Chapter 11: Walker Of Worlds

Rock stood on the same spot, unmoving, the door in front of him closed. He had been invited here, but he was not eager to enter. He knew what waited for him. He had no desire to be confronted with memories he had long ago buried, nor was he in the mood to be questioned, as he assumed he would be. He looked at the Chinese lettering on the outside of the door, having only very recently been added. Directly translated, it meant 'small circle', but Rock was knowledgeable enough to deduce it was usually deciphered into one phrase; The Coterie. He took a deep breath and opened the door to reveal the room, a penthouse apartment Rock had been in before. There must have been twenty men in here and they were all on their knees, facing the woman who stood by the window with her back to them all. All of the strangers rose to their feet when they heard the door. Rock did not falter, walking lackadaisically over to the window and coming to a stop beside Usagi, despite the scrutinising eyes of those he assumed now served her. She turned and nodded at them, signalling for them to leave the room. They did so swiftly, leaving the two alone.

"Rock," she greeted him, her hands behind her back as she looked out the window. "I'm sorry to call you over so late." Indeed, the moon was high in the sky and the streets were relatively quiet considering, although that may have been due to the newest arrivals Rock had been hearing about. The only reason he had even been awake was because he had slept for most of the day and had little desire to continue to do so. That, and his mind had been more active than usual, occupied with thoughts of a certain Task Force.

"I recognise this place," Rock said, returning his mind to the present.

"Those memories have no power over us now," Usagi told him. They both remembered how Hunter had taken them hostage and kept them here, in the very place where one of his victims used to reside.

After the death of Ulysses, his Formation completely fell apart and some of their members found work assisting the Triad as freelance informants and bounty hunters. Rock had wondered if they might find a new leader and continue to exist, but that proved to be an idealistic thought. Now, there were few who remembered their name.

"Is there something you need?" Rock asked her bluntly. He did not much care for what she concerned herself with these days and he made no effort to be polite for the sake of it. If she had no reason for bringing him here, he would happily leave. She noticed his humour, but decided not to become confrontational. It seemed as though she was capable of it, however, when not so long ago she was meek and reserved. Rock may have been disinterested in her affairs, but he could see as clear as day that the woman who stood beside him was very different from the girl he had been taken hostage with by the Dead Men.

"You must have questions," she began presumptuously.

"Not really. I saw the sign. You're establishing yourself. Those men…the gangs from Hong Kong?"

"What's left of them," she admitted. "Some have remained back home. But I needed to be able to survive in this city. They have sworn to protect me."

"I'm not sure your father would approve," Rock told her. Again, he expected her to argue or confront him, but she held her tongue.

"Perhaps not. But he is dead. I cannot concern myself with what might have been. The path lay before me, all I had to do was take the first step." Rock remembered the last time Usagi had been in the city, how she had been so eager to return home and distance herself from the toxicity of Roanapur. He also remembered how her father was not alone in trying to protect her, how he had been accompanied by a former member of the Dead Men and a family friend.

"And what about Augustus Kells?" Rock asked. "As I recall, it was only your father that the Wolf was contracted to assassinate." Usagi cleared her throat and shuffled on the spot, as if recalling something uncomfortable.

"We have been in contact," she told him. "He was away from home when my father rallied the gangs. As you can imagine, he was…upset about this turn of events. But I think he understood, too. He remains in Hong Kong should I ever return there."

"I see." There was some silence after that. Rock would come to learn that Usagi was not good with long silences. That, and she was probably content to stand by idly no more without addressing the elephant in the room.

"Rock, I asked you before if you remembered our last conversation, before my father died. You came to see me, not because I asked you to but because you knew what would happen and wanted to say goodbye. You can't deny that, I understand now that was why it was important to you that we meet. But you were a very different man, then, weren't you?"

"Usagi."

"'I hoped you could live in peace', that's what you said to me. And I think you believed that, once. But hope…that is something you are noticeably lacking recently." Rock was not sure how to respond, or if he even really wanted to. He could have just turned around and left her there without offering her any further information on the personality metamorphoses he had clearly been through, but even now he thought she deserved more than that. He had a vision of pushing her through the window to plummet to her death. It would have been kinder than to allow her to get herself killed by the ruling factions.

"You could never understand," Rock told her simply. "When you walk through the ashes as long as I have, you start to realise there is no room for attachments anymore. 'It's going to hurt if you keep looking at that city with life in your eyes.'" He fell silent as Usagi digested those words. "I would have lashed out, once. I would have told you how foolish it was to repeat your father's mistakes. I would have told you that, sooner or later, someone tougher is going to come along and grind your Coterie into dust. But the fact of the matter is, that's just the way of things. We are the Walking Dead, each and every one of us who live in this city. And as the walking dead, the only way to survive is to take a step back from the playing field and let the dice fall. Acceptance is the only way."

Usagi had become agitated by what he was saying. She was not fully consumed by the darkness, that spark inside her still burning, her humanity almost completely intact. It would leave her soon if she stayed the course.

"That's a dangerous way of thinking," she told him. "You make out like it has set you free, but it will get you killed quicker than a little compassion ever will. I can see the bruises on your face, you're no better off now than you were before. The Rock who sat in the other room with me and kept me company when the Dead Men stopped us from leaving would never give up on people. He certainly didn't give up on me." A faint smile appeared on Rock's face, a dead, pitiful smile. He had not looked at her once since he had come here, and he did not do so now, either, keeping his eyes on the lights of the city below them.

"I knew a girl once," he began, his mind harkening back to a different time. He could feel the breeze on his face, hear the crunch of snow under his feet, smell the sweet sake as it was poured from its flask. He used to miss Tokyo, but now it just reminded him of why he was better off accepting his fate as one of the walking dead. "She reminded me of you. Revy and I were on a job for Balalaika. She needed me to translate for her. This was in Tokyo, I should say. The girl…well, her family were yakuza, but they kept her away from all of that so she could lead a normal life. When the other clans came calling because hers needed an heir-they would only accept a blood relative-she threw herself into the darkness. It consumed her." Rock closed his eyes for a few moments. These were unpleasant memories, ones that stripped away his patience and endurance even now. But they would not hurt him like they used to. "She died by her own hand when it all fell apart. Before she did, she told me that I was in the twilight. She made it clear that I had no right to judge her because I never had to commit to the light or the darkness, but I could see what she was becoming and how her love for her bodyguard clouded her judgement. Even if her commitment to the world her clan tried so hard to keep her away from didn't kill her, following him further down the rabbit hole would. And it did."

Usagi averted her eyes. She understood now, if not completely, what drove Rock's philosophy to dictate how he felt. Yukio Washimine had been an important figure in his life, due in no small part to the fact that her death had ruined him. He never did truly recover from it. Usagi realised that, after that, any hope he had of coming back to the light was gone and, while she could not clearly see what had lead him to cut himself off from the rest of the world, she knew that he no longer allowed himself to get close to anyone. It seemed cruel that he had been so kind and caring, even after witnessing these horrible things, when he first met Usagi. But the measure of a man's endurance was fickle, especially in this world. It was possible that he had held out as long as he could, only to be pushed over the edge by further death and pain.

"You can still choose," Usagi told him hopefully. "That power lies with you."

"I have chosen," Rock told her. "The light, the darkness the twilight…I have stood in all of them and seen what they have to offer. Only now do I see all perspectives. I'm a puppet to nobody, I'm the master of my own fate. And I don't care what happens to other people. That's real freedom." Before Usagi could question him any further, he turned away from the window and headed for the door. He had enough of her interrogation, and something told him so did she.