloodier than a basket of used tampons.

"What?" Stowhart asked.

"I said, bloodier than—"

"I heard what you said, believe me. You couldn't come up with a better metaphor?"

"That's how he told it t'me," Ed grunted.

“You couldn't make something else up?"

“I wanted to be true to th'story."

“Bloodier than a slaughterhouse," Stowhart said, waving his hands. “Bloodier than one hundred battlefields."

“Fine. Whatever. Don't interrupt."

Now. The Kage. Bloody history. Lotsa coups and shit.

Many valued the clan's independence over Oda's desire to establish the Kage as Ashright nobility, a sentiment that didn't cause open conflict in his lifetime. Madam Kage's spies unearthed various plots against her sons, who became joint heads after Oda's death.

"What kind of plots?"

"What did I just say?"

"Sorry."

As I was saying…The plots. Real sneaky, daggers in moonlight type crap.

Several clansmen apparently sought to raise the then ten year old Masamune into the clan's future head. They'd continue Oda's education in secret, molding him into the perfect figurehead who'd head their violent succession when he came of age, and follow their orders to sever ties with Ashright afterward.

“But why?" Stowhart asked. “Why not kill the brothers and rule the clan now instead of waiting for Masamune to grow up? Why bother with a bastard son at all?"

Ed stared at him.

“It's a good question," Stowhart said.

Deep breaths, Ed thought. Deep breaths.

Maybe they wanted to maintain appearances by having Oda's son as the head. Maybe it was easier to control him from the shadows so he'd be the target of the next inevitable coup. Maybe stuffy old samurai dudes are haughty sonsofbitches who don't plan farther than what flavor the tapioca they're having for dinner.

Whatever the case, Madam Kage didn't ignore these rumors. She hated Masamune. Hated Tsubaki even more. Without Oda around to stop her, she had the perfect excuse to deal with them as she saw fit…

Ed hummed, allowing his pause to dangle on its tightrope of drama while he chugged his beer.

"And?" Stowhart asked.

"And what?"

"What happened next?"

"Tsubaki was killed. Masamune was sold into slavery. That's why he's got a grudge against his family."

"Oh."

“What do you mean 'Oh'?"

"You kinda botched the ending, but I get the gist of it."

"Botched th'endin'? That's what happened!"

Stowhart folded his arms. "But you didn't retell it in an interesting way. So what if he grew up around flowers? I don't care about that. I wanna know how he became a rangy, world class criminal! And why would she have his mother killed and not him too?"

“I was settin' th'scene!" Ed shot back. "I told ya I didn't know all th'details. Y'wanna know all th'gory bits, go ask him yourself!"

4

Masamune squatted behind the upstairs banisters, peeking through the bars, as Mama led Father through the floral curtains separating the shop and their home. She, a comparatively tiny otter supporting a behemoth in robes as elegant as his long white hair, guided her teetering lover the way she'd carry a young spruce, if said spruce was drunk, had two left feet, and was giggling in her ear about all the depraved things it wanted to do to her behind the petunias.

"What if she finds out you've come to stay here, Oda?" Mama asked, cooing in a voice wavering between playful servility and stern admonishment.

"If she finds out, you can give her lessons on how not t'be a cold bitch," Oda slurred. "Maybe you can teach her how t'be th'love of my life. Maybe you can gimme some more of those soybean cakes t'wash down th'rest of this gourd, hahaha!" Oda almost took another pull from said gourd when he saw Masamune. His face lit up like fireworks during a cloudless midnight. "Well, well, if it ain't my little boy! Growin' like a damn weed I see."

"Masamune!" Mama said in a decisively unplayful tone. “Why aren't you in bed?"

"Tsuki, please. I hardly get t'see him."

Oh?" Mama's glare softened when she turned to Father, shifting with a knife thrower's accuracy. "Children ought not to stay up so late, dear...but I can bring him down if you'd like. There'd be no time to do what you asked of me, I'm afraid, but who am I to stand between a father and his son?"

Oda Kage's frown swayed as much as he did in her web-like grasp. He took a big gulp from his gourd. "Go t'bed, boy. I'll see ya in th'mornin'," he said.

Masamune got up and left.

"Y'kno, nevermind," he heard Father saying. “I don't think she outta take lessons from you after all. OW!"

5

Six years burned away in a cinematic transition ending on Mama's blazing flower shop, one fateful night. It would've gotten some editing intern a fine print shout out in the credits instead of actual pay. This isn't a nice thing to joke about. Unpaid labor is a serious issue in the entertainment industry. Almost as serious as Masamune's whole life burning away in front of him, in fact. He was in sore need of some levity right about now.

His home, its fluorescent liveliness, its rainbow of colors and smells, became an immolated, skeletal husk. Flowers withered into wraiths in smoldering pots. Red, screaming windows wheezed with smoky agony. Hellfire glowed between charred planks.

No one came to help.

None of their neighbors, who knew his mother all her life, so much as pulled up their blinds.

Not Mr. Uda, who bought his sisters fish cakes and toys. Not Mrs. Akiho, who woke up screeching whenever anybody within a mile radius so much as farted in their sleep. The whole sea-facing street was as silent as a tomb.

Masamune refused to cry. His body did it for him.

Mama's corpse rendered in the house alongside the aromatics of her life's work. Only he'd gotten away. They cornered him in the back alley between his and the Akiho house.

"Kill him," Madam Kage, the bitch said.

The cocksure, cock-sucking, cum-gargling BITCH.

Her voice was nails on a chalkboard. Sharp static on the radio. Her's was the cold-blooded voice of a hungry lizard, or a DMV clerk whose mission in life was making everyone on her line wish their mother never went rubberless with their dad. The sound of it snuffed Masamune's fear faster than a lit match flung into a storm drain, igniting his rage as though it were flooded with oil.

Her pack of snickering thugs loomed toward him, raggy dock workers who'd apparently do anything for their next sack of beer money.

Masamune steeled himself.

He went to bed without saying good night to his mother or sisters. He hadn't told them he loved them.

Masamune snarled, hating his weakness. Hating his mutinous hands for their trembling grip around his bokken, holding the wooden sword like a useless cudgel instead of a weapon to be feared.

He'd show them. He'd show them all.

"What'd I tell ya bout that battle cryin' shit, boy?" a memory of Father's voice chided in his head, preventing him from unleashing a roar with all the menace of a yowling kitten. Everyone would've laughed. Utter shame would've made him sit and wait for somebody to slit his throat.

Instead, he swallowed his anguish, focused, and charged forward with a swing that caught the nearest thug totally off guard.

THWACK!

"AAAAAAAAAUGH!!! MY KNEE—"

Masamune's second swing broke the thug's nose in a spritz of blood like cherry-flavored breath mint. He'd never caused a real injury before. Shattered bone and cartilage shot twin lightning bolts through his sword, up his arms, at his endorphin-struck brain.

I did that, he thought, perverse pride swelling within him.

I did that!

Pain like nothing he'd ever felt before lashed his back, shredding his soot-covered kimono wide open from behind. He'd seen a dock slave get whipped across the back once, and winced at the way he bent backwards and shrieked. He'd also peeked at a particular page in one of, what Mama called, Father's “dirty books". Masamune couldn't decide if what he felt now was more like getting whipped or the thing the sorely underpaid porn star endured as both memories fought for symbolic real estate in his creeping thoughts.

Blood sprayed in a fine mist. An invisible acupuncturist instantaneously pierced every nerve in his body with sadistic precision.

Masamune snarled, spinning on his heels to blindly swing at the attacker behind him.

Another knee shattered. Another man went down, screaming.

"Fightin' fair's for th'dead, boy," Father's voice echoed behind the scream-o track in his head.

"You wanna get dirty whenever you can. I probably shouldn't be tellin' you this...Your mother wants you to be an honorable samurai, doesn't she? Haha!"

Another man charged him with a hatchet. Masamune met him halfway, not with a strike, but with an open mouth full of sharp fangs.

There was a crunch.

Everyone besides Madam Kage squeezed their thighs together.

Masamune's victim let out a screech that'd put a wine glass retailer out of business. He hit the ground like an anvil, rolling around with his hands clutched between bleeding thighs, his face an inside-out tomato of unfathomable torment. Masamune spat an important piece of his anatomy beside his head before facing his attackers, glaring. Wiping his bloodied mouth wouldn't look very cool. Neither would gagging. He licked his lips instead, slowly, willing his complexion to stay its usual blue color.

Doing so made Madam Kage's hired muscle back away, the ones who could stand, anyway. Deep shadows etched the kimono-wearing harpy's fury, her eyes brightly lit by nearby flames in such a way hitherto only possible in those cheesy samurai movies Father used to take him to see.

"You grew into such a vulgar urchin," Madam Kage—The Bitch, said. "I'd say 'just like your father', but my children," she opened her arms, gesturing to the twin shadows standing beside her, "turned out splendidly in spite of his wretchedness. It must have been your mother's influence. A child can only go so far on curdled whore's milk."

"Mother, please," one of the shadows said.

Icicles clogged Masamune's veins. Muramasa Kage, a large otter in fine silk robes, placed a hand on his mother's shoulder. He used to laugh at Masamune's corny jokes, even when he told them twice in a row. He admonished anyone who called him "Oda's bastard", and always addressed him as "Little Brother".

Masamune ground his fangs together. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

"Go home," the equally large, equally tailored otter on her other side said. "We will handle the rest. Take these pathetic dregs with you."

Masamura Kage. He never laughed much. He didn't speak much. Anyone who insulted Masamune in his presence might as well've insulted him too, since they didn't keep their teeth for long. He always called him "The Little Twerp'' with a smile, rarer than gold.

Don'tcrydon'tcrydon'tcry!

"No," Madam Kage said sharply, spittle flying as her head snapped back and forth at her twins, both twice her size. "I will witness this crotch spawn's death. I will see his corpse."

"You will go home," Muramasa reaffirmed.

"It wasn't a request, Mother," Masamura said.

"It was an order, from the heads of the Kage," Muramasa said.

The alleyway's air became frigid despite the burning building. Embers danced all around them.

"He will suffer," The Bitch said.

"To his last breath," Masamura said.

"Slowly."

"His final moments shall be unto years, Mother," Muramasa said.

Madam Kage glared at him. Firelight drew hot strokes on her wrinkly features. She reluctantly turned, spitting at Mama's shop before leaving. Her remaining thugs dragged their fallen, moaning brethren after her.

The brothers were alone, facing one another. Mama's shop continued its crackling transmutation into a giant lump of charcoal. Their swords were momentarily sheathed, four katana to his one bokken, but that didn't matter. Either brother drew so fast they could slice a tree before lightning made up its mind on striking it.

Muramasa sighed. "Was it you?" he asked his twin. Masamura and Masamune gawped at him.

"What do you mean?" Masamura asked.

"Was it you or Father who taught him to bite someone's privates off when faced with a larger enemy?" Muramasa clarified, sounding annoyed despite a jovial smirk.

Masamura groaned. "I taught him to aim wherever he could reach. With a sword. Father taught him to do whatever it takes. That man should consider himself lucky."

Muramasa raised a brow "Lucky?"

"I'd rather live with no dick than die with, wait," he turned to Masamune. "Did you bite his dick off?"

Masamune's bokken and his jaw hung low. Masamura snapped his fingers at him.

"U-uh," he said, his mouth still dripping, "I think...I think I bit his balls off. I'm not sure. It was kinda crunchy."

Masamura nodded. "Thank you," he said. "I'd rather live with no balls than die with them."

Muramasa rolled his eyes. "Is that so?"

Something in Mama's shop fell, making a loud crash that sent up bright orange sparks like an unleashed cloud of fireflies. Masamura folded his arms, deliberating.

"I...believe so, yes."

Muramasa pinched his brows.

"It came in handy today, didn't it?" Masamura said. "And it wasn't like he didn't take out two grown men the proper way first. I'd say he did a splendid job. That he had great teachers, even!"

"So now you're taking credit for what you claim Father taught him exclusively," his brother said.

Masamura folded his arms tighter.

"What the fuck is this?!" Masamune shouted. "You're joking around? You're arguing? Mama's dead! You helped that bitch kill her! Y-you helped her...kill...my..."

DON'TCRYDON'TCRYDON'TCRYDON'TCRY!

"But," Muramasa said in the same tone he might've used if Masamune scraped his knee, "we're not going to kill you."

"We probably should," Masamura exhaled, eyes aglow with flames, "but we won't. Consider it an early birthday gift. We're going to make you disappear. Everyone will say you and Tsubaki died tonight. No one will argue, no one will ask questions."

Masamune blinked, then shuddered as a cold realization crept its bare feet up his spine. He hadn't seen either of his sisters since dinner. "W-what about Sakura and Sayuri?" he asked. "Where are they?"

"You'll never see them again," Muramasa said quietly after a long pause. "Don't trouble yourself with unnecessary details, Little Brother."

Memories flashed before his eyes, trampling over one another to claim first dibs on his platter of grief. Collecting seashells with the girls. Helping them carry flower pots to their room. Teaching them how to make the perfect paper planes. These memories of happy times with his little sisters, bright, colorful, flew across his mind's eye, disintegrating to ash one by one.

"Masamune," Masamura said from light-years away, "don't make this harder than it has to be."

"Put your weapon down, "Muramasa added, "and come with us. We don't want to hurt you."

Masamune giggled, swaying where he stood. The twins shared a glance and stepped forward cautiously. Both were confident in their ability to subdue him, but they'd also watched one too many anime not to recognize the beginnings of a mania-induced power up when they saw one.

More memories flashed by.

Muramasa buying him takoyaki at last month's festival.

Masamura letting him hold his sword last week.

Muramasa reading him poetry in the shade while he pretended to stay awake.

Masamura breaking down the shop's front door.

Muramasa beating Mama.

Masamura letting The Bitch kill Mama with his sword.

The world wavered around him, his senses stretching to their farthest limits before eventually snapping like taffy. Masamune's giggles turned into laughter, then hoarse cackling. The brothers moved closer.

"You don't want to hurt me? Don't want to HURT me? I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you both!"

Masamune lunged, screaming.

"There you go, battle cryin' again," He remembered Father saying during one of their first training sessions. He'd side-stepped Masamune's strike and bopped him on the back of the head with his cane. "You might as well send your enemies a postcard while you're at it," Oda Kage'd said, smiling.

Masamune swung at the empty air where the twins were standing, milliseconds ago.

Something hit him from behind, before he could even think to turn around.

The world fell out from under him.

Everything went dark.

6

Masamune's eyes shot open.

His back ached. His feet barked like a pair of angry bitches. A tableau of clouds rushing beneath the airship's bow gave him the mother of all vertigo shocks. A sleepy stroll down memory lane with the sky beating his face at a gazillion miles per hour wasn't his brightest idea, which wasn't saying much. You could power a nightlight for five seconds with his brightest ideas, and it'd explode afterward.

The back of his neck stung. He rubbed it, groaning. He never found out which one of them chopped him. A damn judo chop, like in one of those cheesy movies!

Cheesy movies from decades ago. Many, many decades. Masamune's shoulders fell under the burden of this realization.

"Shit, Lila," he said to a passing cloud he thought kinda looked like her tits for how lumpy it was. "If I'd known I'd be runnin' nose first into another death trap, I'd've asked for anal."

7

Lain stood behind the wheel, watching the back of Masamune's head through the front window the way an Olympic archer watches a bullseye. He hadn't looked anything else since the bear left, not any of the beeping sensors around him, not the ship's wheel gripped tight in his gloved hands. He even made a game of it. Masamune Kage had forty-three white hairs on his scalp, a wrinkle around the nape that kinda looked like a scowling face when he craned his head backward, and a funny mole behind his left ear. None of this was very interesting, but then neither was drunk-senior watching when he should've been steering.

Emil, he thought, wait a little longer.

A door opened.

Lain glanced at the person approaching him, then resumed taking an optical shovel to Masamune's skull.

"Welcome back," he said to the cloaked figure. "Using doors again, are we?"

"It was easier to disappear," the cloaked figure said. "And more fun. Did ya see th'look on th'bear's face? Thought he saw a fuckin' ghost when I up 'n went 'poof'!"

Lain said nothing.

"Can you really trust them?" the figure asked.

"The people I'm double-crossing? Yes, I can trust them to be double-crossed," Lain said.

"No," the figure said, "can you trust the people you're double-crossin' to not double-cross you because they figure out you're double-crossin' 'em?"

"They've got two brain cells between the both of them," Lain said, wanting to leave it at that. Two brain cells, a trite little saying that nevertheless encapsulated his opinion of Masamune Kage and his pet bear's combined mental faculties. "Besides," he said, taking the bait, "them double-crossing me because I double-crossed them wouldn't be a double-cross in the first place. It'd be a triple-cross."

"No," the figure said, shaking his head. "A triple-cross is when you double-cross th'guy you're double-crossin' th'other guy for."

Lain's ears flattened against his head. "That's not a quadruple-cross?"

The cloaked figure, this face totally obscured behind the cloak's collar and his large hat, smiled so broadly Lain heard what passed for his cheek muscles straining.

"No," he said, "a quadruple-cross is when you double-cross th'guy who hired you ta triple-cross th'first guy."

"Oh," Lain said.

The cloaked figure stood close to his right shoulder, leaning against it. Electricity coursed between them the way a faulty outlet sparks at an approaching plug. His pelt bristled, it always did whenever they were reunited after a long time apart. They could separate for a week in the beginning. That rapidly dwindled to days, then a single day, and now mere hours apart exhausted them. Lain'd felt a familiar, dreadful pressure in his chest when the bear came in earlier. It took all his willpower not to cough in front of him during their brief conversation. Now, reunited, his chest opened up again. You could run a marathon on his lungs with how open they felt. Or play golf on them. Or...some other outdoorsy activity involving lots of fresh air and unobstructed space. The metaphor got away from him, but his lungs felt like he could chase after it.

"To answer your question again, T.K.," Lain said, "I can trust them. Stowhart is one more worrywart than I can afford. I need you all the way in."

"You say that every night," T.K. said, tracing a finger along Lain's shoulder. "Have I ever disappointed you?"

Lain maintained a neutral expression despite his cheeks burning beneath his dark pelt.

"Don't," he said as T.K. prepared to remove his hat. "The old man might see you."

T.K.'s bare arms retreated behind his cloak. They glowed bright yellow, coruscating with energy like live wires. "He knows you're an elemenacer. He outta expect you've got a familiar."

"But he won't know what kind. I'll need you to kill them if they turn on me."

"If they double-cross you, y'mean."

Lain breathed deeply.

"Yes," he groaned. "I'll need you to kill them if they double-cross me. We'll need the element of surprise."

"Can we at least merge again? This ridiculous outfit's chafin' my nuts."

"Since when did you start wearing pants?" Lain asked.

"Y'said you wanted me t'blend in while I'm out, didn't ya?" T.K. said, moving to his left side so he was out of the window's view. "Here, look."

Lain did.

His face turned an even rosier shade as he tore his widened eyes away from T.K.'s opened cloak. He hadn't started wearing pants, or underwear for that matter. He hadn't started wearing socks with his boots either, but the rank smell wrinkling his nose came from a very different part of, what could loosely be called, his anatomy.

"W-why are you aroused?" Lain brayed.

"Cuz I wanna merge th'way we did last time," T.K. said, whispering close to his ear. "Y'kno, real slow. From behind."

Real slow. Like last time. From behind.

Lain bit his lip.

Merging always left him in a euphoric, tingling state, like getting in a cold bath after a long workout, or the waves of bliss following a painful chiropractic maneuver. The particular occasion T.K. wanted to replicate taught him what it felt like to be a spark plug's cylinder head.

"Make it quick," he said.

T.K. repositioned himself directly behind him, his mouth a glowing, jagged crescent of anticipation.

Outside, Masamune sniffed the air. Ammonia? Chlorine? No, ozone? He hadn't heard thunder. Every cloud was as white as a newborn's blanket.

White light shone from within the bridge, etching his outline in a trailing shadow on the air as it flashed around him. He turned and saw the elemancer behind the bridge window, alone. His expression was airy and fluttering.

The elemancer jolted when he noticed Masamune watching him, like a parent walking in on him mishandling a tube sock.

They stared at one another.

Masamune didn't blink.

The elemancer looked away first.