Chapter 22-3 Peace Broken

Chapter 22-3 Peace Broken

Osjane Thousand: Naeko. What do you want? The fires have settled. Nothing remains of our foes but ash and ruins. The slaves are unchained. The pantheons they fed are but fragments we bear within us. Our victory is total. More and more of our brethren are arriving from across the stars. Countless new horizons await.

So why?

Why are you still so desperate to find a war? To find a foe? Why are you still seeking vengeance for a war that has already been won?

Samir Naeko: Because thats what Im for.

Osjane Thousand: War? You're more than just a destroyer. With your martial gifts, destruction can be protection. Strength can be turned toward construction. Ah. Even made it rhyme.

Samir Naeko: Listen. Osjane. I dont want to disrespect you, so can we get to the point of this?

Osjane Thousand: [Sighs] Fine. So be it. I wish for you to treat people with more care. Prisoners. Citizens. Subjects. I have been getting concerning reports about your behavior. You are rough with people.

Samir Naeko: Oh, this is about the piece of shit I killed.

Osjane Thousand: Yes. The one you beat to death using his own son. Naeko the war is finished. You dont need to treat our people as your enemy.

Samir Naeko: Theyre not my people. But I hear your words. Ill heel. You dont need to

Osjane Thousand: Youre not a dog! I dont want you to heel, I wantI want you to be a person! I want you to dream! To wish for something better. Maru is getting married. Ya Wei is shes making art.

Samir Naeko: Mordeinns still a piece of shit.

Osjane Thousand: Hes getting better. But, please. Youre a person. You should have dreams too. You should have wants and desires. Of a life after the fires. We will not be Jaus fists forever. And Veylis. What about her? Your lives together?

Samir Naeko: Shes fine with me. She knows who I am. She knows Im all for her. Her. Her mom. Her dad. The real dreamers. She knows Ill do anything to see this city shine and them happy. Theyre the best parts of us. Ah. You got me spitting sap.

Osjane Thousand: But what about you? What about Samir Naeko himself? You must want something. You must have some kind of hope. Some kind of idealization.

Samir Naeko: [Laughter] I find that plenty in the Sister.

Osjane Thousand: Veylis. You said you stopped

Samir Naeko: I said I was gonna try. I stopped cutting her. I stopped hurting her that much. I just relieve memories with her these days is all.

Osjane Thousand: That is not a well thing to do.

Samir Naeko: Yeah? It isnt? Okay. I get it. I understand. Youre a real sweetheart, Osjane. Youre better than your idiot brother in pretty much every way. But even he can tell what I am.

Osjane Thousand: And what are you?

Samir Naeko: Im a hound. Im a killer. Im a fire. Im a bomb. Im the mean godsdamned bastard that comes at night to scalp your pa and burn your home. I dont have dreams. I close my eyes, I see the war, and I hear my pascreaming for me, cursing at me for letting them cut him apart. Thats who I am. Im a hound, and I need my meat.

Osjane Thousand: No.

Samir Naeko: What?

Osjane Thousand: Youre not a dog, Paladin. Youre just a liar with a broken heart.

Samir Naeko: Fine. Alright. Anything else.

Osjane Thousand: Yes: A months mandatory leave. Use it. And no, this time I do expect you to heel. Use it and come back to me. And Ill be sending Maru to check on you. To make sure youre not spending all your time with your oldest acquaintance.

-Osjane Thousand to Samir Naeko (Circa 32 Post Godsfall)

22-3

Peace Broken

A layer above, in the Sanctus-majority district of Madruss, a young slave, left unfed in her cage for days, succumbed to hunger and took a bite from the dead puppy her master caught her playing with a week ago. As she sank the three unrotted teeth she had remaining into the flea-infested carcass, a supple retribution followed.

Eighty kilometers away in a Syndicate bar, the girls master died screaming as she was bitten in half by something unseen.

Three hundred kilometers away, back down in the gutters, a group of twelve gangers cheered as they triggered their generator once more, preparing to shock the squire they captured one final time.

The jolt came. They fried instead.

A few hundred meters away, in an alleyway, an aratnid bit into its dying sister, seeking to find nourishment in the absence of its mother. Somehow, it tore into itself instead.

And back at ground zero, where Zein was breaking apart into echo after echo, where branching paths of gold poured from her being during one second and broke apart in the next, Naeko forced his fingers deeper into his former masters socket, relishing at the cracks he felt shuddering up his digits.

Echo clashed against echo, parrying blows away from Zeins true body. But with each act of force or violence she inflicted, an exponential opposite was returned, the magnitude of harm greater in every way.

Naeko watched his Rend plummet below twenty. Felt death after death, body after broken body touched by his venting Hell. As a miracle of time spilled out from Zeinher paths collapsing, routes of escape narrowing further and furtherso too did miracles of violence emanate from Naeko.

She flowed like a raging river. He swelled like an expanding atmosphere.

And so it was for a moment that he was in the past again. A boy under her tutelage. A broken foe at her feet, staring up the length of her gleaming glaive.

A shift in the path splashed over him. Her dragon glaive moved on its own accord an slashed out from the rightopening to draw him into a pocket of space. His utility fog expanded around him, forming an armor of pointed fists. He struck the encroaching split in space, and from him formed a barricade of knuckles, washing outward in a tide.

Existence screamed. The gutters groaned. The ground fissured as blocks crumbled into opening chasms. Deeper still, the Penumbra that once housed the Low Masters and their ilk groaned, the hive of alloy fashioned into place by the voiders squealing as they came apart.

Naeko moved. The world succumbed. The world broke. There was no other choice. There was no other way.

Such as material reality. So for Zein.

Or it would have been if she hadnt used her reserve Heaven.

A droplet of rain fell three kilometers, spilling down from an opening in the Layers above to grace the windowsill of a toppled apartment building. She vanished. His hands closed. Zein was gone. Ah. That Heaven. The one she so loathed to use.

Rarely did Zein Thousandhand ever allow herself a retreat. An age ago, Naeko would have felt honored.

A lightness passed through his body, but Naeko ignored it. With another clench of effort, he snapped the past-flung spear in half between his jaws, uncaring how they cracked his remaining teeth.

A resurrection was due after this. A good death properly earned.

With his cheeks flensed open and lower jaw dangling on unresponsive sinews, Naeko let out a choked rasp as he struggled to laugh, storm clouds building behind his eyes.

Facing Zein, he saw the shine in her gaze. The pride. The weariness. +Anyone else would have been mine.+

+Almost,+ Naeko said. +Who was that?+

+A new discipline turned wayward rival. He has rejected my will.+



+Must be smarter than me then.+

+Naeko. I wish to tell you many things. There is+



He didnt bother waiting for her to finish. He buried a fist into her disembowelment and wrapped his fingers around her spine. Whatever she had to say, hed get it from her in interrogation. He was Chief godsdamned Paladin, not her pawn. Not her boy. No. Fuck that game. He was done. He was done.

He leaned in close so she could see himsee his hate. +I called for you. Not anymore. When you come back, Ill speak. Ill speak, and for the first time in your worthless life youll listen. And youll tell me what you know straight.+

And before she had a chance to argue, he sank his other hand inside her, released his Heaven, and tore in two different directions. She came free in halves, and both went sailing from his hands, painting the distant walls flanking him as mutual splatters.

A scab formed in front of him. A rare sight to earn from Zein Thousandhand. But Naeko wasnt satisfied. Not even close. Shed come back. Shed come back with Heaven manifested and the urge to fight.

That was all well and good with him.

He felt the fire again. The flames he thought killed all those years ago. He remembered why he did all this. Remembered what he felt, and why he felt it.

Chains from chains. Master to master. Leash to leash.

He was a dog. He was a dog, but he had no master, and he needed to pull something apart. To tear into this city for all the years it disgraced his brothers and sisters, to tell it he was done sleeping, that the slump was over.

+I told you,+ he said, casting his thoughts into the cavernous dark. +I told you I surrender. You broke me. You won. But youre not there. Youre not real. No one cares.+ He swallowed and snapped his jaw back into place. +Its just me, isnt it? Its up to me. I have to do this. I have to do this.+

Silence again. Silence and no answers to sate his hurt. Nothing but him. Nothing.

+Not just you. Courage, Naeko. Not alone. I see you. I see your struggle.+



Time quivered. Naeko froze. His Heaven rushed out from him, spreading wide to find the speaker. But there was nothing. And there was no one.

No one at all.

Maybe it was just his own mind. But he never sounded that sibilant. And his voice was never that deep.

There was someone else. Beside him and Zein, there was someone else watching.

No Veylis. It couldnt be whoever was using the Daemonthey were dead.

So who?

Who?

Who?

Naekos mood worsened. He spat at Zeins anchor. Couldnt even come back without making things more complicated for him. A growl escaped him. Frustration built.

He settled for striking New Vultun across the face again, his palm remanifesting in the atmosphere before slamming back down, passing through the harmless without harm, and splattering the vicious as he had just done Zein.

This was the right thing. Enforcement. Enforcement. Enforcement.

He let himself sleep. But the city still didnt care. The Guilds still played their games. The closest thing he ever had a mother still thought him nothing more than a dog.

Godsdammit all.

In despair, Naeko found his mind drifting back to Osjane, to her question of what he wanted, to the dreams of the future.

Never to come.

It turned out he was right. It turned out the city did need a dog, and the Guilds a proper mauling.

He activated his session and linked to Maru, never taking his eyes off Zeins scab, or her writhing dragon. +Maru. Pocket off this area. And get me some godsdamned cagers. I got a third for our trial. I got Thousandhand. I got her. I got her. I got her. I got her.+

A lull followed. Maru sent him a nod. +Hey. Are you alright?+



And Naeko looked down at his handssoaked in the gore of his master and mother. Soaked in blood like all those times before. It felt right. It felt warm. It felt like what he was for. +I dont think I ever was.+

***

REND CAPACITY [HEART OF NOLOTH]: 0%

DOMAINS DETECTED (SHADOW/FORCE/SPACE)

STABILIZING ONTOLOGY

REPAIRS IN PROGRESS

WARNING: HEAVY TEMPORAL DISTORTION DETECTED