Page 84 of Brutal Unionn
Because this isn’t a match. This isn’t revenge. This isn’t a performance.
This is a reckoning.
I meet his eyes fully, the way I used to when I want him to break. “Let’s see if you bleed for me like you used to.”
I drive the blade toward his core, my feet shifting into a tight lunge, muscles honed by years of war snapping into motion. The second knife slips into my left hand, drawn from the small of my back with a flick of the wrist. I don’t expect the strike to land clean—not on Sho. Only an idiot assumes a sneak attack catches him unaware.
But I don’t rely on the strike—I rely on his reaction.
He moves just as I know he will. His blade arcs across his body in a swift, fluid parry, meeting my first arm with far more force than I calculate. It knocks my strike wide, sends my shoulder stinging from the impact.
But the feint works. As his attention turns toward the right, my left knife comes in from beneath, slicing a clean line across his forearm. Not deep, but enough to split skin and draw a sharp, involuntary wince from his lips. For a second, I taste victory.
Then he reminds me who he is. Sho’s knee twists, and before I can adjust my footing, his leg whips into a spinning roundhouse that catches me square in the ribs. The knives slip from my grasp mid-air as the impact rips through me like a freight train. Air flees my lungs. The world tilts sideways.
I hit the dirt hard, roll once, twice, and land on my knees with dust in my mouth and blood boiling under my skin. Pain crackles down my side like a thunderstorm, but I don’t waste time. I spit, wipe grit from my lips, and pull two more knives—thin and curved, the ones I only use when I am done playing. When the blood stops being personal and starts being inevitable.
Sho doesn’t pounce. He doesn’t rush. He is taking his time, walking slowly toward me like a predator at the end of a very long hunt. His blade hangs relaxed at his side, blood still wet across his forearm, but he isn’t even looking at the wound. Instead, he takes out his hand wraps and wipes the blood away with deliberate care, eyes locked on mine. That grin stretches across his face like a scar that never heals.
“So… what?” he says, voice casual, amused, and dangerous. “You think if you beat me, all will be forgiven? You’ll get a medal from the Yakuza?” He gestures around to the pit with a slight flick of his chin. “This is a death ring, Hime. Only one of us walks out.”
I scan the ground around me, searching for the two blades he knocked from my hands. They are gone. Not just dropped—gone. He kicks them aside, buries them, ruffles them under the dirt while I am still catching my breath.
I rise to my full height again, blades poised at either side, pain screaming through my ribs, but my smile doesn’t falter. “Do you think they’d mind a dead body?” I ask sweetly, lips curling. “Because I’ve got a lovely one picked out.”
The grin slips off his face. Not entirely—but it hardens.
His eyes lock on mine with more weight than before, something ancient flickering beneath the green—anger, maybe. Disappointment. Or worse… understanding.
“You don’t get it,” he says softly. The humor is gone from his voice now, replaced with something far colder.
“You think this is about you versus me. About revenge. About pride. But I’m not here to win.” He steps forward, blade lowering. “I’m here to end the part of you that thinks we’re still playing the same game. The rules have changed.”
My grip tightens on the knives.
“You think things have changed,” I shoot back. “But you still talk like the broken little prince your father makes you.”
His jaw twitches. “I am broken,” he says, stepping into striking range. “And I rebuild myself using the ruins of what you left behind.”
He comes in faster than before. Not erratic—precise. His blade slashes at my right hand. I parry—but it is bait. His left fist comes in under my arm, striking the nerve above my elbow. The blade flies from my hand, skittering into the dust.
I spin to catch him with the second, but he catches my wrist mid-turn, wrenches it hard, and twists until the steel slips free and drops beside my boot.
Two more knives. Gone.
He drops my wrist, but holds his blade against my neck. The rusted edge hovers just beneath my chin, cold and steady, angled with surgical precision against the soft curve of my throat. A cruel courtesy—he gives me my hand back, but steals my life in the same breath. If I am anyone else—one of the nameless fools who bleed out in the dirt—my neck blooms open like a red flower, my body collapsing in a graceful, twitching heap beneath his feet.
But I am not anyone else.
I am me.
Sho’s blade stays in place, unmoving. But his eyes—those sharp green eyes, usually locked on mine like we are the only people in the world—refuse to meet me. They hover somewhere between my shoulder and the blood pooling near our boots. His jaw is tight. His breath comes out uneven.
“I can’t have you breathing down my neck anymore,” he mutters, voice rough, broken at the edges.
“Threatening my life. Interrupting my plans.” His grip on the blade tightens, but he still doesn’t press in. “It’s over now, Nadia. I’ve got bigger things to deal with.”
The words land hard, but not because of what they mean. It is the way he says them. Like he wants me to believe this is mercy. Like he doesn’t want to admit that ending us hurts more than the slashes across his skin.
