This was a bit of a letdown, but Dog hadn’t expected much from her anyway.
He wasn’t feeling particularly crestfallen, but then Chicken added, as if just remembering, “Oh! But, Dokku-san, don’t you wonder about that boy?”
“Who do you mean, that boy?”
“The sleepy one. You know, that one who kept dozing off? He didn’t seem like the fighting type.” She paused, then said, “I don’t think he could be much older than fifteen, do you?”
Dog wasn’t sure Chicken was in any position to say anyone else didn’t seem like much of a fighter, but she wasn’t wrong. That kid seemed out of place among the fighters, like Rabbit had with his bloody blade, only in a much different way.
Dog asked, “Do you think we need to be wary of him?”
“No, it’s not that I think he’s tough or something like that. It’s just—I feel like I’ve seen him before. In some other context. Do you get that feeling?”
Now that she mentioned it, he did have the vague sense of having seen the kid before. But he didn’t know where. Had they shared a battlefield? Had they been allies or opponents?
“Oh!” Chicken exclaimed. Dog turned to her and noticed a sparrow perched on her shoulder. “Oh, Dokku-san, this is bad. Rabbit’s team has split in two!”
When Dog heard that Rabbit’s team had split into two, he assumed that meant that Rabbit, in essence their commanding officer, had sent the two reanimated corpses off on their own. Instead, it was Boar—the woman with the twin machine guns—who had peeled off from the other two. With blood oozing from the gash in her chest made by Rabbit’s giant blade, Boar roamed the empty city, her eyes as lifeless as the ghost town streets. Gone was any sign of nobility in her shambling gait, no trace of her in there anywhere at all. She was, in every sense, a walking dead. This wasn’t some high-class lady out for a stroll, but an eerie monster on the prowl.
“I’m sorry,” Chicken said. “I lost Rabbit and Snake. I think he might have realized he was being followed.”
She sounded embarrassed, but as far as Dog was concerned, she’d already done more than could be expected of such an inexperienced fighter. But if Rabbit had figured out that the birds were watching him, why would he send Boar off on her own like that? Why wouldn’t he try to hide her—or at least hide the fact she was undead?
Is this a trap?
Maybe Rabbit was using the unsteady and feeble-looking woman as bait to draw out other fighters whom he and Snake would then ambush from behind. All warriors, no matter how skilled, were at their most vulnerable when already in a fight. No matter how bizarre Rabbit might act, judging from the way Chicken described his takedown of Boar, the man was not crazy.
Well, to use his own ally as bait requires a certain kind of crazy.
The mad dog would have to be willing to go even further if he wanted to overcome this adversary.
“Niwatori,” he said.
“Y-yes? What is it?” Chicken asked.
“Give me your arm.”
“Like this?” she said uneasily, but she offered her arm.
Without another word, Dog bit, sinking his teeth into her flesh.
She gave a startled shriek, but the anesthetic coating on his fangs should have numbed any pain. The procedure was over in less than a second. Dog released her arm and said, “How do you feel?”
“How-how do I feel? I don’t even know what you did to me.”
“Just a little performance enhancement.”
When Dog bit his targets, his poison produced many effects ranging from death to more death—but not necessarily limited to death. Not all toxins had to be deadly. Some could be used for doping.
This one Dog called the “One-Man Army.” The drug drew out its user’s latent potential, but it was strong stuff and could push a body too far. For that reason, Dog would never consider subjecting himself to its effects. But it would give Chicken a boost—for a time, at least.
His plan was this: he would send out the powered-up Chicken to face Boar—the bait—alone. It didn’t matter who won; he just needed Chicken to put up a decent fight. What was important was for Rabbit and Snake to reveal themselves. Then, Dog would ambush them. When Dog sank his teeth into Rabbit, they would not be filled with doping drugs, but lethal poison. It would mean certain death for Rabbit. Doping or not, Chicken would surely be killed by one of their three opponents, but that would only make things easier for Dog in the end.
Then, fresh from the hunt, I’ll return to hiding.
While Dog was lost in such sinister thoughts, a confused Chicken was swinging her arm, testing its inexplicable, newfound strength. “W-what is this?” she said. “What is this?”
“Stay calm,” Dog said. “All I did was unlock power you already possessed. Steady yourself. Control it.”
“C-control it,” Chicken said in that same nervous, rushed voice as before. “You mean, like this?”
Those were the last words Dog would ever hear.
Having crushed open Dog’s head with her bare hands, Chicken let out a deep sigh and said, “I can’t believe that took so long. But it’s done now. I finally got that boost.”
She plunged her hand into his now-exposed neck cavity and found the poison jewel, as good as new. “Dokku-san, I know I told you I didn’t know anything about the others, but actually, I knew about you.”
She knew he led others to believe that biting was his fighting technique when in fact he was a master poisoner, and she even knew about his most secret concoction, the One-Man Army. Dog believed he had kept his secrets hidden, but he was wrong to think he could hide anything from her Eye of the Cormorant.
Going into this battle, Chicken was well aware she lacked strength and experience. That was why she spared no effort in digging up as much information as she could on every fighter who had a chance of participating in the Zodiac War. She hadn’t made first contact with Dog by mere chance—she had him in her sights from the start. And now that he’d fulfilled his role in her plan, she killed him.
One reason for her betrayal was that she didn’t want to risk him bestowing the One-Man Army, or some similar boon, on any other fighter. But at her core Chicken just didn’t trust anyone else—she might need to use someone from time to time, but never would she consider actually teaming up with another person. When she’d raised her hand to ally with Monkey, she’d done so with a heart full of betrayal.
All the way to his end, Dog had perceived her timidity as nothing more than that. But timidity didn’t always equal weakness. For Chicken, it was something closer to strength; fear gave her the determination to take any action necessary in the name of self-preservation.
That didn’t mean she was without gratitude. She bowed her head in respect to her fellow fighter and spoke—although he was in no condition to reply. “Thank you, Dokku. Because of what you’ve done, there’s now a chance I can win this. If I do, I’ll erect a statue in your honor. I promise you.”
She had already forgotten what his face used to look like, but men weren’t really about their faces, were they? As long as the statue had fangs like his, that should be good enough.
Now that that was over with, she turned her attention to the roaming, machine-gun-wielding corpse. “On to the next one. Here I come!”
Chicken vs. Dog
End of the 2nd Battle