Kenzo Shadowblade's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Kenzo Shadowblade came to kill a demon, and the demon kept a schedule he could not read. He crouched in the temple rafters, twin blades strapped to his back, watching the empty prayer hall below. The new moon was coming. On that night, the thing beneath this temple would rise and eat another worshipper, as it had for years. Kenzo meant to strike first. But a demon this old only weakens right after it feeds. Strike too early, and his blades would break on its hide. Strike too late, and someone died. He did not know when it had last fed. Without that, all his training was useless. The monks would not tell him. They bowed and lit candles and said nothing of the deaths. So Kenzo climbed down and went to find the one monk who never spoke at all. Nino Karith was kneeling in the shrine, arranging small bones on a cloth. The old monk was said to have lived hundreds of lifetimes. Kenzo believed it. Nino's eyes were too clear, too calm, for someone counting years like other people. When Kenzo entered, Nino did not look up. The old monk simply pushed one bone aside, as if it had been waiting for him. "You know when it feeds," Kenzo said. "You keep its calendar." Nino's hand stilled. Slowly, the monk lifted three fingers, then folded them one by one. Three days ago. Kenzo's stomach dropped. The demon had fed three nights past. That meant it was full now, sluggish, weak. This was the window. Not the new moon at all. But Nino was not finished. The monk turned the cloth toward him. On it lay a child's tooth, small and white among the older bones. Kenzo understood then how Nino knew the schedule so well. The mute monk had been laying out the demon's meals for a very long time. "You serve it," Kenzo whispered. Nino met his eyes without shame. Then the old monk pointed at Kenzo, at the blades on his back, and pressed both palms flat to the floor. A bow. Permission. Nino wanted the demon dead too, and had waited lifetimes for a blade sharp enough to try. Kenzo took the tooth and closed his fist around it. "Then I go tonight." He did not wait for the new moon. He ran for the stairs beneath the shrine, blades drawn, while the demon still slept off its meal. Behind him, Nino struck the great bell once. The sound rolled through the temple like a warning, or a farewell. By the time Kenzo reached the bottom step, the whole clergy knew he was coming. And so did the thing waiting in the dark.