Disclaimer: See first chapter.
Chapter Two
Underneath heavy rain clouds and a dark sky, the Japanese seaport of Osaka bustled with life. Along the major streets hawkers called out their wares to the crowds pushing their way hurriedly along, while through the side alleys people darted back and forth, glancing behind their backs as they hurried to reach the safety of their homes. All throughout the town there was an almost tangible air of unease, though no one would openly say what was causing this discomfort.
There was, however, one person amongst the crowds who appeared to be quite calm and unaffected by the atmosphere around her. In fact this woman, Setsuka, stuck out from the crowd in more ways than one. Whereas the great majority of the people here were short and Japanese with tan skin and black hair, Setsuka had fair, Caucasian skin, long blonde hair held together in a Japanese-style bun, and stood a head taller than the rest of the people in the milling crowds. The very way in which she dressed was different as well; her elegant kimono - patterned in shades of pink and white with small flowers sewed into its design – made a stark contrast with the plain, everyday work-wear of the common Japanese villager.
Setsuka's striking appearance drew a number of different reactions from the villagers. Many, perhaps the majority even, looked on her with a certain amount of disdain, as though they were disgraced to see a foreigner dressing as one of them. Setsuka did receive the occasional friendly smile or polite greeting from the obviously more educated and accepting villagers. And of course their were more than a few young men who stared open-mouthed at Setsuka's beautiful face, which smiled at its edges yet at the same time looked somehow sad.
As she strolled along the road, impervious to the glares and stares of the people around her, she felt a drop of rain land on her shoulder and looked up at the sky only to have another drop splash against her cheek. Laughing softly, Setsuka took the pink and white flowered, Japanese-style umbrella which had been tied against her back and opened it just as a downpour of rain hit Osaka. Yelps of surprise sounded around her as people ran for cover, many of them knocking each other down in their flight for shelter. Setsuka walked on, safe from the rain under her umbrella, until she came upon a small Japanese child standing in the middle of the road with his head hanging down, accepting the rain as it pelted his small body.
She continued her slow, delicate walk until she reached the child and stood above him, shielding the child from the rain with her umbrella. Looking downward, Setsuka saw her own feet, which were comfortable and dry atop wooden platform sandals, then the child's bare and blistered feet, and painful memories panged through her mind, memories of a time when she was the one walking barefoot through the streets, shunned by those who could have offered her help.
"Tell me little one," Setsuka said firmly, putting a hand on the child's head. "Do you know where I could find the Yakuza?"
The child recoiled at Setsuka's words, falling down into the street and then crawling away from the woman as swiftly as his little body could carry him. Meanwhile several villagers who had taken refuge in a nearby overhang gasped in shock, as though they could not believe their ears. "What do you think you're doing?" One of them hissed. "Do not speak of such things ever again."
"Do any of you know I could find the Yakuza?" Setsuka repeated herself, this time quite loudly. She stood silently patiently for several moments while rain splashed against the buildings and stone roads. Then a door banged open somewhere to Setsuka's right, and she spun around to see a man dressed in red and black stalking towards her, a long dagger in his hand.
"So, someone wants to find the Yakuza," The man said as he approached. He looked at Setsuka through the rain and then shouted, "A gaijin?! Ha, you have a death wish, gaijin?"
Long ago, the word gaijin, a derogatory term for a foreigner in Japan, would have stung Setsuka to her core. Now it did not even prick her armor. "I see the Yakuza's grip on this town is as tight as I've been told," She responded calmly. "I would like to meet with your leader. I must ask him something."
"When you talk to a Yakuza like that, the penalty is death!" The Yakuza charged at Setsuka, his eyes wild and his dagger poised to kill, but she turned sideways and thrust her leg outwards, catching the man hard in the stomach with her hard wooden sandal. As the gang member gasped for breath Setsuka spun in a circle, her kimono flapping elegantly around her, and delivered another platform sandaled kick, this one to the side of the Yakuza's head. He dropped like a sack, his dagger falling free then clanging against the ground.
Setsuka bent down and picked the blade up, then gently tapped its tip against the downed man's neck. "As I was saying, I would like to meet with your leader. Now, preferably."
"O- Okay," The Yakuza member mumbled, and Setsuka realized he was sobbing. "Just don't kill me." He got shakily to his feet, one side of his face stained by tears and the other by blood. Setsuka noted that several of the man's teeth were still on the ground where he had fallen. Another prod from the dagger motivated the defeated man to move. "I… I'll show you."
Setsuka's reluctant guide led her several blocks in the direction of the seaport, standing just outside the shelter of the woman's umbrella with his own knife pressed against the back of his neck. Just before they reached the port the Yakuza stopped short, as though he was physically incapable of proceeding any further.
"Are we there?" Setsuka asked skeptically.
"No… The boss is in a building disguised as fish shop," The gang member said.
"Well then take me there," Setsuka ordered. She pushed the blade up against the Yakuza's neck, this time hard enough that he cried out in pain.
"Please! I can't be seen there!" He said pleadingly once Setsuka had relaxed her merciless grip on the knife. "I'm dead if they see me leading someone to their base."
"And you're dead if you don't lead me to their base," Setsuka stated calmly. "Might as well help me and buy yourself a few more seconds of life."
Cursing under his breath, the Yakuza dragged himself around the corner and into the dark, dreary seaport, which was currently devoid of any human activity despite the multitude of ships docked in its harbor.
"There's the base." The Yakuza whispered, inclining his head to the right. Setsuka followed his gesture with her eyes and saw a traditional one-story Japanese fish shop. Nothing looked suspicious at first glance, although there was a cloaked figure standing casually outside the front door of the building who Setsuka could swear was watching her and her unwilling accomplice.
Setsuka lowered her knife so it was now jabbing the Yakuza in the small of his back and pulled him into the refuge of her umbrella. "Stay in front of me."
Together they strolled over towards the fish shop until stood almost in front of the cloaked guard. He surveyed them both suspiciously for a moment, then laughed smugly and said, "You know you're not supposed to come around here, Tokugo, even if you have a wh-" The man's sentence ended in a variety of bloody gurgling noises, for Setsuka whipped her knife around in the blink of an eye and jammed deep into his Adam's apple. The guard collapsed dead to the ground, and Setsuka patted her captive Yakuza on his head as someone would pet a dog.
"For a stupid gang-banger, you've done pretty well," She said. "I was originally going to kill you, but you've changed my mind. Go on, leave."
As the now-former Yakuza tore off and away from Setsuka, thanking the heavens above that he still drew breath, she opened the door to the fish shop and stepped nonchalantly inside.
"We're closed, can't you tell?" A gruff voice barked as the door was still closing behind Setsuka, and a burly Japanese man with dark stubble on his face emerged from a back room of the shop.
"I didn't know the Yakuza could close," Setsuka said.
"Wait… Where's Hideo?" The man asked grimly.
"You mean the guard out there?" Setsuka said. "He tripped and his neck fell on a knife. You could have a similar accident if you don't tell me where your boss is, Yakuza."
"You bitch," The Yakuza barked furiously. "Ichiro, Yame, get up here. We have a bitch who needs to learn her place." Two more burly men appeared in the shop, these two both armed with short katanas. "Try not to kill her. She'd be fun to torture."
Setsuka closed her umbrella and held it at her side in her left hand, then untied the top half of her kimono and pulled her right arm free of it, leaving the sleeve hanging limply to the side and showing her tight corset and a significant amount of cleavage. The two Yakuza members encircled her, muttering threats of unspeakable violence under their breath. Then Setsuka grabbed the handle of her umbrella and before either of the gangsters could react both of them were lying dead on the ground, their throats cut.
"It's the laido style!" The remaining Yakuza shouted in sudden fear. "Boss, she has a laito lai blade!" Before the man could say anything else, Setsuka took two quick strides over to him, and unsheathed the slim, elegant blade from its hidden place inside her umbrella, slit the man's jugular with it, and sheathed it once more, all in the blink of an eye.
Not wasting any time, Setsuka moved swiftly into the back rooms of the Yakuza hideout, making her way through several empty rooms before finally arriving at the ornate chamber that could only be the room of a Yakuza gang boss. Setsuka entered the chamber then immediately whipped out her sword and deflected a throwing star that had been aimed at her head. She spun to face the Yakuza boss and he threw three more of the projectiles in rapid succession. Setsuka's blade sent them all flying off course, and in desperation her enemy grabbed a katana from off a nearby wall and charged at her, the weapon raised high over his head. Setsuka sheathed her laito lai blade and waited until the last possible instant, then out whipped out the sword once more and made three precise cuts on the Yakuza's arms and stomach. The gang boss dropped the katana and fell to the ground with a scream, blood pouring out of his wounds.
Setsuka planted a sandaled foot on the Yakuza's chest to keep him from moving then spoke. "Ryu Kurosawa. You've been a difficult man to find."
"What do you want from me?" Ryu spat. He groaned in pain and clutched at Setsuka's bare, outstretched leg which was keeping him planted to the floor, but she immediately snatched the Yakuza's hand and broke one of his fingers without a moment's hesitation.
"Tell me where I can find Heishiro Mitsurugi," Setsuka commanded, her voice devoid of emotion. The only indication as to her intentions was a slight hardening of her eyes. But Ryu, who had become quite familiar with this kind of expression, knew exactly what it meant.
"You want to kill that man? Mitsurugi?" Ryu laughed despite the unbearable pain he felt. "I'll tell you, gaijin, but you have no idea what you're doing."
"I'm waiting," Setsuka said.
"Alright… He left from this port less than a week ago. Said he was heading to dangerous lands. Trying to find the ultimate warrior… I remember him saying that clearly. His ship was bound for Korea. That's everything I know." Ryu found himself feeling very surprised as Setsuka released him from her crushing hold.
"Farewell then," She said simply as she turned to leave the Yakuza boss bleeding on the wooden floor.
"Aren't you going to kill me?" Ryu asked.
Setsuka looked back at the man and smiled mirthlessly. "The wounds from my blade will kill you within the day."
"You won't get out of here alive, gaijin!" Ryu shouted. "My men see everything in this town! There will be twenty Yakuza waiting for you!"
"Good," Setsuka said. "I will soon hunt much more difficult prey than mob bosses, and my blade needs practice."
Without another word to Ryu she left the dying man and returned to the entrance of the fish shop, then exited through the front door and found herself facing more than twenty men strong, all dressed in black and red and equipped with a variety of deadly weapons. Setsuka gripped her hidden blade's hilt, and then the streets of Osaka ran red with blood.
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Sitting alone atop a peaceful hill in the countryside of India, Kilik prostrated himself before a life-size statue of the Buddha, who stood at the very top of the grassy hill with a permanently joyful expression on his stone face. For a full hour all was motionless on the hill save the gentle swaying the breeze caused as in the yellow grass it blew through. At length Kilik rose and picked up his holy red bow-staff, Kali-Yuga, then surveyed the distant horizon. Soon it would be time for Xianghua to come riding back over, bringing back with her the supplies that would get them through the next week as well as the unbearable memories that invaded Kilik's mind every time he looked her in the eyes.
The same futile hope that overcame Kilik whenever Xianghua was away took hold of his thoughts once again; the hope that she would realize the foolishness of following a man who could never return her feelings, the foolishness of following a man with a death wish. The hope that she would leave and seek a life for herself, one filled with happiness and peace rather than pain and the same inevitable end that awaited all who followed Kilik's path.
Yet as always Kilik's wild daydreams were in vain, for at that precise moment a small brown dot appeared on the horizon and Kilik sighed wearily before resigning himself to facing away from his returning companion so as to appear as if he did not even notice her approach. As he stood straight and erect with his shirt crumpled up in a ball on the ground next to him, Kilik looked to be the very definition of physical perfection. The muscles on his chest, arms, and stomach were large and defined but not quite at the point of bulging, and it seemed as though his body did not contain even an ounce of fat. He had long dark hair that fell past his ears and hawkish, ever-alert eyes which peered out from his thin, chiseled face.
Yet for all his physical fitness, Kilik's mind was barely under his control. Any who conversed with him always regarded him as a wise, knowledgeable and above all in control of himself, and that much was true. "But," Kilik thought as he gazed longingly at a flock of birds flying far above him, "Deep inside, am I any different than I was the night that the Evil Seed fell?"
Kilik suddenly felt a strong desire to turn around and check on Xianghua's progress but he restrained himself, instead focusing on the smiling Buddha before him and trying to will himself into being more like the cheerful stone man. At length Kilik heard the sound of galloping hooves and he sighed, although whether it was in relief or despair he did not know. Then he noticed that the steps of Xianghua's horse were sounding a little too quickly, and seconds later he heard a second set of hooves beating against the hard dirt. Kilik spun around just in time to see Xianghua, who was now at the very bottom of the hill, be knocked from atop her horse by a dark figure dressed all in white who rode atop a great white warhorse. The figure raised a scythe above his head and drove it down at Xianghua, who just barely blocked it with her own weapon as she stumbled and fell to the ground against the pitiless blow.
Kilik did not waste another second. "Xianghua!" He shouted, taking his bow-staff in hand and dashing down to engage his unexpected new foe.
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Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter or sent me a pm, your words are appreciated and I hope you keep the feedback up! Chapter 3 coming soon!
By the way Toran; Ice Cube be takin' da' mutha' fuckin' stand in da court of NWA, ya dig?