Buenos Aires. Two days later.
Calmly sitting at a cafe inside Aeroparque, one of the airports in the City of Buenos Aires, Kenjiro Iwata was having a cup of tea, hoping it would help him keep the complaints of his intestines at bay. After more than 36 hours of flying, the jetlag - and the concomitant gutlag - forced him to use all his will not to squirm in his seat.
After 45 years, the last 20 spent as an immortal, he had travelled a lot for work. But he was still unable to put up with the discomforts long-distance travel brought with it. However, something made his attention shift from his belly to something else.
It was a strange feeling. There was someone around he could sense. But someone was with that immortal, someone who emitted a sensation that was appalling, awful. Kenjiro grasped his handbag and carefully opened it. A black katana in its sheath he produced, and hid it under his long coat. He stood up and started to glance around, wondering why he was not passing from this encounter...
-----
Clarice, Joe, Marc and Methos were in the airport lobby, with their bags ready to leave. Then the two immortals had sensed someone around and they had halted. The four of them started to look around without moving for a face they might know.
"Japanese guy right ahead of us." Clarice spoke.
Marc glanced and cursed. "Kenjiro Iwata."
"Iwata? He's barely fifty. So he can't be coming after her." Methos replied.
"He recently took the head of Cassius Polonius."
"Shit." Methos stepped forward to meet the Japanese, who was now by them. "Hello, Kenjiro."
"I don't know you, and I don't know how you know me. I don't have anything against you, so please let her and me handle this." Kenjiro barked.
"May I advise you against it? She's tough."
"Hello! I'm here." Clarice interrupted, facing the Asian. She took a good glance of him. Slim and shorthaired like most Asians, Iwata wore a cheap if expensive-looking black suit with no tie. Underneath the black coat, she made out the hilt of a katana. "You really want to fight me?"
"I do, Heretic!" Kenjiro replied, not figuring out why he had called her that.
"The underground parking lot." She said, heading to the stairs not far from there. "Now."
Methos watched submissively as the woman and the Asian headed downstairs. Then he glanced at Joe and Marc, who were silently imploring for assurance. He mentioned something to them before following the other immortals.
-----
Sword lashes echoed preternaturally in the empty lot. Hidden behind a car, Laszlo Kovac kept his camera recording the battle between his immortal and Clarice Minon. This woman was said to get in trouble with many old immortals, yet he couldn't know why Kenjiro was so eager to go after her. There was no record of any personal matter between them.
Laszlo only felt a pair of hands before a surge of pain in his throat and the sound of his own neck being snapped let him know that he was dead...
-----
Iwata was good. He had a good array of movements and evidently some martial arts knowledge as well. But Clarice managed. As she always did against her opponents. The Asian struck with a downward chop, which she swiftly avoided, taking the chance to strike on his left flank, gashing his side.
He grasped his wound as he kept his weapon up, should she attack again. But she waited until he was up again and ready to continue. Wielding his katana with his right hand, he placed it by his left leg, and stood in profile. Clarice remembered that position from a movie, but she couldn't be certain which.
Then he leapt forward, whipping at her chest viciously. She instinctively put up her blade and parried his blow. Iwata looked defeated. She could see it in his eyes, and she could also see his stomach fully unprotected. She shrieked as she delivered a violent slash, and a gasp reached her ears and blood her hands.
She turned to face her opponent, who was on his knees. She wanted him so desperately to ask for mercy, but she knew he wouldn't. So she simply did it. She arched her arm wielding her new sword - a French rapier Methos had given her - and took his head.
The quickening was brief. Bolts of blue lightning intertwined with a white mist of energy overwhelmed her. With it, a new feeling reached her head. An immortal was around. That feeling was... unique... and familiar. As she was shaken by the power, tears welled in her eyes when she realised they had run away to the end of the world for nothing.
It went off soon. Clarice rose exhausted and saw him. Logozz, smirking and leaning against a car. He now wore a neat Armani black long coat, a red shirt and a pair of black trousers. She blinked, not from the exhaustion but to wipe from her eyes the drops of sweat that had tripped down her forehead. Her arms refused to lift her blade, and she felt as if the Japanese's blood had made it unfathomably heavier.
Inadvertently, she felt a hideous pain in her chest. A dolorous force of some kind pushed her to the floor and she felt some ribs breaking as her back hit the floor. Logozz was by her, after delivering the swift blow that had knocked her. She cried mutely as her mind worked at full steam, unable to guess how she would survive this rendezvous.
He chopped at her neck but energies arising out of despair aided her to roll on the floor. She took distance, feeling her wounds healing and a little strength surfacing amid pain. She raised her sword and waited for the next lash. He stormed towards her, fiercely slamming against her. She felt the grip slipping from her hand as they clashed, and a major pain hit her throat.
She found herself struggling to breathe after Logozz had strongly connected his elbow with her throat. Her sword elsewhere but in her hand, she was yanked by the hair and her face was crushed against the floor. She almost choked with her own blood, which oozed out of her nose, mouth, and eyes.
A horrid premonition reached her head. Peculiar and unique like the one of Logozz, only harsher, and more dreadful. The tale of Methos reverberated in her head. The second outlander had arrived, probably to witness her execution by Logozz. Where in hell was Methos now that she needed him?
Her swollen eyes managed to make out Logozz going down on his kness and handling the weapon to another person. She exerted herself to see a slim shape receiving it and her heart almost broke when she saw who it was.
Methos was being handed the golden sword with a ceremonious nod. He eyed at Clarice, and she saw a face so different to the one she knew, that the anger and bitterness of betrayal subsided in favour of a fresh hopelessness. Methos raised the blade above his neck, prone to make a neat slice and sever her head.
A pair of harsh car lights dazzled them. Suddenly, Methos slashed, not at her, but at Logozz. The ancient hunter fell on his knees, holding a wound in his chest. Methos quickly held Logozz' head and made it twist till it snapped; then he picked Clarice up.
"We have to go!"
He dragged her towards the vehicle which had blinded her. Joe was in the passenger seat and Marc behind the wheel. She was shoved in the backseat, and Methos followed. She heard the whirr of the squealing tires speeding away as she faded into unconsciousness...
-----
She woke up some time later. She glanced around. Marc was driving, and he checked on her through the mirror. She saw relief in his eyes. Joe was staring through a window, humming the notes of some blues song. Next to her, Methos stared silently through the window.
"You have a lot to explain." She growled.
Methos barely nodded. He took a deep breath, and started to talk...
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Cassius Polonius appears in the Watcher files in the episode "Revelations 6:8" when Joe is looking for Caspian's true identity. Kenjiro Iwata and his watcher are not canon characters.)