Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They say anyone can make a deal at the crossroads on a night of fullest moon—anyone desperate. Bury something you can't afford to lose, ride away with straight back and not a look over your shoulder, and your heart's desire will meet you where you go. 

The cowboy wasn't normally one for such superstitions, but these were far from normal times. Here he was, riding at reckless speeds in the dead of night, racing away from his home, his name, everything he'd known—yet to admit the painful truth to himself, that all those things were ashes now, and he could no more have kept them if he'd chosen to stay.

The only companion he had left was faithful Tetsuma, his iron horse—and even iron, pushed to its limits, was starting to flag. Heat and sweat rose from Tetsuma's withers as they galloped against the chill night, a comfort and a warning at once: Tetsuma was still there with him, warm and reassuring and alive, but he couldn't keep this pace up for much longer. Neither of them could.

Before them the dim landscape jolted and shifted, dotted with scrub and dark looming shapes of far-off mesas, but no matter how far they rode, the horizon continued to shrink away from them, endless in its sameness.

When the cowboy finally slowed them to a stop, it was more out of consideration for his mount than any knowledge of where they were. He swung off Tetsuma, stroked his heaving flank, and took a good look around. The full moon illuminated the intersection of two roads, both well traveled, and that was when the old tales came roaring back to him.

Hat in his hands, he stepped forward into the very center of the crossroads, and stared down dirt pocked with countless layers of horseshoes and wagon tread. Then he drew his trusty revolver, and flicked open the chamber, to let the lead slugs drop, one by one, onto the dirt between his boots. 

Six bullets. 

Not a shot fired. 

He'd come back too late to do a damn thing.

The empty gun, he hesitated over even longer. Remembered the way his hand had trembled on it the last time he'd drawn it, though there were no foes to shoot by that point, only the roaring flames that gnawed at the few ribs and joints that remained of what had once been a thriving town. 

Was it really despair that he'd felt then, or was there a hint of relief? Knowing that he couldn't have outdrawn the bandits if he tried, long gone as they were, soot and gasoline on their fingers. Knowing that he could disappoint his father no longer. 

He squatted down to claw a small divot into the earth, bury his useless revolver with the bullets it never fired, hard little gleams of lead swallowed up by the dirt, until there was only one left.

For this last bullet, he pulled out his pocketknife, sprung the well-used blade. Painstakingly, in the silver light of the moon, he carved his name onto its surface: the name that marked him of a bloodline of champions, the name he'd already resolved to leave behind. 

Let this bullet know his name, and none other. 

Let it find him when his time was done.

Just let him make the most of it until then.

He considered asking for greatness. Wishing to be the quickest draw, the sharpest shot. But that wasn't in his nature.

"Let my hand be steady, my aim be true. Let me protect what is mine to protect, and never again run from what is mine to fight, until I've not a breath remaining."

So saying, he planted the bullet into the mound with its mates, unlikely seeds sown into an unlikelier garden plot. 

Then he flattened the dirt with his boot, climbed back on his horse, and rode on. 

And never looked back.

The cowboy slept during the hottest part of the day to the sound of chirring insects, hat drawn over his face, Tetsuma grazing peacefully at his side. In the afternoon, when the heat finally broke, he got back in the saddle, barely rested, and continued. 

The sun was long gone by the time he made it to Day's Mend, the next town south, if one could call it that. A single street threaded between a scattered crop of single-story houses, and in the darkness he nearly rode right on through without noticing, from one end clear past the other. Only the last building of the row, a saloon with its lights on, slowed him to a stop: a welcome sight, to still be open at this time of night.

It wasn't long before he was pushing through the batwing doors and taking a seat at the bar, washing road-dirt and regret-ashes out of his mouth with the cheapest beer on tap. 

The barman was a toothy fellow that seemed to be all angles: the spikes of his hair, the crooked blade of his grin, the sharp points of his nails as he drummed them into the wood, or tapped them against the glass he was cleaning, those long fingers of his always moving, never still, flashing from one task to the next. Even his outfit was sharp, for a town like this: crisp bow tie, tapered vest, and a cosmopolitan flash of steel at his earlobe that marked him out of place here, on the ragged frontier edges of civilization.

"It's Hiruma," he said, and then smirked, like he'd caught the cowboy staring. "What do they call you, stranger?" 

About to give a habitual answer, the cowboy abruptly realized it was no longer his to give. His family name, he had no right to, after what he'd done—or failed to do. His first name, he'd given away at the crossroads, and sworn to go by it no longer. Who was he, then, but just a foolish, nameless kid?

"Kid, then, I'll call you," snickered Hiruma, sloppily filling a fresh glass with a pull from the tap, and sliding it down the bar toward him. "Late night to be out traveling."

"I'm here from Serenity Bluff." As soon as he said it, Kid wondered if he should have. But of course, news wouldn't have traveled that fast. No one here would know that Serenity Bluff was now a pile of ash on the ground. Not yet. He had the sudden strange thought that if he just kept riding, he could outrun the news forever, and the reality with it.

"Ah, let me guess. Sharpshooter, are ya? Enter the annual shoot-out every year? I hear that's a big deal, in your neck of the woods. You ever win any medals?"

"My father tells me I'm born to it," Kid confessed. "A thoroughbred, as much as the ride I got waiting out there. Shooting is in my blood."

It felt like a lifetime ago, but thinking back, it had only been the day before that the shooting competition, and not making a poor showing of it, had been the only thing on his mind. That was before the outsiders had arrived, of course. At the sight of them, Kid had felt the jangle in his nerves like a physical thing, hands twitching even more than usual for a competition day, and known it would do no one no good if he fired a gun in that state. He'd ridden off in silence, leaving the competition behind. 

By the time he'd come back, the whole town was burning, and not a soul was left. 

He'd always told himself that those damn competitions didn't matter one bit. It was how he shot outside them that counted.

But when his town, his family had needed him most, he hadn't even been there—so what did that say about him?

"Another?" the barman's voice cut through his self-loathing.

Abruptly, he became aware that not only had his glass emptied out, so had the rest of the saloon. There was no one left but himself and Hiruma, facing each other over the bar. All the lanterns around the place had been snuffed, except the small one over Hiruma's shoulder, shedding a soft halo of light over them both.

"That's all right. You must be closing soon." Kid kept his voice casual, even as he stiffened on his bar stool. "Why don't we settle up, and I'll get out of your hair?"

"Why the hurry, cowboy?" Those quick hands of Hiruma's flashed at his collar, undoing the bow tie, letting the ends dangle free. Then he popped the top button of his collar, revealing a glint of silver chain around his throat. "It's early yet, to talk of settling up." 

Despite all the drinks, Kid's mouth went dry at the sight. 

Somehow, he just knew.

The barman's grin widened as he popped the next button, and the chain finally swung free, weighted by the bullet hung from it, scratched all the way round with Kid's old name.

"You..."

"Oops," said Hiruma with exaggerated surprise, and tucked the bullet back into his shirt. "How clumsy of me. The damn thing is just too eager to get back to you."

The warmth of the alcohol had long faded. Kid's glass sat empty, but his fingers slipped on some lingering wetness as they clutched at it instinctively for strength. 

He'd known who he was making that deal with, at the crossroads—or rather, what. 

He just hadn't expected to come face to face with the Devil just yet. Not until he'd first made his inevitable way down to Hell.

"Besides, you forgot this," said the Devil disguised as a barman, and set down a familiar old pistol on the bar between them, still crusted with dirt.

Kid made no move to pick it up, no move at all. "So. How does this work?"

Hiruma hummed, picked up another glass, and began to buff it with his towel. "Well, let's see. You gave me six lovely bullets, so I'll give you six lovely years. And this." 

He nodded at the gun again, and this time Kid took it in his hand, reflexively wiped it off with his sleeve. It felt heavier, somehow, than it had when he'd left it the night before, as if imbued with a new energy. But the grip was still the same familiar fit, snug in his palm, sitting just as it always had.

"So long as you use this Devil-kissed gun," Hiruma grinned saucily over his work, "you will never miss a shot, never misfire. You'll never click on an empty chamber at the very worst moment. Enter shooting competitions, if you want; no one will be able to touch you. Hunt down your enemies, if you must; no one will be able to escape you. Like I said, you'll have six glorious years. I suggest you make the most of them."

It wasn't what he'd asked for, at the crossroads, not in words. But the tales did say you'd receive your heart's desire, and sometimes you didn't know what that was until you were made to take it.

Kid spun the chambers round, and heard them click so smoothly back into place. His gun hand, which had always faltered when it counted most, now felt steady as the cold steel that it grasped.

"And then?" he said, in a voice just as steady. "What happens after that?"

"Isn't that obvious? When the six years are done," said the barman cheerily, "you'll breathe your very last. And then your mortal soul will be mine."

Chapter Text

They say there's a kind of peace in knowing the manner of your death. 

Kid wasn't sure about that, whether it was peace or just plain exhaustion that made his bones heavy as lead in his limbs. One way or another, when the Devil claimed his soul in one breath and just as casually offered him a room the next, Kid muzzily accepted the hospitality. What worse could happen at this point?

That was how he found himself spending the night in the back, on a narrow cot tucked between kegs and barrels. If this saloon was the Devil's own, did sleeping in his domain mean Kid was literally spending the night in Hell?

Questions of theology aside, a cot and a roof was more than he would have expected to find, in a town this tiny. After so long in the saddle, it was a relief to fall into a solid bed of moderate cleanliness. He was out as soon as he shut his eyes, ushered on into the land of dreams.

That was where his Hell truly awaited, anyhow. 

He dreamt of Serenity Bluff as it had been two mornings ago, a peaceful town of barely a hundred heads: good, hard-working men, women and children all. It was the dawn of the sharpshooting championship, their biggest event of the year, every year, for none more than him and his family. 

Kid's father was a giant of the community: a crack shot and the town sheriff to boot, as had his father been before him, and his before that, stretching back as far as there were records in the town church to remember them by. It was only natural that Kid should be expected to follow in those footsteps, no matter how dismal his performance had been in previous years.

Even the sun had dawned bright and expectant that morning, dispelling the early dew with no less eagerness than his father had bustled about the town green, setting up the targets, one per contestant, with Kid's at the very end of the row. 

"I'll put this one a little farther out for you," he said with a wink. "Give the other fellas a fighting chance."

Kid had no such confidence in his own abilities, but he nodded along, hoping that the sun and his father's optimism would somehow make something of him. Out in the plains, land so flat you could see for miles, he could hit a target so far it took Tetsuma ten minutes to ride close enough to pick it up after. It was just something about the competition, all the eyes on him, that had a way of making his gun hand falter.

Just as they had all lined up at their targets, the click-click of cocked pistols echoing down the row, there came a dusting on the horizon. Kid, already searching for an escape, was the first to see it, but soon the whole town was squinting that way, hands shading eyes. The dust resolved into a rough-looking group on horseback, leaned over their rides, kerchiefs pulled up to the nose like bandits. As they got closer, they took a V-shaped formation, and at the point was a pair of men, one bald as a stone, the other with deadlocked hair a waving mane in the wind. 

The Kongo brothers. 

Twins, though they didn't look it. 

And they wondered if it wasn't too late to sign up.

Without waiting for a response, the one with dreadlocks, Agon, charged right through the spectators and over to the green. As if he could sense weakness, he maneuvered his horse at Kid with a hitch of the reins, muscling him aside. Eyes fixed on his, Agon lifted his arm straight and shot Kid's target, dead in the center. Then the one beside it. Then the one beside that, all with a bored expression on his face, like it was child's play.

Six rounds, six bullseyes, in the time that it would have taken a normal human to draw breath. 

And Agon had never looked once.

Kid was standing so close he could feel the sting of gunpowder on his face, hear the huff of Agon's horse panting from its recent trot.

As if to further mock him, Agon jerked his kerchief down to uncover a leering grin. 

"Your turn," he said, and twirled the pistol in his hand.

As the rest of the onlookers turned to him, Kid had a deep, certain sense of his own limitations. The shot would have been easy were he alone, but not under the eyes of these strangers and his father and the sky above. 

So he left. 

Walked right off, to the sound of his father's calls. Mounted Tetsuma and rode off towards the mesas, away from town, traveling fast and far as a bullet himself.

Time passed differently out there, away from prying eyes, the only voice in his ears the whistle of the wind. He and Tetsuma rode, and rested, and rode out again. 

It wasn't until he smelled smoke in the air, carried to him faintly, over a long distance, that he realized something was wrong. He turned and galloped just as hard the other way, but it was too late.

By the time he made it back to town, there was not a soul left, and he'd lost far more than a competition.

From the carnage left behind, he could piece together some of what had happened. Agon had swept the rounds, finding none that could match him in skill. Even Kid's father, the reigning champion, hadn't struck as many bullseyes as Agon. 

After the last event, he'd conceded defeat.

And Agon had turned and shot him, right in the head. 

As the townspeople screamed, the outlaws set fire to the town, and that was when the real chaos had started. From what Kid could see, most of the people had gotten away safely, but not cleanly. In the burning wreckage, he came across half-packed bags, lost rations. Family heirlooms and worn children's toys, equally prized, equally missed. 

And there at the town green, his father's body left behind. Unmoving despite the flames that lapped at his side.

There was no sign of the Devil in the morning, but Kid followed a pleasant scent next door to find a young woman feeding what seemed to be half the town, right there on her porch. When she caught sight of Kid, she pulled up a chair without question, and made up a fresh plate for him.

With sleep in him, and a hearty breakfast of eggs and hash, the future looked much clearer, as did what he had to do. The table of old men behind him were gossiping about some outlaws, and Kid listened with keen interest, but the conversation quickly turned to the dry summer they'd been having. 

"'Scuse me," he said to the woman when she came by for the plate he'd licked clean. "You know anything about the Kongo gang?" A hush met his words, but he pretended not to notice. "You know where one might find them?"

"We don't get much news out here," she said, eyebrows pinching. "But I did hear they grew up in Shine Ridge, those twins. Real troublemakers even back then."

That was as good a lead as any. Coming out of Serenity Bluff, flames at his back, Kid had been half blind with grief—but he'd made sure to check the trails. Wagon wheels and shoe prints had gone west, and he knew that most of those he'd grown up would be headed that way. The bandits' horseshoes, however, had headed south—and that's where he'd followed, even before he'd rightly known why. He'd hit those crossroads, kept on straight, and that was what had brought him here to Day's Mend. Shine Ridge wasn't but a few days journey beyond.

So he rode on. 

There was no sign of them in their hometown, but their wanted posters were up on the walls, an unflattering double feature in black and white. He followed whispers of them to Old Josephstown and back, to Hackshaw, to Bandera too. Always, there were outlandish tales aplenty, some crime or heist they'd committed, but no one could say where they holed up when they weren't out murdering. 

They were every bit as elusive as they were infamous, and with each dead end, Kid could only laugh to himself. He'd thought the hardest part might be getting the Devil's attention, or making his infernal deal. He hadn't thought it would be such a challenge to find the target of his vengeance at all. Would he waste all six of his remaining years like this? Chasing after rumors, enchanted pistol still unfired?

Nearly a full month had passed by the time Kid found himself retracing his steps. It might have been just coincidence, but it might have not—as the moon grew full again, she found Kid riding near those crossroads once more, at the intersection of Serenity Bluff and Day's Mend, and many other towns besides. The realization recalled his last pass-through, the deal he'd made, and he had to wonder: if he'd taken another turn that night, gone right or left instead of straight on, would he have come across the Kongo brothers by now? Would he have already put his gun to the test?

But that was the trouble with crossroads. It was impossible to follow any of the multitude of trails that intersected here, layer over layer. Passing through was as good as washing your tracks clean. 

If only Kid could escape his past so easily. 

He left Tetsuma hitched to a signpost, and approached the crossing again, this time from the south. He had a map with him, worn and creased, where the last hundred or so creases had been made by him, folding and refolding the damn thing, scouring it for any sign, any hint. 

He didn't expect to find his old bullets, but when he dropped to the earth, he planted his palm against the dirt right where he'd buried them.

This time, he didn't even have to bury anything, to say anything.

Between one heartbeat and the next, Hiruma appeared, shrouded in smoke. There was a lit cigarette dangling from those long fingers, tip of it glowing with heat. When he looked down at Kid kneeling there, he pursed his lips and blew out rings of smoke, each one wider than the previous as his mouth spread in a grin. 

"Help me to find them," Kid said, and didn't move back as Hiruma approached, until the Devil was standing so close Kid could have seen his own reflection in the shine of those boots. 

"Ahh, the twins." Hiruma sighed out another breath of smoke that Kid hadn't seen him inhale. "You're not the only one who knows how to make deals. But why should I help you?" He ground his heel into the scant patch of dirt between them. "No offering this time, and what I want from you is already mine."

"The stories say you're an impatient sorta fellow." Kid unfolded the map. "Of the six years I have remaining, I give you half. And if finding those two leads to the death of me, well, I suppose you'll collect on my soul even sooner than that."

Hiruma's eyebrows lifted in surprise, and no little delight. "That's the problem with you mortals. Always riding after your quarry, like a hound after a hare. If Death were so ineffective a hunter, there'd be a damn sight more of you riddling this crowded earth, that I tell you."

"What other way is there?" Kid asked. "How does Death find its quarry?"

"Easy." Hiruma took Kid's hand and with it pulled the map closer to himself. That slice of skin contact was alternately hot like Hellfire, cold like Death, as surreal as the moment Kid found himself caught in. Then the Devil released him to unfold the map further, a paper curtain spread between the two of them. "Death simply goes first to where they are headed. And there lies in wait."

Above Kid's head, the Devil pressed the lit end of his cigarette into the page, eating away a hole until a glimpse of the night sky winked through. Then the paper was falling over him like a shroud, and Kid instinctively grabbed it before it could hit him in the face. 

When he pulled it away, he could see there was no one on the other side. 

Hiruma had disappeared just as abruptly as he'd arrived. 

Only after Kid had looked left and right, ensuring he was truly alone, did he squint down at the marked location, the ring of char left on the map.

"Se— Bu—" the map now read, the full name of his old home burned away. 

The Kongo brothers had returned to his town, the site of their last killing.

And they'd taken it over for their own. 

Chapter Text

They say that the damn thing you're looking for always turns up right under your nose.

In the month that he spent searching, Kid had failed to find hide nor tail of the Kongo brothers, but he'd come across no shortage of rumors: outlandish whispers about the recent happenings at Serenity Bluff, you know the ones, haven't you heard? 

Early on, Kid had traveled faster than the news, but the tale was shocking enough that it had soon outpaced him—and the truth besides. 

It wasn't a few days gone that he couldn't go anywhere without hearing about it. They were calling it a massacre, a bloodbath, a lurid plot straight out of a dime novel. The Kongo brothers had been after treasure, or vengeance, or a woman, and torn an entire town apart to find it. 

Listening quietly from a nearby table, or grooming Tetsuma in the next stall, Kid had found it easy to keep his peace. In truth, he didn't know much more about the hows or wherefores than any of the gossipmongers—and those questions haunted him far more than it did them. Even if he corrected people on the details, told them that he'd seen the extent of the casualties for himself, that only a single glassy stare had been left fixed on the great sky above, what good would that do anyone, except downplay the tragedy that in his heart was every bit the grisly horror that it had become in the retelling?

Besides, keeping quiet meant he picked up a few things, here and there. Agon, the older twin, was said to have a god-given talent at everything he did, not just shooting. He could rope a charging bull by its horns and bring it to its knees, if you believed the tall tales. Wrestle a bear with his bare hands, and come out without a scratch.

The idea cracked a reluctant smile over Kid's face, which these days felt as if it might be chiseled of stone. God-given talent, against the one who'd sold his soul to the Devil. Which one would win?

Which one ought to?

The tales never said anything about the bandits circling back 'round to a town they'd already ransacked. Was it a big secret, or did Serenity Bluff have the honor of being the first?

Kid left the crossroads with a buzzing in his gut, equal parts fury and dread at what he would find. More time had passed in that unreal place than he'd realized or felt, for the night was fast slipping away.

It was under the morning sun that he finally approached town, the same way the Kongo gang had themselves arrived, only a month before. Slowly taking shape in the distance were the familiar outlines of his former home: not the erstwhile buildings of his dreams, nor the ashes of his nightmares, but something in between. Most of the houses were still burnt and broken, but near the center of town, a fresh core was taking shape. 

A few men were at work putting back up what had been the old sheriff's office, pounding fresh boards into the old frame—all that remained of the building they themselves had burned down. The sight would have frozen Kid in place, if Tetsuma hadn't plowed steadily on, never breaking his gait.

The other Kongo twin was the first to spot him. 

Unsui was supervising from an old rocking chair that he'd found somewhere and dragged onto the shaded porch out front. When Kid rode into view, Unsui let out a low whistle, one that halted the construction going on around him, and sent Tetsuma's ears twitching. 

"Aren't you the old sheriff's whelp? The one that ran away?" Unsui had a bottle in hand, and he tapped its base idly against the curve of his rocker. "What was the name again—"

Kid's hand moved on its own. 

Before anyone could react, he had flicked his gun out and taken the shot. 

Unsui's bottle split at the base, showering the ground with liquid and glass, leaving him holding just a jagged, dripping neck, and not much below it. 

"Don't say that name," Kid said immediately. Then, after a longer pause, "It ain't mine any longer." 

His heart was pounding in his chest in a way that was entirely foreign to him, every inch of his skin tingling and alive and ready, like he'd only now figured out how to fill it. He'd always been an excellent shot out in the open fields, on his lonesome, but the devil of it was, his hand had a way of seizing up under pressure. Never before had it felt so sinfully easy, like pulling the smoothest draft of beer from the neck of a cold bottle—natural as a downward flow, as addictive as quenching a longtime thirst.

As he lowered his pistol, the smoke wisped up from the barrel, curling possessively around his wrist. It reminded him of the cigarette smoke last night at the crossroads, pouring from Hiruma's lips.

This was the Devil's work, no doubt about it. 

But if the Devil had a hand in taking out one of his own, Kid was willing to go right on down to Hell alongside. 

"I'm here for a duel," Kid said, absently running a soothing hand down Tetsuma's neck, though the horse was more than used to the sound of gunfire, and hadn't so much as twitched.

"Against Agon, I expect." Unsui resumed his rocking, at a more pensive pace. "You sure about that? Last time, your performance didn't exactly inspire confidence. Then again..." he glanced back down at the broken bottle in his hand, and tossed it aside.

Kid blew the smoke from his gun and placed it back in his holster. "I'm sure."

"Suit yourself. Why don't you get on down, make yourself comfortable? One of the others will fetch him. I expect he's sleeping in." Unsui gave another kind of whistle, and the youngest of the nearby men peeled off at a run.

Warily, Kid swung off the saddle, and led Tetsuma over to what had been the nearby jailhouse, now just a jagged cup of burned-off wood spars. He could see through the broken beams that the iron bars of the one jail cell were still standing, but the wood around it was gone. The cell would hold no one, not in that condition, but the hitch out front had miraculously survived. Rather than tie Tetsuma's reins in place, he looped them loosely over it. 

"You often rebuild towns that you set fire to?" he said, putting his back to his horse. "Doesn't seem that effective, if you ask me."

"Mm. It really was a shame, how it went down. I was just wondering if we'd seen the last of you." Unsui scuffed the porch with his boot, kicking up the lingering soot. "But no, since you ask. Agon's been on the competition circuit for years now, making a name for himself far and wide. Now there's no one around hasn't heard of his genius, I say we accomplished what we set out to do."

Unsui motioned to the half-built sheriff's office behind him. "It's time for us to settle down, but where can we go? Every place around has his face on a wanted poster. Our face, I suppose. So we'll build our own."

"This ain't the frontier," Kid hissed. "There was already a town here, not some free land you could claim and build from scratch."

"No, I know that." Unsui stood, and approached. "No one else was using it anymore, is all. Who would dare come back? Seems a shame to let it go to waste."

Before Kid could warn the man to keep his space, Unsui had walked right on past. From the direction of the old dry goods store, his father's murderer came slouching over, yawning as he ran a hand through his long, rumpled hair. He was dressed in a long blazer that looked slept in, and as soon as Unsui got up close, he had his hands on Agon, grabbing great handfuls of his lapels and straightening them out with a jerk, flattening back down the hair he'd just tousled into disarray. 

"Get yourself together, we've got company," Unsui said, and Agon brushed him off with a casual shove. 

"Hey, I know this kid." Agon squinted against the sun. "Ain't we killed him before?"

"Not just yet." Kid's hand went to his holster, and rested there. "Care to do the job properly this time?"

Agon sneered at him. "Let me guess, looking for revenge, or some bullshit? I'll let you in on something. I've never lost a challenge. Never."

"You might want to be careful with this one," Unsui said quietly. "There's something—"

"Never once." Agon's pistol was in his hand without a warning, twirling over his finger again and again. "So tell me, where is it you wanted to die?"

Kid pointed out towards the grazing fields, that once a year had been the site of their town's sharpshooting competition. Where his father had been gunned down in cold blood. The body was gone now, but he thought he could still see dark smudges on the grass grown tall from lack of grazing, whether ash or something worse. 

"You know the standard rules?" he said. "If I win, you and yours leave town, and never show your faces around here again. If you win, well—"

"We'll bury you with your old man," Agon promised, and every trace of sleep vanished from his face as he grinned. "The rest of you, get back to work."

"They'll want to watch," Unsui pointed out, and Agon rolled his eyes.

"Nothing to see here. Just putting a dog in its place."

Unsui rode over first to draw the perimeter. The rest of the Kongo gang followed more leisurely, Agon talking and laughing jovially at their center, jostling the men around him like he was on his way to a party rather than a duel. 

Kid coaxed Tetsuma to stay, and followed at a cautious distance, trying to clear his mind as he returned to the very spot his old life had ended, and been replaced by something more grueling mission than any sort of living. 

He had so many memories of this place, taking cows out to pasture, hitting bullseyes in the dead of night and missing them under the collective gaze of the town. 

Now, stood in the middle of the field, back to his father's killer, there were strangers' eyes on him instead: bandits and murderers instead of the townspeople they'd supplanted. Did they really intend to make this town their own? Put their lives as outlaws behind them, simple as that, and build a clean one atop the grave of their last kill?

Unsui started the affair with, what else, another whistle.

Kid began to walk, measuring his steps with care. He knew some rushed this, wanting to get to the shooting as soon as possible, but his father had taught him better than that. Follow the rules, because the bandits might not hold their leader to them, but they'd sure catch Kid if he turned a moment too fast. Do this thing properly, and let a higher power show who was in the right.

Or a lower power, if that was who was watching.

Careful steps, timed to the rustle he could hear behind him, becoming more and more faint. To the stone that marked his firing position, an irregular white boulder with a vein of gray running through it. That boulder grew as he got closer, step by step. 

Three steps out, and he loosened the gun in his holster.

Two steps, and he held out his shooting hand. Didn't tense it, didn't claw his fingers. He needed his shoulder loose, his wrist relaxed. 

One step out, and if he had the measure of Agon's stride correctly, they'd both reach their marks at the same time.

His boot struck stone, and he spun on his heel. 

In one quick motion, he pulled the gun free, leveled it at the distant figure, and fired. The pistol recoiled in his hand before he even registered the pull on the trigger. It had all happened like lightning, the draw so quick and so fluid, the crack of gunfire hitting him on a delay, like belated thunder catching up after the strike was done. It was exactly like his father had always hoped for him. Was the old man watching from Heaven?

Though, if it was to see the Devil's hand guiding his son's, maybe it was best that he couldn't.

All this registered for Kid in the span of a second: his shot, the return fire. He didn't think he'd been hit; there was no pain, but neither did Agon crumple. 

He was sure his aim had been true, that he'd hit that distant figure dead in the center, but the man didn't so much as flinch. 

Instead, it was his brother who fell out of the saddle a moment later, crimson blossoming at his chest.

Always superhuman in his reflexes, Agon was there to catch Unsui before he could hit the ground. He clutched at his brother's shoulders, a mirror of how Unsui had straightened his shirt just a short while earlier. But it wasn't Agon that Unsui gazed up at—but past him, at Kid's slow approach.

"I knew my brother... had the talent... the genius... to become the greatest." Though Unsui's voice was ragged, neither Kid nor Agon attempted to stop him speaking, or asked him to save his breath. "I did the only thing I could to support him. I offered myself up in trade. As long as I was by his side, he'd shoot his best. But if there ever came a day that he lost, then..."

"Idiot," Agon growled.

"Everyone loses sometimes," Kid pointed out.

"I know. I always knew he would fail someday. But it was worth the trade. So, that's why—" He stared at the gun still dangling from Kid's grip, and Kid finally understood why Unsui was telling him this. 

Even wounded, he was still trying to help his brother bargain for his life.

"I don't know where my father died. But I found his body right here." Kid pointed with his pistol, and Unsui flinched. "I won't you have you sullying his memory by dying in the same spot. I've won, so leave this place, as agreed. I don't care what you do, but don't any of you ever come back."

Agon started to get up, but his brother's hand on his arm stopped him.

"It was over there," said Unsui, nodding his head towards another stretch of grass only a few yards away. He didn't sound apologetic, only slightly wistful, like it had been mildly unfortunate that any of it had happened the way it had. "Right there." 

As Kid jerkily went to look, Agon gathered up Unsui and put him back on his horse, swinging up behind to hold him in place. His hand was clutched over Unsui's chest, and there might have been blood seeping out from between his fingers, but Kid had no attention to spare for them.

The bandits proved more skilled at fleeing a town than rebuilding it. Before long, they had all cleared out, and Kid was the only living soul remaining, for the second time. He sat down heavily in the field, trying to summon the feelings he should be feeling: victory, absolution, anything.

As the grass bent beneath him, it parted to reveal the sharp edge of something that glinted under the sun. 

A metal star, beaten into shape, carved with a single word. 

His father's old sheriff's badge. 

Waiting for him here, with all the patience of the dead. 

Chapter Text

They say that time heals all wounds.

Time, unfortunately, was exactly what was in short supply for Kid, who could all but see death on the horizon, lurking just beyond the dawn. Hell, now that he had carried out his sole mission in life, he would not have objected all that fiercely to its end. 

If it had been a matter of days, he could have whiled them all away like this, emptied of ambition, purpose. 

A few years, though, were a tad too much to waste. So, as dawn came after scarlet dawn, and hardly seemed to carry its burden of death any closer, he did what he could with the time he had remaining: he pinned the badge to his chest, like his father had always wanted, and he rebuilt his town. 

Most of what the bandits had done, he tore down, and he did it again, proper. He was only one man, but he had the memory of the whole town to guide him—how it had once looked. How it was meant to look. 

Though he used what tools and materials were salvageable, it took frequent trips to neighboring settlements to replenish the fast-dwindling supply. Slowly, the word got out of what he was up to. Outlandish as the tale was, it picked up like wildfire in dry bush, and it traveled just as quick. 

As the place came back together, other hands joined his in the work. Not everyone returned, but enough did that the building got easier, and the roofs came up quicker. The streets echoed with the pounding heartbeat of a dozen hammers in concert, and the smell of ash and ruin was slowly overwritten with sawdust in the day, cooking coals in the evening. 

Within a year, there were cows grazing in the field again. 

Within two, children running around in the streets. 

Kid spent his nights in the sheriff's office, right at the heart of it all. At first it was to ward off the hungry flames that scoured his nightmares when he slept alone. Eventually, it was because the work was so compelling he couldn't tear himself away long enough to find a proper bed. It was like he'd finally found what he was meant to do, like all those years of indecision and diffidence had been shed with his old life—the one he'd sold away. His days were numbered now, and that made them few and precious—all the more reason to pour each one wholeheartedly into what mattered. 

One evening, he collapsed at his desk, too tired even to find a spot to lay his body flat. The shutters on his windows were open, giving him a good view of the still-empty lot across the street, and then beyond, to where a bumper crop of new homes were sprouting up on the foundations of the old. A warmth burned in his chest, like the most pleasant whiskey he'd ever drunk, and he drifted off staring out over the fledgling town. His town.

His dreams were not of raging fires, but of the tavern in Day's Mend.

The one that bookended that little scrap of a town, with its windows all lit up, and its double batwing doors that creaked under the push of his hand. The shelves inside were lined with bottles of all shapes and colors, some tall and narrow, some squat and rounded. 

Each one was glowing with its own internal light, as if filled not with the kind of spirits you drink—but with souls.

Kid sat upright with a cry caught in his throat. He was at the rickety desk they'd found for the sheriff's office, shoulders sore from sleeping sprawled out across it. He was sure he was awake now, but what he couldn't then explain was how—

Outside the window, night had fully fallen. And there across the street, in what he was certain had been an empty lot when he'd drifted off—

A saloon had appeared out of thin air. Its windows were all lit, and its batwing doors swayed invitingly, as if someone had just gone in.

Kid had always meant to put something there, in that lot, but he had never gotten around to deciding what. Now he knew why. 

The saloon looked exactly like the one he'd seen in Day's Mend, an impossibility that could only mean it had been three years, to the day. Kid didn't know how he had lost track of the time so badly, when early on, he'd been counting and measuring each passing moment like a beggar pinched pennies. But under the blur of the work that had replaced his listlessness, all the days had run together—and now that his time had finally come, he was caught by surprise.

Oughtn't someone have seen it? Noticed the lights on, an entire building sprung up from piles of lumber and rubble?

That was the thought that ended Kid's hesitation. He was better off going out to meet his fate before one of his townspeople wandered on in there, and got the trouble that was meant for him.

The saloon doors were just as he remembered, just as he had dreamed, swinging open at a touch. The bartender had his back to the door, reaching for a bottle high on the shelf, but before he even turned around, Kid could picture every inch of that outfit, that toothy grin.

As the doors fluttered closed behind him, he gave one last thought to running.

Then he decided to sit down at the counter, and tap for a drink.

Hiruma turned, beaming, and waggled the bottle in his hand. "I've been saving this vintage for you, cowboy. Some things taste better with time."

Kid cautiously took the offered glass, and gave it a small sip. The liquor was sweet fire going down, but when the sweetness had faded, there was only a burning aftertaste. 

"No good?" Hiruma shrugged and turned back to his shelves, returning with a bottle of champagne. "Then how about this? Tonight's a night for celebration, isn't it?"

"Let's not play around." Kid set the glass down, and carefully didn't flinch as Hiruma leaned in too close to take it. "How does this work? You getting my soul." 

"A lot of humans walking around just fine without their souls," Hiruma said.

"That may be so, but I'm a mite nervous about losing mine. Rather not, if we're being honest." Kid stood up from the bar and took a step back, feeling Hiruma's gaze on his every motion. Still, the Devil didn't stop him as he drew his pistol and cocked it. 

"What if I fire?" Kid said, taking careful aim. A chest shot was safest, but he didn't know if the Devil even had a heart to pierce. Head it was. "You said I'll never miss." 

"I did say that." Hiruma's grin went crooked, showing even more tooth. He didn't move out of the line of fire. "You're a clever one, aren't you?"

After he'd accomplished his goal, Kid had had three long years to ponder this moment, and he hadn't spent them idle. In his downtime, he'd asked around, gathered every story and superstition he could get his hands on, and put in a special commission at a smithy several days' ride away. 

Now he had his Devil-touched gun, six chambers full of silver bullets, and nothing left to lose. 

This was his last desperate attempt to cheat the Devil out of what he'd promised. In his imagination, he'd squeezed the trigger so smoothly, and felt that rich warmth in his arm, his shoulder, the satisfaction of a shot well placed. 

But who was he to think he could beat the Devil at his own game?

The Devil had given him his abilities, and could take them away just as easily.

As soon as he had the thought, his hand started to tremor, just like it used to. Over the shaking barrel of the gun, Hiruma's expression didn't change. 

"Three years is out, isn't it?" Kid realized for himself, and lowered his arm. 

So that was it. His time had run out, and he hadn't done it. He hadn't taken the shot.

Hiruma put his hands on the counter as if to vault over it, but his actual motion was a blur. In an instant, Hiruma was right there, in front of Kid. He might as well have flown.

This close, it was finally apparent that the Devil was the very same height as Kid himself, or even a tad shorter. He put his hand into the collar of his vest, and spilled out the links of chain he still wore around his throat. The bullet pulled free with preternatural ease, and the Devil flicked it up with his fingers and caught it again, as if flipping a coin.

"You should have shot just a little sooner," Hiruma pointed out. "Why didn't you? You couldn't miss—I had promised you that."

Kid had no answer to give. No resistance either, as Hiruma took yet another step closer. The Devil's presence had a radiating heat, like a live coal, but the touch of his hand was only shockingly hot, not scalding, not even unpleasant. He took the pistol from Kid's slack hands, and rolled the chamber free, to let the silver bullets clatter uselessly to their feet. 

Into their place slid the lead bullet, the one with Kid's name scrawled on it. 

Then the Devil gave the chamber a cheerful spin, and pointed the gun at Kid—who jerked back, spell broken. He backed into a nearby table and fumbled to clutch at it, eyes darting around for an escape.

But—if he had wanted to flee his fate, if he'd wanted to resist, the time for that was past. 

Now there was nothing more to do but sit down on the tabletop, and close his eyes for good measure. 

He thought back to what he'd accomplished with the time he'd been given, and wondered if he'd made the most of it. The Kongo brothers, chased out. Serenity Bluff, rebuilt. If he had to do it all over again, he'd make the same deal in a heartbeat. 

That was why he hadn't fired.

Why take back his end of the bargain, when he'd been perfectly satisfied with Hiruma's?

An unseen hand removed his hat, and Kid flinched at the touch. He could hear the soft thud of it being tossed to the floor. His head felt oddly exposed without it, especially when something—the hand, the breeze—lightly tousled his hair, unsticking a few sweaty strands from his scalp.

Next, there would be the kiss of a gun at his temple, and then—a quiet end. 

The kiss came, but it was no cold steel. Instead, a brush of lips that burned even hotter in contrast—scorching, like a penny left out in the noonday sun, like the barrel of a gun that had just been fired.

Kid's eyes shot open to find Hiruma an inch away, grinning down at him. "I can taste you second-guessing yourself in there," said the Devil. "Thinking about that shot you didn't take. If it makes you feel better, it wouldn't have made any difference anyhow."

"Because you're the Devil," Kid concluded flatly. "You can't be killed."

"Because I never did any damn thing to your shooting hand," Hiruma cackled. "No special powers, no black magic, nothing. These past three years of crack shooting, that was just you with a dash of self confidence. Amazing what a difference it makes, right?"

"But— you said—"

"I said nothing false, did I? You never missed."

Bewildered, Kid stared at the gun still pointed at him, then at Hiruma's mouth, then back again.

"What, this old thing? You left it for me, remember?" Hiruma twirled the pistol in his hand, an easy flick, and shot over his shoulder without looking. The bottle of champagne exploded, sending foam gushing into the air and filling the saloon with a sweet, earthy scent. "Didn't do anything to it either, if that's what you were wondering—well, except maybe a kiss for good luck."

And with the soft sigh of champagne raining down upon them, Hiruma leaned in once more, and captured Kid's mouth in another searing kiss. The Devil's hands behind his head were blazing hot where they held him, the length of the gun cold against the back of his neck. There was nothing human about the heat and hunger of the body pressing against his, less man than inferno, and Kid had the brief, wild thought that if this was what burning felt like, he'd gladly let it consume him.

But it didn't consume him. The inferno released him entirely unharmed—albeit gasping for breath—and seemed to wait, expectant, for him to figure something out. 

"The deal," he managed finally. "Aren't you— planning to—"

"Claim what's mine?" Hiruma smirked. "There's more than one way for the Devil to own your soul." Here, he licked his lips, tongue far too long and sinuous to be human, and this time it was Kid who grabbed him, and pulled him in. 

All too happy to oblige, the Devil climbed onto his lap with the lightness of a licking flame.

There he proceeded to make full use of his new leverage to kiss his cowboy—until he had no breath remaining.