He winced in slight pain as the spiked club hit him and he knew Kodachi was far from finished with him.
Suddenly, he heard a drum roll.
Kodachi stepped back and disappeared behind the curtain. A spotlight came on and focused itself in the center of the curtain and another figure stepped out. He held his trademark wooden sword even while dressed in a Nazi uniform.
"Death. It is almost all the lowly peasants think about these days. They eat so we will not die. They mate so that their seed will live on. They create art and build skyscrapers so their names will be remembered for centuries."
His speech was suddenly interrupted by Silken Nabiki who handed him a cell phone.
He answered the phone, "Hello. Mousse, how are you. What can I do for you? A message, and from whom would that be? Ukyo Saref. Ha, you should have known better than to play cards with her. So, what is her message? The projects….yes I shall be there tomorrow night. Good bye."
The Octopus looked over at Silken Nabiki. "Now where was I," he asked.
"Death" she said.
"That is right. They live their short, frantic, fearful, lives, twisting this way and that. Music and ambition. Making up gods, afterlives, all to keep their eyes off that immovable, impassable, diamond hard retaining wall that is death, realizing that it will destroy their minds."
His enemy yawned as he said, "Pardon me, but is there a point to all this? Because, I'm getting old just listening to you."
"You are really thick. You just do not get it. We are two of a kind, you and me. Neither one of us will be getting old."
"Well, I can sure as hell get bored. You keep teasing about how we're two of a kind. So how is that? What are we Octopus?"
"I'm getting to that."
"Well, move it along."
"Do you remember your death, cretin? It's not something one just forgets."
"Yeah, I remember." He remembered getting gunned down by some bank robbers after only being on the force for 5 months.
"When they brought you in, you were dead. There was not a breath of life in you. You were perfect. And I was your coroner. But I was oh, so much, much more than that. I had already built a drug trade. It is truly amazing how much a hospital does not miss. All you have to do is water it down, spruce it up and there you have it. Hello Swiss bank accounts. But mere money was never what I was after."
"All right so I give up. What were you after?"
"Immortality. I knew there had to be a better way to keep someone alive other than cutting them open. Or pills. They are just another way to stall death. I got down to basics. The essence of life. I cracked the code. Genetics. That's how smart I am."
"Yeah, you're real smart."
"Thank you. However, it wasn't easy. I have a freezer full of stray animals to prove it. Oh, what that serum did to those poor animals was just wrong. But when I got it right, well, I had to try it out. I needed a human."
"And there I was"
"And there you were. I gave you a modest injection and I waited."