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Kotose, the Silent Spider

| Illustrated by Marta Nael, Design by Luminarch

The Spider of Otawara

Pulling off a heist

So that wasn't there last time

Cornered in the backstreets, the thief saw three Reckoners

"Futurist. Listen. We don't want

Kotose knew she was tricksy, but she also knew that she was not well-suited for this type of combat. She spoke into her wrist again, a delicate whisper. "Listen boss, you need to get here now or none of us are getting what we want." Another pause. She felt the tech

Her bangle lit up. A deep voice spoke in robotic tones."Kotose, you have clearance to use the technology you procured for us." Data streamed into her implants, files on how to use this esoteric technology she'd stolen. Concepts like chronostasis

The Futurist felt her body become untethered from time. The nezumi shouted something, a signal to fire magic upon her. Her body weaved through the seconds, around whirring blades and blistering heat. In the same moment they saw her first move, she was behind them. Her knife met artery, ankle, and hand. One motion of lethality. The Reckoners were dead. 

Panting from usage of the tech, she looked into the sky and saw the floating city of Otawara

Back on the hovercity, an oddly robust escort squad led her to her handler's office. The technomancers

Kotose had spent the last decade ferrying herself between her two lives. Research assistant in Otawara during the day, thief in Towashi at night. Despite this, there was always a sense of discontinuity with her life in both places. The people of Otawara were notoriously suspicious of any perceived interlopers. No matter how many pieces of tech she stole, she was always just a contractor. Towashi was no better. As she was always there on some sort of clandestine business, people there barely knew her name. She was the Silent Spider, the woman you called when you needed someone hurt, financially or physically. But she lived comfortably, safely. That's better than most on Kamigawa could say.

Kotose had been requested to meet on the balcony of the Futurist Benefactor Plaza. Katsumasa

"Do you have the sieve with you

"Yes, sir." She handed him the device, two bonded spheres connected by a string of time. 

"This is excellent, Kotose. You have no idea what a great boon this will be for the Futurists. The ability to peer back in time, harness the power of the great kami of old." Katsumasa smiled as he handed the device to a whirring thopter

The ninja nodded. "About that. See, if the Futurists are going to make a power play, well, since I was the one who made that happen

Katsumasa gritted his teeth and clicked his tongue. "Kotose. It is precisely because the Futurists are growing in power we cannot have you with us any longer." He approached her, his hand whizzing past her own. A burning heat filled her chest, as if something had burrowed itself into her body. She saw Katsumasa's knife stabbed into her abdomen. Blood spurted from her mouth. Her modifications fell from her body, deactivated by Futurist systems

Down, down, down she went. Past the branches of Boseju and into the ribbons of neon light that adorned the skyscrapers

Her body whipped past an Imperial tower, the perfect material to cling to. From her wrists she launched two metal cables

But she did. Perhaps as some divine punishment from Kyodai, Kotose awoke in a dismal basement, screens

"Are you-" She coughed up more blood. Right. She'd been stabbed.

"You're still getting used to your new parts. Relax. It'll take some time." The panels of the mecha slid open, revealing a human woman. "Name's Nari

Kotose watched the woman closely. Nari smirked and stifled a laugh. "So, you planning on selling me to the Imperials? You think they'd do business with you?"

"It's not them who want you. It's the Futurists. And by our records, you were working with them until recently. You even hit our place

"I put that life behind me. I don't work with scum anymore." Kotose had run with Mukotai

"You had a great life, Kotose. But it was a life of putting the people on the streets out of commission." Nari gestured to the room around her. "This is a hospital

Kotose looked down at her body. She now saw her arms and chest had been replaced with cybernetic approximations. Her wounds had been inoperable. The same mechanics she saw on the Reckoners

"You know the Futurists better than we do. We're launching an attack on Otawara tonight, before they can activate the sieve. But if you join us, it'll be a diversion. You destroy the sieve. Keep the people of Kamigawa free to grow and do as they please. There's no future for any of us with them at the helm."

She felt her slender, metal fingers flex for the first time. The Futurists had taken her body from her. Stolen her chance at a better life and crushed these people beneath their heel. They were never going to do that again.

Five fleets of shinobi on the western towers. A handful of bankbusters positioned to strike at the engines. A flock of mechanized runners

"Now!" shouted Nari over the communication headset. The forces moved into position. Kotose watched nezumi

Across the cityscape, Nari was fighting a battle of her own. The woman cleaved heads from constructs and limbs from soldiers. As a ball of temporal energy flung itself at her soldiers, she fired a resonator

Kotose burst through the windows of the building, her metal arms

"Kotose! You're here just in time to watch the founding of a new age

"I'm here to kill you, traitor. Once you're gone, the people of Towashi will live free. Free to do as they must," she said as she leveled the jitte at him. The man shook his head as the portal

"The Reckoners, the Jukai, the Asari. They're a vile madness

"One ruled by you. You'll crush them, like you did me."

"What if it didn't have to be that way?" Katsumasa said. "You've shown that you're valuable, after all. Survived being murdered and everything. Why don't you join us, rule with the Futurists. What can be more free than being the one making the rules?"

She thought for a moment on what it was like to fight for the Futurists. To live a life of safety. If she could rule as they did, would she not be able to make it better

Then, she saw the myjoin once more. A sickening beast crawling towards her. Katsumasa watched transfixed. In the vision of devastation, there was where he saw the future.

"Even if I'm the one ruling, that's not freedom." Kotose lunged at Katsumasa, slashing at his arms. The artificer sent flocks of drones

Kotose stabbed the jitte into the time sieve, and the portal closed. Katsumasa would forever be banished to Old Kamigawa

The machinery around her began to die off. Otawara had begun its emergency landing procedure. As the ninja tended to her wounds, she watched Futurist and Reckoner alike scramble outside. With their plans foiled, both were left directionless. The moonfolk had no technology to laud over Kamigawa and the Reckoners had no corpos

"Nari here. What are we going to do?" she said. "Chaos on every floor. Mukotai and Okiba are fighting. Futurist insurrection cells are bubbling up."

"I don't know what we can do," said Kotose. "But we'll do it as a free Kamigawa. No matter what."

In the far-flung past of Kamigawa...

Brain and body in tatters. Katsumasa crawled away from the myojin. The being had torn away at the very material that made up his soul, feasting upon his fears and loves alike. His mind and body alike has been torn to shreds, yet he remained. In the bubbling mire of Takenuma