A dreamless place, tens of millions of bodies stacked in a pile, all of them in various states of dying.

The bottom layer was composed of gargantuan monsters with tentacles split, wings severed, fangs smashed, eyesockets emptied. Above them lay the smaller monsters in no better state. Then there was the layer of soldiers, the elves, the dwarves, and the humans in armour pierced and crushed. Above them, there were the criminals with nooses around their necks, decapitated heads, and faces blue with poison. And the topmost layer was the citizens, the men, the women, and the children, whose skin had been blackened by the flames of the castles in which they'd sheltered, turned green from the plagues that'd swept their lands.

None were fully-dead, though. Stuck for eternity in the last moments of their lives, the dying squirmed and shoved, wailed and howled to be freed from the crushing mass of each other.

On the face of this mountain of the near-dead, a solitary figure was climbing. Using the bodies as hand- and foot-holds, he was forced to dig his fingers deep into their flesh to secure his grip. The closer he neared the summit, the steeper grew the mountain, the fiercer the gale winds that eternally threatened to knock him off.

He'd lost count of how many times he'd fallen and been forced to restart. This time, too, he would fall, he knew. Nevertheless, he could not stop the climb.

The climber was presently near the top of the layer of soldiers, their skulls smashed open, their jaws shattered. Gushing from the mass of broken bodies above, a crimson waterfall drove down upon him. It washed over his face and poured through his nostrils to deposit an iron taste on his tongue before choking his lungs.

As he reached upwards for the next hold, shoving his arm into the sticky hot flow, his hand was clasped by one of the dying, a man whose gouged-out eye sockets endlessly spewed a red stream that added to the blood waterfall.

"Ah, I know these fucking beauties." The eyeless man caressed the climber's fingertips. "Collected some mean scars since I last felt them, but they still have our shared clumsiness. That must be you, my ungrateful protégé, my fucking murderer."

The climber twisted his arm.

The eyeless man, reading the manoeuvre, fended off the other shoving hand and placed the captured one in a wristlock. "To try beat me with my own technique…indeed, it is you, my crippled fucking kitten. You always had an arrogant streak and because of that I am dying."

Let me go already, Heavy-Fingers, the climber pleaded. But his lips were sewn shut by barbed wire and the words were mangled into a grotesque mumble.

The eyeless man, deflecting a second strike, tightened his grip. "STAY STILL, YOU THANKLESS FUCK RAT! The least could you do is keep your teacher company on his death bed. Apologise to me by staying a while. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be wedged between these rotting fucking corps—I HEAR THAT KNIFE! ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO FINISH ME OFF?!"

The climber had unsheathed a weapon from his belt. However, rather than attacking the eyeless man, he began to saw through the meat of his own arm.

"Hahaha!" The eyeless man laughed, although his voice carried a trace of nervousness. "But why mutilate yourself for this shit-pathetic climb? Is the view up there so sweet? Is there vengeance? A Thousand Tools? That would be even worse. Do you think that fucking mutt of an art is going to absolve you of your crimes?"

I'm not that delusional, mumbled the climber in his defence, working the knife hard to cut through a tendon.

"You toad's diarrhoea for brains! What is the purpose of a martial art without anyone left to wield it? The value's in the name! Twenty Tools, A Thousand Tools, these are NOT my fucking children, they can never substitute for flesh-and-fucking-blood. That's the problem with you Offworlder cunts. You reduce us to concepts, to ideals, to purposes and functions, to means but never the ends. You forget that I, Tael, had loves and ambitions, that I squirmed like a helpless-fucking maggot right up until the moment that honey-eyed shit-fucker gouged out my fucking eyeballs. Yet you're blinder than me!" He laughed again, more confidently this time. "Hahahahaha! You do not see that what streams from these dagger-raped holes is not only blood!"

Before the climber could finish severing the limb, the rapid winds of yet another descent were whipping past him, the eyeless man having thrown him to the gales.

"You limp-fucking chicken shit, stretch those invincible wings!"

A rainy morning in Vancouver, Canada. A dining room with dozens of household staff positioned in the corners, their backs against walls painted with swallows and flowers in the Ming-Dynasty style.

Eating breakfast at a table much too large for their number was a family of four. There were two parents, their son, and their daughter. They seemed like one of those idyllic families from the pages of a home décor magazine, pristine but loveless.

The father, pausing while raising a spoonful of congee, inspected the bloated grains of rice with excessive focus. "Meimei, your mother has informed me that Dr Greenaway has been visiting daily again."

"It's nothing I can't handle, father," answered Rose. "The target of my latest mission has presented several emotional challenges, and I thought it best to head off the issue before it developed."

The mention of an assassination mission didn't alarm her parents. Although neither approved of their children's involvement in Saana, they had received an order to permit their playing from Rose's grandfather. The siblings' dark reputation had pleased him. He reasoned that it bolstered their family name, the fear adding a level of respect hard to acquire in the modern, post-war era.

Her father continued inspecting his congee, evidently weighing something, then rested the spoon back in the bowl. "I will trust you."

As he rose out of his chair, the rest of the family stood. The mother straightened his tie and delivered a perfunctory farewell kiss to his cheek.

After his departure, Rose unleashed a yawn and grin she'd been suppressing after another successful night of stalking. Spitting out the remainder of pork bun, she made her own swift exit back to her room without acknowledging the others.

The bed was calling, waiting to carry her to sweet tomorrow! Although it was morning here, she'd only logged off an hour ago, having adjusted her sleep schedule to Cripple-gege's in New Zealand.

Taking a shortcut to her wing of the estate, she left through a patio door opening upon a garden. A maid draped her in a winter coat on the way out, while another dashed over to join her with an umbrella. Outside, it was dark still and the grounds were being pelted by a miserable November drizzle.

Despite the crap weather, despite her father almost exploding at her just then, Rose was in an upbeat mood.

The 'mission' was progressing very nicely.

Cripple-gege, falling for her lies due to his goat-tier social IQ, had coughed up a cheat sheet on his heart. His criteria had been pedantic, but that was expected given that he was the perfect male, a genius at almost everything, afraid of nothing, blessed with the indomitable spirit of a sword-saint, a manly expression, a calming voice, an addictive smell—

"Little Miss," interrupted the maid, "should I ring for the fish food?"

They'd been crossing a wooden bridge over a lake. A school of carp, recognising Rose's footsteps on the rain-soaked planks, was swimming towards them.

"Please do," she replied.

While waiting, Rose leaned against the bridge railing and repositioned against the light of a lamp above her. Below, the dim reflection of herself in the lake being broken up by the hungry fish seemed much prettier than usual. Around her, the estate had new charms, too. The manicured gardens, the traditional stone and wood architecture, the opulence – everything popped out to her with an appeal it'd never possessed in the past.

Cripple-gege may have been the planet's most desirable suitor, but was she far behind? She had riches, family connections, she had her youthful looks, her brilliant skill with a dagger. Through her questioning, Cripple-gege had let slip that he valued a woman with high mechanical GQ because they could access the athletic climbs from which he was barred. In this respect, none could beat herself, Septic Rose, who'd become a top duellist and assassin using her superb athleticism and reaction speed. Wasn't she his ideal match, then? Together, he with his 99.999999% percentile genius brain, she with her 99.999999% percentile physical prowess, they would be unstoppable, the couple who reigned invincible under the heavens!

And wouldn't their kids be a jealousy-inspiring blend of both?

A groundskeeper, lugging over a sack of fish feed, raised an eyebrow at the vigour with which Rose was fanning herself.

"Should I fetch you a lighter coat, Little Miss?"

"No need," she answered in embarrassment. "I won't stay out for much longer."

Dipping a hand-scoop into the bag, she cast out an arc of food, throwing it some distance because the carp weren't yet comfortable with her presence. It was supposed to be another year before they would eat next to her, two before they'd eat from her fingers. Of course, by then, she would be away with Cripple-gege - although she supposed living here might be tolerable if he preferred that.

The school swarmed about in excitement. The way they popped open their tiny mouths and vacuumed up the pellets of feed seemed awfully cute.

Everything was beautiful!

And how could it not be?

She'd achieved a stupendous milestone at last night's speed-dating. Adopting Cripple-gege's ideal persona, she'd managed to charm him for 48 seconds before her disguise failed. That time, however brief, was enough. According to the dating advice videos she'd been binge-watching, a common predicament for girls after being around a guy for too long without making a move was that one eventually fell into a friend or younger sister role. After that, romantic thoughts were impossible. The fix was a total makeover! Smash the comfortable and familiar; force him to view the bold and alluring new! And for those 48 seconds, it'd happened. Cripple-gege's eyes had beheld not Rose, kid sister of his enemy, but her, a woman who'd blossomed.

With the first crack in his armour formed, the rest would shatter after a couple more blows. Those, she would deliver tomorrow. The Empire guys had planned a hunting trip out on the savannah for the next evening's community event. During that, she would use another nonsense excuse about therapy to convince Cripple-gege to give her one-on-one lessons on their hippy nature-loving roleplaying class. Then, through awkward stumbles in which she needed to be caught, through pointers that she wouldn't understand without hands-on guidance, she would engineer several bouts of skinship. The thrilling, subconscious bond of touch, there was no barrier it couldn't cross!

"Sure about the coat?" repeated the groundskeeper.

"I'm fine," she insisted.

But no matter how much she fanned, her skin became extra red.

Out in the wilds, alone together under the romantic night sky, Cripple-gege hauling a slain lion over his shoulder while its blood dribbled down his muscular chest, his arm firmly wrapped around her—

The school of carp abandoned their feast, swimming away at the tapping of an intruding pair of footsteps.

Rose, also recognising the sound, glanced sideways.

A solitary figure was approaching her along the bridge. Grasping the handle of his umbrella like the stalk of a flower, he walked with short, gentle strides. His eyes, observing their surroundings with a monk's detachment, were the same unusual pale, honey-orange shade of her own.

In Saana, he was Genocidelol, 'The Eastern Tyrant', one of Saana's foremost generals, renowned for a brutal, reckless style of command that heaped up casualties amongst both his and the enemy's troops. It was also he who'd first trained Cripple-gege in the battle stuff. For years afterwards, Geno's guild had been close allies with The Company. Then, one random day, he inexplicably defected, joined Cripple-gege's enemies, and waged a brief war that ended in a pathetic, humiliating defeat.

For Rose, though, he was her deranged brother. At 28 years old, he'd moved out to Shanghai to stay with their grandparents, but he occasionally returned to torment her.

Geno, smiling at the groundskeeper and maid with the umbrella, stopped a few metres short.

"What do you want?" Rose sneered.

Ignoring her question, he leaned against the railing, too, and stretched out a hand to feel the rain in his palm. "We could use less of this here; Suchi, a bit more."

An allusion to her whereabouts, thought Rose, unsurprised. Amongst the pack of spying dogs that pursued Cripple-gege wherever he went, a couple were her brother's. They would have relayed her actions back to him.

"You're going to fail in this schoolgirl chase," Geno continued, making an impartial declaration of fact. "Some transgressions are insurmountable, unforgivable."

She snorted. "Cripple-gege isn't as petty as you." After her brother's betrayal, Rose had avoided Cripple-gege out of a sense of shame and guilt. These past days in Suchi, though, she'd realised her worries had been for nought, Cripple-gege's treatment of her not changing in the slightest. "He's different. He's too logical to transfer a grudge because of an irrelevant connection, and, besides, you could never affect him."

Geno nodded. "My student's tolerance is unusual, especially if you understood the full extent of things. But that's the flaw. The rose is dumb; she doesn't detect the taint I've painted on her petals, nor the flower's. Different? Far from it, Meimei. He and I, we're exactly the same."

Rose, a subtle note in her brother's voice invoking the past, felt her throat closing up.

"We always have been, really, well before my lessons. That's why I accepted him as a student, the unsettling recognition of a younger me in need of guidance." He glanced at the groundskeeper, at the maid assigned to guard Rose, giving both a protracted look devoid of any apparent emotion. "That's probably why you're so horny for him. You've transferred your lust for me. After all, I am your animus. I am the foundation of your masculine other. I am the mirror off of which all who follow me will be reflected. No amount of introspection and conversation with doctors can purge you of my mark. Do you honestly not sense it driving you still?"

"Shut up!" screamed Rose, breaking through it. In the past, she may have been helpless, but, after meeting Cripple-gege, she'd learned that with enough persistence, there was no struggle, no affliction, no monster that couldn't be overcome. "You're just jealous because he surpassed you! Your student? Don't make me laugh! You're nothing before him! He destroyed you! He reduced you to nothing!"

"Surpassed me…" Geno, seemingly unaffected by the insults, weighed the idea along with the rain in his palm. "So the heart confesses its secrets. You want to fuck him because he's me in the extreme, the monster who devoured the monster."

Rose gasped. "You're repulsive!"

Her brother nodded in surrender. "We are repulsive. But that's the human burden: to be repulsive and to be repulsed, yet to still insist on clinging to each other." He showed his fangs with a bored yawn. "I'm off to the capital; kiss for the road?"

Rose, meeting his empty gaze with her own, stared back unflinchingly. "I hope your plane crashes."

"No? Then, give one to my student in my stead."

Turning, he departed in the direction from which he'd come.

Rose, needing a healthy outlet for the rage burning inside her, had the groundskeeper reopen the fish feed bag and dug out another helping, which she heaved towards the carp keeping their distance. The hand-scoop went flying along with it.

Once her brother had left her peripheral vision, her chest began to rise rapidly up and down in. A few heavy breaths later, the episode had passed.

It was only Geno being vile again, she replied to her doubts. Cripple-gege was different.

Auckland, New Zealand. A loft apartment on the seventh floor of the Flaming Sun Headquarters.

Lying on a mattress without a bed frame, a solitary figure was staring at the shadows on the ceiling, listening to the snores of the city through his open window, his breath steadily growing calmer as the sweat soaking his sheets cooled down.

"Again," he whispered to himself, shutting his eyelids.

A dreamless place, tens of millions of bodies stacked in a pile, all of them in various states of dying.

The bottom layer was composed of gargantuan monsters…