{Hanabi Hanaya has entered Master Wangui’s tournament.}

The tall, slender man in his traditional black robe bridged his fingers in front of himself, his little top-knot ponytail, glasses, and hairless face giving him a clean look. He stared around the large, round table erected in the center of an otherwise empty room, multiple floors up the height of a skyscraper in Japan.

{And what does this change, Akio-san?} Another man in a similar robe asked, bald other than the thinnest black mustache he could manage on his upper lip. Compared to his colleague, he was much shorter, rounder, and more froglike. {Her presence is still demanded back home.}

Akio lifted a cup of tea to his lips to sip, and slowly turned to present the cup to a tall white horse leaning over his shoulder, its brilliantly black mane and fiery red eyes peering around the room as its pink tongue scooped tea up into its mouth and swallowed messily.

Then, the beast gave a low whinny, and stomped its hoof in agitation.

Akio nodded, and turned back towards the froggish man. {Grasshopper-sama has the right of it; the Reffe clan’s honor hinges on their ability to protect her.}

{Hmph!} The smaller man grunted. {The Reffe clan; so many years after the waning of the enlightened ages and they have finally found their purpose once again, in time to step on our toes.}

{Calm yourself, Akiba-kun.} A woman stated, elderly and wrinkled, but with her hair blackened with dye and tied back in a stately, but still impressive bun. {The Asai clan’s revenge will go unhindered by this development. We’ll have hunters poised to swoop in and capture her with so much as a lapse of attention.}

{You make it sound easy, Mai-chan.} A larger, portlier man said, his hair and facial hair both long and pointed. {Let us not forget that the Reffe clan’s zeal matches our own in this case. Not only will she be guarded by those shinobi-wannabe, but we still don’t know the location of her home.}

{Still?} Mai asked with a raised eyebrow. {How can that possibly be? Our best agents have been sweeping the city to find her safehouse.}

Grasshopper snorted, making a number of beastly noises while tapping the table with their hoof, their red, almond-shaped eyes narrowing dangerously. The rest of the table deferred to Akio, who cleared his throat.

{Grasshopper-sama believes there is further foul play at work here. He believes there might be a Hanaya safehouse hidden somewhere deep in the city; perhaps disguised as one of the many restaurants here.}

{Then we have our work cut out for us.} The big, rotund man grunted.

{Perhaps so, Oda-san, but it is impossible for her to stay hidden forever. She is a public figure now, we can track her movements via the Tournament’s updates and find her in lonesome privacy from there.}

Akiba’s big eyes narrowed sharply, and a low hum rumbled from his throat. {I have what may serve as a faster plan.}

{Enlighten us, Akiba-kun.}

{I have been watching the tournament in my spare time; say what you will, but I find it exciting. It has allowed me to glean a number of personalities and goals, however, and I believe I have a way to turn the Reffe’s own rules against themselves.} Four heads leaned in to listen better, and Akiba grinned a wide smile. {And I have just the man in mind to do it.}

Night had fallen over what was an otherwise inconspicuous suburban neighborhood. Rows of family homes stood tall and quiet under the eerie white light of the streetlamps overlooking the road, most indistinguishable from their neighbor other than the states of their front yards and the coat of painting they wore.

Two crowds had formed at each end of the street, made up of mostly middle-class suburbanites standing at the erected barriers, yelping and cheering with their phones raised in the air, recording what was going on.

A gray-bearded Indian man in a turban, with his orange robe cast off his torso to reveal his dark-skinned, muscular torso, stood amidst a crowd of groaning corpses.

Boney fingers reached out towards the man, only for his fist to pulverize the face of each offending undead figure, a half-dozen more arms sticking out of his back to fight off the crowd of dead that tried to push into his personal space.

His black eyes flickered wildly as he turned, trying to prevent himself from being totally surrounded, but where one fell, seemingly two more pushed in to take their place, until the street was a mob of corpulent, green figures with sloughing flesh and exposed bone trying to throw themselves onto the old Indian master.

“YOU GOT THIS DHRUV! BREAK THROUGH!”

“GET OUTTA THERE DHRUV!”

The crowd whooped and cheered into the cold night as Dhruv, seemingly catching onto their advice, rhythmically swung his eight arms to create a pathway through the pile of bodies towards a broad, lone figure sitting on the stairs leading up to one of the houses.

The muscular elder leapt towards the hunched-over figure with his powerful arms pumping like pistons, raining a blow on Mortimer Graves’ face, broad chest, and stomach, but Graves simply, slowly stood as the assault jostled him, his expression unchanging beneath his dirty stovepipe hat, silent as the grave as he walked into Dhruv’s multi-armed assault.

A shovel strike sliced through the empty air as Dhruv threw himself backwards, but when the hands of the dead tried to take hold of him, he flexed and bashed the tide of corpses apart before diving in once more. Three fists swung into Mortimer Graves’ stomach like a wrecking ball, only to be met with an abdomen as solid as concrete.

Two more slammed into his ribs, but Graves took the blow like a tombstone weathering a storm.

One smashed directly into his face, which should have easily broken his large, pointed nose, but Dhruv found himself shrinking away in concern as his fist shook from the pain of the impact, Graves offering no expression in turn.

“T-tum kya ho?” Dhruv asked.

Graves suddenly held a hand up, and behind Dhruv, the legion of undead at his command stilled, surrounding the Hindu man without touching him.

The tall, broad-shouldered gravedigger turned his head like somebody was whispering into his ear, then slowly turned back to face Dhruv.

“Main vakta hoon.” Graves answered in a heavy American accent. His voice was like a gunshot through the quiet night sky, so deep and gravelly it was like a rock grinder trying to speak words. His voice cracked and growled as he spoke again through a throat full of broken stone. “Finish this.”

Dhruv made eight fists, his teeth grit as he prepared himself for another assault, but from Graves’ cloak flowed a black mist.

The scent of grave dirt and powdered bone filled the air as the mist surrounded Graves to form a barrier, leaving his movements vague and his features obscure. The mist formed dense pockets before him, and ghastly faces formed out of the mist, suddenly breaking free in the form of boney specters dressed in torn scraps of clothing.

Dhruv’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Using the dead like mere minions! You disrespectful mongrel!” He growled, his fists lashing out at the apparitions that swirled around him, but they were nothing more than cold mist.

Graves said nothing, but with a grunt, the ghosts suddenly descended on Dhruv, causing him to shriek as they passed through his flesh and disappeared.

He swung furiously, gasping out loud, chanting Hindu prayers between chattering teeth as a cold numbness crept through his body from his torso. He rose in the air, the crowd yelling encouragement and screaming as his six additional arms faded away, leaving him a singular, whole man.

His dark skin began to turn blue, ragged gasps escaping his throat as his limbs twisted and contorted at the mercy of grizzly puppeteers, before with a low whimper, he was dropped to the floor almost bonelessly.

The ghosts that had wreaked havoc in his body flowed out of him, fading into black mist to hide in Graves’ trench coat. The zombie army that surrounded the man looked poised to strike as the elder Indian gasped for breath on the ground, but did not move.

Then, a black-robed proctor dropped onto the scene, one hand gently touching Dhruv’s neck, before announcing: “MORTIMER GRAVES HAS WON THE BATTLE!”

The crowd of suburbanites gave mixed cheers and jeers as Graves swept a hand through the air, and the pale platoon at his command rapidly decomposed, falling into bones, then into mist that gathered under his cloak.

“This marks the Death Knight’s twentieth victory in a row, well ahead of our second place fighter!” The Reffe proctor announced joyfully to one of the nearby floating cameras. “Mortimer Graves is an unstoppable force in this tournament, and has the chance to accelerate his points value, as he has earned the opportunity to challenge a fighter of his choice and take half their points should he win!”

The proctor turned to face Graves, who was standing straight and silent, uncaring towards the sound of the cheering crowd, barely registering the proctor in front of him.

“Graves, do you have an idea of who you wish to challenge for your twentieth victory?”

He did not respond immediately, which was already expected of the massive, graveborn fighter, but slowly he reached his hand into one of the pockets of his dirt-stained coat, and pulled out an envelope of fine paper, the crane-stamped wax seal already cracked.

He thumbed the paper for a moment, before turning back to face the proctor.

“My next battle will be my last.” He suddenly said, making the Proctor’s head tilt in curiosity.

“Why do you say that, master Graves?”

“I came to this tournament with one goal, and with my next fight, I will have attained it.” Graves’ voice was a coarse snarl that seemed to shake the very ground beneath their feet. “With the money I will earn, I will ensure that the lamentations of the dead fall on deaf ears no more.”

He turned his head up towards a camera, making a tight fist at his side as he growled. “I challenge one who will deliver me unto my true goals; I challenge Hanabi Hanaya for her forty-million yen bounty!”