Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (best books to read .TXT) 📕

You know you’re the only Mortal affinity in the Wilderness Territorial this year?”

“Does that have anything to do with why you keep turning up wherever I am?”

He hooked back his jacket and stuck his hands in his pockets. “There’s always somebody keeping an eye on your sort. You don’t know how to cloak your Spirit?”

“I have a book on it.” But with everything else going on, I’d never gotten around to practicing the techniques.

“Might be smart to read it sometime,” he said. “Especially with that little murder trick up your sleeve.”

My blood turned to ice. He knew about Dead Man’s Hand.

His wide catfish mouth curved into a grin. “Let’s put it this way: your hotheaded IFC fighter buddy isn’t the only guy getting talked about. The conversation about you is just going around different circles. Keep your head on straight and don’t kill anybody during your riots today. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

Before I could reply, he turned around and headed for the stairs. As he went, his gills opened, showing dark red rakes, and his mouth did that fast-open thing predatory fish do. A huge breath of Miasma rushed in and immediately disappeared.

RALI AND KEST WERE waiting for me cage-side when I got to the kokugikon. The place had changed vastly overnight: the individual fight cages had been removed and replaced with one big cage. Staffers were still smoothing out the dirt inside the wire. They must’ve been up all night putting it together. Cameras were mounted on the wire to catch the action from every angle, and down the way, an Ylef who looked like he was more than eighty percent metal and wires was busy turning on a table full of those dragonfly spies.

Spectators already filled the stands. Fighting broke out over a seat near the bottom row, and a couple big dudes in Kokugikon Security sashes ran in and broke it up. Somebody else got the good seats while the people fighting were being dragged away.

“I thought the small gang riot wasn’t that popular,” I said, scanning the rows for the Bailiff. No sign yet.

“It’s not,” Kest said. Her hair was back up in its usual messy buns, and she was wearing her chain gauntlet on one hand and the cinnabar gauntlet on the other. “They fight the championship match of the individual competition this afternoon. People were lining up last night to get a seat.”

Other fighters were starting to trickle into the arena, too. I checked the riot bracket on my HUD. There were six small gangs signed up besides us, and by some miracle, we’d gotten the first bye.

The rules scrolled by on the right third of my screen. One had changed from the individual competition. “Don’t kill your opponent” was now “don’t kill more than half of your rival gang.”

My stomach lurched. They could kill one of us without being disqualified. Two, if the officials rounded up.

“Hake?” Rali asked, catching my eye. “How’re you doing? You look a little pale.”

“Dude, I need you to tell me the truth. If someone tries to kill you, are you going to defend yourself?”

He shook his hair out of his face and laughed. “What are you talking about? During the match?”

“Any time, but yeah, obviously during the match, too.”

“I’m only here to help you and Kest. That’s it.”

“But what if they’re trying to kill you and we can’t get to you in time?”

“The first match is starting,” Kest said, pulling us closer to the cage. “Keep an eye on both sides. We fight the winner.”

I stared at the cage, not really paying attention to the fight. I wanted Rali to say he’d at least defend himself, that it was okay with him to be violent if his life was on the line. But he just watched the fight. Kest tried to give us pointers about our opponents, but I was too busy trying to will Rali into answering me to listen, and Rali was purposely looking everywhere but me.

When the official announced the beginning of round two and called our match, I grabbed his arm.

“Rali. Seriously.”

The black lace in his eyes rippled. I was pretty sure I’d seen him and Kest have that reaction before, but I couldn’t remember what it meant they were feeling.

“Hake,” he said, and he wasn’t just joking around for once. “Do you remember my kishotenketsu restriction? I can help anyone who isn’t me.”

“So help me by not getting murdered to death.”

“Hungry Ghosts,” the official called through the cage wire. “If you’re here, report or be disqualified.”

“We’re here,” Kest yelled, gesturing at the three of us. She shot us a dark-laced glare. “Guys!”

Rali grinned. “C’mon, Shogun Hake of the Hungry Ghosts. The official and the Metal head are getting impatient.”

Riot Bracket

FOR OUR FIRST FIGHT, we were up against a four-guy outfit made up of three big bruisers and a scrappy-looking techie.

As soon as the match started, Rali hit me with a dose of his Spirit boost. Right away, I sent Death Metal to both arms and barreled straight into the middle of the bruisers, figuring I could take out the physical threats while Kest got the techie. If we got this over with fast enough, Rali wouldn’t be in danger.

Two of the bruisers went for me, one attacking from in front and the other from behind. The only tag-team experience I’d had was with ferals, and they usually all piled on the closest person they could and started chewing. The third dude didn’t come at me, though. I completely lost track of him, which freaked me out, because he looked like a roid-rager and was probably our biggest threat.

I tried to keep one shield behind me and one in front so I could fight both the guys attacking me at the same time. I managed to stagger the guy in front with a bash from Death Metal, but the one behind me hit me with a barrage of punches. I spun around and went at him.

These guys weren’t going down