CHAPTER 26
Sergei Polovich's breaths came in ragged gasps as he sprinted for all he was worth. The echoes of gunfire were drawing closer, and his mind raced as he tried to think of a way to escape with his life. He had to assume that if his pursuers knew one of his safe houses, they would know where his other bolt holes were. The best he could hope for was to find a place to go to ground until morning and get himself out of Clarus City until the dust settled. Or maybe for good, with the way the winds were turning.
In his haste, he took a wrong turn, but to stop and double back would probably prove fatal as his pursuers closed in. Polovich had been lucky to escape in the first place, and six of his trusted capos hadn't been so lucky. It was clear that the ambush had been planned from someone inside the organization. Polovich was no stranger to inter-faction fighting, and he knew that honor among thieves was a sham. But he had never expected the betrayal he had been faced with.
A baying Mightyena heralded the arrival of a second ambush to head him off. Polovich hurled out a pokeball in front of him, and Polina appeared in a burst of light. The Bastiodon needed no command from her trainer, and lowered her head as she charged forward. The Mightyena and the two cretins who ran behind it were struck with the full force of a charging steel type and hurled unceremoniously to the pavement as Polina barreled onwards.
When they reached a neighborhood Polovich knew, a plan started to form. There was a warehouse only two blocks away with an entrance to the old network of smuggling tunnels under the city. He could let the traitors catch up to him there and then use Maksim to bring the whole place down on their heads while he slipped away into the tunnels before collapsing the entrance behind him. This particular access point connected to a much larger tunnel complex that he could hide out in at least until he could get on a train north to Unova. And from there, he could go anywhere in the world, and the bastards would never find him again.
He barked a command to Polina, and the Bastiodon swung her head around to change directions. By the time they reached the warehouse and Polovich had shot the padlock on the door, he was wheezing. He had never been built for speed, but a man found himself capable of many things when his life was on the line. When he had identified the trapdoor to the underground, he called out Maksim to stand with Polina.
The Metagross braced itself by driving its heavy claws into the stone floor. The steel cross on its face glowed as it summoned its psychic power, ready to attack or defend. Polovich laid his hand on Maksim's rear right leg and felt the mysterious inner workings of the Metagross humming under his touch. With a nod to his partners, he drew his gun and leveled it at the door. He might be able to pick off a few as they came in, thin the numbers and—
The front of the warehouse exploded, throwing debris back towards Polovich. Maksim's eyes flashed, and a wall of interlocking translucent hexagons appeared in front of the three of them. The violence of the explosion quickly dissipated, and Polovich glared across the ruined expanse of the warehouse at Anya Petrovna.
"I am knowing you too well, Sergei," Greed said as she raised her machine gun. "When backed into corner, you bring down the building; so I am taking that away from you." She signaled to her men standing behind her, and they all raised their guns. Her Ursaring bellowed, spreading claws stained red with fresh blood.
Polovich gritted his teeth. "What are you doing, Anya? I am your friend, your trusted Iron Boyar!" Something in Petrovna's face twitched, and suddenly Polovich knew. "It's her, isn't it?" he shouted. "The psychic bitch! She has poisoned you!"
"Shut up, Sergei. Don't make this harder than it has to be."
"Fight her! The Petrovna I pledged myself to would never be so weak as to bow to an unworthy esper!"
"Shut up!" Anya screamed. "This is bigger than us! Dominion will allow no dissent in the ranks. There is a list of those who will not accept her. Even if it is only in their minds." She sighed. "It is because you were my trusted boyar that I must be doing this myself." She sighted down the barrel of her gun. "If only you hadn't been such a headstrong ass. I wish it did not have to be this way, Sergei. But for Dominion, it is personal. It is always personal."
She lowered her hand, and she and her men began firing. The bullets bounced off Maksim's psychic barrier, but each impact left a tiny spider web of cracks, and it took almost no time at all for the wall to shatter into hundreds of glowing shards that drifted to the scarred ground. Polina bellowed and charged forward, only to stopped by two Machoke. The fighting types drove their heels into the ground and pushed back against the Bastiodon. Just when it seemed like Polina might win out, the two Machoke drew back their fists and struck Polina's shield-like carapace hard enough to crack it. Polina roared in pain as the Machoke continued to strike with ruthless, methodical persistence.
Maksim's eyes flashed as it hurled the fighting types back, but Polina was already lying prone. Polovich shouted a wordless command, but Maksim understood his fury. It sent vibrations down through its legs and into the ground, knocking several of Greed's men from their feet and buying them precious seconds.
But Anya's Ursaring recovered quickly and charged forward before Maksim could strike again or throw up another defensive barrier, closing the distance between them with uncanny speed. The bear rose up to its full, massive height and raised its heavy arms above its head before bringing them crashing down on Maksim's central disk with enough force to shatter thick concrete. The Metagross' eyes went wide and it emitted a strange low groan as it crashed to the ruined floor, its legs prone and almost limp.
"No," Polovich rasped. And then louder, "No!" He raised his gun and fired off several shots wildly. A few went wide, but two or three struck the Ursaring. The pokemon's thick hide spared it lasting damage, and the bullets seemed to only irritate it. Polovich ground his teeth and turned his gun on Anya. His aim was off, and he only winged her shoulder, not nearly enough to bring her down.
The Ursaring roared when he saw the blood blossom on his trainer's arm, but Greed held up her good hand. "No, Stepa. Let me handle this." As she closed the distance between them, Polovich raised his gun again, but when he pulled the trigger, the hammer only clicked ineffectually. Petrovna shook her head. "Sergei, you were always forgetting to count your shots." Her own gun rattled as she fired several shots through Polovich's abdomen.
The pain nearly made him black out, but Polovich managed to glare up into Petrovna's eyes and spit out a foul oath in their shared mother tongue. "I'll see you in hell, Anya."
"Until then, Sergei."
And after another spray of bullets, the Iron Boyar was dead.
Stocks hated getting his hands dirty.
When he had joined up with Marcus Braun, it had been with the understanding that he would be handling the quieter behind the scenes work, doing the enterprise's accounting and transferring money around offshore accounts. He would help Marcus move their pieces around the chessboard that was Clarus City while the more rough-and-tumble members of their organization took care of the unpleasant day-to-day business.
He had no such understanding with Dominion, though his new employer had recognized his value early on as armchair commander. But tonight, she had dispatched him to personally take care of some unpleasant business that entailed him rolling up his sleeves and going out into the muck. It was distasteful in the extreme, but he wasn't in a position where he could refuse. For one thing, Marinette didn't take kindly to anyone questioning her orders, and furthermore, Stocks couldn't afford to show any lack of resolve for the esper's cause, because to do so would bring suspicion on himself.
Dominion had told him and the other five former Sins that she had been tracking down whispers of insubordination and treachery within her organization, and she was determined to stomp it out immediately before the cancer could take root. That meeting had been merely hours ago, and Stocks had received his marching orders to expunge a few of Dominion's naysayers within his own ranks of informants. There had been no time to send word to Pirozzi or the Avenbrooke heroes to warn them of the citywide bloodbath to come.
The orders had been disseminated on a strict need to know basis, and had word reached the defenders of Clarus City prior to the massacre, Dominion would have known she had a mole at the highest level of her organization. Stocks was reasonably confident that his cover was secure, and that his mental shielding had been able to stand up to Dominion's probing, but he was secretly terrified that while he carried out his orders, Marinette had sent someone to stick a knife in his back too.
Besides, he rationalized that the heroes would learn about the Sin infighting soon enough, when the streets of Clarus began running red with the underworld's blood.
He stood outside one of the clubs he owned and used his thumb to twist his gold wedding band in the pocket of his tailored slacks. With a sigh, he signaled to Mueller's three bruisers to follow him. Marinette had offered him the use of some of Aukai's lot, but he had politely declined and requested some of Eva's more dependable hired help. The anarchists were more than likely to burn the entire club down in their zeal, while thugs under Gluttony's employ could be counted on to only break what they were told. It wasn't like the whole club had to be razed. Stocks never believed that a few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch.
The bouncer at the door demurred at a glare from Stocks' escort, and the leading man threw the gilded doors open. He raised his pistol and discharged three rounds into the air. "Everyone out!" the man roared, sending patrons and scantily dressed servers scrambling for the doors.
Stocks snapped his fingers at the manager as she came to investigate the commotion. "Camilla, bring me Tiffany, Maryanne, Danae, and Marcel."
"Mr. Stocks, what's going on? We had no idea you were coming, or we would have prepared—"
He cut Camilla off with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "This is an audit. Do as I say."
"Yes, Mr. Stocks." Camilla hurried backstage to find the four dancers, her Sableye scurrying at her heels. Stocks took the opportunity to reach over the bar and pour himself a generous measure of gin.
His Xatu hop-flapped behind him and made a clattering noise with her beak. Stocks sighed. "I don't like this any more than you do, Moira. Let's not make it worse than it needs to be." He tossed back the gin and winced. An unpleasant taste for an unpleasant business.
Camilla appeared with the dancers, and Stocks signaled to his escort. The three men fired on the dancers, dropping them with shots through the head. Tiffany, Danae and Marcel were dead before they hit the sticky floor, but it took another shot to put Maryanne down. Camilla screamed as her dancers fell, and one of Eva's men turned to Stocks. "Do you want us to…?"
"No, I'll handle this myself."
Camilla cradled Tiffany's lifeless form and turned up to Stocks. "Why? Why would you do this? They were just—"
"They were passing along information to law enforcement," Stocks said, keeping his voice icy. "Management doesn't appreciate trade secrets getting around." He squatted down to look Camilla in the eyes and drew a pistol from under his jacket. "I know that they were collaborating with the police on your instructions, Camilla. Orders have come down from the top to clean house."
Camilla spat at him, and Stocks winced as the saliva ran down his cheek. "I was only doing what you told me to do," she rasped.
"You mustn't tell such ugly lies, Camilla." Stocks rose to his feet and leveled his gun. Camilla stared up at him with naked hatred, but Stocks found he couldn't pull the trigger. "Moira," he snapped. "Make it quick and painless."
The Xatu spread her wings, and Stocks felt a chill run up his spine. Camilla's eyes rolled back in her head and her neck abruptly snapped at an improbably angle. The madam collapsed forward, her hair just brushing the polished leather of Stocks' shoes. Stocks turned to his escort. "It's done. Let's move on to the next one."
As they exited the club, Stocks reached over the bar and took the translucent blue bottle of gin with him. It was going to be a long night.
Bri was starting to think it was time she took a long vacation, somewhere far, far away from Clarus City. A cat burglar always landed on her feet, but she knew that sooner or later her luck was going to run out.
She just hoped that it would hold out long enough to get her out of the current predicament.
She pressed her back up against the smooth wooden eaves of the Niji Kumo Temple and slowed her breathing as much as she was able. She had thought that with the Kuromori and the Sins at each other's' throats, she could slip into the temple and liberate a few artifacts out from under the ninja clan's collective noses. After the assassins had started stomping around in Avenbrooke, the Baron had made it known that he would be willing to pay good money for anything that would embarrass Saito and Sukiyama. Her intel had told her that the temple would be empty but for a skeleton crew of Kuromori guards and the resident monks, but shortly after she had infiltrated the temple, the city's underworld had imploded.
Although the temple grounds were extensive and the main temple complex was set far back from the street, Bri could hear the commotion outside the temple. Sirens, explosions and gunshots echoed just outside the compound. Droves of Kuromori had begun pouring into the temple not long ago, and now scores of black-clothed assassins milled around on the temple floor. Bri was effectively pinned down, but she had begun to wonder if this wasn't a blessing in disguise. With this many Kuromori around, she was probably safer than anyone else in Clarus City, provided she didn't get caught.
Alecto hovered in the air next to her, the ghost type's eyes wide with panic. Apate crouched on the beam in front of Bri, her fur on end. Bri reached up slowly and ran her fingers along her Haunter's hand. She felt the vapor that made up Alecto's body congeal into something more solid, and the Haunter laced her fingers with her trainer.
"It's going to be okay," Bri whispered to her pokemon. "We're going to sit tight here until the party dies down, and then we're going to sneak out when everyone else goes home. Easy-peasy."
A ripple passed through the crowd of ninjas below, and Bri saw Saito, Sukiyama and Tarou appear behind the temple altar. The giant gilded statue of Ho-oh loomed behind the Kuromori patriarch, and he raised his hands. "It seems that the Sins have turned on themselves. They fight each other in the streets, destroy their own safe houses. Dominion's paranoia has led her to put the torch to her own organization." Bri could hear the smirk that had crept into Saito's voice, even if she couldn't see it. "Make no mistake, this is a joyous occasion for us. When the Sins have crippled themselves, we will set them ablaze again with Ho-oh's cleansing fire! We shall take back what is ours, and far more besides!" His Bisharp rattled its blades, and many other ninjas and pokemon below joined in the cheering.
There was a crash as the heavy bolts to the temple doors were throw aside and the doors swung open with a pulse of psychic power. A shiver ran down Apate's spine, and the Purrloin hissed. The Vixen strode into the temple, her Ninetales crouching at her heels. The woman's polished wooden mask shone in the dim light of the temple, and the crowd parted before her. The steady click-click of stiletto heels against the cobblestones outside presaged the arrival of the Vixen's companion, and Saito hissed in a furious breath. The Shadow couldn't see her, but she recognized the esper's oppressive presence from the chill that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
"Yuuko, what is the meaning of this?" Sukiyama snarled. "You would profane our most sacred sanctuary with this abomination?"
The Vixen drew her poisoned knives and raised her gaze to meet her uncles' eyes. "I have come to claim what is mine."
Saito slashed his hand through the air. "You have even less right than your mother did. The leadership of the clan has always passed through the male line!" He leaned across the altar. "You should have counted yourself lucky we let you live."
A mocking laugh echoed through the temple. "Saito dear, you should be grateful that at least someone in your family is able to see sense." Bri's breath caught in her throat as Dominion stepped into the temple, a troop of Pride's elite capos and cutters at her back.
"This is sacrilege!" Tarou roared.
The Vixen ignored the outburst. "Uncles, you misunderstand. I am here to claim revenge for my mother's death first and foremost. The leadership of the clan is only an added benefit."
"The clan will never follow you!"
"Enough have cast their lot with me already. And when I am the last surviving member of the Kuromori family, the rest will have no choice."
Dominion glided forward and laid her hand on the Vixen's arm. "She's a clever girl, Saito. With the Kuromori joining my forces, I will have complete control of this city, and with my help, Yuuko will make the Kuromori stronger than ever before." The esper snapped her fingers, and three assassins that had attempted to flank her were flung back to crash against the temple walls. She clicked her tongue. "Done talking, are we?"
Bri could only watch as all of the assassins below drew their weapons and summoned their pokemon. But while many of the ninjas advanced on the Sin delegation, a significant number fell on their comrades. The Vixen shouted a command, and her Ninetales bounded forward through the crowd. Fire pooled around the Ninetales' jaws, and the fox whipped up an inferno as it raced towards the altar. Saito's Bisharp lunged, only to be consumed in a white-hot corona of flames.
The Vixen's daggers flashed as she danced through the crowd, dropping ninjas with a flick of her blades as the potent poison paralyzed her foes' nervous system. Dominion's cutters surrounded their boss, their guns ripping through the Kuromori. Bri watched as Tarou vaulted over the altar and charged into the melee with a roar. The Vixen was on him in seconds, darting past her cousin and plunging one dagger into his stomach. Tarou whirled on her, his eyes incredulous, and Yuuko opened his throat with a backhand slash.
Sukiyama's Crobat dove at her, only to be knocked out of the air by Dominion. As the Vixen advanced, Saito scrambled back against the statue of Ho-oh. "She's made you into her creature! The bitch is pulling your strings!"
"No," Yuuko growled. She gestured to her Ninetales, and the fire type engulfed Sukiyama in a blast of intense flames. The reek of burning flesh mixed with the scents of blood and sandalwood incense, making Bri want to gag. The Vixen glanced to the side to confirm sure Sukiyama was dead before advancing on Saito. "Dominion isn't controlling me. I've wanted this ever since you killed my mother."
She sheathed one dagger and grabbed Saito's collar, hauling him to his feet before throwing him down on the altar. Two ninjas ran to help the clan patriarch, only to be blasted back by the Vixen's Ninetales. The Vixen raised her knife over her head and paused. "Hesitating, Yuuko?" Dominion called. "Don't tell me you're having second thoughts."
"Just savoring the moment," the Vixen called back. Her eyes sparkled through the slits in her mask, and she plunged the dagger down into Saito's heart. The spray of blood dappled her mask, and her Ninetales threw back its head and howled. Bri felt sick, and she saw Alecto shrink into herself. The Vixen raised her bloodstained dagger to the Ho-oh statue. "The Kuromori clan now answers to me!"
A group of her traitorous fighters broke off and formed up around her as a bodyguard. "Drop your weapons and curb your pokemon!" Yuuko shouted over the din. "Pledge your loyalty to me and to Dominion, and I will let you live!"
Some of the ninjas threw down their arms and surrendered, and those that continued to fight were quickly overwhelmed. Dominion walked through the carnage and mounted the steps to the altar. The esper extended her hand to the Vixen, and Yuuko lowered her head over Dominion's palm in a gesture of fealty. "Well done," Dominion said.
"Now the war between my clan and your organization is finished."
Dominion shrugged. "Maybe so, but the real war is only just beginning." She rested a hand on the side of the Vixen's mask, the one not stained with her uncle's blood. "With your help, I'll bring this city to its knees."
Bri pressed herself back further into the shadowy eaves while the surviving Kuromori removed their dead, hoping to escape notice until the temple was clear. If she was smart, she would cut her losses get out of the city as quickly as possible, make a new start somewhere far away, like Sinnoh or Kalos.
But Clarus City was her home, and she wasn't going to stand by and let some psychic freak destroy it. Already, her mental gears were turning as she worked to leverage what she knew and how to pass the information along to the right ears.
The damn birdbrain might make a white hat out of her yet.
The Ronin's motorcycle roared as he swung around a tight corner. In the distance, another explosion thundered. People screamed as they fled their homes, as though they'd be any safer on the street. The Ronin gritted his teeth and gunned his bike, pouring on a burst of speed.
The city was tearing itself apart, and he was powerless to stop it. Every cutter and murderer he took down just made room for the next one. When he had first become the Ronin, he had scratched a line onto the sheath of his sword for every criminal he cut down, and now the leather scabbard was a mess of tally marks. And still, the city wasn't any safer.
In all the confusion, he'd racked up three more kills tonight. The bastards had been on his list for a long time, and they were too canny for him to catch under normal circumstances. But with the Sins going to war with themselves and the Baron's men out in force, he had seen a golden opportunity to cross out some names.
Another explosion lit up the street in front of him in a brilliant flash. The Ronin swung his bike around to come to a skidding halt as the buildings nearby erupted in flames. Civilians raced out of the buildings, coughing and spluttering in the smoke. As he watched, a tenement house collapsed. Sirens blared all around, but none of the emergency services workers were on this street. The Ronin swung off his bike and spat.
The people of Clarus City hadn't done anything to deserve this. Provided they kept the fighting to the underworld, the Ronin was more than happy to let the Sins and the Kuromori and the Baron's thugs bludgeon each other to death; one less criminal on the streets meant one less name on his list. But when innocent people were getting caught in the crossfire, that was when he had to put his foot down.
He had seen enough civilian casualties overseas. He wasn't a soldier anymore, but if his city was going to become a warzone, then he was going to take up arms to defend it.
A pack of Wrath's anarchists loped down the street, baying like Mightyena, reveling in the destruction they had caused. The Ronin planted his feet in the middle of the street and reached up to finger the hilt of his broadsword. He blew an errant strand of silver-gray hair from his eyes and settled into his stance. When the bombers started to close in, he drew the sword and cut deep into the leader's neck in a single smooth motion. The other bombers started to draw their knives and guns, but the Ronin was faster. He slammed his sword into the gut of a second and drew the long knife he kept strapped to his thigh. He drove the smaller blade into the neck of a third before wrenching out his sword and slicing a single deep cut across the chest of the fourth, spilling his guts out onto the pavement before switching his grip and lopping off the bastard's head.
Sometime between his second and third strike, the Ronin heard Muramasa's pokeball burst open. The Samurott blasted the anarchists' Magmar with a torrent of water that lifted the fire type of its feet and doused any counterattack it might have launched before whirling on the Toxicroak that had leapt to the third bomber's defense and impaling it through its midsection with his jagged horn. With a contemptuous toss of his head, Muramasa hurled the Toxicroak's corpse into a nearby alley.
The Ronin wiped the blood from his broadsword with an oiled cloth he had strung through two of his belt loops before sheathing it. The crowd of panicked citizens down the street watched in mute shock as he pushed his hair back and looked down on his handiwork. Any further reaction was cut off by a piercing scream from the third floor of one of the burning buildings. The Ronin peered into the smoke and saw two small figures standing near the open window, silhouetted against the flames.
He strode forward and seized the arm of a hysterical woman. "Those your kids?" She shrank back from him, but nodded. The Ronin set his mouth into a hard line. The fire department was nowhere close, and they had other battles to fight. Those kids didn't have time to wait. Well, the hell with it.
He was no hero, but that didn't mean he couldn't do the right thing.
"Muramasa!" he barked. "Keep those fires away from the window. You, kid!" The Ronin snapped his fingers at a shell-shocked kid standing nearby with his Poliwhirl. "Give my Samurott a hand. And hold this." He unbuckled his sword and tossed it underhand to the boy before untying his faded scarf and holding it out to Muramasa.
His Samurott sprayed a gentle stream of water onto the cloth, and the Ronin wrapped the sodden scarf around his face. "Here goes nothing." He charged up to the door of the tenement building and knocked it off its hinges with a tackle. The smoke burned his eyes as he turned around looking for the stairs. A stream of water shot past him, almost immediately evaporating into steam. "Gonna have to do better than that, Muramasa!"
The Ronin made his way carefully to the stairs and started taking them two at a time, doing his best to ignore the searing heat and the smoke that was forcing its way into his lungs. "Come on," he growled to himself. "You smoked a pack a day for years. This is nothing. This is goddamn amateur hour."
He pounded on each door he passed on the second floor landing, making sure no one else had been trapped by the fire. No responses, so he had to hope that no one had passed out from smoke inhalation. When he reached the third floor, his breathing was ragged, and he could feel the skin on his face blistering from the heat. He mentally counted off the doors until he reached the apartment he had seen from the outside and battered down the door. A wall of fire had spread through the front room, and he ran through the blaze, coming out on the far side with nothing more than some smoldering clothes that he hastily beat out. He tried to shout, but his voice came out as a rasp. He stumbled through the apartment, trying to find the kids he had seen from outside.
A misshapen pile next to one of the windows stirred weakly as he reached the last room of the apartment, and the Ronin hastened over to it. The two children shrank back from his bloody, soot streaked face, clutching a catatonic Meowth. The Ronin raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I'm here to help," he rasped. "I'm gonna get you out of here." He leaned out the window. "Muramasa! Give me a hand!"
The Samurott bobbed his head, and the Ronin ducked down beneath the windowsill as a torrent of water sailed over his head. One of the kids shrieked as masonry and charred wood fell around them. "I said help me, not bring the building down on my head!" the Ronin roared.
He gathered up the two children and their pokemon and rushed out of the apartment, vaulting over the flames in the front room. When he got back into the hallway landing, he heard a crash as a portion of the stair down collapsed. He bit off a curse and peered down the stairs. "Okay," he gasped. "Hold on tight. I think… I think I got this."
He tightened his grip on the nearly unconscious children and took two steps back to get a running start. He sprinted forward and leapt for all he was worth, hoping to land on the far side of the stairs. He landed poorly, sinking to a crouch and feeling his knees protest. The floorboards beneath him groaned, and the Ronin didn't have time to get clear. "Oh fu—"
The floor below him buckled and he plunged down in a pile of burning timbers and plaster. He clutched the children close, hoping to use his body as a cushion for them and to cover them from any falling rubble. He landed hard, and while he didn't feel anything break, he knew he wasn't going to be able to get up by himself.
It wasn't the way he planned on dying, but at least they could say he went out trying to do the right thing.
A bellow from outside heralded the arrival of Muramasa, who barreled through the remains of the doorframe and immediately began blasting any nearby fires with streams of water that left craters in what was left of the masonry. The Poliwhirl sat astride the Samurott's back, using controlled pulses of water to beat the flames back from where the Ronin lay stunned. A crowd of men and fighting types followed after him, and began trying to shift the rubble from him and the children.
The Poliwhirl's trainer helped lever the Ronin to his feet. "What the hell are you doing?" the Ronin rasped.
"You heroes do so much for us, it's only right we do the same."
"I'm not a hero."
They stumbled out into the night air, and the Ronin staggered to the street, where he sank into a crouch. Between gasps for breath, he checked himself for serious injuries. The kid picked up his broadsword and held it out to him. "I know who you are," the kid said. "They say you're a monster and a serial killer. But I don't think so. Those kids would have died if you hadn't been here. You might not believe it, but I think you're a hero."
The Ronin spat and pushed himself to his feet. "Shut the fuck up, kid." A tongue of fire leapt up over the tops of the nearby buildings, visible for blocks all around, the worst explosion he had seen all night. The Ronin's eyes went wide. "That's in the Warren. Fuck." He shook his head and tried to gather his wits. "The whole damn Warren is going to go up in smoke if that doesn't get contained. Muramasa!"
The kid reached out and caught the Ronin's arm. "What can I do to help?"
"What can…? I don't…"
"I want to help." The kid gestured to several of the bystanders. "We all do. This is our city too."
The Ronin sucked at his teeth. He couldn't send civilians in to take care of something like this. But if the fire started to spread, it was their neighborhood on the line. With the fire department tied up with the rest of the chaos and the Warren's streets as cramped as they were, it might take too long for the professionals to deal with the fire, and the Ronin sure as hell wasn't going to let a whole swathe of his town go up in smoke. Okay then.
"Get everyone you know with water types to form up a perimeter. Stay on the edge of the fire, don't try to be heroes. We're just looking to hold it back." He slung his sword back onto his back. "Those of you without water types, spread the word for the rest of us. It's going to take everything we've got just to make sure we don't all get killed. Muramasa and I will go on ahead and try to get more help."
"We'll be right behind you! You can count on us!"
The Ronin raised a signed eyebrow and recalled Muramasa to his ball. He swung up onto his bike and took off towards the blaze, his hair whipping around his face. Saving those kids didn't make up for everything he had done overseas. Killing the bombers didn't either. He knew he was never going to completely atone for what he'd done, but tonight, he'd put a little good back into the world and took a little evil out of it.
As he roared towards the burning Warren, he steeled his resolve. He was going to take his city back.