Cut From A Tattered Cloth

Chapter 10

 Kelly watched the girl dangling from the ceiling, a frown on his face.

"Toks, isn't that child abuse?" he asked.

Eijiro shrugged. "You call it 'child abuse,' I call it 'rigorous training.'" He cupped a hand around his mouth. "Oi, kusogaki! You have three minutes. Hurry up and Grow something."

"Muri dayo!" Melia protested. That's impossible!

She was twenty feet in the air, dangling by her left ankle. A blindfold covered her eyes and her arms were flailing, as if that could help her sense the earth below.

Eijiro shook his head. "Flapping your arms won't help, kid. You have to reach out with your Earth Sense. "

"It doesn't work like that," Melia complained. "I can't sense anything unless I'm touching it."

"Not good enough."

The three of them were in the training room at the Spire. Originally it had been a dining area with a mezzanine floor, but both Melia and Eijiro knew they wouldn't need that much space. So they cleared out the tables and put wrestling mats on the bottom floor while converting the mezzanine into an indoor track. Eijiro also insisted they have a dirt pit in the middle of the room, the better to help Melia practice her Earth Sense.

Melia took a moment to think, then kipped herself back, trying to swing up and catch the coil around her foot. Her right hand fumbled around her knee, and she slipped. On the third try she managed to claw her way up to her ankle. But before she could get her hands around the fabric, Eijiro slapped her fingers with a second coil.

Melia yelped, so surprised she lost her grip and flung back.

"No cheating!" Eijiro called. Above him Melia groaned.

Kelly shook his head. "Honestly, Toks, I don't know how that kid puts up with you."

Kelly probably meant it as a joke, but Eijiro grimaced. He didn't know how or why Melia put up with him, either.

"Did you talk to forensics?" he asked.

Kelly nodded. "It was a subtle difference, but Donny was right. Bullet stripes don't line up with any Gilguran rifle on the market."

"So it's Karthinian?"

"If it is, that would be a first." Kelly's frown deepened. "Kartha doesn't have any registered firearms. The gun ban is still in place with no plans to lift anytime soon. Our contacts weren't even aware of any weapons development in the country."

"Could be black market."

But Kelly shook his head. "You know how the Karthinian underworld works. They're not interested in guns."

Eijiro winced, nauseated at the thought.

The Vitale family might not be in the business of human trafficking, but the Karthinian underlords definitely were. At first Eijiro had wondered how a country without firearms could be the human trafficking capital of the world. Upon arriving, he realized that guns were not the only way to kill someone. Knives, whips, bayonets, even more subtle forms of control like psychological abuse or blackmail were used to keep people in line.

Being a cloth mage, Eijiro was able to infiltrate the slave trade without drawing too much attention to himself. That is, until he started selling himself into slavery for the sheer fun of it. At that time in his life, few things brought Eijiro more joy than having some pompous man cart him away. Completely oblivious to the fact that Eijiro would steal all their money, dismantle the crime circle, and free the slaves before setting fire to the slavemaster's hut. Kartha, like Zaram, had that same stigma against cloth magic, so no one ever thought to suspect Eijiro.