Chapter Text
Chapter 21 – The Challenge
Night sat over the village like cooled iron. Cooking pits threw orange bowls of light onto packed earth; stew steamed; fish fat hissed; smoke braided with river mist. Children perched on water jars for a better view; elders took the benches like judges. Drums from some earlier rhythm had fallen quiet, but the skins still held a dull warmth. Around the main fire, talk kept tripping over one name—Senku—half curiosity, half dare: the skinny outsider with lightning in bottles and words that bent rules until they snapped.
The square still hummed with whispers when the young hunter finally snapped.
“Enough!” Daichi’s face blotched red, fists clenched bone-white. “If you think you’re worthy of her, prove it! Fight me, outsider!”
Gasps clicked through the crowd. A fight here—under the chief’s eye—was no small thing. The eating stopped in slow motion. Spoons hovered. A ladle dripped back into a pot with a soft plup. The ring formed—hunters at the rim, villagers stacking two deep, the ground scuffed to dark leather by a hundred feet. A coil of rope lay near the edge like a sleeping snake; a glimmering patch of damp clay marked where a water jar had spilled. “Twig versus ox,” someone muttered. “He’ll snap.” “Or he’s hiding lightning,” someone else breathed, eyes bright. Most had only seen Senku talk. Few had seen him move.
Kohaku caught Senku’s sleeve. “Don’t—he’s only trying to—”
Senku’s smirk thinned; his eyes went bright and dangerous. “A challenge. Ten billion percent predictable.” He tipped his head like selecting a tool. “Fine. Let’s test a hypothesis.”
Daichi rolled his shoulders, the spear-swinger’s confidence settling like armor. Senku only exhaled, weight easing to the balls of his feet the way Kohaku had drilled into him—hips loose, eyes not on Daichi’s fists but on his balance. A breeze came off the river and flipped a strand of white hair; embers spiraled up like impatient stars.
Daichi lunged.
He had size and speed and training. Senku didn’t meet any of it head-on. He pivoted—one beat late on purpose—heel biting dirt, body turning so Daichi’s punch carved empty air. The hunter’s balance went soft.
Senku’s answer wasn’t muscle. It was timing.
A short jab under the ribs—here, break the breath, exactly where Kohaku had once tapped. Daichi folded a fraction. Senku slid past the shoulder, caught the wrist, and borrowed momentum: hip turn, elbow lever, weight transfer. Daichi hit dirt in a dusty skid.
For a heartbeat the crowd didn’t cheer; they recalibrated. Surprise rippled across faces—minds catching up to what their eyes had seen. A bowl tipped, forgotten. Kinro’s grip shifted on his spear. Suika’s bell gave a tiny, incredulous chime. At the cookfire François kept stirring, one eyebrow faintly arched. “Well,” Gen murmured, fan tapping his chin, “that was… instructive.” Ryusui’s grin caught the firelight. “Odds updated.”
Daichi shoved up, furious, swinging wide to end the conversation. Senku ducked, stepped through—and with a small nudge to Daichi’s knee at the exact wrong moment, angled him onto the dark, slick clay by the rope coil. Weight went where there was no ground. Another stumble. Another recovery. Stubborn.
“Stop broadcasting your tells,” Senku said, maddeningly calm. “You announce the swing like a festival drum.”
Laughter cracked out of the ring and died just as fast—because Daichi thundered forward again and the square leaned in as one, a living drumhead. Ukyo’s head tilted, tracking angles no one else saw. Chrome clenched both fists under his chin. Even Kokuyou’s knuckles whitened on the staff before he made them relax.
Daichi tried to bull him. Senku wasn’t there. He hooked the forearm, turned the spine, let physics do the impolite part. Daichi met earth again with a short, ugly thud.
Noise blew the lid off—cheers, groans, a high whistle, someone yelling “AGAIN!” and getting shushed. Ginro’s jaw simply dropped. Ruri pressed two fingers to her mouth, eyes wide; Kohaku stood like a blade, trying not to smile and failing by a millimeter.
Senku straightened—sweat beading his temple, coat scuffed, hair worse than usual—certain rather than crowing. “Conclusion,” he said, voice carrying. “Leverage and timing beat mass and noise. Replicable result.”
Kohaku made herself stand still. She wanted to drag him away for being reckless. She also wanted to grin. She did neither.
By the long table Kokuyou rose. His staff struck earth—thud—drawing a straight line through the square. His gaze moved from Daichi to his daughter to the outsider who had just thrown a villager in the dust. The square drew a breath and held it. Senku didn’t speak; he held the chief’s stare and let the dust settle. Daichi lurched upright, shame blotching his neck; murmurs rolled, warm and cold.
“Enough,” Kokuyou said, and the air went flat. “Senku. Kohaku. With me.”
They had not yet moved when Senku spoke—quiet, but clear enough to carry to the first ring. “For the record,” he said, looking straight ahead, “where I’m from, that kiss is how you say you want to court someone. It’s—” he searched for a word that would translate “—asking her out.”
Kokuyou half-turned, frown deepening. “Asking her… out?”
“Out of the noise. Into something honest,” Senku said. “Public, so no one mistakes my intent—or hers.”
Gen’s fan clicked once. “Different cultures, different optics,” he murmured.
Kokuyou’s jaw set. “In this village, a kiss in the square is not a question. It is a claim—made after families agree and terms are set. You leapt to the end and called it beginning.”
Heat climbed Kohaku’s cheeks; her spine didn’t bend. “Daichi crossed a line. I said no and he kept going. Senku made it stop.” She cut Senku a look, hot and sharp. “That doesn’t mean I agreed to being kissed in front of everyone.”
Senku’s mouth tipped, unrepentant but exact. “Noted. The intent stands; the method gets revised.”
Kokuyou faced forward. “We will speak inside.”
The ring opened. They followed the chief to the longhouse, whispers fading with the fire’s hiss. Inside, shadows moved over carved walls. Kokuyou turned; the room felt smaller.
“You humiliate a villager in front of his people,” he said, voice rock-flat. “You kiss my daughter in front of the square. And then you ask to court her. Do you think this is a game?”
“Not a game,” Senku answered. “A statement. You know what I build. You know what I bring. And now you know my intent.”
Kokuyou’s gaze flicked to Kohaku—chin high, eyes hot—and back. “I trusted once. I gave my eldest daughter’s hand. It brought her pain.” His fingers tightened on the staff. “Why should I believe you are different?”
“Because I don’t treat her like a prize,” Senku said, the smirk pared down to a blade. “She decides. I defend the decision. That’s the whole model.”
Kohaku’s mouth almost softened. Almost.
Kokuyou studied him in a long, heavy silence. When he spoke, iron sat in the middle of the words. “Then you will prove it. Not to me—to the village.” He lifted the staff. “I set the trial.”
The staff cracked the floor; the echo climbed the beams.
Senku didn’t blink. He touched his chest once, like setting a metronome. “You want proof. Fine.” His voice stayed low and even. “First principle: her safety is the constraint. If there’s a tradeoff between a breakthrough and her breath, the breakthrough dies. I reallocate hours, scrap projects, burn reserves. I’ll train until my legs shake, sleep on the lab floor, and throw away my own reputation if that’s the cost. That isn’t bluster. It’s policy.”
The words weren’t loud; they carried like heat.
Kohaku’s throat tightened. She’d watched him live parts of it already. Hearing it set like law did something unsteady to her ribs.
Kokuyou’s stare didn’t move. Then, at last: “We will see if policy survives contact with trial.”
Senku’s pulse kicked; that thin, impossible smile returned. “Ten billion percent accepted,” he said.
Outside, the square found its voice again. Inside, weather gathered in a room built of wood and rules.