Disclaimer: I’m gonna be replacing these with something.
The overhead light of a prison cell came on, revealing fourteen year old Mitsune Konno, wearing a prisoner’s uniform a little too large for her, lying on the bare floor in the fetal position. She didn’t flinch from the sudden, intense interruption of the darkness, but her opened eyes did fall upon the door as it slid open.
The Landlady, Haruka, walked in and stood over her. She wasn’t wearing her usual relaxed attire. She was wearing a JGSDF uniform, complete with insignia and rank. Huh, she didn’t realize that the chain-smoker’s rank was that high.
“So, tell me,” she said, “Why did you do that?”
Mitsune’s gaze fell from Haruka’s face to her feet. “It was an accident.”
“You don’t execute half your classmates on accident.”
“I am really clumsy.”
Mitsune smiled weakly at her own morbid joke, and let out an even weaker laugh. She waited for a swift kick in the ribs to come after that, but to her surprise none did.
“You killed everyone in that room except Narusegawa, why?” Haruka asked.
“Really, really clumsy.”
Still no kick, why wasn’t she hitting her?
“You really want me to hate you right now, don’t you?”
“How could you not? The exact moment you needed me to do my job, I wasn’t even there, and then when I actually had to clean up… I couldn’t do it.”
Mitsune chuckled again. “I’m a monster that everyone wants dead. So just get rid of me, kill me right now so they can all have some closure.”
Haruka folded her arms and let out a sigh, she really wished this place wasn’t smoke-free. “If you were going to die, don’t you think you would’ve woken up on my table?”
Mitsune stopped her weak chuckling, and went still.
“No one wants you dead, you already are; as far as the world knows you blew your own brains out soon as you were done with everyone else.”
The teenager immediately sat up with an expression of stark disbelief and anger. “W-what?!”
She quickly stood up. “What do you mean by that?!”
“I mean that I know why you did it,” Haruka plainly answered, “And why you’re so desperate for us to do it.”
“B-but…!”
“The only reason you’re still alive, is because she begged us not to kill you,” Haruka replied.
Mitsune stopped, and her mouth fell open in disbelief.
“She belongs to us, now, and we’re not going to let this happen again,” Haruka said, before she turned away for the door.
As she reached it, and placed her hand on the doorway, she looked back at the still stunned Mitsune.
“Besides, killing you for your mistake would be a waste. You belong to us too, you know, and you’re still valuable.”
The door closed, leaving Mitsune standing alone in her cell, trying to comprehend what she just heard. Tears, which she’d thought dried up ages ago, welled anew in her eyes.
“Naru-chan…”
As the light went out in the cell, Mitsune fell to her knees, sobbing.
Love Hina: The Merry Killers
Chapter 11: FOXALIVE
In one of the many dark alleys of the Ginza District where raids of the Takimaru Group took place, Takimaru Yakuza were on their knees facing the walls, with hands clasped behind their necks and an officer standing behind each.
At the end of the alley, the miko-dressed Tsuruko Urashima watched the proceedings alongside her husband, the feminine-appearing Naoto, who nodded the command to the SAT officers.
Following the order, the SAT Officers drew their sidearms and fired them into the back of the Yakuzas’ heads.
Standing on a crate in the warehouse she just cleared out, the nearly nude woman who cleared out the warehouse cradled the weapon in her hand as steam rose off the barrel of her Kalashnikov.
Nodoka Saotome, born Urashima, sat down on the crate, smiled and held up the V-sign to the SAT officers who filed into the warehouse to begin confiscating the vast store of weapons and contraband stored within.
In Tokyo Harbor, workers and civilians gathered and stared in horror at an unthinkable sight. The casino cruise ship M/V Diamond Regalia burned intensely as it churned aimlessly past the other ships in the harbor, stuck on a circular course. Fire spewed from nearly every door and window of the ship, and billowed from the single smokestack. It was such an intense flame that lower parts of the hull were beginning to turn red hot, and steam was rising from the wake of boiling water behind it.
On the bow of the ship, the few survivors from the inferno were trapped, flames surrounding them from all sides. The terrified passengers and crew, already on the verge of being burned to death, could only watch as Red emerged from the inferno, the fire licking at her but leaving no real wounds as she walked towards them with both of her shotguns raised at them.
High overhead, the FLIR camera on the helicopter that dropped her off focused on her, as muzzle flashes erupted from her weapons.
The darkness in Takimaru’s office lifted as the building’s internal backup generators finally came on. The old Yakuza boss was still staring out the window, slack-jawed and staring at the fire-illuminated cloud of dust and smoke that billowed where once stood a multimillion dollar hotel that had yet to open. Other fires had begun to burn throughout Minato city, much smaller but no less an indication of what was happening.
His empire was burning.
Kitagami’s teeth were fully bared, the fearsome man’s shock turning into a righteous anger that burned hotter and hotter with every passing moment.
The doors opened then, and a half dozen men heavy military combat gear, including helmets and ballistic armor, rushed in wielding assault rifles.
Itachi was impressed. “My, such heavy equipment. This sort of thing… you’re definitely not allowed to have that.”
One of the soldiers looked around the room as Kitagami turned to them.
“The power went out and we have no way of contacting anyone, what the hell is going on here, boss?” the soldier asked.
“Oi, look!” another said, pointing out at the fires.
“The hell is going on out there…?” a third asked.
“Ah you know how it is,” Itachi said casually, “your Boss decides to try to shakedown a family of assassins and that family of assassins responds with a disproportionate amounts of violence. It happens all the time.”
Kitagami clenched his teeth then, and whirled around to Itachi, marching over to him as he reached into his suit and pulled out his pistol again. Growling like a furious beast, he grabbed the Konno patriarch by his shirt and yanked him up to press the gun against his face.
Despite the demonic face of death itself staring him in his closed eyes, Itachi grinned. “Go right ahead, I can die with the satisfaction of knowing that I’ll be welcoming you to hell.”
Takimaru snapped out of his trance, the moment he saw Kitagami in the reflection of the window, and quickly whirled around.
“No, don’t shoot him!” the old oyabun yelled.
Kitagami stopped just short of squeezing the trigger fully. “I’m sick of his smug attitude!”
“If you think that’s insufferable, you should’ve been here ten minutes ago; there were these two Yakuza guys bragging about how they had me in the palms of their hands,” Itachi said to Kitagami.
“Bastard!” Kitagami really wanted to shoot him.
“Do not kill him, he’s more valuable to us alive!” Takimaru ordered, with a noticeable edge of fear to his voice.
Itachi’s grin grew, before he let out a laugh. “My, my; it really says all that needs to be said about you Yakuza, huh?”
He rolled his head forward, pressing his cheek into the barrel of Kitagami’s gun. “When my Kitsune was a wee kit, she really wanted to use real knives in her training but I wasn’t going to let her. No responsible father would just leave dangerous things out for his precious children to hurt themselves. You know how kits are, though, you say no and they take it as a challenge.”
He shook his head slowly. “So when I turned my back for a minute, she got into my knives and when I came back she was bawling her eyes out and had a nasty cut on her hand. I took the knives away and bandaged her up, then gently scolded her for going where she wasn't allowed. Then once she had learned her lesson I took her out for ice cream, and she was all smiles again."
Kitagami’s hand began to tremble, the barrel of the gun twitching against Itachi’s face as he began to smile again.
“You understand where I’m going with this, right? Your boss is just like my little kit; he’s so very sorry for going where he wasn’t supposed to, and just wants his bandage and his ice cream.”
Itachi opened both eyes as he looked back up at Kitagami. “You’re the same way, that’s why you haven’t pulled the trigger yet, isn’t it kid? You don’t want to die, either.”
Kitagami’s lion-like countenance flickered, for only an instant. Itachi grinned when he caught it.
“Yuji, put the gun down!”
“You heard your old man, put it down,” Itachi taunted, “Long as I’m still alive there’s still a chance you can swallow all that ambition and pride and plead for mercy just like you wanted my little girl to do… right?”
“Do as I say, damn it!” Takimaru yelled.
Itachi cackled. “Wrong, there will be no mercy for any of you! Not you, your men, your families! You’re all getting put to the sword and we’re not stopping until everything you’ve worked for is ours or in ruins!”
Kitagami’s rage focused, his hand shaking rapidly.
“So come on, be a man and do it! I’m giving you all the satisfaction in the world!” Itachi shouted at him, “Go ahead and kill me you stupid, macho, phony-!”
Had Yuji Kitagami squeezed the trigger any harder, he swore he would’ve broken it off the gun.
Sitting in a much smaller, darker room, her back to the wall and her legs drawn to her chest, Kitsune looked up at Keitaro as he leaned against the door on the opposite side of the room, easily making him out in the pitch darkness as he rested against it, panting. They had been quiet for a long time, now, waiting and listening for the man stalking them. Minutes had gone by, and there was nothing, not a sound to indicate he was anywhere near, let alone if he was even looking for them.
Maybe he would find her. If he did, would she fight him?
The self-loathing burned in the pit of her stomach. Why was she even entertaining the idea of living through this? She needed to die here, and rot away with all the sins she’d committed. This was their revenge, they had come to pull her into hell and she wasn’t going to fight them on it.
Kitsune pulled herself into a smaller ball, and looked up at Keitaro. How did he do that just now? He moved with such agility and sureness that it was as though he were a different person… all to save her.
She wished he hadn’t.
He was standing by the door, listening for any sign of movement, while watching her in case she did something.
She wished he wouldn’t.
“Kitsune,” Keitaro whispered.
She didn’t answer him, instead remaining perfectly still.
“I’m not letting you die here, even if you want to.”
Kitsune did not respond again for a few moments, before she heaved a deep breath.
“There was a boy named Kousuke who went to this school. You remind me of him, he wore glasses and was kind of dopey, but he was really funny and I really liked him,” she said, “He never stopped smiling, and always tried to keep people’s spirits up when they were down.”
Keitaro stared at her.
“How long have you been here, doing jobs?”
“Since my first year of high school, why?”
“On the day he confessed to me, I killed him. He was the first… no… fourth one. I shot him in the heart, but I guess it missed or my aim was off because he lingered after I killed everyone else. I guess all his fat deflected it or something? I don’t know.”
She turned her gaze onto Keitaro, he was staring at her, his expression becoming disbelief for only a moment.
“When I was in High School it was terrible, I had to change schools five times because of my temper getting the better of me, but I’m much, much better now.”
“Anyway, after I shot everyone else, I looked back down at him. He was still alive, but he was too far gone, you know? He was staring at me, scared and confused, like this was all some kind of terrible dream and he was going to wake up and be fine. I mean, the girl he liked just admitted she liked him too, and then all of a sudden she shot him and all their friends.”
Kitsune waited for some kind of reaction from Keitaro, she wanted to see him become angry, to denounce her and throw her to the wolf that waited outside.
“I shot him again. I emptied the entire magazine I had left into him… I couldn’t even recognize him after that…”
Keitaro still didn’t move.
“I started doing jobs the moment I moved in. Kitsune’s been doing jobs since before, though. It’s funny. We were both friends before we moved in, and it was pretty funny when we found we were part of the same clan the whole time.”
Kitsune choked a bit, repressing a sob. “Why… why aren’t you saying anything?”
She couldn’t repress the second sob. “Why aren’t you angry at me?”
A hand came up to cover her eyes as she began to weep. “Why aren’t people angry with what I did?!”
It was silent for barely two seconds, before Keitaro answered. “You did it to protect Naru.”
Kitsune’s eyes opened, wide, before she sat up and stared at him. She was horrified.
“She… she told you?”
Keitaro shook his head. “No, I put it together… Naru said a lot of things, but nothing about this. It was because of Naru that you did it.”
If anything Keitaro was confused, maybe a little angry, but for something as traumatic as this he understood why they would make up some other story for it and act like it never happened.
“Kitsune, did you kill them because Naru did something bad?”
And as if a flip were switched, Kitsune went from shocked to panic. “No! She didn’t do anything bad! It was a mistake…!”
She stopped, before lowering her head. “… It was an accident. She couldn’t control herself… not after what they did to her.”
“Who?”
“Her classmates,” Kitsune said quietly, “Naru kept to herself at school and didn’t really interact much with anyone but me and Kousuke and our small circle of friends. She was so pretty then, though, and other students thought she was just stuck up and pretending to be better than everyone else.”
Why she didn’t interact with anyone was painfully obvious to Keitaro. Being so terribly strong, where one wrong move could lead to someone being killed…
“So one day, that day, some girls got together and thought it’d knock her down a peg if they cut her hair off. They waited until I was away, being confessed to by Kousuke, to do it. Had I been there, they wouldn’t have done it… I wouldn’t have let them anywhere near Naru.”
And when they did it, Naru lost it and...
“Oh God,” Keitaro said, stunned that Naru had been vastly understating her high school days.
“The thing is, though, I was supposed to kill Naru.”
Keitaro gaped at Kitsune, as she brought her hand up to the side of her head as she shook it.
“Naru wasn’t always an Urashima. Before that day, she was a member of the Soe Clan, you remember them right?”
Keitaro knew of the Soe Clan, they were a ninja clan who were based in northern Japan and renown for being an all women group with strict rules regarding outside connections. They specialized in foreign and corporate espionage, if he recalled correctly, and were for all intents and purposes subordinate to the Urashima.
When he nodded, Kitsune continued. “The Soe sent Naru off to school despite her being a ticking time bomb. Before that day, she’d gone to four other high schools and pulled out in short order because of her strength.”
Keitaro grimaced. “Why? Who would allow such a thing…?”
“Believe me, the Soe Clan aren’t the most responsible people,” Kitsune said darkly, “Granny got wind of what they were doing and suspected that Naru was doing these things on purpose. So she sent me to kill her if she tried it again. As it turned out, Naru was as afraid of her strength and hurting people as we were of it… she was so badly withdrawn and shy, like Shinobu when she isn’t… Red.”
“So you became her friend.”
“Yeah, and when I realized that she had made another mistake…”
“You tried to take the fall for her.”
Kitsune wiped her eyes. “She didn’t ask to be born the way she was, or to be put in those kinds of situations.”
Anger bled into her voice. “She wasn’t like me; she was just a sweet, shy girl who wanted to be normal, but couldn’t… so I became a monster to protect her.”
Keitaro understood it clearly now. “That’s why no one is angry at you, Kitsune.”
“I am.”
“You made a terrible decision because you panicked,” Keitaro said, “but Granny would’ve had Naru killed on the spot without question if you hadn’t.”
He shook his head, feeling a little sick with himself as he reasoned it out. “You… doing all of this, kept them from doing it outright. You brought enough time for them to understand what kind of person Naru really was, that’s why she’s still alive and part of the Urashima. She got the help she needed to control herself, it’s because of you.”
He walked over to her and rested a hand on her shoulder, before pulling her into a hug. “I’m sorry that it had to cost you so much. It should have never come to that, but I don’t think you’re a monster for panicking.”
He sighed. “You at least did something, I’m a monster because I didn’t.”
“What could you have done-?” Kitsune began, as she resisted returning the hug.
“No… I mean I’ve done something terrible, too.”
Kitsune pulled back from Keitaro, surprised to hear his admission. “What? You?”
That didn’t make sense, Keitaro was harmless. He couldn’t just…
Very quiet for a moment, Keitaro opened his eyes and looked down at Kitsune. “Imagine that it’s just like before with Naru, and she’s being bullied but you’re actually right there and you have the power to stop it. You would do that, right?”
Kitsune nodded, of course she would. “Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
Kitsune brought her hand to her mouth, stunned.
“When I was in high school, I was involved in an incident. A hostage situation,” Keitaro said quietly, “My class was on a trip, and the boat we were on was hijacked by students from another school on the same trip. They killed the crew of the boat and held us at gunpoint for three days, demanding money, a better boat, and safe passage to Thailand.”
“And you didn’t do anything?”
Keitaro shook his head. “I didn’t. I was so afraid of messing up and getting everyone killed, that I talked myself into deciding that as long as the authorities arrived, then even a few of my classmates dying would be all right.”
Keitaro tensed up, his hands becoming fists as he shook in anger and guilt.. “Even when they kept doing terrible things to us, I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“Oh…” Kitsune murmured.
“Probably the worst part about it is that no one blames me, either, because even my friends who knew how tough I was also knew that I’m worthless otherwise. I want to be kicked around and treated like a monster sometimes, too…”
He held up his hand close to his face, examining the pale scar across it. “… It only feels right.”
Kitsune looked down at the floor, and sighed as the weight of his revelation settled. “Geez, we’re all messed up, aren’t we?”
Keitaro nodded. “You were much better at dealing with it than me. I didn’t even have clue that something like this happened to you; whenever I see you, you’re always so upbeat and easygoing. You’re like the big sister that everyone wants.”
Kitsune looked off to the side. “That’s always been a front I’ve put up. It helps me cope… keeps the flashbacks at the back of my head where I can’t see them.”
“But that’s the only you I’ve ever met,” he argued, “That and the person who is genuinely heartbroken over the terrible things she did. Having remorse doesn’t make you a bad person.”
Kitsune’s face warmed, and she was a little relieved that he couldn’t see it in the dark.
“You’re dead set on saving me from myself, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I want to save you from a lot of things, because if you die then none of us would be able to cope with it. Not me, and definitely not Naru.”
Invoking Naru seemed to slug Kitsune right in the stomach.
“I don’t think she’d be able to function if someone who gave up so much for her died after making it this far. She’s in a good place because of you, and if you lost it, then all of that guilt would tear her apart, too. There wouldn’t be anyone in the house who could handle losing both of you, not even Su.”
Keitaro managed to smile and offered his hand to Kitsune. “Some come back from that dark place, Kitsune, and we can all get through this like a family.”
She looked down, feeling incredibly small as her selfish desire for oblivion finally ebbed away. “I guess I’ll let you have it your way, then.”
She took his hand, and after a moment of hesitation–her guilt holding her down in vain–she allowed him to pull her up onto her feet and into a hug. She returned hug, resting her face against Keitaro’s shoulder and letting out another weary sigh.
As she pulled back and looked at his face, she smiled again when she saw that he was. He always had that optimistic but dopey smile, but she genuinely liked it. Keitaro’s was so honest, and it seemed so pure.
Kitsune pulled away from him then, and laughed a bit. “You’re too good for this world, Keitaro. I’m glad that Naru could have someone like you.”
Keitaro chuckled back softly. “Thanks. Are you good, now?”
Kitsune then grabbed him by the shoulder. “… Yeah, I’m done giving up on my life. I want to live and I’m gonna need your help to keep living it.”
“It’s why I’m here,” Keitaro replied.
Closing her eyes again, Kitsune listened carefully, filtering out the ambient sounds inside and out of the room. Through the background noise she searched and painted a picture of the world around them in her mind. She saw the storage closet, the empty hallway outside it, empty classrooms, and everything else that made or reflected sound. The picture in her mind grew larger, but hazier at the same time, the images at the edges becoming difficult to discern.
In the blurriness of the distant sound, however, she could hear it: An elevated, but steady heartbeat paired with perfectly controlled breathing. It was completely unlike the racing pulses and desperate breaths of the Yakuza she’d encountered to this point. This person was completely calm and in control, lying patiently in wait to take his shot against a monster.
“… Who is this guy?” she whispered.
“What?” Keitaro asked, before Kitsune slowly stood up and drew her sidearm.
Kitsune licked her lips. “Keitaro, we’re up against someone who could very well kill me in the next few minutes.”
“What? Who?” Keitaro said, frightened for her safety but trying not to sound it.
“I can hear him. He’s waiting me out… he knows we’re in here and as soon as I open the door the fight of my life is going to start,” she revealed, “But he’s perfectly calm. This is nothing to him, even though he knows what he’s up against.”
“So… I just want to say that if I do die,” Kitsune said before she smiled, “It won’t be because I gave up.”
Keitaro smiled. “If you don’t give up, then you can’t die.”
Kitsune laughed. “Let’s put that to the test.”
The high-caliber pistol’s firing was immediately followed by a deafening silence in the office of the Oyabun of the Takimaru Group. Takimaru himself stood, gobsmacked and horrified, while the private soldiers hesitated in fear.
“I-Impossible…” the old man murmured.
His free hand still tightly holding Itachi’s collar, a now disheveled Kitagami gaped at his gun–now tightly held in Itachi’s unbound hand.
He had pushed the gun to fire harmlessly over his shoulder.
“How… when did he get free?!” Kitagami wondered in horror before an even greater terror overcame him.
“He could have gotten free at anytime?!”
“Now that you’ve hit the very rock bottom of despair,” Itachi said with his sickening smile, “Allow me to offer you a pair of shovels.”
A barrage of automatic fire then began punching through the thick, allegedly bulletproof windows that protected Kitagami’s office, catching flat-footed and cutting down two of the soldiers that occupied the open area between where the two leaders of the Takimaru Group stood.
As the two soldiers were massacred, the four guarding Takimaru quickly called for backup while raising their rifles. Around the bullet riddled glass, several cuts appeared almost instantaneously, before it shattered and allowed Naru and Motoko to swing in through the window.
Takimaru’s remaining eye grew large, when he saw the masked ninja girls crouching on the floor of his office. “W-what?”
“Shoot-!” his remaining bodyguards yelled as they squeezed the triggers of their weapons.
The man to Takimaru’s right opened up on Naru, but missed as the white-masked young woman was already in his face–with her right fist plunging for his chest in what seemed like slow motion in the very last microseconds of his life.
SPAK!
The sound of his head and much of his upper body vaporising was lost over the bang of the soldier behind him being flung into the wall behind him with so much force that his body was converted into a superheated mist that blew through all of the walls behind him and smashed through the windows on the other side of the building.
As chaos broke out to Takimaru’s right, there was the brief clatter of bullets bouncing off metal and the swift sound of a blade moving through flesh, fabric, and metal Motoko stopped behind the men to Takimaru’s left and sheathed her sword. Soon as her blade clicked into its sheath, the soldiers fell apart in large chunks–cauterized red hot by the speed of her blade passing through them.
“Good grief, I cut worthless things again,” Motoko lamented.
Kitagami broke free of Itachi, and looked back and forth between Itachi and his rescuers. “What?!”
He looked back at Itachi, as he began to slowly motion with his hand, and when his gaze darted back to the two young women, the hand holding his gun suddenly felt very numb. When he looked back…
Where was Itachi hiding that knife he’d just cut off his hand with?
“Non-metallic and embedded into the flesh of my arm,” Itachi answered the question as though he read his mind, “As much a part of me as your hand was part of you, and just as painful to remove I reckon.”
Kitagami’s proud leonine features promptly shattered, as he broke into a hysterical scream and grabbed at the stump that was his dominant hand. Takimaru, seeing his once proud and powerful subordinate losing his mind with pain and terror, felt that same terror finally begin to reach the center of his heart.
Motoko pointed her sword at his face. “Call off your men from Mitsune Konno, and you will be granted a painless death.”
Takimaru hesitated when he heard such a young-sounding voice from the masked woman. He then chuckled unsteadily. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can-”
“No, once he’s already been paid, the man we hired will not stop until the target is dead on principle.”
Itachi glanced towards the hole that Naru had made in the wall, his eyes narrowing a bit.
Takimaru began to grin. “It’s too late for her, even with an army you won’t be able to save her.”
Naru and Motoko looked at one another as Itachi stepped forward. “You mean Golgo 13, right?”
He looked over at Naru. “Eh, Mugen-chan, didn’t you do your usual thing to him?”
Naru looked down at her hand. “That man snooping after Kitsune… yes, I did.”
“That wasn’t him… for all of your power, you were fooled by a body double,” Takimaru said with another chuckle. “Golgo 13 never died… he sent that fake so he could organize his plan of attack. You fell for it, like fools!”
“Bastard!” Motoko roared as she raised her sword.
Itachi reached up and tapped Motoko on the shoulder. “Jin-chan, you’re not allowed to kill him.”
Motoko stopped and looked back at him. “What?”
“There are a lot of men with a lot of rifles coming up the stairs and that’s more bullets than either of you can handle,” he explained, “But more to the point, I want my little girl to be the one to put an end to his miserable life. It’s only fitting.”
Motoko acquiesced without complaint. “I agree.”
She looked at the man who was already dead, and snorted in satisfaction.
The main doors to his office, and two additional secret entrances in the wall next to Takimaru’s desk and at the far corner of the room suddenly opened. More men in combat gear and carrying assault rifles emerged.
Seeing them, Takimaru threw himself to the floor away from Motoko as the men raised their rifles.
“Shoot them! Shoot them all!” he shouted.
“Useless!” Motoko yelled as she whipped her sword about. More cuts appeared on the floor directly in front of her, and on the ceiling and wall directly behind them.
A rumble followed, before the floor and ceiling she cut into slid back and fell away, sending the three of them falling away from the building and towards the streets below. Takimaru’s guards quickly secured their boss and rushed to the hole, but when they aimed their weapons down to shoot, they only found the section Motoko cut away crashing onto the sidewalk below and kicking up a cloud of dust.
One of the soldiers turned to his boss, who was being secured by others along with Kitagami. “Boss! A helicopter is en route to take you to the airport and your jet’s already on the tarmac!”
Takimaru, gasping for breath, nodded. “Yes, yes! Get us out of here, before they come back for me, hurry!”
On the roof of the building across from Takimaru’s HQ, hiding behind an air conditioner unit, Naru pulled off her mask and checked herself for injuries. No bullet wounds to be found.
“Is everyone okay?” she asked.
“I was grazed,” Motoko replied, “It’s nothing serious.”
“I had to use one of my secret knives, that’s gonna be a bitch to replace,” Itachi said before he held up Kitagami’s hand, “Got a neat souvenir though.”
Motoko rolled her eyes. “Ugh.”
At that moment, all three could hear the helicopter that would whisk Takimaru to the airport approach. When they looked up and saw it, Motoko sniffed in annoyance.
“Of course, they’re going to try to flee,” she lamented, “Probably out of the country this time.”
“They always do,” Naru said as the helicopter descended to land.
The overhead light of a prison cell came on, revealing fourteen year old Mitsune Konno, wearing a prisoner’s uniform a little too large for her, lying on the bare floor in the fetal position. She didn’t flinch from the sudden, intense interruption of the darkness, but her opened eyes did fall upon the door as it slid open.
The Landlady, Haruka, walked in and stood over her. She wasn’t wearing her usual relaxed attire. She was wearing a JGSDF uniform, complete with insignia and rank. Huh, she didn’t realize that the chain-smoker’s rank was that high.
“So, tell me,” she said, “Why did you do that?”
Mitsune’s gaze fell from Haruka’s face to her feet. “It was an accident.”
“You don’t execute half your classmates on accident.”
“I am really clumsy.”
Mitsune smiled weakly at her own morbid joke, and let out an even weaker laugh. She waited for a swift kick in the ribs to come after that, but to her surprise none did.
“You killed everyone in that room except Narusegawa, why?” Haruka asked.
“Really, really clumsy.”
Still no kick, why wasn’t she hitting her?
“You really want me to hate you right now, don’t you?”
“How could you not? The exact moment you needed me to do my job, I wasn’t even there, and then when I actually had to clean up… I couldn’t do it.”
Mitsune chuckled again. “I’m a monster that everyone wants dead. So just get rid of me, kill me right now so they can all have some closure.”
Haruka folded her arms and let out a sigh, she really wished this place wasn’t smoke-free. “If you were going to die, don’t you think you would’ve woken up on my table?”
Mitsune stopped her weak chuckling, and went still.
“No one wants you dead, you already are; as far as the world knows you blew your own brains out soon as you were done with everyone else.”
The teenager immediately sat up with an expression of stark disbelief and anger. “W-what?!”
She quickly stood up. “What do you mean by that?!”
“I mean that I know why you did it,” Haruka plainly answered, “And why you’re so desperate for us to do it.”
“B-but…!”
“The only reason you’re still alive, is because she begged us not to kill you,” Haruka replied.
Mitsune stopped, and her mouth fell open in disbelief.
“She belongs to us, now, and we’re not going to let this happen again,” Haruka said, before she turned away for the door.
As she reached it, and placed her hand on the doorway, she looked back at the still stunned Mitsune.
“Besides, killing you for your mistake would be a waste. You belong to us too, you know, and you’re still valuable.”
The door closed, leaving Mitsune standing alone in her cell, trying to comprehend what she just heard. Tears, which she’d thought dried up ages ago, welled anew in her eyes.
“Naru-chan…”
As the light went out in the cell, Mitsune fell to her knees, sobbing.
Love Hina: The Merry Killers
Chapter 11: FOXALIVE
In one of the many dark alleys of the Ginza District where raids of the Takimaru Group took place, Takimaru Yakuza were on their knees facing the walls, with hands clasped behind their necks and an officer standing behind each.
At the end of the alley, the miko-dressed Tsuruko Urashima watched the proceedings alongside her husband, the feminine-appearing Naoto, who nodded the command to the SAT officers.
Following the order, the SAT Officers drew their sidearms and fired them into the back of the Yakuzas’ heads.
Standing on a crate in the warehouse she just cleared out, the nearly nude woman who cleared out the warehouse cradled the weapon in her hand as steam rose off the barrel of her Kalashnikov.
Nodoka Saotome, born Urashima, sat down on the crate, smiled and held up the V-sign to the SAT officers who filed into the warehouse to begin confiscating the vast store of weapons and contraband stored within.
In Tokyo Harbor, workers and civilians gathered and stared in horror at an unthinkable sight. The casino cruise ship M/V Diamond Regalia burned intensely as it churned aimlessly past the other ships in the harbor, stuck on a circular course. Fire spewed from nearly every door and window of the ship, and billowed from the single smokestack. It was such an intense flame that lower parts of the hull were beginning to turn red hot, and steam was rising from the wake of boiling water behind it.
On the bow of the ship, the few survivors from the inferno were trapped, flames surrounding them from all sides. The terrified passengers and crew, already on the verge of being burned to death, could only watch as Red emerged from the inferno, the fire licking at her but leaving no real wounds as she walked towards them with both of her shotguns raised at them.
High overhead, the FLIR camera on the helicopter that dropped her off focused on her, as muzzle flashes erupted from her weapons.
The darkness in Takimaru’s office lifted as the building’s internal backup generators finally came on. The old Yakuza boss was still staring out the window, slack-jawed and staring at the fire-illuminated cloud of dust and smoke that billowed where once stood a multimillion dollar hotel that had yet to open. Other fires had begun to burn throughout Minato city, much smaller but no less an indication of what was happening.
His empire was burning.
Kitagami’s teeth were fully bared, the fearsome man’s shock turning into a righteous anger that burned hotter and hotter with every passing moment.
The doors opened then, and a half dozen men heavy military combat gear, including helmets and ballistic armor, rushed in wielding assault rifles.
Itachi was impressed. “My, such heavy equipment. This sort of thing… you’re definitely not allowed to have that.”
One of the soldiers looked around the room as Kitagami turned to them.
“The power went out and we have no way of contacting anyone, what the hell is going on here, boss?” the soldier asked.
“Oi, look!” another said, pointing out at the fires.
“The hell is going on out there…?” a third asked.
“Ah you know how it is,” Itachi said casually, “your Boss decides to try to shakedown a family of assassins and that family of assassins responds with a disproportionate amounts of violence. It happens all the time.”
Kitagami clenched his teeth then, and whirled around to Itachi, marching over to him as he reached into his suit and pulled out his pistol again. Growling like a furious beast, he grabbed the Konno patriarch by his shirt and yanked him up to press the gun against his face.
Despite the demonic face of death itself staring him in his closed eyes, Itachi grinned. “Go right ahead, I can die with the satisfaction of knowing that I’ll be welcoming you to hell.”
Takimaru snapped out of his trance, the moment he saw Kitagami in the reflection of the window, and quickly whirled around.
“No, don’t shoot him!” the old oyabun yelled.
Kitagami stopped just short of squeezing the trigger fully. “I’m sick of his smug attitude!”
“If you think that’s insufferable, you should’ve been here ten minutes ago; there were these two Yakuza guys bragging about how they had me in the palms of their hands,” Itachi said to Kitagami.
“Bastard!” Kitagami really wanted to shoot him.
“Do not kill him, he’s more valuable to us alive!” Takimaru ordered, with a noticeable edge of fear to his voice.
Itachi’s grin grew, before he let out a laugh. “My, my; it really says all that needs to be said about you Yakuza, huh?”
He rolled his head forward, pressing his cheek into the barrel of Kitagami’s gun. “When my Kitsune was a wee kit, she really wanted to use real knives in her training but I wasn’t going to let her. No responsible father would just leave dangerous things out for his precious children to hurt themselves. You know how kits are, though, you say no and they take it as a challenge.”
He shook his head slowly. “So when I turned my back for a minute, she got into my knives and when I came back she was bawling her eyes out and had a nasty cut on her hand. I took the knives away and bandaged her up, then gently scolded her for going where she wasn't allowed. Then once she had learned her lesson I took her out for ice cream, and she was all smiles again."
Kitagami’s hand began to tremble, the barrel of the gun twitching against Itachi’s face as he began to smile again.
“You understand where I’m going with this, right? Your boss is just like my little kit; he’s so very sorry for going where he wasn’t supposed to, and just wants his bandage and his ice cream.”
Itachi opened both eyes as he looked back up at Kitagami. “You’re the same way, that’s why you haven’t pulled the trigger yet, isn’t it kid? You don’t want to die, either.”
Kitagami’s lion-like countenance flickered, for only an instant. Itachi grinned when he caught it.
“Yuji, put the gun down!”
“You heard your old man, put it down,” Itachi taunted, “Long as I’m still alive there’s still a chance you can swallow all that ambition and pride and plead for mercy just like you wanted my little girl to do… right?”
“Do as I say, damn it!” Takimaru yelled.
Itachi cackled. “Wrong, there will be no mercy for any of you! Not you, your men, your families! You’re all getting put to the sword and we’re not stopping until everything you’ve worked for is ours or in ruins!”
Kitagami’s rage focused, his hand shaking rapidly.
“So come on, be a man and do it! I’m giving you all the satisfaction in the world!” Itachi shouted at him, “Go ahead and kill me you stupid, macho, phony-!”
Had Yuji Kitagami squeezed the trigger any harder, he swore he would’ve broken it off the gun.
Sitting in a much smaller, darker room, her back to the wall and her legs drawn to her chest, Kitsune looked up at Keitaro as he leaned against the door on the opposite side of the room, easily making him out in the pitch darkness as he rested against it, panting. They had been quiet for a long time, now, waiting and listening for the man stalking them. Minutes had gone by, and there was nothing, not a sound to indicate he was anywhere near, let alone if he was even looking for them.
Maybe he would find her. If he did, would she fight him?
The self-loathing burned in the pit of her stomach. Why was she even entertaining the idea of living through this? She needed to die here, and rot away with all the sins she’d committed. This was their revenge, they had come to pull her into hell and she wasn’t going to fight them on it.
Kitsune pulled herself into a smaller ball, and looked up at Keitaro. How did he do that just now? He moved with such agility and sureness that it was as though he were a different person… all to save her.
She wished he hadn’t.
He was standing by the door, listening for any sign of movement, while watching her in case she did something.
She wished he wouldn’t.
“Kitsune,” Keitaro whispered.
She didn’t answer him, instead remaining perfectly still.
“I’m not letting you die here, even if you want to.”
Kitsune did not respond again for a few moments, before she heaved a deep breath.
“There was a boy named Kousuke who went to this school. You remind me of him, he wore glasses and was kind of dopey, but he was really funny and I really liked him,” she said, “He never stopped smiling, and always tried to keep people’s spirits up when they were down.”
Keitaro stared at her.
“How long have you been here, doing jobs?”
“Since my first year of high school, why?”
“On the day he confessed to me, I killed him. He was the first… no… fourth one. I shot him in the heart, but I guess it missed or my aim was off because he lingered after I killed everyone else. I guess all his fat deflected it or something? I don’t know.”
She turned her gaze onto Keitaro, he was staring at her, his expression becoming disbelief for only a moment.
“When I was in High School it was terrible, I had to change schools five times because of my temper getting the better of me, but I’m much, much better now.”
“Anyway, after I shot everyone else, I looked back down at him. He was still alive, but he was too far gone, you know? He was staring at me, scared and confused, like this was all some kind of terrible dream and he was going to wake up and be fine. I mean, the girl he liked just admitted she liked him too, and then all of a sudden she shot him and all their friends.”
Kitsune waited for some kind of reaction from Keitaro, she wanted to see him become angry, to denounce her and throw her to the wolf that waited outside.
“I shot him again. I emptied the entire magazine I had left into him… I couldn’t even recognize him after that…”
Keitaro still didn’t move.
“I started doing jobs the moment I moved in. Kitsune’s been doing jobs since before, though. It’s funny. We were both friends before we moved in, and it was pretty funny when we found we were part of the same clan the whole time.”
Kitsune choked a bit, repressing a sob. “Why… why aren’t you saying anything?”
She couldn’t repress the second sob. “Why aren’t you angry at me?”
A hand came up to cover her eyes as she began to weep. “Why aren’t people angry with what I did?!”
It was silent for barely two seconds, before Keitaro answered. “You did it to protect Naru.”
Kitsune’s eyes opened, wide, before she sat up and stared at him. She was horrified.
“She… she told you?”
Keitaro shook his head. “No, I put it together… Naru said a lot of things, but nothing about this. It was because of Naru that you did it.”
If anything Keitaro was confused, maybe a little angry, but for something as traumatic as this he understood why they would make up some other story for it and act like it never happened.
“Kitsune, did you kill them because Naru did something bad?”
And as if a flip were switched, Kitsune went from shocked to panic. “No! She didn’t do anything bad! It was a mistake…!”
She stopped, before lowering her head. “… It was an accident. She couldn’t control herself… not after what they did to her.”
“Who?”
“Her classmates,” Kitsune said quietly, “Naru kept to herself at school and didn’t really interact much with anyone but me and Kousuke and our small circle of friends. She was so pretty then, though, and other students thought she was just stuck up and pretending to be better than everyone else.”
Why she didn’t interact with anyone was painfully obvious to Keitaro. Being so terribly strong, where one wrong move could lead to someone being killed…
“So one day, that day, some girls got together and thought it’d knock her down a peg if they cut her hair off. They waited until I was away, being confessed to by Kousuke, to do it. Had I been there, they wouldn’t have done it… I wouldn’t have let them anywhere near Naru.”
And when they did it, Naru lost it and...
“Oh God,” Keitaro said, stunned that Naru had been vastly understating her high school days.
“The thing is, though, I was supposed to kill Naru.”
Keitaro gaped at Kitsune, as she brought her hand up to the side of her head as she shook it.
“Naru wasn’t always an Urashima. Before that day, she was a member of the Soe Clan, you remember them right?”
Keitaro knew of the Soe Clan, they were a ninja clan who were based in northern Japan and renown for being an all women group with strict rules regarding outside connections. They specialized in foreign and corporate espionage, if he recalled correctly, and were for all intents and purposes subordinate to the Urashima.
When he nodded, Kitsune continued. “The Soe sent Naru off to school despite her being a ticking time bomb. Before that day, she’d gone to four other high schools and pulled out in short order because of her strength.”
Keitaro grimaced. “Why? Who would allow such a thing…?”
“Believe me, the Soe Clan aren’t the most responsible people,” Kitsune said darkly, “Granny got wind of what they were doing and suspected that Naru was doing these things on purpose. So she sent me to kill her if she tried it again. As it turned out, Naru was as afraid of her strength and hurting people as we were of it… she was so badly withdrawn and shy, like Shinobu when she isn’t… Red.”
“So you became her friend.”
“Yeah, and when I realized that she had made another mistake…”
“You tried to take the fall for her.”
Kitsune wiped her eyes. “She didn’t ask to be born the way she was, or to be put in those kinds of situations.”
Anger bled into her voice. “She wasn’t like me; she was just a sweet, shy girl who wanted to be normal, but couldn’t… so I became a monster to protect her.”
Keitaro understood it clearly now. “That’s why no one is angry at you, Kitsune.”
“I am.”
“You made a terrible decision because you panicked,” Keitaro said, “but Granny would’ve had Naru killed on the spot without question if you hadn’t.”
He shook his head, feeling a little sick with himself as he reasoned it out. “You… doing all of this, kept them from doing it outright. You brought enough time for them to understand what kind of person Naru really was, that’s why she’s still alive and part of the Urashima. She got the help she needed to control herself, it’s because of you.”
He walked over to her and rested a hand on her shoulder, before pulling her into a hug. “I’m sorry that it had to cost you so much. It should have never come to that, but I don’t think you’re a monster for panicking.”
He sighed. “You at least did something, I’m a monster because I didn’t.”
“What could you have done-?” Kitsune began, as she resisted returning the hug.
“No… I mean I’ve done something terrible, too.”
Kitsune pulled back from Keitaro, surprised to hear his admission. “What? You?”
That didn’t make sense, Keitaro was harmless. He couldn’t just…
Very quiet for a moment, Keitaro opened his eyes and looked down at Kitsune. “Imagine that it’s just like before with Naru, and she’s being bullied but you’re actually right there and you have the power to stop it. You would do that, right?”
Kitsune nodded, of course she would. “Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
Kitsune brought her hand to her mouth, stunned.
“When I was in high school, I was involved in an incident. A hostage situation,” Keitaro said quietly, “My class was on a trip, and the boat we were on was hijacked by students from another school on the same trip. They killed the crew of the boat and held us at gunpoint for three days, demanding money, a better boat, and safe passage to Thailand.”
“And you didn’t do anything?”
Keitaro shook his head. “I didn’t. I was so afraid of messing up and getting everyone killed, that I talked myself into deciding that as long as the authorities arrived, then even a few of my classmates dying would be all right.”
Keitaro tensed up, his hands becoming fists as he shook in anger and guilt.. “Even when they kept doing terrible things to us, I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“Oh…” Kitsune murmured.
“Probably the worst part about it is that no one blames me, either, because even my friends who knew how tough I was also knew that I’m worthless otherwise. I want to be kicked around and treated like a monster sometimes, too…”
He held up his hand close to his face, examining the pale scar across it. “… It only feels right.”
Kitsune looked down at the floor, and sighed as the weight of his revelation settled. “Geez, we’re all messed up, aren’t we?”
Keitaro nodded. “You were much better at dealing with it than me. I didn’t even have clue that something like this happened to you; whenever I see you, you’re always so upbeat and easygoing. You’re like the big sister that everyone wants.”
Kitsune looked off to the side. “That’s always been a front I’ve put up. It helps me cope… keeps the flashbacks at the back of my head where I can’t see them.”
“But that’s the only you I’ve ever met,” he argued, “That and the person who is genuinely heartbroken over the terrible things she did. Having remorse doesn’t make you a bad person.”
Kitsune’s face warmed, and she was a little relieved that he couldn’t see it in the dark.
“You’re dead set on saving me from myself, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I want to save you from a lot of things, because if you die then none of us would be able to cope with it. Not me, and definitely not Naru.”
Invoking Naru seemed to slug Kitsune right in the stomach.
“I don’t think she’d be able to function if someone who gave up so much for her died after making it this far. She’s in a good place because of you, and if you lost it, then all of that guilt would tear her apart, too. There wouldn’t be anyone in the house who could handle losing both of you, not even Su.”
Keitaro managed to smile and offered his hand to Kitsune. “Some come back from that dark place, Kitsune, and we can all get through this like a family.”
She looked down, feeling incredibly small as her selfish desire for oblivion finally ebbed away. “I guess I’ll let you have it your way, then.”
She took his hand, and after a moment of hesitation–her guilt holding her down in vain–she allowed him to pull her up onto her feet and into a hug. She returned hug, resting her face against Keitaro’s shoulder and letting out another weary sigh.
As she pulled back and looked at his face, she smiled again when she saw that he was. He always had that optimistic but dopey smile, but she genuinely liked it. Keitaro’s was so honest, and it seemed so pure.
Kitsune pulled away from him then, and laughed a bit. “You’re too good for this world, Keitaro. I’m glad that Naru could have someone like you.”
Keitaro chuckled back softly. “Thanks. Are you good, now?”
Kitsune then grabbed him by the shoulder. “… Yeah, I’m done giving up on my life. I want to live and I’m gonna need your help to keep living it.”
“It’s why I’m here,” Keitaro replied.
Closing her eyes again, Kitsune listened carefully, filtering out the ambient sounds inside and out of the room. Through the background noise she searched and painted a picture of the world around them in her mind. She saw the storage closet, the empty hallway outside it, empty classrooms, and everything else that made or reflected sound. The picture in her mind grew larger, but hazier at the same time, the images at the edges becoming difficult to discern.
In the blurriness of the distant sound, however, she could hear it: An elevated, but steady heartbeat paired with perfectly controlled breathing. It was completely unlike the racing pulses and desperate breaths of the Yakuza she’d encountered to this point. This person was completely calm and in control, lying patiently in wait to take his shot against a monster.
“… Who is this guy?” she whispered.
“What?” Keitaro asked, before Kitsune slowly stood up and drew her sidearm.
Kitsune licked her lips. “Keitaro, we’re up against someone who could very well kill me in the next few minutes.”
“What? Who?” Keitaro said, frightened for her safety but trying not to sound it.
“I can hear him. He’s waiting me out… he knows we’re in here and as soon as I open the door the fight of my life is going to start,” she revealed, “But he’s perfectly calm. This is nothing to him, even though he knows what he’s up against.”
“So… I just want to say that if I do die,” Kitsune said before she smiled, “It won’t be because I gave up.”
Keitaro smiled. “If you don’t give up, then you can’t die.”
Kitsune laughed. “Let’s put that to the test.”
The high-caliber pistol’s firing was immediately followed by a deafening silence in the office of the Oyabun of the Takimaru Group. Takimaru himself stood, gobsmacked and horrified, while the private soldiers hesitated in fear.
“I-Impossible…” the old man murmured.
His free hand still tightly holding Itachi’s collar, a now disheveled Kitagami gaped at his gun–now tightly held in Itachi’s unbound hand.
He had pushed the gun to fire harmlessly over his shoulder.
“How… when did he get free?!” Kitagami wondered in horror before an even greater terror overcame him.
“He could have gotten free at anytime?!”
“Now that you’ve hit the very rock bottom of despair,” Itachi said with his sickening smile, “Allow me to offer you a pair of shovels.”
A barrage of automatic fire then began punching through the thick, allegedly bulletproof windows that protected Kitagami’s office, catching flat-footed and cutting down two of the soldiers that occupied the open area between where the two leaders of the Takimaru Group stood.
As the two soldiers were massacred, the four guarding Takimaru quickly called for backup while raising their rifles. Around the bullet riddled glass, several cuts appeared almost instantaneously, before it shattered and allowed Naru and Motoko to swing in through the window.
Takimaru’s remaining eye grew large, when he saw the masked ninja girls crouching on the floor of his office. “W-what?”
“Shoot-!” his remaining bodyguards yelled as they squeezed the triggers of their weapons.
The man to Takimaru’s right opened up on Naru, but missed as the white-masked young woman was already in his face–with her right fist plunging for his chest in what seemed like slow motion in the very last microseconds of his life.
SPAK!
The sound of his head and much of his upper body vaporising was lost over the bang of the soldier behind him being flung into the wall behind him with so much force that his body was converted into a superheated mist that blew through all of the walls behind him and smashed through the windows on the other side of the building.
As chaos broke out to Takimaru’s right, there was the brief clatter of bullets bouncing off metal and the swift sound of a blade moving through flesh, fabric, and metal Motoko stopped behind the men to Takimaru’s left and sheathed her sword. Soon as her blade clicked into its sheath, the soldiers fell apart in large chunks–cauterized red hot by the speed of her blade passing through them.
“Good grief, I cut worthless things again,” Motoko lamented.
Kitagami broke free of Itachi, and looked back and forth between Itachi and his rescuers. “What?!”
He looked back at Itachi, as he began to slowly motion with his hand, and when his gaze darted back to the two young women, the hand holding his gun suddenly felt very numb. When he looked back…
Where was Itachi hiding that knife he’d just cut off his hand with?
“Non-metallic and embedded into the flesh of my arm,” Itachi answered the question as though he read his mind, “As much a part of me as your hand was part of you, and just as painful to remove I reckon.”
Kitagami’s proud leonine features promptly shattered, as he broke into a hysterical scream and grabbed at the stump that was his dominant hand. Takimaru, seeing his once proud and powerful subordinate losing his mind with pain and terror, felt that same terror finally begin to reach the center of his heart.
Motoko pointed her sword at his face. “Call off your men from Mitsune Konno, and you will be granted a painless death.”
Takimaru hesitated when he heard such a young-sounding voice from the masked woman. He then chuckled unsteadily. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can-”
“No, once he’s already been paid, the man we hired will not stop until the target is dead on principle.”
Itachi glanced towards the hole that Naru had made in the wall, his eyes narrowing a bit.
Takimaru began to grin. “It’s too late for her, even with an army you won’t be able to save her.”
Naru and Motoko looked at one another as Itachi stepped forward. “You mean Golgo 13, right?”
He looked over at Naru. “Eh, Mugen-chan, didn’t you do your usual thing to him?”
Naru looked down at her hand. “That man snooping after Kitsune… yes, I did.”
“That wasn’t him… for all of your power, you were fooled by a body double,” Takimaru said with another chuckle. “Golgo 13 never died… he sent that fake so he could organize his plan of attack. You fell for it, like fools!”
“Bastard!” Motoko roared as she raised her sword.
Itachi reached up and tapped Motoko on the shoulder. “Jin-chan, you’re not allowed to kill him.”
Motoko stopped and looked back at him. “What?”
“There are a lot of men with a lot of rifles coming up the stairs and that’s more bullets than either of you can handle,” he explained, “But more to the point, I want my little girl to be the one to put an end to his miserable life. It’s only fitting.”
Motoko acquiesced without complaint. “I agree.”
She looked at the man who was already dead, and snorted in satisfaction.
The main doors to his office, and two additional secret entrances in the wall next to Takimaru’s desk and at the far corner of the room suddenly opened. More men in combat gear and carrying assault rifles emerged.
Seeing them, Takimaru threw himself to the floor away from Motoko as the men raised their rifles.
“Shoot them! Shoot them all!” he shouted.
“Useless!” Motoko yelled as she whipped her sword about. More cuts appeared on the floor directly in front of her, and on the ceiling and wall directly behind them.
A rumble followed, before the floor and ceiling she cut into slid back and fell away, sending the three of them falling away from the building and towards the streets below. Takimaru’s guards quickly secured their boss and rushed to the hole, but when they aimed their weapons down to shoot, they only found the section Motoko cut away crashing onto the sidewalk below and kicking up a cloud of dust.
One of the soldiers turned to his boss, who was being secured by others along with Kitagami. “Boss! A helicopter is en route to take you to the airport and your jet’s already on the tarmac!”
Takimaru, gasping for breath, nodded. “Yes, yes! Get us out of here, before they come back for me, hurry!”
On the roof of the building across from Takimaru’s HQ, hiding behind an air conditioner unit, Naru pulled off her mask and checked herself for injuries. No bullet wounds to be found.
“Is everyone okay?” she asked.
“I was grazed,” Motoko replied, “It’s nothing serious.”
“I had to use one of my secret knives, that’s gonna be a bitch to replace,” Itachi said before he held up Kitagami’s hand, “Got a neat souvenir though.”
Motoko rolled her eyes. “Ugh.”
At that moment, all three could hear the helicopter that would whisk Takimaru to the airport approach. When they looked up and saw it, Motoko sniffed in annoyance.
“Of course, they’re going to try to flee,” she lamented, “Probably out of the country this time.”
“They always do,” Naru said as the helicopter descended to land.