Chapter 9: The Beast Who Said No
The tide slithered beneath Sakana Cove like a sleeping serpent. Crates bobbed. Lamps flickered on oily water. Beneath the overhang of the Bonehook Bathhouse, three Kakuza kobolds leaned against fish crates, dressed in a sharp fusion of tradition and menace—silk-lined street jackets over tattooed torsos, tabi boots, gold chains with fang pendants, and blades sheathed in sharkskin.
The eldest among them, Shoji the Whisper, tapped ash off his opium-thin cigarette. “You sure he’s in there?” he asked.
Another kobold nodded. “He’s in. Big. Mean. Ugly. Just like the rumors.”
“Ugly don’t scare me,” Shoji said, pushing open the rotting door. “We’re the House of the Drake.”
The door creaked.
And there stood Woolah.
Five feet of raw defiance. Light green mottled skin, torn by scar after scar, rippling over corded muscle. A red painted kettle helm sat atop his head, its blue-trimmed edges glinting in the low light. His right shoulder guard jutted with metal spikes, a vicious badge of violence. Bare-chested, his draconian jaw was wide, lined with serrated teeth, curled in a grin that promised war, not talk.
Around his waist: a cheetah-spotted loincloth, belted with purple leather strung with animal bones that rattled with each breath. His short, solid legs bore red knee guards, stained with history. In one hand, a Blood Sword, cruel and soaked in old fury. In the other, a wooden buckler, notched but never broken.
Shoji stepped forward, sharp suit fluttering over his inked arms. He tried not to show it—but he blinked once, too slow.
“Woolah,” he said. “The House of the Drake extends its invitation.”
No answer.
“We’ve been watching you. You’re not like the others. You climb. You bleed and bite and win. We respect that. We think you belong with us. Most kobolds serve, but you—you could command.”
Still silence.
“You’d wear the ring, sit in the Den, name your price. All we ask is loyalty. And silence when required.”
Woolah blinked slowly. His nostrils flared. Then he raised his sword—just enough to let the blood crust glint in the lantern glow.
“I’m no one’s dog,” he growled.
Shoji’s smirk wavered.
“You sure?” he asked. “No one says no to the House of the Drake.”
Woolah stepped forward.
One step. Just one. But the creak beneath his heel was thunderous.
“I say no,” he said. “And I say it loud.”
The first kobold rushed him. Woolah moved like a scarlet storm. The Blood Sword hissed once. The buckler cracked a jaw. Shoji barely ducked the backswing—but not the headbutt that followed. His ornate glasses shattered. His left ear rang with the sound of a beast freed from a chain it never wore.
Blood painted the bathhouse floor. Screams curled up to the rafters. And in less than a minute, Woolah stood alone, sword dripping, chest heaving, surrounded by silence and defeat.
He turned once, stepped out the door into the sea-breeze night.
Later, whispers spread through Sakana Cove like ink through water.
“Woolah said no.” “They offered him the ring. He gave them broken ribs instead.” “He’s not one of them. He’s something else.”
And in the velvet depths of the floating fish barge that was the Dragon’s Den, high-ranking Kakuza looked across maps of power and territory... and drew a red slash through one name.
But they didn’t forget it.
They never would.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
Chapter 10: To Stir the Mountain
The Dragon’s Den rocked gently on the black tide, waves lapping against its barge-body with the subtle rhythm of conspiracy. Inside, behind the false wall of hanging fishnets and bait barrels, a velvet chamber hummed with cigar smoke and quiet arguments. Red lanterns hung from dragonbone hooks. Dice clicked. Cups clinked. Nobody raised their voice.
The Table of Flame, a semicircle of the House’s highest-ranking kobolds, had gathered in full.
Shoji the Whisper sat with gauze on his brow and a shattered pride behind his eyes. Beside him, Mother Kee, draped in eel-silk robes, watched with her toothless grin. Across the table sat Jingo of the Scarred Fang, his claws tapping the lacquered wood, each tap another second they had not struck back.
“He refused us,” Shoji said, shame woven through every syllable. “Three dead. I saw the blood steam off his blade like it was holy. He could’ve killed me too. He chose not to.”
Mother Kee tilted her head. “Mercy? Or message?”
Jingo snorted. “Doesn’t matter. We strike. A message like that—if we let it go unanswered, others might think the House has grown soft.”
“But he’s Kaiju Clan,” Shoji hissed. “He wears their bone sigil. They say he drinks blood in their rituals and wades into fire to greet his ancestors. He isn’t just a kobold—he’s a wound that bites back.”
Another voice murmured from the shadow-draped corner. Old Mataki, the founder’s advisor. His tongue was slow, but his words carved ice.
“You don’t kill a Kaiju without consequence.”
Jingo growled, “We’ve killed plenty.”
“Not this one,” Mataki said. “Not Woolah. Not one who’s touched by the Tengu.”
The chamber went still.
Even the dice boy stopped mid-roll.
“Tengukensei,” Mataki rasped. “You think the bird doesn’t watch his kin? He trains their young. He names their leaders. He walks the Cove with the silence of judgment. You lay a hand on Woolah, and you might as well open the Tori of the Dead and let your ancestors see you die.”
Shoji exhaled slowly, eyes drifting to the lanterns.
“But if we let him walk?”
Mother Kee smiled, half-feral.
“Then we make him legend,” she said. “We whisper his name in our prayers. We say, ‘Woolah the Unchained refused us, and we respected his fire.’ Fear... can be shared. So can reverence.”
Jingo flexed his clawed hands. “So what? We just do nothing?”
“No,” Mataki said.
“We bow, and make sure the whole Cove sees it.”
And so the House of the Drake made its decision. Not out of fear—no, that was not their language—but out of wisdom born in blood.
Woolah would not be touched. The Kaiju Clan would not be tested. And the Tengu, perched in his temple high above the cliffs, would not descend in wrath.
For now.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
