Ghost of the living
I still remember how it all started. How my friends and family died, and yet I was denied the right to leave the living. I was supposed to restore life, from what the prophesy said. And yet here I stand, prophesy fulfilled and yet I am alive? And so I began a new journey of which i thought that when life was back on this bloody rock, I would be able to leave, but no, I was not allowed to die. What a load of croc...
I have lived far longer than one would want, and should be allowed to. Ive seen things, learned about secrets to deep for even the most righteous, or nefarious person to know, and yet I must never tell anyone about them. But there are things in life that one can speak of, and it is about life itself. Ive become as much part of history, as history become part of me.
Ive watched as civilizations rise, flourish, then drift into despair and destruction. I was there when the Egyptians Ive fought along side Alexander, ive commanded armies of the roman empire. Ive studied the wondrous life of the Zulu and Maya civilization. I walked alongside the crusaders on their great crusade, but in the end, I worked to stop their madness. I commanded a trading ship in the Caribbeans, and in the end, I hunted others as a pirate. Ive weigh war against the English, in the name of France, and then the French, in the name of England, and in the end the Germans. I traveled the great plains of America, meeting the native Indians, mining the gold during the great age. I even hunted down the men and women who broke the law, but I never harmed those that did it because of need, only those of greed.
I lead soldiers in the wars ive fought, and in each war, ive killed more than needed. But ive also saved more people than any other. And when the cold war started, i vanished yet again, as with each era, into the history books as nothing but a shadow warrior, a man without a name and face. I thought i wouldn't need to bother again. Oh how wrong i was.
(for a reference, you could think of this as a several millennium old Logan(Wolverine), but still not him)
So many people died, when the bombs started to fall upon city's worldwide. Nuke after Nuke, it was nothing but a tragedy. But as the glow of WW3 ended, a new technology started to come fourth. Cyberisation. And with it another war, a non nuclear this time, praise the gods...
The life we live, as most know it, had changed. Since the beginning of Cyberisation, life has become more and more, a battle to remain as your own original. Cybercrime, hacking, and so on has become more than some bored kid who only did it for fun. No, its grown into a completely own branch of organized crime. But thats what the cybercops are there for. I have seen a lot of things in my life, but one place still brings memories back...
Public Security Section 9, New port city, Japan.
Prologue Transmission... ended...
Lets set the scene. Its a late night in new port city, the sky is clear, and the stars are shining. The jungle of a city is shining with all the lights coming out of the skyscrapers and tall buildings, giving it a feeling of being alive, burning, blazing, shining its light onto the canvas of the star-speck night, like thousands miles of fire. As we sweep along the roofs of the city, we come to the tallest one in the city. Standing there, a lone figure stands, watching over the city.
The figure is dressed in a black hooded trench coat, with a red line running along the middle of his back and right between the shoulders, In a upside down red triangle, with two white wings, fastened to a black sword , a red shirt with black stripes running from the chest outwards to shoulders and hips in an X, and black, red lined pants with several belts wrapped around the legs, black strap-boots, several belts sets hanging around his hips, with one hanging down along his leg, with brown hard edged pouches hanging from the belts, and a lone holster for a gun hanging from behind his hip, hidden by the trench coat. In his left hand he holds a simple, Red hilt/sheath O-katana, a black line running along the sheath down on both sides, with a red strip of cloth hanging from the hand-guard. In his right he holds a black leather bound book, which he currently is reading from.
That is until he closes the book, showing that his face is covered by a white proclaim mask, with two red lines running from his eyes to his back jaw, two black lines, starting from the middle of his jaw, running along to his eyes and beyond, making two V's on the mask. As he lowers the book, he puts it in a satchel, hanging under his left arm. All while looking out into the city.
As he looks out into the city, he sees a lot of things. The lights of the red light district, how the lights of it reflected on the signs and windows in that area, the business district, which seemingly never slept, as there always was more then half the lights on, the lights of the planes and aircraft flying through the city, as they took of and landed on the local airport, or simply flew a nightly round through the city, the cars on the streets, the sound of the police sirens ringing in the distance, a purple haired woman jumping from a rooftop, some native birds flying, the scent of the black blue sea... wait, a woman jumping from a rooftop?!
As he focus on the woman, he notice a man on the roof below her. The man is heavily built, which could be the result of a complete cyborg body. And as she lands, he seems to get scared, pulls a gun out, firing at the woman as she jumps towards her. His efforts to hit her are thought worthless, seeing that she already twisted his arm useless as she wrapped her legs around it, and as she jumps back, he fires a single round more, missing, and at which he seems to try and escape by jumping to another building. But one must remember, don't do that when someone is aiming at you. They might be a good shoot. As he learned the hard way.
As the two battle their words out as she puts the gun at his head, and as her hand slowly twitches to shot his head off, she suddenly stops. Cybercoms... and as the man listen in on the 'secure' channel she was using, a chopper appears next to her building. As she walks towards the chopper, she suddenly looks straight at him, like if she could see him. She stands there for a while, until her friend, who was trying to see what had caught her attention, in the chopper calls for her, at which she just shakes her head and boards the chopper. And all the trench coated man does is smile, though not seen behind the mask 'You always seemed to know where I was. Is it your ghost whispering, or are you still the heck of a person you always have been, Motoko.' he thought as he jumped, cape flying behind him like wings, only for him to disappear into the night.
'Jumping forward 15 min'
As he watches the group land the chopper in a secure position, they run in the own separate ways. Three running towards a large restaurant mansion, in between skyscrapers. A feudal style mansion, which seems to be the site of some sort of incident, seeing that theres police all over the place. Cars, trucks, and a MCV parked right outside the front entrance. As the cops and military run around, the independent squad of Section 9 seemingly sets up shop right in the middle, a sniper on the roof right over the street, a big blond haired guy kneeling with a blue tachikoma, the woman, Motoko, hidden at the front gate, two running down into the sewers, and two more in a car, parked nicely in an alley.
But the one catching the masked mans interest is the old man, Daisuke Aramaki, head of section 9, walking towards the MCU-van. As he goes in the 7 S9 members seems to run a check on everything around them. But what made his eyebrow rise again was that Motoko was looking at him again, somehow, then turned back to her work.
As Aramaki exits the command vehicle, he starts to talk to his friend thought the cyberlink. "Anything you can tell about why the military wants in on this" "Only that one of our own is in there, thats all I can say for now, sorry". After their little talk, he starts to inform his charges of what is going on. As the plan goes through, he starts to hear the report.
"Chief, scene is secure, one female hostage needs immediate medical attention for severe wounds, one male, early thirties dead from severe head trauma".
Aramaki gives orders for the hostages to be extracted from the scene. When hes done, he sighs and looks around the place, at which he suddenly notices a masked man on the other side of the street, watching him, at which he suddenly starts waving his hand for Aramaki to come closer. He raises an eyebrow at this, after which he looks around himself, then starts to walk towards the man, or more like the newspaper machine next to him.
"Arashi, it has been a while, probably to long actually. How are you?" Aramaki asked, as he paid for a newspaper, and opened it. "I have been alive, if thats what you mean. And I don't go by Arashi for the moment, my name until otherwise is for now... it's Kane, simply Kane" he said as he reached into his coat, pulling out a piece of paper.
"I think it would be wise to look into this affair a bit more then usual. There is something wrong with the whole scene at hand. It feels, to... easy." he said as he started to walk away behind Aramaki, but not before putting the piece of paper in Aramaki's newspaper, on which it only said "look deeper than the surface, for there are beasts in the depths of the sea, that never tread above it"
Aramaki looked at the message, but was confused. "What do you mean by..." he asked as he turned around, but found no one there. Sighing he started to walk back to the car he came in, just as one of his colleagues appeared. "Hey, what were you doing over there, chief. Trying to find something about your horoscope, or what. Luck leads the old or what?" she asked as she smiled, at which he did as well. "No not really, major. I just received a tip, from one of my more, trustworthy colleagues, that Ive known a long, long time." he said as he sat down in the backseat of a red Toyota. The major looked confused as she put her equipment into the trunk, and sat down in the driver seat.
"What do you mean 'trustworthy colleagues', are we not trustworthy, chief?" she asked amused. He looked at her thought the rear view mirror at her with a plain look. "Section 9 is the most trustworthy organization of people out there. Its just that this man has been in my service for a lot longer than any of you have. He actually worked for me, even before section 9 came into making" he said, as the car set into motion. As it came to the crossing it took a left, heading west, towards the freeway.
"'Before section 9 came into making', what are you talking about, chief.?" she asked, her expression not changing. At which Aramaki nodded. "Im talking about a special member of the team. Hes a 'secret' member of section 9, the ace in the hole, you might call it" he said, as the car took turn up on the freeway, battling with the rest of the traffic. "'Ace in the hole', your talking about the delta section, aren't you. I thought it was simply a information glitch, falsified info, a filing mistake not related to anything." she said as she steered into a free section of the road, to pass a larger truck.
"no its been an active department of the section, thought not officially or unofficially. There are no records about this, except my personal memory, that is and even then its not much" he said as he look out on the gleaming city through the car window, while making a sickly smile, at which the major got interested. "Your the only person with info about him then. So, who is our 'unknown' Squad member?" she asked as she turned to leave the freeway.
Aramaki sighed, as he leaned back in the seat. Rubbing his eyes, he then looked into the mirror, right at the majors face. "His codename changes each decade, I believe. Probably to disappear when he feels the need to vanish from the stage of world theater. His previous one was Arashi, thought he calls himself Kane this time, its all the info I can give, besides the official titles thats been given to him." he said, as he looked out the window again. "Ghost blade" Thought he noticed that the majors eyes opened a bit more, at the name Arashi, and even more at Ghost blade
"You've meet him, I see" he said as he chuckled, at which she smiled a bit.
"Yeah, during the 'Second Vietnam' around the Siam Peninsula . Even as the war went on it had stalled into a war of attrition between Europe and Asia. Then one day, at the area of Shinuiju, just as the company of peace keepers I was in, was about to storm a stronghold point, a single man walked right into the war zone. I think it was back then he gained the name Ghost blade, because of how easily he killed off the enemy." she said as her face turned dim, like in thought.
"Ive never meet someone who can move so fast. It was like he could see what they did before they even did. And the freakiest part was that he... he used a sword more than his gun, and even then, he dodged bullets, even at close range. The only reminder that he was shot at would be the holes in the trench coat's lower part, and the blood flying as the bodies of his enemies fell apart."
"The higher ups in command were mildly freaked out when a unknown man decimated an entire enemy brigade in less than 20 minutes. And seeing no one saw him except the witness-reports of some captives that were in the stronghold, he was never found, thous the name Ghost blade.( FYI: 1 brigade is about 4000-5000 troops. I know, impossible to do, but hey it makes for good legends and story's)" she said as she drove down the ramp into the parking lot of section 9's building. As Aramaki got out, the major stood up at the drivers door, leaning over the car roof.
"So, when will we meet the legendary 'Ghost blade'" she asked, as Aramaki walked towards the elevator. As he stood at the elevator doors, waiting for it to open, he then spoke. "It wont be a matter of time, but of when its necessary for him to appear. Hes a ace, you don't use it at the first sign of trouble. Unless u have certain reasons to do so." he said as the doors closed, and it started to go up . She only shook her head, closing the car door. As she lock it, she suddenly heard a sound behind her, and saw a white mask in the car windows reflection, at which she naturally went for her gun, but as she tried to pull it out, she found she couldn't move her arm.
"I would prefer if we didn't start a gunfight here, Major. It would cause an unwanted disturbance to rise, and questions asked, that none of us want to answer" the masked man said. As she looked down to her arm, she saw the red/black sheat, sitting against her arm, holding it in place. Biting her lip, she turned her hand so it faced away from the gun, at which the sheat was moved from her arm. As she moved her hand away from the gun, she tried turning her head to look at the mask better to look at him better, but when she did, he was already gone.
I don't think its wise to look for something that isnt there, Motoko." he said behind her, causing her to spin around, seeing him standing several yards away, leaning against the pillar on the other side of the car. "Who are you, I know ive meet you before. Are you Ghost blade, that the chief talked about." she asked as he leaned against the pillar, looking in another direction, occasionally looking at her. "Even if I answered yes or no, my answer is void of its meaning, as it comes from a ghost." he simply said, as he looked right at her, as the sound of a car started in the lower car park floors.
"It wasn't what I asked of you, but if its both, I take it as a yes." she stated as she watched the man standing on the other side of the car. Of course she was reluctant to believe him until she knew more, at which she remembered an important slip of info. "The chief said you wouldn't show yourself until it was necessary, so what is it that is so important to meet me here and now" she asked as she continued to study the man, at which the man started to chuckle. "Its not a matter of why this time, I simply came to say, that you should be careful with the investigation. There is something wrong with the entire case. Be on the look out for some, 'uncommon abnormalities' in the whole hostage situation." he said as he stood there, turned around and started to walk away. "Hey wait, I'm not done talking with you!" she yelled. As he did she ran around the car to confront him, but as she passed the pillar he had stood by, he was already gone.
Snapping her head back and fourth, she found no sign of his presence at all, as she holstered her gun, all while her face was twitching in silent frustration. Grunting, she turned and walk up to the elevator, and pressed the 'UP' button, while rubbing right arm with her left. He hadn't hurt her, but he still was able to make her unable to move it with a sword sheath, which proved one. Either he was using some sort of disruptor she never seen, or he was just that strong, but it hadn't left a mark, so she thought it might have been the first. "Who are you, and what did you mean by 'uncommon abnormalities'. Is there something we've overlooked, or what" she said to her self as she entered the elevator and pressed the appropriate button.
A while later, as she entered Aramaki's office. As she listened in on what Kubota had to say, she waited for him to leave. "well?" "Look into the ministers conduct one more time. And dig around what really happened in that restaurant. Ill have a another look at the militaries interest in the Ichinose report" he said as he sat in the chair, behind the desk. As she looked at him smiling, she started to walk out, but stopped as she touched the door handle. "You know..." she began, catching Aramaki's attention. "...I meet someone down in the parking lot. He said that we should look out for 'uncommon abnormalities', right before he disappeared from sight." she said as she walked out the door.
Aramaki sat in the chair, sighing heavily. "'uncommon abnormalities', U used to say that when something really wasn't right. What could have spooked you to show yourself so easy." he said to himself as he went started to look up with different contacts about important things.
With the major, she came upon Batou standing outside a interrogation room, leaning against the door, looking into it, with a sour face. As she walks closer, he suddenly turns to her, then going back to being sour. "Burning out his memories, mans got some guts. We weren't able to stop it from happening. And thanks to him and that white masked guy, I'm the laughing stock of the whole section." he said, not noticing the surprised face on the major. "white masked man?" she asked, looking at Batou as he turned around, leaning against the door. "Yeah, while Borma and Pazu were driving after him on the road, I was getting ready to jump the guy. But just as I jumped, his face hit something or someone, as his face stopped but not his body, so he was flying on his back, until he was smashed down into the pavement by this camouflaged guy. Of course, I hadn't expected this, so I landed a bit to rough on the pavement. Pasu was able to stop the car before he ran him over, but as he did, and I was back on my feet, what had stopped him flickered into view, maybe just for a second, but still long enough for me to see the white mask he wore." he told her as he sighed, with his head hanging in shame.
As the major looked at him for a moment, thinking about what she heard, she simply shook he head, and started to walk again. "I guess we have someone who wanted to help us this time, even if we don't need it. Oh, and were gonna take a look at the crime scene, to find out what happened. But keep things on standby..." she said as she walked towards the firing range. "...Cause Ive been told something is wrong with the whole scenario here. Better be ready if anything happens." at which Batou nodded and looked into the window again. 'what a hell of a way to end the week' he thought as he sighed again.
'Who is this Ghost Blade? How come hes an old friend to the chief? What will happen with the investigation? Stay tuned...'
A/N
This was supposed to be much longer, but I will cut it here, until I get my creativity flowing again... plus your review will give me much needed pointers to what you find good and bad about this fic, and in what direction I must improve... so review... plz...