Gilded Ashes-Chapter 336: Hittable

The hammer hit him in the chest.

There was no gradual buildup, no moment of contact before the full force arrived. One instant Raizen was mid-swing, committed and off-balance, and the next his feet left the ground. The world around him became a blur of green and brown as he rapidly approached the surface of a trunk that his back met with a sound that echoed through the forest floor like a door being slammed.

He hit the bark spine-first. The impact drove the air out of his lungs in a single compressed gasp, and for a moment his vision whited out - pure, blank nothing, his brain resetting from the shock. Then he slid down the trunk’s surface, bark scraping against his shirt, until his feet touched the ground. His knees buckled and he sat there at the base of the tree, blinking at the canopy above.

He could taste a coppery taste in the back of his throat.

Kenzo stood where he’d been standing before - same position, same stance, hammer resting at his side again. He hadn’t moved more than one half of a step. The entire sequence, from Raizen’s committed attack to Raizen’s not-so-polite introduction to the nearest trunk, had taken less than two seconds.

"Oh, whoops..." Kenzo put his palms together in front of his chest, a gesture of apology so theatrical it bordered on parody. "Didn’t mean to hit you that hard. But you’re just so..." He tilted his head, searching for the word. "...hittable."

Raizen grunted. Pushed himself up along the trunk, bark catching on his shirt, his back screaming its opinion about what had just happened to it. He straightened. Took a breath that hurt. Took another one that hurt a bit less.

"But you did mean to hit me" he grunted.

Kenzo grinned. "This is a physical reinforcement lesson, Raizen. Not a hand-to-hand combat lesson." He tapped the hammer’s handle against his palm. "When you attack, you’re at your most vulnerable point. Your weight shifts forward, your guard opens, your body commits to a direction it can’t change fast enough. That’s when the punishment comes."

Something clicked inside Raizen’s mind. That was the lesson - not how to attack, but what happens when you do. Kenzo wasn’t teaching him to fight. He was teaching him what he needed to protect against.

Raizen stepped in again.

This time he swung harder, genuinely hard, a straight right aimed at Kenzo’s solar plexus with his full weight behind it. Kenzo’s forearm came up and slammed the fist against the hammer’s shaft, the impact jarring Raizen’s wrist and sending a shock up his arm. Before Raizen could retract, Kenzo’s foot drove into his hip - a short kick that folded him sideways and sent him stumbling two meters across the mossy ground.

Raizen caught himself, reset, and went in again.

This time a kick - high, fast, aimed at the ribs. Kenzo’s free hand closed around Raizen’s ankle before the kick reached its target, the grip locking in with the mechanical certainty of a trap springing shut. For one suspended instant Raizen hung there, one foot in Kenzo’s fist, the other barely touching the ground, arms pinwheeling for balance.

Then Kenzo pulled.

Raizen’s body left the ground entirely. The world turned outside down - sky, trees, dirt, sky - and then the forest floor hit his back with a wet, heavy thud that drove mud into his hair and knocked a sound out of him that was half-grunt and half-squeal, something he’d deny making later.

He lay there for three seconds. Staring up at the underside of Ukai’s platforms, hundreds of meters above, through the gaps in the canopy. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

He got up, and tried again. A jab this time - fast, direct, no windup, aimed at Kenzo’s jaw. It should have been too quick to counter at that range.

Kenzo spun.

The rotation was smooth and unhurried, his entire body turning on its leg like a door on well-oiled hinges, and as he came around, the back of his hand caught Raizen across the face. Open-palmed, full extension, the slap connecting with his cheek and nose simultaneously. Raizen’s head snapped sideways. Something warm began running from his left nostril, down over his lip, and onto his chin.

Blood. His nose was bleeding. He wiped it with the back of his wrist, looked at the red smear on his skin, then looked at Kenzo, who was already back in his stance, hammer low, expression unchanged.

Again.

Low this time - a sweep at Kenzo’s legs, trying to cut the base out from under him. His shin was halfway to Kenzo’s ankle when the hammer came down. A full swing, hitting Raizen’s extended leg, catching him across the thigh. The force redirected his entire body, spinning him sideways and sending him rolling across the forest floor in a tangle of limbs and mud and wet leaves.

He came to rest face-down. Mud in his mouth. Blood from his nose mixing with the soil. His back ached, his thigh throbbed where the hammer had landed. His cheek burned from the slap, and his ribs felt like they’d been rearranged by the first hit and hadn’t finished settling yet.

He pressed his palms into the ground and pushed himself up. Slowly. His arms were shaking, and his breath came in short, rough pulls that tasted like iron and dirt.

And then he felt something.

Different. Wrong. A sensation that didn’t belong to his body or his injuries - something external, something pressing against his chest from the outside. His shirt pocket. Something in it was warm in a way it hadn’t been before, radiating a faint heat that seeped through the fabric and sat against his skin.

Raizen froze.

The lizard. He’d moved it to the jacket when he took it off, tucked it into the side pocket, folded the jacket on the root. It was safe, out of the way, nowhere near the fight. That was fine.

But his right pocket - the one against his chest, the one he hadn’t emptied -

The lotuses.

Raizen’s hand went to the pocket. Fast. Urgent, his fingers pulling at the fabric, fumbling with the opening, reaching inside. He pulled them out.

...And when he saw them, his face paled.