And so, dutifully following orders that only still existed by default, the younger twin turned his attention from the departing Tiger and back onto Rat, when—
“I am Ushii, the Fighter of the Ox. I just kill.”
The long, slender blade of Ox’s saber struck the corpse.
This time, Snake’s left arm went flying. Unlike his right arm, which was violently torn off, this was done with a perfect surgical slice, but as before, no spurting blood accompanied the amputation. The corpse lost its balance and keeled over. Now the body was without a head and both arms, but he still didn’t die. Well, he was dead, technically, but not destroyed. Tottering, he tried to stand on his legs.
The melancholic swordfighter, Ox, looked down at the corpse in silence, waiting for the body to stand. This wasn’t out of some fighter’s code of conduct, but rather out of necessary caution toward his undead adversary. Ox knew how a living opponent would react to his attacks, but the zombie’s unconventional movements couldn’t be predicted. The swordfighter’s working theory was that if stabbing the corpse wouldn’t stop it, then he would keep cutting parts off until the corpse could no longer move.
Ox usually targeted a vital organ and a quick kill, but when he lopped off the zombie’s arm, it wasn’t because he missed, nor was he holding back. If Snake managed to stand back up, Ox would cut off his legs next. No matter the necromanticist’s powers, no matter the state of Snake’s undeath, a zombie physically incapable of movement was effectively the same as a plain dead body.
Unlike Tiger, Ox had a heightened fighter’s awareness—when he had seen Boar’s shambling corpse, the swordfighter had stayed away from the obvious trap, but when the opportunity was right, he didn’t let the minutiae of risk and reward stop him. He just killed.
“No,” Ox said, “please wait a moment. There’s no need to rush, now, is there?”
But Ox wasn’t talking to Snake’s corpse, which continued its vain struggle to rise. If Monkey had been a believer in peace, then Ox was a devout pragmatist. Talking to a corpse would have been a solely self-serving act with no discernible useful purpose. Rather, he was addressing Tiger, who had come growling back to the scene.
Hardly had she announced her departure before she reappeared—and she came on all fours, ready for battle. She must have sensed the fight and doubled back. Despite her drunkenness—or possibly because of it—she keenly sensed the strangest things. Ox’s masterful saber slice hadn’t made the slightest noise, but maybe she’d heard the sound the arm made when it plopped to the ground—or maybe the blood-drunk beast caught the scent of the blood-soaked swordsman.
The crawling beast and the gloomy swordfighter stood on either side of the writhing corpse in a bizarre three-way standoff. This wasn’t the stand-off of legend between snake, frog, and slug, but rather Snake, Tiger, and Ox—and it didn’t look like Tiger was going to wait her turn.
“You can’t wait?” Ox said. “I think it’s more important I take care of this corpse first. Worry not, I promise I’ll make sure to kill you so that you’ll never be turned into a wretched zombie like him.” He paused, then added, “If I’m not mistaken, you’re the Fighter of the Tiger, yes?”
“Yeah, I am.” Compared to when she had confronted the corpse, she was not so glib now. Like the kind of drunk who talked less the more she drank, Tiger spent few words as she glared at Ox. But she did say, “And you’re Ox, right? Ushii, the Natural-Born Slayer?”
She made it sound like she knew him from more than just his reputation. “That’s right,” Ox said. “You seem to know me—have we met somewhere before?”
Rather than answer, Tiger scraped at the pavement as if sharpening her claws. She growled with even deeper ferocity than when she’d realized Snake—who continued to struggle between them—was a corpse whose blood had gone too thick to drink.
Ox sighed. “It seems like I’ve earned your enmity somewhere along the way. Perhaps I killed your parents?”
He said that as if it were a common occurrence for him, then reoriented the tip of his saber from Snake to Tiger. The Natural-Born Slayer seemed to have decided to deal with her before the younger twin’s corpse managed to stand—and that the change of order posed no major upset.
The two favored winners announced themselves at the same time.
“I am Ushii, the Fighter of the Ox—”
“I am Tora, the Fighter of the Tiger—”
Only they were interrupted. In all their time in battle, no one had ever had the audacity to interrupt either Ox, or even Tiger, in such a manner.
Snake’s roughly ripped-off right arm and his cleanly severed left arm leaped onto Tiger’s and Ox’s throats and clamped down tight.
The arms squeezed the necks of their transgressors as if to snap their vertebrae rather than simply choke them. Tiger growled and Ox grunted.
Where does a person begin and end? Where does a life begin and end? The two arms attempted to crush any such questions along with the necks of the two fighters.
The corpse was still not yet standing.
From above, a figure watched the chaotic battle between Ox, Tiger, and the dead body and the two dead arms. Not the Eye of the Cormorant, this watcher’s measured gaze came from somewhere higher than birds could fly, and higher still, almost in the stratosphere. He was less witnessing the battle than he was watching over an underachieving little brother who was trying to do his best.
This watcher, who flew through the sky with more freedom than even the birds, was the fighter who represented the only mythical creature in the Zodiac—the Dragon.
End of the 7th battle