If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,

And all we know most distant and most dear,

Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,

Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?

When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters

And the horror of our fall is written plain,

Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,

Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,

We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,

And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.

God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,

Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,

And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us

And we die, and none can tell Them where we died…

–Gentlemen-Rankers, Rudyard Kipling

Eight months earlier (Harry 'Hotspur' Fawkes)

Harry had taken a month to return to Seattle. The hijacked fishing boat from Hong Kong to the Philippines. A slow boat to Japan, and the Yakuza smuggling flight he'd killed to pay for. Going to ground every third step, like Mister Wolf; never moving in the open, never lying down in peace. Half-expecting, almost hoping every morning, that the Triads would catch up before nightfall and the nightmare would end.

Roller, Fyrefox and Alison Douglas were dead. Owens, the other survivor, had split in the Philippines. Harry heard nothing of him again, alive or dead. He'd always hope the elf shaman had vanished into some wilderness of peace. They'd never got on well, but they'd been chummers. The crew he had fought by and slept by had been more than his kin. Two years together, they'd plundered and killed enough for a dozen plain lifetimes. He'd laughed with them, bought girls with them. He'd led them into death and left everyone but himself to die.

Death by a myriad of knives was the Triad curse on traitors. Sweating on a bed, or crouched in a corner, Harry felt the knives of the friends he'd failed. He saw Owens' bitter eyes, through the night. Douglas, brave and deathly–he wished he'd held her hand to the very end. The dead eyes of Kindly Cheng, the Triad boss who'd crushed them all, regarding him like an insect under glass.

And Susan's eyes. When he had seen her hurt. When he'd left her, left Redmond, full of TriD shows and dreams and drek. Their eyes would watch his death, and he knew what his eyes would be when he died. An idiot on a dirty floor, more fragged than he could even understand.

With death in every Chinese face on the street, and in every other face that would expose him for the bounty…in the world-squeezing grip of the Triads and as close as the gun in his hand…alone and helpless, Harry found he could not die. He was dead already; Douglas had given her life to fake his death. For her beloved sake, without childish, idiot dreams, there was a chance…that he could get to Susan Lei, somewhere. Be there for her, somehow. If only her smile touched him, like an angel's feather in the darkness…maybe, he would live again.

He'd have to change his street name. Fyrefox's literary musings had touched on Harry Hotspur, the fearless, feckless knight who would 'leap, and pluck down honour from the moon'. Harry Fawkes had never asked how that had worked out for the ancient sword-swinger, but 'Hotspur' came to him easier than Warrior had. A memorial for his chummer, though he'd remember them as long as he Ran, or lived.

Before Owens vanished, he'd said only that he was done with shadowrunning. Even after the fall, Harry couldn't understand that. Nobody left the Shadows. If he wasn't robbing Megacorps, he was nobody; if he wasn't looking death in the face, he was a bum. That rush-drunk, idiot tenacity was his only virtue. Even if it fragged up all he touched–he surely couldn't keep Running for long, before he was dead. And before that, the Shadows that had swallowed Harry Fawkes would hear the name of Hotspur.

-0-

His first job back in Seattle, as the unknown and penniless green Runner Hotspur, was to cut off the pinkie of a guy who owed the Fixer money. Harry went to the flat and emptied his Browning into the guy's third-rate excuse for a bodyguard. The target himself was a slobbering, insensible chiphead; his girlfriend, however, laid a baseball bat across Hotspur's head. He stayed conscious, got away with just knocking her out, and did what he'd been paid for. In the corridor outside, his legs suddenly gave way. He had to crawl back, with trembling hands, and throw up in the flat's bathroom.

He'd done things he'd never dreamt he'd do in the Shadows. He'd also closed Runs that had beaten all but his wildest fantasies; unbelievable defences and targets, hundred-thousand Nyuyen paydays. But the world-shifting prototypes or researchers went to the Corps, the money had gone to Happy Valley and the drek remained. This was shadowrunning; the right job for someone like him.

What really made him angry was that he'd never been so afraid he would die. Fear of seeing his chummers down, like Susan, had gnawed him from the start and he'd fought it. Then he'd watched his chummers die, he was alone, and it had done something to him…no. He had to be hard, he would fragging well fight his fear again.

He kept tramping for work through the grey, oil-scented alleys of Seattle, through the trash and garish billboards. His hometown, the birthplace of the shadowrun, where he and Susan Lei had lived and dreamed. They'd slid down the gutter like skaters, she'd laughed as she chased him…he'd been shot in the gut on their first Run, she'd been beaten and hurt. Nothing had gone right, or been easy…but she'd found him, one night in Hong Kong. Mysterious, unstoppable; miraculous as a midnight sun and sweet as his last pure dream. She was somewhere, he was still alive…and his mother was in Redmond. But for her safety, he couldn't even look at her in the street. He stayed out of Tacoma, and checked every cab he took–vanished, if the driver was Chinese.

Even wandering, he must have seemed a beacon of purpose; Hotspur found a street-level kind of crew gathering round him. A grubby, wild-eyed dwarf Rat shaman. And a pinched, staring junkie with a rattling Fichetti, swearing he wanted to be a Runner even more than he wanted a fix. Harry honestly liked the kid and readily called him chummer. They took a job to clear some two-bit gangers out of a drugs squat…and it went down smooth as champagne licked off an elf girl's stomach. Hotspur's grin was wide as the greenhorns on their first Run, who stared in astonishment at the bodies and the nyuyen.

With another teammate–Izanami, a determined and stunning young Redmond chica, who Harry resolved to watch himself with like iron–their next job had been to clean up a ghoul-haunted cemetery. They'd geeked the pale, loping monsters with sword and handgun–but the junkie had surged too far ahead and died on his second Run. It'd been a miracle he'd survived his first–but that made him a Runner. Hotspur had to believe that getting torn by teeth as a shadowrunner was better than ODing on a bathroom floor, in defiance of what his eyes had seen. It hurt, but he wasn't going to stop.

Their third Run was for a portly, cheerful Johnson who broadly insinuated that he knew Hotspur was Warrior. But it was a serious job that paid. A transport convoy would be ambushed outside Seattle, the guards would move to engage. Hotspur's team would drop in behind them by rotorcraft, seize the package in the central armoured Roadmaster, then make a rotorcraft exit. Transport would be provided, and an advance to hire a decker. Harry leapt for the job; he would have begged if required.

Three nights later, he was standing on an open highway past midnight, having thrust one guard through the throat and slashed another to the teeth. The decker was working at the maglock on the back of the big Roadmaster, by the light of burning escorts. The Rat shaman stared down the road, at the bulk of the guards pouring fire into the Runners on the ambush team.

"Oy. Where's their rotorcraft?"

"Decoy team, omae." The decker quipped, "Better Runners than us, from the ambush, but…not lucky. There, but for the grace of…whatever."

The shaman kept staring.

"Shame." He muttered, "Got a chica with them."

Faster than his own thought, Harry dashed. Three steps. He stared with all his might through the fire-glowering darkness–a struggling figure with long dark hair. It didn't look like Susan, but would he know? If it was…? A bullet spanged off the armoured truck, lodged in his vest. He dropped down, wincing, still staring. Izanami crouched beside him, handgun poised and dark eyes bright.

"On your word, Hotspur."

"Wha–? Serious? No!" The shaman gabbled, "Count the helmets! Suicide!"

The decker popped the lock, got the package. Finally, Hotspur turned away. He ordered the shaman to summon some cover–a devil rat spat venom at the advancing guards, as the Runners ran. Hotspur lifted a silent Izanami onto the pilotless rotorcraft; stared back. He could see nothing left of the decoy team, through the darkness and smoke.

He had a team; he could not see them die again. Susan might have been lost to him since he left her in Seattle. Lost in shadows like the depths of space, beyond his reach…

No. He had made war on an international Triad, he had fought two years to pull his teammates out of fire–every half-good thing he'd half-done had been for Susan Lei. His love he could never touch, couldn't ever save…the girl he had dreamt with, in the Barrens, of love and immortality. Finding her and loving her were the last meanings his life had left.

Yet they'd set up a dead drop mailbox, that night in Hong Kong. He could have messaged her, again, he'd stayed up past midnight with his finger hovering…but not yet. When Hotspur had found his feet and made a name…when he'd done something she'd be proud of. And when he was sure that the worst thing, for him and anyone he was with, wouldn't happen…and then it did.

Warrior was dead, but Hotspur couldn't have lived, couldn't have worked, without putting about what Runs he had closed. Perhaps someone made a connection, perhaps the Johnson let it slip; perhaps Kindly Cheng had never even been fooled by the fake body in Hong Kong. Harry felt so changed, he'd done little to disguise his appearance.

Then there was a street in Everett, a bike roaring past. Two hard Chinese faces, a camera-eye flash. And that was it. Harry knew they knew he was alive, and everything went down like a house of cards.

-0-

Before nightfall, the Fixers and Johnsons knew and there were no jobs for Hotspur. As he left the last nightclub, the Johnson reached for his PDA; Harry called his team and told them to run. His senses were on razorwire, all the way through the alleys to the safehouse–but as he opened the door, he heard the crackle of magic. The click of chrome blades, behind.

Two assassins, one Triad Mage. Serious killers–but they'd gone in for the bounty fast, without backup. Harry's Ki was a shield against magic, and he'd killed tougher killers in Hong Kong. He'd lost count of his dead before the war with the Yellow Lotus, that had left him alone and deadly.

A manabolt scorched him, a cyberwhip carved his arm, before his sword slashed through chrome and flesh–but there were always medkits. All they couldn't heal was nerves; still steel, but taunt and fraying. And they wouldn't bring back the dead Triad orks round his boots, or anyone else.

Izanami and the decker had vanished. But the Rat shaman had been cornered in a bus-station toilet. Harry heard the next day, he had been fried by magic–he hoped the little guy had spilt all, instead of holding out under torture. Not that hoping, or anything else, would do him any good now.

I'm sorry, Susan. You're the best woman in this fragging world. You can find a better man than a toxic, hopeless drekhead.

He sent the message in a filthy basement bar in Redmond, halfway through his first glass. He'd promised to be her hero, no drugs or women, he'd hoped…he couldn't hurt her. A team-killing idiot could not be with her. All he could do for her now was something to make it impossible he should stand in her presence again.

For the first time in over five months, he picked up a girl, a cute Hispanic ork, in the next bar. As if rushing to cut off his toxic self from Susan Lei, beyond hope of heaven.

"Tell them who I was and where I went," He gasped into her neck with kisses, on the messy floor of her room, "They won't hurt you. I'd never want them to hurt you. I never wanted…"

"Oh, slot it, handsome." The ork chuckled, pushing his head down to her breasts, then between her thighs, "Just love me."

Harry left her room before dawn. He might've drowned himself in drugs and synthol that night, hurting only himself, but he had to keep moving and survive. He could head to Calfree, but the Triads were strong there. the Triads were everywhere. He had settled on Kansas City, when the van screeched into the curb behind him. His legs were charged ready with Ki, he whipped out his sword and ran.

He should have died, again–there were just too many bullets in the air. But a spirit of lightning suddenly tore through the gunmen in the van, and a welcome Haste spell lit up his body. Several busy seconds later, he was stood on a ruined street among yet more Triad bodies–looking at Izanami's lovely and fearsome eyes. Her hands were still smoking, she had switched her black jacket for a halter top, and the dragon tattoo running from breastbone to stomach told him who she was.

"It appears you need some protection, Hotspur. I belong to the Shigeda-gumi; my mission was to assess you. Though you were not everything I expected, and unless you would rather run on and die, I will relate your worth to my Oyabun. Graciously omitting the part where you slept with that trog slot."

-0-

Mostly as a middle-finger to those filthy Triad ruffians, the Yakuza extended Hotspur protection, and an exclusive retainer. There were a few leg breaking jobs, but it mostly meant clearing street gangs out of rotting apartment blocks in the Barrens. Harry would have been proud of such jobs, if he hadn't known the Yakuza would move in before the bodies had cooled. Beating on the slum families for money they'd already paid the street gangs and buying their children for Bunraku. It was the Barrens, it was shadowrunning, it was the work that a teamkilling failure did.

The Shigeda-gumi were a New Way, progressive clan–a woman, even the Oyabun's granddaughter, like Izanami, wouldn't have otherwise got far with them. While they sincerely professed shadowrunners to be dishonourable curs, there was an almost childish fascination with these latter-day shinobi as well. Harry was obliged to drink a lot of whiskey, and tell a lot of stories, while grinning, suited Yak footsoldiers pounded his back and called him their Ronin.

Harry found that selling his soul wasn't so bad. When he'd been green and stupid, he'd wanted to do good in the shadows, of course. But what he had always desired most–what had driven him to the Shadows of Hong Kong and its brothels, even into war with an international Triad, perhaps–was to be renowned, respected and loved. He ate the Yakuza's flippant praise of his work, laughed along, with a surface shine in his eyes. Beneath was void; a Runner too tired to run, without a single dream left.

"You only look alive in combat," Izanami admonished him (Late in the evening, after the other Yaks had slid insensibly under the bar's mahogany table), "And they don't even pay you what they should for your jobs. You should share sake with us; become a full member. Then we can gather a crew, take serious jobs. Take the clan, one day, or set up our own. The two of us could take this city, and wade through the blood of those Chinese trog-lovers!"

(Harry regarded meta-racism as so senseless that it didn't greatly offend him. He hated lawmen, gangs and rapists, and got on well with everybody he could.)

"Izzy, love–" she smacked his face, "–Izanami, I'm a gaijin. New Way, Old Way, no way I'd get far in any Clan. They'll probably sell me to the Triads, as soon as they get a reason."

"So, you can't sit still!" Izanami leaned forward, eyes flashing, "As if the storied Hotspur could ever pause or baulk at danger! You could cut your way to power, as you cut through the Lotus! We could change the Yakuza, finish what grandfather began, so that a gaijin or a woman can truly seize everything they might dream!"

"You're a dreamer, Izanami." Harry put down his glass and looked her unsteadily in the eye, "Why don't you do something yourself about what you want?"

With a flushed face and impatient growl, the Yakuza woman launched her lips at his. Harry returned her whiskey-tasting kisses for some minutes, before they came to whatever sense they had left.

Sleeping with an Oyabun's beautiful granddaughter would have been a picturesque end to the story of Hotspur, but a certain one. In fact, if Izanami had been a prostitute her oath-brothers would still have been outraged at any pure Yamato woman submitting to a poxy Westerner. They'd offered their Ronin any number of trafficked Filipino or Malay girls, all with the sad and earnest eyes of lost hope–Harry hadn't availed himself. In fact, he never had any woman after the ork girl in Redmond, in the months before his arrival in Calfree.

He had thrown away Susan's forgiveness, lost hope of her smile forever–but he learnt bitterly that he could not stop wanting. He wanted to hear all she had done; her triumphs, scars and regrets. He wanted to watch her eyes shine, as she swept through a Kung Fu form or comforted a child. He wanted to walk a street with her, without words, once more…or if she called him a lying idiot, it would be her. The girl he had dreamt with, his lost dream.

Izanami had chosen her street name (her real name was Kaname Kato) for the Shinto goddess who had created the world with her husband, before becoming queen of the underworld (And transforming into a hideous monster; Harry silently hoped her story wouldn't get that far). She was a beautiful, strong-willed woman; Harry found he talked with and fought beside her with astonishing ease. But if he had let love draw him into her story, Harry knew he would have lost his soul for good.

Months passed. Synthol had never really been Harry's poison, but it became a habit. One evening, he wandered into a Redmond dive and Mr Jackson walked in after him–the old ex-shadowrunner from his old neighbourhood. The dwarf feigned to not recognise him, but launched into an unprompted spiel over his can, about comings and goings in Redmond. That was how Harry found out that his mother was running a shelter and counselling centre. He stared at the ceiling, a puzzled, sad look in his eyes.

"…yeah, who would have thought it?" Jackson drawled on, "A lifetime of waitressing and dishwashing, in drekky joints much like this. Then a mysterious shadowrunner–a female Adept, I heard tell!–plonks some cash down, and now Sharon Fawkes is the best thing that happened to Redmond this decade. She's working like a horse, and I hear she never gives up a single soul. They mean well, these hooding Runners…but I've seen it before. Running is feast or famine–half-a-year sometimes, when the Corps just have better stuff to do. Charity needs steady money, and not a little. Or everything goes, and those women will end up on the street."

Jackson chugged his synthol and sighed theatrically. He had no idea where Susan was. Hotspur didn't bother asking Jackson why he didn't do something for the shelter himself. He had occasionally wondered what had reduced the ex-Runner to a synthol-soaked, underpaid security guard, but now he didn't need to ask. Chip truth, he was an ex-Runner himself. The thought made him shiver in his seat.

-0-

He saw Susan's concert a few days later–watching TriD with a whiskey bottle and his Fichetti before him. SeeräuberJenny. He heard her song.

The tenth time, he was still staring; he hardly believed it was her. If she wanted money for her shelter, why wasn't she shadowrunning? When had she learnt to sing? Why expose herself to every Corp and gang she'd fragged over, in that outfit? And why was she a million times lovelier than any other girl he'd ever see? All he knew was, he couldn't go to her; a failure, still hunted by the Triads, still the Yakuza's chained dog.

Harry did send his mother some money, through a decker friend of Izanami's; if the Triads had made the connection, the issue would have been hellish. But when the bolt fell–a fortnight after the news that SeeräuberJennyhad vanished in Calfree, without trace–it was from an unexpected quarter, as always.

The Shigeda-gumi's leadership were sent photos, of Harry and Izanami. The picture where they merely kissed hadn't even had to be doctored–though even Harry's Yakuza chummer, who slipped him a warning, wouldn't believe that they had been.

Harry found Izanami with her decker friend, in a furious row.

"…Onee-san, any decker could tell those pictures were faked," The bespectacled techie pleaded, "But the Oyabun doesn't care. The look of the thing, the loss of face! He's going to sell the Ronin's life to the Triads, and if we speak out against his will, the dishonour–!"

"Frag him! Frag his honour! Frag the fragging New Way!"

She turned savagely towards Harry, as he stepped forward–then her snarl was silenced on her open lips. Something she had only glimpsed months before, in Harry's eyes, was shining.

"It seems like I need to redeem myself. Lone yakuza did that with suicide charges, years before the kamikaze. Except, I can't die yet–I'm asking you to come with me, Izanami. The two of us, for honour, against every Triad in Everett, isn't suicide. It'll be legend."

"Yes, but not for you." The Yakuza woman fiercely raised her chin, "I mean to be the first woman Oyabun, I wanted us to conquer America together, and I wanted you. But I will not be called 'some girl that Hotspur screwed one time'! I will not forgive those Triad vermin for sullying my honour."

In her white knuckles and shaking eyes–Harry saw something of Susan's pain. Only a trace, but it still made what he had to do quite easy.

The Yakuza decker, Hanzo, who'd grown up with Izanami like a brother, decoyed off some Yellow Lotus from their forward base in Everett; enough that Izanami and Harry wouldn't die within seconds. The blockhouse's doors and cameras fell to Hanzo as well; to not only get them in, but show the Shigeda-gumi what they'd done. With Mitsuhama at their backs, Yakuza deckers were the underworld's best. Harry thanked him, as he tied on his headband. Gripped the dikoted katana he did not mean to lose in this fight.

-0-

He walked through the front door. Izanami strode at his side. A dozen Triad gunmen stared, before fog flew from her fingers. Hotspur flung one grenade–dropped another and kicked. He fired as he ran, Haste flashed through him with the blasts–a Triad grenade burst at their backs, as screams and bullets filled the air.

His sword flashed out. With the death in his heart that he should have died, Hotspur ran low like a wolf, fast as an Adept, into the clearing mist. Bloodied gunmen and metas were running like rats for the corridors–taking cover, as they aimed. As Triad hitmen and officers rushed in from their rooms.

Triad thugs lunged in, both sides. The blade flashed a level path, back and forth–foes fell. Cordite burnt in his lungs as his heart blazed. He had to live; find Susan. He would die here, for all the drek he'd done. Bite down the pain, as bullets clipped his limbs. Twist his blade for force, across bodies, cut down a staggering dwarf; then there was nothing but death and the fight, and he was grinning.

Izanami flung acid bolts to down an ork shaman. Hotspur ducked into a corridor, as they moved in deeper–a gunman was there, that he hilt-slammed in the neck. Then he quick-drew and emptied his gun, at the enemy rolling out behind Izanami. The Triad elf ducked away. Hotspur charged out, again, and a bullet punched through his armour.

He stayed up. Izanami screamed at him to move, as her Heal washed over him. She summoned a spirit of wind and lightning to clear out her flank. The Triad shaman had flung a Slowing spell at Harry, before Izanami had got her. And there was the cloying stink of his own blood, but he had practised dampening his pain with Ki, because no pain could stop him.

He was still moving, fast–so were the Triad hitmen. A troll and a razorgirl with SMGs; a Hung Ga Adept. And the Gun-Adept, the ugliest elf he'd seen, with a Colt Manhunter in each hand. Coming in firing, from behind–Izanami rolled for cover, trailing blood.

Hotspur ducked back from the SMG fire, and slashed. The Gun-Adept leapt back, sunk a bullet in his thigh. Parried another strike with both his pistols. Hotspur was faster to break the deadlock with his kick; Izanami burnt the gunman down with acid. They took a minute to breathe and Heal. Then Hotspur took more wounds, kicking in a door to outflank the gunners; he cut them down with lightning strike after strike, as Izanami covered him. They breathed hard. Izanami spat blood on the floor and stared at it. Hotspur slapped on a nanite soaked pad from a medkit; he felt only dull pain, but wounds still slowed and killed.

Then there were the two that Harry might've thought twice about facing singley. A bare-chested, barefisted ork, built like a truck; the crew boss. And the pale, bald man in robes, with a long moustache; the Incense Master. Who dropped his jaw like a snake, to cough a green cloud of poison over Hotspur. Then he flew at Izanami, throwing fire. Before Harry's limbs could stop shaking, the boss had punched him to the floor.

Izanami sent him another Heal; cried out, as the fire claws scorched her. From the floor, Hotspur slashed round at the ork's legs. The boss leapt up, kicking three times in mid-air. Harry rolled and staggered back, blocking all the way. One kick still struck at his ribs; he felt the crack throughout his chest. He had half a minute, before he dropped.

"So foolish, to cause us such trouble, for a little bubble of fame," The Incense Master's voice was calm and soft; Harry knew Izanami was down, "The Yellow Lotus will rule the centuries. Your silly sword and silly rage will be blessedly forgotten within a season."

Harry felt his psyche muddy and twist–and then he knew he would win. He was an Adept. That arrogant coot thought he couldn't break mind-magic! Purpose burst through his head as he screamed out, hacking a great chunk from the ork's forearm. The Triad Mage hissed in annoyance, readied a Flamestrike. Then Inazami rose from the floor and leapt. Stabbed her tanto knife into his guts until he was dead, and still stabbed then.

Bloodied and heaving, like a bull in the ring, the ork boss still clapped his claws over Hotspur's third swift strike; broke the sword in two. With nothing left in his mind that could flinch, and no path left in his world but through his enemy's throat, Hotspur opened it with the broken sword–as the ork's Killing Fist sank in his stomach. Blood poured from Harry's mouth as they crashed down, and the rest was silence.

Burnt and bleeding, Izanami finally managed to groan. She crawled towards Harry; grasped his wrist, below the DocWagon monitor bracelet. Footsteps; through the haze she saw three fearful, shadow-eyed faces. Trafficked girls, kept by the Triad men who were now dead. Disbelieving their own freedom which indeed would probably not last long, in the slums. Still, that idiot would have been happy for them. He would never change.

-0-

Harry woke up in the DocWagon facility where he spent the next month, even on a gold contract. Before med-nanites and synthetic blood, he supposed there'd still been heroes–and they'd died or lived crippled for their convictions. Instead of surviving (Like the Triad boss, back on the streets to swear revenge), a little slower and a little more fearful. A very little, but he was a Runner. Simply to live, he had to be fastest, and fearless. To do what he had to do, he fragging would be.

Izanami, her beauty only marred a touch by 50's skin grafts, was waiting and smiling when he woke. Harry managed to smile back–but went cold when the slim hand she laid on his chest was missing one finger.

The war between the Yakuza in Everett and the true Triad stronghold in Tacoma was still raging when Harry got on his feet. For her part in provoking it, Izanami had gone through the traditional Yubitsume penance; she'd also been long since sent to Tokyo for her own safety. She told Harry she did not have a single regret; he was an idiot not to come with her and rule in hell, but it was his own choice. Hanzo, also minus a finger, went with her to Tokyo. Harry wondered if the Yakuza princess would fight for and gain all she dreamt of, or die in the shadows. He hoped Hanzo, the diffident, novahot little decker, would work up the nerve to tell Izanami he'd loved her since he was twelve.

There was talk among the Shigeda-gumi of killing Hotspur, for turning the hostile peace with the Triads into shooting war. But he had charged against their enemies, with death in his heart; honour made it unthinkable. They simply revoked his protection and advised him to take his valour elsewhere. Yubitsume couldn't be strictly ordered, since Harry was not full Yakuza. He could have parted on excellent terms with the Yaks if he had offered up his pinkie, but he did not.

He needed ten fingers to grip another dikoted katana, which emptied his wallet after a ticket to Calfree. He was alone, penniless and hunted, a fool who'd lost his dreams. But he would find Susan Lei and this time he would save her, if it meant running to her through hell.