Iruga looked at him for a moment. Then he shrugged.

  "Who are you?" he said. "Are you a slave merchant?" He glanced down and back up. "And why the fuck are you nude."

  The cave went very quiet.

  Something shifted in Chiyo's face — not anger exactly, but something underneath anger, the thing that anger sits on top of. He straightened, and the cheerfulness was gone.

  "A mere slave merchant…" Chiyo said. The words came out slow and even. "You really have no idea who I am, kid."

  Then the light changed.

  It started at his skin — a red hue, faint at first, then deepening, emanating outward from him the way heat comes off stone in summer. The air in the cave thickened. Iruga felt it before he understood it, the temperature climbing in a way that had nothing to do with the fire behind him. He took a step back without deciding to.

  "I — " Iruga held up both hands. "I'm sorry. I genuinely do not know who you are. I don't know what is happening. Any of it."

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  The red dimmed. Slowly, Chiyo exhaled and brought one hand to his chest, rubbing slow circles against his sternum. The heat pulled back. The cave returned to what it was before, ordinary and dim, a fire in the corner.

  Chiyo studied him for a long moment. The expression that settled on his face was something close to resignation.

  "I work as a peach gardener," Chiyo said.

  Iruga blinked. "A peach gardener."

  "In a palace. A large one." He paused. "It is high in the sky."

  Iruga looked at him. "That is nonsense."

  Chiyo clicked his tongue. "Alright." He waved a hand. "I'll stop fucking with you. Seeing how slow you are." He sat up straighter and met Iruga's eyes with the full weight of whatever he actually was. "I am Chiyo. The combat deity of Nibbana. Now kneel before me and serve me as my next slave."

  The fire crackled.

  Iruga looked at him. He looked at him from the floor up — bare feet, the hair pooled around them, the small frame, the general state of undress — and then back to his face.

  "You don't look like a god," Iruga said.

  Chiyo's jaw tightened slightly. "I left my celestial vessel at home," he said. "So this is what I am working with."

  Iruga looked at the vessel in question. Then back at his face. He opened his mouth, closed it, and said nothing.