Disclaimer: Why am I still writing disclaimers?
The phone clattered to the floor, the call ending, and Kitsune lay perfectly still on her back holding her smoking sidearm. In front of her, a man lay on the ground, blood quickly spreading from the massive gunshot wound in his arm. It was the Yakuza she'd chased off before, he had come back.
Why? She didn't care. Lowering the smoking pistol, her eyes immediately darted to the door.
There was no one else. She couldn't hear any other sounds or movements. Just her own labored breathing and the moans of pain from the man she just shot.
Standing up slowly, Kitsune struggled to steady herself, but even with the lungfuls of air she took in, she felt like she was suffocating.
"Mitsune what-?!" she heard a girl shout before gunfire cut her short.
Turning, and using the wall to support herself, Kitsune slowly shuffled over to the door with her head bowed.
"No! NO-!" another student yelled in her head before the thunder of gunfire ended it.
Stopping, she repeatedly curled her fingers around the grip of her pistol as she struggled again with her breath.
"Mitsune, why?!" an adult's voice asked, gunfire answered.
Reaching the Yakuza, she looked down at him lying there, holding his wound. For a moment, she saw a slightly overweight, glasses-wearing boy staring up at her with tears in his glazing eyes as he clutched the gunshot wounds in his chest.
Lifting up her pistol, she pointed it at his head and fired until the gun was empty.
A younger Kitsune, holding the now empty pistol, let the empty magazine slide from the grip and hit the floor with a clatter. She slowly turned around, seeing the bodies of her classmates, and at a window splattered with blood… where in front stood a younger Naru–her hair cut sloppily short and her body covered in blood–staring in horror and disbelief.
"Mitsune… h-how could you…?"
The present Kitsune lowered her pistol and stared at the floor after she sat down next to the dead Yakuza, her gaze unfocusing.
"It was a mistake."
Love Hina: The Merry Killers
Chapter 10: FOXDIE
Kitagami looked down at the phone when it made its call ended beep, and looked over to his boss. "It's done."
Takimaru nodded. "We can now return to the matter at hand."
Kitagami turned towards Itachi, whose defiance had evaporated almost entirely.
"Now, now. You still have a family left, don't you? Two more daughters? A wife, estranged as she is," Kitagami said, "Tell us who your people are, and you won't have to bury them as well."
Itachi kept his eyes to the ground, his expression sullen.
Kitagami smirked. "Nothing to say now, hm?"
Takimaru's elderly face contorted in another sneer, if but for a moment, before he nodded to his Senior Advisor. Like lightning, Kitagami punched Itachi across his face, knocking him down on his side.
Itachi rolled onto his back, fresh blood running from his nose. "Tell me, old timer, how does it feel to have wasted the last sixty years of your life?"
Takimaru tightened his grip on his cane. "I've wasted nothing."
Itachi let out a long sigh "You're old Takimaru, old enough to be my old man. So old you can barely hold that cane, let alone a gun. You've been running rackets since the occupation, and while you're the biggest in Tokyo, better men have died passing on bigger things to their successors than you've ever achieved."
Takimaru's good eye narrowed at Itachi.
"Your work has never measured up to your ambition. You could never extend your reach past Tokyo, and you know it," Itachi continued, "You don't want to die with unsatisfied ambition, that's why we're here, not because my little girl made short work of your men; but because we have the power you need."
Kitagami moved to strike Itachi again, when Takimaru held out his arm, stopping him. His cane shaking in his grip, Takimaru finally responded. "Yes, that's it precisely. We did a lot of research into your family."
He grinned. "To think that in this world, assassins like those from the days of old still existed. Genuine ninja!"
Itachi grimaced at the look of glee on Takimaru's face, but said nothing.
"You're not singing the same tune you were before, Konno, and that's good," Takimaru congratulated, "I want you to sing a new song. The names of the people you work for, the clients who've given you money to kill. I want to know who backs you up, and cleans up your messes… I want all of those secrets."
To kill for money is the dirtiest of professions, but worse than hired killers were always the people who hired them. To know who hired the Konno and supported them in their work would give the Takimaru Group unparalleled control over them. Blackmail, extortion, influence anywhere from the street to the media to the Diet itself…
"Cough them up while you still have family to protect quickly, Konno," Kitagami advised, "Otherwise your wife and daughters are going to wish we killed them."
Itachi closed his eyes and sighed deeply.
Opening his eyes, Keitaro let out a moan and rubbed the side of his head. Having a grenade explode against it always knocked him out for a bit, and this time was no different. "A-ow-ow… my head… What was that, thermobaric?" he asked as he got up.
When he stood, he remembered Kitsune. "Oh no, Kitsune!"
He looked around. No sign of Kitsune among the bodies in the room or in the hallway. That was an overwhelming relief-
Several gunshots rang out, it sounded like it came from upstairs.
"Crap!" he bolted down the glass hall, quickly following the trail of bullet holes and broken glass all the way to the main building of Jindai High School. Reaching the stairs, he tore up them without hesitation or thought, and promptly triggered the claymore mine waiting at the landing.
The blast and hundreds of steel bearings moving at high speed had thrown Keitaro against the wall, and shredded most of his clothes not destroyed by the earlier grenade attack. Stumbling forward, Keitaro groaned in pain and looked down at the remains of the mine. "Claymore…? Where did the Yakuza get a Claymore from?"
Brushing a few steel bearings from his hair, Keitaro slowly made his way up the next flight of stairs, and stopped when he saw the tripwire for the second Claymore. He narrowed his eyes and wisely stepped over it, before leaning down and making it safe with a skillful disabling of the arming mechanism. "Fool me once…"
He walked down the hallway, approaching the lone open classroom door, and stopped when he looked inside. "Kitsune…?"
Kitsune was sitting on the floor of the classroom, leaning against the wall behind her was a memorial shrine. In front of her, the Yakuza she had killed laid there.
"Kitsune?" he repeated as he stepped closer. "Are you all right?"
She didn't respond to him, just tightened her grip on the pistol.
"Kitsune, we should get moving. There are still enemies around." He stepped towards her, and knelt down to her level. When she didn't move or react, he crept closer. "Kitsune…?"
He waved his hand in front of her face, and then pushed back her hair; her eyes were open, but her expression was despondent, and her gaze was entirely blank. Her only signs of life were her steady breathing, and the slight shaking of the pistol she gripped.
Keitaro lowered his hand from her face, before he gently took the pistol from her hands and set it aside. She didn't attempt to stop him. Nor did she resist when he took her and pulled her into a tight hug, resting her face against his chest. He looked back at the shrine, and then down at her.
"It's okay," he said quietly, "It's me, Kitsune, I'm here. What happened?"
Kitsune didn't respond at first, before she buried her face against his chest. "We need to go, are you okay?"
"No I'm not…" Kitsune whispered back.
"What happened?"
"I'm… I'm just not, okay? I can't right now… I can't…"
This was an unsettling departure from the Kitsune he'd known to this point. She was deeply in shock, a complete shell of the vivacious tenant and ferocious killer that he'd seen to this point. This was not good, it was bad in every conceivable way.
Allowing Kitsune to rest against him, Keitaro noticed the burner cellphone lying next to her. He picked it up.
"I gotta call Haruka…" he whispered as he dialed her number.
At Tokyo Tower, Su perked up when she noticed a call incoming behind the visor of the complicated headset she wore. "It's Kitsune. Patching it to you!"
Haruka answered the call and brought the phone to her ear. "What's going on?"
"Auntie it's me, Keitaro," Keitaro answered.
"Is everything okay?" Haruka asked.
"It isn't," Keitaro said, "Kitsune's messed up right now. The place they brought us to… it did something to her. She's completely shut down!"
Haruka paused. "Shut down?"
"This place triggered it, I don't know what…"
"Keitaro, where did they take you?" Haruka asked levelly.
"An old High School in Minato, close to the bay. It's fenced off and abandoned, I think the sign said Jindai…"
"Those bastards know that much?" Haruka muttered, "Keitaro, focus on keeping Kitsune alive; when we're done here I will come for you. Can you do that?"
"Of course, but I don't understand, what happened here?" Keitaro asked.
"I can't talk right now. Just get Kitsune to come back around and get somewhere safe. Can you do that?" she repeated for emphasis.
After a moment to glance at Kitsune, Keitaro nodded. "I can. I'll talk to you soon."
"Good luck, Keitaro," Haruka said before ending the call.
She turned to Su. "Su-chan. Spread the word, we're wiping out the Takimaru Group. No survivors."
Su beamed at the opportunity to give the order. "Okay!"
"You've wasted your time," Itachi finally said with a small smile. "Your money too, all on some very dumb decisions."
Hearing his remark and finding his returned amusement annoying, Kitagami grabbed Itachi by his short hair and tilted his head back to look him in the eyes. "Repeat that, Konno?"
"We're not allowed to betray them, or they would kill us all too," Itachi replied.
Takimaru sneered. "What?"
"In case you don't get it, let me make it abundantly clear: We of the Konno family are not seen as people in this country. We are property."
Both men stopped, and stared at Itachi's face as his smile became a grin. He let out a dark laugh.
"I understand your surprise, but it's true. We Konno own nothing, control nothing. We are bound by blood to serve without question give all we call ours to our Masters. If we are ordered to die, we die. If we're ordered to kill, we kill. If we must slaughter women, children, and even the ones we love to satisfy them? We do."
He looked towards the old man. "We're even lower than you burakumin. Just us, this one sole family. We're animals."
Kitagami took a step back, stunned into silence, before a furious Takimaru gestured to the window of his office, and the skyline of Tokyo. "Don't joke with me! No power in Japan is greater than the Yakuza, we rebuilt this country, our influence spans from the gutters to the top of the Diet. The police, the media, the defense forces all of it have been bent to our will time and again. But you… you slaves exist in a world beyond that."
He hobbled over and grabbed Itachi by his gray hair. He brought his weathered face close to his and bellowed like a beast. "Who gave you such power?!"
Itachi chuckled. "Tsk, tsk, what did I just tell you about defying our masters? We can't."
"Who is your Master, then?" Kitagami asked.
"Think about it, you whipper-snapper. Who in this country has power beyond even the Yakuza? The Diet? The Self-Defense Forces? Who in this country, commands power so great that all of Japan bends to Him? It's not too difficult, the answer is on the tip of your tongue."
Kitagami snarled in frustration. "Should I just kill him now?"
Itachi quickly shook his head. "Wait, not yet! I want to see the looks on your faces."
Kitagami looked down at Itachi. "For what?"
Takimaru's desk phone rang.
Looking from Itachi to the phone, Takimaru nodded for Kitagami to pick it up.
With a glare at Itachi, he did just that. "This is Kitagami, what is it?"
"Hello Yuji Kitagami, my name is Haruka Urashima," Haruka answered.
When he heard the soft, deep voice of the woman who called him, Kitagami narrowed his eyes. "Urashima?"
Haruka let out a slight huff. "We are the ones who own the Konno Family."
"Hi Daddy~" Itachi replied in a high falsetto, like a prostitute addressing their pimp.
"Is that so?" Kitagami snapped at Haruka, "I'm curious how you were able to trace that phone back to us."
"It wasn't very hard. You really shouldn't use AV actresses' credit cards for such important purchases. Burners should always be bought with cash, it makes them harder to track."
Haruka looked over to Su, who was practically coordinating an entire military operation with her thoughts alone. "Not that it would've helped."
Kitagami tightened his grip on the phone. "If he 'belongs to you' then good; we have matters to discuss."
"There is nothing to discuss. I just wanted to help you understand the scope of your folly, so you're not confused by what's about to happen," Haruka said forcefully.
Kitagami was not intimidated. "Do you intend to wage a war?"
"A war implies you're going to be able to fight back."
Kitagami sneered. "Do you think we're so helpless?"
"Absolutely," Haruka reassured him, as she gave a nod to Su, "You have some incoming calls. I'll call you back."
She abruptly ended the call, and soon as she did, Takimaru's phone began ringing, and the call waiting lights all came on one after another, flashing in their urgency. The normally fearsome Kitagami looked upon the phone with surprise before he pressed the button on one.
"Boss! Get the old man out of town, quick!" he heard an underboss yell in terror.
Kitagami tensed. "What is it?!"
"It's the police! We're being raided!"
On the other end of the phone line, an underboss in a cheap red suit watched from behind the bulletproof glass of his Night Club's VIP box as before his very eyes, men who looked like they were dressed as Tokyo Metro Police SAT officers opened fire on every Yakuza they saw, skillfully avoiding the fleeing patrons and hitting the gangsters.
Several soldiers who fled for the doors with the crowd and outside quickly fell into the sights of SAT officers atop a roof, wearing a solid visor like Kaolla Su's. On the screen on the inside, facial recognition software quickly identified the faces of the Yakuza members among the club patrons, before opening fire with rifles connected to the helmets by heavy cables.
"What the…? They're just killing everyone?!" the underboss said before he noticed a SAT enter the secured front entrance of the club with a weapon definitely not in the Tokyo Metro Police's arsenal, an RPG-7.
The underboss knew he was dead, the moment the launcher was pointed at him. "These aren't cops, who the hell are these guys?!"
An incredibly loud sound followed on Kitagami's end, and the line disconnected. He quickly pressed the next line.
"This is Kitagami! What the hell is going on?!" Kitagami asked, and only heard gunfire. "No…"
The underboss who called him was already lying down on the ground, dead from numerous gunshots as SAT officers made short work of the Yakuza occupants in the building, a soapland. They moved with trained efficiency from room to room, mercilessly gunning down the Yakuza in front of stunned clients and employees where they spotted them with suppressed weapons.
Outside the soapland, a young couple–a beautiful, feminine, long-haired young man in jeans and a matching vest, with two loops of rope hanging off his belt, and a lovely woman dressed as a miko wearing a straw hat over her long black hair–oversaw the operation quietly from the side of the SAT van that brought them there. Above the van, a yellowish bird set down on a power line and flapped its wings before watching raptly.
"What's happening?!" Takimaru demanded.
Kitagami looked over, his shock becoming fury. "Konno's people are on the move, they're attacking our businesses."
He quickly answered another line, recognizing the number as one of the organization's cache of weapons. "What's the situation down there?!"
"That's what we want to know, boss!" another underboss in a shipping warehouse asked as his men tore open crates loaded with various weapons and ammunition. "I'm getting calls from my men that we're being raided by the Police or the Russians or something. No one's telling me anything! I got my guys arming up, but no one else is talking or answering their phones."
Kitagami sighed in relief. "Get as many men as you can down to our places in Ginza. We are under attack and we need to fight them off! It's all out war!"
"Who are they, the Russians?!" Takimaru demanded from Itachi.
"Oh man, Russians," Itachi laughed, "You wish."
The underboss then heard a commotion from his men, and looked back. "Hang on, there's something going on."
The fearsome Kitagami actually went pale, then. "Get out of there, now!"
Sadly, he went unheard as the underboss drew a pistol and went to confront the cause of the commotion in the warehouse.
"Who the hell are you?!" he asked before he froze where he stood, overcome with a paralyzing, smothering terror. Unable to move any other part of his body, his eyes darted around, looking fearfully at the other Yakuza. They too were unable to move from the fear that filled them.
At the entrance to the shipping warehouse was the source of their terror: a woman in a simple blue and violet kimono stood under the overhead lights.
She shrugged her shoulders, and the kimono seemed to melt from her to the floor, revealing an athletic body adorned with black flower tattoos on her arms, legs, sides and back, while her shoulders sported the tattoos of snarling demon faces. Underneath the kimono, she wore only lace bra and string panties, and leggings held up by a garter belt that also held several banana clips for the drum-magazine equipped Kalashnikov Rifle she carried in her right hand.
Lifting the rifle and chambering the first round, she pointed it at the Yakuza as the lights in the warehouse went out one by one until there was nothing but darkness.
The gunfire that followed from the receiver was ignored by Kitagami, as a bright flash illuminated the Tokyo Skyline. Turning to look at it, he watched as one of the Takimaru Group's most expensive assets, a yet-to-open five-star grand hotel in the middle of Ginza District, began a tumultuous collapse after suffering several large explosions in its lower floors.
Takimaru himself saw the building's collapse, and he promptly let his cane fall to the floor with a clatter.
"My, my, they blew that up? Haruka-chan, you're vicious." Itachi then hummed. "Wait a tad, hey old timer, don't you guys run a casino cruise out in Tokyo Bay? Oh man, all those people…"
Takimaru and Kitagami both felt a wave of shock course through them, as they shared a disbelieving look.
"They wouldn't!" Takimaru growled.
"They will," Itachi said, "You see, you've gone and stepped into a world you don't belong."
At that moment, on the main deck of the casino cruise liner M/V Diamond Regalia, passengers and crew alike gawked in confusion as a helicopter hovered over its bow and slowly winched down a large metal container. When it touched down, the helicopter immediately and haphazardly cut the cable and took off as fast as it could into the night,with no running lights and a surprisingly quieter rotor noise than a normal helicopter.
"You've stumbled into the real Japan."
A few moments after the helicopter was a safe distance away, an electronic lock disengaged and the doors slowly swung open. From inside the container, carrying in her hands a pair of modified automatic shotguns, Red stepped out and looked around at the people staring back at her.
She smiled.
"And you won't escape so easily."
And at that moment, the lights of the Takimaru Group's building were shut off, plunging them into darkness. The blackout rolled down from the roof down, causing confusion and surprise among the Yakuza who occupied the building as their lights went out as well.
On the roof of the building, Naru finished securing her rappelling line and looked to Motoko. "Ready?"
Motoko, her line secured, nodded to Naru. "Yes, senpai."
"Then let's go."
They both stepped onto the ledge, with their backs to the city below, before they kicked off it and began their descent.
Back in the abandoned school, Kitsune remained listless, still offering no resistance to Keitaro as he pulled her into a corner of the classroom, and sat down next to her. He stroked her hair, as he held her, patiently waiting for her to recover from her shock, but still keeping his ears to the world around him. He didn't know if there was more trap to spring, but if there was… he wasn't sure how he'd be able to protect her like this.
"You act like that is a difficult question."
He ignored the voice with all his might. He didn't need that right now.
Sighing, he looked towards the shrine in the classroom, and blinked several times as he tried to understand it. He looked down at Kitsune. "Kitsune… do… do you want to talk about it?"
Kitsune didn't respond.
"Kitsune, I know it's hard… but I need you to help me. I've learned that talking about it helps."
"No. Not to you."
Keitaro blinked. "Huh?"
"I can't tell you," she whispered, "I can't… I can't…"
She began to whimper, muttering "I can't" between her hopeless sobs. Hearing her break down again, Keitaro looked again at the shrine before looking back down at her.
"Did… did you go to this school, Kitsune?" he asked.
Kitsune stopped shuddering, even her breathing stopped.
Keitaro nodded, understanding. "It happened while you were here, didn't it?"
It was quiet after that, before Keitaro heard her breathe out slowly. "Yes."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't be," she replied with a voice barely above a whisper, before taking a deep breath, "I did it."
Keitaro could feel ice in his veins all of a sudden, tickling the shock that flashed through his system after hearing that. He stared down at her, his eyes large with complete disbelief.
"I did it," she said again. "I killed them. I shot each and every one of them, clean and efficient. My classmates… my friends… the boy I was in love with… I killed them all."
Kitsune let out a soft, hysterical giggling.
Keitaro couldn't wrap his head around it what he just heard. He stared down at her, disgust and horror threatening his worry for her, but not quite winning.
"W-why…?" he asked.
"Because I'm a monster," she whispered, before she finally looked up at him. A twisted grin was spread across her tear-streaked face.
"I killed them because I could."
She let herself fall onto her side, and laid there curled up into a ball. Silently, Keitaro just watched as she jarringly wavered between laughing and crying, as if she couldn't control either.
He closed his eyes, and sighed, before he slowly stood up. "Kitsune, I…"
He noticed something out the corner of his eye and looked to his right when he opened them. He saw out across the courtyard from the school, and saw in the opposite classroom a man in a dark suit and tie aiming a scoped M16 at his face. His eyes widened, just as the man fired his rifle right between his eyes.
On impact, Keitaro crumpled to the floor, falling over Kitsune and knocking the wind out of her.
"Keitaro?" she gasped.
"Sniper," he whispered to her as he glanced to make sure he was out of the man's sight.
Kitsune coughed and rolled him off her. She could hear footsteps. Whoever had shot Keitaro, probably the same man responsible for all this high tech equipment, was walking towards them.
"He's coming," she whispered.
Keitaro got up. "We have to get out of here."
Kitsune didn't budge from where she laid.
Keitaro tensed. "Kitsune, we have to move!"
Kitsune took a deep breath, and sighed. "No, you go."
That was the last thing he wanted to hear. He quickly knelt down and took her arm. "Kitsune, you need to get up, or I will pick you up."
Kitsune listened. The gunman had come around the last corner, and was walking slowly towards their position. "I want to stay here," she said quietly, "Just… just go and leave me, okay?"
Keitaro immediately pulled at her. "No, we're leaving, right now!"
Kitsune yanked her arm away, and stared up at Keitaro. "You leave, or stay… I don't care."
She laid back. "I'm a monster, Keitaro. I killed them all, when I didn't have to. I could've just let them be."
She closed her eyes and laughed, he was almost at the door. "It's fine if I die now."
Keitaro looking towards the doorway, and hearing the footsteps himself, swore loudly. "Damn it!"
The next thing she knew, she was suddenly and forcibly yanked off the floor and thrown over Keitaro's shoulders. He had lifted her up with almost no difficulty, as if she were as light as Shinobu. "H-huh?!"
Then he ran, charging for the broken windows of the classroom and jumping through one of them to fall the two stories to the ground. Gasping, Kitsune braced herself for the impact, but still had the wind knocked out of her when Keitaro landed hard on his feet.
He then took off into a run across the courtyard at almost superhuman speed, entering the shadows before jumping in throw another broken window to land in another dark classroom. Sliding to a halt, he took several deep breaths as he set Kitsune heavily onto the floor.
Stunned, Kitsune lay on the floor, before she turned around and looked up at Keitaro. "K-Keitaro…?"
Keitaro slowly turned to look at her, she could see that his eyes had changed. His irises now a luminescent dark red, with a horizontal red line across his sclera.
"You're not… the only monster…" he said as the glow in his eyes faded away.
Back in the classroom, the man who shot Keitaro puzzled over the scene in front of him. There had definitely been three people in this room before, now there was only the one corpse who had been shot dead. His target, and the young man he shot were no longer present, which was the source of the man's confusion.
There weren't many in the world who could get up after a shot to the head.
He walked up to the classroom window and looked down at the courtyard, bare of any grass barring a few tall weeds. In the dry dirt, he spotted the footprints Keitaro left behind.
"…"
The man the Takimaru Group hired to ensure that Mitsune Konno was dead knew exactly what sort of people he was going up against and he prepared accordingly, but even now this new durable variable threw his plan off just ever so slightly.
The man known as Duke Togo, but better as Golgo 13, wasn't perturbed, however.
Like any other job, whether he completed it or not depended on if his target could escape his sights, and none ever did.
The hunt was on.
A/N: It is my sincere hope that this gets some of you to pick up Golgo 13. It is an amazing Manga, and the anime for it isn't bad either if you like dark, gritty suspense thriller Anime.