Piece by Piece

56. Potential Ally

Davyn had learned a lot in the month he'd spent as the Counter's trainee.

For one thing, there was so much to learn in terms of language, strategy, and survival.

On the other hand, he wasn't quite as good at combat as he'd thought either. Their instructor, a middle-aged Japanese man from some god-forsaken village in the mountains, put him on his ass so much that it hurt to sit down.

"Again," Harumi Kato ordered.

Davyn sat up, rubbing the small of his back. "How do you keep doing that?"

"Tripping you when you are not looking?"

"I guess that explains it." He pushed himself back to his feet. "How am I not looking?"

Kato hummed, stroking his long black mustache. "You are..." He said a couple of words in Japanese.

Davyn wished he could understand. He was convinced that Kato was the source of a lot of wisdom as well, not just someone who knew exactly how to kick his ass. But his knowledge of English was limited, and Davyn didn't have the heart and patience to learn two different languages at once. Ancient Egyptian was hard enough.

"Your focus," Kato said. He sliced through the air with the edge of his hand. "Elsewhere. Future move, not current threat. You need to meditate more."

Meditating put him to sleep. "So there's no other possible way...?"

In the blink of an eye, Kato picked his bo staff off the floor and brought it down swiftly on Davyn's back. He hadn't expected it, so he hit the mat with a thud that knocked the air out of his lungs.

"You talk too much," Kato concluded.

"Oh, fuck off," Davyn said under his breath.

"You are only pretending to be mad."

Kato wasn't wrong, but it still got to Davyn every time. He most definitely didn't like losing. Losing often was even worse. He couldn't even tell if he was making any sort of progress.

"You talk to McLane." And Kato knocked his head back to indicate the other guy leaning against the wall.

"Good luck with that," Davyn mumbled. "McLane doesn't talk to anyone."

"That's because you're not interesting," he quipped.

Kato grinned and headed for the door, taking his gear along with him. Davyn sat up and pulled his knees in to rest his forearms on them. The muscles on his back ached from the hit as well as the tension in his posture, but he knew he needed to stretch them now or he'd be sorry later. To his utter shock, McLane didn't make himself scarce like the ghost he usually was.

"I'm not boring," Davyn said.

"Not being boring doesn't make you interesting."

"I'm sorry if I'm not a recluse like you."

"Why aren't you?"

The question sent a shiver up Davyn's spine. It was a very good one, and he'd been trying to avoid it. Truth be told, if Rachel hadn't approached him on that first day, he might have been a shadow on the wall, too. Instead, she'd pulled him inside a game in which there is a team, in which he could be someone else entirely. Not a fugitive. Not Snitch Gravel. If she hadn't, he could be keeping McLane company against various walls.

"What's it to you?" he grumbled.

"Everyone's got a story. I figured it out for most of the others, but not you."

"I thought you said I wasn't interesting."

McLane pushed himself off the wall and walked closer. "You can fight well."