Monkey was sitting on a spread-out blanket as if she were having a picnic. She emanated such a lively and carefree aura that Chicken almost forgot they were in a sewer, let alone in the middle of a contest to the death.
“Yeah, I found food,” Rat said. “She was there, so I brought her.”
His answer explained so little he might as well have not said anything at all. Chicken felt put on the spot.
If you’re going to force someone to come all the way to a place like this, she thought, you could at least not leave her hanging.
Not that Rat had forced her there at all. In fact, Rat had simply started walking and said hardly a word the entire way. If anything, it felt like Chicken had just decided to tag along.
And he just kept his back to me the whole time. He left himself wide open.
Even without Dog’s One-Man Army—even if Chicken were her normal, unenhanced self—she could have run him through with her fork without any trouble. Watching him from behind, he seemed every bit the plain teenager with nothing of the warrior in him at all, just as he’d come across on the observation deck. It was almost harder not to kill him.
But … maybe that’s why I followed him so blindly. If I sensed any fight in him, I might have killed him instead. I didn’t kill him simply because he was so killable. If I could do it anytime I wanted, why do it now?
Compared to Dog, who left so few openings for an attack that when he let his guard down for a single moment, she felt she had no choice but to kill him, maybe Rat did have, in his own way, some aptitude for survival. Meanwhile, as Chicken was attempting to give the boy some sort of charitable benefit of the doubt, Rat simply laid himself down on the blanket, where he folded his arms beneath his head, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes.
“Come now, Nezumi,” Monkey said, scolding him.
But Rat drowsily replied, “I’m tired from going out. So I’m sleeping. You take it from here.” He didn’t say anything else and seemed to already be asleep.
Some people said that one proof of a warrior was the ability to get in some sleep whenever and wherever the moment presented itself. Chicken saw truth in that idea, but she doubted it meant falling asleep in total indifference to the ongoing fight.
I thought maybe we’d met before, but talking to him hasn’t stirred up many memories. Maybe that feeling I had was just a trick of my imagination.
“Sometimes,” Monkey said with an exasperated sigh, “I don’t know what to do with this boy.” She shifted herself to face Chicken. “Sorry about that. Really, he’s not a bad kid. He’s just …”
“Ah, oh,” Chicken stammered. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“You raised your hand for me in the tower, didn’t you? Do you know who I am?”
“I know you’re the Fighter of the Monkey, but that’s all.”
Unlike in her dealings with Dog, Chicken was telling the truth this time. Monkey’s clan, as with Rat’s, was shrouded in mystery that not even her Eye of the Cormorant had been able to penetrate. Brusque Rat and affable Monkey were vastly different personalities, but to Chicken, they both presented unsettling and unfamiliar fighters. As such, they required her caution—but caution alone wouldn’t get her anywhere. She was timid but not weak; she was not strong, but she was determined.
“I see,” Monkey said with the kind of smile you wouldn’t give to an enemy you were about to face in mortal combat. “Then let me introduce myself.
“I am Sharyū, the Fighter of the Monkey. I kill in peace.”
“I am Niwatori, the Fighter of the Chicken. I kill by pecks.”
This time, Chicken responded straightaway. And when Monkey said “in peace,” the words rang true. Maybe that ceasefire the woman proposed at the very beginning wasn’t, as Chicken had suspected, simply a means to forming an alliance. Maybe Monkey actually intended to end the Zodiac War without any death.
No, that can’t be, Chicken thought, pushing away any such distracting thoughts. Dokku seemed to have that same misconception. Nobody would seriously consider cooperating with their opponents to attempt to bypass the Zodiac War.
“Well, Niwatori-san, it’s nice to meet you.” Monkey’s words carried no trace of deception—only friendship. “I appreciate your stepping forward back there, and I’m glad that we’re able to have a real talk now.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“After we all got split up, I managed to find Nezumi,” Monkey said, glancing at the sleeping youth. “He suggested we hide down here.”
That made sense. After all, sewers have long been passages for rodents.
Monkey continued, “After the floor fell out, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to meet up with the people who so kindly volunteered to join me, but this is a good start.”
“Ah, yes,” Chicken replied, omitting the fact that she had only raised her hand because she thought betraying the woman would put her in a good position. “Yeah, I’m, uh … glad I came.”
This wasn’t like when she found Dog in the underground garage. His intention to use and then kill her had been blatantly obvious. Monkey was different. She seemed utterly devoid of that maliciousness everyone else carried somewhere inside them. Chicken found herself believing that Monkey was truly, from the bottom of her heart, happy to see her.
The question is, can I kill her?
If Monkey was really a kind person, and if she really hoped for peace, then to Chicken, she was easy to kill. She wouldn’t have to put on the buffoon act to get Monkey’s guard down as had been required with Dog. She could just kill Monkey without any of that trouble. Sure, with Rat there, it was two against one, but they were nothing Chicken couldn’t handle, now that she was operating at maximum power.
But here, as before, this position—having the freedom to kill them whenever she wanted—kept her in a state of inaction. In every battle, she had fought under the motto “Kill the enemies you can kill, when you can kill them.” She was just unaccustomed to fighting from a position of strength.
But that wasn’t even the real issue. What she was truly unaccustomed to was dealing with someone who, like Monkey, had no hidden side. Neither on nor off the battlefield had she ever encountered such a person.
Monkey said, “I just wish there was a way we could join back up with everyone who raised their hands.”
Chicken didn’t know how to respond. Was this woman seriously still trying to find a surefire way to win the Zodiac War without anyone fighting or getting hurt, even now that the battle was already underway?
Chicken tried to recall who had raised their hand. Aside from Monkey, Rat, and herself, there were three others. Ox, Horse—the giant one—and Rabbit.
Surely she won’t include Rabbit. He was clearly just trying to stir up chaos. This woman isn’t that much of a saint. Hell, even I can see how stupid that would be.
Not to mention that Chicken wasn’t genuinely on board when she raised her hand. Ox and Horse were suspect too. She couldn’t even be sure of the sleeping Rat’s true intentions. Even if Monkey was serious, whatever hopes she had for ending the Zodiac War without violence and death was nothing more than a pipe dream. It would never happen.