Hanzo Shimada was storming back and forth in the room. 'He has escaped. He could be anywhere in the city by now. This was not what we planned. This was not…'
'Son, please.' General Shimada was a big, heavyset man, strong and powerful. His hair was still dark but flaked with white, his eyes shone with ruthless intelligence. His meaty hands were big enough to beat an opponent to death, and Hanzo knew that for a fact. Some of the heads of state in Japan had opposed his father, years ago. Not all of them had been politically out-maneuvered.
'I cannot relax, father. Not while Genji is out there. He will come for us, you know.'
'He will not.'
'He will come for the sword then.'
They looked up at the sword mounted above and behind the main desk. It was the centre piece of the room, there was no question about that. A large room it might have been, and opulently furnished with fine, antique wooden chairs and tables, but without the sword it had felt empty. Now, with the sword returned, it was hard to imagine the room without it.
'The sword does not belong to Genji. And it will never answer to him. He had not the diligence, the patience, the approval of the ancestors.'
'He will take it anyway, as he did before.'
The General frowned. 'He will try.'
There were many legends about that sword. Some said it had been forged from the scales of dragons. Others said that it was made from the metal of a fallen star by the Shimada ancestors. A third rumour stated that the Shimada ancestors were dragons, although this made little sense to Hanzo. The point was that the sword, the katana, had powers. Few, if anyone, knew what those powers were. It had never reached its full potential, not in the hands of any man from the dynasty since, which Hanzo's father believed was because none had reached the appropriate level of enlightenment. But they all knew that the blade never needed to be sharpened, and that was a form of magic in itself.
'While I was away…' Hanzo tried to think of the best way to say it. 'We killed a lot of men. And women. And children. As many as we lost. I have to say… was it worth it?'
'For the sword?'
'In general. I mean, there aren't many humans left on the planet. And now there are far, far left. Because of us maybe a tenth of the remaining population are gone, in a single afternoon.'
'A tenth? Don't be so melodramatic. There are several hundred thousand people still living in Japan, why do you think our Pit is so full? The amount of people you lost that afternoon was worth the…'
'Sword? Was it really worth the sword?'
'It was about more than just the sword. It was about your brother.'
'My brother,' Hanzo snapped, 'whom you barely care about! Since he got back I have done all in my power to resurrect him and you have hardly shown an interest!'
The General looked angry now. 'Genji made his choices long ago. He was the one who stole from us, remember. He was the one who left.'
'Sometimes, father, just sometimes, I consider that he may have been looking from the correct point of view.'
They glare at each other for a minute. Hanzo has never been one to disagree vocally with his father, but neither has he ever stood down from confrontation. And although he is not quite sure what he is arguing about now, he feels very strongly that something is not right. After his father says nothing, he finally adds:
'Just how important could the sword be, anyway?'
The general responds without hesitation. 'It is the key.'
'The key to what?'
'Saving the world.' He stands up, starts to walk towards Hanzo. 'There is much you do not understand yet. Much that I sacrificed to save you, and the people of Japan. Much that I planned, and much that I was forced to do. The world we live in, you must see, was not entirely a mistake of fortune.'
'What does that mean?' Hanzo wonders if this is a joke. But if it is a joke it would be the first his father ever told. 'Are you saying you planned the Fallout? The Omnics? What are you referring to?'
The General smiles, very sadly.
'Ah, Hanzo. One of these days I will tell you every…'
A shot rings out. Hanzo's father falls over, almost comically, a splatter of blood across the wall behind him, splashing almost high enough to reach the mounted katana. Hanzo gapes for a moment. That is… his father… This was never supposed to happen.
He looks around. Looks up. Notices the spot the shot came from, and for a moment he thinks he can see the red flash of night vision goggles. But the moment passes. It is a hunch, but he is fairly sure the shot was taken from a tall building beyond the grounds of the castle, beyond the temple. Genji could never have made a shot like that.
This was a political assassination then. Without another moment of hesitation he begins to run.
When Hanzo reaches the base of the tower he is only a few moments too late. The culprits – there are definitely two of them – are already two hundred meters along the road. One is a large man, apparently shirtless, with some form of apparatus strapped to his back. The other is a lithe, slender woman all in black, long hair trailing behind her as she runs.
He pulls back an arrow and fires.
This is no normal arrow, but a multi-shot, designed by some of the most intuitive techies of Japan's military. It falls short, as Hanzo knew it would, and splits into a dozen deadly projectiles, all of which arc forward. Three of the miniature arrows impale themselves into the big man, and one seems to hit the woman's shoulder. They hardly even stumble.
Hanzo is already running. He knows it will not be easy to catch them, but he has to try.
At this time of night Hanamura is a quiet city. Rikimaru's diner is empty, doors barred, lights off. The streets are home only to sleeping cars. They look funny resting on the ground, almost as if they were not hover cars at all. Almost as if the apocalypse has reached Japan, too.
The apocalypse. He panics. His father has lost his head, and should not be rising as an undead any time soon. But these intruders, these assassins, they may have killed others on their way in. It is a matter of when, not if, the dead rise. And if the dead rise in Japan it is a matter of when, not if, the country is declared unsafe. Contaminated.
There are backup procedures, of course, but nothing can outrun death. Nothing.
Hanzo catches up quicker than he expected, perhaps because the big man is so slow. He catches them around a corner, fires another arrow, and although it misses it forces the two to stop and turn around.
'You killed my father!' He shouts.
The woman raises a long, elaborate looking rifle. Hanzo ducks it, just in time, but before she has time to aim again he has already leaned over the top of his cover and fired an arrow. This one skitters off the floor by her feet. She flinches back, and Hanzo takes the opportunity to run up a short flight of stairs. All he has to do is hurry forward and he might be able to flank them…
When he reappears on the street both his opponents have already left the scene, looking for a safer place to make their defence. They must realise that sooner or later the guards, the military, will realise what has happened.
Won't they?
Hanzo did not call for them. He did not ring any emergency bells. And so far they have not made much noise. It could be hours yet before the body of General Shimada is discovered. Hanzo might have to stop these intruders on his own. Or, even worse, they could be working with Genji. Could his brother already have escaped? Could these enemies have an escape ship parked nearby?
Hanzo pulls another tactical arrow from his sheath. This one, the Sonic Arrow, will allow him to track his enemies, at least for a few minutes. He fires, allows the vision to flood him. The enemies are marked now. He can see them rushing ahead, around corners, glancing back. But they are mere people. He is a Shimada. He is heir to the dragon empire.
He sprints ahead, grateful for his combat boots, designed to give him a mechanical advantage when running. He is gaining on them once more. The bigger one is pulling away now. The woman is slowing, turning, raising the gun…
Before he even turns the corner an arrow is drawn, aimed, fired. Another scatter-shot impacts against a wall and fragments ricochet across walls and floors. The woman ducks, rolls, and incredibly manages to defend herself against one of the fragments by using her rifle as a baton. But it's not enough. She may have survived the scatter arrow but Hanzo has already drawn back again and rounded the corner. He has her in clear view…
To his left a small mine goes off. He is not sure what it is, but a mouthful of the gas enters his nose before he thinks to hold his breath and look away.
God, he thinks, as the unwanted chemicals pass through him. This is bad stuff.
He retches, collapses onto his knees. A detonated defence mechanism, a trap, something that the woman planted just for him. To be defeated by something so small, so pathetic, so thoughtless… he wanted to die in battle.
Ancestors, he prays, hoping his spirituality will gain their attention, save me now.
To make a long story short; they do.
He feels the rush of energy an instant before the woman is upon him. She has run here, gaining momentum, and when she swings the baton down it is with the intention of ending the fight in a single swift blow.
She does not quite succeed. He rolls to the side, leaps to his feet, and swings his bow as a counter. They exchanged two hits in this fashion before both leaping back to gain their breath.
'You should be dead, or dying.' The woman scowls, the slightest trace of a French accent in her voice. And now that Hanzo is not in such a ruse he can see that she has some kind of blue skin. It makes no sense, but it is true. The street lights illuminate her.
'I should,' he replies. 'But I am not. Are you still willing to fight me?'
'It was not my ideal, but…'
She tries to feint him by attacking halfway through the sentence. Some kind of grapple flashes towards him, but he dodges it. Not until too late does he realise that the grapple connected with the wall behind him, and she is hurtling in his direction, feet first…
They connect. She knocks him sprawling back, an embarrassing blow for the hero of Japan to take. The hero of civilisation. The hero of humanity. He does not feel like any of that now, just a man who should have learned to use a gun instead of insisting on bow and arrow. It was no ordinary bow, the Storm Bow, but it was still just a bow at the end of the day.
He stands, a little shaky, and pulls back an arrow. Before he can realise properly a hook grabs his left arm and spins him around, the arrow skittering uselessly away. He is dragged away, and only regains his footing in time to look up at the big-bellied man. He is even scarier, even smellier, at such a close distance. For some reason he is wearing a gas mask.
'You idiots!' Hanzo screams. 'I was about to learn about the Fallout. I would have known what happened to cause the apocalypse.'
But the bigger man doesn't seem so interested. He leans closer, belly big enough to crush a lesser man.
'I'm a one man apocalypse.' The big bastard retorts, as if this means something. And then Hanzo feels a heavy weight smash down on his head and the world goes dark.