Dog had chosen to hide in the underground parking lot of the same abandoned high-rise where the fighters had assembled, not because he thought it so close that no one would think to look there, but simply because it made for an ideal hiding spot due to the darkness and the great number of vehicles whose owners were no longer here—perhaps no longer anywhere. Rather, it should have made for an ideal hiding spot, but Dog had been found out before the first half hour had passed.
“I fooooound you,” the voice had said in the sing-songy manner of a child playing hide-and-go-seek. But this was no child. This was a woman—a warrior. She was unknown to him, and she was hugging a trident-like weapon to her chest.
Shit! Dog thought, understandably panicked. The same qualities that made the underground garage an ideal hiding place also made it a disadvantageous arena. Between the darkness and restricted sightlines, Dog would have trouble putting his close-quarters biting style to good use. Even worse, it offered his foe free reign to wield her long, slender weapon.
And the battle is only just getting started, damn it. That slow-acting poison probably isn’t having any effect on her at all.
Dog had hoped to face opponents who had been weakened from the toxic jewels, but now he was facing an enemy who was still at full strength.
He cast the doubts from his head and was beginning to rise to his feet when she said, her words tumbling out, “Ah! Oh, please don’t misunderstand. I mean you no harm.”
Here she was, standing before him, facing down at him, having him at a complete disadvantage, and she was stopping to explain herself.
“My-my name is Niwatori … of the Chicken, and I … I wanted to see if we could team up.”
Team up? Dog reflexively furrowed his brows. I guess she did respond to Monkey’s offer.
He recalled what had happened before the floor collapsed. Monkey was joined right away by that sleepy-looking boy … then Ox, then that giant man, and this woman. Dog’s profession relied on reading people, and he turned his analytical eye on her. She seemed meek, yet her clothes were both gaudy and revealing. If anything, they felt like a costume she had been forced to wear. Was she not here because she wanted to be?
Dog asked, “You say you want to team up?”
“Y-yes,” she answered. “Everything got left up in the air when we were scattered, but …” As she continued, her voice got quieter and quieter, as if she were losing the courage to speak. “But this is a battle royale, and I still think starting in teams is obviously the best idea. So, that’s why … why I …”
Dog took this to mean that she hadn’t been looking for him in particular. She’d only happened to find him first after the split, and she’d come with her guard down, hoping to form a team.
Didn’t she stop to wonder why, if “starting in teams” was so “obvious,” Monkey was the only one to initiate that move?
Chicken seemed to have not yet realized that a single winner meant that team play and betrayal came as two sides of the same coin. Maybe she had accepted Monkey’s invitation not because she shared the same pacifist intentions, but rather out of a simplistic strategy born of short-term thinking.
“We can join forces,” she explained, “until we’re the last two left. Then we’ll have a fair fight, one-on-one. It’s as easy as that. So please, won’t you join me?”
She seemed to earnestly believe it a mutually beneficial agreement to which refusal was inconceivable. But rather than accept right away, Dog thought it over.
He saw little benefit to be derived from teaming up with such a foolish girl—especially considering his unique advantage as a master of poison. On the other hand, responding to her offer with a flat refusal might turn this encounter into a fight he’d rather avoid. Though she might have been foolish and lacking in prudence, she was still an elite fighter chosen for the Zodiac War. Dog figured her prowess in battle must have been considerable to make up for her stupidity.
Even if Dog were to defeat her in combat, it wasn’t guaranteed to be an easy fight. An injury in this early stage of the battle might upset his plans for the long game—and it was now, when his advantage was not yet actualized, that Dog was at the greatest risk of being eliminated.
He began forming a plan. My best move might be to pretend to join her, then immediately steer us to a location where I can kill her before we happen upon any of the other fighters.
It was a fiendish plan utterly lacking in humanity—in other words, a very human plan.
Then she added, “Please. We have to hurry. We’re in danger. Terrible, terrible danger.” Worry beset her face, leaving no trace of the warrior showing through. “The terrible, frightening man with the two long, giant hatchets, he—I can’t even believe it—he’s a necromanticist! He’s killed Boar, and he already has a team of three!”
Niwatori, the Fighter of the Chicken, explained that she possessed a special power that had earned her a place among the twelve—or perhaps had been the reason she was forced into being there. She called the power her “Eye of the Cormorant.” She could commune with all species of bird, and it was through that ability that she had found Dog in his underground hiding place.
Now that she mentioned it, Dog remembered seeing a pigeon perched on the ledge of a ceiling beam inside the car park. Wherever a bird could go, whether outside or indoors, was effectively within her field of view. Even if the organization behind the Zodiac Wars wielded enough power to clear an entire city of its residents, their reach didn’t extend so far as to restrict any birds from flying in or out.
Just as Dog’s powers over poison provided him a powerful advantage over the other fighters, so did Chicken’s vision for her. Through her Eye of the Cormorant, she had witnessed the fight between Rabbit and Boar—and she had seen its end. With the help of Snake’s corpse, Rabbit had killed Boar, then left with his two undead allies.
When Dog heard this, his first thought was, She really is stupid. No matter how badly Chicken felt compelled to tell someone about the spectacle she had witnessed, she should never have revealed the nature and extent of her special powers so openly to another fighter whom she’d only just met. This was an incomprehensible lack of caution.
Her power was truly enviable and would have served as a tremendous boon to any fighter. If it were up for sale, he’d have been the first in line. But it would give her no advantage in close-quarters hand-to-hand combat. As long as he remained near her side, he could fight and win against her at any moment. He could kill her anytime he wanted to, and she posed no threat to him whatsoever. He could use her for all she was worth, and once he’d wrung every bit of advantage from her special abilities, he could kill her at his discretion. As long as he didn’t wait too long, she’d be gone before she could ever stand in his way.
No, the problem now was Rabbit. What had Chicken called him—a necromanticist? To think that such a person existed. The more he killed, the more fighters he would have under his command. He was a killer and a creator. A creator and a horror. Such a power was superior to Chicken’s, of course, but possibly even Dog’s as well.