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“So, how are you liking your new home?”
Enjin nearly pisses himself laughing at the incredulous look on Zanka’s face. Bewilderment flashes in his eyes and lashes through the air when he says, “Are ya kiddin’? What the hell kinda place is this? I thought y’all were—I thought y’all were professionals!”
Enjin raises an eyebrow at him, and the kid backtracks. “Okay, well, maybe I didn’t before, but I saw you fight! You’re the real deal! What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?!”
“So I take it HQ didn’t live up to your expectations?”
Zanka actually wrinkles his nose, the prissy little prince. “It’s so… dank. And crowded. Not to mention—jeez, do your people have any table manners?”
Enjin forces his face into a more serious expression. Gotta show some sympathy toward the little tyke before he blows a fuse. “Listen, kid. I know this place might be a little less… disciplined… than what you’re used to. But just give it a chance, okay? I promise it grows on you.”
Zanka’s mouth twists into a sour pout, and Enjin resists the urge to burst out laughing again.
“...okay,” Zanka says. “But it’s just ‘cause I wanna get stronger, alright? I’m not here to mess around.”
“Attaboy.” Enjin ruffles his hair roughly and feels a burst of affection at the flustered blush that creeps over Zanka’s face. “I’ll see you tomorrow for training, alright?”
The last thing he sees before he closes the door on Zanka’s new room is the tightening of his jaw and the deep, stiff set of his eyebrows. Ah, the determination of youth, he thinks. Zanka might be his best find yet.
As soon as Enjin closes the door, Zanka flings himself onto the bed and screams into the pillow. What have I gotten myself into? one voice screams in his head, while the other yells, He ruffled my hair! Stupid, handsome, powerful, seriously strong jerk had the audacity to look so conciliatory at Zanka, almost pleading with him to stay in this weird fucking place with crazy fucking people. Of course, on climbing out of the well and seeing this man in the grips of battle, Zanka knew he’d follow this man to the ends of the earth if he asked, but he would never admit it aloud.
“Get a grip,” he says to himself through gritted teeth, then starts preparing for bed. He’s got to wake up early tomorrow.
Zanka wakes to the first rays of sunrise. He meditates for half an hour with his stick carefully balanced on his knees, feeling the grooves in the wood with his fingers, learning each bump and indent. He’d thought about throwing it away and choosing a proper weapon, but after the well, he just couldn’t bring himself to part with the friend that had accompanied him in and out of his darkest moments. Plus, such a plain old stick suits such a mediocrity as himself. They’re two birds of a feather.
When he opens his eyes, the stick almost seems to beam at him in the damp light streaming through the window. He finds himself smiling. Its weight seems to rest perfectly in his hands, shaped just so for his fingers to curl around.
He stands to do a few experimental strikes with it. The wood sings through the air like a nightingale.
I can work with this, he thinks.
Keep up!
Zanka pants, sweat dripping down his forehead as he crouches, bangs threatening to block his vision. His feet shift to find purchase in the dusty earth. In front of him, his fellow trainee stands ready to attack again, oversized scissors hooked around her ankle. Unlike him, she’s a Giver, and a tough fighter to boot.
No matter. Zanka can beat her. Zanka should be able to beat her.
He rushes in with an underhand strike. Riyo snaps her scissors at him, forcing him to dodge, but he just uses the momentum to strike again. Wood clashes against metal, once, twice, Zanka forcing her back until she handsprings away and comes at him again with a wide swing of her blades.
Zanka ducks—his foot slips—shit—his stick barely comes up in time to block the scissors from closing in on him. Riyo presses, eyes narrowed, muscles straining visibly, and then—the wood begins to bend.
“Alright, alright!” Enjin claps loudly. “Let’s take a break, shall we? Let’s get some water.”
A break? Zanka’s head spins. No one’s ever ordered him to take a break before, but more importantly—
“I can keep going,” he chokes out. With a push, he dislodges Riyo’s balance, spins and strikes again, and he would be able to win, he would be able to win, but Enjin’s hand comes down on his shoulder and he freezes.
“Let’s take a break, I said,” Enjin repeats, a placid smile on his face. “Zanka, remember to keep a cool head. And Riyo, remember what we talked about.”
“Yes, yes,” she says, blowing her bangs out of her face, and Zanka wonders what that’s about before turning to look mutinously at Enjin.
I can do it, let me show you. He burns to prove himself, knows he has it in him to be faster, stronger, better. At the look in his eyes, Enjin raises his hands placatingly and says, “I know, trust me, Zanka. I’m already very impressed! Just cool down for a bit, now, okay?”
Cool down a bit my ass, Zanka thinks, before he freezes and rewinds Enjin’s words in his head.
He’s impressed with me?!
That night, after cleaning the sweat off it with a damp rag, Zanka brings the stick with him to bed. He feels a bit silly, at first, but feeling the wood grains under his fingertips helps loosen the tension in his chest, chases the negative thoughts from his mind. If he focuses on the cool wood of the stick against his cheek, he doesn’t have to think about things like the disappointment he’s turned out to be. Instead, it’s just him and his staff, cocooned in the sheets, his ankles hooked around a thin, weighty, reliable presence.
“Yo, Zanka!”
Zanka flinches. He’d chosen this spot in the corner for a reason; every other table in the dining hall is covered with a mess of stains, their denizens sloshing drinks and bumping sides. Here, he can at least eat in peace—or he could have, until Riyo came bounding up to him.
“Great job on our mission today!” She throws out a thumbs up, eyes twinkling. “Mind if I join you?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer, plopping down her plate and beginning to wolf down its contents. Zanka shudders at the speed at which she eats, cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s before she swallows most of it down.
“So,” she says, and Zanka wants to yell and scream at the food still in her mouth, “have you thought of a name yet?”
“A name?”
“You know, for your instrument!”
“It’s not—you mean my staff?”
“Same thing,” Riyo says dismissively, swinging her chopsticks back and forth like a pendulum. “I’ve seen you treat that thing like it’s your baby. You’ll be a Giver soon enough, don’t you worry!”
A Giver?
Zanka would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it. The mission had gone well, all things considered; he’d done well protecting the supporters from the feline trash beasts they’d been sent to exterminate. But the bulk of the work was done by the Givers. It rankled; Zanka couldn’t finish off a single opponent, relegated to using his staff to smack them in the direction of Riyo and Enjin so one of them could finish the job.
Still…
“My family always said Givers are full of weaknesses,” Zanka says. “I don’t wanna end up bein’ a one trick pony, y’know?”
Riyo’s eyes gleam. “Do you think I’m a one trick pony?” When Zanka stiffens and starts denying it, she just presses on. “What about Enjin? There are different ways to be strong, you know. The Hell Guards have their way, and we have our way, simple as that.”
Zanka looks at her, unconvinced.
“Anyway,” Riyo says, smile wide, “make a bet with me! Two hundred Galla that you’re a Giver before the year is over!”
“I told ya, I ain’t doing that shit!!”
A name, huh? Zanka sits on his bed that evening, scant moonlight filtering through the clouds of smog and ash permanently blocking the sky. His staff sits with him, leaned against his side, slender and gray in the relative dark. Maybe it deserves a name, instrument or not.
“What do you think?” he murmurs to the staff. “Would ya like a name?”
The staff doesn’t answer, seemingly lost in thought.
What sort of name would the staff even want? It’s graceful, and powerful in the right hands, but also plain and humble. A throwaway piece of wood, yet somehow his closest friend. Zanka needs to get this right; even though he’s not a genius at anything, let alone naming things, the staff deserves his best effort. Before he realizes, he’s falling asleep, a name nattering away in his mind.
Bulls—that’s what these trash beasts resemble. Horns of steel and pelts of rust, hooves that kick up as much trash as they do dust. Roaming across the polluted lands, heading straight for the Cleaners.
“Careful with these,” Enjin warns the group. “They may look big, but they’re faster than you think.”
“Alrighty,” says Riyo, hefting her scissors. “Ready, Zanka?”
He answers her with a firm nod. “Ready.”
The beasts charge.
Zanka spins his staff, once, twice, then strikes the first one with a clang. It roars out, hooves pounding the earth, but Zanka’s precise hits to its knees have it crashing to the ground in with a billowing cloud of dust. The next one comes at him from the left, but he barely needs to look at it to shift his stance and meet it head on, his trusty staff whirling through the air and meeting its target dead on.
So it goes. Zanka loses himself in the thrill of battle, the satisfaction of the power he wields. None of these trash beasts can match him—his body moves just the way he wants, his staff an extension of his arms, his legs, his whole body. He’s so absorbed, he doesn’t even look behind him until he hears the other Cleaners cry out in unison.
“Zanka!”
Zanka wheels around, just in time to see the rampaging trash beast’s horns approaching. He doesn’t have time to do much more than raise the prongs of his staff, but he trusts her to keep him safe. For the first time, he whispers her name aloud: “Aibō.”
Ai for love. Bō for staff.
Aibō: his partner.
And Aibō answers.
She thrums in his hands, sending vibrations through his bones, glowing, huge spikes jutting out and impaling the trash beast straight through. Her prongs transform, blades blooming through the air, gleaming in the scant light. Though surely she’s grown in both mass and volume, she somehow feels lighter in his hands. She dances, she sings. Oh, how she sings.
Zanka brings her around in an arc, smashing the trash beasts in his way, Aibō grinning savagely at her new prowess. Her strength. I can help you now, she seems to say, so much more.
Thank you, Zanka thinks. And then he gets to cleaning.
As the dust settles around him, Zanka leans on Aibō, catching his breath. His friend, his partner, his soulmate. His vital instrument. His—wait.
Shit.
I’ve really done it now.
After running off to join the Cleaners, he’s gone and become a Giver as well. Some part of him already knew this, but he surely can never go home now. And though Aibō is glowing with pride, a thread of doubt winds through him. Does this mean he’s weak? Does this mean the only way he can fight is by depending on his partner?
A hit to the back interrupts his train of thought. He flinches and whirls around, but it’s just Riyo smacking him playfully.
“That was great!” she says, grinning wide. “I knew you could do it!”
A whistle cuts through the air—Enjin, looking at the remains of the trash beasts. “Fantastic work, Zanka.”
Pride and confusion battle in Zanka’s mind. He stammers, “But I—I didn’t even mean to—I can’t be a—”
“Zanka,” Enjin says. “How does it feel?”
How does it feel? Zanka feels Aibō’s hum through his skin, quieter now, but still full of joy. He feels lightning between them, connected through and through. He feels happier and stronger than he’s ever been before.
“Good,” he admits, and the faces of his friends light up. “It feels really good.”
Grinning, Riyo and Enjin hold their hands up for high fives, and the sound of Zanka’s palms hitting theirs could ring for miles.
“And you owe me two hundred Galla!”
“Shit!”