Hello, My Enemy...Good-Bye, My Friend
A Kill Bill Fanfiction by Sassy Lil Scorpio
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim of ownership of the characters used in this writing. Beatrix Kiddo, O-Ren Ishii, and all other names from the Kill Bill Universe are the property of Quentin Tarantino. No copyright infringement is intended and no monetary gain is being made from this work.
Dedication: For David and Tanisha, thank you for your ideas that helped shape this story; I love you both. Thank you to Mr. P who inspired Tommy's quote. This story is especially dedicated to M.A.D.—I'm sorry that things went down between us the way they did.
Author's Notes:Dialogue in italics is translated from Japanese.
"O-REN ISHII—YOU AND I HAVE UNFINISHED BUSINESS!"
Suddenly the laughter died in O-Ren's VIP suite in the House of Blue Leaves. The posse of trained assassins and bodyguards turned towards the elegantly dressed O-Ren Ishii. They had never seen their mistress's face pale from fear or her eyes go blank, lifeless and empty. O-Ren was not the type to be cloaked in fear or allow shivers to take over her. She was the Queen of the Crime Council in Tokyo's underworld. The Yakuza praised and revered her for being the first woman to ever claim that prestigious and deadly title. What would ever strike fear in her heart so badly that it would erase the confident smile from her young face?
O-Ren turned slightly when she heard the voice shout from below. She stood up slowly and pointed at the doors. Her posse obeyed and swung them open. O-Ren turned to Gogo Yubari, her vicious bodyguard. Gogo nodded and followed her mistress to the opened doors.
O-Ren held her sheathed sword by her side and went to the balcony's railing to see who had called her name. Even as she searched, she recognized the voice, but she'd have to see it to believe it. She scanned the room. The teenagers who had came to the club to party spread out to witness the confrontation that was about to take place. Finally, she was able to see who it was.
One name came to her mind.
It was a name that she'd never thought she'd speak of again, not after what took place four years ago in the Two Pines wedding chapel in El Paso, Texas. Not after what she had done to the woman who stood tall in a yellow tracksuit. The woman was supposed to be laid out on a hospital bed, fed nutrients via intravenous lines. She was supposed to be lost in a coma, with fragmented dreams as her only companion. She wasn't supposed to be here.
One name reached her lips and O-Ren trembled as she spoke it aloud. It was like breathing life into a curse of death.
"Beatrix."
oOo
Beatrix Kiddo heard O-Ren speak her name in a hushed whisper. She stood still and watched as O-Ren stepped out to the balcony. She inched forward and held Sofie Fatale tightly in her grip, refusing to release her despite the woman's murmured pleading.
Beatrix's cold eyes, the color of cerulean pools, clashed with O-Ren's black abyss-like eyes.
As Beatrix continued to stare down O-Ren, she remembered.
She remembered that beautiful day in El Paso, Texas. Not a cloud in sight and the blue sky was open and inviting. The chapel was simple and the pastor and his wife tried to figure out who would come to sit on her side of the church.
She remembered Tommy's childlike innocence when he had met Bill. It was his innocence that made her love Tommy. He had a pure goodness about him that was rare for people his age. Tommy laughed off cynicism and believed that even the worst of people had a little heart in them.
She found this out one evening when they had a small conversation about murderers sentenced to death row after watching a television program about the topic. She had been sitting on the sofa in the living room of his modest home and Tommy laid his head on her lap and said in his husky Texan drawl:
"Everyone deserves a second chance to start over new. Society likes to think that some people are too far gone to change, but that ain't always the way we should look at it. All of us have done stupid things, some are lucky to never get caught. No one's perfect; everyone has a skeleton in their closet"
Tommy never knew about Beatrix's past. She had a cemetery of skeletons threatening to break open her closet door. But she could never tell him or his friends. She wanted to get as far as she could from her past life as a brutal assassin. She was just happy to get married to him, start a new peaceful life, and give birth to a beautiful child. She could be like the rest of the world and live a normal life.
She was going to have a normal life until Bill showed up that fateful day.
Bill.
Bill, her former master and lover that she had ran from, but he had found her. He didn't let on how infuriated he was until moments later when he signaled the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad to enter the church.
"What the hell?" Rufus had explained, his cigarette dropped from his mouth and he crushed it with his foot.
The pastor's jaw had dropped and his wife had gasped. Her new friends had run to the sides of the church, yelling for their lives, when they saw the four black-clad assassins lift up their guns simultaneously. Beatrix had screamed for Bill to stop, but it was too late. Without hesitating, they opened fire and Beatrix thought it would never end. The thunderous sound of bullets firing filled the tiny chapel; it hurt her ears. She heard the sickening thuds of bodies falling to the ground.
Beatrix remembered seeing all four of them. She remembered their rough punches, their jaw-shattering kicks, and the names they had called her. The physical beating was horrible in itself, but to be called those names ripped her soul apart—at the time it had hurt Beatrix deeply and she knew she would never heal from these wounds.
Bitch, Vernita yelled and punched Beatrix's throat.
Whore, Elle snapped as she smashed her fist into Beatrix's nose.
Cunt, Budd spat and then knocked her towards O-Ren.
O-Ren Ishii.
Beatrix remembered how silent she was for she never participated in the verbal abuse. She recalled the pain from the high kick O-Ren delivered to her jaw, blood spewed out between her lips.
It was O-Ren who had shot Tommy. For some reason that Beatrix could never explain, she instinctively knew that it was O-Ren's bullets that killed him.
Now as she glared at her former friend, Beatrix felt lost in a tornado of hatred.
She stepped from behind Sofie Fatale, still holding her arms behind her back in a firm grip and she pressed the Hattori Hanzo sword against her skin. Are you watching, O-Ren? Beatrix wanted to shout.
Sofie's breathing came out in ragged gasps and her body quivered with fear. She looked up at O-Ren with wide eyes, begging for her mistress to come down and save her from the newly awakened Beatrix.
O-Ren simply watched and stared down in her direction not moving.
Beatrix waited.
Sofie felt a rush of release wash over her when Beatrix let her go—and immediately screamed in agonizing pain when she felt Beatrix's sword slice through her upper arm.
oOo
O-Ren's eyes narrowed like a cat. She couldn't believe that Beatrix had the nerve to hack off Sofie's arm. Blood gushed from Sofie's severed arm and she lay sprawled out on the floor howling in distress.
The crowd took one look at Sofie twitching in a puddle of her blood, at Beatrix who stood still, blood splattered across her yellow track suit, and then at O-Ren and her gang who watched from the balcony. It took only one person to make a decision for all of them. The mob of teenagers raced for the exit to get far away from the chaos that was about to erupt like a volcano.
Beatrix walked through them, calm and serene. The Hattori Hanzo sword glistened in the bright lights. The whole time she kept her eyes focused on her prime target, the hated enemy who had once been a loved friend: O-Ren Ishii.
oOo
She was dismembering them one by bloody one, O-Ren observed. She told herself she wasn't afraid, and yet, she couldn't stand to watch the carnage anymore. O-Ren didn't understand why she felt that way, after all, she was a former assassin for Bill and had killed many men and women, more than she could remember.
For every Crazy 88 that Beatrix killed, it meant she was closer to pursuing the woman she had come for: O-Ren.
O-Ren turned her back to Beatrix and the remaining twenty-odd members of her bodyguards known as the Crazy 88. Slamming the door of her VIP suite behind her, O-Ren found the entrance that would lead to the manicured garden in the back of the House of Blue Leaves.
As she waited by the entrance, she felt cold air brush against her cheek. The grass was covered with a smooth layer of snow. The sky was the shade of midnight blue. She walked passed the fountain that filled with water and dipped making a clinking sound. Snowflakes fell from the sky and landed on the ground silently.
She made her way to an elevated platform at the edge of the garden and marveled at how Beatrix Kiddo hadn't lost her assassin touch. Instead, she was more aggressive and determined. How else had she been able to kill Gogo? Gogo was the closest to killing Beatrix, but now she was gone and doomed to stay seventeen forever. She was damn good with her steel chain and razor-edged flail, even if she was an insane bitch, O-Ren thought. It was why she wanted Gogo Yubari as her personal bodyguard. O-Ren viewed Gogo's craziness as a mirror image to the loss of her youth. They were both young when they had been forced to grow up. But now Gogo would be eternally young, O-Ren thought sadly.
The first guys O-Ren sent down from the balcony had been dismantled easily. She had sent them after Beatrix for laughs and giggles. They were incompetent, but O-Ren still liked having them around since they loved to cause trouble wherever they went. Before Beatrix had called her out, they were harassing the Charlie Brown look-alike to get them pepperoni pizza or else. But they had fallen prey to Beatrix's sword.
It was the sword that captured O-Ren's attention. The way Beatrix handled the silver weapon with grace and precision—and how it severed human life! It sliced men's arms off effortlessly, dismembered legs from torsos, and even split one Crazy 88 member right down the middle. Where was this sword made and who had fashioned it?
Just as O-Ren was wondering about the sword, the doors to the entrance that she had entered from were thrown open. She saw Beatrix walk slowly into the garden, blood-stained and tired from her long battle, but still fully alert like a trained ninja. So you did it, O-Ren smiled. Good for you, Black Mamba. She stepped down from the platform and walked towards the middle of the garden to meet Beatrix. Now I can get answers to my questions, she thought.
"Your instrument is quite impressive. Where was it made?"
O-Ren stopped for a moment and met Beatrix's cold blue eyes from across the garden.
Beatrix also stopped in her tracks and saw O-Ren in her white kimono robe. She thought about the question for a moment.
"Okinawa," Beatrix said and resumed walking.
O-Ren watched her and continued to walk forward.
"Whom in Okinawa made you this steel?"
"This is Hattori Hanzo steel." Beatrix's flat voice carried over the snow.
"YOU LIE!" O-Ren hissed. Hattori Hanzo swore to never create instruments of death like the one Beatrix had used tonight. He must've gone back on his word, she thought.
Beatrix shook her head slowly and turned the sword so that O-Ren could see Hanzo's lion symbol near the sword's handle as proof that he had created the weapon.
O-Ren looked down at the sword and smiled smugly. She suppressed a bitter laugh and walked a few more paces so that she was several feet in front of Beatrix.
"Swords however, never get tired. I hope you've saved your energy," she said as she surveyed Beatrix's blood-stained tracksuit. "If you haven't, you might not last five minutes."
Beatrix stood still, watching every motion that O-Ren made.
"But as last looks go," O-Ren gestured to the garden, covered by a blanket of snow, "you could do worse" She held out her hand allowing small snowflakes to melt on her skin.
Now she was ready. O-Ren stepped out of her slippers, one at a time, and pushed them back with her feet.
Beatrix watched as O-Ren knelt to the ground, a bow of respect. She wondered if O-Ren was doing it mockingly. Their eyes were locked on each other's, both anticipating their final confrontation.
Slowly, O-Ren rose to stand at her full height.
Beatrix's heart knocked against her chest.
O-Ren's fingers closed around the sheath. Her eyes gleamed as she removed the entire sword. The metallic click of steel scraping against the sheath sounded throughout the air.
At that same exact moment, Beatrix assumed her fighting stance, legs apart, and eyes narrowed into a fierce glare. She gripped her sword tightly, as she awaited their battle to begin.
O-Ren now stood with her arms wide apart, her sword in one hand, the sheath in the other. Silently she dared Beatrix to start.
Beatrix stepped forward and swung her sword in the air missing O-Ren by a mere inch. She came forward again and O-Ren blocked her attack and shoved her back with all her strength. The clinking of swords filled the air. Beatrix took a few steps backwards and caught her breath. She huffed and waited, deciding on her next move.
O-Ren waited and this time attacked first. Beatrix blocked her sword and then skipped a few paces back as O-Ren approached her again, this time more aggressive. Cottonmouth is overly confident with a sheath and sword to fight with, Beatrix thought. Without a second's hesitation, she swiped her Hattori Hanzo in the air and her heart pounded when she heard the loud chopping noise of O-Ren's sheath being sliced.
She watched as O-Ren stopped and stared at the sheath in amazement. O-Ren's red lips pressed into a thin line and she threw down the useless sheath into the snow. As angry as she was, she was shocked and Beatrix knew it too.
O-Ren slowly brought up her sword, the silver glimmered in the moonlight. Beatrix slowly approached her with her sword drawn and she watched to see what O-Ren would do. A magnetic humming filled the air as if both swords were attracted to each other.
Beatrix and O-Ren clashed swords at the same moment. Beatrix lifted her sword to take a stab at O-Ren and missed. They swung and dodged. The swords clanged loudly. They barely missed each other and continued the ongoing battle. Both women turned to glance over their shoulders at each other, both focused on the other's death and their victory.
Beatrix leapt into the air and O-Ren took advantage and raised her sword over her back causing a huge gash. Beatrix stumbled, shocked and injured. Sticky blood flowed from where her skin had been slashed open. She breathed hard and then fell to the ground, the cold snow stung her back.
O-Ren stood over her fallen form and smirked in premature triumph.
"Silly Caucasian girl likes to play with samurai swords." She held the sword over her shoulder and glared at Beatrix. "You may not be able to fight like a samurai, but you can at least die like a samurai."
Beatrix lay on her back in the snow, her heart punched her chest. She breathed hard and her chest burned. Each breath was more painful than the last. This isn't over…I didn't come all this way to wave the white flag and die in the snow, she thought. I've come too far….
Beatrix felt a sudden rush of energy. The faces of Tommy, her friends in El Paso, and the baby that she had lost, flashed before her eyes and gave her renewed rage and strength to continue the fight. She lifted herself up and stabbed her sword in the ground. Taking a deep breath, she got to her feet, ready to resume the battle.
O-Ren's eyes, beads of onyx, glowed and twinkled. She watched with surprise as the fallen warrior got to her feet again to finish off what they had started.
"Attack me—with everything you have," Beatrix said in a hoarse whisper, daring O-Ren to become the Cottonmouth she had been named for.
O-Ren attacked, her sword gripped tightly in her hands. She clashed and ducked against Beatrix's defense and then whirled around bringing her sword close to her opponent. Suddenly, Beatrix swung her sword and shuddered when she felt the Hattori Hanzo dig into O-Ren's flesh. She bent over, her arms spread apart and sword in the air, and watched as O-Ren hopped backwards in the snow holding her sword up in defense. Then she stood still gasping for breath.
Beatrix saw why O-Ren had stopped.
A trail of blood ran across O-Ren's foot. Further up, her white satin kimono had been ripped. It was stained with O-Ren's blood. Beatrix's eyes met O-Ren's. O-Ren still gasped for breath and her eyes had lost their arrogance only to be replaced by weakness and surprise. She couldn't hide the pain she was feeling. It was physical pain, but it went deeper than that, O-Ren knew.
Beatrix also gasped for breath; a determined fierceness burned her eyes. Then O-Ren whispered to her and Beatrix heard sincere regret in her voice.
"For ridiculing you earlier…I apologize."
O-Ren's eyes met Beatrix's. She blinked away the tears that were threatening to overflow.
Memories flitted through her mind. O-Ren remembered the night she was crowned Queen of the Crime Council. One member of the Yakuza, Boss Tanaka, had said outright that having a "Chinese-Jap American half-breed bitch" was a "perversion to the illustrious council." She hadn't even let him finish his complaint. O-Ren jumped on the table and quickly made her way to Boss Tanaka. Before he could realize the consequences of his words, O-Ren had already swung her deadly sword, slicing off his head from his shoulders. The head bumped loudly across the table and the Yakuza had screamed like schoolgirls at a slumber party.
That night, O-Ren Ishii made it clear that any topic or question they had for her was totally fine; the members could question her logic if they wished—as long as they steered clear of the subject of her Chinese and American heritage being viewed as a negative. If they ever approached the subject again, she'd behead them without hesitation.
As O-Ren remembered that night, tears stung her eyes. She was humbled; for she had forgotten where she came from. And now she wondered: how could I have forgotten? How could I ridicule her? She was once my friend, even though she's my enemy now.
That thought was followed by another: Beatrix and her were once close friends. Beatrix was the only one that O-Ren felt comfortable enough to share her secrets and damagedpast. Only Beatrix knew the horror that O-Ren had experienced as a child; the numbing horror that had shattered her mind at a young age. Yet, she had betrayed her. She had shot down Beatrix's friends and her groom in the church and participated in the savage beating. She had watched, emotionless, as Bill shotBeatrix point blank, putting a bullet in her head. She had lived her life and rose to the top of the Yakuza in Japan, while Beatrix lay in a coma for four years. O-Ren swallowed nervously. She saw these sharp images, heard the same sounds, the screams, the whispers, and laughs of her life and of the times she spent with Beatrix. She remembered the experiences they shared. How could I taunt her?
O-Ren faced Beatrix, breathing hard, and awaited her answer.
Beatrix faced O-Ren and struggled to fight off a hurricane of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. She swallowed the thick lump in her throat and remembered Hattori Hanzo's words about the necessity to kill your feelings when engaged in battle:
"For those regarded as warriors. When engaged in combat, the vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrior's only concern. Suppress all human emotion and compassion. Kill whoever stands in thy way even if that be Lord God or Buddha himself. This truth lies at the heart of the art of combat."
In this case, would she pardon O-Ren?
"Accepted." Tears filled Beatrix's eyes, but she refused to cry. "Ready?" she choked out.
"Come on," O-Ren said in a low voice.
O-Ren rushed forward and swung her sword. Beatrix blocked it and returned, swishing her sword. The metal clanged in the quiet night. O-Ren blocked her attack and they stood still together, both swords overlapping each other. Finally, O-Ren rushed around the fence that stood in the garden. With Beatrix on the other side, it would provide as a temporary distraction. She ran down the length of the fence and held her sword in the air. Beatrix ran parallel to her on the other side. They met at the end of the fence, O-Ren ready to swing, but Beatrix got to her first.
A slash of crimson polluted the snow. It was O-Ren's blood.
With a clean swipe of her Hattori Hanzo sword, Beatrix severed O-Ren's scalp.
The top of O-Ren's scalp and her mop of straight black hair flew into the air and landed in the snow with a heavy thud.
O-Ren's fingers loosened their grip and the swordfell to the snow beside her.
"That really was…a Hattori Hanzo…sword."
O-Ren stared at the garden in front of her and at the bushes and trees covered with snow. Her last moments were beautiful. The snowflakes continued to fall innocently; they were unaware of the stench of revenge and death that filled the air. As her vision grew hazy and the white snow darkened in front of her, O-Ren came to terms with her death. She understood Beatrix and why she had came for her. Her past was Beatrix's present.
O-Ren and the woman she had become had been created out of revenge and now it was revenge that ended her life.
For the last time, memories flashed before her eyes and O-Ren saw herself as a frightened little girl again. She saw herself hiding under her parent's bed while Boss Matsomoto of the Yakuza gave the order of execution for her mother and father. She was nine years old again, staring into her father's half-opened dead eyes that stared back, but did not truly see her. She whimpered again, just as she had when she was nine years old. Only this time, she did not stifle her pain. She felt her mother's body being thrown on the bed above her. She shivered at the sword that had pierced her mother's body and stabbed into the ground next to her face. O-Ren felt her mother's blood on her face again, the blood that had leaked through the blankets and mattress. The same blood that ran through her veins.
Back in the present, she thought to herself: it's over now.
Her life that had been filled with pain and rage was complete. She knew she could've killed Beatrix, but that she hadn't been able to. A part of her wondered if she had let Beatrix win because after all, silly rabbit, tricks are for kids.
With this final thought, O-Ren dropped to her knees and fell on her side, darkness closing over the last moments of her life.
oOo
Beatrix Kiddo had her back towards O-Ren and heard the sword fall and then the soft plop as O-Ren's body hit the snow.
She couldn't turn around. The sounds of death reverberated in her mind. Tears flowed down her cheeks and she trembled, although she wasn't cold. Her entire body shook as she held her arms apart, the Hattori Hanzo sword raised in the air, dripping O-Ren's blood. She sobbed quietly and realized that she hadn't been able to keep Hattori Hanzo's sagely advice intact. She had vanquished her enemy, but she hadn't been able to suppress her human emotion and compassion.
Beatrix slightly turned her head and caught a brief glimpse at O-Ren's fallen form. She knew she would never be able to stand proudly over O-Ren's dead body. She turned again and staggered to the snow covered bench in the garden. Sitting down, Beatrix let go of her specially crafted sword. She leaned over and rested her elbows on her knees. She took deep breaths and thought about what she had done.
Why am I crying? She wondered. She had accomplished what she set out to do. She had eliminated one Viper from the Assassination Squad. Her revenge was one-fifth complete.
Yet she hated what she had done.
She was still a killer, she realized, even though she had wanted to get away from that label and way of life. That was why she had left Bill and the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. That's why she was going to marry Tommy and have her baby in a new setting. I haven't changed; she thought angrily, I'm still a killer. I killed eight-eight men plus many more today. She reflected that she had to kill all 88 bodyguards except for the last one. It was either them or her; and she knew for damn sure it wasn't going to be her going home in a casket. I killed today, the thought. I killed more tonight that I ever have for Bill. I'm still the same Black Mamba that I wanted to escape.
Worst of all, I killed my friend.
Beatrix thought about it. She had desperately wanted her revenge to the point where she could taste the bitterness in her mouth. Ever since the night she had awakened from her four-year coma in the hospital and felt the flatness of her belly, she had craved and dreamt of revenge against the so-called friends that had committed this atrocity. They had taken everything from her--her friends, Tommy, and her baby. Yet, she felt empty. Drained. The most bitter hatred to experience and the most pain-driven revenge is to go after your best friend who has turned into your worst enemy.
Beatrix knew that was why she cried and why she couldn't face O-Ren's death. Then one thought entered her mind.
It's over now.
She would find the rest of Vipers on her death list and complete her mission.
Beatrix got up and left the garden. She slowly approached her motorcycle that was parked in the front of the House of Blue Leaves. She still had to go back and retrieve Sofie Fatale. She didn't plan on helping the bitch with the annoying ring-tone. Beatrix had other ideas (and people) to execute, but first she had to cross a name off her list.
She reached into the backpack and pulled out a notebook and pen. Opening it up, she turned to a page with sloppy handwriting. On the top of the page was the numeral and name:
1. O-Ren Ishii—Cottonmouth
Pressing the pen into the paper, she crossed a line over O-Ren's name.
She folded the notebook with the pen inside and put it in her backpack. She was ready to go back into the House of Blue Leaves. Beatrix looked up into the night sky; the snowflakes fell on her face and she smiled faintly.
"Good-bye, my friend," she whispered and closed her eyes.
The End