Lucifer was on his feet.

  He rarely stood in the gods’ box. He lounged, sprawled, appeared at ease even when the PITT was a volcano of noise. But now he was upright, fingers digging into the marble railing as Deathnibbles’ cheers still echoed.

  “Where is Anubis?” he hissed.

  The other gods of death looked over, more amused than alarmed.

  “Not here,” Yama said, dry as ash. “Which seems to be the point.”

  Ekwensu was still snorting with laughter. “You let that change the rules?” he cackled, pointing down toward the field where the squirrel had just exited. “You agreed to oblivion stakes, Lucifer. On a squirrel. I almost admire it.”

  Lucifer’s eyes flashed. “He hid its power. He hid everything about the reaper. You all agreed without proper risk assessment.”

  Coatlicue rested her chin on one hand. “We agreed because we were bored,” she said. “And because you wanted blood. Don’t pretend this was an accident of procedure.”

  Osiris watched Lucifer with a small, private smile. “The mighty Lord of Hell,” he murmured, “unsettled by an employee he did not vet.”

  Lucifer heard him. His jaw tightened.

  Then he inhaled slowly, let the breath go, and the mask dropped back into place. Smooth. Charming. That brief flash of panic folded away like it had never existed.

  “You’re right,” he said. “No sense in dwelling. The rules stand. The game continues.”

  He turned, cloak whispering around his ankles, and sank back into his seat.

  Osiris’s eyes narrowed. He’s rattled, he thought. Good. Rattled men make mistakes.

  Beside him, Izanami-no-Mikoto watched Lucifer from behind her curtain of hair, then looked back down to the arena with renewed interest.

  Lilith’s voice boomed, bright as ever.

  “All right, my bloodthirsty board of directors and violence-loving shareholders! Next up in our Performance Improvement Tournament and Trials, our youngest contestant, our most dutiful employee, the boy who thinks ‘burnout’ means ‘try harder’… ATSUMORI!”

  In the waiting room, Atsumori slid his flute back into his belt, rose, and bowed to the others.

  Glenn stepped forward. “Hey,” he said. “Listen. Before you go out there—”

  “I don’t need your prayers,” Atsumori said without looking up. His voice was calm, almost gentle. “My duty is the same regardless of outcome.”

  Glenn winced. “You know you’re allowed to have feelings, right? To want something besides duty? You’re not a…”

  “Tool?” Atsumori supplied, lips bending in a brief, humorless smile. “I know. I was a noble once. We all pretend we are not tools until we break.”

  He adjusted his helmet. “I chose to serve. That choice is my freedom.”

  Glenn wanted to argue. To tell him choosing a cage didn’t make it less of a cage. But the earpiece hummed in his ear, and Lilith’s amplified voice rattled the walls.

  “AND HIS OPPONENT, handpicked by our divine selection committee, representing the spirit of betrayal and the fine art of using promising young interns as cannon fodder… Resurrected as a demon, I give you MINAMOTO NO YOSHINAKA!”

  Glenn froze.

  For a heartbeat he was back in the office watching Mictlantecuhtli’s skeletal hand closing around a fragile soul-flower, saying the name like a sentence.

  Yoshinaka.

  Glenn had never reaped that flower. In the chaos, he forgot all about it.

  So where had it gone?

  “Glenn?” Karna’s voice crackled in his ear. “You’ve gone white. What is it?”

  Glenn swallowed hard. “Nothing,” he lied. “Just… déjà vu.”

  Across the room, Deathnibbles squinted at him. Oba frowned, sharpening slowed. Even Atsumori glanced back, helmet under his arm.

  Then the tunnel gate opened, and duty pulled the boy forward.

  The arena floor rumbled.

  From the far tunnel, a figure emerged, armor gleaming, hair wild, the crest of the Minamoto clan emblazoned on his chest.

  Minamoto no Yoshinaka.

  He walked like someone used to battlefields, not stages. His hand hovered near his sword, but his eyes were scanning the walls, sky, gods, crowd with frank confusion.

  “Where am I?” he demanded, voice echoing. “This is no plain of Kiso. No river of Uji.”

  He turned and saw Atsumori.

  His eyes narrowed. “Taira.”

  Atsumori’s knuckles tightened around his sword. “You slaughtered us,” he said. “I’m the proof you missed one.”

  Glenn stared at the monitors. Yoshinaka looked… less like a monster than Glenn wanted him to even in demon form. His face was chiseled, yes, but tired. Not the gleaming ideal Yoshiko had carried in her heart. Not the gentle memory Glenn had nursed when he’d thought of the man she loved.

  This is him? Glenn thought, stomach twisting. This is who she chose over Glenn? This is who she died for?

  Down in the arena, Yoshinaka frowned. “Is this his doing then?” he asked, more to himself than anyone. “Did the gods drag me back for one more war?”

  He looked Atsumori up and down and saw the youth, the resolve, the way the boy’s body was coiled to strike but his eyes were full of something more complicated.

  “Your stance says fury,” Yoshinaka said. “Your shoulders say doubt. Why don’t you attack while I’m still confused?” His smile was thin. “It’s what they trained you for, isn’t it?”

  Atsumori’s jaw clenched. “I don’t need lessons from the man who ordered my death.”

  Yoshinaka shrugged. “I don’t remember you,” he said. “But I remember your clan. You stopped relevant when we needed to make an example. That’s how war works. That’s how management works.”

  He drew his sword.

  “Come,” he said. “Watch and learn how to strike first.”

  Their first clash was almost too fast to follow.

  Steel met steel with a scream. Sparks flew up, lighting their faces. One young and fierce, one older and amused.

  Atsumori moved like water, flowing, precise, every step drilled a thousand times on some training field under some old man’s watchful eye. His cuts were clean, his blocks textbook, his footwork impeccable.

  Yoshinaka moved like a storm, unpredictable, shifting, every proper form warped by experience into something sharper, dirtier, more effective. He let Atsumori’s blade slide close, then twisted away with a movement that shouldn’t have been possible, all demon strength and human cunning.

  “His power is amplified,” Karna said in Glenn’s ear. “Demons get… bonuses.”

  “Can you win this, Atsumori?” Oba asked, genuinely. “He’s stronger than you.”

  “My strength is the least of this,” Atsumori replied between strikes, breath calm. “I am Taira. I have died before. I am not afraid to do it properly.”

  “Yeah, that’s the part that worries me,” Glenn muttered.

  Yoshinaka drove him back with a flurry of blows, high, low, feint, thrust that would have gutted a less-disciplined opponent. Atsumori parried, ducked, slid aside by inches, but each impact jarred his arms to the bone.

  “That’s it,” Yoshinaka said, eyes bright. “You’ve got training. But you’re thinking about the rules, aren’t you? About honor. About what your elders would approve.”

  He slammed his shoulder into Atsumori’s chest, sending the boy staggering. “Honor is a story old men write when they’re tallying how many young bodies they can spend.”

  Karna sucked in a breath. “He’s not wrong,” he murmured.

  Glenn’s fingers dug into his own knees. “Atsumori,” he said into the earpiece, “I need you to ask him something. It’s going to sound insane, but ask him if he knows Tomoe Gozen.”

  Atsumori almost missed a beat. “This is hardly the time…”

  “Please,” Glenn insisted.

  The boy deflected another cut, then, as their blades locked, hissed through gritted teeth, “Do you know Tomoe Gozen?”

  Yoshinaka’s entire posture changed.

  He shoved Atsumori back, not with strength but with sheer offended surprise. “How do you know that name?” he demanded. “Who are you to speak it here?”

  He came at Atsumori harder, blows falling like hammers. “Did you kill her?” he snarled. “Did one of your clan touch her? ANSWER ME!”

  In the waiting room, Glenn’s blood ran cold. He loved her, he thought, nausea rising. He actually loved her. And he still…

  Karna’s voice cut through. “Glenn,” he said sharply. “Focus. This is his trial.”

  Another clash. Yoshinaka’s blade caught Atsumori’s helmet just right. The metal spun off, clattering across the stone. Atsumori’s flute skittered away with it, rolling to a stop near the arena edge.

  Time stretched.

  Without the helmet, Atsumori looked even younger. Barely more than a boy. Cheeks still soft, eyes too big. In the gods’ box, more than one ruler shifted uncomfortably.

  “He is but a child,” Oba said quietly. “We are watching a child fight a demon for their entertainment.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Glenn stared at the screen, throat thick. “Why?” he whispered. “Why did you accept the terms, Atsumori?”

  “Because the old men said it was noble,” Atsumori snapped, breathless. He spat blood on the stones, refusing to look up at the stands. “Because I was told glory was my path. That dying young in armor was better than growing old in shame.”

  Yoshinaka’s eyes narrowed. “Kumagai,” he murmured. “You are the boy he killed on the shore.” He tilted his head. “I’ve heard your story. You kept him up at night.”

  Atsumori laughed a sharp, bitter sound. “Good.”

  “So you couldn’t have known Tomoe Gozen,” Yoshinaka said, almost to himself. “Then who told you to say that name?”

  He shook himself, focus snapping back. “You stand here because someone older told you it was your duty,” he said. “Fine. Stand. I’ll show you how a true leader uses such a gift.”

  He came in again, faster than before. Each stroke was a lesson delivered at sword-point.

  “You think of honor,” slash. “Think instead of objectives.” Parry, twist.

  “You think of glory,” feint, strike. “Think of leverage.”

  “You think your life is yours,” he hissed, blades ringing. “It was theirs the moment you put on that armor. You are an asset. Be proud to be used well.”

  Glenn wanted to help but how?

  Then in Glenn’s earpiece, suddenly and softly, Tomoe’s voice appeared.

  “Don’t let him die.”

  Glenn’s head snapped around. No one was there. The waiting room was the same: Oba watching the monitor, Karna tense, Deathnibbles perched on a bench, fur bristling.

  “Yoshiko?” Glenn whispered.

  No one else reacted.

  “Please,” the voice said again, in his ear and not in the earpiece. “Don’t let Yoshinaka die. Stop them. I miss you, Glenn. I’ll come back. If you save him, I’ll come back. I promise.”

  Glenn’s heart lurched. “Did you hear that?” he asked, wild-eyed. “Did anyone hear that?”

  Karna glanced over. “Hear what?”

  “The woman,” Glenn said. “Yoshiko or I should said Tomoe Gozen. She…”

  Nothing on the line but the gods’ murmur and Lilith’s distant commentary.

  Oba frowned. “This place plays tricks,” he said. “Do not trust every voice that sounds like home.”

  Glenn stared at his lantern. “Yoshiko,” he whispered, fingers brushing the glass. “Is that really you? Can you come back?”

  Silence.

  Deathnibbles studied him, dark eyes sharp. Then the squirrel hopped up onto the bench beside Karna and squeaked rapidly in his ear.

  Karna listened, nodded once, then went back to watching the fight.

  Down below, Atsumori and Yoshinaka were locked again, swords pressing.

  Atsumori panted, sweat and blood mingling. “You are a leader, yes?” he snarled. “How many boys like me did you send to die before they felt the sun on their face as men? How many never knew a woman’s hand, or the taste of peace, because your ambition demanded a story?”

  Yoshinaka’s mouth tightened. “That’s war. No, that is life!,” he said. “Someone has to make the choices the young cannot.”

  “Exactly,” Atsumori spat. “Always someone else. Always older. Always saying ‘it’s for your own good.’”

  He shoved Yoshinaka back with a burst of furious strength. For the first time, the demon samurai’s footing slipped.

  In Glenn’s ear, Yoshiko’s voice sighed. “He’ll kill Yoshinaka,” she said. “He’ll send my love into oblivion. You can stop it. Self-sacrifice is noble, Glenn. Tell the boy to give himself up. A moral victory. He’ll be remembered. Isn’t that enough?”

  Glenn’s chest hurt. The idea slid in like a knife disguised as comfort.

  “Honor,” he said slowly, “isn’t about winning. It’s about… sacrificing yourself for others. Right? That’s what Tomoe Gozen did. What so many heroes did.”

  He swallowed. “Atsumori,” he said into the earpiece. “This might be wrong, but maybe the lesson here is sacrifice. If you surrender, if you let Yoshinaka live and you take oblivion instead… that’s a moral win. Letting go of your freedom for duty.”

  Atsumori’s eyes flicked to the stands, then to the gods’ box.

  “Letting go… of freedom… is duty?” he repeated, confused.

  Yoshinaka drew back, blade hovering. “Who is that voice?” he demanded. “Who dares counsel my enemy?”

  He flinched, suddenly, as if remembering something. A courtyard. His own hands on his own sword, turning it inward. Warmth spreading under his fingers as he knelt. The taste of steel. The choice to die for a cause that may not have deserved it.

  “Seppuku,” he breathed. “Yes. That would be noble, wouldn’t it? Die well. Make your seniors proud.”

  Karna’s voice cut in, sharp as steel. “No.”

  Oba’s followed. “Terrible idea,” he growled. “Do not listen to that.”

  Atsumori’s chest rose and fell. He looked very small in the wide arena. “All my life,” he said quietly, “I have been told what is noble. My elders tell me to go. My lords tell me to die. A strange voice tells me to surrender. None of them ever ask what I want.”

  Glenn stared at the lantern, shaking. “Yoshiko,” he whispered. “Please. Say something. Answer.”

  Nothing.

  Deathnibbles squeaked again in Karna’s ear, urgent and insistent.

  Karna closed his eyes, nodded, then spoke into the channel, voice steady.

  “Atsumori,” he said, “listen to me. In the grand scheme of things, tell me the difference between your short life and a long one lived miserably. Both end. Both fall into the god’s hands eventually. Everything perishes. Everything meets death.”

  Atsumori’s grip trembled.

  “So why,” Karna continued, “should you race there on someone else’s schedule?”

  He took a breath. “The elders have their wisdom. They’ve seen things. But your life is not their consolation prize. Learn from them, but don’t live for them. If you have ten more years or ten more minutes, fill them with your choices, not their regrets.”

  The words fell into Atsumori like sparks into dry grass.

  He looked at his sword. At Yoshinaka’s blade. At the flute lying near the wall.

  Then he did something that stunned everyone from gods to squirrel.

  He let his sword fall.

  It clattered to the stone and slid away.

  “What are you doing?” Yoshinaka shouted. “Pick it up!”

  Atsumori didn’t answer.

  Bleeding, limping, he walked across the arena to where his flute had rolled. He picked it up with careful fingers, tore off his chest armor, and sat down right there in the PITT as if he were on a riverbank at dusk.

  He lifted the flute to his lips.

  And played.

  The first notes were shy, shaky. Then they settled.

  A simple melody, the one he’d been playing in the waiting room. A song of water and wind and fields he’d never see again. The sound threaded through the noise of the arena, slipped past the barrier, climbed up into the gods’ box.

  Glenn’s anger, grief, confusion, all of it quieted for a moment under that music.

  Yoshinaka stomped toward him, sword raised. “This is pathetic,” he snarled. “You give up? You sit down? That’s your big choice?”

  He stood over the boy, blade poised above Atsumori’s neck.

  “You truly are too young,” he said. “But I’ll make it quick. It will be painless.”

  He brought the sword down.

  Steel rang on steel.

  A second blade had interposed itself. Thin, worn, held by a man with tired eyes and the posture of someone whose life had been one long apology.

  Kumagai Naozane.

  He shimmered, half-transparent, a spirit, summoned by sound.

  Atsumori kept playing, eyes closed, fingers sure. He didn’t see the man blocking the strike. He didn’t see the shock on Yoshinaka’s face.

  “What is this?” Yoshinaka demanded, stepping back. “What trick?”

  More figures rose from the ground, drawn by the music.

  Young men in armor from both clans. Taira and Minamoto. Boys who had died for banners. Girls in court dress. Peasants crushed under horses. Soldiers who’d never had their names written down.

  They circled Yoshinaka, eyes glowing, weapons in hand.

  “Enough,” Kumagai said, voice low but carrying. “This boy has done what none of us did. He has laid down the sword. You don’t get to take that from him.”

  Yoshinaka snarled, lashing out. His blade cut through one spirit, then another, but they reformed, reforming from mist and memory.

  Yoshiko’s voice slid into Glenn’s ear again, desperate. “Stop them,” she begged. “Please. Don’t let them destroy him. I don’t want my Yoshinaka to die. Glenn, if you save him, I’ll…”

  Karna’s voice overrode hers like a shout through static. “Glenn snap out of it,” he snapped. “Think, Glenn. That voice wants you paralyzed, chasing ghosts instead of helping the living.”

  Glenn’s eyes burned. A single tear slipped down his cheek.

  “It was nice,” he whispered, “to hear you again. Even if it was a lie.”

  He pressed his fingers to the earpiece. “Atsumori,” he said softly, voice steady now, “don’t stop. This is your song. Your choice. Play it to the end.”

  Atsumori didn’t answer or it was more like he didn’t hear. He was deep in the music, body swaying, breath pouring through the flute. The arena fell away. The crowd, the gods, the demon. None of it mattered. There was only the song and the boy and the small, fierce joy of doing one thing that was purely his.

  The spirits closed in.

  They didn’t fight like soldiers. They poured their accumulated rage and sorrow and love into each blow: the protest of generations pressed into steel.

  Yoshinaka staggered.

  For the first time, he was on the defensive. No longer the general commanding young men to die, but a man facing the weight of every choice he’d made on their backs.

  “You were once legendary,” one spirit snarled. “Do not cloud your legacy because of the gods.”

  “You had glory,” another hissed. “Now is the time to rest.”

  They struck in rhythm with Atsumori’s music. Each trill, each low note, each soaring phrase brought another cut, another crack in the demon’s armor.

  Up in the gods’ box, Izanami-no-Mikoto watched, fingers steepled. “Fascinating,” she murmured. “The little intern refuses to give up, invoking their coworkers' help without overtime.”

  Hel smirked. “Sometimes the noblest rebellion is… not showing up for the slaughter.”

  Persephone’s eyes were fixed on the boy. “He’s not fighting them,” she said. “He’s not fighting… anyone.”

  “Letting go of duty,” Osiris said quietly, “is the first step of real freedom. Painful as it is to watch.”

  At the song’s crescendo, Kumagai stepped in one last time, blade flashing.

  Yoshinaka looked past him to Atsumori, who still sat playing, oblivious, armor discarded.

  Something like respect crossed his face.

  “You chose,” he muttered. “You would have made a fine warrior.”

  Then Kumagai’s sword and a dozen others came down.

  The demon armor shattered like glass. Light blew out of Yoshinaka’s body, dissolving him into a storm of gray motes that were quickly devoured by the PITT’s hungry stones.

  The music faded.

  Atsumori’s fingers slowed, then stilled. The last note hung in the air, thin and pure.

  He opened his eyes.

  The spirits were gone.

  The arena was back to cracked marble. The crowd had gone almost eerily silent. Yoshinaka was gone.

  Atsumori blinked, then looked up.

  Lilith recovered first.

  “WHAT A PERFORMANCE, FOLKS!” she screamed, arm flung wide. “Our young intern just fluted his way to victory! ATSUMORI WINS!”

  The crowd roared back to life. Cheers, jeers, wild clapping. Some were humming his song. Others, surprising even themselves, shouted his name.

  In the contestants’ area, Glenn let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. His hands were shaking.

  “That was…” he started.

  “Correct,” Karna said quietly. “You corrected yourself. That matters.”

  Oba nodded grudgingly. “He walked away from the sword and still won. That’s… inconvenient for our bosses.”

  Deathnibbles hopped onto the arm of Glenn’s chair, mirror tucked under one arm, and squeaked something short and sharp.

  Glenn looked at the monitor of the arena, where Atsumori stood alone in the center, flute in hand, armor at his feet.

  The boy bowed to the gods, to the crowd and to where Yoshinaka last was.

  In Glenn’s chest, something shifted.

  Duty, he realized, had been his north star since he died. Duty to his mother’s memory, to the reapers, to “fixing” the system, to being worth the sacrifices others made for him.

  But watching Atsumori sit down in the midst of a fight and choose his own song, Glenn saw a different path.

  Letting go of duty isn’t betrayal, he thought. It’s refusing to be used.

  Up in the box, Lucifer watched Glenn’s face with keen interest.

  “Yes,” he murmured. “Learn from this, little reaper. Then we’ll see whether you choose my rebellion… or your own.”

  Down below, Atsumori limped back toward the tunnel.

  As he passed under the archway, he lifted the flute again and played a quiet phrase, just for himself.

  It sounded like a boy finally stepping out of a story written by old men, and into one he might actually want to live.