Kuroba Asashin's Arc

Chapter 43 of 44

The odachi stood upright in the packed dirt between them. Kuroba did not move. Behind him, the king leaned on his great-spear, white eyes fixed on the line of brutes. Above them, the tower rose in tiers of stone and glass, water falling down its center into the lotus pools at its base. The Lotus Horizon army rose behind Kuroba and stood by him. Kazrik watched the blade in the ground and said nothing. Kuroba spoke first. His voice carried across the flat. "Turn them around. Walk them back to the dust you bred them in. Do it now and you live through the morning." The brutes shifted. One near the front bared its teeth and hefted its axe. Kazrik did not signal it. He stared at Kuroba, and his shoulders began to shake. "One chance," Kazrik said. "You give me one chance." "One." Kuroba confirmed. Kazrik took a step forward. The line moved with him and then stopped when he raised a hand. "I have two thousand," Kazrik said. "You have a blade in the dirt, an old man with a stick, and a couple hundred men with even worse sticks" The king did not turn his head. "Careful, boy." Kazrik laughed once, short and hard. "You beat me in a hall. You think that makes you a wall. It makes you a man who got lucky in a room." His red eyes moved to the odachi and back. "Pick it up. Or don't. I will feed you to them either way." Kuroba watched Kazrik's weight settle onto his back foot. He watched the front rank of brutes breathe together. He read the ground between them, the loose grit, the shallow rut where a cart had passed. The king made a low sound in his throat. "You should have taken his head at the gate mouth." "I offered him the walk." Kuroba stated. “Men… ready yourselves.” He announced to the army of the Lotus Horizon.