Champion Kevintor Neverloss's Arc

Chapter 1 of 42

Kevintor Neverloss had won six championship belts, and the seventh art would not even let him through the door. He stood at the edge of a pine clearing and read the warning carved into a stone tengu at the path mouth. The bird's beak jutted out over two words: TURN BACK. He was the champion of boxing, karate, judo, kung fu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and Muay Thai. A dead old fighter had left him one name on a scrap of paper, and that name had brought him here. The old man's warning sat heavier than the stone: you will stop knowing the difference between winning and needing to win. He had already learned the first problem. Two villages back, a tea seller had been pouring with steady hands until he saw Kevintor's face. The cup rattled. The man bowed and went deaf to every question about the seventh art. It happened again at the next inn. His face was the lock on every door he needed open. Kevintor crouched behind a fallen trunk and watched the clearing. A square panel sat flush with the dirt, weathered to match the leaves around it. He would have walked over it. A thin seam betrayed the edge. While he watched, the panel lifted a finger's width. An eye looked out, swept the trees, and sank again. They were already watching for him. "You're the champion." He turned slow. A woman stood three paces behind him, two short swords on her hips, no sound under her boots. She had come down out of the pines while he watched the hatch. He knew the look. He had fought men who moved like that and beaten them on the mat. He did not think he would beat her in these trees. "Lina Invi," she said. "I've been looking for you three years. Different reason." Her eyes ran over him once and came back to his face. "They'll bury their tongues when they see you. I can walk you past the hatch. You wear what I give you. You keep your mouth shut until I say." She pulled a folded cloth from her belt and tossed it. A hood, stitched with the painted face of a small owl, eyes wide, beak parted in alarm. A messenger's mark. Nobody questioned a messenger. He weighed the hood in his palm. Putting it on meant trusting a stranger inside the only door he had left. Not putting it on meant turning around. He thought of the old man's warning and understood, for the first time, that it had already started. He pulled the hood over his head. Lina watched him do it and almost smiled. "One more thing," she said. "After you find what you came for, you owe me a night. That's my price." She turned and walked toward the hatch without waiting for an answer. Kevintor followed. The eye in the panel opened again, saw the owl, and the hatch swung wide.