- Chapter 35 -

In the crowded conference room the projection had come to an end, a blizzard of static taking over the screen. The audience remained silent for an endless, stretching moment, staring on in shock … and self consciousness. Everyone present had shared young Liu … in - was it his? - most intimate, most lost moment.

They did not look each other in the eye. One after the other, they released their gazes from the screen …the awareness of what they hat just witnessed building, not yet wanting, or daring, to acknowledge all of the implications … Asami strangely absent, strangely tentative … one figure alone standing upright in the haze, the sombre Japanese fighter monk, forming an eerily quiet centre of energy.

What a desperate job it was to keep him alive … not only in prison. He was so strong, so skilled … and so sick. They all lusted after him, even the wardens. He had that sick "come hither" scent about him, drove everybody wild … and from the outside, nobody seemed to care. Everybody had to have a stab at him, made a game of it, actually … and they didn't even know he was a … o god. And you never warned me … it was the first time he tried to hurt himself I saw it … felt it … needed my whole strength to stall the jagged rim of that can … him not making for his pulse, or his throat, as I expected … but for that place. Had he not been half out of himself, I wouldn't have managed … it was a struggle … I'll never, as long as I live, forget that feeling … o god. When my hand slipped off, and sank in … and he? he screamed … screamed your name …

Yoh shook himself.

"You are a monster."

Asami remained motionless, regarding his mysterious 'employee' as if seeing him for the first time.

Their whole professional life together was whirling through his mind. Coming face to face with the sole survivor of that other tragedy for the first time. Here, he was not at fault. Others had failed … had disregarded all evidence, had failed to prevent, failed to protect. Another young man bereft of his family. But how different this one had been. If he had ever been in mourning, he must have completed the process; he appeared still and withdrawn, but strangely without bitterness. He had never struck Asami as being religious, but it did seem he was drawing on some hidden source of inner strength. He had wanted to associate with Yoh on first name base at once, felt here was an equal. It was Yoh who declined. And still, he did not quite know why.

Of course he had no idea what kind of life Yoh had led in that secluded settlement of the sect in northern rural Japan. The world in general had heard of them for the first time when they had committed what was thought to be mass suicide. Not the least reason for this suspicion being that the massacre had taken place in the Aokigahara Jukai forest on the northwest base of the Mt. Fuji, also called 'suicide forest'. A forest warden said he would never have thought it, he was more alerted to look out for single people, and here was this whole busload of people arriving, and never returning …

What Yoh's role had been, why he alone (and possibly one other person, a European girl whose body was still missing) had survived, remained a mystery. His martial arts skills, his immense knowledge, his meditative self control … the sect was not known to further this.

Yoh had at once volunteered to 'take over' the Liu case, to proceed with what he himself could not do … should not do, had such desperate reasons not to … why could Yoh not understand this, all of a sudden?

The assembly watched as their shining warrior, and their dark one, locked eyes.

"It's not only him", Yoh's voice shook, and there was a world of emotion in that 'him',

" … him… you never cared for Fei Long, to use him I might even understand, might even forgive you for … "

Again Asami widened his eyes, as if genuinely curious for what Yoh might have to say.

Yoh shook his head.

"But Takaba, for him you do care …"

Now Asami alerted, startled …

"And even so, you use him in the most horrible way …", Yoh's voice rose.

"And I don't mean tonight."

Surprised murmurs arose.

"Quiet!"

Asami's icy command cut through the turmoil.

"Please make yourself clear", he went on, a deadly undertone creeping into his voice.

Yoh was fixing him in cold fury.

"I mean last summer."

"Last summer?"

"Hong Kong Island. The demonstration against underage prostitution."

Asami narrowed his eyes, a tiger about to pounce.

"How is this a problem, Yoh? Takaba insisted on leading that demo. He is a free man. How is this misusing him?"

"I don't mean the demonstration", Yoh snarled, suddenly fear inspiring. What a dangerous persona, lurking just beneath that deceptively stoic exterior.

"I mean when you sent him to us … I recognize him now … the hippie kid, the bartender … blond hair smoothed down, dyed black … you knew our men would blindfold him … so he wouldn't know where he had been …"

Asami tensed, an incredulous look forming on his handsome face, livid …

"I mean when you sent your lover to Fei Long, as a whore", Yoh spat at him.

"As a child whore."

- to be continued -