Death Before Dishonor Page 31

  The Fujibayashi fanned out to clear the hiding places and then met up in the middle on the far side, in front of the altar. The coast was clear.

  “Yuri,” Terry said, “can you see if there’s enough candle in any of those candle holders to light?”

  “Is that wise?”

  “I don’t really care at this point. Do you?”

  “Naw,” said Yuri, walking off to check the candles. “I don’t care in the slightest.”

  Yuri fumbled with the first candle holder and lit it with a lighter he pulled from his harness.

  “Seriously?” Terry asked grimly.

  Yuri shrugged. “What?”

  “You brought a lighter?”

  “The rules demanded traditional weapons; they didn’t say anything about lighters. Besides, we’re wearing poly-cotton balaclavas. Last I checked, poly-cotton wasn’t a thing in the sixteenth century.”

  Terry shook his head and began to shake the water off of his gear. Saki did the same, and Yuri lit a few more candles before returning to the other two.

  Just then, he heard something that didn’t sound like a bird rustling. “Did you hear that?” Yuri whispered.

  Saki shook his head, his hand gripping his sword tighter.

  “Something's not right. We’re not alone.”

  Then there was a strange voice. “What’s not right is that the Fujibayashi have allowed gaijin to pervert our culture.” The voice came from above them; all three looked up. “Is that true? Are you gaijin?”

  The last two Momochi were standing on the rafters above them. They had set their ambush in here, but they had waited too long. They no longer had the element of surprise. The Momochi had given it up to inquire on the ethnic makeup of the Fujibayashi.

  Amateurs.

  “Why don’t you come down here and look?” Yuri barked. “I’d gladly oblige your curiosity.”

  Just then, the two doors opened, and a handful of people dressed warmly in jeans, boots, and winter jackets poured in, armed to the teeth with guns and melee weapons. The Fujibayashi watched blankly, not quite sure what to think. There was no way this was happening.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Saki demanded. “This violates the Ninth Mandate of Ninpo! Never in four hundred years has the ritual combat been so corrupted!”

  “Do not seek to lecture me, Takejiro Saki,” the Momochi cautioned from above. “Your clan has violated the Third Mandate of Ninpo by assimilating foreigners and allowing them to soil this sacred ground.”

  “And these outsiders you have brought with you don't soil the ground?” Terry said, waving his naginata at them. “I may be a foreigner, but I am Shinobi. These insects have no place within these walls, and Mamushi would see you all to a slow, painful death just for insulting the ancestor spirits.”

  An impeccably dressed man of average height and slender build, with a rapidly receding hairline and crooked teeth, wearing a long designer winter coat, stood near the rear of the congregation. He said, “Actually, our presence on these grounds—which I am not sure if I would define them as sacred—is mandated, unlike your own, gaijin.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Yuri said, sounding territorial.

  “My name is Itsuki Kawaguchi, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintances.”

  “I can’t say that I feel the same,” Terry replied without pause.

  “Indeed.” Kawaguchi rubbed his hands, trying to warm them, and then stuffed them into the pockets of his jacket. “You see—we are all family here—minus you three, of course, and the two up there. We are Yakuza. We are the descendants of the Samurai. We are the vanguard against foreign invasion. The honor guard of the Shogunate. And therefore, we are here by order of the Shogun himself.”

  The Fujibayashi laughed.

  “This guy,” Yuri said, looking at Terry and indicating Kawaguchi with a hand.

  “You got to be kidding me,” Terry replied to his brother.

  “I do not kid, gaijin,” Kawaguchi said in English with a heavy accent. “You are here because the Shogun deemed it so. Shinobi, historically, were like draft animals, little better than livestock. To keep you from killing each other, Shogun Tokugawa and Hattori Hanzo wrote the Ninth Mandate. Better that the Shogun choose who lives and dies—can’t have the livestock killing each other on a whim. After all, the Shogun was elected to his position by the gods themselves—not by some ridiculous cult belief like Ninpo. So—here you are again, Shinobi, doing a draft animal's work.”

  “Momochi take orders from criminals now?” Saki asked venomously. “Where is your honor?”

  “Shogun's favor is changing, Saki,” the other hovering Momochi said. “Do not chastise us because Omiyoshu Sensei failed to teach his Shinobi the true history of Ninpo and its allegiances.”

  “Some thug calls himself a Shogun, and the Momochi heel when he says so?” Yuri asked, looking up at the Momochi and tapping his ninjatō agitatedly against his leg. “How much are they paying you?”

  One of the Momochi began to reply, but Kawaguchi interrupted, saying, “Come now, there is no reason to bicker like children over dead philosophy. Do you think this is all about some ancient Bushi code?” Kawaguchi smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Do not be so blind.”

  “It’s the Momochi that are blind,” responded Terry. “They are without honor and morals, and they consort with the same.”

  “I have a remedy for dishonor,” Saki assured.

  Kawaguchi snorted. “Stop it, please. You all sound so ridiculous. Now I understand why the Shogun Nobunaga wanted to exterminate your kind. We’ll correct that mistake, though. And the Shogun has sent me to ensure that the job was completed.”

  Saki’s voice dropped. “The Shogun?”

  “Yeah—you keep mentioning him,” Terry said, backing Saki up. “Sounds like you have an egomaniac for a friend.”

  “Ah, I have said too much already. I have a reputation for talking too much.” Kawaguchi smiled pleasantly raising a hand that had only four fingers. “You’ve never heard of the Shogun because only kōchō are worthy of speaking to him. I digress...” He pointed at one of the men in winter jackets nearest the Fujibayashi. “Take their masks off. I want to see their faces. I want to see these gaijin with whom the Fujibayashi have damned themselves.”

  One of the men walked up to each of the Fujibayashi and pulled down the cotton that covered their faces—each face a different color than the next. Kawaguchi approached and regarded them closely. He had wondered if he’d recognize any of them. He didn’t, especially those that weren’t Asian. He was a bit disappointed by that. Knowing them would have made killing them so much sweeter. Either way, the Shogun would be pleased once they were dead and the Fujibayashi were cast low.

  Kawaguchi said, “You should know that the Shogun is horribly displeased with the Fujibayashi's transgressions against our country—our history—by allowing gaijin to live amongst them. Hattori Hanzo was a fool for thinking it acceptable. The punishment is disfavor—disfavor for the entire clan—and the disfavor of the Shogun only brings death. Sadly, I have other engagements, so I will not be able to attend your deaths. The Shogun is a busy man, and he requires me to be in many places.” Kawaguchi raised the same hand and snapped his fingers. “Let's go,” he said and left with five of his men in tow, leaving ten plus the Momochi.

  The Momochi, with the grace of gymnasts, came down from the rafters and joined their Yakuza counterparts on the main floor. They were dressed similarly to the Fujibayashi except that their colors were a shade lighter and the headdress that went over their hoods were of slightly different design and sported a symbol of yamainu—mountain wolf—instead of Mamushi on the Fujibayashi headdress.

  The silence among the Fujibayashi and the Momochi was tense; this was not so much the case with the Yakuza. Their instincts were not the same as the five Shinobi, which were born of years of harsh training and conditioning. The Momochi would not feel settled until the Fujibayashi were dead. The Yakuza talked incessantly among each other,
not regarding the threat that living Fujibayashi could pose. The Momochi knew better, though, and urged the Yakuza to finish them. “You shouldn’t wait any longer. Kill them, and let’s be done with it.”

  “Don’t rush me, peasant,” the highest-ranking Yakuza said. “I’d just as soon kill Momochi too.” The Momochi didn’t respond. The Yakuza returned to their mismatched conversations about how they intended to kill the Fujibayashi as painfully as possible.

  Yuri’s blood ran hot.

  Sweat beaded on Terry's forehead as he considered his options.

  Saki did the same.

  They processed the situation as fast as they could. What they needed was an exit strategy, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. They individually surveyed the crowd: They were loosely surrounded by Yakuza, most of whom had handguns, though one had a submachine gun and another a katana. The Momochi were standing in between the altar and the Yakuza. Terry figured he could take out two of the Yakuza before he was shot and killed if the Fujibayashi could space the thugs out and attack them all at the same time. Saki had a chain whip and could use it to space them out; he just needed a split-second diversion to give him a moment to get the chain up to speed and out to its full length. Yuri could be the diversion.

  Terry looked at Saki and Yuri to his right and mouthed, Chain whip. Saki scanned the room with his eyes. Yuri was a wolf on a leash.

  “Go,” Terry said.

  Yuri exploded. He struck with the malice of a cornered pit viper, planting a kick squarely in the chest the closest thug, audibly crushing his ribs and sending him sprawling.

  Saki snatched the chain whip from his belt, snapping it out to its full length and setting it whistling through the air.

  Then everything was slow motion.

  Yuri went beneath the chain and rolled right. Terry withdrew his naginata and ducked left. Saki increased the speed—increased the revolutions.

  The chain was indiscriminate. Hateful. Its scythe-like blade carved deep, jagged wounds into the unprepared circle of Yakuza, painting the muted earth tones of the honden with radical spatterings of red. The Yakuza stumbled or fell, clutching the mangled body parts flayed by the chain; those that didn’t stumble were struck again by the lightning strike of the chain, which carved even deeper wounds.

  Saki stirred a shrieking tornado overhead, whirling the chain whip so fast that the blade looked like an orange-silver ring reflecting the candlelight. He drew in its length through his control hand. The pitch of the chain’s wail climbed as Saki shortened its length. Then, like a dancer changing the direction of his or her sequence, Saki spun his shoulders and brought the chain crashing meteorically onto the floor, buckling the wooden planks.

  Yuri uncoiled and found his feet, lunging at the first thug in his path—one that was helpless to fight back while he was trying desperately to keep his jaw connected where the chain whip had struck him. Yuri slashed the thug’s gun arm with his ninjatō, severing his hand just above the wrist. And then he buried the sword’s edge into where the shoulder and the neck meet.

  A nearby second thug opened fire, shooting wildly. Yuri ripped his blade from the first thug and disappeared behind a pillar.

  When Yuri went right, Terry split to the left, working counterclockwise. When Saki’s chain came down, Terry sprinted toward the nearest goon and swung the naginata in a deep arc, hacking off the man’s leg at the knee. Terry didn’t seem to notice the grisly splash as the goon hit the floor separately from his limb, which tumbled end over end a few times as Terry rushed at the second goon further to the left. This one was injured from the chain whip clipping his neck.

  Terry painted a wide arc from the floor into the air, spinning concentric circles above his head and then behind his back before leaving the ground acrobatically. The injured goon squeezed a shot off—BLAM!—but hit the far wall when Terry's athleticism and the injury made it impossible to aim. Terry came out of a spin, landed, and followed the blade around, slicing a bowl shape from the goon’s skull.

  BLAM! BLAM! Terry heard two gunshots from a thug firing at his brother, who had ducked into cover behind a pillar. Terry needed to get over there to help. He turned sharply and hurled his naginata at the next goon in the circle, trying to spear him. The second goon managed to avoid it—barely—but the third wasn't as lucky. The blade plunged deep into his thigh, punching through the bone and out the other side.

  Terry rushed the second goon, who was trying to level his gun through a bloody veil of the laceration that Saki's chain had left on the goon’s brow. Terry slapped the gun to the side and pounced on the goon, spinning him around and getting his arm around the goon’s neck. In a flash of light, Terry drew his tanto, plunged it into the goon’s ribs, and then used the man’s own gun to open fire on third goon, who was sprawled on the floor with the naginata jutting out of his femur. Terry scored two out of five hits to center mass, ending him.

  When Yuri went right and Terry split to the left, Saki kept the chain whip howling overhead for another couple of seconds to keep the Yakuza back—injured fighters were still dangerous. Then Saki repositioned his upper body and collapsed the chain onto the floor thunderously. Yuri was after thugs to the right. Terry rushed the goons to the left. And Saki darted straight ahead, after the gangsters at the top of the circle and the Momochi just behind them.

  Saki attacked an uninjured gangster holding a katana in a high guard standing next to a gangster staggering with v-shape chopped into the bridge of his nose by the chain. Saki slung the weighted end of his chain at the sword, ensnaring it, and yanked the gangster off balance. Saki slipped inside, pushed the man’s arms aside, and drove the sharp end of the chain into the thug’s ribs just beneath the armpit. The thug’s eyes opened like umbrellas in the rain as the blade pushed through his left lung and stopped at his heart.

  Saki tossed him aside, scooped up his katana, and rushed over to the gangster with the bridge of his nose missing. The katana went up and came down at an angle, taking an entire portion of the gangster’s head, just above the eye, with it. Saki whipped his back leg around and planted his foot in the man’s gut, flinging the man off his feet and onto the ground like cold meat.

  BLAM! BLAM! There were gunshots behind him, but Saki was unfazed.

  Saki pulled his mask over his face so that the Momochi could only see his eyes. Then he drew his ninjatō and pointed the tips of both blades at the Momochi. They readied themselves for his advance. They had planned to hold their ground if the gangsters couldn’t dispatch the Fujibayashi. Diving into the fray with the undisciplined, untrained Yakuza would have been disastrous. Now they could dispatch Saki while the other two Fujibayashi were occupied.

  Saki charged between them, slashing in both directions with hell-bent precision. The Momochi parried and moved. Saki and the two Momochi became a ball of clashing metal, with Saki showing unprecedented swordsmanship as he struck and parried simultaneously.

  Yuri was pinned down behind the pillar as the Yakuza thug emptied his magazine into it. Yuri hoped that the pillar would hold up, but the way it was showering splitters, Yuri was sure that the thug would score a hit eventually. Yuri had to do something.

  Terry, still holding a human shield, leveled his barrel on the goon between himself and the thug shooting at Yuri. The goon, missing an eye from a chain whip strike, pointed his gun at Terry. BLAM! BLAM! Terry and the goon cracked off several shots. Terry felt his shield shutter. The goon fell. Terry felt an intense heat in his gut, and then pain radiated through his side. He gritted his teeth and aimed at the thug—BAM! BAM! BAM!—and put three rounds in him.

  Yuri raced out of cover to help Saki. Terry dropped his shield and clutched his side.

  Saki, the Fujibayashi’s pinnacle swordsman, relentlessly assaulted the Momochi. He slashed, parried, spun to face the other, slashed, and then parried. One after the other, with crisp precision and calculation, he struck where his eyes had once been, meeting Momochi parries, and then blocked where he had never actually looked, intercepti
ng Momochi strikes. Up, down, left, right, and at angles, their blades soared, cutting ribbons and circles in the air as they danced lethal concentric rings around each other, their feet landing in seemingly choreographed positions.

  Saki’s left blade slashed at shoulder level, and the smaller Momochi ducked. The right blade followed vertically, and the smaller Momochi rolled to his left, the blade missing him by inches. Saki parried with a high arc, driving a Momochi blade up and around as he spun to meet the next the sword strike. But it didn’t come where he anticipated.

  It happened so quickly.

  Saki was spinning to catch the next strike as Yuri was covering the few yards from the pillar to the fight when the point of the Momochi’s ninjatō sunk into Saki’s spine. Saki aspirated and collapsed.

  Yuri flew with his foot outstretched, aiming for the larger Momochi’s head. He ducked, and Yuri sailed over the top of him, landing two or three feet away. Yuri rushed the Momochi, pounding his guard furiously with his ninjatō. Hate fueled Yuri’s strikes as he chipped away at the Momochi’s defense, forcing him back. The smaller Momochi came at Yuri, and Yuri leaped off of the larger and onto the smaller with twice the ferocity.

  The Momochi chose their strikes, trying to corral Yuri in the same manner Yuri and the Fujibayashi had corralled the sniper. Yuri would have none of it. He blitzed repeatedly with a furious assault, slashing, stabbing, kicking, and striking. The Momochi knew that it wouldn’t last for long, though. Pretty soon, the adrenaline would reach its limit, fatigue would take over, and the Momochi would score another Fujibayashi kill. They just had to wait Yuri out.

  The pain was tremendous, but Terry had to help his brother. Terry aimed around Yuri, who was stirring a hurricane with his attacks, zeroing in on the Momochi furthest from Yuri. When he had a clear shot, he depressed the trigger twice and dropped the larger Momochi. The Momochi’s sword hit the ground first. Yuri didn’t even notice; he kept his fight on.