Death Before Dishonor Page 36

  The men were all a mix of emotions. The leather-jacketed man smiled. The balding man’s face was a mix of entertained and perplexed. The man with glasses was suspicious. The latter signaled to the tattooed man to bring Akiko to him.

  The tattooed man nodded and aggressively snatched Akiko’s elbow. That’s when he noticed the icepick tucked behind her forearm. Before he could register it, Akiko seized his wrist and wrenched it, forcing him over at the waist. Then she slammed the icepick through his shoulder blade and into his chest cavity.

  “It is a hit!” the man with glasses shrieked over the tattooed man’s pained screams. She wasn’t the delicate sex object nor the sweet, mysterious seductress that she had appeared to be just moments earlier. She was a hornet that they had mistaken for a butterfly.

  The balding man shot to his feet, reaching into his coat for his gun. Akiko rushed him, planting a fierce blow against his knee with her leg. The man’s knee buckled, and she caught him on the way down with a second kick, driving him through the coffee table. She leaped on him, driving her heel through his face with a ghastly crunch. The contents of his skull spilled onto the floor.

  The leather-jacketed man attacked. His strikes were wild and undisciplined. Akiko ducked and slipped with ease as she watched the man with glasses retreat across the parlor toward the kitchen. She gave ground in his direction.

  The leather-jacketed man threw in telegraphed arcs. She drew him in before shooting the gap and hitting with a furious combination that ended with an uppercut to his jaw and a reciprocal elbow to his brow. He stumbled back as blood began to run down his face.

  The man with glasses lunged for the bag on the counter, scrambling for the pistol inside. Akiko made the distance between them, scooped up the nunchaku, and batted the pistol from his hand before he could level it. He flopped against the wall, holding his forearm where the nunchaku’s free handle had struck bone; it was definitely fractured.

  The leather-jacketed man attacked again, with an aerial kick this time. Akiko dodged and then swung the nunchaku in kinetic sequences. The free handle punished the leather-jacketed man’s head, face, and shoulders, the chain of the weapon clanking with each strike. He tried to block, but she changed directions each time with blinding speed, going around his arms and coming from a different angle with different timing. She drew translucent circles and ellipses in the air around her head and shoulders with the nunchaku, generating more power for each hit. He went one direction to escape, only to be slammed in the face by the whooshing free handle. Then he tried the other direction, but another strike came. He couldn’t even back up without being hit.

  The tattooed man came into the melee, the icepick still protruding, offering the leather-jacketed man a moment of reprieve. Akiko, in mid-sequence, shifted to him, belting him repeatedly across the head from opposing directions, even cracking him in the teeth. The tattooed man stumbled back, holding his mouth.

  The leather-jacketed man staggered in and swung a pathetic kick. Akiko slipped inside, holding both handles of her weapon, lassoed his head with the chain, and yanked him forward, driving her knee into his face. He crumpled in a bloody mess onto the floor.

  Akiko turned to the man with glasses, the nunchaku spinning a circle off to her side. “I did not take you for a coward, Takehito Kato. I assumed the Shogun would be a better warrior since he claims to be of Samurai descent.”

  “Do you know what I can do to you?” he brayed. “I can have your family killed! I will have them tortured before they die!”

  “You have already killed my family,” she said. “I am Fujibayashi. I am death. And as long as one of us lives, we are legion.”

  The tattooed man staggered toward her again. She fired a sidekick into his gut, sending him sprawling onto the icepick.

  The Shogun lunged for the pistol again while he thought her attention was elsewhere, and Akiko dove on him, wresting the gun from his hand and drilling him in the face twice with the nunchaku like a billy club. She grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked him to his feet.

  “You are the Shogun, right, Kato?” she asked, tossing the nunchaku aside and grabbing the knife from the counter.

  “Yes!” he screamed.

  “My name is Omiyoshu Akiko. I am the daughter of Hattori Hanzo—hallowed be his name. I am here to return my clan to honor and find my father.”

  “What?” he said, his voice strangled by pain. “Wait—I know you.”

  “If you refuse to tell me Hattori Hanzo’s whereabouts, I will make your death slow and agonizing.” It was a threat; she had no intention of prolonging this. There had been enough noise; someone was going to come find out the reason for the commotion.

  “You are Omiyoshu Kintake’s daughter? I let you live!” he bellowed. “It was my word that honored your father’s request!”

  “Where is he? Tell me!” she demanded, plunging the knife into the meat of his back.

  The Shogun screamed.

  “Where is he?” she yelled again.

  “He is here! He is here!”

  She looked around. “Where here?”

  “I do not know,” he cried. “He left some time ago.”

  Then she heard movement.

  She looked toward the center of the parlor. The leather-jacketed man was still alive—barely conscious—but alive. She would see him to his death shortly. The tattooed man was dying a slow, agonizing death nearby. The balding man had assuredly expired.

  “Please, you have to believe me. This was his plan. He asked me for help.”

  She returned her attention to the Shogun. “My kōchō and I will see your co-conspirators to their graves.” Then, with all the power she could muster from the fire that raged inside of her, Akiko slammed the Shogun’s head into the corner of the counter with a terrible crack, splitting his head like a dropped melon. She slung his body to the ground contemptuously.

  She heard movement again. Akiko snatched the knife from his back and readied herself.

  A figure emerged from the hallway’s throat into the parlor, with a sword held in a high guard. She recognized his face. “Father?”

  And he recognized hers. “Akiko? Daughter?” he asked in disbelief, his guard relaxing.

  “You are alive. Oh, thank the ancestor spirits!”

  “What have you done?” he asked solemnly, scanning the room.

  “Ciccone Sensei ordered me to find and kill the Shogun. I have avenged the clan, father.”

  Kintake’s eyes found her, his expression turbulent. “Terry is alive?”

  “Yes!”

  “Still?”

  “Yes, father. We must go.”

  He swallowed hard and stood there for a moment, staring at the floor.

  “Father, we do not have much time.”

  Kintake raised his guard again.

  Her heart fell into her stomach. “Father?”

  “I am sorry, daughter. Truly I am.”

  ***

  The Ciccone Residence. Oxen Hill, Maryland. Today.

  Yuri felt liberated soaking in his Jacuzzi with Veronica as himself, not the character he had created. It was the best feeling in the world. No code, no stealth, no limitations. Just him and her and what lay ahead. For the first time in his life, he had options—and options made him feel alive. He was practically in a meditative state, cuddled against her warm skin, making his senses hyper-sharp. He could feel eddies in the water generated by the rise and fall of Veronica’s ribcage. He could smell the faint oil in her evening fragrance. He could taste the brilliance of her hair. She filled him with passion and with love.

  Liberation wasn’t all sweet, though. There were some sour points. Sometimes Yuri had to answer questions that he knew Veronica wouldn’t like. But he was done lying. If she wanted to know the darker points in his life, he would tell her. This is what he wanted. A life that had meaning. Not one where only death had meaning.

  Veronica lounged against Yuri like a beach chair as she stroked his leg with a sponge. “What was it like?”


  Yuri lifted his head. “What was what like?”

  “Growing up the way you did?”

  “It was humbling. We didn’t have the same utilities that we take for granted here. You saw what Togakure Ryu was like.”

  “I’m more referring to growing up, you know, a ninja.”

  “Shinobi.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “It was tough. Ninpo is not easy for children. It’s demanding. But it was all I knew.”

  “You said you lived with your parents, though. Didn’t that have any impression?”

  “Sure—but I was seven when my parents died. So my most formidable years were in Iga.”

  “Did you miss them?”

  “No.”

  “Really?” she asked, half-turning.

  “I don’t really care for the Fujibayashi, anymore. You can thank Kintake for that.”

  “I was referring to your parents.”

  “Oh,” Yuri snickered. “Well, yes, I did miss them.”

  “What were your parents like?”

  Yuri chewed his lip for a moment as he tried to remember their faces. “My mother was a beautiful woman with long black hair and icy-blue eyes. I remember her being a passionate woman.”

  “You got her eyes.”

  Yuri smiled. “Terry says I got more than her eyes.”

  Veronica smiled back. “I guess you got her looks too, huh?”

  “No, I look like my father. He was a rugged man, and I guess a good soldier. He was a boxer in his youth, but Terry always said that Dad hated talking about it.”

  “How did they die?”

  Yuri sighed. This wasn’t a conversation he enjoyed. It brought back feelings of emptiness that he would much rather leave buried. He and Terry didn’t even talk about their parents’ death that often—not that Terry was one to talk about his feelings in the first place. It was something they tried their best to leave in the past. But Veronica deserved answers even if they stirred demons that he’d tried to forget.

  “They died in a plane crash while we were at summer camp in Togakure Ryu with Kintake.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Hattori Hanzo—the grandmaster at the time—told us. I’ll never forget it. The rain.” In his mind, he could see the hateful storm and the torrent and the disbelief on Terry’s face.

  “That’s awful.” She shook her head. “No one ever came to get you guys?”

  “I dunno.” Yuri shrugged. “You know, I never really thought about it. I suppose the grief kind of overshadowed that. So did my youth.”

  “I mean, your grandparents or aunts and uncles never tried to find you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Did you try to reach out to them?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t—I don’t have a good answer. I suppose it was the effect of Ninpo.”

  “Wow,” she said, straightening herself.

  They were silent for almost a minute; then Veronica started again. “How long did it take you to get over it?”

  “I don’t think I ever did. I think I just learned to cope with it.”

  Veronica half-turned again. “Do you remember the feeling?

  Yuri remembered retching because he couldn’t keep food in his stomach. He remembered the emptiness. He remembered wanting his mother to hug him one last time. “Yes, it was white-hot. It was suffocating. The days ran together. I didn’t sleep much.”

  “How did you deal with it?”

  “I screamed a lot—a whole lot.”

  “How about Terry? Did he help you?”

  Yuri sighed. “The best he could. I mean, he was just a kid then too, barely older than twelve. He had to deal with his own pain. Regardless, no one could ask for a better brother.”

  “How did he deal with it?”

  Yuri rubbed his mouth with his hand. Part of him felt like he was going to betray Terry’s most intimate secrets. It was bound to happen, though. Terry was a major part of his life, and there would be points where the lines between Yuri and Terry blurred. Yuri needed to tell her.

  He swallowed his apprehension. “Terry bottles things up. He distances himself when he’s confused or in pain. He stops talking. When my parents died, he just stopped talking altogether.”

  “He just bottled the whole thing up?”

  “I suppose you could say that, but it was more serious. He stopped talking until I was about twelve. Guess that made him seventeen or so.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked him in complete disbelief.

  Yuri nodded.

  “Omigod, that’s so horrible. That must’ve been so difficult for you.”

  “For the longest time, I thought he was angry at me.”

  “I can imagine. How did the—um—what exactly do you call the people in the village?”

  “Which people?”

  “The people who raised you.”

  “Jonin and Chunin—high-ranking Shinobi and middle-ranking Shinobi.”

  “How did they take it? How did they respond to Terry not speaking? Did they help?”

  “His refusal to speak was often seen as defiance in the eyes of our headmaster, Kintake, and the Jonin. They punished Terry for refusing to speak.”

  “They used to punish Terry because of his reaction to psychological trauma?” she asked, her face painted with disgust. “Your parents died. Did they not realize how that may have affected you guys psychologically and emotionally?”

  “They punished me for his refusal when punishing Terry wouldn’t work.”

  “Why on earth would they do that?” Veronica asked, becoming visibly disturbed.

  “Kintake was abusive, even by Shinobi standards. He advocated harsh treatment. And grief isn’t widely accepted by Ninpo. It’s understood that some grief will exist, but you’re expected to get over it quickly.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. You were just children.”

  “No, we were Shinobi.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  Yuri laughed. “You haven’t already?”

  “Well…I suppose I have, but this is kind of off the topic of your parents.”

  “I’m totally okay with that.”

  Veronica turned fully, situating herself Indian-style between Yuri’s legs. She reached up and touched his face, her expression sincere and concerned. “I’m sorry if this is difficult for you, Yuri. We can stop if you want.”

  “No, let’s get this out now so we can be done with it.” He inhaled sharply, held it, then let it out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

  “It’s okay. This isn’t easy for you. I can see that.”

  Yuri gave a flimsy smile. “What were you going to ask?”

  Veronica shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”

  “Ask the freaking question,” Yuri said, splashing her.

  “Okay,” she sighed, unconvinced that she should even open the can of worms. She did anyway. “How old were you when you killed for the first time?”

  “Oh jeez, I don’t know.” Yuri looked at the ceiling as he went through his mental archive. “Ten. Eleven, perhaps? I think eleven. I killed a pig. I didn’t kill a person until I was fourteen.”

  Veronica’s eyes searched him. She still couldn’t see it—the killer. She had met killers before, and he looked nothing like them. Then Yuri made eye contact with her, and she could finally see the predator.

  “So, you weren’t sent on missions when you were a kid?”

  “Veronica,” Yuri said, furrowing his brow, “that only happens in Hollywood.”

  “Well, how am I supposed to know? I figured you were like those ninjas in the movies.”

  “Shinobi. And not even close,” Yuri chortled, shaking his head. “The Shinobi are a lot like the Native Americans in the sense that they have practices and customs that have been passed down through generations and have evolved into traditions to preserve a culture rather than
a protocol.”

  Yuri wasn't being fully honest. He realized that at Oharu’s residence, he had been, in fact, sent on missions. Though at the time, he’d thought they were rites of passage that all Kodomos had to complete. Yuri didn’t feel a need to get into it. The fact was, he was still trying to sort it all out in his head.

  “Oh.” She felt suddenly small. She knew better than to make pop-cultural assumptions, but she fell into the prejudiced trap of ignorance on occasion like everyone did from time to time. “Okay—so, Shinobi didn’t run all over the countryside killing people in their sleep.”

  “No, the Fujibayashi didn’t. Not since before the Meiji Restoration.” That much was true.

  “So, when did you leave?”

  “When I was about sixteen. Terry and I had a falling out with Kintake—more so me than Terry. We didn’t have anywhere to go. Long story short, we became mercenaries.”

  “Mercenaries?” That’s not at all what she expected. “You mean you were paid to fight wars?”

  “We were paid to fight.”

  “What kind of fighting?”

  “Insurgency and wetworks mostly. The stuff we were skilled to do. Shinobi aren’t the mystical swordsmen that the movies make them out to be. Shinobi are espionage agents, similar to the CIA or something. So, we went where the money was.”

  Veronica’s face was cross. “Who did you work for?”

  “Militant Islamic group that fought against Israel.”

  “What?” Veronica said, sitting up straight. “You mean you were a Jihadists?”

  “No—we were mercenaries. We were paid to do a job; we did the job. It paid fairly well, and we thought it aligned with Ninpo. We later decided that it didn’t. As Terry put it, ‘It made us no better than animals, killing indiscriminately for another man’s delusions.’ It was a tough time for us.”

  “What changed your minds?”

  Yuri grumbled in the back of his throat, trying to clear his sinuses. “I’d rather you didn’t know those specifics. That’s not a proud time in my life. Some memories are better left where they occurred.”

  “Okay—well, we never finished with my original point.”

  “Fine.”

  “You seem edgy.”