The Unceasing Path
Ch 18 : やくざの墓場
Yakuza Graveyard - wherein there are Yakuza, in a graveyard.
Ami relaxed into the couch, a steaming mug of coffee warming her hands through and through. She was just getting cozy when a sudden blast of music scared her straight up. She recognized the song, some ridiculously upbeat pop song titled "Venus", before she recognized that it was coming from her cell phone.
Ah. Of course. Minako must have changed her ringtones again. When did Minako have access to her phone? Ami answered the call.
"Good morning Ami-chan!" Sure enough, Minako's voice was bubbling away on the other end. "We need to talk."
Ami got a bad, bad, feeling about this.
"Umm..Good morning to you too. Is everything alright Minako-chan?"
"It's been weeks! You left us on a cliff hanger! I need to know what happens after Artemis gets shot. He's dead right? I mean, I assume he is, but I don't know, BECAUSE YOU NEVER SAID! How could you just fade to black like that?"
"Wait, what? Did something happen to Artemis? Is everything ok?"
"Huh? Oh! No no no no no. He's fine. I'm talking about your story Ami-chan! You know, Hong Kong, the triads, the sexy love-love scene in hotel that you also faded to black on thankyouverymuch. Are details too much to ask for?"
"Oh my gods!" Coffee went down the wrong pipe as Ami sputtered. "How did you hear about that?"
"Mako told us. Duh. A few weeks ago, Usagi and I swung by the bakery to try her new croissant. Have you tried it yet? You must have. It's the one where she torches the sugar right on top of the croissant as soon as it comes out of the oven and it makes this sugar crust and it's sticky and crunchy and soft and flakey and aaaaah! Great. Now I;m starting to sound like Mako. Anyways, yeah! We hung otu for a while, and Mako couldn't stop talking about your story. She was so excited. It was adorable. She told us the whole story, the parts she remembered at least. It's like the coolest TV series ever except that it's even better because you know, it's about us!"
"You're kidding right? I- MAKO! I can't believe she's... I'm sorry! It's not that I think you're a criminal or anything. It's just my imagination kind of wanders and...
"Honey...shhhh...shhhh. It's ok. It's more than ok. It's fantastic. I guess Mako didn't tell you huh? Usagi and I have been going by the bakery every weekend for updates. It's become our weekly tradition. Super fun, so thanks for that. I'm surprised she didn't mention it? I guess you've been busy or something, I dunno. Anyways! You should come out next time! We'd love to hear the original version from you. Love Mako to pieces...but you know, storytelling isn't exactly her forte. No sense of flair and drama. Good thing that I, Aino Minako, have plenty to spare. Now where was I? Right! What I called to say was that now that the story's getting to the good part, it's been radio silence. No updates! It's been almost a month. We're all dying to know. What happens next?"
"So wait. You like the story?"
"Hells yeah! Didn't you listen to a word I just said? Usagi, Mako and I. We all love it. Rei too, even if she'll never admit it. So come on! Spill! What happens next? We need the next chapter. Code Blue! STAT! Whatever it is you say to get people moving!"
"All of you?" Ami groaned, burying her face in her hands. At least no one was here to see her blushing. "Well, to be honest, the next arc gets kind of violent. It's the part where pretty much everyone dies. That's kind of how these stories always end. Sorry. It's kind of awkward. I've hit a bit of writer's block I guess."
"AMI-CHAN! You want to talk dying? I'm dying! Literally dying! You can't start something like this and not finish it! I wanna know what happens next! You have my permission. Kill me, kill anyone, kill everyone. Stab me in the chest and rip my heart out! Bring on the ultra violence! Just finish the story!" Minako paused. Ami could swear that she heard her friend's gentle, genuine smile in that pause. "All kidding aside, write whatever you want. It'll be ok. No one's going to be mad at you. Mako said that you've been using this as a way of de-stressing lately and that it's working well for you?"
"Yeah. It is actually." Ami blushed again. "It's nice to have something silly and pointless to rattle around instead of anything you know… real."
"Glad to hear it. You keep taking care of yourself ok?" Minako's voice brightened abruptly. "Like I always say! "Everyone needs to get off their high horse and get on a hobby horse"! Good for you! Keep it up."
Ami sighed. She had long since given up correcting Minako on her malapropisms. By now, she was pretty sure Minako did it on purpose. In retrospect, her messed up sayings often got her point across better than any real ones. "Alright, I'll give it another go. Thanks for the encouragement Minako-chan."
"Hey, it's all good. It's what I do best. Oh! And one more thing? One teensy tiny little favour? One small gift for one of your best friends in this and every other lifetime?"
"What is it?" Ami said warily. She knew she was going to regret this, but how could anyone say no to that? Minako had her beat.
"I want to kill Rei. I mean, the story is headed that way right? I don't want to assume, but you're setting Rei-the-assassin to to be like a mini-boss right? Someone has to take out her out. I want it to be me. Oooh! Maybe in some kind of fight on a rooftop? That would be super cool. Not to backseat author, but I think that would look great. Hair whipping in the wind… yeah… that's the stuff. "
Ami sighed.
"Alright. I'll see what I can do..."
[A Cemetery in the hills]
Black skies and black suits. Rain misted down, chilling the crowd gathered at the cemetery. They stood around the open grave, appropriately sombre as befit the occasion.
"...ut in lúmine vultus tui, vídeat in cælo lumen ætérnum..."
The priest had been speaking for over an hour now. Makoto's legs were starting to go numb - not to mention her mind. Did they really have to do this ceremony in Latin?
"...ánimam eius ab ómnibus absólve vínculis delictórum; ut in te semper cum sanctis tuis sine fine læténtur...
Blah. Blah. Blah. The priest droned on. He dipped a baton into a silver bucket and waved it over his head. Holy water sprinkled over the coffin, indistinguishable from all the other droplets of water falling from the sky.
Makoto looked on blankly. This had to be over soon. It was getting really cold and water was seeping into her shoes.
"Amen."
At last. That was the cue. Makoto mumbled some vaguely right sounding syllables and moved her hands the way everyone was doing. None of this made any sense, but luckily, it wasn't her job to understand. She was just supposed to stand here and look sad. Fill out the crowd a bit. Apparently death, like life, was all about appearances. Between the size of the plot, and the shiny marble headstone, it was obvious that this was the grave of a wealthy man. Wealth: that had been the key defining characteristic of Artemis Katze, so Makoto supposed that was fair.
If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she wasn't here. She could pretend that it was Ami's funeral. That was the funeral she should be at.
Nope. No good. There were too many people here. It felt wrong.
Makoto knew all too well that it wasn't Ami's body they were lowering into the ground. Ami's body was gone. If it hadn't washed up by now, then it was probably never going to. She'd never have a funeral. Knowing Ami, she'd probably get a kick out of feeding the crabs. Makoto couldn't help but smile at that. That was just the kind of person Ami was.
Once upon a time, in some cheap hotel during some stolen midnight hour, the topic of funerals had come up. Ami had confessed to hating the pomp and pageantry of funerals – police ones in particular. The Gallant Garden police memorial cemetery was, in her words, "emblematic of that noble lie people tell to absolve themselves of personal responsibility". Makoto had laughed at Ami's cynicism and teased her for being so fatalistic. She'd kissed Ami right after, telling to stop being so morbid and assuming that she'd die in the line of duty. The future was, after all, what you made of it.
In retrospect, maybe Ami wasn't assuming. Maybe she always knew.
Makoto wiped a tear away. Hopefully, no one noticed it amidst all the rain. She had no real explanation as to why she was crying for real. It wasn't like she'd ever even met Artemis Katze. She put her thoughts aside and focused on the task at hand : surveillance.
Statistically speaking, there was a chance that Artemis' killer was in the crowd right now. Beyond that, the gathering at Artemis' internment was a veritable who's who of the criminal underworld. Even if she didn't pick up any specific leads, the HKPD would appreciate knowing the names of everyone associated with the ex-Boss of the Hung Fa Boys. That intel could prove to be valuable in the shitstorm to come. Violence inevitably followed in the wake of a triad leader's death. Makoto feared for everyone involved and all the innocents who would be caught in the crossfire. Bad times loomed on the horizon. Based on -
Oh shit. The priest had stopped talking. The mass was over.
Makoto cursed herself silently. She'd been letting her thoughts wander again. The crowd began to drift apart, in ones and twos, as people went on with their lives. Makoto belatedly tried to take note of who left with whom and who stayed behind. She milled about, keeping an ear open in case someone said something interesting.
So far, no luck.
There were no smoking guns or whispered confessions. The chatter at the graveside was rather benign. Plenty of talk about the weather, the state of the economy, the upcoming Legco elections, but nothing about the dear departed. No one was talking about Artemis Katze. Not his life, not his death.
Yeah, Ami was right. Funerals were bullshit – at least this one was.
Fucking Ami. She was always right.
Makoto clamped down on the resentment that invariably came when she thought of her dead partner. She didn't want to be angry like this, but she was. Her head was still spinning with the insanity of the past few weeks. Between Ami's death and Artemis' murder, she'd barely had time to process the fact that Chief Chiba Mamoru was a dirty cop. That really should have been a bigger deal than it was.
The thought still seemed counter-intuitive. Chief Chiba Mamoru was a dirty cop. The head of the HKPD Anti-triad department was himself in bed with organized crime.
Fuck.
Makoto felt like a fool. Her own goddamn boss had been leaking information to Artemis Katze all along. The information that she and Ami had risked their lives to obtain in hopes of seeing justice done was instead being used to help the rich get richer. Some cop she turned out to be. For all she knew, Chiba had been dirty since the very first day she started this fucked up under cover assignment.
Makoto smacked herself mentally. She didn't have time to wallow in self pity. Instead, she was going to take Chiba down. Hard. That was the mission that had fallen to her and Makoto had every intention of following through.
It should have been simple. The laptop Ami left behind contained gibberish, and one plaintext message:
"Meet with Agent Katarina Ying of the ICAC. Bring the green book. Trust her and only her."
Makoto followed those instructions, even if she had no idea why or who Katarina Ying was. Thinking back, it should have been obvious. The Independent Commission Against Corruption existed to stamp out dirty cops. That should have be the first clue that something was horribly wrong. It took some time, but eventually, she and Katarina figured out that Ami's gibberish, combined with the cookbook, were the keys to some encrypted files that had been sent to Agent Ying - a scant handful of audio files.
Still, Makoto didn't understand. She remained ignorant until the moment they hit "play". When the hell had Ami even planted bugs in Chiba's office anyways? She had been completely blindsided to hear the Chief's voice on Ami's tapes, and even more shocked when she heard what he was talking about. It was Chiba who had leaked the details of their police operations to Artemis Katze. It was Chiba who set Ami up to get killed that fateful night.
And it was Ami herself who set him up to do that.
It was so stupid. Makoto had never felt so helpless. The first time she listened to the recordings, she wanted to scream. Agent Ying had been forced to stop the playback until she'd calmed down.
If only Ami had listened to the recordings herself, she would have known what she was walking into the night of the diamond deal. She could have prepared, or avoided it, or done any number of things differently.
But noooooo. Ami was an idiot.
Makoto couldn't figure out why she'd neglected to do something so stunningly obvious until Agent Ying came up with a theory. Because Ami never listened to the recordings, this whole mess was admissible in court. The chain of custody was unbroken. The tech nerds could testify that the files were real and unaltered between the point of recording and the point when they were accessed in Agent Ying's office. There would be one less legal loophole for Chiba to hide behind when judgment day came.
Yeah. It was total bullshit, but that did sound like Ami would do. Plotting 3 steps ahead without seeing what was right in front of her. Ami ultimately gave her life for a minor legal advantage.
What a waste.
If Ami were here right now, Makoto would give her a piece of her mind.
They already HAD a long list of crimes to charge Chiba with. Corruption. Obstruction of justice. Conspiracy to commit murder. There was more than enough to march into Chiba's office and arrest him on the spot. Agent Ying had agreed and was working on getting a warrant when Chiba called on the emergency line.
It had taken every scrap of willpower that Makoto could muster to answer that call like nothing was wrong. That said, it didn't take much acting to react with shock when Chiba dropped a bombshell of his own: Artemis Katze was dead – murdered in his home by an unknown assailant.
That changed the situation dramatically.
Makoto knew what she had to do. She immediately volunteered to go back out and investigate. Quite frankly, she had to. Chiba would know something was up if she wasn't chomping at the bit to go. She had to pretend everything was situation normal. The bastard had the money and resources to run.
Fuck if she were to let that happen.
Beyond her personal feelings, Makoto was still a cop. Even if her Chief was corrupt, doesn't mean that the mission was worthless. She still had her vow to the people of Hong Kong – to serve with pride and care. She cared that a mob war was about to break out on the streets. She was in a unique position to protect Hong Kong from the violence. Makoto wasn't about to shirk her duties just because her own world was spinning off its axis.
Gods. She needed Ami so much right now. Makoto had never felt so frustrated. Once again, she wanted to scream,. She almost did when an unexpected hand clapped her on the back.
"Crying Makoto? Really?" Haruka appeared out of nowhere. "I didn't realize Mr. Katze meant so much to you."
"Shut up." Makoto wiped her eyes hastily "I don't like funerals. They always make me sad."
"I suppose that's kind of the point." Haruka flashed a wry smile. "You ready to get out of here? I'm starving..." her voice dropped to a near whisper. "...and we got to talk. There's some stuff I need to tell you."
"What about?" Makoto didn't really bother to be discreet. No one was paying attention to them anyways.
"Nothing. Just that there's going to be a lot of changes real soon. Stick with me. I'll look out for -"
A jingle interrupted whatever Haruka had been about to say.
"My friends! A moment please!" A woman strode forward. Young, early 20's 152cm, delicate build. A tiny bell on her bracelet chimed with every step. The crowd parted respectfully as she right up to the headstone. The girl turned to face the assembled mobsters. "My apologies for discussing business during this difficult time, but this matter is of the utmost importance. I owe it to my father to take care of his life's work. Brains and balls, as he always said." She smiled, confident and reassuring. At her signal, a large group of men broke out from the crowd. They stepped up to the front and and as one, the turned to face the crowd as well. Each man had a hand hidden inside their suit jackets. Makoto froze, as did Haruka next to her, and all the rest of the suddenly captive audience. "Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Diana Miraimoto. My friends and I are here to inform you that I shall be taking over my father's enterprises. As of this moment, the Hung Fa Boys has a new leader. Are there any questions?"
A.N.
It's not really an official thing, but offhand, I would say that this is the chapter that begins the 3rd and final arc of the story. Exposition chapter is exposition chapter.
As noted by the ever astute brycelozier, I really did hit a major case of writers block, for the reasons stated by Ami. Having to balance the needs to "writing an AU about traids" with "no...Ami would never talk about that, even casually" was a legit issue. I had to write in Minako to give ME permission to continue the plot as necessary in order to make this story work. After that point, the pieces started to fall into place and the story got writ.
On the plus side, the block has been conquered, and on with the story!
Cheers,
-Drift.
Up Next:
Ch 19: 血仍未冷 - With Blood Still Warm - wherein after death, comes revolution