The water of the bath, brought to a near-scald, was the kiss of heaven on her pale skin. Katsumi sank into the scented pool with a loud, somewhat embarrassing, moan of relief. The bath was laden with perfumes and layered in rose petals; Katsumi had no idea how expensive this all must have been, but she was doing her best to take Madam Tsuyu at her word when she said that this was all free of charge. Katsumi was fine with working here, more or less, but she knew she didn’t appreciate the idea of financial entrapment, and couldn’t begin to imagine how she would react should that abhorrent idea become the reality of her situation.

However, since she had been rather unceremoniously dumped into this world, she had begun to learn to trust her instincts—and as nothing was screaming at her that Madam Tsuyu wished her ill, she did her best to bury her cognitive misgivings. After all, the madam was right; it wasn’t as though Katsumi had much in the way of other options.

Speak of the Devil…

The door to the bath opened, and in walked Madam Tsuyu herself. Her yukata abandoned for a haori that was open down the front, she knelt down behind Katsumi and procured bottles of oils from beside the girl. She had no idea what the madam was actually selecting, but as the madam poured some of the contents into her hands and replaced the bottles where they had been, the girl braced herself for whatever might come.

All the same, she yipped when the madam began to run her fingers through her hair. Her tangled, knotted, two-days-crusted-over-with-seawater hair. The older woman’s slender digits were as gentle as they could conceivably be, given the nature of the task they were about, but they were also firm enough to accomplish that task in a reasonable amount of time.

“Forgive me, child, but I don’t believe I remembered to ask your name,” said Madam Tsuyu, her voice gentle and soothing, working like a firm pair of hands massaging the tension out of the girl’s soul.

“Katsumi…of the Fallen Rain,” replied Katsumi.

“Hmm. Well, allow me to be the first to tell you that you have beautiful hair, Katsumi,” remarked the madam, combing her oiled fingers through the girl’s raven locks. “I’ve been thinking on how to fit you into our family. Kagura, for example, prefers her clients to be rough with her. Kyomi is…well, she knows what her clients like. You, however… You seem so delicate. Like a doll, almost.”

Katsumi’s hackles raised, and Madam Tsuyu slapped her shoulder. “Hush, girl. I meant nothing by it. Merely an idle observation.”

Katsumi relaxed again, and the older woman began to speak once more in that same soothing tone. “I think it would be ill-advised, not to mention cruel, to throw you to the wolves. No, I believe I’ll have you answer a wonder of mine. Long ago, I was an adventurer myself. Can you imagine? I was a dancer, actually. A dervish of sorts, you might say. But when I was young, I came to my mother, a powerful and famous adventurer in her own right, and told her I wanted to journey to the local crystal shrine, to become an adventurer so as to make the world a better, kinder place. My mother scoffed at me, and I’ll never forget what she said. ‘You want to make the world a kinder place, girl? Become a whore.’

“I hated her for that. A part of me still does. But sometimes, as I get older, and the faces of the people I’ve killed over the course of my adventuring career begin to blend together, becoming muddled and indistinct, I wonder if she was right.” Madam Tsuyu chuckled, but it was a bitter, mirthless sound, and it brought no solace. “I have two daughters now. Ástríðr and Sonja. Twins, no less. They were born shortly after my husband and I opened this establishment. Back then, we had a different selection of women than we do these days—they have all since either died or gone their separate ways. But though they were born into this life, I could tell that my children wished for more. And so I allowed them to take Kyomi and Kagura to the crystal shrine by the shore with them, so that all four of them could be assigned their adventuring classes.

“I would like for you to spend some time here. See if it will bring you peace.”

“Has it for you?” Katsumi couldn’t help but ask.

“To a point,” Madam Tsuyu replied. “And watching my daughters grow into fine young women has made up the balance of the remainder.

“There is a reason, to return to the point, that this place is not wealthier or as externally well-maintained as other such establishments. And that is that we do not cater to nobles and lordlings who wish to feel powerful, especially not by mistreating our girls. Like I said, we’re a family here. This is not a place of recreation—it is a place of healing. While some of the greener clientele do deal with the usual troubles, such as low self-worth, the vast majority come here, not for carnal relations, necessarily, but rather to forget about the world outside, which has caused them so much pain, and to which they, in turn, have caused much pain. They desire, first and foremost, a reprieve from the endless, vicious cycle that persists in the outside world even now. And I think the best way you could provide that is not with your body, but with your mind and skills.

“Even now, I can sense a great darkness swirling within you, like a storm-cloud hanging above your brow. I believe that that darkness, judiciously applied, can help heal these men’s broken souls. That is, if you have but the will to learn. Something tells me, however, that that sword you brought in, carried on your back—it calls to you. Something has been done to you, my girl. I sincerely doubt you’ll ever be truly whole ever again—if you ever were to begin with. Which, of course, some aren’t.” Madam Tsuyu then brought up a bucket filled with water and upended it over her head. The piping liquid cascaded down her locks, making her skin tingle, but not singe, and she wondered, not for the first time since this bath began, how she could stand such a temperature. It wasn’t as though she was numb to it, no—she knew perfectly well what the actual temperature was—but rather, she could withstand it better than she could have when she was human, to the point where the infernal water temperature was actually comfortable to her perception. She chalked it up to a racial trait and then left it at that. “So then. How came you to own that sword?”

“A weaponsmith gifted it to me,” replied Katsumi.

“Ah. Perhaps he can provide weapons to the rest of the family…”

“He can’t,” said Katsumi. “He’s dead. I killed him.”

Madam Tsuyu stilled. “I feel like there’s a story to that…”

“And what would that change?” Katsumi asked, beginning to fold in on herself. “Stories don’t bring back the dead. Excuses don’t reverse the deed that was done. He’s dead. I killed him. Whatever my reasons, whatever his, that fact remains.”

“And do you regret it?” asked Madam Tsuyu softly.

“...Should I?” asked Katsumi in response.

To that, Madam Tsuyu had no reply.

The material of the robe Madam Tsuyu had left Katsumi was at once both rich and sheer. It felt like gossamer on her skin—a single thread of gossamer would have, in the ordinary course, felt disconcerting on the grounds that it was a sign of the proximity of a spider, but an entire robe made from woven-together bolts of it felt more luxurious than any fabric she could remember through her muddled recollections. She nestled in it and nuzzled the softness of the textile until there was a knock on the bathroom door. “Are you decent?”

The voice was unfamiliar, but recognizably female. “Would it matter if I wasn’t?”

A sigh came from the other side of the door before it burst open. “New whores always thinking they’re clever with that same tired line…”

Katsumi’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, have I offended?”

“Offence implies I care,” said the other woman. She walked in, and Katsumi was immediately lost in the other woman’s brilliant green eyes. She found her senses again when the other woman scoffed. “Two weeks, tops.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Is that all you have to offer? Lame jokes and empty apologies?” the other woman returned. “Perhaps I was too generous. Ten days.”

“I’m sorry, it seems we got off on the wrong foot. I’m…”

“Look, whore, we’re not friends, and we’re not going to be friends. Make it past ten days, and I might invest the effort to learn your name. Until then, you’re just another set of holes. A dime a dozen.” The other woman turned around, her silver hair flowing down her back and her broad shoulders. “My name’s Ástríðr. Mix me up with my sister, Sonja, and you’ll make the discovery of why my nickname in other brothels is ‘the Ravager.’ And I promise you, you won’t enjoy it. Don’t try me on that—sturdier, more experienced whores than you have attempted that feat and failed. Sometimes fatally.”

“I thought…”

“What, you thought my mother’s aegis would protect you, slut?” supplied Ástríðr with a cocked brow. She then strode over to Katsumi, her tall frame imposing and her powerfully muscled legs drawing her closer to the girl faster than she had expected. Before Katsumi could react, Ástríðr had a handful of hair in her fist, and jerked the drahn’s head backwards. “Let me make your situation abundantly clear. You’re a curio. A charity case. Someone my mother brought in on a fucking whim. Everyone else here? They’ve struggled and scraped every day of their lives to get here, and worked their asses off to get the ability to go to that crystal. Some wannabe adventurer moonlighting as a whore will never be one of us. Your best case scenario is that I see enough of a work ethic in you to make you my relief slut until you break. So adjust those expectations of yours accordingly, bitch. I’ve chewed up and spit out sluts leagues better than you. Understood?”

Katsumi glared balefully at Ástríðr. The older woman slapped her across the face, nearly drawing blood. Katsumi continued to glare, and Ástríðr smirked. “Next hit, teeth go flying. You’d better nod that pretty little head of yours if you know what’s good for you. So I’ll give you one more shot. Do you understand?”

Katsumi nodded, but her glare did not abate.

“Excellent,” said Ástríðr, releasing Katsumi’s hair and letting her head fall forward. She then patted Katsumi’s cheek. “Don’t worry too much. When I’m done with ya, I’ll find a nice ditch to throw you in so that you can find a brothel more suited to low-class, low-effort bitches like you. Maybe I’ll even put a bastard in you to remember me by. Wouldn’t that be nice? Someone to keep a whore like you company, since, you know, no one will really ever want you. Damaged goods and all.”

Katsumi could barely contain the fury roiling in her chest, the Darkside struggling against its bonds to be free, but beneath that anger, beneath the desire to show this monstrous woman just who she was, she couldn’t help but acknowledge that Ástríðr was quite likely the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The sneer highlighted her elegant cheekbones, and her body was powerful as well as curvaceous, with breasts that demanded her gaze drift to them and stay affixed there, so large and gravity-defying were they, an abdomen that looked as though one could strike flint on it and get sparks, and a pair of hips that were proportional to her broad shoulders, ending with the aforementioned powerful musculature of her long legs and arms. Dressed as she was in a pair of leggings and a cropped shirt, her outfit left little to the imagination, and indeed accentuated a great deal of her body. The one perplexing thing about her was the large codpiece she wore, but Katsumi assumed she really didn’t want to know what was slumbering underneath it.

Ástríðr caught her eyes wandering, and smirked, running her hands down her admittedly quite impressive body. “Don’t flatter yourself, slut. The closest you’ll ever get to this is if I find you worth the trouble of breaking, which isn’t remotely likely. Now! Follow me. Mother wants me to show you around.”

With that, Ástríðr retreated from Katsumi and began to walk out the door. She stopped at the threshold, and huffed in irritation. Katsumi was still smouldering with fury and hearing everything as though from a distance when the woman came stalking back into the bathroom, grabbing a handful of hair again and dragging Katsumi painfully out of the chamber. With a mighty heave once at the threshold, she threw Katsumi into the hall, where she went tumbling to a stop at the far wall, crashing into it with a significant thud. “Look, slut, if you’re gonna be sitting there all gobsmacked, you’re not going to be of use to anyone—not the bordello, not my mother, and especially not yourself. I mean, I already know you’re fucking useless, but for some reason, my mother doesn’t yet. It’s not going to be any fun unless I at least give you a fighting chance. So get the fuck up off of your lazy, bony ass, and follow me.”

Slowly, Katsumi stood up, keeping her head bowed. “Why do you hate me so much?”

“Hate you? Hah! You’re giving yourself way too much credit there, pumpkin,” replied Ástríðr, her voice heavy with condescension. “Hating you is completely beneath me. No. I don’t like how you come in here all high and mighty like you’re hot shit just ‘cause Mother cut you a break. I don’t like that look in your eye. You’re trouble, bitch. You’re eleven fucking malms of bad road—a ticking time bomb that I refuse to allow near my friends when it inevitably detonates. No, slut. I don’t hate you. But I know your kind.”

With that, Ástríðr flipped her hair over her shoulder, and for the first time, Katsumi caught a flash of an ear that tapered to a point.

“You’re not human…” breathed Katsumi.

“Mm?” hummed Ástríðr. “If you’re saying I’m not a hume, of course not. I’m an elf. Humes can only wish they looked this good.”

Then comprehension flashed across Ástríðr’s face. “Wait…you don’t know what elves are, do you?”

Katsumi shook her head.

“So, you probably have no idea what’s underneath this…” she continued, indicating her codpiece. “Well then. I changed my mind. Maybe you will be of use after all. Come by my room after we close up for the night, and I’ll let you get acquainted with the real Ravager. Gonna put all those boys you’ve been with to shame.”

“Boys?” asked Katsumi, her anger dissipating into confusion.

“Don’t tell me you’re a virgin, too…” groaned Ástríðr.

“Why? Is that bad?” asked Katsumi.

“It’s like the gods themselves decided to torment me…” Ástríðr muttered. “Fine, fine. Come to my room after hours, or I’ll drag you there on your hands and knees by your hair. Now, follow.”

Ástríðr began to walk away, and like before, Ástríðr, being significantly taller than her, had several times her stride length, making her difficult to keep pace with. Still, Katsumi managed it.

They walked past several open rooms, many of them open and currently unused. “The girls tend to prefer to keep their own chambers separate from those they work in. I’m sure you’ll come to understand why soon enough.”

Katsumi merely nodded and hummed her affirmation. She didn’t like this woman, Ástríðr, but all the same, she felt strangely drawn to her. In that moment of recognition, she remembered that she had often been considered to have bad taste in men, but that she had always silently attributed that to the fact that she had no way to differentiate between good men and bad. Each were onerous in their own way, after all, especially since she had always, since a young age, vastly preferred the fairer sex. But now that she felt so irrepressibly attracted to Ástríðr despite what the woman had done—or perhaps, because of it, whispered a part of her mind that sounded suspiciously familiar—she wondered if her womanhood, which had begun to grow uncomfortably damp upon first seeing the woman and even now continued to do so, was simply a poor judge of character.

She nearly ran directly into Ástríðr when the woman stopped, and only just managed to make it seem as though her abrupt cessation of movement was intentional, and not reactionary. Something about the smirk on Ástríðr’s face told her that she had failed, though she had a suspicion Ástríðr had the wrong idea as to what was truly going on inside her head. She noticed a man limping out of the room in front of them, young and significantly more grizzled than his youth would imply, visibly sore, with every wince giving away his pain, but also grinning like a moon-struck fool.

“Looks like Kagura’s got another satisfied customer under her belt,” remarked Ástríðr. “Kagura and Kyomi are sisters, just so you’re aware.”

Katsumi was about to ask why that was important when out walked what her mind could only describe as a usagimimi, or bunny-girl. Naked as the day she was born, the bunny-girl walked out of the room, and leaned against the threshold. “Hmm. Those eyes… You look like you’d be good for a fight. Though, a bit more meat on your bones wouldn’t go amiss, either.”

The bunny-girl’s voice was husky, but her tone was rough, and more than a little masculine. She sounded like a sukeban—no, actually, she sounded more like a young Yakuza than she did a typical high-school sukeban. A sukeban would only be able to attempt what the bunny-girl seemed to do naturally. Her face, though possessed of a certain exotic comeliness, was far and away her least remarkable feature. Her hair and the fur on her ears were both the colour of charcoal, her flesh had a tan a gyaru would kill for, and her eyes were a startling, almost metallic, lustrous silver hue. She was tall, and willowy for that height, but her freely and immodestly presented assets far outclassed Katsumi’s own, only falling short of Ástríðr’s. Looking down, Katsumi saw that the only piece of clothing she wore even when naked was a pair of severe, almost comically acute, spiked heels.

“Kagura here’s a vii.”

“Vee?”

“Vii,” corrected Kagura. Then she turned to Ástríðr. “I assume this one’s the new girl, boss?”

“Indeed,” sighed Ástríðr.

“Mm. Tandem’s been teaching me a few things. I’d like to see how useful they are against a real opponent…”

Ástríðr quickly pushed Kagura back into the room. “Can you not keep it in your pants for five fucking minutes, Kagura?!”

“It’s my senninitis!” Kagura whined in protest. “I have to fight someone, or else I die! It’s a serious medical condition!”

“We both know Kyomi made that up as a joke!” Ástríðr yelled right back, shoving her forward and sending her sprawling, before kicking the door closed behind her. “Sorry, slut. She’s a bit of a handful sometimes.”

Katsumi merely nodded mutely, before motioning for Ástríðr to lead on. When the elf woman began to walk away, Katsumi opened the door a sliver and whispered, “I’ll meet you outside the city tomorrow afternoon!”

“Thanks!” Kagura called back.

Katsumi then turned away, let the door close behind her, and ran to catch up to Ástríðr.

“You realise you just signed up to fight a never-ending battle, right?”

“Wouldn’t be my first time,” sighed Katsumi.

“Kagura’s not called insatiable for her bedroom performance alone. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“So do I…” Katsumi muttered.

“See that you do. I don’t fuck mincemeat.”

“You keep saying that as though having sex with you is a goal I should aspire to…”

“You can’t keep your eyes off my tits, my ass, or my codpiece for two minutes, and you’re disputing that losing your v-card to me is anything but a goal?” Ástríðr said, her eyebrow cocked as she spoke over her shoulder.

“I— I—” Katsumi stuttered as she flushed scarlet. “Don’t get the wrong idea! I was lost in thought, alright!”

“Suuure…” said Ástríðr, smirking broadly.

“Tsundere desu ka?”

“Iie,” Katsumi replied on reflex. Then she froze, and whirled about.

Standing right behind her, bent slightly at the waist to put her face in Katsumi’s hair, was another vii. This one was like night and day to the one she had just seen, having the same colouration, though nowhere near the same facial features, as Tandem. In fact, her albinism seemed even more pronounced with how almost transparent her skin seemed—paper-thin, almost. There were blue veins and black arteries pulsing just beneath the surface if Katsumi looked closely enough, and with how closely the other woman was holding her face to Katsumi’s, it was unavoidable that she pick those details up beneath a thin dusting of powder to conceal the more unsettling aspects of the vii’s condition.

Unlike Kagura, this vii wore her hair long, splitting the curtain of lily-white, almost translucent hair somewhere around the nape of her neck, and pulling it apart into two tails. Her blood-red eyes seemed to conceal a barely-constrained mania beneath a veneer of simple mischief. “Mou… Honto ni?”

“Kyomi! Speak normally!” barked Ástríðr.

“Oh, Ástríðr-chan… Irked that this girl and I share a closer connection already than what you have with her? I knew you were the jealous type!” tittered the albino vii, Kyomi.

“You and your twisted perspectives on things, Kyomi…” muttered Ástríðr.

“Mmm…” hummed Kyomi, placing a finger on her cheek and tapping it as she mimed thinking. “No, I think this time, I’m spot-on.”

“Slut, this is Kyomi,” Ástríðr called out, almost as though she was trying to overpower Kyomi vocally. “She’s the dominatrix the men pay for when they want to forget about life for a while.”

“My clients find my methods very therapeutic,” Kyomi offered with a wink.

“I’m…sure they do,” replied Katsumi. Bowing at the waist, she introduced herself. “Katsumi of the Fallen Rain, at your service.”

“Oh! I like that! At my service, are you?” Kyomi remarked teasingly. Then she turned to Ástríðr. “This one’s a real find. You’d best lock her down, lest I see fit to steal her from you.”

Ástríðr snorted. “You can have her once I’m done with her.”

“Oh, Ástríðr-chan. Still so dishonest with her own feelings…” sighed Kyomi. “When she kicks you out, Katsumi-chan, feel free to come to my room. My bed’s always open to the lost and lonely…”

“Kyomi!” barked Ástríðr, a light blush dusting her cheeks with a rosy hue. “That’s quite enough, thank you!”

“Aww. I suppose that’s my cue!” said Kyomi, tilting her head and clapping her hands together. “We’ll play soon, okay, Katsumi-chan?”

“Umm…okay?” replied Katsumi, completely nonplussed by the entirety of this bizarre series of events.

“Hajimemashou!” called Kyomi as she turned around and walked away, waving.

“Begin what?” Katsumi asked aloud.

“Best not to ask. Kyomi’s a genius, but like her sister, she’s a handful. Sometimes to an even greater degree,” said Ástríðr as she turned around and waved Katsumi on to follow her.

Katsumi nodded uneasily, and turned to follow the larger woman.

Three doors down from where Kyomi had accosted them, Ástríðr and Katsumi came upon a chamber that Ástríðr stopped in front of. “This is your room. Your work room will be just next door when my mother decides you’re ready to make yourself useful for once.”

“And where is your work room?” Katsumi asked innocently.

“Pumpkin, I’m a bouncer,” said Ástríðr. “My job is to eject people who get too rowdy or try and take something that isn’t for sale. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. But because I know not to shit where I eat, I go to other brothels to get my rocks off. There’s a system we have for letting a bouncer know when something’s going wrong. Use it, and I’ll consider coming to your aid. Though Sonja will probably come running, the idiot. Anyway, my room’s two doors down on the right.”

“Mm,” hummed Katsumi, nodding sharply once.

Ástríðr looked at Katsumi curiously. “Most new whores would be intimidated by that, the idea of a bouncer not coming to their rescue.”

“Do you think this would be the first time I’d be at the mercy of a man?” Katsumi asked, her voice hollow as remembrances came rushing back to her.

“You said you were a virgin!”

“And that’s been more difficult than you can imagine. I’m no stranger to having men demand things of me I wasn’t willing to give, and I’m no stranger to seeing them grow violent with that denial. I watched as my older sister suffered and died because she capitulated, as one capitulation turned into another, and eventually as she and my unborn niece were beaten to death in the street. Spurned by our parents, by her first love, and all those who had once professed to be her friends, I was the only one left who cared to bury her.” Katsumi sighed. “I’m aware of the cruelty of men. I can take care of myself.”

With that, Katsumi walked into the room. She turned around to come face-to-face with Ástríðr’s poleaxed expression, and said, “I’ll knock on your door at the stroke of two. I will knock but thrice. If after the third time, the door is not open, I will assume that what I just divulged made you retract your demand for me to allow you to sexually assault me. If that is the case, I bid thee good night, Ástríðr.”

Katsumi closed the door to her room in Ástríðr’s face, and then sighed. “Time to check out what I have at my disposal…

When the stroke of two rang out across the entire city of Maelnaulde, coming from the Cathedral District’s massive clocktower—Katsumi had been reading a book written in her native Japanese concerning the geography of the metropolis, which Madam Tsuyu had thoughtfully provided—Katsumi sat up from her reclined position on her sofa, and began to pad towards the door.

The bordello to this point had sustained a dull roar audible from anywhere in the building as sounds of carousing penetrated the walls and floorboards. To hear all of that grow suddenly silent was eerie, and made the shadows cast from the corridor’s flickering sconces lengthen perfidiously. Still, she padded barefoot in her shift down the hallway, counting the doors as she went until she came to a stop in front of Ástríðr’s room.

Sighing, she composed herself before knocking. Four times did her knuckles rap against the rich wood of the door. She waited, and nothing happened.

“One,” she counted off beneath her breath. She knocked again, the same number of times. “Two… Next one is three…”

She repeated the process once more.

No response.

Katsumi sighed, and turned away from the door. She was about to take her first step, but before her foot hit the ground, she hesitated. Cursing her instincts, and hoping against hope that they weren’t going to kill her this time, she opened the door and slipped into the room, closing it behind her.

Ástríðr was lying there in a plush feather bed, staring blankly at the far wall. Katsumi had no idea why she was doing what she was about to do, but before she could talk herself out of it, her feet were moving, and she walked up to the side of Ástríðr’s bed. Pulling back the covers a bit, she slipped into the bed beside Ástríðr and, despite her small size, spooned up next to her. She grabbed the amazonian woman’s shoulder and pulled her back flush against her own chest. Katsumi sighed, and nuzzled into the back of Ástríðr’s neck, and closed her eyes, letting her consciousness and her senses fall away one by one, until all that was left for her was a dreamless oblivion. And it was in that position that sleep came to her for the first time since the death that even now was becoming clearer and clearer.

Weep not for the dead… Weep for the living, whose life, now bereft, goes on…

Ástríðr awoke in a rose-scented embrace. It soothed her into consciousness, coaxing her senses alight one by one. The first was smell, of course. It smelled of the perfumes and rose petals her mother used in her baths. The second was hearing, when she listened to the steady but frequent breath against the nape of her neck. The third was tactile, and though this was perhaps a bit far-fetched, she could feel the beating of a heart against hers, which seemed to flutter like the wings of a hummingbird against her back. The fourth was taste, when she became cognizant of the flavour of stale alcohol on her tongue. Then, and only then, did she open her eyes, and see the sunlight streaming through her window as always.

So then what else am I sensing? Sonja and I haven’t slept together since we were young, and the girls tend to prefer their privacy, so who…

And then the previous day came flowing back into her mind. The new girl.

She nearly snarled at the very idea that this cheap slut had the audacity to waltz into her room like she bloody well owned the place. But then, through the haze of booze—and not a hangover, she was never hungover, elves didn’t get hungover—came the memory of the tail end of the previous night. The lifelessness in the girl’s tone disturbed her to the point where, given the context of her own behaviour, she went down to the bar and caroused with the men to forget the implications of what she had heard. She drank several grizzled veterans under the table consecutively, but no amount of alcohol would expunge the haunting voice in her head repeating the girl’s words over and over again, so she went to bed and tranced.

And now said girl was spooning against her the next morning.

Not to mention, she’s the big spoon…

She tried to shift, but all too quickly the girl’s hand tensed, seizing her by the shoulder, and though she could have easily broken free, being somewhere on the order of twice as strong judging by build alone, that hand was like the clasp of iron until it finally relaxed.

When the hand and arm embracing her slackened, it fell away, and the first person to stir was the girl. “I know you’re awake, so I want you to shut up for a moment and listen.

“I don’t need your pity. Not yours, nor anyone else’s. I made peace with nee-san’s death a long time ago. I’m not a doll, and I’m nowhere near as fragile, physically or emotionally, as you seem to think I am. Now, I’m going to go back to my room, I’m going to get my sword, and I’m going to leave the city to train for a few hours before your mother has need of me. It has been alluded to on several occasions that you and the vii sisters you’re friends with are actually adventurers, so if that turns out to be the case, I invite you all with me. Otherwise, you can, I don’t know, stay in here and sleep in. Up to you. I literally cannot force you in one direction or the other,” said the girl. She stood from the bed and straightened her shift. “Because I understand you were just trying to protect yourself and your friends, I will forgive you for treating me as you have. But Ástríðr?”

At that moment, the girl looked over her shoulder, and her eyes met Ástríðr’s. Her previously lustrous purple eyes, which glinted like amethysts, were now dull, and lifeless. Her eyes were lidded, and her face was devoid of expression or any outward sign of emotion. “If you threaten me like you did again, daughter of my employer or not, I will kill you. Understood?”

Ástríðr nodded mutely.

Then, like someone flipped a switch, the girl’s entire countenance softened, and she favoured Ástríðr with a gentle smile, even though the glittering of her eyes at this point was noticeably melancholic. “Then let’s get along, don’t you think, Ástríðr?”

With that, the girl turned away and walked to the threshold.

“We’re still not friends!” called Ástríðr.

The girl chuckled mirthlessly. “Now when did I ever suggest we were?”

She crossed the threshold and walked down the corridor, leaving Ástríðr confused, a bit frightened, and most perplexingly, more than a little hurt.

The stroke of ten saw the girls stirring from their roosts at last, even though it wasn’t until half an hour later that they all ended up in the tavern on the first floor. Tandem brought out the coffea, and it wasn’t long before Kyomi and Kagura were imbibing the black fluid like it was water. Sonja joined them soon after, Ástríðr being a bit more aloof, it seemed, even amongst her friends, and this was the scene onto which Katsumi walked when the clocktower struck eleven, and the chimes rung out across the city. She was dressed in a pair of trousers and a tunic, soft leather boots on her feet, and her kriegsmesser strapped to her back in its scabbard, a leather satchel slung across her torso to rest at her hip.

Kyomi was the first to look up and notice Katsumi’s entrance, laughing at her attire. “You thinking of going out and looking for mercenary work? As if anyone will give us work…”

“Strength has a way of overcoming prejudice,” said Katsumi. “If we wish to handle jobs for people, we have to grow more capable.”

“What a naive viewpoint. We can be as effective as we want, and the nobles will still give jobs to their own kind,” Kyomi muttered, filling her cup with more coffea.

Katsumi shrugged. “Then we take on the jobs that no one else can. In that case, we must become even more capable.”

“Hah! I like that,” Kagura barked with mirth. “That’s some real fighting spirit you’ve got there, Kasumi.”

“Katsumi,” replied Katsumi pointedly.

“And you honestly think you can do that?” Kyomi asked cynically. Gone was the ‘nee-san, ara ara’ act of the night before, and in its place was a still-polite, if much more brusque, affect. “Okay. I’ll indulge you. What’s your level?”

“Level?” asked Katsumi, perplexed to the point where she couldn’t help but furrow her brow.

“You think you can be an adventurer with no knowledge of your Parameter?!” Kyomi cried in distress.

“Girl’s got guts!” Kagura proclaimed.

“More like a death wish!” Kyomi scolded.

“Mm. It’s all the same to me.”

“Yes, it would be, wouldn’t it?” Kyomi sighed. “Well, before you go out and get yourself killed, come here and let me explain a few things.”

“Hai,” said Katsumi, slipping her hand into the satchel and pulling out the sealed scroll Maerwhentt had called her ‘Parameter.’ She took a seat at the table, and refused the cup of coffee the other of Madam Tsuyu’s twins, Sonja, pushed towards her. She took a quick peek at Sonja, and immediately couldn’t imagine ever confusing the twins for each other—Sonja just appeared so much kinder than her sister, and quite a bit more unsure of herself. Tearing her gaze away from Sonja at that point, she refocused on Kyomi, whose blood-red eyes were fixed on her. Katsumi stared directly back at her, resolute.

“Hajimemashou, I suppose,” Kyomi sighed. “So. What you have in your hands there is your Parameter. There are many like it. That one is yours. When you signed your name in the register at the Guild, which is required by law, it bound itself to you. You see, when you are gifted with a class by the Crystals, it fundamentally alters your soul. No one really knows how, and animism, the study of the nature of souls, has been a deeply forbidden, kill-on-sight art for several millennia now. No white mage really understands how their Raise spell functions, only that it does.

“Anyway, this alteration in your soul is what the Parameter tracks. The registers and Parameters are the only remnants of animism that still remain on Gaea, you understand, as they require no actual knowledge of the art to be used and useful. And as the body is but the physical expression of the soul, this change in your soul will affect your physical capabilities.

“So, the Parameter tracks your capabilities by splitting them up into eight independent faculties. Strength, dexterity, vitality, agility, mind, intelligence, luck, and charisma. Four tangible attributes, four esoteric. Different classes rely on different faculties; for example, a black mage relies entirely on the intelligence attribute, as it governs their ability to cast powerful destructive spells, collectively called ‘black magic.’”

“So, black mages are more intelligent than others?” asked Katsumi.

“No, they aren’t. You have to understand that these faculties were originally in Cetra, the language of the Ancients, which, since the disappearance of the Ancients, has been a dead tongue. Cetra was more a conceptual than practical language, even in its heyday, which makes sense; the Ancients were said to be conceptual creatures themselves, entities with the ability to create entire cosmoi purely through force of will, before they mysteriously vanished. My point is that when I speak of the intelligence attribute, I’m not speaking of actual intelligence—the original term just doesn’t translate, so intelligence is the closest we can come to the actual meaning of the term, even though the original term and the word now used are about as similar as a tomato is to the spell ‘Flare.’ Strength doesn’t make you stronger, agility doesn’t make you more agile, et cetera. Rather, the most accurate way to perceive them is through their derived attributes, as well as their associated skills.

“It’s also worth noting that each faculty is linked to an element. Strength is fire, dexterity is water, agility is air, vitality is earth; intelligence is darkness, mind is light, luck is thunder, and charisma is wood. In the old days, it was theorised that strength in one resulted in weakness in the opposite faculty, and the elements helped determine these strengths and weaknesses. There’s little empirical evidence either way, however.

“There are also skills. Any complete accounts of all existing skills have ultimately failed in the research phase, as there are some historical records of classes with unique skills that have since died out, but it’s generally accepted that the skills you can learn are limited by your class. Some classes have more skills than others, but those classes pay for their increased skills in that each skill increases independent of every other skill, so the time spent raising one skill is time spent not raising another. Generally speaking, your skills are capped with each level, though the cap depends on the skill itself and its relationship to your class.”

“Um, Kyomi, you forgot to explain levels,” Kagura pointed out.

“I was getting to that!” spat Kyomi. “So, adventurers are sort of like parasites. All adventurers absorb the life energies of the things they kill, and that life energy is stored in the altered portion of your soul. That portion then expends that energy at certain intervals all at once in order to raise your faculties, which can be quantitatively measured, by the way—another reason why you really shouldn’t take their terminology to be equivalent to their cognates in common parlance. When those faculties are raised, so too are your skills to another benchmark.”

“So, is there a limit to how many levels you can gain?”

“The highest level that’s ever been verifiably reached is fifty,” replied Kyomi. “However, accounts exist from times of eld of adventurers who have raised their levels to higher thresholds. The most anyone has ever claimed without being considered by experts to be incredibly ahistorical is seventy-five; though there are accounts of levels going higher, most experts of history don’t seem inclined to believe them.”

Katsumi nodded. “Mm.”

Kyomi cocked her head. “I’m actually rather surprised that you’ve lasted this long. Everyone else needed to take my explanation in parts as opposed to all at once.”

“I know I did,” Kagura volunteered.

“We all know you did, you oaf,” Kyomi returned, slugging her sister in the shoulder playfully.

“Mm. I guess that perhaps I’ve always been a good student?” Katsumi posited with a shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“Well, that was the theoretical portion of the lesson. Now for the practical.” Kyomi stretched out her arm, her open palm facing upwards. “Your Parameter, if you please?”

“Oh! Sure!” said Katsumi, slipping the rolled-up scroll into Kyomi’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you,” said Kyomi as she opened up the scroll. Her eyes bulged immediately upon seeing what was on it. She looked from the Parameter to Katsumi and back again, her head turning comically. When she spoke, her voice shook. “This… This has to be some sort of mistake… A fake, a forgery… It has to be… You can’t be…”

“What? What can’t she be, sis?” asked Kagura, somewhat concerned.

Kyomi lifted her wide, horrified eyes to Katsumi, who looked back at her quizzically. “You can’t be…”

Sonja, who had until now been watching with an increasingly furrowed brow, began to speak in a calm, level tone. “Kyomi. Please. Spit it out.”

“The last dark knight…!”

Silence fell.