They came from Eden, a land that lay above the Ceiling of Fe Sin, and they wore strange masks whenever they came down for their duties. They were called Snowmen for two reasons: one was their white robes themselves, standing out harshly in the dim underground, especially when night arrived. But the other was because Eden held the sole authority over entrance and exit from the whole underground itself, so the only things that came from the Ceiling were the white robes that looked like falling snow.
Fe Sin was carved from the earth and built from the ground in a tubular circle reminiscent of a donut, with five major boroughs: the Webs, the Iron Palace, the Farlands, the Pit, and the Rime—the unspoken capital, which hosted Eden's monopoly on interstate transport.
This particular Adjudicator wore a monkey's face, stitched with an unnatural grin, and colored an unnatural white.
"Nice ring, asshole. Which one of the Spiders is playing in the snow?"
Did the mask just smile further? She couldn't tell. His voice was grating and slightly screeching, much like his face would imply.
"None of your concern," he snorted. "Your head's worth two million gent, foul beast. A tracker is merely standard practice."
Zora's open hands revealed two fingernail-sized beads– her weapons of choice. Quickly activating a hidden mechanism by squeezing them in her grasp, the right-hand bead whirred and expanded into a combat knife, a forearm-sized serrated blade that shined with the reflection of her enemy's robes. She held the knife in front of her face in a reverse grip, clenching the other bead in a tight fist at her side.
On cue, the Snowman brought out his own weapon– a long polearm, seemingly made of the dead land's breeze, sending a shiver through the ground nearby. It was smooth and silver, with a metal hilt that gave it a translucent gleam. And most importantly, it reeked of blood.
A Needle.
But, she noticed, it was barren of both design and trinket. There was no engraving on the blade that would signal a deeper understanding of his abilities, nor the little trinket that was present on Kenji's Needle, though she didn't know what it did. This Monkey was not nearly as strong or skilled as Kenji, which meant all the more odds in her favor that she could cut him down.
"You'll forgive me for taking this chance to feed my family, right? Ashin?!"
His screeches were haughty, rich with what currency he had left: pride.
"You are not the only one with family to protect."
As they hissed at each other, he softened for a second, but then only clenched his weapon tighter.
She grit her teeth and launched an offensive, rushing in towards the stationary foe. Her knife glanced off the polearm's blade, which then came down over her head with the sound of cutting wind. Slipping her torso towards her knife-wielding hand, she felt that her arm moved slightly slower. Even before, she knew his magic could tamper with the laws of physics, but it had still almost caught her off guard.
There was no sound, nor other indicator, that appeared as a sign of his magic. It just happened, and Zora was worse off for it. From her leaning pose she tried to launch a haymaker, but it glanced off the shaft of his weapon and opened her up for a counter.
Monkey spun his weapon around like a staff, using the force to throw a slash that Zora could barely bring her knife to defend.
Clang!
Metal hit metal in an ear-screeching burst, and her right arm felt weaker, like it had lost something it was supposed to always have. It took longer now to respond to attacks, and she ended up straining her body dodging another incoming slash last-second, when before she could have slipped with ease.
For someone supposedly so direly in need of a bounty, Monkey moved slowly, methodically, as if some part of him enjoyed the hunt.
As he came in for another overhead slash, she kept his glaive at bay with her fist, her knuckles enduring small lacerations as they struck his blade, neither faltering in head-on conflict. With every interaction, shallow cuts were beginning to appear on her flesh, eating up her arms and torso, growing deeper each time. Her raw strength allowed for many things, yet could not exactly match up to the phenomena that made Monkey seem so much larger and faster than he seemed just a few exchanges ago.
They had left the cold steel forest now, and the mountain felt like a wall upon which her back was touching. A cornered, dangerous animal—that's what she was.
Though she knew some dagger techniques, the unrefined impromptu martial amateurs of the underworld could in no way compare to the experienced masters who passed down their legacies in Eden—as if to spite her, the Monkey used swift slashes that bent like the wind and nearly too fast to counter.
So, she chose to rely on her instincts. Feel which attacks are real, which are feints, and how heavy they would be. Follow the breeze to its logical end, sway with it, let it flow through her body as if she were dancing.
Because her senses were being thrown off due to his Needle's strange magic, precise timing became difficult. Another heavy blow, this time from her left flank, struck through her slow and shoddy guard and almost knocked her second bead from her grip.
Panic surged through her for an instant, subsiding just as quickly and giving way to a strange thrill.
Monkey's chest beat with adrenaline, screaming both of the joy of fighting, but of the fear of losing. From the shape of his heartbeat she could see his child's emaciated face, crying for another day's food. Even Second-Rank was second-class, up in paradise.
But Zora remained clear-headed, blocking what attacks she could and dodging those she couldn't. Always on the back foot, just looking for an opportunity. Letting her toughness tank blows that would have cut down a lesser man.
"What's wrong, Ashin? Come, hit me!"
She heard grief. He wanted to hurt her, yes, but his heart spoke of resolving the grudge he held against her kind, against the world. It would not diminish with each kill, but warm blood was an unkind reminder of what he fought for. For what little he had left.
"Shut up," she growled, both to her beating heart and to her enemy.
Her right arm was nearly immobile and her left arm was so full of nicks and lacerations, at least on the surface, that it seemed amazing she could use it at all.
"I know what your kind do! They pretend to be human–" he swung, his Needle slicing earth apart like butter where it landed. "Just to devour the people around them. A plague on society, the evil that defies God!"
There was grief in his voice, alluding to a loved one, lost to one of her kind. If he wasn't trying to kill her, she could sympathize. She'd hunted many Ashin in her time, and they were indiscriminate in their consumption, malicious and hungry. She was prey, even though they shared the curse of their birth. And he was their enemy in both law and memory.
She'd taken more cuts than she needed, while relying on her instincts. It was simply too difficult to make up for the lack of proper timing, because this slowing effect transcended logic and physics.
The blood loss made her head spin a little, and it would only get worse as the fight drew longer. In fact, other Adjudicators- other bounty hunters- would likely appear soon, though she hadn't heard their presence just yet. The snow would fall towards the stench of blood.
As she held herself up, exaggerating a slight limp, she forced eye contact with the man who circled around her slowly, enunciating each word she spoke:
"Evil that defies god? By being born? Is that my crime?"
His eyes burned with hatred, molten and incandescent through the mask, staring with such heat that she thought the mask would melt.
"Yes. You take and take with no consideration, lives and flesh like it's nothing. You did not deserve to be born! That could have gone to my…"
Without finishing his sentence, he threw a diagonal cleave with the intent to bisect her. But slipping out of the blade's path and leaning towards her knife, she forced herself within clinching distance so that regardless of her lack of speed, she would not be within the blade's reach. At least, that's what he thought.
"Sorry."
A bang shook the nearby underworld.
***
Perhaps the Snowman hadn't seen her second bead, but within the intimate breaths they shared at extreme proximity, her seemingly-mutilated left arm held a bead that had transfigured itself into a gun. The rather large barrel was still smoking, pressed to Monkey's body just shy of center-mass.
He collapsed, hanging on to life, yet drawing breath. But Zora did not finish him, because hostile as he was, he was just as pitiful. In his situation, perhaps she too would have chased an Ashin- a monster born of the dark- if it meant her family could eat for one more day. She had done something similar, many many times.
"Wait," his voice sounded, quiet but to the point. He was face-down now, looking like an offering to the humble god who lived upon the mountain.
"Yes?" She cradled her wounded arm, turning her head but not her body.
"Kill me. If I die in battle, Toro– my son will be able to eat."
He let out some coughs. Blood in his lungs.
"No. If you care for your son, you will live with the regret of losing. But you will live."
There was once a time when she wanted to leave through the Rime Lift, to enter Eden as a citizen of paradise. But, while the world might call Eden paradise, Kenji had told her many times that it wasn't. That it was only heaven to those who felt no guilt in their hearts watching children labor with their skin taught over their ribcages like tourniquets.
"I see…"
Much like Fe Sin, you needed strength to survive in Eden. But while strength brought you power and fortune under the ground, it only brought you responsibility and burden up above.
Second Rank was the third lowest rank. Yet even that would ensure a good life in the underworld, if a bit dim without starlight and sunlight. Food to eat, clothes to wear, shelter over their head. It meant nothing in paradise.
His eyes closed, and his chest heaved and fell with strain. It was a slumber that tried to repair his heart, torn by grief and emptied of love.
Perhaps Monkey would live. Perhaps he would not. He could only pray to whatever god he believed in that the dark underworld would have mercy. Though she didn't know if the god of paradise was merciful, and it seemed very much like he was not, it was no longer within her hands to care.
Others from Eden would surely be on their way.
"Good luck," she whispered, as she turned heel and left his body behind.
Zora began her ascent up the mountain. In her damaged state, it was difficult to hike up the steep pathways like she would have previously, and blood from her wounds trickled down onto the soles of her feet, making it a lot easier to trip and fall. Some of it had dried already, flaking off in brown patches and revealing already scarred tissue underneath. But from some of the deeper cuts she sustained, blood continued to flow slowly, drawing thin crimson rivers like veins along her arms and torso.
With every labored breath, the next one came just a little bit easier. She had already made a considerable distance up the side of the mountain, leaving trails of dried blood in her wake.
The underworld was a large space, with troughs of two miles between the floor and Ceiling and crests of up to four. From the bottom of the mountain to the top was a distance of about a mile, with another two between the peak and the Ceiling. Given the breadth of the mountain's face, it would have taken her half an hour at a strong pace in optimal condition– and it had taken her an hour and a half now.
But soon, she came upon the gates which heralded the palace within which Tesson lived. With an inlaid and cobbled path of steps and not continuous slopes, the walk was more tedious than difficult, and much easier than before. And tedium was no big feat for a hunter.