CHAPTER THREE
The Ghost
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
As Abo turned from the boy's body, Kalayo's vision blurred. The sight of the small, lifeless frame, stirred something in him, something he thought he had buried.
He screamed, the sound rough and strained, forced out from deep in his chest. "You heartless bastard!" Kalayo's voice ripped through the smoke-choked air as he charged. His right foot planted hard on the bamboo, but his movement felt sluggish, like he was pushing through thick water. He drew his bolo in a rising arc, the blade cutting through smoke and ash, but the swing was slower than it should have been.
Abo turned, calm. Unnaturally calm. He shifted his weight to his back foot, letting his torso lean away from the strike. The blade passed close by his ear. Kalayo's timing was off, the invisible burden dragging at his reflexes. In the same breath, Abo pivoted on his left heel. His own bolo swept upward in a tight circle, the pommel leading. The blade followed, catching Kalayo's extended arm just below the elbow.
Kalayo felt a sharp sting as the blade cut into his arm. He stumbled back, gripping the wound, vision swimming.
All around them, the village burned. Roofs collapsed in bursts of ash, and children screamed from inside the huts. A woman leapt from a burning walkway and vanished with a splash into the murky water below.
"Why would you kill that innocent child?" Kalayo's voice cracked with anguish. "Why?"
Abo moved with steady, deliberate steps, unfazed by the chaos around him. He wasn't rushing, just calm and certain, like he knew exactly what he was doing. A slow, unsettling smile crept across his scarred face. The ruin over his eyes pulsed red in the glow of fire, and behind it was a faint a ghost of blue. "Maybe I didn't like the way he cried. Maybe I just wanted to see what sound he'd make when he died."
But that was the lie. He knew Kalayo too well. This dance had played out a dozen times, Kalayo throwing blades, daring him to fight, to kill. And they did. Or at least, tried.
Every time, when the fight reached its end, Kalayo never killed him. When it was Abo's turn, he couldn't do it either. It was a cycle without end. That was when they were young. But as they got older, Abo stopped trying. He ran into the shadows instead. So this time, he reached for the wound that never closed.
"Or maybe," Abo whispered, "I wanted you to see your brother die all over again."
Kalayo's stomach twisted. "You fucking animal!" Kalayo shouted, as if yelling could shake off the weight dragging his limbs.
He charged forward. His bolo swung down in a wide, overhead strike, slow and easy to read. Abo dodged and brought his blade up to meet it.
Kalayo pressed the attack. He pulled his blade back and thrust forward, aiming for Abo's chest. Abo twisted his torso, the point sliding past his ribs, then grabbed Kalayo's wrist with his free hand and yanked him forward, off balance.
Kalayo stumbled but used the momentum to spin low and sweep his leg at Abo's ankles. Abo jumped, pulling his knees up, then landed and slashed down without pausing. Kalayo rolled aside as Abo's blade struck the bamboo floor, splitting it open. Water began to seep through the crack.
"I remember Init," Abo said, circling left. "Little bastard was always smiling. Even when the worms were chewing through his gut."
Kalayo's eyes burned. He stood, struggled for balance, then feinted right and cut left with a horizontal slash. Abo ducked low, knees bending deep, and came up with an uppercut swing. Kalayo threw himself backward as the blade passed inches from his chin. He hit the walkway hard, rolled, and came up in a crouch.
"Don't you dare speak his name!" He lunged from the crouch, driving his bolo forward like a spear. Abo stepped aside and slammed his elbow down on Kalayo's outstretched arm. The joint bent the wrong way. Kalayo grunted but held onto his weapon.
He pivoted and drove his knee toward Abo's ribs. Abo caught it on his lower arm, absorbing the impact, then shoved Kalayo back and slashed diagonally. The blade cut across Kalayo's chest, opening a shallow line from shoulder to ribs. Blood sprayed across the smoking bamboo.
Abo stepped too close to a burning support beam, heat surged against his back. Something in him jolted, a memory. His guard slipped for a moment, and his heart skipped.
Kalayo saw the opening and swung his bolo in a tight arc, putting his full weight behind it. The blade sank deep into Abo's shoulder, scraping against bone. Abo didn't make a sound, he seized Kalayo's wrist and yanked him in. His own bolo came up in a backhand slash, cutting across Kalayo's ribs.
"You remember Init, don't you?" Abo rasped, their faces inches apart. "He was chewing the mud toys you made, thought it was food. That was the last thing he ever tasted."
Kalayo's face twisted as he slammed his forehead into Abo's nose with a sharp crack. Cartilage gave way, and blood immediately streamed down Abo's face.
"You left him too," Abo said, spitting blood into Kalayo's face. "Same as I did."
"And I made peace with it," Abo added. "You didn't."
Rage swallowed everything in Kalayo, even the weight that held him down, gone in a breath. He swung hard, wild and fast. His bolo carved through the air in figure-eights, each strike meant to kill, but the swings were wide and easy to read.
Abo weaved between them, his movements tight and controlled. He ducked under a high slash, stepped inside Kalayo's guard, and drove his elbow into his stomach. Air burst from Kalayo's lungs, he bent forward, gasping.
Abo drove his knee upward, aiming for Kalayo's face, but Kalayo caught it with both hands. His bolo slipped from his grip and hit the walkway. With a roar, he twisted his body and hurled Abo over his shoulder.
Abo crashed into the bamboo platform. The wood splintered under his weight, and one corner sagged toward the water, but he rolled away before it gave out completely.
Kalayo didn't wait, he grabbed his bolo and brought his foot down hard on Abo's ribs. The impact knocked the air from Abo's lungs, and something cracked.
Abo rolled aside, coughing blood onto the planks. Red drops slipped between the slats and disappeared into the black water below, but his smile remained.
"Better," he wheezed, pushing himself up on one elbow. "You're finally fighting like you want to kill me."
They both stood, swaying slightly. Blood ran from multiple wounds. Their breathing was ragged, but their grips on their weapons stayed firm.
"I remember how cold his little hand felt in mine," Abo whispered. "How his breath got shallow near the end."
Kalayo's hands trembled on his bolo's handle.
"He whispered your name."
"Stop."
"Right before his eyes went still."
"SHUT UP!"
Abo didn't move, didn't flinch.
The fire had already won.
He just stood there, trembling. Then, slowly, he extended his arms out from his sides. Not in defense, not to fight, but as if presenting himself. His chest opened, bare, waiting.
Like a corpse arranging itself for its death. Like he was bracing for it. Terrified, but ready. Kalayo's bolo sank into Abo's side, deep, and final. Abo exhaled, soft, thin, almost grateful.
He fell forward into Kalayo's arms, like a brother returning home. The angle of the fall, arms slack, head tilted, made it seem, for one terrible moment, like he was embracing him.
His lips brushed Kalayo's shoulder. A breath slipped out, barely more than a whisper.
"I couldn't tell."
Kalayo froze.
"What?"
But the body in his arms had gone limp.
Only the crackle of fire.
Only the scent of blood.
The world narrowed.
And it didn't stop burning.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Abo remembered hunger.
Not the dull ache they'd grown used to, but the hollowing kind. The kind that made six-year-old Init eat fistfuls of mud just to feel something in his belly. He remembered the heat of Init's small hands clutching his own, the boy's whistling gasps of breath.
Kalayo's voice, raw with desperation: "We need a healer."
So Abo returned to what he knew. The fighting pit reeked of sweat, blood, and stale bets. Men jeered as the blind boy stepped into the dirt circle again, coins clinking as they placed wagers on how many blows a bony little blind rat could take before falling. The pitmaster grinned at Abo's broken form, there was always profit in desperation.
Day after day, Abo let grown men break his bones for copper coins. He fought until his body was bruised from head to toe, each breath tasting of blood. Still, the healer's price remained distant as the moon. One evening, as Abo spat teeth into the dirt, a shadow fell across him. The crowd hushed. The Datu stood at the pit's edge, his silk robes untouched by filth. He tapped a fingernail against his gold-capped teeth.
"They tell me you fight for a dying boy. How… amusing."
Abo crawled forward, pressing his forehead to the blood-stained earth.
"Please, my lord. My brother—"
"Your brother?" Datu Katio's laughter rang like struck brass. "Let's make this interesting. Bring me these brothers of yours."
His smile showed too many teeth. "I'll give you a real choice."
When the Datu's men dragged them before his throne, the terms were clear:
"Kill one before the torch burns out, or watch them both die slowly."
A guardsman lit a rush torch and planted it in the ground. The flame burned low, beginning its slow descent as smoke rose and fire took hold.
Kalayo was shouting, Init was crying, and Abo's hands were trembling.
He had been blind all his life, but never like this. Never so completely. The world narrowed to the thunder of his pulse, just as it had years ago when a thief pressed a knife to his sister's throat.
"Where's the gold?"
But Abo couldn't tell gold from dirt. He'd fumbled helplessly as his sister choked on her own blood. Now history twisted like a knife in his gut. Through the smoke, he couldn't tell their voices apart. Couldn't tell which shape was Kalayo, which was Init.
His arm swung.
A small gasp.
"Brother?"
Then silence.
Now, in Kalayo's arms, Abo understood the truth. He'd spent years sharpening cruelty like a blade because it was easier to be a monster than to face the terrible accident of that moment. Better to let Kalayo believe it was deliberate, better to be hated than pitied.
Abo exhaled one last rattling breath. The rising sun painted Kalayo's face in gold and blood.
Somewhere, a bird sang.
Kalayo would live.
And Abo?
Abo slipped from his grasp, his body slumping sideways through a break in the scorched walkway. He fell without a splash, vanishing into the smoke-hazed water below.
And there, in the shallow dark, he finally rested.
✦ ✦ ✦
End of Chapter