After the meeting with Mick, Ryo got a small motel room outside of the airport. Heavy curtains were pulled over all windows and blocked most of daylight, but few narrow ribbons of sunlight leaked into, lightening the dark room. His room itself was nothing special. It wasn't a run-down-fleabag or expensive Hilton Sweet. Just average middle class motel room with a cable TV, queen-size bed, night table, chair, and small bathroom. The bed cover and curtain patter might be different, but it was a regular middle class motel room you could find any city. Soft pastel color and floral prints of curtains and bed covered were desperately trying to make the room's atmosphere warm and at-home, but they were miserably failing to do so. Simply they couldn't hide the air of cold, invisible, impersonal detachment the room was emitting.
Lying on the big Queen-size bed in the room's center, Ryo absently stared at the pale white smoke rising slowly from ever-present lit cigarette in his hand.
"Can you kill her? If you must," Mick's words kept echoing in Ryo's mind again and again, mocking and tormenting him silently. Mick Angel acting like "Angel"... The world was coming to the end. He chuckled bitterly to none particular.
Because of extensive injuries his ex-partner, Mick, retired from the underworld of murder mayhem. Nevertheless he wasn't a active participant of the bloody game anymore, Ryo just couldn't ignore his ex-partner's words easily. They had been through pretty tight spots many times and shared a lot of hell together. Mick was one of few men Ryo could freely called "best friend" with no doubt. In their line of work, just good shooting skills won't let a person live a long life. There was a certain survival instinct one must have. Some called this "pure luck" or "fate." But, Ryo didn't believe such cheap name. For him, it was natural born gift, an ability to sense unexpected danger. Like dog's keen nose or cat's sensitive ears, Ryo Saeba, Mick Angel, and other old war mercenary had a sense to feel the complicate web of approaching death taking various shapes: bullets, bombs, land mines, traps, betrayal, etc.
Despite his unquestionable confidence in his ability, Ryo wasn't optimistic or foolish enough to believe his instinct and skills could cheat the death forever. He was just a simple realist.
Sometimes, the things happened out of proportion without rational explanation or reasons. This made everything sound impossible and no control, but on the contrary, no straight rules meant for him that everything was possible. Perhaps was this principal made him to survive the endless harsh path he led after Kaori's death? He didn't bother the answer.
Whether Ryo was believing in his principal or not, still Mick's words were serious enough to disturb him from the ground. For him, it was the voice of unexpected rationality, directly questioning to his unconscious and illogical longing for his dead partner, Kaori.
A little white business card was enclosed together with mysterious Kaori-look-alike, the card was neatly typed three words, "Go to Chicago." There was no sign or further explanation for the message. At first, Ryo pondered the true meaning behind the card for a moment. What "Chicago" was the sender talking about? Was it a city? Restaurant? Bar? If it was a city, where in Chicago should he go? He hated the opponent who played a stupid cat-and-mouse game tactic. Personally, he thought an elaborate plan itself was the waste of time and resource. Usually, the perpetrators would be caught up with their busy collaborate acts; consequently, they lose their ground later. Sometimes, simplicity and good old directness just would do finer job.
Actually it wasn't really matter whether "Chicago" was a name of city or not as long as he acted as if he was going along blindly with this sinister plot. He got their invitation, and it was his time to move his pawn. To gain something, a player must understand the possibility of the loss. The chance didn't come easy or free. One must be willing to shed blood... Standing in fear didn't bring anything.
But, the price could be so high... The faint light from moving images on a muted television screen flashed against the walls of the unlit room. Eerily shadows danced around here and there. Ryo warily closed his eyes. After three years, he still could remember the nightmare, which changed his and Kaori's world forever. The price they had to pay that day. The road they took and could not go back. The mistake he made.
Three years...It had been three years...was it...
Infamous "City Hunter" was a man not a god, but knowing that couldn't make him forgive himself for his actions. In his mind, he could see the image of Kaori standing besides him, holding her brother's gun bravely. Hey eyes straight at the coming enemies and opened wide with strong determination. In them, he saw the fear, not for her but for his life. Damned, it was he who promised to protect her innocence, but like all the promises in this world, it was meant to be broken someday.
It was not supposed to be like this. Ryo bit down his lips hard. Inside of huge deserted warehouse, Ryo and Kaori had last violent showdown against the corrupted police captain and their druglord armies. But, that day something went terribly wrong. Compared to the scams they used to fight in streets of Tokyo, the foes were strangely very well-equipped and fight quite well against them.
For a fraction of second, his focus was pulled back to Kaori; she was standing on the course of the bullet reflected by the iron pole nearby. No time to warn her, he moved his body between the bullet and his partner. The stray bullet shattered his right kneecap instantly and went through his left leg. Like a slow motion commercial, he felt that slowly his whole world tilted around himself.
During his decent to the concrete pavement, he felt the man aiming his back. Ignoring own pain, he pulled himself up to get the unseen enemy, but his body didn't listen his command. The struggle felt like forever. Then, he saw Kaori's white slender right index finger squeezed the cold trigger of Colt Lawman. Such small action... The sound of gunshot struck through his heart, shattering something invisible inside of him together.
"Kaori!" Despite shooting pain from the legs, Ryo looked from the gun to Kaori sitting on ground in shock like a broken doll. Covered with little cuts everywhere and dried blood, silently tears fell upon her cheeks. Washing down the dirt. The loss of her innocence was tracing her face and falling like diamonds. He couldn't feel the man behind anymore. Pale Kaori looked at him like a scared little child; her eyes were apologizing to him and at the same time begging him to deny the reality they could not stop. But, he didn't know any magic spell to restore the escaped time. Helplessly, he stared at Kaori. Before he could say more, the violent explosion shocked both of them and threw them on ground hard.
Later Ryo was told the unexpected explosion was due to gas leak happened during their intense shooting battle. Someone's bullets must hit the gas pipe, sometime later the one of reflected bullets' tiny spark lit the gas, invisible but surely accumulating in the warehouse. Instinctively, he covered Kaori with his injured body. No time to escape. Directly the structure of warehouse fell upon them, crashing their enemies at the same time.
"I'm sorry...Ryo..." Ryo remembered how Kaori whispered to him just before they took a cover from the explosion. Her tiny voice still echoed in his mind. He knew what Kaori meant at that moment, despite own shock and realization for her first kill, she was worrying about him and letting him know she would forgive his guilt. Even at the time like that, pushing her weakness away, and she was trying to be strong for him. Kaori was always like that, thinking about other's pains than her own.
That was the last time Ryo saw Kaori alive. Next thing he remembered was regaining consciousness on a Professor's bed, surrounded by close friends whose faces darkened with indescribable anguish. Silently lying on the bed, he listened what happened during his 2 weeks coma, about explosion, transportation accident, and how Kaori couldn't be back to him forever. No tear came from him. Quietly, Ryo asked everyone to be out from the room. There was some hesitation among his friends, but they spoke few caring words and left the room.
Tightly holding white bed sheet with both fists, Ryo continued to sit on the bed quietly, the frozen part of Ryo's rational brain finally slowly to grasp the harsh world he was left alone now. He took his hands away from the sweat soaked bed sheet, and he stared at his opened hands on laps. For taking the cover from the explosion, with these hands he held his Kaori. He would do anything to hold her one more time. Anything... But, there was no god to call out or pray for his wish.
His eyes caught something moving in the room. Where did it come from? A beautiful large butterfly with black and white intricate pattern danced into his room from the opened window. It flied around the small room as he stared at it vacantly. Fragile wings beating the air idly, abruptly the butterfly slipped away from the opened window as it came.
She was gone from him. Did she? He looked down again. No tears. The time stopped around Ryo. She was dead...dead...DEAD! One by one, the doors were shut violently inside of his heart. He was still here, and so the cruel world was. But, no Kaori. His small wildflower in No Man's Land was gone forever. She was not a fragile red rose grown in the glass house, but that brave innocent flower was his only to cherish always. Against any violent storms or wind, defiantly his wildflower stayed besides him. Always...no matter what...but no more.
Riiing. The telephone on the night table suddenly began to ring and shattered his daydream and the stillness of the room together.
Totally disregarding the sound of busily ringing phone, sluggishly Ryo got up from the bed, and his right hand reached to the night table, but his stretched hand stopped in mid-air few inches from the ringing phone. Was it fear or doubt in his mind?
The phone on the night table kept ringing in the dark motel room. The sound was screaming its urgency everywhere.
After the brief pause, finally Ryo decided to answer the phone. "Hello..."