On the Hills of Eden

Qingxi shuddered slightly.

“You’re saying that every time we have a period,” Rumi began, fiddling with the little bit of cloth Soleiman had tied to her left hand. “We… shed a literal layer of flesh from inside of us?”

“I mean,” Soleiman responded, flipping back through the pages of one of the books he’d picked up yesterday to confirm what he read. “Yeah.”

Rumi seemed wholly unsettled.

“I don’t really know how to-”

There was a knock on the door to their inn.

Qingxi rose from her seat atop the sofa back, shuffling over across the tatami mat floor to open the door.

“What is it, Qingxi?” Soleiman asked.

“A letter,” she responded. She slit it open, fetching from within a little card as the morning skylight disappeared again from the doorway. “Oh. It's for your trial later, Rumi.”

“Really?”

Rumi leapt from the sofa, Soleiman resting the strange book upon the table to join her and Qingxi.

“What does it say?” Rumi asked, peering over Qingxi’s shoulder despite the fact that she couldn’t read Japonic.

Qingxi offered it to Soleiman.

“Oh thanks,” he replied. “It says…. Come to the Warehouse by the Main Shrine Building. Alone.”

Qingxi and Rumi exchanged glances.

“You may bring your Instruments, but they are to be left outside and will not be available for use in the trial,” he continued. “Be there by noon. Regards, the Heir to the Shirobanegawan Seat, Isami.”

“What time is it now?” Rumi asked.

“Around two hours to noon,” Qingxi responded. “Does she really have to go alone?”

Soleiman checked the letter again.

“Unfortunately…,” he said. “Yeah.”

“It’s okay,” Rumi said to them.

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted to herself.

Though, she found that hard to believe.

She stood before the facade of the warehouse, the near-monolithic structure looking entirely out of place given the stout and compact houses that lined the streets she’d just walked. The entire thing seemed entirely devoid of any kind of ventilation or transparency, barring a ring of bars that wrapped around the entire perimeter of the building, situated just under the eaves of its roof.

She fidgeted with the little cloth attachment in her left hand, squeezing it with what remained of her fingers.

Soleiman had said that it would help her punch with the firmness of a fist, so long as she took care to brace her fingers against it properly. Now she didn’t doubt him or anything, it was just that…

It didn’t look all too convincing. It was just a little roll of cloth wedged into the crooks of her digits, tied to her knuckles so that it wouldn’t fall off when she wasn’t squeezing them.

She took her mind off of the little piece of cloth, looking back up to survey her surroundings for the tenth time in the past few minutes.

Against the wall of the warehouse, just by its entrance, was a man. He wore the traditional fighting attire that she’d seen most other Kitsunite soldiers wear, except in the colours of the Shirobanegawan Banner. He also wore a scarf around his neck, using it to conceal his mouth and nose, and he had a bunch of bundled loops of rope bound to his hip.

She had made eye contact and had greeted him earlier, though he didn’t seem all too keen on interacting with her– given that he went back to staring into the inside of his scarf without even so much as acknowledging her.

“Sorry!”

Rumi turned around.

A girl hurried towards her, the sword attached to her hip, the bag slung over her shoulder and the scroll she carried in her hands all bouncing about haphazardly as she ran.

“Oh, are you okay?” Rumi asked, half-extending her arms out towards her in a form of uncertain concern.

The girl stopped, her tail dragging behind her.

“Yeah, thank you,” she replied. “Do you know what you’re going to be doing today?”

Rumi let the foreign words pass through her mind for a moment. She recalled what Soleiman and Pallas had taught her.

“A trial… in here?”

She didn’t know the word for ‘warehouse’.

“Mhm,” she hummed, nodding. She chucked the scroll under her armpit, lifting the bag off of her shoulder and offering it to Rumi. “Here, take this- wha!”

The two of them jumped slightly, Rumi raising her hands in surrender.

“Is your hand okay?”

Rumi looked at her left.

“Ah, yes,” she replied. “Okay.”

“...Really?”

Rumi nodded. She didn’t know how she’d even begin to explain the fact that she’d sliced her fingers off in a run-in with the Hashashiyyin. Let alone in Japonic.

“Okay then,” the girl relented, though she still didn’t seem entirely comfortable with the fact.

She handed Rumi the bag, helping her to throw its strap over her left shoulder.

“Here’s your sword,” she said, detaching the blade from her hip and fixing it to Rumi’s, its well-lacquered hilt glistening in the skylight. She then described how it worked to Rumi, mimicking the action of unsheathing it, followed up by some… peculiar hand gestures. Or were they movements?

“Do you understand?”

She didn’t.

“I-”

The wood of the warehouse shuddered behind them, the two girls flinching in turn.

“God damn, hurry up!”

“Okay,” the girl whispered, quickly pulling Rumi’s attention back to her. “Just unsheathe it whenever you’re in trouble.”

Rumi nodded, glancing over her shoulder at the man who’d moved from leaning against the wall.

“And here,” the girl added, handing Rumi the scroll. “Find this and get out without getting caught. Got it?”

Rumi nodded again, her eyes flickering onto the scroll to see that a block of ink had been written onto it.

“Alright,” she said. “You can go in now, Mr Ushihama!”

The man grunted, turning his back to them and shoving his way into the warehouse. Then, in the brief moments where the door had not yet fully closed, Rumi caught a glimpse of the interior.

And it was dark.

“Okay,” the girl said again, putting her hands on Rumi’s shoulders. “Remember, get the ink, don’t get caught, and get out. Good luck!”

Rumi stood before the door to the warehouse.

“Right,” she said, placing her left hand on her blade’s sheath. “All I have to do...”

She wiggled the blade around slightly, making sure that it wouldn’t come off of her hip during a scuffle.

“...Find the ink…”

She cracked her neck, stretching her arms out above her as she loosened up her laterals.

“...Stay quiet, stay stealthy…”

She put her right hand on the door, feeling its roughness against her palm and her fingers.

“...And get out.”

She pushed the door open, and slipped inside.

She couldn’t see anything. Beyond the rays of light that flooded into the near abyssal expanse of the stuffy, dry interior of the warehouse, there was nothing that her eyes could pick up on. She caught faint glimpses of the edges of giant racks, stocked almost to the brim with all sorts of goods.

Her eyes wandered upwards, drawn towards the light that spilled in from the ceiling. There, she could see the very tops of the racks, similarly-

Something was above her.

She yanked the wooden sword from its sheath with her left hand, craning her neck upwards as she prepared to dodge out of the way.

When she felt something rest atop her head.

No. It wasn’t resting upon her head. It was pressing down on her.

She shifted out of the way, sliding to the side to see as the man from before hung in the air, poised to slam his right foot into the ground as he slowly fell through the air– as if in slow motion.

Rumi got it.

She resheathed the blade momentarily, letting the man slam down into the floor before immediately pulling the blade partially out again.

Then, once again in slowed time, she swung her body, pummelling her right fist into his jaw.

She sheathed the blade again, watching in real time as the man crumpled and slammed against the door behind him with a force Rumi never thought herself capable of.

The building’s entire facade seemed to quiver, and as the man began to draw himself from the force of the impact, groaning and cursing as he did so, Rumi made a beeline for the nearest rack.

She slipped past it, turning a corner and diving deeper into the aisle. Her eyes had slowly grown used to the darkness, and when coupled with how little noise the floorboards made even when she slammed down onto them with incredible force, she soon felt she’d put enough distance between her and him to come to a brief stop.

Looking around now, Rumi observed her surroundings. The shelves that surrounded her on both sides, reaching up to six metres above head, were entirely stocked with wood cuttings. Some were planks, others were blocks. Others yet were boxes and crates, and others more were tessellated shapes carved with the express purpose of binding with and locking onto one another. There were locks and puzzle pieces and all sorts of other constructions, some sticking out of the rack and into the aisle, and they stretched further than what little light that filtered in through the sparse windows high above head could illuminate.

All she had to do was to find the ink brick.

She snooped around a little more, slinking from shadow to shadow, until eventually her eyes were caught by a pillar of light that fell bright and pure from an exceptionally large window overhead.

This little waterfall poured down upon a break in the shelf to her left, creating a sort of ‘intersection’ that led into the aisles on the right.

From where she stood, she could roughly make out the existence of a sign, hammered onto the side of one of the shelves– possibly to serve as a guide.

But she stopped herself.

Judging from how evidently bright the pillar of light was as compared to the rest of the warehouse, blanketed in shadows and barred from the outside as it was, it was not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the man may be lying in wait to ambush her there. Not because that was where he may have had predicted her to go, but because that was where he knew he could catch her going. And since crossing an intersection was more or less necessary to her getting to where she needed to be, she eventually decided that that was what Ushihama had planned.

If his eyes really had adjusted back to the light of the well-illuminated, elevated position he most likely remained in so that he would be best poised to spot and ambush her, then she would take advantage of that.

She put her left hand up against the rack to her left as she paused for a moment, stopping to figure out how she could best use the various cuttings of wood to deceive the man.

And that well-lacquered hilt glistened.

Her vision suddenly sparked, showering her eyes in a flash of white, then black, then white again as a sharp pain surged from the back of her head, soon followed by an audible ‘thunk’.

She stumbled slightly, turning just as a great force collided with her.

She felt the back of her head bounce off of the hardwood floor, as the man forced her against the ground, holding her arms in place and stopping her from wriggling away.

“Found you!”

The man’s face contorted, lines twisting heinously across his face as he drew his head back. He slammed his forehead down in a brutal headbutt, Rumi’s best attempts at avoiding the attack simply causing it to slam into her cheekbone instead.

She squinted her eyes momentarily as she reeled from the pain, fighting to open one of them as she felt her left arm come free.

Before she could even see what was happening, she threw her head to the right, hearing as the man’s fist buried itself into the wooden floor where her head had just been.

Her left hand surged into position, grabbing a hold of the blade’s hilt as she opened her eyes in full.

She watched as the man’s face suddenly melted into a state of frozen horror, his expression soon held in slowed stasis as the sword’s wooden blade met the air of the warehouse. She freed her right hand, palming the man in the jaw and forcing him off of her. With just enough leeway to wiggle her legs, she fought her lower body free, planting the bottoms of her boots against his abdomen as she braced herself against the rack.

She kicked, sheathing the blade as she did so.

Time resumed at normal speed, and the man was sent flying across the aisle– stopping only when his back slammed into a piece of wood that protruded from the opposing rack.

She scrambled to her feet, bolting around the corner and into the intersection before the man even had the time to hit the ground.

As she ran, her eyes scanned the signs in search of the characters that corresponded to the ink brick she was looking for.

If she could’ve read Japonic, then she would at least have some indication of where it may be. Perhaps there was an aisle specifically for writing or calligraphy supplies. But as it was, she knew not how to read the language of the Kitsunites, and she would have no clues as to the brick’s location.

She dove into one of the aisles after a few seconds of running, afraid that the man may see her making her break down the brightly-lit intersection.

Her eyes darted around, and soon enough she identified the section she was in as an inbetweener sandwiched by the houseware and cookery sections. The aisle on her right had been stocked with various containers, kettles, quilts, flint and steels, and even a few calligraphy scrolls. The one on her right had sacks of flour, salt, and entire jars of oils.

She soon heard the rapidly approaching footsteps of the man, and she thanked herself for diving in when she did.

She shuffled up quietly towards the edge of the rack, this time placing her right hand on the blade in preparation to unsheathe it.

And when the man crossed the threshold, she tore it out before her, slicing it through the blanket that floated through the air.

Rumi froze.

At once she hopped backwards, eyes darting up to check if the man had decided to ambush her from above.

He was not there.

She caught herself, and despite her fears she threw the blade back into its sheath.

Breathing heavy, she slowly shifted backwards, the sword by her hip suddenly feeling a lot less powerful than it did before. It was as if an invisible weight had been taken off of it, and it was suddenly more vulnerable, weaker, as if the wood that it had been fashioned out of had hollowed out and aged a hundred years.

She wouldn’t be able to maintain that state of slowed time for much longer.

She placed her right hand on the blade again, and held herself by the edge of the rack, waiting for the man to emerge.

Though he never came.

She stepped away from the intersection.

Maybe it was best that she got to looking.

With her left hand firmly affixed to the hilt of her blade, she continued down the aisle, deeper into the shadows. Her eyes scanned up and down the rack, going over item after item, though to little avail. It was impossible for her to tell what was what unless it had been kept outside of a box. And while it was entirely possible that the ink bricks were stored simply out in the open, it was equally possible that they– being the expensive luxury goods that they were– were stored in a box for safekeeping and longevity.

That meant that she would have to scour the tiny labels on each individual box on the six metre tall rack, squinting her eyes up and down the thing in search of the characters that would identify what she was looking for.

This was no good. She needed another plan.

“How am I ever going to win in a fight against them, though?” Rumi asked. “I mean… I know I should try and get the upper hand intel-wise and everything… but if it were to come to a one-on-one brawl, is there anything I can do to not lose?”

“I…” Soleiman struggled. He took a look back at the letter, scouring its contents before returning to her. “Okay. We don’t know what you’ll be given. Which… makes it a little difficult to…”

He looked at Qingxi, as if to plead for help.

“Look, Rumi,” the Chitite said, adjusting herself atop the sofa back.

“Yeah?”

“Something that I learnt back in Xiafa,” she continued. “Is that a lot of the time, you’re going to end up in a disadvantageous situation, fighting others much stronger than you, no matter what you’ve tried beforehand.”

“Okay…”

“So what you can do, during the battle itself, to make things easier for you,” she said. “Is to deny them their strengths, then and there.”

Rumi paused for a moment, her eyes drifted over the strange book on the menstrual cycle Soleiman had brought back amongst many others.

Written by a man by the name of Boaz.

“How do I do that?”

“If they’re faster than you,” Qingxi said. “You break their legs.”

Qingxi slid her way across the dew-covered grass, the softened mud beneath her giving way as she slipped into the wide gait of the Protoataphoi, cleaving in twain one of its galloping legs.

“If they’re stronger than you,” Qingxi said. “You break their arms.”

Qingxi slammed her boots down onto the hands of the last surviving Hashashiyyin, shattering the bones of his palms and his digits and forcing the Instrument from his hands.

“And…” Rumi asked. “If they’re better than you in every conceivable way?”

Qingxi went quiet.

Soleiman and Rumi exchanged a glance.

“You break their mind.”

Rumi stepped into the intersection, feeling as the warmth of the noon sky pouring through the window above head washed over her body.

She continued walking on, deeper into the intersection-

She unsheathed the blade, leaping backwards as the shadow of the man thundering down to meet her fell upon the floor beside her. She reached her right hand into her pouch, grabbing from within both a small bag of flour and a flint and steel.

She scattered the flour before her, resheathing the blade as the man exploded onto the ground where she once stood– and directly into the cloud of dust.

She tugged the blade out of its sheath once more, before clicking the fleet and steel together in her right hand– sending a small shower of sparks towards the man.

Towards the cloud.

She resheathed the blade, the area directly before her suddenly erupting into a screaming ball of fire; vanishing almost as quickly as it came into being. Not missing a beat, she forced herself against the heat and the shockwave, grabbing the hilt of the blade with her right hand as she did so.

She thudded her feet against the ground as she made her approach, unsheathing the blade and striking it in a great arc as it cracked against the man’s temple while he remained within the smokescreen. She continued on with her momentum, planting her feet before shoving her shoulder into him, forcing him out of the cloud of soot and smoke.

In the brief moment she had won herself in shoving the man away, Rumi focused her intent. Recalling the lessons she undertook with Qingxi back in Minerva on controlling the usage of the windblade, she calmed her mind– still as a pool– and willed the blade to stop.

Time soon returned to normalcy, and not willing to give the man even a moment of reprieve, she lunged again– spearing the sword directly into his liver.

The man collapsed onto his knees, and Rumi disappeared behind him to return once more to the darkness of the aisles; her feet banging against the floor all the while.

Ushihama regained his bearings. His four ears rang, his eyes had been seared, and his skin itched with the irritation of the dust explosion. He fought with each breath, his agonising liver shackling him to the floor and the throbbing pain in his head fighting to put him down for good.

He needed to get out of there. Before-

There was a sudden clamour of footsteps behind him, each one growing in strength and intensity and proximity from the last. It was a march at first, but then a trot, a canter, and the man spun on his heels, eyes peeled against the unfathomable darkness of the aisles as he braced himself.

When salt hit him in the face.

Rumi had thrown the substance before her, striking him directly in his eyes.

She had managed to bait him.

She surged back into the light, punching the man in his liver once more and sending him stumbling back.

She put her right hand back onto the blade’s hilt, intent on drawing it and-

Ushihama lunged wildly at her, just barely managing to snag her in his blinded indignation and dragging her to the ground.

He rained upon her a flurry of barbaric, formless attacks, overheads and punches and hammerfists all chaotically slamming into the wood of the floor as Rumi bobbed and weaved the shitstorm of a barrage.

She waited for a moment, and as he went to clobber her in the head with a double hammer fist, she used the momentum of his attack against him– rolling onto her shoulders and giving herself just enough space to unsheathe the blade for the last time.

There, she blasted her feet into him once more, throwing him well off of her as the slowed time petered out on its own.

Now, watching as the man dug at his own eyes as he writhed against the floor, she disappeared into the darkness once more.

And she did not return.

Ushihama got back to his feet after some time, his hands still affixed to his eyes as they yet continued to burn against the sting of the salt. His ears, though, had returned to normalcy. The ringing had entirely subsided, and with his vision removed from the equation, he put his all into parsing each and every noise that his ever-twitching Kitsunite ears could pick up on.

She wouldn’t be able to approach him again. Not anymore-

His vision suddenly sparked, showering his blinded eyes in a flash of white, then black, and then white again. And then finally his eyes returned to the darkness, the sound of a solid wooden brick clinking against the ground being the last thing that graced his ears before he collapsed into a slumber.

And it was done.

Rumi remained watching from the darkness. She almost couldn’t believe it. It had taken five whole countermeasures to take the man down. And if not for the fact that she had miraculously landed herself in the inbetweener section, with access to both foodstuffs and houseware, it was entirely possible that she may have lost.

But that wasn’t the case here.

And now, she had all the time she needed to find the ink, and to get out.

“Phew,” she sighed.

She had won. They were safe.