The cut on his cheek stung worse than it should have. Cauterized wounds always did.
Tysone spat blood onto the cracked stone. "Aight. No more warm-ups."
Hayashi didn't answer. He came in again, faster this time, blade trailing fire like a comet's tail, and Tysone realized the man wasn't actually getting stronger. He was getting desperate.
Desperate men swung wider. Desperate men left gaps. But desperate men could also be more dangerous.
He let the katana come close enough to nearly take his throat, then dropped his weight and drove the haft of the halberd straight into Hayashi's gut.
The air left him in a wheeze that cracked into something almost like a sob. Hayashi staggered, blade dipping, and Tysone didn't wait for him to recover. He grabbed a fistful of the man's hair and slammed his face down onto his rising knee.
Cartilage gave way with a crunch loud enough that Rei flinched from twenty feet away. The older man reeled backwards, spraying blood down his front, and Tysone rushed after him with his halberd spearing downward for the kill.
"Aghhh!"
Hayashi screamed as his burning blade came up desperately and knocked the halberd away from it's target, before redirecting a vicious upward stroke to try and take Tysone's chest right open. The sheer force behind it was frightening.
However, no matter how powerful the yakuza's strokes, they weren't overwhelming enough that Tysone could not deflect each and every strike with his halberd. There was a degree of difficulty that he didn't find in any other human opponent so far, even his own teammates.
Maybe Saeko could match him, but his fire ability that was slowly growing with him was a good counter-measure.
The fight went on, this time on a completely different tune.
Every few moments, Tysone deflected his enemy's flames, or batted them away with his own. Every so often he caught Hayashi's blade mid-swing and sent the katana wide or sent sparks dancing toward the other's face. They traded a flurry of slashes back and forth across the length of the courtyard.
Hayashi's eyes were wide and bloodshot as they zipped back and forth at blistering speeds. Trying to predict and anticipate. Failing.
Then it happened.
"Shit—"
One parry landed perfectly. But Hayashi, already panicked and desperate and on the backfoot, stumbled, and the followup swing cut his sword arm deep, the glowing, steaming crimson spilling onto the stones. He was just starting to process the shock before his body was betraying him completely.
"Bastard! Bastard! Foreigner bastard!"
Hayashi roared in sheer rage. Even before he finished saying the final words, his sword came in hard for a heavy, final blow. A powerful thrust with enough intent to skewer a bull.
Unfortunately for him, he aimed for Tysone's body and missed the point where he was ducking underneath, sweeping the halberd to bat the blade aside, while stepping in for the kill. He had his momentum. He had his element.
So he thrust the head of the halberd itself into Hayashi's chest, jamming it there like an ax-head on a tree's trunk, and then yanking it free with a spurt of blood.
Hayashi dropped the katana. It hissed against the wet stone, fire guttering out the second it lost contact with his hand, as if the flame had only ever belonged to him and not to the metal at all.
"Huh." Tysone wiped blood off his chin with the back of his wrist. "Didn't even know that was a thing. Good to know."
Hayashi was on his knees now, one hand braced against the ground, blood pouring freely from his nose, mouth, chest and the various wounds he's racked up on top of that.
He looked up—not at Tysone's face, but at the halberd, still smoldering faintly, the head of it inches from his skull.
"Wait." His voice came out thick, mangled by his ruined nose. "Wait, wait—"
"You said you were going to carve her up and keep her." Tysone's tone didn't change. That was the unsettling part, even to himself. "I don't forget shit like that."
"I say a lot of things. Everybody does, this world—" Hayashi swallowed, coughed up something dark. "You think I'm the first asshole who's said worse and meant it less?"
"No." Tysone crouched, bringing himself level with the man, halberd resting easy across his shoulder now instead of poised to kill. "But you're the one in front of me right now. That matters more than the others."
Behind him, the courtyard had gone quiet except for the crackle of the oil-drum fire and somebody's rough breathing, likely one of the Serpents who hadn't quite finished dying yet.
Saeko hadn't moved. She was watching Tysone with that same unreadable focus, sword loose at her side, blood drying dark on the blade.
"Do you have more people or is that it?"
Hayashi's eyes flicked, just slightly, toward the main house. Toward a basement door half-hidden behind an overturned planter.
Tysone followed the look and understood immediately. "Hostages?"
"...Workers." Hayashi corrected weakly, his face pale, hand clutching the severe gash on his chest. "We feed them. They're not chained up or nothing."
"They're locked in a basement at midnight while you're out here drinking around a fire." Tysone stood. "Yeah. Workers. Sure."
He turned to Takashi. "Check the basement. Easy with the door, don't just kick it open and start swinging, you'll give somebody a heart attack."
Takashi nodded and jogged off, Rei falling in step a half-pace behind him without needing to be told.
Kohta's voice crackled faintly through the comm from the rooftop. "My liege, two more coming out the side entrance, looks like they heard the noise—"
"Let Mai and Miku handle it. That's what the flank's for."
A beat. Then, from somewhere off to the east, a short scream cut off fast, followed by Miku's distinctly cheerful voice carrying across the dark. "Got 'em! Easy peasy!"
Tysone allowed himself half a smile before turning his attention back down to Hayashi, who was still on his knees, swaying slightly, watching Tysone. He wouldn't last long like this. The fact that he was still capable of speech and that much defiance despite his injuries was a credit to his grit, honestly.
He stared down at Hayashi.
"Are there other gangs like you in the city?"
Hayashi let out a wet laugh that turned into a cough halfway through. "City's full of 'em now. You think we're the only assholes who figured out the rules changed?"
"Names. Locations."
Tysone hissed, his flames flickering along with his emotions.
"You're killing me and asking for a phone book?" Another cough, more blood. "There's the Akagi crew, east side, they're worse than us. There's a militia outfit calling themselves Iron Watch, used to be cops, still act like it. And there's—" He stopped himself again.
"How strong are they?"
Hayashi looked at him.
He wasn't entirely sure what his expression looked like, or what it could possibly convey right now. Whatever was there, it wasn't anything approaching good.
"...."
He didn't answer. Tysone turned his halberd a fraction, pushing the blade tip against Hayashi's throat.
"You can kill me."
"So bold, all of a sudden?"
"You've got that look." Hayashi spat out, unwilling but not caring anymore. "There's only three types of people with that look. People who want to save the world, people who want to control the world, and people who want everyone else to burn while they stand over the ashes."
"..."
The fire around Tysone was playfully flickering around, making his form waver slightly as if it was about to break out into a full conflagration.
"You see a savior?" He asked.
"Fuck no." He laughed heartily. "I see a man who's made for this world. The city's full of 'em too. If you want to see how strong they are, go look for yourself. But you'll find out soon enough. The strong rule now. Nothing else matters."
Tysone gave a small, final nod. The yakuza was bleeding out from a few places and Tysone wasn't going to wait around to see if he had any last-minute tricks up his sleeve. He didn't give a final witty reply or a threatening promise. He simply raised the halberd and brought the blade down, putting an end to Hayashi's story.
He then looked at the courtyard. The fighting was over. The dead were strewn about like discarded dolls.
He turned to Saeko.
"Enjoy yourself?"
Saeko's smile was slow.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.