35 What Men Talk Abou (2/2)

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Azuma's eyes were half-glazed like they were seeing something far away. His face was wistful.

”I was a soldier, a martial arts champion, an Olympian...” Azuma once more gestured to the machines his body was once again hooked up to. ”Now, I'm a zombie... just a puppet... a hired gun too cowardly to die...”

”Is that why you've sided with the Magesong clan?” Aura asked. ”Do you know the atrocities they've committed to fay and men alike these past five-hundred-years for the sake of their desire to wield more powerful magics?”

Azuma pointed to himself. ”I've heard stories.”

”Then why would you—”

Azuma laughed his hoarse laughter but no coughing came after it.

”Because over there, I'm not stuck in this bed!” He yelled at her.

I moved to get between them, but Azuma's tantrum subsided as quickly as it came.

”An elf like you who has centuries to live cannot understand the struggle of a man who's at the end of his life with nothing to pass on...” Azuma answered.

Aura was taken aback by his answer. Her face turned away from him.

I didn't want to feel bad for him but I was beginning to understand. Although our problems weren't the same, I too understood what it meant to want to take back your life from the unfairness of fate.

”So... why are you in the psych ward?” I asked to diffuse the situation.

Azuma chuckled again, and this time, the coughing fit was back. But once it was gone, he answered, ”Eventually... I got tired of being their butcher... So I kept telling the doctors to keep me awake so I wouldn't have to go back to that cursed place... Well, you can guess what they thought after I told them about the Fayne.”

”Yup, that would certainly land you in here,” I answered, smiling.

He returned my smile. But his grin was more Joker to my Superman smirk.

”So I wasn't wrong... You really don't want to work for the Magesong clan anymore,” Aura piped in.

We both looked at her.

She cleared her throat before saying, ”The boring look you had like you were tired of how repetitive things were... that's when I guessed.”

Azuma shook his head. ”It doesn't matter. I can't get away from them even if I wanted to.”

”Is that what you want?” Aura asked, and her face was as serious as I'd ever seen it. ”To be free?”

Honestly, this was getting a little too real for me. ”Aura... what are you planning?”

”We could set you free,” Aura answered.

Auma raised an eyebrow at her. Honestly, so did I.

”You don't have that power, girl,” he hissed.

”Maybe I don't right now,” Aura admitted as she bit her lip. ”But Dean does...”

”W-what?” I looked surprised at her. ”I don't have the power to do that!”

She gazed at me. ”Yes, you do. You have the power to free him like you freed Alfie Monroe.”

Aura was talking about the Foolhardies' very capable chef, a visere I'd freed inadvertently when I slew the she-elf who was his original contractor.

”You mean...” I gulped.

”You have the talent to make real change in the Fayne,” Aura said. ”It's why I chose you...”

She smiled that gorgeous smile of hers, and it nearly convinced me I could do whatever she thought I could.

”You think Dean can kill my contractor,” Azuma guessed.

We both turned to him.

”Dean and I are forging the Foolhardies into a tempered blade that can do exactly those kinds of things,” Aura answered in a confident tone. ”As long as he leads, we can do anything.”

I sighed while wondering where Aura was getting her confidence.

Azuma laughed. Then he coughed. Then he laughed some more. ”I like you, girl... You realize killing my contractor will kill me too?”

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Aura bit her lip. ”It's a possibility, yes...”

”It's a certainty,” Azuma countered as he glanced down at his body. ”Spellweaver's power is the only thing keeping my cancer at bay...”

”Spellweaver?” Aura's voice faltered. ”Your contractor is Great General Ardan Spellweaver? The Magesong clan's top military officer?”

Azuma shook his head. ”His son... Ardeen Spellweaver... the general's strategist...”

I wondered if this mountain Aura wanted to climb couldn't get any higher.

”And it's not just them... I rank third among the Magesong's viseres... There are two other monsters there...” Azuma explained. ”Not to mention the other monsters in other clans... you two probably know one...”

”Commander Thors,” I said.

Azuma nodded. ”That man is a whole different breed... killed me more than once before I got away from him.”

This brought a smile to Azuma's lips like it was a happy memory to die at the hands of Five-Thousand Man Commander Roger Thors.

”So... you're only third-best in your clan?” I didn't mean for it to sound like a taunt but it probably did.

Azuma scowled. ”Only because I arrived after them... But I made One-Thousand Man Commander in less than a year... what are you again?”

It was my turn to scowl, but I shrugged off his jab at my rank and looked over to Aura who had gone quiet. Her head was down and she seemed at a loss.

She'd walked in here with a plan and an unwarranted belief in us to save someone who only recently had attempted to kill her because she noticed him suffering during our last battle.

This made my blood boil. I didn't want Aura to lose her optimism. I didn't want her to feel the way Luca and I felt almost nightly.

I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight, forcing her to raise her head and look at me.

”If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle,” I finished the line of Sun Tzu's famous principle before I looked over to Azuma and said, ”Challenge accepted. We'll deal with your contractor.”

I raised my hand forward palm up. ”So you give us something in exchange... tell us where to find him.”

Azuma looked incredulously between me and Aura. Seeing the determination in our faces made him laugh even harder. Once this coughing and laughter duet was over, he revealed something neither Aura or I were prepared for.

”You'll see him soon enough... Great General Spellweaver and his army of a hundred thousand strong are preparing to march across the Calmlands to take back the hilltop you stole from us,” he grinned. ”Obviously, I'll be there too... so you and I can have our rematch, Dean.”

As head this, Azuma's body seemed to become more transparent.

”Time's up,” he said. ”Good luck, Dean Dapper...” he looked over to Aura. ”And you too, girl... If we meet again on the battlefield, I'll make sure to kill you painlessly...”

And with that, Azuma's ghostly form was launched up into the sky, and Aura and I were alone. We were both speechless at the bomb he'd just dropped on us.

Wordlessly, we continued to stare at his vacated bed for a long while before we both took our first steps toward the door. However, once I pulled open the door, I found myself staring at Arah and Ty who had clearly listened in on the conversation.

They both looked determinedly at me when they said, ”Dean, if you're going to war then we're coming too!”