Territory

Nervous, I pay closer attention to my breathing than usual.  No one watching can see anything other than calm in my behaviour or expression.  My shield, a hint of worry on his brows, steps back to a wall of the dojo.  My brother enters together with her, talking together in a low voice.  If I wanted to know what they were saying I could, but I don't.

Starting from the absolute basics, then moving out a fraction at a time, I expand my territory.

-----

It's a secret of my Family, hidden from even the branch family members, that surveillance technology is spread through every gas and liquid in the world, bar a few exceptions.  Any discoveries of dust being more than dust are firmly suppressed before they can reach the ear of anyone that matters.  Then again, the people who matter already know the effects quite well, so if they cared enough about the method to search for it there's not much we could do.

Within a certain distance, all these flecks can report a few rudimentary facts about their state to one of us.  If that person can handle it, further flecks can also pass on their states to those flecks, extending the range.  Higher frequency, or lower time resolution, or lower spacial resolution.  Either harder to handle or less useful.

We're told that our Princess, at the height of her power as the incarnate black Fragment of God, can process the input from every fleck on the planet at once, at maximum fidelity barring light-speed.  This I believe.

We're told that it's proved impossible to coordinate and get reports from further-away specks without manual coordination of nearer specks, thus preventing long-distance observation.  This I don't believe.

We're told that there's no manipulation ability built into the flecks other than the state-reporting functionality.  This I also don't believe.

Though I'm a main family member, I'm well aware that that only lets me a little deeper into the onion.  Only the core members of the Family know our most important secrets, surely, and only the Princess knows everything.

That bothers me, of course, but that's why I try so hard to survive and get stronger.  We all have cages, but true power is being able to build your own.

-----

She stands in front of me, swords ready, separated by a few metres.  Already my territory is readching the edges of her brown cloak, and will completely fill the dojo within half a minute.  If I couldn't do this much, I know this match would never have taken place.  That would have been far easier for me, but it's not something I have a choice in.  Not if I want to make anything of myself.

My brain hums with the knowledge of every blade in her clothing.  I can't know what she's thinking, but I can know every movement she makes, every shift of a finger, every tilt of her balance.  With that as a foundation, I can start learning things of actual importance.

If I know how she's moving, I can know how she's about to move.  If I know how she's about to move, I can know what moves she /can't/ make further down the line from that, and that narrows the decision tree down to a level where I can react just in time, maybe, to not get killed.

I don't want to get killed.  I really don't.  To anyone in the branch families, I care more about the history and status of the Family, but personally my own life means a lot more to me.  Everything else is just...  pragmatism.  Keep the cage whole, or the cage will crush you mercilessly as it collapses.  To anyone outside the Family, of course, losing isn't even a possibility in my eyes.

Her Family can loses matches like this ten thousands times and nothing will change.  If my Family loses a single match, everything will be turned on its head.  If I lose this single match, I will die within seconds.  That's my vulnerability, and simultaneously my strength.  I /should/ be able to win this.  As long as I don't get careless.  As long as I don't mess up somehow.  As long as she doesn't have an extra preparation that I can't counter.

I know I physically can't sweat, but my stomach feels cold and knotted.

Time to start.  Time to begin.  For better or worse, this will all be over in less than a minute.  People have been speaking, but I can't remember anything I've said.  Standing here silently like this should be enough, anyway.  I catch her last words, because I've been waiting for them and dreading them.

<「...苦しいでしょう？」>
"...It hurts, doesn't it?"

-----

With those words, her eyes glaze and she explodes forwards, towards me.  Confirmed, yandere mode fully engaged.  Too many possibilities--she's moving too fast, too many steps in her footwork, too many chances to shift her movements into a dangerous pattern before I'm ready.

Aiming my final resort would be impossible, so I do as I'd planned and fire, light bullets hurtling as fast as I can along exact trajectories.  Every one is one that she has to intercept, I permit no dodging with my choices.  Each one limits her, making her sacrifice certain possible steps for those which allow those interceptions.  She's not slowed in the least, but I can read her now.  I can /react/ to her now, before she's even acted.  And if I can do that--

Backwards, jumping through the air, muzzles flashing and pushing me back further, correcting my balance as I land.  Already, she's here.  Round comes her first blade, horizontally--if it's blocked I know her second will come cleaving down from above, but I don't have the physique to block it even if I wanted to.

Duck, then roll to escape the diagonally-slicing second blade that comes swinging round.  Back again, round the wall without hitting observers, suppressing fire once more.  She's not using any hidden blades, which is both inconvenient for me and expected.  I could hit them easily enough and changing methods would have slowed her down.  Just now was the opposite state, close-quarters and exactly what she wants; she was too close to use suppressing fire any more, but committing to attacks also meant she was easier to react to.  Unfortunately, being so close also stopped me from using my finisher even when she was committed.

A bullet--one of our bullets--can move faster than a sword.  Normally, at least.  A shorter distance also gives /her/ less time to react, not that I could give her a flesh wound without trading a mortal wound for it.

...I lost some of my hair.  When I ducked, that is.  I knew it would happen when I ducked, I knew before the match started that she wouldn't let the match end without at least taking that from me, but it still hurts.  I can grow it back quickly, and the loss can help shore up my outside image of someone who needs to be protected, the the fact that I was forced into permitting it still hurts.

Oh no.  This is it, I think.  She's given up on approaching or close-quarters, not trying to wear me down either--not that I'm likely to run out of energy, concentration or bullets--and that means that--yes.

Leg, arm.  I start the finisher, my last resort, knowing I can switch to something else if it's a feint.  Sword tips go down, her entire body moves as I've been trained to recognise, and--

One.  Adjust.  Adjust.  She's committed, no signs of deviation.  Adjust, flecks in my blood, in my muscles, in my nerves and brain.  I have to match her timing to the microsecond, anticipate and overcome every erg of energy she puts in or takes out of her charge, or else my temporal and spatial aim will miss.

Two.  Too soon, and I'll hurt her, but I'll die in the next instant.  Too late, and I might not even hit her.

Three.  Third step.  It's coming, as though the space-time continuum itself is cut, a cut that parts the reality any shield stands in with no regard for the shield itself, a cut that my Family has seen and studied so many times before--

Death is standing in front of me, lunging at me, a distance of barely a hundred centimetres while an instant ago both eyes and flecks saw her two metres away, swords already scissoring closed on my throat with no gap to dodge.  I've committed, I can't react--

I don't want to die--
I don't want to die--
I don't want to--

-----
-----

[Same day, second person]

Here I am.  Here we are.  My heartrate is embarrassingly fast.  He smiles at me, speaks a few words of encouragement.  My heart feels warm, then flinches at the look of worry in his eyes as they dart over to his sister at the other end of the room.

Her skin is as white as a corpse, her clothes as black as death, her hair like an evil spiderweb.  The watchers look at her and probably see a small, vulnerable girl to be coddled.  All I see is a wound in the world, an agglomeration of deceit and terror.  This should not be.  This must not be.  This...  is something I can put right.  His life, and all our Families:  once I put it right, we can all start moving again.

They all think that I will lose.  They all think that my loss is inevitable.  They're wrong--I will win, with certainty.  That is the path of my heart, that is the path of my blade, that is the path of my life.

I am my swords, and my swords are me.  They extend unbroken through my entire body.  My core is their core, and they are my nails.  This is literal I know for our Fragment Incarnate, but it is no less true for me.  I am a sword.  Cutting is what I do.

From memory, I've spoken the rote pleasantaries that come before this duel.  All the while she's looked at me with contempt in her eyes, not deigning to say a word.

Soon, so very soon, I will end her.  For that, I must harden myself.

<「...苦しいでしょう？」>
"...It's painful, isn't it?"

My heart is transparent crystal, housing everything I do not need right now.  My blood is molten metal, realising my reality.  The world comprises only three truths.  I am a blade, she is in pain, and I will give her Mercy.

Forward.  Forward.  Bullet, cut.  Bullet, cut.  Cut everything in front of me, cut everything between me and my goal.  Subvert Cartesian distances, take the shortest path to the goal in time while ignoring the one in space.  Push and cut, faster.

Black hair twines around my blades.  Not hair, bullets.  I cut the hair, and it springs forth anew, constricting me and choking my shortest path into a longer one.  Cut, and push.  Cut!

In front of me, so close now, but my sword towards her is a log pushed up a waterfall, robbed of momentum and positioning by her last bullets.  Cut and cut and she squirms away like a spider, scuttling away.

Cut.  The hair twines around me.  Cut.  The shadows trip me up.  Cut.  I can't get closer, can't thin the hair between us any more than this.  Then, there's nothing to wait for.  /Cut./

Cut a cut that can cut everything.  All hair.  All possibility.  All fear.  I know what she'll do, and I put everything I have into outpacing her, launching myself through the wall that has stood for untold generations.

Blades around her spine, her carotid, her windpipe.  Closing before her finger can finish clenching, before her larger gun can finish firing--

The ceiling is above me.  Through the air fly sparkling shards of metal.  My hopes, my dreams.  My back hits the ground and he's already at my side, holding my hand.  I try to let go the bladeless hints, only a few shards sticking out of them, but my fingers are clenched too tightly and won't let go.  My heart is flesh again and hurts terribly.

I force my head to rise and see her looking down on me while standing in the same position, leg still braced behind her, immaculate and vile.  Lowering her arm, she turns and leaves without a word.

I start to cry.

-----
-----

Twenty seconds.  I speak kind words to the CEO kneeling in front of me, running my fingers through his hair.  Seventeen seconds.  The other kneeling CEOs continue to hang on my every word, not knowing that they've been selected because they're the mediocre ones ones, the weak ones, thes ones whose loyalty needs hammering into shape.

Not that that reflects badly on them, of course.  All raw material needs work to be dependable, even if the optimum type or amount of work differs.

Twelve seconds.  And...  there.  Gunfire, outside the doors.

Here, I am the only one my allies or my enemies will see.  For my enemies it doesn't matter so much, but my allies here only know me as the scion of my business group, without ever having met any of my cousins.  That, and the confusion which comes with seeing our similarities, is something reserved for only a few very special picks.

Eight seconds.  I'm looking at the door, not because I have to, but as a signal to my allies that I'm /paying attention/.  I've withdrawn my hand from the head in front of me, but haven't given the command to rise.  Instead, I command the opposite--stay as you were.  In the next half-minute, anyone who goes against that command will receive thorough reconditioning, from the basics.

Five seconds.  The door breaks open and my enemies come in.  I watch them through my eyes, through my territory, and through the rifle sights of the sixteen cousins in network with me.

Four seconds.  The leader's gun finally swings round enough to point at me and in the same instant is smashed out of his hand by a bullet from the window.  I start walking forward.

Three seconds.  More guns pointed at me, smashed our of hands in the same instant.  Terror on their faces, shock on my allies'.

Two seonds.  Brutal-looking swords out, running at me, yells of hatred.  I start moving my arm, holding it out straight to the side in a purely theatrical gesture.

One second.  Swords come for me, seeking my blood and death.  I don't feel even a hint from them of the danger I felt during the match that day.  In a single dramatic motion, my arm sweeps forward.

Zero.  Rubber bullets rain down on all their joints at once.  Swords fall, and they collapse to the ground.  Every time they try to rise, the joint used is hit.  I begin to speak.

As my allies stare in awe, I stand in the midst of my enemies, inviolate.