Playtime's Over

“Well, would you look at that.”

“I’d rather not.”

Ren chuckled. The boy was always playing hard to get, but that had never deterred the man before, and it wasn’t going to start now. “Don’t be like that. You love it. Besides, it’s good for you. I’m not always gonna be around to hold your hand and get you out of trouble. These are things you need to learn, and the best way to learn them is through experience.”

Zero couldn’t recall a single time where the man had ever held his hand or got him out of trouble, but he sure was good at getting him into it. “I don’t want to,” he spoke calmly, with no emotion, no hint of the dread that he felt in the pit of his stomach.

“Whether or not you want to, you’re going to. Better to just accept it now.”

The boy looked at the packed training grounds, knowing the man was right. There was no way he was getting out of it. Time and time again, in different villages and towns and cities, Ren had pushed the devil into various sparring matches and tournaments. This one wasn’t going to be any different. He could try to get out of it, refuse to do so, but the angel would only talk around him until Zero found himself in the position he had tried to avoid.

Best to just get it over with.

“What about you?” He glanced back at the delighted man standing behind him, watching the sparring with a maniacal interest. “Why don’t you ever fight?”

An overly dramatic sigh passed from Ren’s lips. “It’s because I’m weak,” he claimed miserably as his arms flopped over Zero’s shoulders and his lumbering body sunk on top of his, forcing the boy to brace himself in order to hold them both up. “There’s no way I would ever make it past the first round. I would only embarrass myself in front of everyone. And I’m so shy. I don’t think I could survive the humiliation.”

Crimson stared forward, unimpressed with the blatant lie that had been told time and time again. Ren could claim that all he wanted, but the man loved to spar with the boy at every opportunity and had defeated him every time without so much as breaking a sweat. Zero didn’t exactly consider himself strong, but after more than two years he had yet to lose against anyone other than Ren.

The man tilted his head towards the devil with a smirk. “What? Not a good enough answer for you? Alright. I don’t fight because it’s never enough for me. I’m not good at a lot of things but I’ve always been a bit perspicacious, and there’s nothing duller than fighting against someone whose moves you know before even they do. Sure, it’d be great if I was only concerned with winning, but I don’t care about that. Win or lose, I want a challenge. If I don’t get it then I’ll want more and more until there’s nothing left, which isn’t exactly a good thing in a fight. I’m better at controlling that urge now than when I was younger, but it’s easier to just not tempt it in the first place.”

That didn’t make much sense. “Why do you always fight me, then?”

“Because you’re my sweet little angel.” He tousled the boy’s hair with a peck to his cheek. “I want the world for you. I want you to grow up big and strong and make Papa proud. In order to do that though, you need plenty of experience in getting your ass beat, just as I did. Besides, I’m not fighting you. I’m training you. There’s a difference.”

Sounded like more words that meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. “You’ve talked about how you and Sakura fight. Why is it okay for you to fight her but not others?”

A ubiquitous glimmer brightened the man’s eyes, the way they often did at the mention of the elusive vixen. “That’s because she’s exciting. There’s nothing predictable or dull about that woman. I always have to be on my toes around her, and there’s no need to want more when you already don’t know what you’re going to get.”

Now it was starting to make sense. “So… you’re just bored,” Zero accused.

Ren laughed. He couldn’t get anything past the devil. “That I am. Now, it’s time for you to entertain me.”

These absurd spectacles that the man insisted on putting the boy through were always the same. Zero would follow along obediently behind Ren as the man strutted confidently up to the group in question and shove the devil before them, his words and gestures a flurry of incomprehensible garble. It would take a moment before one man would notice the crimson eyes, and then another, until the whole group was in a frozen state of shock that would be quickly dismissed and eased by the grinning angel, everyone accepting his excuses without much push back.

After all, no one wanted to be in the presence of certain death.

Then, after a few words of embellished encouragement—none of which actually were encouraging—the boy would be shoved off to fight a fight he couldn’t care less about. This particular time he was given a waster to use rather than his katanas or fists and set up against a wolf demon not much older than himself with golden brown hair twisted tightly into a bun atop his head, an insufferable sense of superiority, and a mouth that ran nonstop.

Still, it wasn’t so bad.

At least Zero would get a few moments of silence from the man.

Ren stood on the outskirts of the match, taking in the devil’s movements and clacking of the wood swords as he watched him immediately fall back into defense: the boy wearily following along with and blocking his opponent’s weapon over and over while being laughed and jeered at for his lackluster performance. This fight wouldn’t last long, the wolf having already decided on his victory before the match had even begun which was further solidified in his mind the moment he became the aggressor—having the ill-conceived idea that the boy’s absence of urgency and interest equated to weakness. The boy would play along with him, no more no less, until the wolf either under or overshot his strike, and Zero would take advantage of the lack of judgment and put him on his back, sword to his throat, match over, on to the next.

Zero was always fun to watch.

But, fun or not...

He needed to loosen the tension in his knees.

“That kid with you?”

Ren looked over at his new neighbor, a wolf demon with shaggy cinnamon hair and amber eyes who watched the match with as much interest as he did. “Yep, isn’t he adorable? He’s my most precious treasure. That boy apart of your pack?” He took notice of the similar straight noses and high cheekbones. “Little brother?”

“That obvious?”

The angel nodded. “Yeah, a bit. He fights decent.” Cocky, but decent.

The wolf snorted and shook his head, clearly not in agreement. “He’s still just a pup, bright eyed and bushy tailed, living in a fantasy and completely disillusioned to the harsh realities of the world. Thinks that because he can swing his weight around at home with moderate success that that really means he’s something special. I’m here to break him of that.”

A smile spread with a light chuckle. The wolf was a man after his own heart. “Well, don’t you worry about that. My boy will take care of him soon enough.”

“I sure hope you’re right.” The demon watched the devil block another blow without so much as an attempt to try to attack back, his ears and tail twitching in agitation with the one-sided battle. “Otherwise, I’ll be listening to his bragging and that one’s whining all the way home.” He jerked his head to the side towards a handsome, black-haired wolf with his arm in a sling who was being fawned over by three women a short distance off. “You’d think he’d learn his lesson, but he won’t. Never does.”

“What’d he do?” Ren peeked at the other wolf before turning his attention back to the fight.

“He decided to try to pick up two women on the road.”

“Two?” The angel’s eyes went wide and he stared at the man in shock. “Really? He can do that?” Ren had seen men with two women on their arms before, but that was in the district with plenty of coin involved.

The wolf wasn’t nearly as impressed. “Oh yeah. Easy. I’m sure he’s planning on bedding all three of them tonight, and by the looks of it, he probably will. He’s quite the ladies man. A real smooth talker. I don’t know how he does it, but he does.”

“That seems like a lot of work. Having to handle and keep up with two or three women.” Ren could barely keep up with one. Two would be even more of a nightmare than the one already was. And three… he didn’t even want to think about it. “How do you keep track of them? Provide for them? Handle them when they’re all pissed off at you?”

The wolf raised a brow and laughed lightly at the man’s befuddlement. “You don’t. You only keep them for the night.”

His head bobbed in sudden understanding. “I suppose you have a point. That would make things a lot easier.”

“Yeah, he thought it’d be easy this time, too. I can’t really blame him for trying though. I thought about doing the same, but he beat me to it. I wasn’t really happy about it then, but I am now. The one girl was absolutely gorgeous. The most stunning creature I’ve ever seen, like something from a dream. But it was the other one that really caught my attention.” He looked up at the angel with a wide smile and hungry eyes. “She was something else. Beautiful but fierce. Intimidating. The one was real sweet and innocent and that’s nice and all. But I prefer the type of woman who’s not easy to get. One that puts on a good chase and really makes you work for it.”

“Don’t we all,” the angel agreed.

“Well, my buddy caught their attention and started laying it on thick. He does this thing where he kinda just barely grabs the tips of their fingers, looks them in the eyes, and spews all his nonsense. Works more often than not. He tried it with the real pretty one, and that fox woman didn’t say a word, just grabbed and snapped his arm in half like a chicken bone and knocked him out cold with one punch. Then she grabbed the girl’s hand and walked off without a care in the world while that poor girl cried and screamed out apologies to us. It was…” He gritted his teeth, still flustered with the past experience. “It was an interesting day.”

Every drop of blood in Ren’s veins turned to ice and he swallowed the knots in his throat as every nerve exploded like fireworks in his stomach. It had been some time since he had spoken to someone who had recently seen Sakura, and it was difficult to not immediately demand her whereabouts when she was so close he could almost touch her. He couldn’t just do that though and potentially scare off a solid source. He needed to be smart, not screw this up. “The fox woman. Did she have dark red hair and green eyes?”

The wolf’s brows drew together, unsure of where this conversation with this stranger was going. “She did.”

Of course she did. Who else would it be? He took a quick breath, calming himself as his heart threatened to pound its way out of his chest. “When did you see her? What direction was she going?”

“Is she in some kind of trouble? You a bounty hunter?”

“No, I’m not.” Well, not anymore. “And I don’t think she’s in any trouble. At least not with me. Her family is looking for her though, so it’s important that I find her as soon as possible.”

The answer seemed to satisfy the demon. “We saw her about a week ago, a four days walk from here. They were heading southwest towards Golden City. My guess is she went through on her way back to the den. You know how those foxes are, they don’t typically wander off too far. I can see why her family is so worried.” He paused, thinking back on the interaction. “You know, I’ve never seen a fox woman without a man though, and they definitely don’t act like that.”

“They certainly don’t. I appreciate your help.” Ren nodded at the wolf in appreciation. “You might want to put something cold on the back of that boy’s head. Otherwise, he’s gonna have a hell of a goose egg back there.”

A brow raised on the man’s face as he turned back in time to witness the young wolf demon fall back, slamming his head against the ground as the white-haired boy pointed the tip of the waster against his throat. “Well, look at that. Your boy did win.”

“Beginner’s luck. You have a good one.” The angel threw his hand up in farewell as he made his way without haste to the fighting pair. He reached the devil and grabbed the wooden sword from his hand, dropping it on the defeated boy’s chest and walked off. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Zero asked as he caught up. It didn’t really matter, he would go wherever, but he was curious why the man was suddenly so ready to get a move on rather than forcing him to fight all day.

“Southwest, towards Golden City. Sakura’s heading that way.”

“Again?”

A cunning grin spread across Ren’s lips. “Again.”

Now the real challenge would begin.