FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1

Harbinger's Falling's reputation was to coastal towns what exposure was to dead fish. Every building endured nine rounds with tropical weather. One more moonsault from gravity was all it'd take for the whole place to come tumbling down.

Settlements in the Wilds flourished sometimes. Usually, they were abandoned after the money, booze, and patience of displaced, vengeful natives dried up. Not Harbinger's. The only thing drying here was blood spatter from failed raids. Thanks to funds and inebriates flowing from the busted pipes of piracy, Harbinger's Falling still stood—er—sagged strong.

Unkempt animals filled each street while dilapidated market stalls sandwiched them in a stale bread of commerce. As with many male-dominated spaces in the Wilds, no one used soap. You couldn't use what you didn't have to be fair, which was also why the town's sex trade relied on dark rooms and ratty wigs. Only fleas propagated here. Well, fleas and—

"RABIIIIES!"

The seaside bar, once rip-roaring and in desperate need of new chairs, continued ripping and roaring and now needed new windows as animals flung themselves through all available exits. Sailors who risked using the front door did so the way currents flow around large stones to avoid the bear cub shambling into the bar. Foam streaked his beary face. His eyes goggled and his tongue hung out. Both hands groped ahead languidly as he marched forward, moaning with mortal anguish. Men the size and grit of mountains flattened themselves against anything they could while funneling around him, which made for some interesting contortions where tables and stools were involved.

All but one patron, a blue otter wearing a wide hat and a red scarf seated at the bar, fled for their lives. Papers and napkins fluttered about. Meals, bags, and card games burdened with gold, were left unattended.

Masamune Kage, after chugging his fourth tankard of grog, sneered.

"Grab what y'can, Lad. Hurry up!" he said, then guzzled the two abandoned tankards beside him.

Ed dropped the zombie act and, with an affirmative grunt, wiped whipped cream off his face.

He worked with the sedulous care of a boy whose GAME LAD wouldn't go without batteries again, shoveling coins, jewelry, and other valuables into a burlap sack. Masamune jumped the counter and swept whole shelves of booze into his bag with a debauched grin.

"Really?"

"Don't worry 'bout what I'm doin'. Keep fillin' them sacks!"

Masamune, satisfied he'd gathered enough to endure their next dry spell, searched for the “good shit". He broadened his search by moving dusty stoves, opening barrels, and lifting loose floorboards. Inebriated ruffians wouldn't search places like these ergo, being drunk off his ass, these were perfect hiding spots. Doing so, he found several fancy bottles. One's logo had a squiggly typeface he couldn't've read after decades of sobriety. Another had gold leaf covering its cork. Others were Four Era vintage, with dates like “1991" and “January 1, 2025". Jackpot!

Ed filled three sacks by time Masamune assembled a collection fit for a hillbilly's secret stash.

"You can carry all that?"

"Yeah," Ed's voice strained behind the sacks.

"Good. Keep up."

Masamune kicked a delivery door off its hinges and ran down the adjoining alley, clinking sacks under each arm, a bottle in his mouth, two in both hands. Ed wobbly jogged after him.

"Slow down, asshole!" he shouted.

"Th'wagon's 'round this next corner. We're almost there," Masamune thought he shouted back. With his mouth full, he actually said, "Thmph wagomph romph thmph nmph cornmph. Wem amopst thrmph."

“What?"

Then, Ed tripped. Soaring downhill like a hurtled brick was the first time he'd ever flown, slamming into a crusted dumpster, his first crash landing. All three sacks exploded open as they each hit the ground, expelling loot like ill-begotten pinatas. Masamune was gone. He hurried shoveling loot into sacks, anger dumping its salve on his disorientation and bruises. What else could go wrong?

"Nice haul y'got there, kid."

Ed turned and caught a heel with his jaw. He might've hit the ground but, thankfully, the dumpster broke his fall. The back of his head struck it like a gong, reverberating his eardrums until a clawed hand yanked him onto his feet. Another hand shoved a serrated knife in his face, a scroungy leopard with a yellow sneer standing on the end of both.

"Y'don't mind if I ease your burden, do ya?"

"I mind your breath," Ed said. "You eat out hippos or what?"

The leopard pulled him upright again after kneeing him in the gut.

“What was that?"

Ed wheezed. That knee's phantom hadn't quit haunting his belly.

"Speak up. I can't hear ya."

"I said...you suck...shit outta assholes."

The knife butt struck him like a comet, and a new nebula of pain expanded above his right eye. Whatever disorientation he should've felt was cut short by the same knife now looming beneath his chin. Ed kicked as hard as he could, hitting the only thing, or things, he could reach. The leopard's screech would've bankrupted glassware dealers for miles. Next, Ed chomped his wrist with enough pounds of bite force to break a scale thrice over. He'd've ranked said wrist shattering between his jaws as the best schadenfreude he'd ever experienced, had he not then punched between the man's legs with all his might. Something, or several somethings, popped against his knuckles and the leopard unleashed another cry like a dog whistle for ants. He dropped with both hands between his pressed thighs, his countenance that of an imploded lemon.

“L-little fucker!" The leopard snatched Ed's ankle with his good hand as he ran. He fell, was pinned down, and, with a quickness born from pure rage, the leopard raised his knife and swung down.

Ed shut his eyes…

And then peeked.

Instead of a knife plunging into his forehead, a few drops of blood fell from the leopard's sliced stump of a wrist. They both stared at the flesh-bundled bones the way one reads a portentous horoscope. Narrow beams of light zipped around the man's head, accompanied by a crisp noise like slicing paper. His eyes rolled back. His mouth hung agape with a scream sharply truncated. Then, his head unfurled into eight neat parts, discounting all the brains and gore and eyeballs spilling across the ground when he fell over. Ed'd just managed to scurry away from the splash zone on his ass and hands, backing himself into Masamune's leg.

“Where were you!" Ed cried.

"At th'wagon. Thought y'were behind me," Masamune said, cleaning Moon Cutter with old newspaper as one cleans a running chainsaw with a wet napkin.

"He...he jumped me. I couldn't..."

"Forget about it. I'll get th'stuff. Go wait by th'wagon."

"But—"

"Go!"

Ed descended the hill, head down, jaw clenched, trodding with care so as not to trip on another cobblestone.

2

Their dinner, the skinned leopard, hung by its ankles from a sturdy branch, the grass below sipping its dwindled spillage like a Bloody Mary.

"Ow!"

"Quit squirmin' 'n it won't hurt so much."

"Easy for you t'say, you get off t'this shit."

Ed, seated on a stump in the woods, held still despite the heated knife inching closer to his face. It sliced the knot above his right eye. He hardly felt it, but it sizzled and he hissed with automatic discomfort. Warm fluids smelling the way burnt leather tasted gushed down his cheek. He blinked for the first time in an hour as Masamune disinfected a dirty cloth with one of the vintage drinks, getting the germs on it too wasted to do any harm before tying it around Ed's forehead.

"Bet yer glad I got this booze after all, eh? Th'good shit too," Masamune said before taking a swig from the bottle and spitting it out a moment later.

"What's wrong?"

"Shit's fake! Tastes like watered down paint thinner!" Masamune took another experimental pull. He swished it around. Swallowed.

"Aye, definitely paint thinner."

"If only I were bigger!" Ed's fists hammered his thighs. Worrying about what Masamune put in his body was like worrying about rotten food smelling bad, and he was mercifully too indignant to remember what was wrapped around his head. "I'da ripped that bastard's fuckin' head off!"

“He wouldn't've fucked with ya if y'were bigger," Masamune said. “Well, unless he was into that."

“Fuck you!"

“Aye, that's th'point."

Masamune returned from the wagon and tossed one of those long, smoothed sticks he bought in town at his feet. Ed thought he called it a “bokken", but he'd been shoplifting while the old man chatted the shopkeeper's ear off. Whatever they talked about took their appetite, emotional well-being, and faith in animal decency along with it. He'd never seen a non-reptilian so green in the face.

"Th'fuck am I gonna do with this?"

"Practice how your Ma roped your Papa, what do you think?" Masamune twirled another bokken between his fingers. "We're gonna spar a bit. You ever held a blade outside of suppertime, Lad?"

“No shit," Ed said, although polishing Papa's weapons probably didn't count. He swung the stick around, an excited grin forming. Masamune, in turn, frowned. If those swings demonstrated any kind of technique, it was how to lose a fight against blind gnats.

"Alright. Hit me with everything y'got."

Ed charged without delay, weapon raised to the heavens, his mightiest battle cry bellowed.

He awoke to three Masamunes peering over him.

“What…happened…?"

“Y'ran at me, hollerin' like a horny baboon, 'n I kicked your ass for it," all three Masamunes informed him. Ed winced. Each word was a cheese grater scraping his head.

"It felt like a good idea at th'time."

"How're ya feelin' now?"

"Like I need a full body cast." Ed sat up slowly. "How come y'didn't lemme hit you, like when fuckers attack with real weapons!"

"I'm playin' with my food. Th'only thing you're gonna eat battle cryin' like that is this wood."

Ed made a face.

“Wait, that didn't come out right. I meant I'mma beat your ass with this shaft."

Ed's frown deepened.

“Just get up 'n attack me again!"

Ed stood up, settling into a hesitant stance. Wind rustled trees amidst a rising crescendo of screeching bugs, which normally would've provided dramatic ambiance to their standoff if not for Ed's pounding headache. He inched forward. Masamune, a statue (an indecent, scarred, dusty statue, but a statue nonetheless), stood motionless, watching. Starving hawks took lessons in focus and menace from that glare. He couldn't even see him breathing.

Closer...closer...Now!

CLACK! THWACK! BONK!

Ed ate more dirt than most earthworms in their entire lifetimes, but this time he stayed down. The back of his head felt like the aftermath of a quarry blast. Clutching it and hissing like a tea kettle wasn't helping.

Masamune circled him, leisurely twirling his bokken. “Teach ya how t'kill shit?" he spat. “I'd have an easier time teach'in a buzzard t'shit golden eggs, if you're all that's left of that so-called 'Mighty Raider Clan'."

Bugs, hitherto screeching their heads off, quieted as though backing away. Ed, fangs bared, forced himself onto his feet. The bokken shook in his taut-knuckled grip as he lunged, swinging at Masamune's thigh. Air swept the fur on the otter's leg before Ed blinked at his empty hands. Some distance behind him, his bokken dropped like a gaunt bulimic. Masamune's bokken was steady, firm, and an inch in front of his nose.

Watching the old man fight miraculously hadn't prepared Ed for any of this, especially not the sloppy drunk bar fights where bloodshed wasn't the only mess afterward. That Masamune, the bumbling oaf with as much contempt for propriety as sobriety, relied on his swordplay as much as his opponents not killing him when he gave them free shots. The animal glaring down the long road of his bokken at him was a complete stranger. The refined, morose, decades old samurai master. The only free shots he gave out were after an enemy's funeral.

"You're too strong," Ed said through gritted teeth. "What's trouncin' me like this supposed t'prove?"

Masamune pitched his brows. “I wanted ya t'prove I don't got as long a road ahead of me as I thought, bein' a barbarian chief's kid 'n all." But, he hadn't. Those hopes hanged like the late Edmon the Tyrant. Ed bristled. His brothers never let him train with them. Mama didn't even let him cut his own food.

"I wasn't that bad!" he declared, despite himself.

"I'd say ya fight like a woman, if it weren't for Lila beatin' my ass every time I see her."

"Lila?"

"You'll meet her someday, if y'survive long enough."

Masamune sat heavily on a stump, his bokken over his shoulder. Ed, bruised, sweating, and severely pissed off, stood in place.

"Aye, a long road," Masamune said, stroking his beard, "but not an insurmountable one. Y'got th'spirit for it, at least."

Ed tensed. "You're gonna train me, for real? Like Papa was gonna after my birthday?"

"Hell no," Masamune spat. "Your Papa was gonna train ya t'run down fleein' villagers 'n th'odd guard. I'm gonna train ya t'dice bad motherfuckers with a blade."

3

Their sparring sessions for the next few months were contradictory reruns of the first. All surprisingly predictable. Each one, a rapid slogfest. The only things Ed retained were bruises, and the idea that the old man trained him as payback for being a wise-ass. This was only half true. Masamune didn't need an excuse to hit anybody, least of all smart aleck cubs, but he'd sooner relish passing a gallstone than a good opportunity.

Then, one morning after their daily swim, Ed parried Masamune's bokken and counterattacked his shin. He'd remembered one of Masamune's moves and executed it with unconscious ease. It was a fluke, a complete, freak accident, but they jumped up and down with joy anyway (Masamune on one foot). Eventually, he parried an attack on purpose, then countered intentionally another morning. Six months of sparring left Masamune with two bruises and Ed with a few gazillion, but that was two more bruises than anyone'd ever given the old man without him spreadeagled and begging for it.

"We're still gonna spar right?" Ed asked warily one morning, seated on a log. It was their 181st session, and Masamune'd thrown their bokken into last night's campfire. "Y'didn't secretly make me strip t'mud wrestle, right?"

"For a boy who ain't into scraggly old men, y'sure got lotsa ideas on how it'd go."

"We strip. Every. Morning. Before training. And y'watch me do it with that creepy smirk on your face now." Ed said, avoiding eye contact. Masamune's body generally evoked images of mistaking steel wool for one's loofah. He saw the otter's scars everyday. It wasn't like the old man wore much to begin with, but it always horrified him to see scars on the few places he covered up too. He didn't know what women saw in him, but judging from healed bite marks, it was usually the groin.

"That's just t'freak ya out."

"Congratulations."

“Loosen up a bit, Lad! Indulge in some locker room machismo shit. Y'should wanna let th'testosterone hang out." Masamune swayed his hips for emphasis, and Ed covered his eyes for his nightmares staying PG-13. He'd seen flails swung with less momentum.

"Testosterone. Right," Ed grunted. "We can train with our clothes on, is all I'm sayin'."

"And who's washin' your sweaty drawers afterward? Y'sure as fuck ain't scrubbin' mine. Quit makin' it weird! A Man wants th'world t'know what they've got in th'bank. Y'never know when some stupid bimbo in heat'll come along 'n beg ya t'do her spreadsheets. That's when ya smash th'figures 'n assets till she'll never wanna use an abacus again."

"What?"

"C'mere 'n pick a damn weapon."

Masamune gathered several weapons from the wagon, generously donated from the cold, dead hands of past foes. One short sword. A dagger. An axe. Some spears.

"Swing one around a bit. See what clicks."

Ed shoved past him with renewed excitement and, instead of recoiling, Masamune sniffed an odd scent in the air with quizzical interest. The short sword called him furtively, in a kind of voice that belonged in a sickbed with a bowl of chicken soup. If weapons had litters, this one would've had its food stolen by the runt. Ed lifted it and frowned. Even his disappointment weighed more.

Masamune returned to the wagon after briefly wandering off, to collect then drop several sandbags in front of him. They had gnarly faces drawn in permanent marker. One face stuck its tongue out. Another was giving the bird.

"Try slashin' these," he said. “Pretend this one's tellin' ya you've had enough chocolate puddin'."

Ed ignored him, assuming his stance. Masamune utilized “hands off" teaching methods, if beating the shit out of him with a wooden stick was a valid technicality. Ed enjoyed lots of freedom as his student. He was free to adapt on his own, or never enjoy a bruiseless morning again. His stance, a preternatural union between a maladroit salsa dancer and a constipated matador's posture, was the result. It sucked but improvement often sucked, just a little less. This and the pose he struck the first time held his bokken was the difference between getting it from a gap-tooth and being gummed.

Each bag-face became one he recognized as he steadied his breathing.

Bandits.

Thieves.

That mayor.

Those wolves.

The leopard.

They laughed. Their mouths were lopsided, and their eyes looked like runny yolks, but they laughed at him!

Ed stepped and slashed in the same motion. His blade tore across the nearest bag with a shrill hiss, leaving a thin scratch like a scrawny thunderbolt. The hilt bit into his clenched palms at the resistance. He adjusted his footing, reversed his grip, sliced upwards for his second attack. Downwards and diagonally for the third. Ed stepped back, panting. His forearms trembled, his shoulders heaved.

"How was that?" Masamune asked from somewhere behind him. He sounded giggly for whatever reason.

"It was okay," Ed replied. "Lemme try th'axe next.

"Want me t'slam it in real deep eh?! Take it, bitch!"

To Ed's immense relief, Masamune wasn't behind him with an axe, or anything else he'd wanna slam in real deep, when he spun around. In fact, the old man wasn't in the clearing. His nose wrinkled as he caught a whiff of an oddly nostalgic scent, dredging memories of Papa's hip problems. He had cramps for days whenever similar smells wafted around the family home, accompanied by (what Papa called in fretful tones) "Mama's moods". He'd asked her about it, describing the odor like dirty laundry on top of a musty fish. Ed couldn't sit for a whole week after that.

That scent led toward rustling bushes on the other side of the clearing.

"O-ooooh! It's so big. Give it to me, now!" an unfamiliar voice cooed behind them.

"I'mma balance you out, slut," an unseen Masamune shot back, sounding drunk on something other than booze for a change. "Open that spreadsheet nice 'n wide!"

The bushes rustled harder. More, louder, giggles and moans flittered out of them. Ed backed away slowly.

4

Copious sweat rolled all over Ed, down his face, his back, and both hands, making his grip clammy. He struggled to breathe despite lying motionless beneath dense undergrowth. It'd been hours now.

He took to axes the way burglars took to open safes. Swords were so yesterday. Swinging one felt like being given a slingshot after playing with a bazooka. He'd soon use the very hatchets clutched in his wet hands to score his first kill, assuming the archer pinning him didn't put an asshole on his forehead first.

Stag tribesmen are viciously territorial. Border markers varied wildly between tribes. Some marked theirs the old-fashioned way. Bones chains. Skulls on pikes. Signposts made out of rib cages and femurs. The usual. Others used garlands, bouquets, and other styles of assorted flora that gave cozy, welcoming impressions instead of one that warned animals they were walking into the last big fuck up of their lives. Masamune saw the latter, knew what they were, and ignored them. Nobody who hung pretty flowers around was worth taking seriously, even if they'd used trespasser's corpses for fertilizer.

Arrows'd shot at them through the quiet thicket like curses during prayer time. One missed Ed's nose by inches, juddering into a tree. Another hit the old man's pauldron.

“See? I told ya this is all th'armor I need!" Masamune'd boasted before more arrows flew and they ran for cover.

That was three hours ago.

The forest held its verdant breath ever since.

The stags were still out there. Searching. Aiming.

Ed dared not—

Ed paused, sniffing around before glaring sidelong at Masamune, who unleashed a long sigh of shameless relief.

"You...you didn't," the boy whispered through clenched fangs.

"We're upwind," the otter said loud enough to be heard in a packed stadium.

"You couldn't hold it?!"

"Fuck no! That ain't healthy."

Ed gagged. He couldn't even scoot over.

"Neither's gettin' shot!" he countered.

"Yer bein' dramatic."

An arrow screamed overhead, penetrating an empty bush two yards to their left.

"T-they're close," Ed stammered.

Masamune nodded companionably. "Over there," he pointed.

"You saw them?"

Masamune nodded again. "Bout 'n hour ago."

The powerful urge to snap his head in Masamune's direction lost to the even stronger urge to not get shot by giving his position away with sudden movements.

“What?"

"Been waitin' for you t'spot 'em. Y'should at least know how ta track prey."

"We're th'ones bein' hunted!"

Masamune yawned and dug his pinkie in his ear. "Aye."

An arrow stabbed its noise complaint into a bush to Ed's left.

He only looked away for a second. Masamune was gone when he turned back, leaving the piss-soaked spot where he previously lay empty. Another arrow abducting hairs on his head ended his frantic search for the old man. Ed glued himself to the ground, sucking in his gut in a vain attempt to achieve paperesque flatness.

Another hour evaporated. It'd gotten dark. The forest was quiet but for hushed wind tickling leaves. Hysteria aside, Ed's eyelids grew heavier. He'd all but surrendered to exhaustion when a dagger-weilding stag dropped out of the trees above him, screaming a warcry like he'd rapidly skipped over hot coals.

Ed, shocked wide awake, rolled upright as the tribesman's dagger plunged into the earth, missing his nape by inches. He swung both hatchets down with a hoarse scream, his best battle cry while his nerves shot like a nurse's practice mannequin. The first hatchet cleaved through the bridge of the man's snout, spilling brains and popping his right eye out of its socket. The second spit the stag's throat like a log, chopping ligaments and muscles and arteries along the way. Blood geysered everywhere. The stag's confusion was momentarily preserved, pinned in place by the first hatchet, before his face fell in a drooping death mask. Ed's weapons slipped out of his sweaty grip as his victim, his first victim, fell dead. Gore sprayed him where he stood, but he didn't move. His ears rang. The air smelled and tasted like the inside of a tin can. His adrenaline hadn't so much spiked as it invited frenetic ants to run marathons up and down his body.

"Ed!" Masamune shouted, emerging from a bush clutching the other stag's severed head by an antler, dragging the rest of his body by the ankle. "What'd I tell ya 'bout that damn battle cryin' shit?!"

He blinked at him, teetered, then fainted.

5

Masamune tracked Ed's kill count the way a doting father marked doorways to measure his son's height. A decapitation? Notch. An evisceration? Mark. At fifteen years old, the lad's body count rivaled flash floods and mutant pathogens in small towns that didn't believe in social distancing. Something other than whiskey brought tears to his bleary eyes for once. They grew up so fast.

Victims and ursine genetics filled the ditch of Ed's lacking swordplay. He was large, had fangs and claws, and a healthy desire to mimic the cartoonishly violent antics of his favorite comic book villains. It could've been worse. He could've directed all that teenage angst over being an orphan at punk bands and mascara. Either way, he could handle himself in a fight. Bounty hunters, bandits, snarky pedestrians, everyone who'd impeded their boozing, perving, and loitering lay dead in a debaucherous wake stretching years back.

Wild animals, though…

Tavern-coddled adventurers were one thing, but savages fought every day to survive. They didn't have cozy beds. No hot meals or overflowing tankards or wifi hotspots or walled enclosures stopping other hungry mongrels from jumping them while they took a dump. A wild animal was a skilled combatant, or someone's bowel movement. One day, Ed might truly emulate the goons in his favorite comics by underestimating the wrong vagabond, only to end up with his head on an altar, its expression a mask of utter astonishment, forever uttering his last word: “Nani?"

Masamune's training aimed to push that inevitably as far back as possible by accentuating his natural strength. Years of push-ups, boulder presses, and making Ed carry all the bags further amplified his physique. You could trace complex maps with his bulging veins whenever he flexed. His legs were even thicker than his arms for the daily workout of hauling his enormous body. Working tight abs onto his gut was a lost cause from day one, but that was alright. If Ed couldn't outmaneuver a crafty savage, he could at least maul them after their knife got stuck in his bulk.

“We had roasted fish last time," Ed said, the stab wound above his navel freshly bandaged.

"We don't got enough oil t'fry this bitch!" Masamune countered, pointing at the Atlantean cod tied up between them. Dave, according to his adventuring licence, which lay in a pile with the rest of his gear, was the latest in a long line of ill-fated bounty hunters who'd mistakenly believed jumping the pair during their morning swim would've caught them off guard. He was wrong. He'd never seen a naked old man react so swiftly with a gun in his face, but then he didn't see anything clearly while said old man's fist was in his balls. The only way to surprise Masamune Kage, Dave only now realized after weeks of tailing him, was to give him a beer and say “on the house". Spiking his drinks definitely would've been the safer bet. He wouldn't need an ice pack for his groin, for one thing. He'd gotten this far when Masamune, standing behind him, slit his throat with a spork, slammed a foot down on his shoulder, then wrenched his head clean off, dangly spine and all.

Ed watched this impassively, unresponsive to Dave's thrashing, gurgling, and twitching. Masamune threw the bloody spork into the bushes and Ed still didn't react. They were running out of utensils, but he didn't like washing dishes either. Instead, he punched a nearby tree, which shook like a toucan in the Alps, and snarled.

"Th'fuck's th'matter with you?" Masamune said, Dave's bleeding head hanging by its fin in his grasp. "You've been actin' violent all mornin'."

"I'm tired of all this pussyfootin' around," Ed admitted after a tense pause. “When are you gonna teach me some real Kage shit?"

Another pause.

Masamune glared into Ed's eyes, who thought he was appraising his resolve. Really, Masamune didn't care if Ed's resolve shat on the ground or in colostomy bags. He did, however, see something he hadn't liked. Everyone's muscles grew if they lifted heavy things often enough. It hardly took any time at all, just dedication, protein, and lots of steroids. Alternatively, it should've taken Ed years to look him in the eyes without a stepladder. He wasn't even standing on his toes. But, well, it had been years. This should've been a touching realization. Greying fathers everywhere anticipated moments like these, wistfully caressing splintered door frames marked with faded dates and heights. Looking back on all the people Ed'd killed hadn't been particularly wistful. Many of them, all ugly as sin, went down with the grace and dignity they inevitably came back out with after supper time. And now Ed was old enough, certainly bold enough, to demand things from. Fried cod, he groaned inwardly. His indigestion spiked early just thinking about it.

“I'll teach ya some 'real Kage shit' when ya bring me a dragon's head 'n shit gold outta your fat ass."

They got started the next afternoon, in a spacious clearing. Teenagers. So damned headstrong! So literal-minded! Dragon heads sold pretty fast, at least. As for the coins...well...spending them'd probably be fine. Thank the Gods for leftover prunes.

Instead of plucking a random weapon from their haul of junk to train with, Masamune drew Sun Reaver from its sheath.

"Dont'cha usually fight with both of those?" Ed quipped, gesturing to the sheathed Moon Cutter in the wagon. It hadn't lightened the mood. Ed held two large axes with long blades that curved inward, toward their pommels. Their previous owner, a desert cat, declared he could chop a fly so cleanly in half it'd still flutter away. People always said stupid shit like that to boast. A gunslinger might say he could shoot a flea's nose hairs out. An archer might claim he could nail the worm in one specific apple out of a tossed up bushel. Ed didn't know about flies, but knew he could chop smarmy cats' faces off with his new axes. The most Masamune ever said about Sun Reaver or Moon Cutter was whenever he needed a back scratcher. To anyone who didn't know better, boasting about them would've been like betting the farm on a retired boxer with cataracts and a bad hip. The people in the know, the ones who'd watched him use those dingy old swords to dice behemoths into toothpick appetizers, boasted for him. And now Sun Reaver pointed at him. Ed tightened his grip, ignoring his sweaty palms.

"This ain't a serious fight. Besides, I can't teach ya Kage techniques without a couple more guys. Say, six. Maybe ten."

"For like, a dojo or some shit?"

Masamune shook his head. "T'attack all at once. The Kage style was developed durin' war times, when samurai fought three t'one. Gettin' jumped right now'd be pretty handy."

They both glanced around. No adventuring parties with initiative emerged from the thicket. No hunting packs repelled from the trees. Now was too opportune, too anticipated. The universe tended to wait for the most awkward moments imaginable, like getting it stuck in your zipper or a malfunction with tent instructions, before unleashing surprise ambushes. They were arguing over detergent last time they almost got jumped—not about washing clothes, but about whether or not it'd make good lantern fuel. They camped downwind, and most of their would-be assailants died in the bushes waiting for them to fall asleep.

“Anyway, I'll teach ya how t'dual-wield for now."

"I already know how to dual-wield," Ed countered, holding up his axes.

"You swing those like a retarded brute, 'n dumb fucks wipe your ass by holdin' still for ya. But I ain't gonna do that."

“Wipe my ass or hold still?"

Masamune didn't laugh. He stood there, watching, his eyes doing to Ed's confidence what hawk talons did to its prey's jugulars.

“Well, what th'fuck do you want me to do?" Ed blurted out, the weight of their silence like anvils on his shoulders. “Show me some of that wartime bullshit. What's first? Secret forms? Forbidden techniques? Meditatin' under waterfalls?"

"None of that faggy shit. We're gonna spar," Masamune snorted.

"How's that different from how we normally train?"

“'Cuz I'm gonna try. Not much, but just enough that if y'ain't internalized nothin' after all this time, your head's gonna roll faster than a fat bitch downhill." Masamune assumed an unfamiliar stance, spreading his legs and gripping his katana with both hands.

He might've laid it on too thick. One wouldn't normally call sweat fat, but the beads tumbling down Ed's forehead were fairly plump. He didn't move. Sensing his trepidation, Masamune offered some helpful encouragement.

“Is that what ya did when those bastards slit your Ma's throat? Stand there like a twiddlin' cuck?"

Ed's perspiration halted, then gradually evaporated. The air above his shoulders shimmered as though situated above scorched asphalt, and his pelt strained taut on the growing balloons of his muscles. Really struck a nerve this time, Masamune thought. Usually, Masamune's black humor was met with a jab or a curse. Sometimes, like now, Ed's aura subconsciously overflowed as a powerful rage overtook him. This tended to work in Masamune's favor. A well-timed quip meant he got to kick his feet up while Ed blindly mauled the goons of the week. But now he was the only goon around to receive his fury.

Branches snapped and fell, leaves billowing on a frenetic cyclone of energies overhead.

Gotta train that outta him. Can't have him runnin' headfirst into a sword anytime he hears a sick Yo'Mama joke.

Masamune sighed, resigning himself to an evening of back cramps and booze-turned-disinfectant as Ed, eyes white with hatred, lunged forward.

6

Several weeks were devoured by a training regimen that wicked misers wouldn't feed to starving orphans. Not even the ones who practiced evil laughs while menacingly twirling their whiskers in front of a mirror.

No one's head went rolling. Not like a fat bitch downhill, nor like an overconfident adversary with delayed facial reactions. Ed didn't know Masamune held back, the same way an earthworm can't tell between God's Fiery Wrath and a bored preschooler with a magnifying glass. If Masamune's attacks seemed heavy with killing intent it was because, with an ounce of effort, they would've been. To Ed, each sparring session was another mortal struggle, his continued survival another hard earned victory. Inversely, he tried with all his might to kill Masamune. He didn't mind. Everybody tried eventually.

The first few days were rough on Ed's nerves. He jumped at rustling bushes and swung at phantoms in his sleep. He always held his axes, ready for a surprise lesson, which made using dirty magazines kinda awkward. A leaden tranquility soon leveled him out, shifting his focus from "not dying" to "paying attention". Their spars became an intricate routine, one whose steps, Kage techniques and their applications, he learned by mimicking the old man's movements. It was cold and effective. Gruff, dead-eyed old crones couldn't've refined a hopeful dancer's potential into cynical mastery any better.

Their strength and endurance training also intensified.

Ed practiced swinging his weapons with heavy stones tied around his wrists and elbows.

He jogged and swam for hours at a time.

By the fifteenth day, Ed could bench massive logs without getting sick until the two hundredth rep.

"Why," Ed panted, glaring up while on his hands and knees after a particularly grueling twenty mile boulder-haul, "are you trainin' me so damn hard?"

Masamune spat in front of him.

"Cuz you asked for it," he said. "Need I remind ya how much gold I sunk into yer fat ass? All th'cash I burn feedin' ya? Lettn' you beer funnel all my booze?"

Ed shakily stood, blue dots shooting across his vision like billiards.

"What's that got t'do with workin' me like a slave?"

"You are a slave," Masamune reminded him with a leery smirk. "Get ready, we're sparrin' again."

"I haven't had water yet!"

"Suck piss outta my dick! Get those damn axes."

Training continued.

Daylight bled into nightfall, the way Ed bled into the bandages mummifying him. He knelt before a river and cupped water in his palms. Feeling like a bag of broken glass, he inched the drink, cool relief, to his lips…

His right hand moved before he fully registered the whooshing noise speeding toward him. It caught the arrow, mutinying against his aches and pains to catch the arrow before it hit his nose. He was still staring dumbly at it when Masamune stood out of the bushes across the river, bow in hand.

"Nice catch!" Masamune called out, grinning like a coprophagist is a septic tank. "We're workin' on your reaction speed from now on, since ya can't seem t'keep that left flank of yours guarded. Parry drills, dodge practice…I might even teach ya how t'catch a sword with your," Masamune leaned forward while wiggling his eyebrows, "bear hands. Get it? Bear? Hands? Hahahah!"

"Y-You...you..." Ed stammered, then stood. His fist clenched until the arrow snapped, grinding the rest between his fingers into sawdust. "You...bastard!"

Masamune, unperturbed, aimed another arrow. "Think fast."

He released the bowstring. Ed didn't think fast.

7

Counting all the time Masamune shaved off Ed's lifespan, he should've been sixteen. As it were, his actual birthday was still a few months away. This meant the old man's gift, a pair of Viking's axes, should've been a surprise. It wasn't. First, Masamune subtly hinted at getting him new weapons. Second, these quiet hints were as recent as two seconds before he knocked out the store merchant, grabbing everything he could and leaving Ed to snatch his new weapons off their display. It was an average Tuesday. The axes were glorified spatulas compared to Get Fucked and Or Else, waiting to be held approximately four years in Ed's future, but the merchant spoke highly of them while he still had his teeth. He called them “ditch diggers", because they supposedly filled graves faster than any shovel.

That was good. Standing back to back with Masamune, weapons drawn, surrounded by a pack of snickering gnolls, Ed was ready to fill some graves.

Or he would've been, if he wasn't busy pissing the night's boozing away. A chilly midnight rain showered them, sliding off layers of scum caked onto the alley's walls better than their grimey slickers for a lack of holes on its surface. An architectural mess of pipes, whirring radiators, and other protrusions funneled additional rainwater over them. Even without the cover of rain, nobody would've noticed Ed relieving himself. The most sober animal present could only just see five feet in front of him by squinting really hard through his double vision.

Ed hiccuped as his stream died into a trickle.

Masamune, deep in his own frothy inebriation, belched behind him.

"Empty yer bags or we'll kill ya fast," the leader, a mangy bastard with neon-colored hair, clad in more spiked leather than a biker gimp, demanded. The pack, brandishing knives and sneers, closed in.

Ed and Masamune giggled manically.

“What's so funny?"

"Don'tcha mean," Ed burped, endured another giggling fit, then started over, "don'tcha mean empty our bags 'n you'll let us go?"

"No," the leader said.

"Oh. Uhhh. What about...Empty our bags OR you'll kill us slowly?"

"Gettin' killed slow's th'fun part!" a gnoll said.

“Yeah, who'd wanna die fast?" another gnoll added with earnest conviction. “You'll miss th'whole thing!"

The pack cackled at that, slapping knees, shoulders, faces, and anyone's ass they thought they could get away with.

Masamune wobbled where he stood. "So you'll be real pissed...real pissed...real...uh...what'd I say after that?"

"Pissed?" Ed said.

"Nah, I went behind th'bar a minute ago," Masamune said.

"No...that's what y'just said."

"Right." Masamune straightened his posture and pointed Moon Cutter at a nearby trash can, thinking he pointed at the gnoll standing two feet beside it.

“You'll be real pissed when we kill th'seven of ya in two seconds flat!"

There's twelve of us," the gnoll said. "And yeah, that'd suck hella ass! Who'd wanna watch a two second fight?"

Masamune squinted at every drenched gnoll surrounding them, nearly falling over as he turned.

"Dumbass, there's eleven of us!" another gnoll shouted at a wall.

"Rusty Cogwheel needs glasses, there's ten of us."

"I'M Rusty!" Rusty Cogwheel said. "And there's thirteen of us!"

"You stupid, skeet-sucking, shit-licking, no-pussy-gettin'-son-of-a-stupid-skeet-suckin'-bitch, there's nine of us here!"

"Don't talk 'bout our Mama like that!" Rusty Cogwheel rebuked.

"Your Mama's my sister!"

"Our Mama's our sister?"

“How much did y'all have t'drink tonight?" Ed demanded, desperate to get off this merry-go-round.

"Not as much as you!" a gnoll barked. "Why'd y'think we're jumpin' you? You're loaded!"

"No we ain't," Masamune said. "We snuck out without payin'."

"Oh."

Rain pattered overhead.

The gnolls howled and pounced.

Katanas and axes flurried, slicing bodies and raindrops alike.

The twelve gnolls that jumped them landed as an innumerable assemblage of body parts, many still moving, unaware they'd been severed.

Viscus gore spatters painted a gruesome scene on the alleyway's grimy bricks, before rainwater ushered them into gutters like pedestrians at a black tie event. Ed, yanking his axe free from a man's skull, knocked into Masamune, who tripped on a twitching arm but luckily broke his fall with a nearby wall and his face. He slid all the way down, nose against brick, into a head-down-ass-up position, then snored loudly. Ed, who'd fallen on his ass, cackled like the gnolls he'd helped murder, then passed out.

The fight lasted about two seconds.

8

The Mother of All Hangovers cowered before the scornful bitch pounding their heads the next morning. This was the Mother In-Law of All Hangovers. A hangover that reaped the thickest, blackest rows of throbbing migraines, dreaming of the day she'd tell her son's hussy her wedding dress made her look fat.

On top of this, Ed awoke with a mouthful of mud.

It could've been worse.

They could've found something less pleasant than a wet, fetid ditch beside a random road to faceplant into. Trees and bushes did nothing to protect them from the elements, instead bundling them up in its soiled blanket. Their waterlogged wagon stood on the road proper, otherwise undisturbed. Masamune, sprawled in the muck beside him, awoke soon after. Neither spoke. Neither groaned. They climbed out of the slippery ditch in silence, knowing even an octave out of place would've been the same as a spiked baseball bat to the skill. This was a morning routine as habitual as eggs and bacon or, in their case, aspirin and instant oatmeal.

They drained the wagon and pushed it to the closest body of water they could find, not to swim, but to soak away their bodily woes. Minutes later, they shared a small pond like a lousy hot tub.

"Masamune," Ed groaned, head back, arms spread along the pond's rocky rim.

"What, Lad?" Masamune groaned back, mirroring Ed's posture.

"What's th'name of th'strongest Kage technique you know?"

"Th'fuck are you on about?"

"In MechaGargo, attacks got names 'n shit. Like Metallic Hyper Buster, or Omnicut Giga Death."

Masamune's expression was the aftermath of sucking a lemon's asshole. "Nobody got time t'shout out attack names in th'middle of a battle."

"Lots of people do, when they fight us."

"And now they're dead. How's that for havin' no time?"

"But they have names," Ed persisted. "Kage techniques do too, right?"

Resisting a big sigh, Masamune sat up against the pond's rim and reached outward, drawing in the dirt with his claw. Ed leaned forward, squinting. He'd just started learning Otter, so he vaguely recognized each strange character.

"This says Four Swords of the Twin Lotuses," Masamune explained.

"And you wrote that on th'ground instead of sayin' it, because?"

"Because, Mr. Attack Names, I can appreciate the benefit of reverence and dramatic flair! This is th'strongest Kage technique I know, cuz I can't do it by myself."

Ed looked at him funny. He couldn't handstand and play a classical symphony with his ass and a kazoo, but he wouldn't've called it a strong technique.

"Two Kage samurai fight together," Masamune continued. "One attacks. Th'other covers 'em. They alternate positions as needed, for an unendin' assault."

"Like what we did last night?"

Masamune shook his head. "Last night, we got wasted 'n massacred twenty drunk idiots. No coordination, no unison—"

Ed frowned. He could've sworn they killed twenty-four gnolls.

"—You gotta train with a partner for decades t'perfect th'Twin Lotus. Knowin' each other's fightin' style's only a fraction of it. You gotta know what your partner'll do before they do. You gotta move in position before they know you'll know you know you gotta move. Twin Lotus Masters can slaughter whole armies by themselves." Masamune stroked his beard. “Well, if they don't got guns or nothin'."

Ed deflated.

“Even then, it's a toss-up! But there ain't hardly any around no more. Know why that is?"

"Because modern armies got guns and wizards?"

"Because nobody's that in-tune with anyone," Masamune said. “Nobody can understand another man's heart, even if they think they do. In th'end, we're lonely meat bags connected by th'narrowest links."

The mood soured. Shifting a conversation from cool attack names to the animal kingdom's waning empathy tended to have that effect, not that it was a common watercooler topic. It might've been because Ed was hungry, but Masamune's analogy made him think of sausages.

"Your brothers are Twin Lotus Masters, right?"

"Aye," Masamune said.

"What'll you do if y'ever have to fight 'em together?"

"Hope it's quick."

"Th'fight?"

"My death."

"That's it?"

Masamune considered this. "And hope that bullshit 'bout your Mettled Warlord givin' his subjects a dozen slutty wives is real."

"Train me t'do th'Twin Lotus with you," Ed said, ignoring the bait.

Masamune glanced at him.

"Tell me what t'do if I ever gotta fight Twin Lotuses, at least!"

"Run."

"Assume I can't run, pray, and am unworthy of a dozen virtuously pious wives."

"Sounds fucked." Masamune said with such certainty, conviction, and cold appraisal of Ed's abilities that he regretted asking. Then, the old man smirked. "But, just in case..."