4

Real Name: Misaki YŪKI

Born: July 7

Height: 150 cm

Weight: 40 kg

She was given life on a sacred mountain, where three mountain hermits—Mizaru, the Unseeing Water Monkey; Iwazaru, the Unspeaking Rock Monkey; and Kikazaru, the Unhearing Vapor Monkey—taught her the fundamentals of combat. With the aid of her mountain magic, which gives her the power to manipulate liquids, solids, and gases, she has the potential for being an incredibly superior warrior, but she has never used her mystical techniques to harm another person. As a pacifist and a warrior, she has chosen a life of contradiction, and through her actions she has brought peaceful resolution to 314 wars and 229 internal conflicts.

Rather than traditional weapons, she wields ceasefire negotiations and peace treaty proposals. Because her feats aren’t as easily recognized as simply killing her enemies would be, she remains markedly unknown as a fighter. But those few who know of her consider her a hero beyond compare.

Her private life is one of normalcy. She makes pastries as a hobby, and the desserts she creates are so delicious they often tempt her into overeating. She lives with her boyfriend of five years and is starting to think about marriage.

Rat, apparently awake now, said without any other lead-in, “That flighty lady—I think she’s probably dead by now.”

Sharyū, the Fighter of the Monkey, put down her meal and calmly asked, “Why do you think that? Is your special ability being able to sense such things?”

Rat was still sleepily sprawled on the blanket. “I’d hardly call it a special ability,” he said. “Her fate is plain enough for anyone to see. Although, well, you know—rats have a knack for fleeing ships that are about to sink. Maybe some people have the shadow of death over them, and I can just see it better than others.”

Monkey said nothing. His emotions remained masked to her. If she had to say she saw some feeling in him, it was that he wanted to go back to sleep and nothing more.

The boy continued, “But if that lady is dead, it’s your fault, Miss Sharyū.”

She paused. “And why do you think that?”

“She didn’t look all that tough, but she was still a warrior. The people running this thing wouldn’t have put her in if she didn’t have a decent shot at surviving. But the more she talked with you, the weaker she got. She went from fainthearted to just plain faint. Your goodwill changed something in her. You reformed her. Who she was at the end … even a civvie could have killed her. To a rogue like her, your lack of venom is itself a deadly poison.”

Just how long has this boy been awake? Monkey wondered. I thought he was asleep the whole time. She and the child had stuck together since almost the very start of the Zodiac War, but he rarely spoke. He had not opened up to her, and he kept his opinions to himself—until now. What’s caused this change of heart? Or is this a change at all?

“Listen, Nezumi,” she said. “Are you … are you trying to provoke me? I’m sorry, but I can be a little slow to pick up on such things.”

“Is that so?” the child said. “Well, I’ll say no more. Even if I can read someone’s fate, I can’t read their mind. Anyway, whatever else happens, you won’t be reforming me. So you don’t have to worry about that.”

Monkey still couldn’t see what he was getting at. She was glad he was speaking to her now at least, but if all they did was talk past each other, it would be no more fruitful than idle chatter.

Rat asked, “But where does that leave your plan? Assuming that lady is in fact dead, that means that four of us have been killed. And that’s only the ones we know of. That’s a full third gone. Can you still pull off this guaranteed plan for victory of yours?”

“I can, although I’m saddened that fewer people remain to be saved. It sounds like you’re operating under a mistaken assumption, so allow me to correct it. I don’t have just one plan.”

That startled Rat a little. “You’ve got more than one?”

“I’m not so carelessly optimistic as to believe I can stop the Zodiac War with just one plan. Treaties always require flexibility in order to adapt to changing circumstances.”

Rat nodded with a thoughtful hum. “Well, I’ve never really thought much about stopping the fight, so I’ll leave that part to you.”

“Say, Nezumi,” Monkey said.

“What?”

“First you say I’m not going to reform you, and now you say you don’t care about stopping this war. If you have no enthusiasm for my plans, then why did you agree to join me? I don’t figure you for a pacifist either.”

Monkey had tossed her remark out there to make Rat think, never expecting he’d answer, but some part of it drew out a frank reply.

“You want to know what I think about peace? Actually, I hate it,” the boy said. “When I’m not out on some battlefield, in my so-called normal life, I’m in high school. My classmates—peace has made them all go soft. Damn wastes, all of them. The thought of risking my life to protect their meaningless existences is revolting.”

Monkey said nothing.

Rat continued, “Doesn’t it bother you? No one in the world has saved as many lives as you have. But a decent number of those you’ve saved are garbage—that’s just plain math. Actually, what you do is even worse. By saving people, you’re turning them into garbage. They think of wars and killing as someone else’s job. They think that people like me fight because that’s what we want to do. I hate to say it, but the more I protect them, the more I just want to kill them.”

Monkey let him continue.

“So tell me, Miss Pacifist. How the hell do you come to terms with that feeling?”

These feelings were a product of his age, but Monkey sensed they deserved to be handled with care. The easy response would have been to dismiss such emotions as childish and to say that he would understand when he grew up. But plenty of people reached adulthood still carrying thoughts like that. The best Monkey could do was to give him an honest and direct answer.

“I don’t make peace with it,” she said. “I struggle with it my whole life.”

“Ah, I see. The perfect answer from a saint. But talk like that doesn’t reach us mere mortals.”

Finally, Rat sat up. Despite the child’s claims, her words seemed to have roused something in his stubborn heart—or at least, they roused his upper body from the floor.

“So,” Rat said, “are you like a hard case or something?”

“Well, I know some self-defense tactics. I couldn’t survive on the battlefield if I didn’t.”

“Come on, you can drop the modesty. After all, you’re the one who blasted the floor apart, aren’t you?”

So he knew. There really was more to this boy than appearances suggested.

“I wasn’t trying to hide that I did it,” Monkey said, but then stopped herself. “No, I suppose I was trying to hide it. I didn’t want you looking at me like you are now.”

“I’m not being critical,” Rat said. “I’ve always had this look on my face. Was born with it. I don’t mean anything, really. Anyway, you only did it because you sensed that someone had decided to make a preemptive strike before your budding alliance could form. In order to keep everyone alive, you cleared the stage. Isn’t that it?”

He was mostly correct. If she were to append anything, it would be that she hadn’t merely had some vague sense that someone was going to make a move—what she clearly sensed was the intent to kill. Monkey wasn’t the only one who intended to put a swift end to the Zodiac War before the fighters ever left that starting room—but this person had decided on a completely opposite approach. Had Monkey delayed her response by a fraction of an instant, the battle might really have ended then and there.

“I see,” Rat said. “And you don’t know who wanted to kill everyone?”

“I don’t,” Monkey replied. “I didn’t have time to find out. It was all I could do to escape—to let everyone escape.”

“I said you can drop the modesty. I bet if you wanted to, you could have figured out who it was and taken them out instead of running away. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I won’t say I couldn’t have,” Monkey admitted. “But I don’t use my power like that. Great power must be used correctly.”

“Correctly, eh? I think maybe whoever wanted to kill us had it correct. Their way would have ended the Zodiac War a whole lot quicker than this exhausting peace plan of yours. You go through all this time and trouble to make your peace negotiations and to offer your ceasefires, but don’t you think that if you just wielded whatever power it is that you have to end this battle in an instant, you’d save more lives, and faster?”

Monkey was lost again. She asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean—aside from yourself, think about what kind of people take part in the Zodiac War. What reason do you have to go and break your back over saving the lives of their kind? The world would be better off with all of us dead. That includes me. And if you’re going to say that every life is equally precious, or that nobody is truly bad to the core, or some cliché like that, well, those are just hollow words from someone who won’t face reality.”

“If that’s truly what you’ve decided,” Monkey said, “then you’d better quit being a fighter right now. You don’t have what it takes to fight.”

The words came out a little more harshly than she’d intended. Maybe he did provoke me after all. Despite that vague realization, she continued, “You said no one in the world has saved as many people as I have. But no one else has failed to save as many as I have. There are many who I tried to save but couldn’t. More than I could ever count. And more than I could ever forget.”

Rat listened.

“I’ve seen countries destroyed,” Monkey said. “I’ve seen senseless massacres. I’ve seen perversions of justice that are seared into the backs of my eyelids. I’ve seen humans hunted. I’ve seen slavery. I’ve seen treachery and betrayal. I’ve seen inhumane weapons, human trafficking, elders left to die in the wilderness. I’ve seen children kill their parents, and I’ve seen children culled. I’ve seen cultural suppression, the mass destruction of historical sites, natural resources exhausted, discrimination and prejudice. I’ve seen revenge strikes and counterattacks, male chauvinism and the subjection of women, famine and plague. I’ve seen all of it. I’ve seen it with no end. I’ve stared at it. I’ve seen reality. And after all that, here I am—still saying my ‘hollow words.’ Still having chosen my way. I chose to use the power of words not to end a war but to end all war. I’ve been through hell, but I still want us all to get along. I still want us all to be happy.”

Then, gently, she added, “Don’t underestimate my ‘hollow words,’ boy.”

The boy had fallen back into silence—or rather, back into sleep. Monkey didn’t think he was sulking, but she wondered if she had gone too far, and regretted it. Monkey thought, Children really are hard to deal with. And now that they were again only two, the uncomfortable silence hung in the air unbroken. No matter the grandiose words she spoke, no matter who called her a hero, how pathetic was she if she couldn’t manage to communicate with one child? That just goes to show how much I have yet to learn. To the best of her inexperience, she thought about what to do next.

Monkey had been planning on waiting for everyone to calm back down before proposing her peace plan again, but if what Chicken had said about the state of things aboveground was to be believed—and Monkey had no choice but to believe it for now—then the Zodiac War was progressing at a far more rapid pace than the pacifist had expected. This battle had already seen three victims. If Rat’s hunch was to be believed—and with nothing to substantiate it, Monkey still held reasonable doubts—then Chicken too was dead. Of the original twelve fighters, only Rat and Monkey and at most six others remained.

Maybe I was being too naïve, but I’m surprised that so many fighters are so actively engaged in killing. Even if the judge says we can have any wish fulfilled, isn’t staying alive worth something? Besides, everyone here is resourceful enough to be able to fulfill most any wish through their own efforts.

Take Rabbit, for example. From what Chicken had told Monkey before leaving for the surface, the man was a necromanticist who could command the dead in battle. With that kind of power, there was little he could want that he couldn’t get for himself. What reason then did he have to risk his life to fight? Sure, once nominated for the Zodiac War, participation was compulsory—that was an invitation one dared not decline—but she had expected to see a difference in the actions of the fighters who approached the game with eagerness and those who did so with reluctance. That was why the people in charge took steps to keep the Zodiac War moving, such as making the combatants swallow poison jewels. But judging by the pace the warriors were setting, such steps seemed hardly necessary.

Do I wait a little longer and watch for the right opportunity? Or do I go aboveground now? I need to make a decision.

And then she didn’t need to make a decision. Rather, she didn’t have the chance to make one.

There came a loud noise, amplified by the echoes of the narrow sewer passages, and too loud to be ignored. The echoes masked the direction of the sound’s source, but wherever it was, it was coming closer.

“Nezumi, wake up!”

Rat groaned and said, “Just five more minutes.”

Monkey kicked him.

“Ow! I thought you were against violence.” Rat sat up. “Wait, what’s that noise? Sounds like a helicopter or something.”

A helicopter could never have been in the sewers, but that was what it most sounded like—like something was cutting through the air, repeatedly, relentlessly, and chopping through it again. The noises overlapped and affected each other. Did that mean this was more than one thing coming toward them?

Monkey’s deductions ended there. Before she could find the answer, far faster than her mind could work, the answer found her—though even if she had more time to think, she might never have imagined what it was. In everything she had seen in all the world’s battlefields, she had never seen anything like this.

The sound belonged to wings—the flapping wings of a great flock of birds. Rather, the flapping wings of a great flock of dead birds.

The zombie mass swarmed through the tunnel and found Monkey and Rat. Then, as if holding the pair in their sights, the birds hovered in place.

Monkey froze in shock, but impressively, her mind worked to make the connection. “Is this … the necromanticist’s work? He’s using the dead birds?”

Monkey’s deductions were limited by the vague snippets she’d heard of what had happened on the surface. What she didn’t know was that these were Chicken’s birds—the birds felled by the nonstop barrage of Boar’s twin machine guns when Chicken summoned the Sky Burial. The key point there was that Boar’s bullets had killed the winged animals, and at the time, Boar was under Rabbit’s control. This signified two crucial facts: the necromanticist’s ability to command those he killed was not restricted to human targets, and this ability extended not only to those killed by his hand, but those killed by his minions as well—though of course, he would call those reanimated corpses his friends.

While whatever they were called was a matter of personal preference, one fact remained: the few dozen birds Boar had killed before being consumed by the flock were now obeying that vile necromanticist, not Chicken.

The birds hovered with wounded wings that splattered blood all around with each flap. The undead creatures caught Monkey speechless—not by the sight of their busted beaks or their claws fractured into something even sharper than they once were, but because of the person controlling them with no respect for the dead animals and no regard for the sanctity of life.

I understand the logic—while normal birds would never enter the sewers, their corpses would have no such qualms against the search. But there’s more to the world than logic.

The tactic gave no sign of fastidiousness, just an inhumanly cold and systematic logic: if I do A, then B will happen, therefore I will do A.

“This is bad,” Rat said. His voice remained sleepy as always, but his expression was serious. That must have just been how he naturally spoke. “There’s too many of them. Even if we don’t get killed, if we try to fight this many small animals in such an enclosed space, we’re sure to get hurt. And in a filthy place like this, we’ll have a very high chance of getting a tetanus infection.”

Monkey knew as much—that risk was one reason she had agreed to hide out down in the sewers. In a way, being unsuited for fighting made the place something of a neutral territory. But when their opponents were already dead, that mental impediment only applied to one side.

“We’re running,” Monkey said as she seized the child by the nape of his neck and broke into a sprint. The dead flock didn’t pursue them immediately. Monkey figured that was just because the corpses needed a little more time to get moving, but that didn’t change the danger the two were in should they remain underground.

“Let go of me. I can run on my own,” Rat said, embarrassed, but Monkey ignored his protests and bolted up the nearest ladder, lifted the manhole cover, and emerged—into the oncoming slash of a blade.

But Monkey had expected the attack and was ready with the right response. Narrowly dodging the blow, she unleashed a swift kick at the back of her opponent’s neck—but her attack was also narrowly dodged. Except it shouldn’t have been. Her shin should have slammed into her enemy’s neck. Despite being known as a pacifist, Monkey excelled at hand-to-hand combat. She could hit any target with her eyes closed.

But her attack couldn’t hit a neck when there was no neck where one was supposed to be. Instead, her kick passed through air.

Another corpse, Monkey thought, as she and Rat rolled across the pavement. This one is Snake. But that blade doesn’t belong to him.

“Ow,” Rat groaned, but Monkey was getting back on her feet. She faced her opponents.

Standing beside Snake was the man with the freakish expression and the freakish attire—Rabbit. Of the two, the corpse—the headless corpse, at that—was the less disturbing. With an unsteady arm, the puppet returned the giant blade to its owner, who now held one in each hand.

Rabbit announced himself.

“I am Usagi, the Fighter of the Rabbit. I kill with distinction.”

Monkey could clearly see this was no time to bid for a truce, at least not how things stood now.

She thought, This leaves me no choice, then said, “Nezumi, can I leave Snake to you?”

“What, you’re fighting now?”

“I’m a pacifist, but I’m no adherent to nonresistance. I’m going to restrain him without injuring him, and I’ll get him to understand.”

“Restrain him without injuring him? You know that’s a lot harder than just taking him down.” Rat sighed. “You do this every time.”

“What do you mean I do this every time?”

“I mean always. No matter what happens.” The boy got to his feet. “All right. I’ll handle him.”

Monkey wasn’t sure how good a fighter Rat was, but no matter his age, a warrior was a warrior. He almost certainly wouldn’t be killed instantly by a corpse. Even if he didn’t win, he would at least be able to draw the fight out long enough for her to incapacitate Rabbit.

Not that I know how I’m going to incapacitate a necromanticist …

Simply disarming him of those two massive blades wouldn’t likely be enough. In the meantime, she and Rat took their fighting stances and readied themselves for the battle.

“I am Sharyū, the Fighter of the Monkey. I kill in peace.”

“I am Nezumi, the Fighter of the Rat. I kill inexorably.”

The first to move was, surprisingly, the slowest moving of the four—Snake’s corpse. And he was moving to leave. Apparently, both sides were looking for a one-on-one battle. Rat took his cue and followed the walking corpse.

Keeping one eye on the pair’s departure, Monkey said to Rabbit, even though she knew it was futile, “You raised your hand back in that high-rise, didn’t you? It’s not too late to work together with us. You remember what I said, right? I can save all of us. If you can find it in yourself to have a change of heart, and you’ll listen to me, then …”

Was he listening? Monkey couldn’t tell. Whatever emotion lurked behind Rabbit’s expression, she couldn’t read it.

Monkey pressed on. “If you’re trying to win because you want your wish granted, we’d be more than happy to help you make it come true. If we all work together, no dream will be beyond our reach.”

Still nothing. Monkey was perplexed by the lack of any response whatsoever from the man, but quickly she learned that he simply hadn’t been listening at all.

She shouldn’t have left that manhole cover open.

A swarm of birds flew out from the hole.

He wasn’t listening to me—he was waiting for his underground reinforcements to arrive. And he didn’t want a one-on-one fight, he just wanted to split us up.

His strategy was without regard for anything else and devoid of even an iota of emotional attachment, as if he were putting together a jigsaw puzzle. To call it machinelike wouldn’t quite have been right. He was working chess pieces on a board—or rather, Othello pieces, where each is indistinguishable and only position matters. There was no humanity in it at all.

Monkey had negotiated with all manner of people, but this man’s values were so alien to her that he might as well have been from outer space.

Undaunted, unwavering, Monkey persisted, “Rabbit, is your wish—”

But then the roar of flapping wings drowned out her voice.

The birds rushed her, and no words could dissuade their attack. At least here, aboveground, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting some terrible infection, but the animals’ beaks and talons were still dangerous enough on their own.

This leaves me no choice!

Monkey steadied her resolve and began slapping down the dead birds as they assailed her from all directions. From a distance, she appeared only to be flailing wildly, but in reality, her movements were calculated, and she struck the mock-phoenixes one by one, sending them slamming to the ground. Not every attack connected with her winged enemies, but even those would-be misses were feint attacks designed to restrict and guide the birds’ movements. The strikes that landed didn’t simply drop the creatures either, but broke their wings so that they wouldn’t take flight again.

Monkey considered her opponent’s fighting style inhuman, but her own technique was superhuman. Even in the sewer, she might have been able to fight with equal success—except there, she had been accompanied by a child and decided to act with caution.

With moves so smooth they seemed choreographed, she wielded her hands like knives and chopped down the birds one after another. But inside, her emotions were not so poised.

Dead or not, attacking these little creatures feels wrong.

Was that Rabbit’s plan all along? Had he sent the birds in first to mentally weaken her?

Just as the birds were nearly all felled, and Monkey began to feel a moment of relief, the main challenger struck. He came in low, swinging his massive blades in an attempt cut her torso in half.

He’s going for my stomach, Monkey realized—an unfeeling attack, as if her body was nothing but a container for her jewel inside. That mindset is as grave a danger as I’ve ever seen—but his skill is not on that same level.

His fighting skills weren’t just on a lesser level—they weren’t even close. His swing was that of an amateur, if anything. It seemed his decision to have Snake ambush her as she came up from the manhole hadn’t just been to safeguard himself from a possible counterattack, but to cover for his own deficiencies.

Well, a necromanticist has little need to be a master swordsman—but his not being one will save my life.

The birds had indeed thrown her mental state into some small amount of disorder, and were she facing someone of, say, Ox’s caliber, even she might have been in danger.

Monkey leaped high into the air, passing above the horizontal swing of the twin blades, and then even above Rabbit’s head, finally landing behind his back. She could see—from not just how he handled his weapons, but also from the placement of his feet and the way he moved his body—that he was no master fighter. Unlike Monkey, he lacked the expertise to respond to an attack from behind—and she wouldn’t give him the time to turn around. She moved to pin him down—her thoughts were already on how she would incapacitate him, how to subdue him, and how to convince him to see her way, when she heard him say,

“Got you.”

And she felt two objects inside her, and her thoughts stopped in their tracks.

“What?” she said.

She didn’t need to see his twin blades to know they were what impaled her, but she couldn’t help herself from looking. When she did, she wished she hadn’t.

There they were, deep inside her fragile body—too deep. They looked more like two handles sprouting from her flesh.

Without turning, Rabbit had twisted his wrists to drive those two massive blades into her, each passing cleanly into each of her lungs. Derailed though her thoughts had been, it was clear to see that these wounds were fatal. Whether she would die first from asphyxiation or loss of blood was anyone’s guess, but she was going to die.

How—how did he do that? Where did that come from?

He had failed to cut open her stomach to reach the poison jewel within, but still, it was a masterful strike. Had he been putting on an act to trick her into believing he was an amateur? Was it a feint? Monkey didn’t think so. If he was that good at putting on a performance, he should have been an actor, not a fighter. What was it then?

As the strength seeped from her body, she slumped forward onto the blades that were still lodged in her lungs. She went limp, and her shoulders fell back, along with her head, and then she found the answer.

A short distance away from where they fought, dangling like a giant fruit from the limb of a roadside tree, was a severed head—recognizable to anyone who had been there at the start of the game. It was Snake’s head.

That’s right … the Snake that went off with Rat was just a headless body. Meanwhile, she had known nothing of the whereabouts of the bodyless head. But what should it have mattered? A body without a head could still do something, at least, but what could a head without a body accomplish?

But Rabbit had found a use for it. He suspended it from a tree branch to make an impromptu surveillance camera—one that could watch his back. One that could protect him.

Without turning, Rabbit said, “It’s nice to have a friend that you can trust will have your six. It’s really, really nice.”

Then he continued, “It’s going to be all right. Don’t be afraid. I’m only going to take your life. But in exchange, I want you to be my friend too. You know, I always liked you, from the moment I first saw you.”

At the start of the Zodiac War, when Monkey was looking for friends to join with her, and Rabbit raised his hand, not one person in the room believed his offer was genuine. Not even Monkey, the pacifist at heart, completely believed his intentions were true. But when it came to wanting to befriend her, he had been uncharacteristically sincere. And now, Team Rabbit had its newest member—the shadow of a hero, bereft of the pacifism more precious to her than her own life.

Rabbit vs. Monkey

End of the 4th battle