“Did you hear me, Lord Weakling?” Ren angled closer, his expression increasingly sinister. A small log dangled from his fingertips.
Mariko closed her eyes, her posture rigid.
So far she’d managed to maintain her composure. She hadn’t cried once. Hadn’t so much as asked for a drop of water. When Death inevitably came for her, Hattori Mariko would not be sniveling and wretched. She would be in control of her emotions, no matter the cost.
With his free hand, Ren rapped his knuckles on the side of her head. Mariko’s eyes flew open. He’d touched her. Struck her. A wash of anger reddened her vision. She quickly blinked it away.
Hattori Mariko was a warrior now.
And a warrior is never weak.
Ren smiled down at Mariko, as if he could see past her eyes, into the ugly truth of her soul. Though the boy stood scarcely taller than she, he reveled in the fact. Mariko suspected he did not always come across men of shorter stature.
Unfortunately this near parity of height did not grant her any advantage. Ren was stockier, his musculature hard-earned. She could see the scars and calluses along his hands and forearms. This boy was used to punishing work.
When Ren caught her studying him, he snorted derisively. “I said, did you hear me, you pathetic excuse for a—”
“I heard you.”
Ren’s smile faded. He plopped the log in his hand atop the four already pressed against Mariko’s chest.
She faltered for the first time. Nearly lost hold of her burden.
“Move faster.” Ren unsheathed one of the hooked swords from his back. A deadly pair of weapons, modeled after garden sickles. “Boss said if I don’t like your work, I can cut you into pieces and feed you to Akuma.” He pressed the flat end of the sickle to his own neck. Mocking her even further.
Mariko breathed deeply. She continued on her way, ignoring the pain building in her arms. Ignoring the dry burn in her throat and the sudden threat of tears. Sweat marred her sight. Slicked her palms.
How she wished she could run away. Vanish into the woods, like a ghost. Never once look back. The thought gripped her. Took hold of her for an instant.
Chiyo. Nobutada.
The chance to prove my worth.
Four steps.
Four steps were all Mariko could take before she crumbled to the forest floor, the logs tumbling from her grasp.
Ren laughed darkly. “This will be a long day for you. Too bad it will also be your last.”
Mariko pushed her face into the earth, her pulse thrumming in her ears. The soil smelled fragrant and alive. She wanted to burrow into it. Disappear. Dig her way through to the other side.
“Get up.”
A new tormentor. One whose voice Mariko readily recognized.
Readily hated. Without question.
“Get up.” He was closer now. His voice even more gruff.
She pressed her hands into the earth and lifted to her knees.
ōkami peered down at her, his arms crossed, his expression odd. A mixture of boredom and predatory amusement.
“Stand.”
A brief moment passed in silent revolt. Mariko met his gaze, surprised to feel a sudden flare of courage ignite within her. The same courage she’d sought to channel all day. ōkami did not look away, though one of his brows rose in question.
“Useless.” He inhaled through his nose. “Utterly useless.”
With that, the Wolf turned. Dismissing Mariko in almost the same breath.
The anger that had been lying dormant for so long erupted in her chest. Mariko staggered to her feet, gripping a log in one hand. She wielded it like a club, aiming for his imperious head.
ōkami leaned out of the log’s path without missing a step. His expression did not even register her attempt to strike. Still bored.
But perhaps a tad less amused.
He thinks I’m pitiful.
Worthless.
Fury tingling in her fingertips, Mariko hurled the log again. The force nearly took her from her feet.
ōkami rolled across the forest floor, quicker than lightning over a lake. When he stood, he brandished a long branch in his left hand. With it, he struck Mariko once on her elbow. A burst of prickling pain shot down her arm. The log fell to the ground.
When Mariko curled her fingers into a fist—readying to lunge—ōkami hit her on the shoulder with the same branch. Her hand opened of its own volition. Resisted her attempt to re-form it into a fist. For the first time since she’d been tasked with moving logs from one forsaken corner of the forest to another, Mariko yelled in guttural protest.
Not out of pain. But out of hatred.
Pressure points. The hellspawn was abusing her pressure points.
“You’ve had enough, then?” ōkami said as he calmly brushed forest debris off his black kosode.
Mariko exhaled in a miserable huff. “You’re cheating.”
“You’re useless.”
“I am not useless.” She began scrubbing away the dirt from her face, wiping it on her sleeve, as she’d often seen soldiers do.
ōkami raised the branch before him, level with his shoulder. “Prove it.”
“What?” She blinked. Beside her, Ren laughed ominously, stepping aside to lean against a gnarled tree trunk.
“Take the branch from me,” ōkami said.
Mariko’s eyes went wide. Her mind opened to a myriad of possibilities, each of which she dismissed in rapid succession. She scanned the length of him. His impressive height. A body trained for warfare, wrapped in sinuous muscle. The long arm extended her way, fingers expertly coiled around the branch.
Fully prepared to teach her a lasting lesson.
Trying her best to convey disdain, Mariko spat the last of the soil from her mouth. “What will you give me if I take the branch from you?”
“You are not in a position to negotiate.” He angled his head, the scar through his lips appearing silver in a shaft of sunlight.
“At least tell me why I was brought here. What you intend to do with me.”
“I have no intentions to do anything with anyone.” His black eyes glittered. “Besides sleep and eat and drink away my days.”
Mariko refrained from frowning in judgment. Why such a lazy boy would choose to work in service to the Black Clan was beyond her. “If you won’t answer any of my questions, there’s little incentive for me to fight you.” She let the words fall from her lips like rocks down a mountainside. In a rough and coarse tumble. “Especially since I know I will lose.”
“You will lose because you are slow and untrained.”
“I suppose that is what makes me useless in your eyes,” she said. “That and my obvious lack of strength.”
Another bout of dark laughter arose from Ren. A laughter that only served to irritate Mariko further.
“There are many kinds of strength, Lord Lackbeard.” The branch dropped to ōkami’s side; his tone was thoughtful. “Strength of the heart. Strength of the mind.”