But if I leave here and search out another warrior, I certainly won’t just stumble across one so easily as I did this time—and the next might not be easy to bargain with.
The alternative was to prioritize urgency and to regard her with a more positive attitude—weak also meant easily coerced. Having her as his puppet might make for a valid strategy. Plus, he was not looking to form an alliance, but rather to devise a partnership under pretense, and a stupider target would be an easier mark—and would pose less risk of asking any tough questions. But even with that in mind, there were limits.
I’m not sure I could convince someone that drunk of anything—and she’s so far gone, I’m not sure we could even converse.
That being the case, he considered whether attacking her might be a better option. Ambushing someone that vulnerable would wound his conscience—or at least, his warrior’s pride—but battle itself was a disgrace all warriors had to bear.
She had made herself so defenseless, she was almost begging him to kill her. If Sheep spared her, another fighter would just come along and kill her instead. However little he cared about her fate, the jewel inside her body had real value. If he killed her and retrieved that sake-soaked jewel, he could use it for extra leverage when it came time to make a deal with someone else.
Since all twelve gems were needed to win the Zodiac War, logically it didn’t matter who possessed any jewel in the meantime—but if someone told him to take one, he’d have heard worse suggestions. He could also use it to imply his strength and standing in the game—as long as he could hide the fact he stole it from someone so soused.
So that’s it then. I’m not the warrior I used to be, and I’d hoped to avoid any fighting until the very end, but …
His thoughts ever humble, Sheep resolved himself to action. He reached for a grenade—the Shūkaiokuri he’d developed to give him the edge he needed to win—when the drunken tiger said gruffly, “I know you’re there. Quit your peeping and get your ass out in the open, old man.”
Dwarfing Sheep’s initial surprise at being detected was the bigger shock that Tiger could still form complete sentences even after emptying that many sake bottles. He had assumed she was either at or near blackout-level drunkenness.
The woman said, her voice a low growl, “Aren’t you a little old to play hide-and-seek? If you want to play, I’ll play with you, tiger. Tiger, get it?”
Maybe she could talk, but it was still the words of a lush. Sheep had raised his guard for a moment, but that seemed unnecessary now. Drunks could notice the most peculiar things; maybe he had just happened to stray into her field of view.
“Well then, miss,” Sheep said, “I’ll play your game. It would be rude of me to turn down a young lady’s invitation.”
Making himself appear larger than he was—even a small man could seem bigger with the right stride—Sheep stepped from the shadow of the tree where he had been hiding. In response, Tiger stood from her bench—or at least, she tried to stand and then toppled over. Sheep wondered, albeit warily, if he had won without a fight.
Instead, she got on all fours. That she didn’t stay down was all right with him. Had the fight been settled there, before they could even announce their names, it would have been too much of a letdown.
If this form—on her hands and knees—was how she typically fought, Sheep was impressed that she had survived as long as she had in life. From that stance, her first move was restricted to scratching with her claws. A skilled hawk hid its talons, but apparently this Tiger hadn’t the same sense. With this approach, she might have been stone sober and the result would be nearly the same.
She growled—not very ladylike at all—and said, “Whoa, your mirror image technique is incredible, old man. You can make there be three of you.”
Sheep didn’t know what she was seeing, but he knew what he saw—a red-faced, miserable excuse for a warrior. It was time to put an end to this. For a moment there, he had thought he might get some thrill out of his first real fight in a long time, but it looked like he was wrong.
“Huh?” Tiger slurred. “Wait, when did there get to be four of you?” Another growl. “Oh, I get it, one sheep, two sheep, huh? You’re trying to put me to sleep, is that it?”
“Perhaps we should introduce ourselves once you’re a little less drunk, miss.”
He’d offered her a way out on reflex, so lackluster an opponent was she. If she really did fall asleep on the spot, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Shut up, I’m not drunk,” she said, exactly as a drunk would. “I’m not drunk, I’m not. Just a little bit drunk. I can drink all the sake I want and be just fine.”
Whatever pity he still had for her wouldn’t have filled a single sake cup. With his Old-Timer Shūkaiokuri grenades, he’d obliterate any traces of her except the contents of her stomach. The grenades’ destructive power was absolute—back in the high-rise, when he had decided to utilize the explosives to end the Zodiac War as soon as it started, even Monkey had to crumble the floor to escape.
But Monkey was one thing—this half-asleep woman was another. He wouldn’t misfire this time.
“I am Hitsujii, the Fighter of the Sheep. I kill with deception.”
“I am Tora, the Fighter of the Tiger. I kill with drunken power.”
Drunken power? he began to question, but it was already too late. Her clawing attack—the obvious move—should have been easy to dodge. But the next thing he knew, all ten of her nails raked his little body, ripping off his skin, shredding every part of him except his stomach.
What? Sheep thought, too lost in confusion to realize these were his dying moments. What? She was supposed to be at the bottom. Even when she announced her name, nothing changed in her—no surge of power or anything. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, she was just a drunk. Wait … a drunk? Could it be?
From somewhere behind him, she said, “I see you’ve heard of the Drunken Fist. You know, that same old standby—the more I drink, the stronger I get. But you know what, old man—you fit the visual better than me. Funny thing.” She punctuated it with another growl, then fell to the ground even before Sheep did.
This time, she didn’t try to get back up. Instead, she licked her blood-soaked nails, and her face took on a look of insatiable ecstasy.
“In my case, human blood gets me much drunker than sake. But one little old man won’t be enough to satisfy me.”
Tiger went on the move.
Tiger vs. Sheep
End of the 5th battle