8

Real Name: Nagayuki TSUMITA

Born: November 11 (officially)

Height: 164 cm

Weight: 58 kg

Nagayuki fights alongside his younger twin brother, but as the elder, he takes the role of the leader. The two are physically identical in every way, and the only reliable way to tell the twins apart is that Nagayuki refers to himself with the brash honorific “Ore-sama.” Anyone who knows this fact has no trouble discerning which brother is which, but since they don’t typically try to pass as one another, this doesn’t bother them.

As fighters, the Tatsumi brothers don’t particularly adhere to any code; as long as an agreement over payment can be reached, they will fight for any country, on any scale, in any war. Their conduct, often unbefitting warriors of the twelve houses, has frequently earned them various punishments, but they show no signs of reforming.

The following is a defense statement Nagayuki made while covering for his younger brother in a Hearing of Censure: “Even when the wealthy are heavily taxed, those taxes are ultimately used for their own benefit. We’re just redirecting that money to more proper ends.”

The brothers disgrace their profession through their heinous deeds, but the money they sweep up from the wealthy class they pour into philanthropic endeavors. They might use blood money earned through a mass slaughter to save a single child in dire need. This isn’t because they’re some form of chivalrous thieves or people of virtue, or are good deep down, or run hot and cold like tsundere or anything like that. They simply find a kind of decadent amusement in blowing through the money earned through bad deeds on righteous purposes. They always remain mindful of not allowing their good deeds to change them into good people.

His icethrower, Yuki-onna, is the complement to his brother’s flamethrower, Hitokage, and its tank is filled with liquid hydrogen. Though he may not say it, he considers his weapon harder to use than his younger brother’s.

Let us take this moment to sort out how many poison jewels were in each fighter’s possession at this point of the Twelfth Zodiac War—though keep in mind this will serve only as a snapshot of the contest’s current state.

With the spectacle of all the killings, it could be easy to forget that the winner would be the fighter who held all twelve poison jewels—including the one he or she swallowed.

Rabbit remained in the lead by having secured three jewels in addition to his own: those of Boar, whom he skewered; Monkey, whose lungs he’d collapsed; and Horse, who suffocated in Snake’s fire. Though the necromanticist hadn’t killed Horse himself, he possessed a near comprehensive awareness of his minions’ actions and was able to claim the jewel. Excavating the vault’s burned-down remains took some effort, and cutting open Horse’s Stirrup to retrieve the prize necessitated creative thinking, but Monkey’s mountain magic came in handy there.

Rabbit’s allies worked as a cohesive unit, with each member’s strengths complementing the others’ deficiencies. Their biggest missing asset was common sense, but seeing how none of the combatants—whether dead, alive, or undead—possessed that trait, Team Rabbit would have to go without.

Ox held the second highest number of jewels. He had killed only Chicken so far, but she had already claimed Dog’s jewel, which brought Ox’s count to three. Tiger held two—her own and Sheep’s.

Even the drunk hadn’t forgotten her part in the Zodiac War—although her altered state kept her from questioning why she had found the prize in his pocket and nothing in his stomach. Regardless, she held two jewels.

You may think that left Rat and Dragon on the bottom, with only their own jewels. But that would be forgetting that Dragon had used his relationship to Snake to claim an extra jewel, after Rabbit killed his brother before the contest began. Because of this, Rat was alone in last place, and Dragon was tied with Tiger.

Claiming his dead brother’s jewel might sound like nothing more than an underhanded ploy by an unscrupulous man, but the action hadn’t been without risk. Some of his opponents viewed it as the act of a coward, or worse: a fool. Nothing good would come from that sort of attention. At its core, this Zodiac War was about taking and stealing each other’s jewels. Anyone who started the game with the jewels of two participants became an enticing target from a cost-performance perspective. That he would become a target was as plain as day.

Dragon had put himself in the crosshairs—and yet, the elder twin had come this far without a single fight.

If you think about it, that was very strange—highly disconcerting even. Now that the contest was approaching the endgame, his initial bounty no longer stood out from the pack, but at least in the early stages, he should have been a likely target. And yet he hadn’t fought Rat or Ox or Tiger or Rabbit or Horse or Sheep or Monkey or Chicken or Dog or Boar.

No matter how much he tried to shun fighting, confrontations were not typically so easily avoided. Take the pacifist, Monkey, who was forced into a situation where even she had no choice but to fight. And even Rat—who held the least number of jewels—chanced across Monkey, stumbled into Chicken, got chased by Snake’s corpse, and talked to Horse in the bank vault. Despite all the encounters that arose between the gladiators, not one fighter had seen Dragon after they scattered at the start.

Did he do such a superior job of hiding during the initial deadlock—so much so that he remained hidden from even the Eye of the Cormorant and the necromanticist’s search? The idea seemed farfetched, but he was, in fact, somewhere completely out of sight.

From the moment the fighting broke out, the elder Tatsumi brother took to the skies—higher than the skies even—where no one could see him.

He wasn’t exactly in hiding but was openly surveying those beneath him with his arms crossed. This was his special ability, the Heavens’ Holding. Whatever bird’s-eye view Chicken’s Eye of the Cormorant offered of the ground below, that downward gaze could never have seen Dragon circling on high like an ancient pterosaur. Dragons were fantastical creatures that lived in the skies; always the watchers and never the watched.

Even now Dragon observed the battle in the ghost city far below, between Ox and Tiger, and Snake, his dead brother. He’s certainly being put to good use, Dragon thought. First immolating Horse, then strangling Ox and Tiger at the same time—he would never have been able to pull off such an extraordinary performance when he was alive. But …

Dragon’s expression was not the same glib face he’d worn for the benefit of the other warriors at the start but one of absolute composure that could have belonged to a solemn man. The brothers had always put on an exaggerated front of being two young jokers—they cared not whether others understood them, preferring instead to keep their true selves to themselves, even if it meant looking worse than they really were—and when Dragon’s younger brother was killed before his very eyes, he maintained the act and successfully claimed his brother’s jewel.

The real Dragon possessed a surprisingly calm nature, along with the patience to remain in wait above the skies for hours on end, and a superior intellect, which he put to work analyzing his brother’s battle—or rather, his brother’s corpse’s battle. No matter how astonishing his brother’s efforts were, Dragon had observed countless battlefields in this manner, and the experienced aficionado of war was not simply gawking.

But this attempt won’t be enough to take down fighters of Ox’s and Tiger’s measure. So then, what does that mean for me? Dragon had thought he’d remain there as the veritable watcher from on high for as long as possible. But if I see a chance to eliminate Tiger, and especially Ox, I’d better not let that opportunity escape.

All was silent but for Tiger’s fruitless growls. She desperate- ly clawed at the zombie arm to somehow pry it from her throat, but Snake’s fingers constricted the muscles at the base of her neck and restricted her strength. Her Drunken Fist was of no use here—she couldn’t punch the enemy who strangled her when his body was writhing on the ground some distance away.

Ox didn’t growl, but he shared the same dilemma. He couldn’t stab Snake’s hand when it was firmly against his throat. No matter how superior his natural skill with the saber, if he struck from that angle he risked cutting his own neck.

With artful skill, he’d cut down every foe he’d faced, but he’d never anticipated fighting a severed arm—and one with such incredible strength. Its power was inhuman—even considering it had once belonged to a warrior. Not even the giant, Horse, had likely possessed such a grip. Was the arm so strong because it was not alive, but dead and under Rabbit’s control? Ox had heard a theory that humans didn’t ordinarily have the ability to utilize their full strength—that some psychological safeguard acted as a limiter—but remove that safeguard and people could utilize one hundred percent of their latent abilities. Perhaps being dead removed that safeguard—but even still, the arm’s strength was incredible.

As Ox struggled for breath, even a warrior of a thousand seas and a thousand mountains wouldn’t realize the answer—that this was part of who Snake was. In order to make their meals easier to swallow, snakes coiled themselves around their prey and squeezed hard enough to shatter bone. The act came naturally to the younger twin’s arm.

Tiger’s growls weakened, and she began to gurgle and froth at the mouth. She remained conscious—for now—but it was only a matter of time.

Ox called out to her as loudly as he could, which wasn’t very much. “Tiger, can you still hear me?”

She grunted and glared his way. When she spoke, her voice dripped with venom, and some of the life had come back into it. “What do you want? I don’t remember saying you could talk to me.”

Ox gave her a grin, if a slight and melancholic one. “I realized why you hate me. I want you to know that I know that when I ask you this favor.”

“You want to ask me a favor? How about you shut the hell up before you kill my buzz?”

“I’m not trying to upset you. I’m only asking for a temporary—a temporary—alliance, just to get us out of this bind. Team play is a fundamental part of a battle royale, right?”

Tiger growled at his offer, and her eyes flashed with ferocious intensity.

But Ox continued. “I promise you, as soon as we’re out of this scrape, we will fight in the manner and conditions of your choosing. It won’t be about the Zodiac War. It will be you and me. All right? You won’t have to challenge me to a fight. This is me challenging you.”

A flash of stunned surprise sobered her expression. No matter the source of her rage, anyone who knew of Ushii the Fighter of the Ox understood the weight of the solitary soldier’s offer. Coming from him, requesting to join forces would have been surprising enough, and then on top of that came a demand for a duel.

This time, Tiger’s growl was more hesitant, but her words carried the urgency of someone about to expend her last mental and physical strength. “A-all right. If that’s how it is. So what do I do?”

“You don’t have to do anything—just as long as you keep those bubbles coming.”

No matter how hard Snake’s hand squeezed his throat, Ox had retained his grip on his saber, which he now hurled toward Tiger with all his might. But the blade didn’t hit her—nor did it hit the zombie’s other arm around her neck. Instead, as if the struggle for breath and consciousness had made Ox’s grip slip and turned his aim astray, the saber dropped short and scraped roughly across the pavement, kicking up a trail of sparks.

Tiger, who had nearly blacked out for the second time, was suddenly completely alert—but so would anyone be when they were enveloped by flames. Thrown into confusion, the woman dropped to the ground.

To Ox, the flames came not as a surprise but as the obvious effect of the sparks he’d intended to create. He’d seen the froth coming from her mouth—and beyond that, he’d smelled the stench of alcohol that permeated her body—and he understood that one source of ignition was all that separated her from immolation. The Drunken Fist had practically drowned herself in sake and had even guzzled a tank of flamethrower fuel. Every part of her was flammable, up to and including the froth that bubbled up with each gasping breath.

She roared as she tossed away her burning jacket and rolled on the ground. Discarding the garment would have been the right course of action, were this a typical fire that spread from the clothes to the wearer, but unfortunately, she and not her clothes was the fire’s fuel source. Roll as she might, the flames stubbornly burned on.

Keeping one eye on the woman, Ox scooped up her still-burning jacket in his bare hands, and, flourishing it like a matador’s muleta, he wrapped it around the severed arm at his neck. The heat nearly proved too much for him to bear, but he kept on wrapping, when suddenly, the arm’s bone-crushing strength went slack.

This time, the arm was truly dead.

Ox said, “Maybe cremation was all it needed to rest in peace.”

Ox tore the arm from his throat and tossed it to the street. Then he fell to his knees, coughing and gasping for air. Even for the natural-born fighter, the outcome had nearly been fatal. If any other proof was needed, one needed only to look to his throat, where the deep impressions left by Snake’s fingers remained. Ox’s skin was not only bruised but ruptured into bloody trails.

Once reanimated, the necromanticist’s corpses never stopped—chop them up or cut them apart and the pieces kept moving. But in a few exceptional cases, they had been stopped with relative ease. Chicken (whom Ox had killed with relative ease) gave Boar’s corpse a Sky Burial, leaving no trace of flesh behind. Ox was not aware of this, as it hadn’t come up in their short conversation, nor had he seen it with his own eyes. But Ox was the Natural-Born Slayer after all and had been able to correctly surmise the zombies’ weakness from something else he had seen not long before.

What he had seen was the charred remains that had once been Horse (whom Ox hadn’t been able to kill with relative ease). The giant warrior had been steamed alive in the locked vault—though the direct cause of death had been a lack of oxygen—but either way, his dead body was, in fact, dead.

Just as Tiger had gone to investigate the fire, so had Ox. When he arrived at the bank, he found Horse dead with the giant’s jewel already freed from his stomach. At the time, Ox didn’t think much of it—the master swordsman had not been moved by any petty desire to kill his escaped enemy—but now, he saw as plain as a burning flame that the necromanticist’s minion had killed Horse. And yet Horse had not joined the other walking dead. There must have been a logical explanation. By following that line of logic, Ox had been able to single-handedly land upon a method to kill the undead corpses for good.

Ox stood, his momentary display of weakness now over. He wasn’t healed by any measure, but the battle was not yet finished, and this was no time to rest.

He glanced at Tiger, whose flames had died out, and explained, “To put it simply, I killed him again with fire. It’s the cells in his body. If you cook them, they’ll go through necrosis, and he won’t be able to move anymore.”

At first, Ox’s unexplained gambit had thrown her into confusion, but even as drunk as she was, she was still an experienced warrior and had clued in to the general idea. She hadn’t reached the same logical conclusions—that the necromanticist’s legion was vulnerable to fire, or anything about cellular necrosis—but considering her throat was being crushed, such a realization couldn’t be expected of anyone. She did, however, understand that Ox was trying to burn the corpse’s arms. Even as she rolled on the asphalt to extinguish her flames, and even as the reanimated arm continued crushing her throat, she held the thing tightly against her chest—and she burned the arm to a final death.

As the flames died down, the tenacious arm finally lost its grip and went slack.

But now she howled, “You bastard!” Even though she owed Ox her life, he had set her on fire without so much as a word, and she wasn’t about to meekly bow her head and give him her thanks.

“I’m going to kill you! You think I’m going to treat you like some kid playing with fire? You’re dead!” She hurled another growl at him.

“If you’re feeling that lively,” Ox said to the raging Tiger, “then you must still be up for our fight. None of your burns look to be too bad either.”

As she didn’t offer her gratitude, he didn’t offer an apology. Perhaps he thought he had done nothing wrong—he had taken extreme but appropriate measures and only after properly securing her cooperation. Whatever the case, he decided that this conversation was over. He turned his gaze from Tiger and gently picked up the saber he had so roughly mistreated, even if the emergent situation had required it.

Then he moved his attention to unfinished matters.

Snake’s headless, armless corpse had finally managed to stand.

“Well,” Ox said, “this is more of a predicament than I’d expected.” Despite having just lived through a near-death crisis, Ox remained as gloomy as always—but he had good reason to, as he was without the means to deal with the walking torso. He knew what he needed to do—burn the abomination like he’d burned its arms—but he had no more fuel for a fire. In killing the arms, Ox had exhausted Tiger’s fuel.

Even worse, it would require a much larger blaze to burn an entire body—or an almost entire body, in Snake’s case. If a gas station had been nearby, that might have solved their problem, but Ox and Tiger weren’t so lucky. An electric-car charging station stood pointlessly within sight. Ox dismissed it, since shocking a corpse might only make it more active.

That left Ox with only his saber—but any foolhardy slicing-and-dicing would only result in a repeat of the macabre slapstick routine. If Ox cut off the corpse’s legs, they could crawl their way to him and have another go at crushing him, and the same could be said of the corpse’s innards. Slicing apart the corpse was worse than ineffective, it was countereffective.

As an aside, it should be noted that not every necromanticist operated under these same rules. The walking dead existed in many forms, and some zombies could be stopped by simply crushing their heads. Snake’s corpse owed its extreme tenacity to both Rabbit’s talents as a necromanticist, which transcended typical limits, and to Snake’s superiority as a warrior.

Earth’s Guidance—Snake’s sonar-like ability to grasp his surroundings via vibrations in the earth—gave his various scattered, severed parts the ability to keep on fighting. If he hadn’t been killed before the Zodiac War began and had been allowed to participate in the battle as was his right, he might have been able to fight his way into a spot among the favored winners. Earth’s Guidance, if used properly, could have given him the understanding of everything that happened in the abandoned city, whether outside, inside, or underground. Such an awareness would have provided him an incredible advantage. Perhaps Rabbit had understood this and decided to eliminate and convert this formidable rival to his side at an early—too early—moment.

With a growl, Tiger—who now reeked more of char than booze—stood and joined Ox in facing the corpse. Rather, she didn’t stand, but got on all fours. She said, “After this, you and I are gonna talk.”

“And I’ll listen. Now, can I count on you to work with me until we defeat this thing?”

Tiger responded with another growl—whether that meant yes or no was anyone’s guess. Whatever the case, she didn’t turn her claws on Ox at that moment. But she also understood that her nails wouldn’t be effective against the younger twin’s corpse—like Ox’s saber, they would only make the situation worse. Anything she scratched or tore from the zombie would only add to its number.

Never in its entire history had the Zodiac War seen such a ridiculous scenario as two top-favored combatants facing an already dead enemy, yet being entirely unable to act.

Except they can act, Dragon thought as he watched the battle from far above. My brother is the one who can’t. Without his head or his arms, he can’t take on those two fighters at once. Besides, this isn’t even the kind of stand-off where the first to move will lose. My unfortunate little brother’s primary mission is to chase after that kid. If Ox and Tiger realized that and simply turned their backs and fled, the battle would be over just like that. I’d love to see that prodigy, Ox, turn tail for once in his life. On the other hand, this might be my time to act …

Dragon had been waiting above the skies for the right moment, and he was prepared to wait as long as it took, but this seemed like it might be his best chance. What better opportunity would there be to make a surprise attack on the mighty Ox and Tiger than when both were injured? Dragon was willing to wait longer, but he’d never have a better chance to put himself on the board.

And here I’d thought our days as a team were over, little bro. Not even I saw this coming—I guess we brothers have a bond stronger than death. Anyway, I’m your big brother—it’s my job to be the superhero coming to your rescue.

Now, which should he kill with that first surprise strike? For a moment, Dragon considered Tiger—after being set on fire, she seemed like she would have the fewest remaining hit-points and made for the easier target—but in the end, Dragon’s decision was easy. Remove the more dangerous adversary first: Ox.

I’m counting on you, little bro. Keep them distracted. I’ll hold a memorial service for you.

At the last moment before his rapid descent, he declared himself with determination in his voice.

“I am Tatsumi the Elder, the Fighter of the Dragon. I kill for the money.”

“I am Tatsumi the Younger, the Fighter of the Snake. I kill for the money.”

Dragon thought he heard his brother’s voice in unison with his. It must have been an illusion, a trick of his ears—but then something that was not at all an illusion fell into his hands with a plop!

What could possibly have fallen into his hands from above, when he was already above the birds, and the clouds, and the very skies themselves?

His brother’s head.

Some time had passed since the head was severed, and it hadn’t been particularly well preserved, but there was no mistaking his twin’s face. This was no illusion—it was really him. The surprise left Dragon dumbstruck, and he nearly fumbled the severed head, but his mind immediately went to work, attempting to find a logical explanation.

Is this something like a rain of frogs falling from the skies? No, I’m higher than the clouds, and I’ve never heard of a rain of severed heads. So then the head didn’t fall from somewhere above me—it was thrown from somewhere below! Someone launched it to heights even higher than my own, and I caught it on the way down.

But who had thrown his brother’s head so high and for what purpose? The who was without question—Rabbit, who held control over Snake’s corpse. With that in mind, the second answer became just as clear—to search for Dragon, who was nowhere to be found on the ground.

Dragon had seen Rabbit hang his brother’s head from a tree as a makeshift surveillance camera. Now the necromanticist was using it like a drone—one that went higher than the Eye of the Cormorant and even Heavens’ Holding.

What—what is Rabbit trying to accomplish?

The necromanticist couldn’t have guessed that Dragon was hiding above the skies, but regardless, the elder twin had been found. Snake’s eyes—once familiar, but now clouded and unrecognizable—locked onto Dragon’s face and relayed the image to his supposed friend down below.

Damn! I became so absorbed in my brother’s battle that I lost track of what the others were doing. But there’s no need to panic. Remain calm. Rabbit knows where I am now, but what can he do about it? Not even Ox, the Natural-Born Slayer, could attack me up here!

As long as Dragon remained where he was, he would be safe. That would mean giving up his chance to help his little brother on the ground below, but that was then, and this was now. More important than killing Ox and Tiger was ensuring his own safety—

“Ow!”

A jolt of pain shot through Dragon’s upper arm. He’d been careless. The object in his hands might have been a severed head—his younger twin’s severed head at that—but it was still the necromanticist’s minion. As had Snake’s severed arms, the severed head remained a member of the walking dead—or at least, the moving dead. The decapitated head bit down with all the force and tenacity of its former namesake.

Of all the times for our first brothers’ quarrel!

Dragon attempted to pry his brother’s head from his arm. He was lucky Snake hadn’t gone for his neck. This way, at worst, he’d only lose his arm.

All of Dragon’s attention went to dealing with the immediate danger, but his brother’s bite was more effective than he thought it could be. Snake always had given everything his all.

This wasn’t the kind of zombification that spread by bite—that wasn’t the issue. But the pain took Dragon’s focus, if only for one moment, from where it should have remained: on the ground below. One moment was all it took.

That one moment invited his death.

The next moment, a rabbit had leaped in front of him—a rabbit wielding two massive, long-bladed, hatchetlike weapons.

“How—?” Dragon gasped.

Rabbit said, “Haven’t you heard the legend of the bunny who jumped all the way to the moon?

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

In one smooth horizontal motion, Rabbit’s twin blades cleaved the elder brother’s torso in two.

The brothers’ bond was stronger than death. This was more true now than ever as they reunited under Rabbit’s banner, and the elder twin’s corpse, much like a superhero, hurtled gallantly toward his little brother’s rescue.

Rabbit vs. Dragon

End of the 8th battle