That same night, miles to the south in Shimonoseki, it was just beginning.
At the base of a five story parking garage, a guard looked up from his book, recognizing the face of the man waiting by the window of his booth holding his parking stub. With a polite nod, he accepted the paper, and slid it into a machine inset into the wall. It made an audible snapping sound as it read and marked the stub.
"Here ya go, Ayabe-san," the guard handed the paper back with a smile.
"Thank you," the businessman replied, inclining his head. As always, the guard noted that Ayabe wore black gloves, regardless of the weather or the seasons. Shimonoseki could get quite hot in the summer, but in the two years he had worked at the garage, the guard had never once seen this one man's hands.
Other than that one quirk, however, Koichi Ayabe seemed like a totally normal person. He was a management type, with an amiable face and a ready smile that wasn't often more than a skin deep courtesy. He never came to work in anything but a suit and tie, and never made any trouble. Really, he wouldn't have stood out at all if not for those black (expensive looking) leather gloves.
"Safe drive," the guard keyed open the door to the bottom level of the garage, and as Ayabe walked away, he went back to reading about improving his love life.
The garage was well lit, but many corners late at night dipped endlessly into darkness. Concrete pillars rose like the rough trunks of trees. Walking slowly up the stairwell, to the fourth floor, Koichi Ayabe patted his left pants pocket, reassured by the feel of the keys there. On this floor, the garage was mostly empty, with only a dozen or so vehicles occupying it.
His blue Nissan Teana wasn't hard to spot, even if he hadn't parked in the same space for almost eight years. It was a sedan, a good replacement car for his old Toyota the kids had thought so little of.
"What was a car without a CD player now-a-days?"
Or so their logic had gone.
Sighing to himself, he took out the car key, jangling together the house keys and other metal bits he'd never sorted through to see which were worth keeping as useful. He was about to press down on the base of the key to unlock the front driver's side door, when he hesitated. Looking behind himself briefly, he slowly put the keys back into his pants pocket.
Turning around, he put his hands in his pockets and smiled.
"Can I help you?" He asked, amiably. It wasn't just something he had picked up from work – where it often helped to talk about financial matters like downsizing in a less threatening and more conciliatory tone – it was almost second nature. Being too obtrusive had always made him nervous, and an easy way to blend in or allay suspicion or jealousy had always been to act and speak in a friendly fashion.
The stranger stood silent in the shadow of a concrete pillar, and Ayabe narrowed his eyes enough to squint. The stranger was tall, possibly a foreigner even, but relatively slim. He wore a knee length white overcoat, like a doctor's. It was open at the front, and beneath it the stranger wore sharply contrasting black clothes harder to make out.
"Are you Ayabe Koichi?" The stranger asked, last name first.
"I am…" the other man answered cautiously.
The stranger then added, "Are you the Ayabe Koichi who also used to be known as the Genius of the Denkouken Style?"
That caught Ayabe's attention. Here, he'd thought this was an attempted robbery, or car jacking. That this person hiding in the shadows knew that much about him, about his past, was totally unexpected.
"I haven't been called Tensai in years," Ayabe explained and withdrew his hands from his pockets, his polite pretense slipping away. "What's all this about? Did you come from the Dojo?"
"I did," the stranger answered, but the tone of his voice hid another meaning behind his words in plain sight. He had come from the Dojo, but obviously not on behalf of it. The two stood in silence for a few seconds.
"It wasn't easy tracking you down," the stranger continued, wearing a false smile as he stepped out of the shadows. "I'd like you to come with me, please. I have some friends interested in seeing your fists."
"Seeing my fists?" Ayabe smirked and cocked his head to the side. "You're rather mistaken, if that's what you want from me. I don't practice martial arts anymore. I have a real job; a respectable job. Tell your friends… if they want to see me, to call my secretary and make an appointment."
The stranger dipped his head in an irritated gesture. He wasn't a foreigner, as Ayabe had at first thought. His features were Japanese, with thin wire rimmed glasses and healthy black hair that came together in a dragon lick ponytail behind his head. He looked to be in his late twenties, or maybe thirties, making him Ayabe's junior by almost a decade.
"We have a van parked just outside this building," the stranger said, walking purposefully towards the businessman. "You can walk there, or be dragged there. I'm sorry, but those are the only two options available to you."
"My only two?" Ayabe asked, and let out a deep sigh.
The stranger stood still a couple paces from the older man. "I wasn't able to find the true Denkouken when I visited the Dojo, and my friends are eager to get their hands on the real thing. They have no use for pale imitations and ordinary athletes."
Koichi Ayabe just shook his head, and removed his leather gloves. No sooner was the first one off, than the stranger's eyes lit up. The second glove came off next, and then they went into the side pockets of the former martial arts genius's jacket. Ayabe held up his hands, and flexed his fingers. Catching the radiance from a nearby light above him, three round pieces of metal could be clearly seen between his knuckles.
"So you have it," the stranger said it, not as a question, but as a statement of fact.
"Yes," Ayabe admitted. "Once I had mastered all but the final techniques of Dankouken, I had this done to myself. Six nails were screwed into the bones of my hands, ten smaller ones into my fingers. All for the Art. All to live up to the arrogant title of 'Genius.'"
He then scoffed.
"I was a fool. And a young man. The worst possible combination." Ayabe's eyes hardened, as he stared at the stranger. "Is this what you wanted to see?"
"Just..." The stranger's voice took on a more urgent tone. "A little more."
"I was afraid you'd say that." Ayabe slipped out of his jacket, and tossed it over onto the hood of his car. As he balled his hands into fists, his aura began to emerge as a cool and vibrant blue. Crackles of white erupted from his hands, leaping into the walls and up into the ceiling where two of the inlaid lights exploded.
Watching the display, the stranger nodded, and pulled tight the sterile lab gloves that covered his hands. "Yes. Show us the power of your Denkouken, Ayabe Koichi."
The middle aged businessman disappeared in a flash of sparks. The stranger dressed as a doctor spun around, and slapped aside an open palm blow. Ayabe didn't pause from surprise, and struck out with an elbow even as he drew back the other arm. He struck again, fast, with another open palm aimed for the doctor's left armpit. It got halfway there before it was intercepted, the bone of both men's wrists meeting.
The doctor blocked another blow with his other arm, and twisted his hand at the wrist, briefly touching the other man's arm with his extended ring finger. He then shifted back; his left foot skidding across the pavement as both his hands came down to block a rising knee. Ayabe was fast, despite his age and lack of practice, and his arms and hands cracked as they snapped like snakes, trying to make direct contact. The doctor managed to block or avoid them all without great difficulty.
And then Ayabe's right palm slammed into his chest, moving from a perpendicular blocking position down into a smooth reverse thrust. There was a thump from the impact, and a second later a thunderous crash resounded throughout the parking garage as the doctor imbedded himself in the passenger side of a parked vehicle, his chest smoking. A wailing alarm erupted from the now ruined two door coupe.
"I didn't kill you," Ayabe said, over the din. "Be thankful for that. But this fight is over."
The doctor groaned, and he twitched, twice. "They're excited now."
Taking a deep breath, the stranger pulled himself free of the wrecked car, seemingly oblivious to the bleeding cut on his left arm. Ayabe watched him with a grim expression.
"That first move was a slight of hand and motion, making it seem as if you had vanished," the doctor began to say, breathing steadily. "It is a common technique, but you also amplified the effect with a split second flash of blinding light produced by your modified fists. After that, you attempted to strike with an open palm, charged with electricity. When you finally hit me with it, after throwing several blows to maneuver me into a position where I could not defend myself. By my guess, your attack carried a direct current of around a hundred milliamperes. In a normal person, with a directed strike to the chest, the result would be instant ventricular fibrillation."
"The techniques you describe are the Denkouken Ryu: Hiraishin Aisatsu Sen (Lightning Rod Salutation Flash), and the Hiraishin Kaizai Satsu (Lightning Rod Intervention Murder). It is a killing technique… I was the first to be able to employ it non-lethally." Ayabe pursed his lips as if in thought. "Still, it should have been more than enough to floor a human like yourself. I wonder if your unusual resistance to electricity is due to the pressure points you tried to use on me?"
The doctor smirked. "Yes. I can see why they called you 'Tenasi.' You are quite right about the pressure points. Well before I came here, I increased my body's resistance to electricity… and to heat."
"A sound precaution," Ayabe replied, nodding.
"Furthermore," the other man's glasses glinted as it lowered his gaze. "I have eyes that cannot be fooled or blinded... Yes. You… you are definitely the one they want."
"I agree," another voice interrupted, this time obviously from a woman. It was a melodious soprano, but casual… or confident. Ayabe turned his eyes to his right side; disturbed that this newcomer had (like the man before her) managed to mask their presence and get within ten meters of him without his Sakkijutsu tipping him off. She was tall, like the man, but otherwise dissimilar.
She didn't bother to try and hide herself like the man had, and Ayabe could guess that she was Chinese from her face and what he'd heard of her accent. Her eyes and hair were a chocolate brown, and she wore what seemed to be a green rain slicker. She also carried a short wooden staff, propped up against her right shoulder. Ayabe mentally chided her – did she think that a little rubber would protect her from him?
He blinked; a mistake.
His Sakkijutsu didn't go off, but he was starting to doubt its sharpness. In an instant, the woman had vanished, not due to a slight of hand combined with high speed, but purely from rapid acceleration. He flinched, readied himself for an attack, but then he felt her presence – and only then saw her – standing next to the strange man in the lab coat. Ayabe kept from betraying his shock and awe at what she had done. He had always been fast, with good eyes, and couldn't remember if he had ever lost track of an opponent since he had achieved higher mastery of the Art.
That wasn't the sort of casual speed that came from just being a Master; it was the mark of someone truly special. Truly powerful. Ayabe had reckoned the man to be extremely skilled, even from just his knowledge of pressure points, from his general ability in hand to hand, and from his ability to mask and control his presence. This woman, however, judging by her speed… she was incredible.
"It won't be long before we're interrupted," she lectured the man, all the while not sounding too worried about the situation. Then, she turned and smiled at Ayabe. "You have a wife and children, don't you? Do you think they can take care of themselves with you gone?"
"You leave my family out of this…!" The normally calm businessman snarled in reply.
"It wasn't a threat," the woman explained. "It was merely to set my mind more at ease with what I have to do."
She lifted her left foot off the ground, and Ayabe could feel the build up of ki in her body, like a drop in barometric pressure from a distant tornado or hurricane. It terrified him, and he instinctively internalized his own ki, converting it into one of the most powerful of the Hidden Denkouken Arts, supplanting the normal neurochemical and action potential functions of his cells, and increasing their speed and efficiency two fold.
His skin burned and his business suit tore as he threw his body through the air, the friction painful against his out of practice flesh. The world was a slow motion movie, with flecks of dust twirling through the air in a leisurely vector towards the other end of the parking garage. But he saw her, leading the charge with her staff, contrails of air rippling down its length, down her arm, and over her shoulder.
Ayabe didn't even try and block it, instead stepping out of the path of destruction in the hopes of a favorable counter attack. She was smiling (actually smiling!) as she passed him, and as he attempted to hit her exposed side with a full power Hiraishin Kaizai Satsu, she twirled like a drill bit, deflecting his hand. He nearly lost his balance from the abrupt and unexpected counter, and as he regained his footing, he saw the tip of her staff impact one of the reinforced concrete pillars that held up the roof.
He'd expected it to be destroyed, but to his surprise, there wasn't any damage at all. It was then that he saw her leg, and her right foot flat against the pillar – or rather, buried two or three inches in the solid concrete. He frowned: the woman had power and control in generous amounts.
"Who are you?" he asked, hiding the fear in his voice. "Who the hell are you people?"
The woman effortlessly jerked her foot out of the impression it had made. Behind Ayabe, the man moved stealthily, masking his ki perfectly. They circled him like wild dogs waiting to strike.
"We are… exemplars," the man said, flexing the dexterous fingers he wielded like scalpels.
"Of the future," the woman finished her companion's sentence. "We're going to open your eyes, Ayabe-san. Through us, the best of you shall survive… eternally."
-----
Noriko Yasuda waited as the two men read over the report's conclusion, each of them taking extra time to absorb the information on the last page. She had a copy of the news on her desk as well, summed up in a short three pages. After reading it herself, she had placed the papers down on her desk with the delicacy and respect one would show to a poisonous serpent.
Captain Banks was the first to finish, going by how he folded the last page of the report back into place, and dropped it onto her desk. He ran a hand over his bald head, back and then forward, an anxious motion carried over from his younger days when he'd had a full head of hair. Next to him, Captain Ben-Solomon also finished and put the report down, his face calm and neutral.
"I am expecting a response from Andermatt by tomorrow," Noriko began. "However, I doubt they'll contribute anything but a confirmation of what we've already discovered."
"Well, at least they're not being very subtle," Banks spoke up and made an amused huff. "Tearing apart and leveling a parking garage? This isn't normal for a Trenchard."
"You're right. It isn't normal," Ben-Solomon interrupted. "But the genetic tests confirm it. Not just one, but two of the damn things."
"I've made the proper arrangements with local law enforcement to try and track down Mr. Ayabe, but like with the other abductees the last week, it is doubtful that they will be found." The UNETCO Commander frowned, and leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers over her stomach. "We will have to intervene independently if this continues. It isn't just these two Trenchards… there was a van seen leaving the area. The records in the police database have been tampered with. There is a human front at work, and it is starting to irritate me."
She tapped her thumbs together, contemplating her response to the report.
"The Head Office is concerned," she thought out loud, "They'll want a response soon after Andermatt's reply. This whole situation with the Trenchards is their fault, after all."
"You don't think things were moving in that direction already?" Banks asked, and then amended his statement. "Still, if nothing else, it made the problem more endemic."
"Shutting down Sirius here in Japan will be messy without going through the locals," Ben-Solomon, a counter-intelligence and HUMINT man from his days in Shin Bet, knew the most about what his commanding officer was proposing. "We'll have to tip toe around Section Seven of the Charter."
"That has been a problem in the past," Noriko agreed, but she didn't sound altogether too worried. "Skirting around Section Seven has normally left us vulnerable, but with a few of our new recruits…" She trailed off.
"Oh ho!" Banks interjected with a grin. "She's right! Even following Section Seven by the letter, they'd be at the top of their game."
"It is an interesting idea," Ben-Solomon seconded. "But will they go along with it?"
"I was hoping you two could offer some insights into that," Noriko answered, looking from one Captain to the other. "We're holding a First Kill Night for both of the teams tonight, as you know. I'd like you, and the other mentors, to flesh out how open to the concept the recruits are. Be casual about it."
The two men exchanged looks and nodded.
"Ma'am," Banks added, changing the topic slightly. "How much should we tell them about these Trenchards? Especially the male, who we have positively identified… As Acting Lieutenants for their squads, they'll have clearance high enough to know the truth."
"Tomorrow," Noriko responded quickly, having already given it some thought. "They worked hard yesterday… or this morning. Even caught an Ethereal without losing a single man or woman. Let them enjoy tonight. They've earned it."
As the two men agreed, saluted, and eventually left, Noriko Yasuda smiled to herself. Two active Trenchards running around Japan meant trouble, not just for XCOM, but for all the exceptional martial artist types in the country. At the same time, it could be seen as a real opportunity. She'd been meaning to crack down on the alien-sympathetic locals but lacked the manpower to make the risk worth the effort.
The Nerima Crew and their martial arts abilities had immediately struck her as the solution to that problem. As valuable as they could be against the aliens, they would be put to even better use against the human collaborators who hid under the protection of the UNETCO Charter and Section Seven. With those leeches taken care of, and the alien base in East Asia identified (or better yet: put to the torch), then things would be one step closer to Operation Aloadae.
For years, the war had raged in Earth.
It was high past time the aliens got a taste of it on their home turf.