Melee (2)

The smell of blood in the tavern was beginning to overpower the smell of alcohol.

The burly man blocked the front, a broad-bladed dagger in his left hand, while blood still seeped from the hole in the back of his right hand.

The lanky man stood to the left, flipping a dagger back and forth between his hands.

The bald man stood to the right, an iron bar held across his body.

The kid with the musket crouched behind the crowd. The gunpowder had already been loaded into the barrel, and he was using a ramrod to pack the shot down tight.

Another dozen or so people formed the outer ring, sealing off every escape route.

Barlow's gaze passed over the burly man's shoulder and paused briefly on the back door. It stood open, and the evening light had already darkened to deep gray. The alley outside was still.

He withdrew his gaze.

"Roy."

"Let's end this quickly."

Roy nodded once and loosened his grip on the hilt with his right hand.

The burly man bared his teeth. The blood between them had dried into brown stains. He weighed the broad-bladed dagger in his left hand and turned the blade.

"You arrogant little—"

His mouth remained open, but the word "brat" never left it.

Roy's eyes turned blood-red. Two black Tomoe emerged on his irises, slowly revolving like two black moons rising in a bloody night.

The burly man's blade stopped in midair. The lanky man's dagger froze at his fingertips. The front end of the bald man's iron bar dipped an inch. The kid packing the shot dropped his ramrod, and it hit the floor with a clang.

Among the dozen men surrounding them, some had trembling blade tips, some shifted half a step back, and some opened their mouths without making a sound.

No one had ever seen eyes like those. Not on the docks of Orange Town, not on the waters of the East Blue, not from the Wind Organ Archipelago to the Konomi Archipelago, nor from the Goa Kingdom to Loguetown—no one had ever seen scarlet eyes with something turning inside them.

Roy's hand swept across his waist.

Two wooden shuriken flew from between his fingers. Carved from white wax wood, their edges had been reinforced with chakra. Under the oil lamps, the wood grain was invisible; only two pale yellow streaks flashed through the air.

The lanky man raised his dagger to block. The shuriken struck it with far more force than he had expected, knocking the dagger upward and numbing the web between his thumb and forefinger.

The bald man swung his iron bar across. The shuriken lodged in it without breaking, its wooden edge embedded in the rusted metal.

Both men lowered their heads to stare at their weapons.

Roy had already vanished from where he stood.

He lowered his center of gravity and shot forward close to the ground, like retreating seawater squeezing through gaps between reefs. The Sharingan spun in his eyes, breaking down everyone's movements in the tavern into fragments.

Roy charged before the burly man.

The burly man's blade came down exactly as the Sharingan had predicted, slashing diagonally from upper left to lower right with tremendous force. His left hand was almost as strong as his right, but its trajectory was shorter. He was unused to wielding a blade left-handed, and the arc of his swing was half a circle smaller than it would have been with his right hand.

The blade fell. Roy twisted aside, and it grazed past his chest, tearing his clothes without touching flesh. He did not pull back his weight. Following through with the turn, he slammed into the burly man's chest.

The dagger thrust upward from below.

Its point pierced beneath the burly man's left ribs. The dagger sank to the hilt, and the handle struck his ribs with a dull thud.

The burly man's body stiffened. The broad-bladed dagger slipped from his left hand, point-first into the floorboards, its blade wobbling twice.

He lowered his head to stare at the hilt protruding from his body, then looked up at Roy's face. Those blood-red eyes were less than an arm's length away, the two Tomoe slowly turning within them.

"Koldo... you..."

He did not finish. Roy pulled out the dagger, and blood gushed from the wound, running down the burly man's clothes and dripping onto the floor, merging with the blood dripping from the back of his right hand.

He fell facedown beside the broad-bladed dagger he had embedded in the floor. The sea snake tattoo on his left arm was washed over by blood, its head sinking into dark red.

The tavern fell silent for a full beat.

Then it erupted.

"Boss!"

No one knew who had shouted it. The voice was shrill and cracked.

On Barlow's side, the men surrounding him faltered as the burly man fell.

Some took half a step back. Some turned to look at the fallen burly man. Some had hands shaking around their blades. The opening lasted less than a breath, but Barlow seized it.

His blade swept past a swordsman's throat, forcing back the man in front of him, then he cut toward the right.

Blade first, body behind it, he drove forward like a wedge hammered into a crack in wood. Blocking the path between him and the kid with the musket were the bald man and a thin man with a blade.

The bald man had just pulled the embedded shuriken from his iron bar. Wood splinters crumbled between his fingers, leaving a shallow dent in the rusted metal.

He looked up and saw Barlow charging at him. Instinctively, he held the iron bar across his body.

Barlow did not slow down.

His dagger slashed diagonally down from the right, striking the iron bar and scattering sparks.

The bald man's iron bar sank an inch from the impact, and Barlow's blade bounced upward as well. But using that rebounding force, Barlow drew an arc through the air, turning the chop into a slice. The edge slid along the iron bar toward the bald man's fingers.

The bald man released one hand, exactly as before, but this time Barlow did not give him a chance to draw a dagger.

The short blade sliced across the web of the bald man's left hand, severing the tendons.

His left hand lost its grip, and the iron bar slipped free and crashed onto the floor. He looked down at the split wound in the web of his hand, pale fascia curling out from the opening. Blood did not gush out until a moment later.

Barlow had already swept past him.

The thin man with the blade swung at Barlow's back. As the blade descended, Barlow shifted half a shoulder to the left, exactly like the fifth-step change of direction he had practiced countless times in the White Wax Forest.

The blade grazed his right shoulder, shaving away a strip of cloth.

Barlow did not turn around. He thrust his dagger backward in a reverse grip, driving its point into the thin man's thigh. The man grunted and doubled over, his blade falling from his hand.

The kid with the musket had just pulled the ramrod out of the barrel when he looked up.

Barlow was already before him. The dagger plunged into his chest, through his heart, and emerged from his back.

The kid looked down at the blade in his chest. His lips moved a few times. The musket slipped from his hand, and the red cord around its stock came loose. Its red threads fell to the floor and soaked dark red in the pool of blood.

Barlow pulled out the dagger, and the kid fell backward. The back of his head struck the floor, his eyes still open as they stared at the soot-blackened beams on the tavern ceiling.

Barlow stood there, his blade hanging at his side as blood dripped from its tip onto the floor.

His fingers twitched slightly as he experienced something he had never felt before, something that traveled up from the hilt, from the blade, from the kid's chest.

The sensation of the blade passing through flesh and heart traveled along the blade to the hilt, from the hilt to his palm, from his palm to his arm, and from his arm to his brain.

He bared his teeth, confirming that his hand was still gripping the hilt, that his fingers could still move, that he had truly delivered that stab himself.

He lowered his head and looked at the kid lying on the floor. That face was barely older than his own, with soft, newly grown fuzz above his lips.

Barlow turned around.

The men surrounding them were backing away. The burly man lay motionless on the ground. The bald man crouched in a corner clutching the wound in his hand. The lanky man still held his dagger, but its tip trembled. The rest stood several steps away with blades in hand, and no one dared take another step forward.

Barlow's eyes turned blood-red.

Two black Tomoe emerged on his irises—eyes identical to Roy's, identical to the eyes of the man in his dreams.

He stood in the middle of the tavern, blade at his side, blood dripping from its tip. Behind him lay the burly man and the kid with the musket. Before him stood more than a dozen thugs gripping blades but too afraid to advance. Oil lamp flames danced in his scarlet pupils.

"So this is what it feels like."

His voice was soft. He did not know whether he meant the feeling of awakening his eyes or the feeling of killing someone.

He raised his blade and wiped it with his sleeve. The cloth absorbed the blood, and the blade gleamed again, reflecting the oil lamp light. Everyone watched him wipe his blade, but no one moved.

When he finished, he lowered his sleeve, the blade hanging at his side.

Then he took a step forward.

It was not a fast step, nor was it heavy. The sole of his boot pressed into the pool of blood with a faint sticky sound.

The men surrounding him all took a step back.

Barlow took another step, and they took another step back. Someone knocked over a chair behind them. Someone stepped on a shattered liquor bottle, glass crunching beneath their foot. No one looked down.

Roy stood beside the burly man's corpse, his blade still hanging at his side as blood dripped from its tip. His eyes were blood-red too, two Tomoe slowly turning in his irises. He approached from the other side and stood shoulder to shoulder with Barlow. Two pairs of identical eyes shone in the dim tavern.

The bald man looked at Barlow's wicked grin and, for no reason at all, thought of the tavern sign: a crooked red skull with its mouth stretched wide, as though laughing—or screaming.