I own pretty much everything here save Yoshi and his Turtles actually ...

I've written the rest of the story in third person, as I usually write my stories, but this chapter came out as Rin telling it. I thought you might be eager for it, so I posted it as is. I wanted Rin to be mysterious at first so you wouldn't know what she would do or why. Maybe now it's time to let her speak from her heart.

I woke up chained, but there was something else amiss … My clothing was different, it was thick, I wore gloves, and thick socks, less thick jeans that clung tightly, and a jacket. I also wore a mask, a thick mask of warm material I would not usually wear. Every bit of thickness could be an inconvenience in tight spaces I might have to slip through … And yet …

I felt the chill on my eyelids. The mask had holes for them and my eyes behind them, it seemed. And they were so cold. Perhaps it was that chill that woke me first.

I opened my eyes, perhaps to partially to warm my eyelids, but also because there was no escape. Or perhaps, because, what was the use of escape? Or perhaps … Perhaps I wanted to die at the hands of someone avenging someone they really cared about without endangering them in return rather than someone doing it out of business and self-safety concerns like my sensei would have.

Yoshi might have scarred his turtles. Yoshi might have scarred his soul. The Association might have come after him if I simply disappeared figuring he must have finished me since I had been hunting him before.

So, of all my options to die by, I thought Gordy's sensei the best. Though, what kind of death he had in store for me ... I could not feel confident enough to bet upon any guesses I had if winnings from such would do me any good now or losing any bad. In the old days, it was said he used rifles, knifes, even fists and broken bottles to kill. Some said he used to be part of his country's special forces, before being kicked out for something. Then he had started his own protection company, for when you thought many people wanted to kill you and had the money to hire protection that "could" stop them. The opposite of the Association basically.

Then we were hired to kill him. Many students and sensei failed to do so dying themselves. We decided it was cheaper in the long run to offer a position in our organization to him if he killed the client that had hired us without letting it slip from either of them we had failed to finish the job said client had hired us to do, or that there ever had been such a job, or get caught or implicated for the killing of the client himself by the law. That is a way some of us are initiated. He succeeded.

Us. We. I felt a stab of disgust at myself. I still thought in that way. About half a year out could not erase the years I had been a part of the Association from my mind. Yet, to die out of my rebellion against them, even if it was also due in part to what I'd done to Gordy, seemed to me a statement I wanted to make at the last part of my life.

Someone must have noticed my eyes open because I heard a whir and grinding of gears, and then a chain moving. Then, I felt a tug on my wrists as the part wrapped around them sunk into my flesh pulling me up too.

I was raised off whatever surface I'd been on, and then moved forward along maybe a part of an assembling line connected to the ceiling? Then I could see in dim lights three figures standing below and in front of my dangling feet. Directly below me was a covered vat. Metal flaps that looked like they could divide and either rise, or slide aside, were a barrier between me and whatever was in that vat from me, for now.

One of the three figures standing in front of and between the other two before and below me, was the sensei in charge of seeing that jobs in America the country, if not all North America the continent, were done properly. I was never very certain about how much he oversaw. You knew what your own boundaries were and who was in charge of the other sides of them in the Association, but the territories far from your own? They were, literally, none of your business. Unless those in charge of them failed so miserably, you were called in to do their job, which is why I knew if he didn't kill me, there were several others who would at least try. Could I survive them all? Probably not.

I'd prefer it was him.

He looked up, hands stuck in the pockets of a fleece lined, sheep-skin jacket. A white Stetson was on his head. He spoke first of particulars, so I'd know how doomed I was, how smart he was. "This is my building, I own it, and the large, fenced in area outside. I take good care of it. No one else gets in unless I say so same as my ranch."

Ah.

If I got out of these chains, I'd have to get out of this building. If I got out of this building, I'd have to get out of the complex of buildings and parking space. If I got out of the complex, there was probably a long lawn with no trees to run across. He had made his point.

He continued. "I use it to keep the carcasses of my cows before they're cut up and shipped out. They hang from chains here till then like you're doing now."

Now he was just being unnecessarily vengeful.

Then I thought about Gordy's face when I had left to make a phone call about his health to 911, and changed my mind. Maybe he was being just right. He continued either way.

"Underneath ya, is a vat of lye."

My eyes widened. Oh. Did he mean to drop me in alive? He partially raised a shot gun he held in one hand. "I aim to cut ya down into it with this.

Yikes.

His voice broke a bit as he went on. He hadn't smiled once. That was different.

My sensei almost always smiled when she let me know what she would do to me. Her voice never broke either, though I knew she was really angry at those times. He really did show his emotions more than my sensei. I kept silent as he spoke again.

"My boy, he was my boy, though he wasn't my blood … I thought you might kill him. I knew, from before, you might be a notch or two above him. But he didn't see it that way. Wanted to go after you to prove himself. And … I knew he was going feral."

My eyes widened. I thought he knew, but …

"I knew I was supposed to take care of him myself. Had too. He was breaking rules, not just the Association's, but mine, about who he killed, doing it for the high not the money, or even pride. Maybe pride too. But they weren't … The victims of his bloodlust weren't …"

Rin's eyes were adjusting, and she could see his eyes looked a little red and wet. His mouth was trembling. As he went on, his voice trembled too. "Now … he's a danger to no one, and still alive, if you call it that."

I blinked. That sounded a little … something felt off … Something was not right here. Not feeling the way it should. He …

He continued, seeming to speak to the very tall, seemingly lean men in bulky clothing on either side of him instead of me. "I'll take it from here. You boys can go and watch the doors for anyone dumb enough to come see why this light is on …"

Without looking at him, each other, or even me, the men without expression, but plenty of "presence" (the ability to fill a room with a feeling of impending doom) left. They opened and shut the large, sliding doors at the end of the building behind them. When they had, I looked away from where I'd last seen them and back to the American Sensei.

I was beginning to feel the effects of hanging so long by my arms, and hoping it would be fast and soon … Of course, there was still this big, empty hole in me, perhaps in my soul, where I thought "something" should be, especially before I died.

He met my gaze with his red and wet eyes and spoke again. "I knew Rin …"

My eyes narrowed. Why was he talking of me in the third person? He continued …

"That was what your sensei called herself before she became a sensei …"

My eyes widened again further than maybe they ever had before. My sensei named me after herself! I barely realized the man about to kill me was talking once more. Maybe I even missed something, but my attention was caught hard, when I did start listening again.

"I thought she liked me enough for at least a fling at one convention of the Association and woke up with her knife at my throat. She looked happy, like a smug snake staring back at me with sparkling eyes and a wide grin while straddling me, I scared to move and staring back at her. She seemed happier than I'd ever seen her before. She eventually got off me and left the room after covering up. I'd seen her throwing knives enough not to move off the bed till she had shut the door behind her.

I never told anyone about that before. No one ever told me about their experiences with her. But I think she did that to every male assassin. She preferred to scratch up the faces of the females in our Association before the rest of us. That's why I knew by the scratches on Gordy's face it had to be you her student."

I blinked at him again. I was going to die for my 'sensei's' unkind deeds as well? I roiled on the inside at the thought despite the cold air in the place we were along together in. He continued.

"I can't imagine what she did to you."

I continued to stare at him. He continued to speak. "Just tell me one thing. Did you do what you did to Gordy to torture us? Like she would have?"

I blinked again. Then I cleared my throat hoping it would still work enough to answer and spoke. "No."

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes