Of course, he wouldn’t be removing the jewel from anyone’s stomach—for one thing, such a feat was impossible for him, and for another, he didn’t want to. But regardless of his actual intent, the offer would be too tempting for anyone to resist.
The key factor here was that the mark wouldn’t likely say, “All right, go ahead and take my jewel out.” After all, a stolen crystal meant a stolen victory. As long as the time limit wasn’t a concern, where better to safeguard their jewel than inside one’s own body? Because of this, Sheep’s offer would be seen as insurance to be used only when necessary.
His target might try to test him in other ways, like by asking him to use his ability to steal the jewels of other fighters, but Sheep would just have to do his best to handle that as it came—and, as the dominant partner in any arrangement, he’d have some room to maneuver.
Sheep also wouldn’t be seeking to expand his team beyond one partner. He needed to inveigle one person to his side; no more and no less. Even two would be inviting danger. Had his made-up superpower been real, the size of his alliance wouldn’t have mattered, but it wasn’t real. If he tried to lie to two people, and they talked, the incongruities in his story would be irrevocably revealed. It was a strange but true fact: those incapable of seeing when they were being deceived were still perceptive of deception against others.
This lie was, after all, an attempt to skate on thin ice—one that could be exposed by a single cautious demand: “Prove it by using your power on something else.” He needed to minimize every possible risk.
But Sheep figured a team of two would be enough. With Snake and Dragon split up at the very beginning, the only fighter left capable of assembling an alliance was Monkey—and even if she managed to put a team together, an alliance of pacifists gave him no cause for concern. Numbers alone were just that—numbers.
If I could have my way, I’d aim for someone in the middle ranks, like fourth through sixth—but under the right circumstances, I might need to approach someone weaker.
It’s been three hours since the Zodiac War began. The time should be right for me to stir things up.
Having waited for the right timing, Sheep decided to set out in search of his mark. At almost the same time, in another place in the ghost city, the top-ranking fighters were indeed clashing. In that sense, his timing was as right as he figured it to be. But the results of that clash—a zombified Monkey teaming up with the decidedly non-pacifist Rabbit—was not in accordance with his wishes. No amount of life experience would ever have led Sheep to predict the emergence of such an alliance.
Before Sheep was a soldier, he had been an arms dealer and excelled at clandestine operations. He might have been even better at hiding than he was at fighting. Dog had failed to remain hidden, even though he stayed in his hiding place, but not even Chicken’s Eye of the Cormorant would have easily tracked Sheep’s movements as the diminutive old man dashed from shadow to shadow. He was careful not to allow himself to be seen from any angle, including from above—not because he knew of Chicken’s power (his investigations never revealed that) but because that was how he always acted as a matter of course. At this moment, Chicken was being given her own Sky Burial, but that was beside the point.
In any event, only ten minutes after beginning his search, Sheep stopped and ducked into the shadow of a tree. The old soldier was an excellent tracker, but such swift results came as a surprise even to him. He didn’t think it would be this easy to find another fighter. He’d assumed that after the floor fell out in the high-rise and the eleven combatants scattered, each would go into hiding and would wait for the chance to strike, as a tiger waited out its prey. He had expected to find the contest in an eleven-way deadlock, with each fighter hiding to the best of their abilities, and had steeled himself for a long and painstaking search—but no such grand effort was required to find this one.
She was not one of the necromanticist’s walking corpses—the difference between someone living and someone dead was apparent enough even without a seasoned soldier’s eye. Though Sheep didn’t know about Rabbit’s special ability, if the old man had come across one of the zombies, he would have at least sensed that something was odd—and he got no such sense from the woman drowning herself in booze on the park bench. There was an oddity to the situation, of course—a fighter going on a drinking binge in the middle of a battle was certainly no normal sight, and even less so when that fighter was a young woman.
It was the Fighter of the Tiger.
The one I listed at the very bottom. Teaming up with her might not be what I’m looking for, to say the least.
He thought about leaving and pretending he’d never seen her. Not only was running across her a minor disaster by itself, but he also felt like he was watching something illicit. Surrounding her bench was a massive pile of sake bottles—likely plundered from some abandoned liquor store—and a majority of the bottles were already empty. The drunk, scantily clad woman sat splayed across the bench with her legs spread wide. Red-faced and humming, enjoying herself, she tossed aside an empty bottle, then picked up a new one, removed the cap, and guzzled its contents straight from the source. These were the actions of a bum, not a warrior.
This is no tiger waiting for its prey—she’s just going on a bender.
The vast divide between her namesake and actions provided a surrealistic effect. Although, back in the day, raging drunkards used to be called “big tigers” in some parts—not that a woman young as Tiger would have known such dated lingo.
I’d already ranked her at the bottom—I never expected to have to revise my opinion even lower. She doesn’t feel anything like a threat—in fact, the only thing I feel for her is contempt.
Even had it made sense to ally with her, he wouldn’t have wanted to. Sheep might have generally avoided saying, “Things used to be better,” but he’d vowed never to start a complaint with “Kids these days …” Seeing Tiger, he almost broke that vow—even though, from a certain viewpoint, her behavior was a product of the peaceful times he otherwise appreciated.
If they weren’t in the midst of a battle royale, he’d have liked to walk up to her and give her a good scolding—not as a warrior, but as a human being—but of course that wasn’t an option now. This was no time for some old man’s sermon. He needed to discard his emotions and remain focused on the battle.