Chapter 3: The Man in Black
The homeless peasant boy walked toward the palace of Kyoto. He looked at the great gates that towered above him. They were slightly open. He looked inside the gates. He saw only corpses and burns. Then he saw the woman standing in the middle of the great space facing the grand steps up to the emperor's palace.
"Hello, Katoma Toyuki," the woman said to the boy never turning toward him. "You seem curious to see what lies in the palace."
"How do you know my name?" the sixteen year old asked the elderly lady.
"You wanted to see who it is that has deprived you of your home and family, am I right?" she said.
Toyuki looked at the old woman.
"The emperor is in the palace. Do you want to kill him?"
"He killed the entire village!" Toyuki screamed.
"Come here, my darling," the woman said. Toyuki felt as though he were being pushed along by an invisible force. The woman slowly turned showing her ugly smiling face to the boy.
"You will slay the emporer," she said, never losing her hideous smile.
Toyuki did not understand. The woman lifted her staff above her head. It suddenly became a katana perfectly balanced for Toyuki. She handed him the sword.
"Kill the emporer and all others inside, and you will be rewarded. Fail and you will be cursed forever."
The woman walked out the gates smiling her hideous smile as Toyuki looked toward her then up at the palace.
----
David woke with a start.
"Are you okay?" Kristyn asked from the edge of her bed where she was typing a report on the inn room's table. Myra was fast asleep on her bed, snoring loudly. David looked around the room. Kristyn looked at him and he looked away quickly and put on his sunglasses.
"You must barely be able to see with those on," Kristyn said. "I can't even see through them if I put them in front of a bright light.
"My eyes are very sensitive," he said. "I have to wear them or I … the light would be so bright it would be painful."
He could see perfectly clearly through the nearly opaque lenses. Though they did make his vision about the same quality as normal human eyes. He looked around the room and saw the obscenely large weapon leaning against the wall next to Myra. He looked back at the girl snoring loudly and the gun next to her. It interested him how she was in possession of such a weapon. Maybe that was what they were going to use against Hiryuu the Flame to subdue him or whatever they were trying to do. He looked at the morning sun coming in through the window curtains.
"What time is it?" David asked Kristyn.
"Nine thirty."
"I slept that long?"
"It's not that late, you went to sleep at two this morning."
"For me, that is like sleeping half the morning away."
"How much do you sleep, kid?" Kristyn asked.
"A lot less then you do."
Myra shifted in bed. She got up a little and looked at the clock. Then she lay down again and put the pillow over her head.
"Myra, you should wake up," Kristyn said.
"It's too early."
"We've got to go after Hiryuu, Myra!" Kristyn demanded. "Other wise he'll get away!"
"But I'm so … tired!" Myra yawned.
"If you hadn't insisted on helping him out, then we might have already found Hiryuu!"
"I'm never relying on you to save me from anything," David said , irritably.
"Hey, you should be greatful, I'm paying for your room."
"You already would have paid for it for yourself," David said.
David and Kristyn locked on each other in a death stare.
"Hey look, here, shrimp, you pay for your own half of the room!"
"Half? There's two of you and one of me, plus all I got was this dinky cot!"
The two of them started shooting mental death rays at each other.
"Come on, you two," Myra said. "This is no time to pick little fights! We've got to catch that Hiryuu!"
Myra was beaming that annoyingly happy smile of hers and the two others only silently shot death rays at each other again.
Kristyn paid the whole bill for Myra's sake. ("We took him to the room and he didn't have any say in being able or willing to pay, and that's only fair!") David parted from them and had headed to the center of town toward the gunsmiths. He had lost his gun in the fire.
Myra and Kristyn tried to ask everyone who had been in the April Saloon whether or not they had seen anyone suspicious with a blow torch or some kind of flame device. They had little luck.
"I don't think anyone saw him, Kristyn. Maybe he wasn't in the inn before he struck," Myra said, thoughtfully.
"I don't know, Myra. It seems as though there wasn't anything suspicious to anyone who had been in the building. That one lady said she had heard heavy creaking like there was something enormous in the next room. Then suddenly the wall burst into flame. He's probably a gigantic man, that means that he must have come in the inn from the outside. She said the room had been a vacancy, maybe he came in from the vacant room."
"Kristyn?" Myra said looking at a few specks approaching the city. They were on motorcycles. As they came closer the engines could be heard roaring. They drove right down the main street of April kicking up dust at the onlookers.
It was the Rider Gang. They stopped in front of the gun shop and looked at the sign. One of the riders raised his gun and blew away the sign on the building. The crowd in the streets suddenly became a mob of people fleeing into alleyways or shops.
"Come out of there, Marcus Green! You haven't paid your taxes!" the head rider said.
The gang burst into the shop. From a shop across the street came a bounty hunter. The Rider gang leader was wanted for thirty thousand double dollars. Suddenly the gang came flying out of the gun store without their firearms just before a jet of fire burst out from all the windows and the door, which was blown off its hinges. The bounty hunter looked from the leader to the smoke from the flames.
Someone inside the shop screamed.
"Hiryuu the Flame! Hiryuu the Flame!"
Myra and Kristyn looked at each other and broke into a run towards the gunshop. As they got close to the shop Kristen pulled out a fake gold watch, which was very hard to prove to be unauthentic.
"Hello?" Kristyn called at the door of the gunshop. "I'm Kristyn Paine, and this is Myra Thompson. We're from the Bernardelli In-"
A ball of flame suddenly shot out the door of the shop scaring the insurance girls. Myra hid behind Kristyn and the girls jumped back a bit.
Myra pushed Kristyn forward a little and backed away. Kristyn caught Myra by the collar and pointed into the store. There were several people still inside hiding and not daring to move.
"Mr. Hiryuu, sir, we mean you no harm. We're from the Bernardelli Insurance Society and we just wanted to have a little talk with you."
"Ha!" a monstrous voice answered in return. "Talk about my what is it? $$10 000 000 000 bounty? I think not. Even little schoolgirls want the bounty now, eh?"
"We want to reduce the property damage you've caused! But, please I beg of you. Let the people in the store go."
"I have no need to harm them they can leave whenever they want!" the voice said. There was a sudden yell and David came flying out of the gunshop. Then a few of the others ran out, also.
"We want to have a business arrangement with you, Mr. Hiryuu, sir!" Kristyn said hiding outside of the doorway. "To show our gratitude we have a very expensive antique watch said to date back to the origins of Gunsmoke beautifully handmade and initialed HTF in 24 karat gold plating. It has several handcut diamonds to accent the beautiful handiwork of the watches golden hands."
"He's gone," Myra said peering through the window on the other side. Kristyn looked into the store. The back door was hanging wide open. Some several people in the alleyway peered into the shop through the door to see what the ruckus was about.
"He escaped, Kristyn!" Myra said.
"Did you see who came out through that door?" Kristyn asked one of the townsfolk looking into the shop from the rear.
"There was no one there, it just burst open and there was the sound of someone running and screaming.
Kristyn looked back at the kid cringing in fear on the ground and the other people who were in the shop hiding in a ditch on the other side of the street. Hiryuu didn't just disappear, did he?
"Did any of you see him?" Kristyn asked the people getting up out of the ditch.
All the people shook their head no except one. Kristyn slumped and eyed David sharply. She walked down off the shop's porch with Myra.
"What did he look like David?" Myra said, as though it was a great suspense.
"Well, I don't know if you could say 'he'," David said, his eyes staring off in the distance. "His face was like a lizard or a snake with two horns that came out backwards on his head like… he looked like a dragon. And he had on a black trench coat and his eyes! They were…"
David paused. He looked directly at Myra. "They were bright red, with slits."
Myra gasped as though this was the most shocking thing of all. She wanted to console with David but she held her tongue, remembering that he didn't want anyone to know.
"Are you pulling my leg?" Kristyn said bluntly. " 'Cause if you are I'll take your tongue and rip it out and shove it up -"
"Krisyn!" Myra scolded. "Believe me, he would never lie about something like that!"
"Why not!"
Myra scratched her neck as she said, "I think that that is not a story, he would be capable of making up."
"You're right he's got the brains of your average thomas," Kristyn said squinting at David.
"Hey, it wasn't my fault that I was in was in the same place as the crazy guy two days in a row!"
Kristyn and David started yelling at each other and calling each other names like little children.
Myra walked between the two of them and put her hands on their mouths.
"Arguing is not going to make this situation any better or get us any further in the search for Hiryuu," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. She walked by the two and they looked at each other then turned away noses in the air. The bounty hunter suddenly flew by them, bumping into the both of them as the crowd went about their business.
"Watch where you're going!" the two of them yelled simultaneously then used death ray vision on each other before breaking away noses in the air.
"Come on Myra, we have an outlaw to catch," Kristyn said.
"Like that'll ever happen, old ladies catching that monster," David said just loud enough for Kristyn to hear.
Kristyn got a wild smile about her face and turned around and headed for David. Myra caught her by the collar and yawned.
"I'm gonna kill you! I'm gonna kill him, Myra, let go. I'm gonna whip you like your Mommy should have." Myra picked up Kristyn and put her on her shoulder and started walking towards the inn.
"Hey! Put me down, I'm gonna kill him. NOBODY CALLS ME AN OLD LADY!" Kristyn yelled to David as he waved at her with a wide smile and turned tail and ran down to the next gunshop in town his black trench coat billo0wing behind him.
Next, Chapter 4: Hiryuu's New Guns