Two hours had passed and Kiriai was ready for a break. Actually, more than a break. She was still recovering from the brutal qualifying fights last week and just wanted to go home for the rest of the day. As the group of fighters were heading to the locker rooms, Kiriai waved Sento over to let him know her plans. He let out a sigh as he turned to face her, obviously impatient. “What?”

With a sudden flash, Kiriai remembered that morning’s incident. How could she have forgotten? She wanted to pretend it had never happened, but her conscience insisted she tell someone. Sento was the only real choice. She was too new to have any close friends in the dojo, and this wasn’t something to share with a stranger.

“Did you want to ask me something? If not, I’m busy today,” Sento asked, poised to leave.

“Sorry. I wanted to let you know I’m done for the day and headed home after I visit the fixer to help me finish healing.”

Sento immediately looked contrite. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting the fights you went through. You’re tough and hide it well. Go home. Get some rest.”

“Wait. There’s one more thing,” Kiriai said as Sento turned to leave. This time, he really looked frustrated and just raised his eyebrows, waiting.

“I don’t know if it’s important, but this morning I overheard something I have to tell somebody.” Second thoughts stopped her from saying more. She already sounded vague.

“What? Spit it out.”

“Fine. I was at the park and I heard two people discussing their plan to kill someone.” Kiriai let out of breath. There was no going back now. With a rush she said, “And I think the person they are planning to kill is Boss Akuto.”

Sento’s eyes bugged out and his hand darted forward and clamped over her mouth. She was so startled she froze.

“Are you crazy? You can’t say things like that!” Sento stopped and looked toward the doorway to make sure they were alone. “Especially in the dojo. There are listening ears everywhere. Haven’t you learned anything from me? How do you think I get most of my valuable information?” He leaned forward and growled close to her ear. “From people like you who are careless enough to say things like that out loud.”

Kiriai pushed his hand away, but could still feel the warmth. He was right. She was an idiot for speaking about the possible murder of their boss in a dojo workout room with an open door.

Sento shut the door, grabbed her shoulder and dragged her to the far corner of the room where he checked to make sure both of the windows were securely latched. Still not speaking, he picked up one of the padded clubs and swung it slowly in her direction.

“We’re just practicing, in case anyone pokes their head in.”

Nodding, she played along.

“Now,” he said in a low but eager voice, “tell me all the details, as quickly as possible. This could be big. And useful. I knew you would be a good ally.”

Kiriai was disconcerted by his reaction, but had to follow through. She started basic attack and defense sequences as she spoke under her breath, telling him everything from that morning. Well, except for the fact that her indecision was the real reason she hadn’t been able to see the conspirators.

When she finished, Sento let the club drop and just stared at her, his expression disappointed. “So, to recap, you know nothing. Two people, male or female, who you didn’t see and can’t identify by voice, may or may not have been discussing the murder of some boss, who they didn’t even identify by name. For all you know, they were discussing the murder of our enemy’s boss next door, or any of the dozens of other bosses in the outskirts.”

Well, when he put it like that.

“Kiriai, that is the most useless collection of information, if you can even call it information. I can’t use it for anything.”

Her expression must have communicated her distress.

“What? Were you thinking you should take this to the boss? Warn him?” He shook his head and put a hand on her shoulder, which made her nervous for entirely different reasons. He leaned close. “I know you have this misguided notion you have to save everyone in the world, but not only is this information useless to me, but it’s even more useless to the boss.”

She started to protest, and he raised his hand. “Even if this were actually a plot to murder our boss, you have no proof, and nothing remotely helpful either. If you had a name, it might be valuable to both the boss and you. But without that?” He shook his head. “Besides, the boss has bodyguards and ’forcers who take care of this type of thing regularly. You need to stay out of it. This isn’t your job.” He emphasized each word with a finger jab in her direction, all pretenses of training forgotten. “You have one job at the moment. You will train with me and Tsuyoi so that the three of us can win the junior scrapper battle against Rinjin. They will promote the two of us to senior scrappers and you get to keep your job as a scrapper instead of going back home to your grandfather’s fixer business. Understand?”

Some part of Kiriai made her try one last time. “Shouldn’t we at least try to find out more?”

“And how would you recommend you—not we—do that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, feeling frustrated and torn as she ran a hand through her hair. “Maybe I could at least keep an eye out for more evidence. Blast, maybe send an anonymous warning so the boss would take more precautions. Something. Anything.” She stopped again and looked at Sento, trying to make him understand. “Murder is just not something I’m comfortable ignoring, even if I have nothing concrete to go on.”

Sento stared at her for a long, silent moment before pursing his lips and shaking his head.

“Sit down, and look like you’ve just finished some kind of workout,” he said, following his own advice and indicating she should do the same.

He didn’t look at her, instead training a vague gaze at the center of the room and letting out a few deep breaths. She did the same, not sure how normal the two of them would look to an outsider, but it had to be better than the emotional discussion they had just been having. That would give all the wrong impressions to someone watching.

Sento’s voice was emotionless when he finally spoke, his gaze still focused straight ahead. “Kiriai, I don’t want to say you’ve led an easy life, because I know how hard you fight for the things you care about. But your life is a lot more protected than most ’zens. I’m guessing this has to do with the value the hood boss places on your grandfather’s work.”

“You’re crazy! You know how hard we have it,” she said turning to confront him. He still didn’t look at her.

“I didn’t say easy. I said protected. There’s a difference.”

“Fine, why don’t you enlighten me?” She turned back, struggling to keep up the pretense of being relaxed.

“Have you ever had ’forcers storm into your house, grab one of your cousins and leave with no explanation?”

Now it was Kiriai’s turned to be startled.

“I never saw him again. My aunt said he likely died on the farms or in the mines.”

“What did he do?”

Sento scoffed and Kiriai saw him shake his head out of the corner of her eye. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You grew up in a different world than I did. In yours, the ’forcers only arrest ’zens who’ve done something wrong. In mine, they drag away a healthy young man or two for small infractions when they need some extra miners or croppers. They get drunk and play games with teenage boys who don’t have a family to protect them.”

A sick feeling built inside Kiriai. Sento had hinted at a rough family life, but this?

“Games?” She didn’t really want to know, but she had to ask.

“I don’t know,” Sento said, his voice flat. “Maybe two with billy clubs would block the mouth of an alley and tell the boy if he could get past them, they’d leave him alone.”

“And did they?”

“It depended on the day. It usually ended with the boy beaten on the floor of the alley and the ’forcers leaving until the next time they were bored and could catch him unawares.”

Kiriai didn’t want the images she had in her head. It was one thing to know the world wasn’t perfect; it was another to come face-to-face with the details.

“But they eventually left you alone, didn’t they? I mean, look at you now. Even two ’forcers would have a hard time stopping you from leaving an alley.”

Sento let out a short laugh and shook his head again. “Kiriai, just stop and think. What do you think would happen to a strong boy who fought his way past two ’forcers and left them on the ground of an alley?”

“But—” she said, and stopped as she realized the implications. Even if he won, he’d lose in the long run.

“Yes. As soon as they trap the boy in the alley, there aren’t really any good choices.”

“So you let them beat you?” She tried to keep the horror and a touch of judgment out of her voice.

“No, that could get you killed,” he said, not correcting her reference to him being the boy. “There is a delicate balance between fighting back enough to impress them, without doing enough damage to anger them. If you can manage it correctly—” He stopped and shrugged. “They’ll leave you alone when they’re done.”

Kiriai couldn’t suppress a small sound of distress.

Sento finally turned to look at her for the first time during the whole sordid tale. He didn’t look impressed by her concern.

“Come on, Kiriai. Did you really think I put my whole life into becoming a scrapper just for the fame and money? Now, my relatives are on the same list you’ve been on your whole life. The one that keeps them from being harassed or dragged out of their homes without good reason.” He shrugged. “At least most of the time. And that’s all anyone can ask for. So maybe you can understand why I’m not so concerned about protecting the boss. He has his own army of ’forcers and is more than able to take care of himself.” Then he gave her a quizzical look. “Before you, I would have always said it was dangerous for people like us to attract even a small bit of attention from him. Somehow, you’re able to do it over and over and are still alive to talk about it. How do you do it?”

She shrugged. She had no answers. Surely Sento was exaggerating the whole situation somewhat. Silence descended as Sento seemed to be done talking and Kiriai had no idea what to say. Was it all really as one-sided as Sento was making it seem? Or did he and his cousin give the ’forcers some reason for their actions?

It didn’t matter. She was on Sento’s side. How could she let him know? Hesitantly, she reached out and put a hand on his arm. “I don’t really know what to say, but I’m sorry about, um, everything?”

Sento flinched at her touch and looked down at her hand on his arm. Kiriai could feel the corded muscles of his forearm and the heat radiating through the rough cotton of the black sleeve of his gi. Suddenly feeling awkward and flustered, she pulled her hand back and stood up, struggling to look calm.

“You’re right. I need to focus on our training. I’ll try and forget about the plotting stuff. I didn’t hear anything concrete anyway.” She turned and headed toward the doorway, making her steps stay measured instead of running like she wanted to do. “See you tomorrow,” she said over her shoulder in as cheery a voice as she could manage. He didn’t answer. She snuck a last look. He sat against the wall, face blank with rays of incoming sun painting stripes across his torso.