“Listen, I’m about to get pretty naive on you.”
Kudo burst into the room, his scales clouded the swampy green of indignation, and thumped his fist on the table. Hort and Saybil, who had been hard at work mixing up magic potions, deftly steadied the bottles and mixing tools before they tipped over from the impact of Kudo’s blow, then waited for the beastfallen’s next words.
“Utsuwa’s still just a ten-year-old kid, but that fox merchant sonovabitch is talkin’ like he wants to use her as some kinda tool in this war! Like it’s the obvious thing to do…!”
After rescuing Utsuwa, returning to the free district, and cutting short his conversation with Seth, Kudo had come straight to the workshop where Saybil and Hort were usually holed up.
“Welcome back, Kudo. You come out of the mission unscathed?”
“Get the hell outta here you can see I ain’t hurt so just shut up and listen for once!” Shouting at Saybil, who never gave him quite the response he wanted, Kudo dropped heavily into a chair, then glanced over at Hort and Saybil’s work. Saybil produced the mana solution that formed the base for the potions, while Hort infused them with a variety of spells.
“Pass over half a those. We can talk while we work.”
“That’d be a huge help! I’m not that great at healing magic. Oh, here’s a list of the potions we’re short on. Though since it’s you, Kudo, maybe just infuse ’em with some of the really difficult healing spells I can’t even cast!”
“No, better if you focus on the more flexible ones,” Saybil said. “No matter how many healing potions you make, we can always use more… I was chatting with Seth while you were gone, and he said he could sell as much stock as we could produce.”
“That’s who I’m tryin’a talk to you about! What’s that asshole’s deal?!”
“Asshole…? But aren’t you basically the one who brought him here, Kudo? The only reason he was able to find us is that you sold him those mana potions and got that two-wheeler in exchange.”
“Yeah, and he’s been a real asset. Professor Zero’s been using that aquaculture system he brought to grow all kinds of plants, and she’s super fired up about finding ways to make ’em grow faster.”
“Yeahyeahyeah I get it he’s a damn good merchant an’ every last freakin’ word he says is right on the money! But she’s only ten! She’s a child! He had the chance to bring her here safe and easy, an’ he went outta his goddessdamn way to send her back to that tower an’ scare the wits outta the poor kid! ’S a dirty, underhanded way a doin’ things.” Kudo’s scales burned crimson with anger, and the magic potion he was holding suddenly burst.
“Kudo! C’mon, be more careful!” cried Hort.
“Who gives a shit?! Not like an out-of-control healin’ spell’s gonna kill anybody!”
“You’re wasting the materials, is what I mean! We still don’t have a good way to get the stuff we need here!”
“Though Seth said he should be able to help us with that, too,” Saybil chimed in.
“Cut it out!! Quit freakin’ praisin’ him in front of meeee!” Kudo started banging his head on the table.
“Listen, I hear you, Kudo. I’m guessing what Seth told you is exactly what he told us.”
“What’d he tell ya?”
“That Utsuwa’s only going to become a leader who cares about her people by facing mortal danger and experiencing the fear of death. The whole thing was a necessary rite of passage, to give her the determination to fight against her mother.”
“Why the hell you imitatin’ him like that Saybil you sound jus’ like the guy! That jerk is always so damn condescending!” Kudo could picture it right down to Seth’s facial expression, and recoiled at the thought. “Hell even your names are kinda similar come to think of it! Pick a new name, Sayb!”
“But you never usually call me Sayb anyway, do you…?”
“It’s true, you totally don’t!” Hort agreed. “Now you’re just grasping at straws!”
“Utsuwa was bawlin’! She was about to get eaten by her mother, and she was up there on that stage screamin’ to the crowd to save her!”
Hort and Saybil hadn’t been there─they hadn’t seen the abhorrent spectacle of a crowd of adults trying to sacrifice a ten-year-old girl. When he thought of what Utsuwa had been through up until that moment, that so-called rite, it reminded Kudo of his own experiences as a child. He recalled being thrown into a cage and told that in three days he’d be going on stage─where all that awaited him was suffering. He remembered the terror of those days spent with nothing to do but wait for the pain to come.
“You guys just can’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like to be in such pain that you wanna cry, and to look around and see everyone havin’ a grand old time… You have no idea what it feels like for a kid to get thrown into a situation like that.”
“This is one of those things where you’ll get pissed if we say we do understand, and you’ll get pissed if we say we don’t, right?” asked Hort, fixing Kudo with a frown. “Well, I don’t know what it feels like. I’ve never experienced anything like that. But I can imagine what it’s like, and if you just shut us down and say that imagining it doesn’t mean we get it, then that’s, like, the end of the conversation, right?”
“Anyway, you and Utsuwa are different people, so I’m not exactly sure you can say you understand her experience just because you went through something similar,” Saybil said.
“You two enjoying your little game? Hurtin’ me with your reasonable arguments? Well?”
“Enough already! You’re a real pain in the neck today, Kudo!”
“Kudo’s pretty much always a pain in the neck, Hort.”
“Shut the hell up! That’s why I told you right off the bat I was gonna get naive on you.” Kudo slammed his fist down on the table again. “I get that bringin’ Utsuwa to the free district means the New Worlders ain’t gonna let it lie any longer. An’ I know that’s why we needed her to truly want to come of her own accord, so we hadda wait ’til she was about to get killed. I get the logic… It’s just…I feel like there mighta been another way.” Kudo let out a deep sigh. “Utsuwa was lookin’ forward to it. She was excited about maybe gettin’ to live past fifteen. Her eyes were shinin’ at the thought. So I figure…if Seth had just kidnapped her when he had the chance, maybe we coulda convinced her she didn’t belong with Danna Ryl anymore.”
“You’re right,” said Saybil. “I think that might have been possible─it doesn’t even seem like Seth was all that confident we could rescue Utsuwa in the first place.”
“Hanh?!”
“Professor Los really went off on him. She was like, ‘I have no love for those who gamble with others’ lives.’”
Kudo snorted and went quiet. Just knowing Los had taken Seth to task relieved some of his anger, but he still felt irritated at his own childishness.
“Anyway, if you’re so worried about Utsuwa, what are you doing here?” said Hort. “Why not go pay her a visit?”
“Huh? Why me…?!”
Kudo grimaced, and Saybil somehow managed a snicker at his expense without ever breaking his blank, emotionless affect.
“What’s so damn funny?”
“Nothing. I just didn’t realize someone being dense could be so entertaining.”
“You little shit…! Let’s take this outside!”
“Did you know people only say ‘let’s take this outside’ because they’d get banned from the place if they fought inside? But since this isn’t a tavern or a store or anything─”
“Then I’ll smack you one right here, if that’s what yer askin’ for!”
“Cut it out! No fighting in the workshop! I’ll tell Professor Los!”
Hort’s scolding silenced the both of them.
“Just go and see Utsuwa, Kudo! Don’t you remember what she said the first time she saw you?”
“Huh…? Oh, right… Somethin’ about wanting me to be her beastservant…”
“Exactly! She said she’d never wanted one before, but she threw a tantrum because she wanted you so badly! To her, you’re like a big ball of fluffy, purring comfort, so go comfort her! You can make her feel better just by being there!”
“W-Why you…! You’re bein’ real freakin’ rude, ya know that?!”
“Oh darn, maybe I am! Sorry, Kudo!”
“Dammit, you’re so sincere, it’s hard to get mad at you!” Kudo let out a violent sigh and got to his feet. “…Anyway, now that you mention it, I guess she might appreciate a quick visit…”
The first time she saw him, Utsuwa’s eyes had lit up like she’d just found buried treasure. Kudo wanted to say that his presence would just make things worse, but having seen her face that day, he knew it wasn’t true. It was obvious at a glance how much Utsuwa liked him. Even after she realized that treating Kudo as a beastservant was impolite, she’d been completely enthralled by his lizardly handsomeness.
Right now, Har was with Utsuwa, but Kudo didn’t feel great about leaving the job entirely to her. Har could do with at least one backup, I s’pose.
“Sorry,” Kudo said. “All I ended up doing was breakin’ a bottle… I’ll come tomorrow an’ actually help you make some potions.”
Saybil shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got Professor Zero, so we’ll be okay without you.”
“How ’bout, ‘Thanks, see you tomorrow,’ dumbass?!”
With this parting shot, Kudo left the workshop. He felt a little better.
Right after the dragon landed, when Utsuwa had been weeping and smiling in equal measure, Kudo hadn’t been able to say a word to her.
I probably shoulda told her how brave she’d been, said that everything was gonna be okay now.
─Good, you’re still alive.
A flash of childhood memory suddenly came back to him. His hero, sweeping away the rubble and smiling down at him amid the sunlight, saving him when he’d been sure all that remained was to wait for death.
“It’s…not that he’s heartless… I know that…” Kudo muttered to himself, looking up at the sky through a window in the corridor. The day was coming to a close, the red sunset so bright that Kudo was forced to narrow his eyes─but then they flew wide a moment later. There was something there, in the sky.
“…F-Fish…?”
There were gatekeepers floating in the sky above the city of ice─three of them. Their long tails were sticking straight up into the air, their great heads pointing down with mouths agape, as if they intended to swallow the free district whole.
Even as Kudo registered what he was looking at, a great roar shook the air.