The journey back was a nightmare in slow motion. Every step was a fresh wave of agony for Arima. The regeneration was a feverish, chaotic process. His left arm, a ruin of blackened venom and exposed bone, was now a mess of angry, red, newly-formed scar tissue, a grotesque patchwork over a wound that should have killed him. The acid burns on his torso were a landscape of shiny, pink skin, a horrifying map of the monster's final attack.
He ignored it. All of it. He focused on the rhythm. One foot in front of the other. A Yakuza did not complain. He endured. He was a tool, a weapon, and weapons did not feel pain. They simply needed to be sharpened.
Takeshi took the front of the litter, his strength a quiet, unwavering thing. He moved through the jungle with the same fluid grace as before, the added weight of a dead man no more an impediment than a heavy coat. He was a perfect machine, his purpose singular.
The forest had changed. The rhythmic clicking of the beetles had stopped. An unnerving, absolute silence had fallen, the kind that follows a gunshot in a crowded room. The other hunters had heard the shriek of the monster. They knew a king had fallen. They were now wary, watching, their curiosity warring with their fear.
They reached the shore of the cloud-sea without further incident. The longboat was where they had left it, a small, dark shape on the shore of a white, impossible world. They loaded Stumps's body onto it, a clumsy, heavy task that sent fresh waves of fire through Arima's mangled arm.
Rizzo was waiting at the rail of the Sea Serpent, his face a pale, drawn mask. He saw them. He saw the litter. He saw the blood that covered Arima, and the raw, ragged state of his body. The navigator didn't say a word. He just helped them haul the body aboard, his movements clumsy with shock and a horror that was too deep for words.
They laid Stumps's body out on the deck, a final, heavy accusation. Lefty stood over him, a big, bear of a man, but he looked small and broken. He didn't cry. He didn't rage. He just stared, his face a blank, empty slate. The loud, boisterous thug was gone, hollowed out and replaced by a statue of grief.
"He needs a doctor," Lefty said finally, his voice a hoarse, choked whisper, looking at the ruin of Arima's arm. He gestured towards the island, a desperate, futile gesture. "There has to be someone... a town, something..."
"We're not staying here," Arima grunted, his voice a raw, ragged sound. He walked past the body, past the grieving man, and towards the prow. He was a general who had lost a soldier, and the battle was not yet over. "The objective."
Takeshi was already looking at the trees, a scholar of death evaluating the timber. "We will not fall another. We will not enter the forest." He pointed towards the colossal Ironwoods at the edge of the clearing. "The lowest branches of those trees are large enough to serve as masts. We will take them from here."
The plan was as cold and as brutal as the swordsman himself. No more hunting. No more exploring. A simple, violent extraction. Rizzo, shaking off his shock with a grim sense of duty, directed the remaining crew. They brought out the longest, thickest ropes they had, and the ship's smallest, swivel-mounted cannon. Not for firing, but for its solid, heavy iron weight.
The operation was a masterpiece of improvised engineering and raw, desperate strength. They fired a weighted line, attached to the cannonball, over a massive branch a hundred feet up. It took three attempts, the line falling back into the sea of clouds each time, the tension on the deck a palpable, tightening knot. Finally, it held. They hauled up a heavier rope, then another, creating a crude, suspended scaffold.
It was Takeshi who went up. A living tool in a world of giants. He moved along the massive branch with the calm, sure-footed confidence of a squirrel, the sword at his hip a tool, not a weapon. He didn't use an axe. That would be clumsy, loud. He used a saw. A long, two-man saw that he operated alone, his back and arms a rhythmic, piston-like engine of pure efficiency. The saw bit into the Ironwood, the sound a high, musical, screeching whine, a protest from the ancient tree that was deeper and more resonant than any normal wood.
As he worked, Lefty stood below, staring at the covered body of Stumps. The big man's grief was a heavy, suffocating blanket over the entire ship. Finally, he turned to Rizzo, his face a hard, empty mask. "Help me," he grunted, his voice a raw, rough thing. "With the sea."
Rizzo understood. They took a spare sail, a heavy, waxed canvas, and wrapped the body of their fallen crewmate within its folds. They tied it with a grim, practised finality. There was no ceremony, no words. There was only the grim, necessary task of disposal.
"He died for this wood," Lefty said, looking up at the branch Takeshi was severing, a single, hot tear carving a path through the grime on his cheek. "His part of the price is paid." He and Rizzo carried the sail-wrapped bundle to the railing. "He was a good man. Better than most." With that, they pushed him overboard.
The body did not fall into water. It vanished into the white, placid sea of clouds, swallowed by the mist without a trace. There was no splash, no finality. Just an absence. A hole in the world where a loud, annoying, loyal thug used to be. Lefty stared at the empty space, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white.
Arima watched the entire affair from the prow, his face an unreadable mask. The pain was a constant, screaming companion, but he was learning to wear it like a coat. The loss of Stumps was an inefficiency, a weakness he had allowed to happen. A debt that would be paid with the blood of the next monster that crossed him. He turned his attention back to Takeshi.
The high, musical screech of the saw reached a crescendo, a final, protesting shriek from the ancient tree. Then, with a slow, majestic groan that echoed through the forest, the massive branch, a hundred-foot-long column of metallic-grey wood, began to fall. It didn't crash. It descended with a slow, ponderous grace, its size and density giving it the momentum of a landslide. It hit the sea of clouds with a dull, heavy thud that sent ripples across the white surface, like a stone dropped in a pond of milk.
The crew moved with a grim, quiet efficiency, their grief a hard, cold fuel that sharpened their movements. They rigged block and tackle systems, the ropes groaning under the immense weight of the Ironwood. It was a monumental task, a piece of engineering that was on the verge of impossible. They hauled, their muscles straining, their faces set in masks of effort, slowly, inch by agonising inch, pulling the colossal timber from the cloud-sea and onto the deck of the Sea Serpent. The ship listed heavily, the timbers groaning under the unprecedented load. They had one mast.
"We will need a second," Takeshi stated, climbing down from the ropes, not even breathing heavily. He looked at the single massive log, then at the empty mast-step on the ship's deck, a professional assessing a project only half-completed. "And a shorter one for the mizzenmast. And yards." He was a man with a shopping list in a hardware store from hell.
Arima grunted, the sound a raw acknowledgement of the cold, brutal math of it. They had already lost a man. The cost of this wood was measured in blood, and the price was rising. "One is enough to get us down," he said, his voice a flat, pragmatic growl. "We secure this. We make repairs. Then we come back for the rest."
The unspoken alternative—that they might not come back—hung in the thin, silent air, a cold, unwelcome guest.
It took them the rest of the day to lash the massive Ironwood log securely to the deck of the Sea Serpent. The ship sat low in the cloud-sea, a wounded beast burdened with a prize that was almost too heavy to carry.
That night, the ship was a quiet, haunted place. The crew ate in silence, the usual rough talk and boisterous laughter gone. Lefty sat apart from the others, staring at the spot on the deck where Stumps had fallen, his big hands clenched into fists that didn't unclench. The grief on the ship was a physical presence, a weight as heavy as the Ironwood log.
Arima sat in the captain's quarters, the room lit by the soft, internal glow of the regeneration process. His left arm was a grotesque lattice of shiny, pink scar tissue, the skin smooth and unnatural. The acid burns on his chest and back were similar, maps of a pain that was already becoming a memory. The regeneration was complete, but it had left its mark, a permanent, angry reminder of the price of failure.
He cleaned 'Whisperwind', the mortal blade a familiar, comforting ritual. The steel was immaculate, a perfect tool for an imperfect world. As he worked, the cat, Kuro, jumped onto the table. She rubbed against his arm, her purr a low, rumbling counterpoint to the silence. Then, she looked up at him, her obsidian eyes seeming to hold a depth of intelligence that was far beyond a common feline.
He grunted, acknowledging the truth of it. A Yakuza crew was held together by two things: fear and greed. The greed was sated for now, secured in the shipyard's vault. The fear needed to be refreshed. Not just fear of him, but fear of the world outside, and the conviction that he was the only thing standing between them and it. The expedition, disastrous as it had been, had served its purpose. They were now veterans of a hell that no one else in their little kingdom could imagine.
He stood up, sheathing 'Whisperwind' with a soft, decisive click. The pain was gone, but the anger remained, a cold, hard knot in his gut. He walked out onto the deck.
The crew looked up, their faces a mixture of fear and a dawning, weary respect. They saw the scars, the raw, angry proof of the monster's attack, and they saw that he was standing. He had faced the thing that had torn Stumps apart, and he had walked back under his own power.
"We sail at dawn," he said, his voice a flat, unarguable growl that cut through the quiet. "Rizzo, I want a clear course for the home port. The fastest one. The crew will work in shifts to get us there."
He turned, his gaze sweeping over the men, settling on Lefty. The big man stared back, his face a hard, empty mask, but there was something new in his eyes. Not just grief, but a question. A need for purpose.
"You, Lefty," Arima said, pointing at the man with the stump of a newly healed arm. "You're in charge of the deck crew now. Stumps' share of the treasure goes to you. His cut. His risk. His reward." He tossed a small, heavy pouch to the big man. "See that it's distributed to his family, if he has one. If not, buy something stupid and expensive and pour one out for him. That's an order."
Lefty caught the pouch. He looked at it, then at the captain, and a slow, hard light entered his eyes. The grief was still there, a deep and abiding ache, but it was no longer an anchor. It was fuel. "Aye, Captain," he said, his voice a low, rough rumble. The words had a new weight, a new meaning. He was not just a thug anymore. He was an officer with a debt to pay.