I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Nathan and Shigeru’s group made their way deeper into Minami-Kyoto, moving with the current of the crowd rather than against it. The streets widened the further they went, the buildings pulling back to make room for something more open, and eventually the packed merchant rows gave way to a series of large outdoor structures that resembled arenas more than anything else — raised platforms, rope barriers, viewing stands with rough-hewn benches already filling up despite the morning still being young.

The noise was different here. Louder, more focused, the kind of crowd sound that came with anticipation rather than just foot traffic.

”This way,” Shigeru said, and Nathan fell in beside him.

They stopped in front of a broad chalkboard mounted on a wooden frame at the entrance to the main ground, tall enough that the writing at the top required tilting your head back to read. Someone had put real effort into it — columns of text chalked in clean lines, updated recently enough that the edges hadn’t smudged yet.

Nathan scanned it.

The Shogun Festival competitions were not modest in scope. Listed across the board in careful columns were a dozen different events, some running across multiple days, others condensed into single afternoon eliminations. Archery. Mounted racing. Wrestling. Open blade tournaments broken down by weapon type. A free-form combat division with looser rules that sat near the bottom of the list with the kind of brief description that usually meant the organizers preferred not to elaborate. Prize purses were written beside each event in red chalk, and some of them were large enough to explain the size of the crowd already gathered.

At the far right column, registration windows were listed with closing times beside them.

Several were already crossed out.

”Most of the specialty events closed yesterday,” Shigeru said, reading alongside him. ”But the open combat bracket and the sword division are still taking names until midday.” He tapped the board near the bottom entry. ”This one here — no weapon restrictions, no style restrictions. Just don’t kill anyone. Or at least don’t make it obvious.”

”That last part is the real rule,” Taku said from behind them, entirely serious.

Yuwa elbowed him.

Nathan kept reading. The open bracket ran across four days, eliminations feeding into quarterfinals, then a final bout on the festival’s last night in front of what the board described as a full audience — which in this context almost certainly meant Norihiro would be watching. Every finalist presented before the Daimyo as part of the closing ceremony.

He looked at that line for a moment longer than the others.

”Registration’s over there,” Shigeru said, nodding toward a low table set up beneath a canvas awning to the left, where two men with ledgers were working through a short queue. ”You’ll want to move before that queue gets longer.”

However Nathan’s eyes stopped moving down the board.

Near the bottom, separated from the other events by a thick chalk line as though whoever had written it wanted to make clear it belonged in a different category entirely, was a single entry that took up more space than any other listing.

Grand Battle Royal — Open Enrollment

All registered participants enter the field simultaneously. Last fighter standing wins.

Current enrollment: 214 fighters.

Special reward personally presented by Daimyo Norihiro Himself to the victor.

No prize purse written in red beside it. Just that line about the Daimyo.

Nathan read it twice.

”Ah,” Shigeru said, noticing where his attention had landed. ”That one.” He crossed his arms, tilting his head at the board with the expression of a man who had opinions. ”Hardest event on the list by a significant margin. You’ve got over two hundred people registered and they all go in at once — no brackets, no elimination rounds, no structure. Just everyone on the same field until one person is left standing. Anything can happen in something like that. Alliances, ambushes, people targeting the strongest fighters first, people hiding at the edges until the numbers thin out.” He paused. ”It’s chaos, essentially. Organized chaos, but chaos.”

”Sounds like a nightmare,” Yuwa said cheerfully.

”Two hundred people,” Taku repeated, like the number itself was the problem.

Nathan looked at the line about the Daimyo’s personal reward for a moment longer. A direct audience with Norihiro. A presentation, a ceremony, the victor standing in front of the man himself. Whatever the reward was, it was almost beside the point.

”I want that one,” Nathan said.

Shigeru opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at him with the patient expression of someone deciding whether an argument was worth attempting. Apparently he decided it wasn’t. ”I figured you’d say something like that.”

”Nathan!” Sana was already grabbing his sleeve with both hands before the words were fully out of her mouth, pulling with surprising force for someone her size. ”Then you have to register right now, this one runs tonight — tonight! — and the line is already — come on, move, you can look at the board later!”

She had him moving before he’d consciously agreed to it, towing him toward the registration table at a pace just short of a jog, weaving through the crowd with the focused determination of someone who had decided this was now her responsibility.

”I can walk on my own,” Nathan said.

”You were standing there staring!” She didn’t slow down. ”The line is getting longer, look at it — there, see? Three more people just joined. Three! Come on!”

Behind them, Yuwa was already laughing. Taku shook his head slowly. Shigeru watched Nathan get towed across the grounds by a woman half his width and smiled to himself, saying nothing.

The queue was short enough — six people ahead of them when Sana inserted Nathan into it with the efficiency of someone parking something valuable. She stood beside him with her arms folded, watching the line move with the focused attention of someone prepared to physically prevent anyone from cutting in.

”You’re welcome,” she said, without him having thanked her.

Nathan said nothing. His eyes drifted back across the grounds toward the chalkboard, still visible from where they stood, that last line still readable from the distance.

Special reward personally presented by Daimyo Norihiro himself to the victor.

If he read the board correctly, winning the battle royal would put him face to face with Norihiro. Close enough to touch. That was not a thought he dismissed.

It was, however, the least clean option available.

Norihiro wasn’t just any Daimyo collecting taxes and issuing edicts from a comfortable chair. The man was genuinely loved across the South — respected in a way that went deeper than fear, the kind of loyalty that outlasted the person who inspired it. Killing him publicly, in front of a crowd gathered for a celebration in his honor, wouldn’t just end Norihiro. It would make Nathan the most despised man in the entire southern half of Kastoria overnight, and whatever came next would be complicated in ways that could unravel everything else. Riots, retribution, political chaos that might ultimately serve no one worth serving.

No. A quiet death, unwitnessed and untraceable, was still the better path. Cleaner. Less combustible.

But the tournament was still worth entering. Partly as a contingency. And partly, Nathan admitted to himself, out of something closer to plain curiosity. The man who held the South in one hand and dared to push against the capital with the other was worth seeing up close, if only to take his measure.

The queue moved. When he finally reached the table, the registration turned out to be simple — just a name, written in a ledger already thick with entries. He gave the same one he’d used all morning.

”Tonight’s rules,” the official said without looking up from the page. ”Wood and blunted weapons only. No live steel. Killing is prohibited.” He stamped the entry and pushed the ledger aside for the next person.

Nathan nodded and stepped out of the line.

”You’re certain about that one?” Sana asked, falling into step beside him. ”Not interested in anything else?”

”No,” Nathan said.

She accepted this without further argument, which suggested she was learning.

He glanced around the grounds. Shigeru’s group had spread across the registration tables, signing up for various events with the relaxed attitude of people who didn’t particularly need the prize money and were mostly there because it was a festival and the sake was good. He watched Yuwa arguing cheerfully with a clerk over something in the archery listings and Taku examining the wrestling board with quiet professional interest.

Shigeru, though, was not at any of the tables.

Nathan scanned the crowd. It took him a moment to find him, and when he did, Shigeru was already moving away from the main grounds, threading through the thinning edge of the crowd toward a gap between two buildings. He wasn’t alone. Whoever walked beside him was dressed wrong for the weather — a heavy cloak pulled close despite the heat sitting thick in the late morning air, the hood drawn up to cover everything.

Nathan watched them for two seconds and then looked away, because it wasn’t his business.

Except that as they turned the corner, the cloak shifted. Just a fraction. A slip of fabric catching the wrong angle, and beneath it a curl of hair caught the light before it disappeared again.

Pink. Vivid and unmistakable.

Nathan stood still for a moment. There were other explanations. Pink hair existed outside of one person. Kastoria was large and the festival had pulled people from everywhere across the South. It could easily be someone else entirely.

He was already moving before he’d finished constructing that argument.

He cut away from the crowd at an angle, keeping his pace measured rather than urgent, following the path Shigeru had taken toward the corner where the two of them had vanished. The noise of the grounds faded behind him as the buildings closed in. He rounded the corner and kept walking, eyes forward, reading the narrow lane ahead for movement, for the particular weight of a cloak that didn’t fit the season.

That hair. The brief white slip of a profile beneath the hood.

In the whole of Kastoria he had met exactly one person who looked like that.