Under the gaze of Zhuge Yu Jin
The herald said my name last, like someone leaving the blade on ice before handing it to the butcher. The noise of the arena turned into sea: boos, shouts, bets — foam breaking on the steps. I breathed. The air entered hot, heavy with dust and sweat, and Qi rose with me like well-made fire: no crackle, no smoke. Just heat.
The other name followed:
— Yuan He Zhen!
He rose from the Yuan He benches with the calm of someone who no longer needs a surname. Hair tied, clean face, posture of one who measures the ground before stepping. I glimpsed the patriarch nodding his head — belated recognition, the kind a clan gives to children discovered by chance in the middle of the arena. Zhen wasn't an heir, but the stage had suited him far too well these past few days.
I descended the steps. My right hand touched the hilt of my black saber, the familiar weight resting at my waist like an old friend with no words left to say. No flourish. The cold leather. The guard without adornment. The blade of dark, unknown steel — but steel is still steel when the cut asks for no witnesses.
I stepped onto the platform and the heat of the floor rose through my shins. The body answered correctly: dense bones, firm tendons, that troublesome memory of training igniting in every joint. The Dragon Bone Forge had no glamour. It was fire and water over the same bone until the bone remembered it should be metal. Whole days of fever, nights too short, stiff grip at dawn. The pain still lived in specific places of the body — clavicle, radius, arch of the foot — but it was familiar pain. Pain that does not hate you.
I raised my eyes. Zhen was already before me, two steps past the center, letting the shadow fall behind him as if nothing in the world could push him forward. Like in the fight with Min, his sister had shown water. He hadn't. Zhen carried the precision of someone who learned to see first and move after.
We gave the formal salute. The herald announced the fight. The noise receded a little, just enough for me to hear my own blood pounding in my ears.
Before the judge lowered his hand, my body had already decided: finish quickly.
The Steel Dragon Saber begins long before the cut. It begins in the base: heavy heels, hips aligned, breath in the lower abdomen — and the weight of the world transferred to the blade as if I were pouring stones inside the spine of the saber. The burning Qi spread heat along the metal, not to scorch. To weigh.
The judge moved his hand. Zhen dissolved slightly — he didn't vanish, only lifted the anchor of his feet. Left foot sliding half a finger, shoulder relaxing, gaze fixed on my waist, not my face. He was a reader of mistakes. The best ones are.
I advanced with a single short step — the first snap of the Silent Thunder Step. The world shifted a fraction. The body stretched without losing weight, knees cushioning the leap almost the instant it began. My shadow stayed a step behind me for a blink. The saber came down diagonally. A finishing strike, not a warning.
Zhen raised his blade — thin, pale-shining, Qi contained in the spine of the steel — and made the most irritating gesture in the world: he economized. The edge of my cut struck a plane that wasn't entirely his blade. It was a plane of wind. The steel met resistance before meeting steel. The impact carried to my shoulder like a hammer missing its nail, and my arm yielded a fraction — not enough to break the base, just enough not to lose the axis.
He retreated a hand's span, right foot in line, left arm releasing the weight of the hilt to his hip. No smile. He launched his blade at the diagonal of my neck with the exact speed not to turn into anxiety.
I twisted my hips slightly and the guard of the saber rose, taking the strike on its spine. Vibrations ran down the bones of my forearm, and the tendons responded without creaking. Dragon Bone Forge: the mute part that wins fights which love noise.
The first minute was only that: reading versus weight. Zhen drew small fences on the ground — half-moons with his feet, left hand opening and closing as if arranging my possibilities. I struck where a strike is a strike: clavicle, scapula, outer thigh. My blade hungered to end. His blade hungered to classify.
I changed my breathing. Qi cracked in my heels; two silent bursts propelled me left, and before his mind caught up, right. The Silent Thunder Step isn't pretty. It's useful. The angle of my torso turned odd enough to undo three of Zhen's deductions. I entered beneath the ridge of his guard and let the saber fall like a heavy gate.
The impact came full. I felt, in my palm, the structure of his arm descend a step. His steel groaned. The platform returned a dry echo. I was ready to repeat — second strike with doubled weight, no interval — when his gaze shifted. Zhen's Qi prickled the air. Fine lines, like strands of wet silk, unfurled from his wrist — I didn't see them with my eyes, my Qi's heat felt them first.
He wove a mesh of "non-place" before me, a shallow net meant to stall, to beg reality for another second. The Steel Dragon Saber does not like seconds. I cut anyway.
The blade entered, broke through two threads, and stopped at the third invisible strand. Not a shield. A tether. I felt the weight of my own strike neutralized for an instant, not by something solid, but by his decision. Zhen was already out of the line of attack. He answered with a low thrust. His metallic Qi bit into my flank.
I didn't retreat.
I tilted my rib to receive it. The tempered bone sang. The cut scraped, taking skin and the first layer of flesh. The sting came in the same rhythm as a bead of sweat evaporating — my fiery Qi licked the wound, dried the blood before it could flow. I was already inside his reach; I broke the guard of my saber overhead. The spine of my steel struck his wrist. Zhen yielded a step.
The arena absorbed our rhythm. Silence is never complete here, but noise learns to watch. In the distance, above the first rows, a single sound I would recognize even blind: an unhurried breathing and a faint drumming of nails against wood. My elder brother. I didn't look. I didn't need to. His presence sat on my shoulder like a familiar weight.
My Qi heated another notch. Not to show off, but to keep me whole. The Silent Thunder Step again — right, empty, left, a dry crack on the heel, then forward where no honest man steps. The saber rose from below, a short arc powered by the weight of the hips. Zhen accepted it with his plane and pulled my blade aside using the recoil itself. He wanted extension. I wanted the end.
The second exchange was his. Zhen's blade stitched three strikes in the same breath — diagonal, low horizontal, ascending — his metallic Qi lining the edge like cold varnish. I accepted a bite on the forearm. The cut struck, the bone cracked without breaking, and the skin opened just enough for a reminder.
"See?" — memory whispered. — "The pain still lives here."
That's fine.
I lifted my chin and smiled the kind of smile the clan calls reckless. Not bravado. Calculation. Some people read posture; others read smiles. Zhen tightened his retreat. His foot lagged exactly as much as I needed.
Inside, the Forge answered. The bones of my wrist heated, the humerus recalled the exercise under hot stone. I anchored my heel and summoned weight. Not too much Qi — weight. The world decided to fall through my saber.
The Steel Dragon Saber descended without haste. It wasn't fast: it was certain. Zhen crossed his blade to give me a double plane, but my cut sought no edge. It sought the arm. I struck guard and bone at once. I felt his forearm sing like damp wood splitting. It didn't break — it trilled. Enough to strip firmness from his grip. I pressed. He retreated two steps, fingers re-adjusting.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the minimal gesture I wanted: above, my brother inclined his chin a fraction. Recognition. He didn't need to speak; I knew the characters were already aligned in his mind: Steel Dragon Saber.
I returned to stance. Blood ran down my wrist, hot, without the decency to ask leave. My Qi's heat dried what it could, sealed enough for the body to stay whole for three more minutes — time I didn't plan to use.
Zhen looked at me as if reviewing a text. His fingers carried a fatigue unseen on his face. Yet Qi thickened around him. A circle opened at his feet — not mystical, practical. He gathered the whole ground and spun it. When he advanced, it was by borrowing my axis. His strike came straight, lateral at the ribs, intending to shatter base. I chose to accept again.
His steel struck deeper this time. The Forge sang lower. At the same time, my body pressed in, shoulder to shoulder, like a bull who learned the arena's rules. I angled the blade under his guard, from below upward, aiming the armpit — a place unused to armor. He twisted his wrist, clearing it by a finger. Not enough. My blade touched, scraped flesh, caught nerve. His arm yielded half a span and the Qi mesh he wove unraveled like web torn by wind.
The crowd breathed again.
I could drag this out. But dragging is the religion of those afraid to lose. My Qi flared another degree; the air shimmered faintly — no one but me needed to see. I gave two false steps, charging him for the reading he'd been making since the start. Zhen bit the bait: entered, certain I'd repeat the last strike's angle. That was the moment for the Silent Thunder Step in its ugliest beauty.
The first snap was in the ball of the foot. The second, in the knee — and the third, which exists in no manual, was in the decision. I shifted torso before shifting leg. The body slid where my heel hadn't yet arrived, and the world lagged with me. When Zhen's sight found me again, I was already behind his right shoulder. The saber rose only as much as needed; it fell with the whole world atop.
He tried to cross steel. Managed half. His guard held a third. The rest was bone. The impact ripped air from his lungs; his knee bent. His saber slipped for a breath. I could have turned the cut to his neck, and the judge would've had to shout before I finished — if this were a world without my two siblings, without a clan to bury guilt. It wasn't.
I twisted my wrist, diverting the edge at the last instant, and laid the blade on his shoulder. The weight said what it needed without much blood. Zhen leaned. His body told me he'd fall forward. I stepped back half a pace. He dropped a knee onto the platform, saber dangling from a weary arm.
The judge froze mid-gesture, surprised by his own delay.
Zhen raised his eyes. Stubbornness lingered there. Good sign. He drew breath, ready for two more moves — three, if he paid the bill with his body tomorrow. I could have risked it.
But the arena has its own rhythm of mercy.
— I… it still isn't enough. — his voice rasped.
I nodded. No words. My saber pointed down, not by neglect, but by regard. The skin on my forearm throbbed in the rhythm of my heart. Qi burned evenly, pleased at not needing to be spent dry.
Zhen leapt short to his feet. Heel touched the same spot as before — superstition or method. For the first time, his Qi lost stinginess. It came in thin blades, many, like slanted rain. His hidden technique, at last. Yuan He blood loves water and wind; Zhen chose wind with wire.
The small blades hunted face, thigh, triceps — cuts to strip muscle, not life. If they trapped me, it'd be by accumulation. The Silent Thunder Step took its other use: not to appear where unexpected, but not to be where certain. One snap, two more, a third only the body knows. My silhouette warped like mirage on hot stone. Three wires of wind sliced the shadow. None touched my neck.
I closed in. No space for full weight — his net covered the line. So I gave him what one can give in such moments: a half-honest strike. The saber fell short, with half the world on it. Enough to stifle his technique for one breath. The wind lost edge, turned to breeze.
Now.
I drew air inward, fire thickened in the saber's spine. Heat walked from hilt to back of blade like crossing the right bridge. Left hand locked the pommel, right hand anchored. No haste, no music. Steel Dragon Saber. Final cut.
I saw the future of his fall in Zhen's stance. He tried to return it to balance. Too late. The strike descended like tide that doesn't know retreat. The edge met his guard, and this time the guard accepted like old wood — with a short sound and an apology. His blade didn't break; his confidence did. The steel came down enough to mark his shoulder and stop, by my choice, a finger before bone.
I held there a second, enough for the weight to be understood. Withdrew the saber and stepped back.
Zhen breathed. His arm trembled inside — I saw it in the vibration of the blade's spine, not his hand. He closed his eyes, opened them clear. Straightened, turned his saber downward, and with the formality we still try to teach this city's children, bowed.
— I acknowledge defeat.
The judge, still unsure if he would have interrupted a death that never came, finally found his role. He announced. Noise returned full, as if the city had been authorized to exist again. I wiped the blade on a strip of robe, sheathed steel, and my Qi's heat cooled two degrees. Blood crusted on my forearm. The cut on my flank sang then settled. The body did its math and decided it would sleep tonight.
I turned my face, just enough for my line of sight to touch the Zhuge stands. My brother neither applauded nor smiled — a man like him only grants approval through absences. Still, the gesture came: another slight nod. His fingers stopped drumming. Enough.
"He saw." That's what it meant. "Saw and recorded." Saber. Step. Forge. The rest he'd keep to use when pushing me against the next wall — or pulling me, if I decided to break what I shouldn't. That's the kind of luxury only elder brothers can afford: to seem like a wall and yet keep watch.
I left the platform.
On the way back, the noise neared like rain you decide to accept. Some called me by name. Others laughed, drunk on borrowed adrenaline. Most just shouted without verbs. A man of Tie Xuan muttered something about a "beautiful cut." I ignored it. The only beauty I accept is the kind that cuts.
I passed by a shadow smelling of herbs — Yui Lan, inevitable, hands already preparing needles I hadn't asked for. I touched her wrist lightly as I passed.
— Later — I whispered.
— Now — she replied just as softly, eyes saying her "later" always arrives before mine.
I went on.
When I sat, the bench gave back some of the fatigue my body had hidden. The saber rested at my side, leather brushing wood with a simple sound. I looked at the arena. The light scent of iron hung in the air, mixed with burnt sugar from fruits sold on the steps.
I closed my eyes a moment. Heat inside settled. Pain in old spots breathed. And, high above, my brother's hand resumed drumming, now with a different beat. Countdown. There would be more steel before day's end. And when it came, I still had the same answer I brought to this stage:
No flourish. Cut and end.