Normally, foreigners in Kamurocho stook out like a sore thumb. But the blonde American Kiryu had been tasked with finding, Leon S. Kennedy, seemed to have some degree of experience in making himself unfindable. But not enough. It had taken down the better part of an hour chasing down leads, but Kiryu and Jill Valentine - the companion/observer loaned to him by Chris Redfield - had at last tracked down someone who seemed to know something.
"Enough enough! I'll talk!" A low-life delinquent gang member begged. Kiryu was holding him by the collar, and his face was black and bruised, with more puffs than a stand of takoyaki. Behind him lay the rest of his gang, who were in no condition to be standing or talking. For once, it wasn't Kiryu that had put them in that condition. Jill Valentine, holding the picture of Leon S. Kennedy, shoved it in the Yakuza's face. "He ran up to us jabbering in Chinese, and then in English. Obvious tourist, lost. Tourists gotta be loaded. We tried shaking him up for drinking money and he beat us up! He ran that-a way!"
The delinquent failed to lift a broken arm in a direction. Kiryu saw it, guessed where he was vaguely pointing. With some thinking, he realized that it was in the direction of Little Asia.
"Chinese? Why would an American man be speaking Chinese?" Kiryu asked Jill.
"Can you tell us what he said?" Jill demanded.
"I don't know English or Chinese but I'll try my best…" The delinquent croaked.
"Hmm…" Jill registered what he told her, and then tossed the delinquent over her shoulder like he was nothing.
"He knows Chris is close. He was looking for a place to hide."
"You know Chinese as well?"
"Well, my job does take me all around the world. Helps to understand the locals and all that." Jill shrugged.
"That reminds me. What exactly do you and your… friends do?"
"I'm not sure how much I ought to say. It's not kind work. The name Umbrella Corp ring a bell, Kiryu-san?" Jill's look for a moment grew distant, like she remembering memories of dark times.
"Umbrella? Hmm… I'm not familiar with that name, I'm afraid." Kiryu wouldn't know it, but during the ten years he had spent locked up, the Umbrella Corporation had expanded operations into Japan. But the aftermath of the Raccoon City Incident had ensured that Umbrella Japan was but a memory by the time Kiryu was a free man.
"Let's just say it involves cleaning up biohazards before they get real bad. Maybe if we get this done, I can tell you some more. Over lots and lots of whiskey. What about you, Kiryu? What do you do, exactly?"
"I used to work…" Kiryu pondered how to best phrase his time with the Yakuza. "…well, real estate in this very town." He decided it was best not to divulge the rest, the time spent with and things done as the Dragon of Dojima. "Now I work with kids in Okinawa, and I have to say, I've never felt better. I was just visiting Kamurocho tonight… to catch up with old haunts and acquaintances."
"Great with kids? I wouldn't have guessed." Jill shrugged. Her only experience working with kids was that one time in Raccoon City where coming at her from one end of the street was a horde including the T-virus addled remains of some pre-school class and coming at her from the other end was a nightmarish behemoth of dead flesh and tubes.
As Kiryu suspected, the trail to Leon S. Kennedy led to the part of Kamurocho known as Little Asia. Leon was speaking Chinese after all, based on the information gleamed from their interrogation, and where else did all the Chinese people in Kamurocho hang out?
They spied Leon sitting behind the window of a Chinese noodle shop in a dingy alley in an alleyway made of dingy alleys. Spotting the former Yakuza and his companion coming down the alley, locals scurried away and shut their windows and doors shut at their approach.
"I will warn you. Leon may not seem like much at first, but he… he's a man of talents. Don't go trying to start trouble at first jump, ok? Give me a chance to… um, reason with him." Jill advised Kiryu as he opened the door to the noodle shop.
A tired-looking middle-aged woman, the Chinese hostess, asked Kiryu where he wanted to sit in broken Japanese.
"I'll sample everything on the menu. And tell the chef to take their time. I'm in no rush. And why don't you help the chef? It'll be a tall order." Kiryu slipped the hostess a hefty stack of yen from his own pocket and with a sudden light in her eyes, the woman nodded and toddled off to the kitchen locking the door behind her.
No one else was in the noodle shop now except for Leon, sitting alone at a table. He was a truly sad sight, Kiryu observed. The man was disheveled, his blonde hair unwashed and uncombed, and his body manners twitchy. In front of him was a large plate of Chinese you po mian that was completely untouched that he only half-heartedly poked with his chopsticks every now and then.
But what was touched were the bottles. Almost every space of his table was cluttered with bottles of apple juice, empty and filled, upright and overturned. His hand shaking, Leon took a half-full bottle and drank apple juice directly from the source.
"Goddamn it all… what kinda life am I living?" Leon ranted to himself in English, his woes falling as mere gibberish upon Kiryu's ears. He was in some kind of self-pitying, apple juice induced stupor. "Always on the run, always looking over my shoulder. I shoulda let myself die back in Raccoon…"
Leon chugged down another apple juice.
"Hey Leon. We've never really met but I'm sure you've…" Jill sat herself in front of Leon in a spare chair.
"Whuh… whozzat?" Leon gargled through a mouth full of apple juice. His eyes suddenly widened in recognition. Seeing Jill and hearing her voice activated some kind of shock that jolted him out of his stupor.
"Oh no!" Leon spat his apple juice directly onto Jill, much to her displeasure. "If you're here, then he must be nearby!"
"…heard of me. Guh…" Jill looked at her top, now soaked with apple juice. "…This was my favorite shirt, jerk!"
She smacked Leon in the face.
"Just a shirt? Big deal! Cry me a river! My life is in shambles!" Leon moaned as he rubbed his slapped cheek. "Do you know how much of my life savings I've burned through on apple juice this week alone?"
"Calm down, Leon. Chris told me to… just take a gander at these, huh?"
"Chris Chris Chris!" Leon yelled the name with pure hate. "A maniac in Spain nearly carved my head off with a fucking chainsaw and back in Raccoon City some giant douchebag in a fedora nearly took my ass and neither was as unpleasant as every encounter I've had with fucking Chris!"
Sighing, Jill pulled out her phone, and opened up the camera. She went into the stored photos and began showing Leon something.
"Oh God, I don't wanna know!" Leon grumbled and tried to bury his head in his arms. Kiryu, curious as to the contents of Jill's phone, walked behind the malcontent Leon.
"Nani." (What.) Kiryu mustered.
It was pictures of Claire Redfield, the sister of his current benefactor Chris Redfield. But for some reason, she was dressed in a long Chinese dress, a dress in the color red. And she was making all manner of seductive poses. Jill then swiped to a video. As she hit play, it was Claire in the dress trying, and failing at that, to say random words in Mandarin Chinese.
"Is… izzat supposed to be some kinda turn-on? TURN OFF!" Leon sputtered as he smacked the phone out of Jill's hands. Jill gasped at the sudden burst of violence, and equally alarmed, Kiryu sprang into action as Leon shot up standing, flipping the table over onto Jill.
"Aaaaah!" Jill was temporarily pinned. Kiryu tried restraining the mad, flailing Leon but he was slippery. It was like wrestling a giant eel!
"Hired some local muscle, huh? Is Chris paying these Yakuza meatheads in expensive sushi or tentacle hentai to rope em into his mad schemes?" Leon raved.
"Fuck your mother!" Leon then shouted to Kiryu in Chinese, before he elbowed Kiryu in the ribs.
Kiryu of course did not understand the insult because he was Japanese, not Chinese.
(Why's this weird white man screaming at me in Chinese? He does know that I'm Japanese cause we're in Japan, right?) Kiryu thought before the pain shot through him.
"Oof!" Kiryu loosened his grip enough for Leon to get a grip on his neck and suplex him onto the floor right as Jill was righting herself.
"That's enough, Leon! Get ahold of yourself!" Kiryu looked up from where Leon had left him to see that Leon and Jill were holding pistols and pointing them at each other.
"Why are you helping him, Jill! You know he'll never agree to fuck you!" Leon snarled.
"You think I don't know that?" Jill retorted. "You don't think I don't have plans of my own for Little Red Chrissy? I just need to get his guard down… then bam! You're just the bait, so be a good little worm and get on my hook!"
"No way fag!" Leon snapped back.
"God dammit Leon!" Jill replied. Then she tsk'ed in displeasure. "Now you got me talking like Chris!"
(Good grief. I thought it was just movies and tv, but Americans are crazy horses!) Kiryu rubbed his stinging head.
"Uh… so we just gonna stand here for the rest of the night, showing off our peashooters?" Jill asked after an awkward bit of silence. "You know I can't afford to kill you."
"Er, you're lucky I don't kill living girls! But nothing says nothing about hurting 'em!" Leon squealed before he threw his gun at Jill.
Jill sighed as she caught the gun in midair.
"Just stop before you embarrass yourself any mo -" But Leon was already leaping through the window, shattering it. He tumbled over shards of glass, before he sprinted like an migraine-suffering buffalo into the night.
(Why did he jump through the window when the door was right there?) Kiryu thought. Then he saw Jill getting ready to run for the door, but he threw his arm out in front of her.
"Take a breather, Miss. I'll get him back here in one piece. Then you two can tell me just what the hell is going on." Kiryu advised her, before he barged out of the door like a raging bull charging an unarmed bullfighter stuck in a dead-end.
"Niu rou chow mein ma, xiaojie?" A waiter stumbled out of hiding with a plate of stir-fried noodles and beef, the first dish that Kiryu had ordered earlier finally completed, asked Jill as she sat at a deserted table.
"Sure." Jill coughed, a bit stressed to say the least. She reflected on her life and all the events that had led her to this point. "And while you're here… you got any apple juice on the menu?"
Leon sprinted for his life, powered by sheer adrenaline. A stranger in the land of the rising sun, he knew not where he was running as he drifted around corners and dash through narrow alleyways. Just keep going where forward was an option, until far was far enough.
He was in the open now.
A glitz of bright lights and smoke rising under lamplight assaulted his vision. He could barely hear anything above the cacophony that was the ambient noise. A horde of Japanese locals clogged the streets. But Leon continued charging forward, knocking over several store greeters who tried forcing their pocket tissues on him.
Leon ignored the angry shouts of Japanese hurled after him. He continued to run.
But he was the prey and his predator knew this burg fell better than he did.
"ENOUGH WITH THIS BUFFOONERY!" The angriest Japanese of all came from right in front of him, as Kiryu emerged from another street and cut him right off. Leon screeched to a stop in a panic, and then he saw Kiryu's fist proceeding right towards him.
"Don't touch my hair, you jerk-off!" Leon ducked and tried to tackle Kiryu. The Japanese man was unmovable though, and soon he was lifting Leon.
"Hey let go off-" Leon was cut-off as Kiryu performed a piledriver on him.
"Give up, Leon! Just come back with me to Jill peacefully!" Kiryu implored him as he attempted to apply a submitting jujitsu hold. But he had a feeling things wouldn't be so fortunate, as already a hooting crowd eager to see some blood was gathering around them.
"I don't even know what you're saying! No way fag!" Leon seemed to like saying that for some reason. What did those English words mean? Leon kicked out of Kiryu's hold and the two separated, before getting up into fighting stances.
Leon fought like a wild man, with frenzied combinations and nearly unpredictable movements. Kiryu knew, as he dodged and blocked, that this was going to be one of those kind of fights. If he so felt, he could've engaged Leon in an honorable, bare-knuckle man-to-man fight. A drag out fight for the ages between two top fighters.
But goddamn, it had been one long night. And Kiryu was pissed. He thought of a way to end this quickly.
"Agh stand still!" Leon swore. Kiryu backed away and backed away, as Leon's punches kept hitting the empty air. Leon in his fury and desperation had no idea that Kiryu was leading him right ot where he wanted.
"Yeoooowch!" Leon cried as he punched a brick wall. Stunned by the pain, Leon was unprepared for Kiryu as Kiryu unleashed a rapid burst of punches in his chest and face, before doing a snap-kick into his gut that sent him flying.
Leon looked up from where he fell, and saw Kiryu transformed into some kind of raging beast, holding a motorcycle right above him.
"WHAT THE FU"
Kiryu smacked Leon around with the motorcycle to finish pacifying him. He kept beating Leon for good and thorough measure, until there was nothing left of that motorcycle except a burst wheel.
Lots of thoughts were running through Kiryu's head as he headed back to Little Asia, with the unconscious Leon slung over his shoulder. Leon kept muttering random words in his sleeping daze.
"Ada… Ada… Ada… step on me harder…"
(Ada? Is that the name of someone this Leon knows? Don't tell me there's even more parties to this drama that have yet to make their entrance. What am I doing with my time? I should've been back in Osaka by now, or at least at the end of my train route. Then I'd be hitting the town for some karaoke with Haruka. I wouldn't have to have phoned ahead and informed I hear wouldn't be making it back. I wouldn't be hearing the disappointment, the sadness in her voice, no instead we'd be going out for a bowl of ramen. Some piping chashu ramen would hit the spot on a chilly night like this. A lot more than carrying some sleeping American around like a sack of damn laundry. Next time Majima sends me an invitation for fun and games, it's going in the trash. Hmm why don't I just ditch this Leon and get me that ramen right now? And then put myself on a train to Osaka as fast as I can. I already got enough craziness in my life as it is. Why add this Redfield mumbo-jumbo to the pile? Ahh, you can't kid yourself, Kiryu. I'm just too much of a sucker for anyone in need.)
Kiryu sighed as he finally reached the noodle shop. Jill was still inside, looking pretty stuffed with several empty noodle bowls and plates around her. Her legs were crossed as she sipped from a glass of apple juice.
"You ate all those noodles I ordered by yourself?" Kiryu asked, astonished.
"My line of the work tends to burn through the calories fast. Upside is, I can eat whatever I want and dress like this on a regular basis." Jill chuckled as Kiryu laid the dreaming Leon down in front of them.
"Who's Ada?" Kiryu asked as they watched Leon do some embarassing things to himself in his sleep, all while muttering the word Ada.
"I only know her by reputation, but trouble's what she is. Let's hope she ain't in town, because otherwise we won't be able to control this rowby bronco at all." Jill explained as she patted the dozing Leon down, and removed all the weaponry he had on him.
"What now?"
"Now, let's wake him up." Jill whistled and one of the kitchen cooks brought her a big bucket of water. Jill thanked him before she stood up and dumped the whole bucket on him.
"YEAH ADA YEAH DROP THA – waitaminute!" Leon's eyes sprang open. "This isn't Ada's- oh snickerdoodles!"
"Tell me just who the hell you are!" Kiryu demanded, with Jill doing the translation between the two.
Seeing he had nowhere to run, Leon begrudgingly obliged.
"Me? I'm just a man who cancels the apocalypse on a day to day basis. The hero you never hear about in the news. If it weren't for me, the entire world would be just a shambling pack of homicidal flesh-eating retards, so shown some goddamn respect!"
(Delusions of grandeur. Always a promising sign.) Kiryu noted to himself sarcastically.
"Sure you did. Now, what about Chris Redfield? What does he want with you?"
"Oh, that's simple." Leon groaned. "Y'see, Chris Redfield wants me to fuck his sister."
(Did he just say what I think he said? No, surely that had to be an error in translation.)
"Say that again?" Kiryu blinked in skepticism.
"What, fuck his sister?" To punctuate his point, Leon formed an o with the fingers on his left hand, and he stuck out the point finger on his right. He put the finger into the o, and tightened. He wiggled his finger in the o before pulling out, miming an explosion as he did. "Miracle of life, man."
"NANI." (WHAT.)
This just got worse the longer it went on, Kiryu decided.
"Why? Why would he go through all this trouble for some simple sex?" Kiryu demanded as he grabbed Leon by his collar.
"Where do you think babies come from? A stork?" Leon shrugged as a dumbstruck look crossed Kiryu's face. "Hey, Jill, pass me some of that apple juice."
"Fuck you, Leon. You're the whole reason I'm in this mess to begin with." Jill finished her last bottle in one gulp right in front of Leon, an act of sheer insolence. "Chris is so singularly-minded! Focusing all his energies and two brain cells on breeding the perfect Redfield child with you and Claire… when he's making me help and stand right next to him! FUCKING FRIENDZONE!"
"Don't blame me for Chris being the big gay! You need to move on! There's plenty other fish in the ocean!"
"Rich, coming from you! The dumb blonde whose brain goes even dumber whenever a certain Chinese slut looks your way!"
"Don't diss my China Girl like that, you STARS bitch! Ada's a good woman and I won't take that kinda trash talk!"
The white people were yelling at each other in English again. Kiryu understood none of it but got some gist from their tone.
Kiryu dropped Leon and walked to the wall. He lit a cigarette, and tried to enjoy it, but the bickering Caucasians were making it impossible.
(Good grief. I don't know what apple juice does for these people, but I won't be surprised if I end up drinking orchards-worths of it by the time this is over) Kiryu buried his face in his palm and shook his head.
"Fuck me, I'm getting bored. I oughta be out there, hunting down Leon and dragging him here by his hair." Chris Redfield mentioned to Claire as they hung out in a penthouse suite with their surname on the door. It an amenity reserved exclusively for them, located at the very top of the BSAA branch in Tokyo. A reward for their illustrious service in protecting the world from the ever-present threat of BOWs.
They had spent a night on the town, a well-earned night of R&R, but Chris could not truly relax during that time. Leon was a constant thorn upon his mind, sending periodic pulses of true pain, like he had for these past few years. How could his fellow agent be so damn selfish? Did he not know what was at stake if the Redfield Lineage failed to produce an heir to safeguard the world against the next generation of Bioweapons?
Right now, Chris was trying to pass the time by working out with one of his favorite routines, practicing his punches on a punching bag made entirely of rock, hollowed out and filled with even more rocks. It hurt… for the rocks.
"Relax, big bro. I'm sure Mr. Kiryu and Jill won't fail us! Leon will be here soon, and we can all finally get this part of our lives over with." Claire remained optimistic as she relaxed on the bed, reading manga while on her back.
"Damn it, Claire! What did I tell you about reading those Japanese comics?" Chris looked as he punched the rock bag one last time. "It ain't proper, funny books that go from right to left? Insteada like left to right? What if reading like that ruins your great Redfield eyeballs?"
"Oh, don't be such a worry-wart, Chris! It's just the way they do things here! Besides, it's a great read! Kind of bizarre, but it's packed with guys with great genes that I'm sure you'd be hounding just like Leon if they were real!" Claire showed the page she was on to Chris. Chris squinted and could make out some real poncy looking lads on a boat dancing while a decapitated head watched them and wept.
Chris made an audible sound of disgust. God dammit, Claire had to be reading some Japanese gay sex thing again. What did the Japs do besides creepy gay sex things?
"College musta done some bad things to your mind. I knew it wasn't right, letting a Redfield girl go off to university, but Ma was so insistent. But look what that did! You're reading manga and that ain't good! We gotta do something about that before Leon gets you pregnant so you don't pass it on to your kid." Chris shook his head.
"You never know until you try it." Claire held the manga out to Chris.
"I think I'll pass. I don't even like real American comic books. Except for that one comic, Doom #1. If any comic could be my role model, that would be it. Fucked up how the comics people made a masterpiece like that right outta the gate and they never made an issue #2. If the comics industry collapses, it deserves it just for that." Chris shook his hands in rejection, then gritted his teeth as he got back to punching the rock bag filled with rocks.
Finishing his workout a bit later, Chris could not get the worries out of his mind. Leon was always a slippery customer, and a persistant naysayer to the Redfield Lineage.
Claire was taking a shower in the bathroom, so Chris was all alone in the main room of the penthouse with himself and his thoughts.
Chris truly doubted that a random Japanese man Claire picked up in the street would be the final solution to those Kennedy woes. And even though Jill was his very good friend and he trusted her with all matters platonic, she was acting so strange around him lately for reasons Chris couldn't understand.
"It's a good thing I got back-up." Chris went to the fridge, opened up the freezer section and pulled out a briefcase and a box of leftover pizza. He put the box and the briefcase on a table next to a pair of scissors. Chris cut the pizza in half horizontally, separting the pizza into a half with the crust and a half with just-pizza, and began eating the lower triangle half of just-pizza that he made.
As he enjoyed his pizza which was topped with nothing but meat and absolutely no sissy veggies, Chris Redfield opened up his mysterious briefcase to check its contents were okay.
As he did, a red light glowed in his face.
Redfield smiled as he examined its contents, several vials of a sinister red material in a spiral labeled on each vial – "R-Virus." This was a special project he'd been cooking up in the BSAA labs back home in America, which he had smuggled in with him for this Japanese trip just in case.
"The Redfield Lineage much be continued. At any cost." Chris proclaimed out loud as he closed the briefcase and continued eating his pizza.
"You say something, big bro?" Claire shouted from the bathroom, where her voice was muffled by the shower water and door.
"That you were right, Claire! This will all be over soon!" Chris replied in glee, and soon he was leaning back and laughing chaotically.
To be continued...
