Kaido went home a pouch of coins lighter, but with Bonnie's cursed necklace in his hand. He raised it, and the flower-molded pedant shone gold and silver in the sunlight. It was more beautiful than anything he thought he could afford. He couldn't wait to see Siera's face when he'd give it to her.
A scent flared in his nose, so eminent it made his head spin. Blood. Gallons of it. It came from his home.
He dashed down the street, the pavement turned to sand and gravel beneath his feet, and Rake's house came to sight. Bodies were strewn before the entrance, their golden mail bright in red puddles. He counted four of them, and two more with sharp jackets that must've been purple before they soaked in the blood.
The King's Four Swords. The realization came to him with terrible dread. He nearly tripped on a dismembered head and stopped to look at the body it was detached from. He saw four rubies on the former Sword's scabbard, and a chill licked up his nape. The First.
Kaido crouched to pick up a sword from the sand, and sprinted up the stairs, skipping over the soldiers that lied lifeless upon them. He burst into the house, and the smell hit him again, quadrupled. The living room was a bloodbath.
Many of the swords that once decorated the walls were impaled in the bodies of soldiers, or slung bloodstained on the floor beside severed limbs. There were over a dozen dead, perhaps two dozen. Kaido followed the trail of death to the kitchen stepping around bodies as blood wet his boots.
"Hey kid." Rake called, voice weak and husky.
Kaido jumped around, and found him sitting slumped against the kitchen counter, a cigarette to his lips. He rushed to him, dropped his sword and knelt. Rake was covered in so much blood that only from up close he spotted the crisscross of cuts across his torso.
"Shit. What happened?" He asked, eyes darting between Rake's wounds.
"Velwind engaged his daughter to the prince," Rake paused for air, and then filled his lungs with smoke, his eyelids fluttering. "And the First Sword wanted to duel."
"Yeah, I nearly tripped on his fucking head." Kaido said, and a wicked grin cracked Rake's blood spattered face.
"You should've seen me there, kid. I never fought like this in my life. They screamed that I am Mavet himself."
"Best swordsman in the fucking world, eh?" Kaido smiled, and winced when he noticed Rake was grasping a gaping slash in his stomach. "We gotta' take you to a healer."
"Sure thing, kid. Just let me finish the cigarette." Rake murmured as he drew on it.
"Come on, old man. You lost too much blood to fuck around." Kaido tried to pull him up. Rake clasped his neck, and yanked him into his embrace.
"I'm proud of you, kid. You know that right?" He whispered in his ear. In a split of a second, Kaido's composure shattered. Tears choked the voice in his throat.
"It's just a couple of cuts... you can pull through... what's a few cuts to the best swordsman in the world?"
Rake didn't reply. He just clenched his arms around Kaido, hugging him tight.
"They took Siera, didn't they?" Kaido finally dared to ask.
"I killed as many as I could, but a couple of them got away with her." Rake said. "You will get her back. I know you will."
Kaido sniffed and nodded, clinching his eyes shut and pressing his forehead against Rake.
"Damn, kid." Rake breathed the last of his cigarette, and his head dropped back against the counter's wall. "You should've seen me...."
His eyelids slid shut, and his lips spread in a smile. "You would've been proud..."
He said, and his chest fell for the last time.
"Thank you for everything." Kaido whispered, wiping the tears before they dripped from his eyes. "Father."
Anger seethed beneath his grief, terrible and cold. And there was something else. An itch dragging its claws down his gullet and prickling in his chest. A thirst.
Kaido reached Rake's face, and touched a fresh cut below his eye. He raised his blood dappled fingers, and smiled grimly.
For what he was about to do, there was no blood more fitting than his father's.
-
Lian Velwind awoke by the cold kiss of steel at his throat. Candlelight from the nightstand shaped the invader's figure in the darkness, brought his features to light, and danced in his dark green eyes. A hand was slapped onto his mouth before he could scream, reopening his bust lip and shooting pain all over his battered face.
"I will ask you a question. You make a sound that isn't the answer, and I'll cut your throat down to the nape." Kaido said, his voice as cold as his knife. Lian nodded frantically, his head nudging between Kaido's hand and the pillow.
"The men sent to Rake Blackrose's house took Siera, the girl that lived there. Where is she?" Kaido pressed the blade tighter across Velwind's throat, and removed the hand from his mouth.
"Father sold her." The Kingman croaked. Kaido leaned closer, staring him in the eye. Lian winced back, expecting the fury broke his face in half a dozen places. Instead of a bash, came Kaido's voice, whispering.
"I don't believe you."
The blade slid a fingerbreadth against Lian's neck, ever so gently splitting the skin beneath it. Warm drops of blood trickled down his throat. The knife was so firm at his windpipe he was afraid to breath.
"By the seven gods I swear it! I wanted to keep her, I really did! But she somehow got a knife and wounded two guards. Father said she was too dangerous, and had her sold."
"Sold to who?" Kaido slid the knife another inch, prying the cut across Lian's throat wider.
"I don't know!" The Kingman cried. "We don't trade in slaves, the men probably sold her to the first slave-master they found coming down from the harbor."
Then there was silence.
"If you leave now, I won't tell anyone you were here, and I'll convince my father to stop the hunt after you." Lian croaked under the blade. In his mind, he was raising the alarm at the second Kaido went out the window.
"Fuck you." Kaido swung up the blade, stabbed it hilt-deep in Velwind's neck, and with a savage wrench, tore his throat open.
-
Kaido had one last stop before he left the city. As noisy as the Copper Fleas market was at the day, it was silent at night. The only sounds but his footfalls were the snores of the homeless, the meowing of cats, and the skittering of mice.
He reached the end of the street, and stopped by the wall. The old wooden door that said "BONNIE'S NECKLACES" was supposed to be there. Kaido was sure of it. But there was nothing but bricks.
He pulled the necklace he bought from his pocket and wondered. Was the curse that Bonnie told him of the reason he ended where he was? Was this, 'the cruelty of a god'?
Kaido put the necklace back in his pocket, and stared at the empty wall. He tried to recall where he heard of Bonnie's shop in the first place. He tried to convince himself that he heard something while bartending in the One-Legged-Goat, but couldn't. It wasn't that his memory failed him, it was that he clearly remembered not hearing about it anywhere.
Nobody ever told him of that shop.
-
For the next two years, Kaido roamed Veramor from slave market to slave market. The remorseless sun bronzed his skin, the arid winds weathered his features, the miles through the sands calloused his feet as the sword did his palms. But the destinations were worse than the way.
Nothing made him despise human nature more than the slave markets. And no slave market rose as much bile to his throat as the one of Vitroz. The traders yelled and bustled, in the street while the slaves were lined on wooden podiums, whipped into the best posture their starved bodies could maintain under the weight of their chains.
They were more naked than dressed, their ribs outlined on bruised and filthy flesh, and their eyes empty pits of hopelessness. It might've been the first time in his search that Kaido was glad not to find Siera.
But looking amongst the slaves was his routine check, a matter of habit. For once, he had an actual lead, not just fool's hope.
"Hey," He stopped a man that got in his path, grabbing his shoulder. "Where can I find the Bookkeeper?"
"Flecher? He's right there." The man pointed towards one of the larger podiums. Beside it, behind a large desk and a thick book, sat a slight man in a yellow suit. Kaido nodded thanks, and walked over.
"Yes, boy?" The Bookkeeper spat at him, and slicked his beard in his palm. "Speak quickly, what deal you wish to record?"
"Actually, Flecher," Kaido sat down in the chair before him, pleased that he learnt the Bookkeeper's real name a moment earlier. "I need you to take a look in your records and find the details of a deal for me."
"Preposterous," Flecher snorted. "You know how many of these books I have? I've got no time to waste on-"
"Redbeard told me to ask you." Kaido said. The Bookkeeper paused, and his beady eyes narrowed.
"You know Redbeard, eh?" Flecher twisted a lip. "Fine, make it quick."
"Two years and a moon ago, the Skullface gang organized a convoy of over two hundred slaves from Veramora to Aurum. I need every name that bought even one of these slaves."
"Skullface's convoy?" Flecher asked, and shook his from side to side. "I don't even need to open my book for that one, boy. They never made it past the Twin Cities."
"What happened to them?" Kaido asked, and the fear became a lump that sat heavy between his chest and throat.
"I don't know who intercepted the convoy. Some say it were the Warhawks, others that it was the Madeye gang, or deserters from the Anerockian army. But I do know that none of those slaves were sold again.
"That's right, boy." Flecher gave him a long look, wrinkled his nose, and went back to scribing in his book. "They're all dead."
-
As Kaido's world broke apart, so did the skies. He sat against the wall and stared at the floor, watching the raindrops burst against the cobblestones and wash the dirt and sand into the cracks.
The sun crawled through the thick dark clouds and set behind the mountains, and he stayed. He stared and let the outpour soak him. What else he had to do?
Alcohol, Venium, Ouzei, and blood were all plentiful in Vitroz, but he couldn't find the will to get any of them. He no longer felt the pain he had to drown in intoxications for the last two years. Now it was gone, and he wished he had it back. It was a whole lot better than emptiness.
He thought about her wide smile, her rolling laugh, her crystal blue eyes, her delicate fingers in his hair, and her full lips over his. It made him sick. Siera was more than his love, she was his drive. He trained under Rake to protect her, he murdered those who dared to harm her, he crossed Veramor a dozen times in his search for her, and the gods know, no one could stand in his way.
That strength wasn't his, it was hers. She was gone, and he was as weak as he was before she stepped in his life. No longer Kaido, but the nameless boy that cowered against the wall clutching on a stone just to live through the day.
He shoved his hand into his pocket, and pulled out the necklace he bought at Bonnie's. Did he have any reason to keep it?
"Hey!" A voice called, and Kaido looked up to find that he was surrounded. There were four of them: one built large and solid as a rock, one scrawny as a skeleton, one short as a boy, and one handsome, with a blonde ponytail. It was the ponytail who spoke.
"Hand over the jewel."
"You're not getting shit from me." Kaido answered. Dead or alive, that necklace was Siera's, and he would be damned if anyone else will have it.
"I don't think you understand." Ponytail said. "It's either you give us the jewel, or we beat the fuck out of you and take it."
Kaido slipped the necklace in his pocket, and stared Ponytail in the eye. "Try."
Ponytail stepped towards him. Kaido kicked into his shin, and bolted upright.
"Piece of shit-" Ponytail stumbled, and his gang jumped to his aid, fists swinging. None landed solid as Kaido sidestepped towards Rock, ducked beneath his swing, and nailed a punch to the soft flesh beneath his ribs. The tough bastard grunted, but didn't fold. He whirled around, lashing out a bulky arm.
Kaido blocked it against his forearm, stepped in, and dug his fist in the same soft spot. That did the trick. Rock doubled over, and Kaido thrust a boot against his chest, pushing him into a tangle with the other two.
Blonde hair flashed at the corner of his eye, then a fist struck across his lips. He wobbled a step back, spat the blood from his mouth, turned and lunged. Ponytail raised his fists in guard, but Kaido hooked his punch into the unprotected side of his head. The shock loosened Ponytail's hands, and Kaido's second fist drilled through his guard. Ponytail's nose cracked beneath his knuckles, and he was thrown sprawling to the wet cobblestones.
Shorty smashed into him out of nowhere. He punched so far into his groin that his gut stirred. Kaido cried out, and rammed his elbow into Shorty's temple in pain-fueled-rage. Shorty dropped, eyes rolling back in their sockets and muscles slacking limp.
Scrawny helped Rock straighten up and they charged at him together. Kaido met them head on, shouting into the rain and throwing punches like there was no tomorrow. He felt them hitting him, but more so, he felt the hard connections of his knuckles with their skulls. It wasn't long before they were both out cold on the street, and he slumped against the wall, panting his lungs out.
Hah, that was fun. He licked the blood off his lips, and spat it. Ponytail pushed himself to his knees with one hand, and clutched onto his bleeding nose with the other. He stopped when Kaido met his gaze.
"I'm gonna' kill one of you." The words slipped out of Kaido's mouth before he could think, as if they waited at the back of his tongue. "You will be the one to decide who's it going to be."
"Me." Ponytail answered instantly.
Kaido smiled then. That answer reminded him of Rake, and himself, and he had found purpose once more.
One by one, he dragged the gang out of the rain and into the alley. He sat down against the wall, dug a small leather pouch out of his pocket, and was relieved to see its contents dry. He rolled and lit himself a cigarette.
"Aren't you gonna' kill me?" Ponytail asked.
"What's your name?" Kaido asked him in return.
"William." Ponytail, or William, answered.
"My name is Kaido Blackrose." For years he saw Rake as a father, but it was only when Kaido decided to carry on his legacy that he dared to call himself by his name. "And I'm gonna take you under my wing."