Page 59 of Taken to Nobu
“He will attempt to humiliate you. Control your anger, bottle your pride, find his weakness, and when he laughs, remember the truth. That he is nothing.”
“Hexa, Kinan.”
He meets my gaze. “I will be watching.”
“I’ll make you proud.”
“You do every day,” he says, “Now bring me his plates. All of them.”
We walk together into the arena, but only Kinan walks out of it. I remain planted near Miari and Svera, the other humans behind them, Kinan just a little further. Jaxal stands near him and is watching me now with a fiery look. His chin thrusts down and his jaw clenches. It’s in his reaction alone that I know Bo’Raku has entered the arena with me.Breathe.
I turn forward to see Bo’Raku select what they call a throwing hammer from the chest of weapons provided to him. It’s an effective weapon if you know how to wield it well, and even more effective when your opponent has no shield to defend against it. It looks like a chain, about half a foot around, and ends in a giant bolt the size of three fists. It’s not anywhere near as effective for a battle like this where only a blooding is required, which just confirms what Kinan has told me.Bo’Raku has nothing to lose. He isn’t going to just cut me with that thing. He’s going to try to bludgeon me to death with it.
The arena clears so that it’s just us. The red face I thought I’d memorized looks so much different. So…normal. He grins at me and his ridges flash a homicidal purple and black. The same colors that they were during the Hunt. I should be more afraid by them, but I’m not.That was another male, another me, another history. This one I write myself.
“The tribunal is until first blood. Should Pe’ixal succeed, the Va’Rakukanna will be required to spend fifteen solars in Qath’s endless ocean before resuming her post here as Xhea. The outcome of this trial, while it has no bearing on the tsanui or on Pe’ixal’s trial, may determine whether Pe’ixal is shown leniency during his tsanui. My Rakukanna and I expect an honorable trial.”
“Honorable…”I can see his lips mouth the word from where I stand, as if it’s a joke. I can understand why he’d think that. Nothing honorable is going to take place here, on my part or his.
“Accepted,” I say.
“Accepted,” Bo’Raku echoes and I’m chilled once again by the sound of his voice. Though he may look different and I may feel different, that voice is just the same as the laughter that chimes in my thoughts.
He takes a step. I suck in a breath and hold it in my lungs.Comets. Fuck! It’s starting. It’s really happening. I’m really here.With the cold falling around me and skating beneath my feet, I take sure steps across it until I’m close enough to reach him with one end of my grabar. The pointy end. That also means that he’s more than close enough to reach me.
He lifts his hammer and I’m prepared for the first swing, but not the second. It comes too quickly. I didn’t anticipate he’d be able to recover from its momentum that fast, but he did and I’m left scrambling. I dart right, flipping onto my shoulder and rolling out of the path of the chain. It grazes the outside of my okami but not hard enough to penetrate it.
He howls, “You thought this was a game, human?” His laughter echoes through my bones and ithurts. It hurts more than it should.
I hold my staff with both hands, backing away from him as he comes towards me, chest exposed, taunting me,humiliating me,showing me just what I’m worth —nothing.No. I wait for him to attack, needing more time to assess his fighting style, his speed, agility and strength.
He swings his hammer low, trying to disrupt my center of gravity, but I use the blunterend of my grabar to propel his chain up and over my head. I don’t try to stop it’s advance. That would be the fastest way for him to take my weapon away from me and I’m not that stupid or arrogant.Though I used to be. Back when he knew me. But he doesn’t know who I am anymore. He doesn’t know that when I leave this battlefield today, it will be with every plate covering his ugly red body.
His grin doesn’t fade as he attacks a few more times, trying to probe my own defenses and find his way in. I know what he wants. I can see it in his eyes. He doesn’t want to beat me as he would any other opponent. He wants to make me bleed just like he did the first time.He wants Kinan to watch.
His hammer swings and misses when I deflect the stroke and the moment it sails over my head, coming close enough to graze the braids that are cornrowed so neatly by Kuana against my scalp, I charge. As silent and small as I am, he seems staggered for a moment with what to do with me. It leaves his chest exposed and I whip my spear up with my left hand, striking my mark and tearing a hole in his hide covering and exposing his plates. I shave the first layer off of them and as I whirl past him, I strike again, this time performing the same act against the plate high on his right thigh, only this time, it’s with the grabar end.
While the plate prevents me from drawing blood from his flesh, a huge chunk of the thing comes off cleanly, like slicing into a red fruit with a deadly sharp knife. We only ever had one knife sharp enough to slice a red fruit on the colony and growing up, I cut myself on it a hundred times. His plate lands on the ground with a thunk, heavy like a massive, overgrown toenail.
That’s when I hear it. The soft clapping of human hands. I know they are human because Voraxians don’t clap. A voice chants my name, I’m not sure whose and I don’t dare look.
“Fuck him up, Kiki!” Jaxal’s that time, there’s no mistaking it.
Pe’ixal grins at me, like he’s won some prize off me. “Kiki,” he sneers.
“Hexa, I am Kiki.” I grin at him and level my grabar, distributing its weight evenly between my hands. I am sure. I am me. “Pe’ixal,” I sneer.
His smile wavers and I know I’ve struck something within him. Something deep. And that’s when I remember every word and piece of advice Kinan ever gave me. He was giving me the answer all along. The hate I’ve carried was one Bo’Raku gave me, but that hate was never mine. It was his.And now I must return it. In kind.
“How does it feel, Pe’ixal? Knowing that you’re about to be killed by a human you once raped?”
He winces at the word, as all Voraxians do. It is dishonorable to rape in their culture. A dishonor he never saw, because he never viewed humans as equals. “This is a fight to first blood. And you are Va’Raku’s mate. You’re too xoking honorable for that.”
“If that’s what you think, your brain’s as small as your cock is.”
I run at him and he pivots to the side, letting me pass as I expected he would. He comes at me, trying to tag me in the back, but I swivel, skating over the ice like Ka’Okkari taught me to. I drop to one knee as I switch back around and when I do, I tear open his other pant leg and this time, when I sweep the grabar up, I take plateand skinwith it.
A thin line of copper, sweet-smelling blood pours freely down his leg and the roaring chant of my name breaks through my concentration. I smile and stand, watching the surprise and horror that crosses his ridges in shades of white and red and pink.
