Blood Vengeance

CHAPTER FIFTY

Mai caught up with Hibiki near the bright sprawling Sony stand. There the sheer volume of people would make it very difficult for anyone to keep track of her. The charade with Hikaru would give her a few hours grace, no more. Hopefully the Clan were still egotistical enough to assume she would carry out their every order. If they weren’t, and they were here, she had a plan B for that too.

Mai pushed her way into the crowd. Hibiki was leaning over a PS4. “Did you get what you needed?”

Mai gave him a look.

“Sorry. Of course you did. Silly of me to ask. So it’s time to light the fire?”

Mai dragged him away from the new console and toward the exit door. “Light the fire. Call the boys. Ready the men, we’ll be going in hard, dirty and hot.”

“Sometimes I forget how much fun working with you can be.”

Mai paused as they entered the Tokyo sunshine. She dug out her phone and sent a quick text off to Gyuki.

It’s done. I will wait to hear from you.

As she started to walk away, she remembered the picture Hibiki had taken earlier, the one she wanted to tease Smyth with. She lined the message up. With her finger on the send button she suddenly paused.

Tease? Really?

No, not really. She just wanted to make his day. She felt sorry for the hot-tempered soldier and even more so now that his pal, Romero, was dead. She didn’t love Drake any less, but she was still her own woman and would do some things as she fancied.

Decision made, she hit the send button.

Job done. Hope it helps.

Hibiki walked away from her. Mai flagged down a taxi and gave the driver an area outside Tokyo to start with. Once there, she would refine the directions. Hibiki and her old friends — the guys from the agency who still cared for her and wanted to see this thing through to the very end — would be following.

Mai relaxed as the taxi negotiated the strangled roads of central Tokyo. It took over an hour to gain the countryside, and by that time she had switched off her phone and was able to immerse herself in a clear stream of thoughts, all the way down to her core.

A bitter homecoming to be sure. The fight of her life, and something she had to see through if she was ever going to break free of her bonds, both mental and physical. Memories of that far gone day still came at her like killers ambushing her in a thick jungle. Hellish memories.

The old man smiles as he comes to take me away. The generous benefactor. The predator.

I whirl, turn back to my mother and see the tears washing down from her eyes.

The old man peels me away, hands like sandpaper. I strain every ounce of my body towards my parents as I’m dragged away.

The emptiness. The longing. The new broken thing that aches inside my body. And then…

… and then — the forgetting.

The old man, Bishamon, and Gyuki in particular had to pay for the atrocities they had committed in this country, at the clan home and around the world. The innocent victims, those still living and those long dead, needed some kind of recompense.

Mai paid the taxi driver and sent him on his way. By her judgment, she was about two miles away from the village. The woods looked inviting, and Mai followed the gentle curve of a trickling brook, enjoying the dappling of sunlight on her face and the fresh scented breeze. Without dawdling, she used the journey to still the center of her being and to cleanse her soul. Her passage disturbed several animals, rabbits, mice, rats. She saw them all. Her concentration levels had never been higher.

The tree line ended up against a rough wooden fence. Beyond that, Mai saw the village as she had seen it recently, and long ago. It had barely changed, the only additions being the extra billet and the jail. She could hear the sound of chanting and assumed most of the ‘students’ were sitting around the fighting arena, watching bouts and demonstrations given by the masters. Mai touched the crude fence and pulled some stakes from the ground. She ducked through the gap, feeling the soft forest loam give beneath her shoes. She took a last look up at the clear blue skies.

This could be the last time she breathed freely. Or breathed at all. She had enjoyed the operation at the Game Show. She had enjoyed the attention. She loved the attention that Smyth gave her, and especially Drake.

Because it made her feel alive. And free.

Free. And if I lose my freedom I will find a way to die. Today.

Mai crossed the open grassland, stopping only when she came up against the second long billet. She risked a peek through a nearby window. The long hall was empty, the beds neatly made, the floors swept and washed. She could use this wall to mask her progress to the top end of the village. It might be useful to let Hibiki know her plan, but she had turned her phone off.

Never mind. He’s clever enough to figure it out. She hoped so. If not for her sake or for his, then for Chika’s.

Mai raced ahead. She reached the top end of the billet in seconds and peered around its ragged edge. The logs it was made of smelled earthy and damp. Across the way stood the small dwellings of the clan chiefs, and past them the low prison building. Almost directly ahead stood the ornate temple, Bishamon’s lair, but standing before it now was something completely new.

A thick pole, dug and hammered into the ground, and tied to it a figure wrapped in a ragged assortment of dirty clothes, head hanging and seemingly left to rot.

Mai felt a jolt of dreadful memory strike her. It was as if the clock had turned back two decades and more. The person tied to the pole could have been her, many years ago. That person, she knew from experience, had somehow insulted the Clan. Maybe they had refused orders or struck a colleague out of turn. Maybe they had not listened hard enough. Maybe, if it was a girl, they had refused Gyuki’s nightmare offer.

I will fight you for your body. Winner takes all.

Now Mai felt rage rise like molten magma. The eruption was about to hit, and it would raze this village to the ground.

She launched herself forward, taking no chances and ignoring the tied body for now. Her timing was perfect. Shouts sprang up from the fighting square, shouts which signified Hibiki’s arrival. Mai cleared the temple steps in a single bound and yanked down on the heavy door handle. She pushed and a wedge of darkness was revealed, a path to the inner demon. Mai took the invite and stepped inside, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the gloom. The wooden floor was highly polished and bordered by a square of flickering candles.

Bishamon’s voice rang out hard and cold. “Remove your shoes before entering the temple of the Tsugarai.”

“I am here for my parents. And for you too. If you want my shoes… you come and take them.”

Bishamon rose to his feet, now an old man with long straggling hair and brown wrinkled skin. Mai saw no change in his physical appearance. It was his attitude toward her that was now out in the open. Before, he had always been the kindly granddad, the accommodating benefactor.

“Then you will die today, Mai Kitano.”

“Oh, how you have changed. Oh, how my clear understanding now makes your true colors shine through. The deeds you do are steeped in evil, old Master. The Devil will judge you.”

“How dare you?” Bishamon spluttered, coming across the candlelit square. As he walked, his robes flapped around his bare scrawny ankles, and white spittle flew from his chapped lips. “History has already judged me. I am seventy years old. Did God strike me down? No. Did the Devil send his Grim Reaper? No. My boot heels grind bone when they pass through forest and dojo and city street, Mai Kitano. That is the way of masters.”

“You are no God, Bishamon. Just a pitiless, loveless, bitter old man. The world will not miss you nor ever remember you.”

“Be as it may,” Bishamon whispered. “I will have your shoes. One way… or another.”

Mai had known she would be wasting her time, but she had to try. She would not hurt this man without an offer of repentance, no matter the suffering he had sanctioned. But now that offer was past its expiration date.

“For what you did to me. For what you made me. For the childhood you stole from an eight-year-old girl. For the love you ripped from my arms forever. I give you… this.”

And she leaped like a lion, a tiger, a vengeful warrior of legend; faster than even the old master’s eye could follow. Her flying kick took her across the flickering candles, across the polished square, finishing when the toe of her lead foot smashed Bishamon’s windpipe into pulp. The old master’s hands flew up, but he was already falling, already choking, already dead.

Mai spat on his cooling corpse.

“For all the innocence you have ever destroyed. For all the pure children you have corrupted. You will never get the chance again.”

And then she turned away, tears falling like rain from her eyes. Vengeance was never pretty, and it was hardly ever fulfilling. It never achieved its purpose, never reclaimed the things you had lost. But it was all she could take, and this entire mission had been about achieving it.

She kicked over all the candles and watched the floor set alight. She turned as if in a dream and walked over to the doors. She left the temple behind, a bad memory, her past finally overcome, avenged and erased.

Outside, the scene had changed. The body was still tied to the pole, but beyond it the village arena was in uproar. Hibiki had brought the boys all right, and every one of them was tooled up to the max, fully-vested even as far as face masks, and all were aware that even one of these tricky little Ninja warriors could take out a dozen men. Guns were trained on the students and their chiefs with unwavering dedication, primed to fire, and the highly trained professionalism of the Japanese special agency shone through.

Off the books mission, my ass, Mai thought. Seeing this, it was clear that Hibiki had offered the big dogs the Tsugarai, and they had chomped off not only his hand but his entire arm. But they still couldn’t have done it without her.

Or the sad death of a father and money launderer called Hayami.

Mai’s attention receded as the body tied to the pole struggled. It was time now for Mai to confront the younger version of herself and hope this person had not been corrupted beyond saving. She moved around the pole.

“Hi. You’re safe now. It’s over.”

The face came up, clearly Japanese and covered in dirt, blood and streaks of sweat. The black hair was matted, clumpy and stuck to the sides of her face. She looked to be young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and the look of hope which totally transformed her face lifted the shackles from Mai’s heavy heart.

“What’s your name, pretty one?”

“I am Grace. It’s Grace. But—”

Mai had questions, but didn’t want to ask them here. The sooner they got the victims away from this place, the sooner they could start to heal. “We’ll talk,” she said. “Later.”

“Look out!”

The shriek saved her life, but it wasn’t just the scream, it was the raw, unadulterated terror behind it. The hammered-in mortal fear that the attacker inspired.

Gyuki came at Mai with everything he had: punching, kicking, spinning and leg-sweeping. Mai took two heavy blows in the first four seconds and found herself reaching for that calm spring inside which focused her being. What she needed was something to give Gyuki pause, to make him doubt. He truly believed, possibly correctly, that he was the world’s greatest warrior. A man like that could win with brash confidence alone, but he could be shattered to a shadow of himself if he was made to sense doubt.

Mai spun away. “Bishamon is dead,” she breathed. “What will you do now?”

Gyuki flicked a glance at the burning temple. “I will survive.”

“The outside world will not accept a man like you.”

“It will have to.”

Gyuki sprang, executing a double front-kick. Mai caught both strikes on the palms of her hands and skipped back. Gyuki came in low, spinning and sweeping, but Mai hopped over the extended leg and came down hard as it flashed by.

The sole of her boot smashed his knee, drawing out a grimace of pain. Mai grinned. “I am better than you now. The best. Haven’t you heard?”

Gyuki suddenly stopped in his tracks, surprising her. “So you have accepted the invite?”

Mai narrowed her eyes in utter confused. “What?”

“You have accepted?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This proposed tournament in the UK. It is all everyone talks about. Even the Clan received an invite. For me, of course. I will go. Some of the greatest warriors, fighters and military people on the planet are taking part. Others,” he eyed Mai speculatively, “Are not being given any choice.”

Mai shook her head in bemusement. “Assembled by who?”

“A woman.” Gyuki put two fingers to his lips and blew a kiss. “Sugary sweet, with a voice I’d like to fuck. That is all I know.”

A shot rang out in the square behind Mai. Her attention was diverted, now fearing for Hibiki and his men. Gyuki used the distraction to fly at her. She dodged, spinning twice, but missed with her follow-up. Gyuki crouched with one hand on the ground, a black viper sizing her up and waiting to strike.

Mai advanced. The roped girl, Grace, moaned as Gyuki’s eyes passed over her. It was only now that Mai noticed her bare legs and midriff. She shuddered, hoping she had made it in time.

“What do you say, Mai?” Gyuki hissed. “I’ll fight you for your body, and hers. Winner takes all.”

“This time I will take your body. And neither your bitch of a mother nor your closest cohorts will recognize its remains.”

Gyuki struck out. Mai ducked, weaved, and hit hard. She caught a nasty blow on the ear, another to the ribs. Gyuki moved in and tried to grab her waist for a throw, but his hand slipped down the seat of her leather trousers.

Unbalanced, he staggered.

Mai pounced instantly, recognizing his mistake, the only one he was ever likely to make. Four lightning-fast blows in less than a second smashed his windpipe, his right eardrum, his left eye and at least one testicle. Gyuki was out of the fight before his head hit the dirt.

The girl, Grace, goggled at Mai. “Oh God, you’re my hero. My true hero! I love you.”

“Even more than Miley?” Mai winked. She kept up with the times.

“Are you kidding? Twerking’s way out of style.”

“Or is it the camel tongue hanging down the side of her face?”

Grace laughed with high-pitched enthusiasm. “That’s it! The camel tongue!”

Mai lost her smile. “You have been abducted recently? Yes?”

“I think so.” Grace looked around at the heavy ropes entwining her body. “Can you get me down from here?”

“Sorry. Of course.” Mai pulled at the knots, wondering if the Clan had recently taken to kidnap and coercion. Branching out. That was probably the reason for the second billet. More assassins meant more money. After a moment, Grace was free and standing over Gyuki’s broken body.

“Can I kill him?”

Mai studied the girl’s eyes. “Do you want to?”

“I think so.” Grace turned to Mai, anguish in her face. “That’s wrong isn’t it? I didn’t use to have those feelings. Not before I came here.”

“How about this,” Mai spoke softly. “Could you kill him?”

Grace returned her gaze to the fallen assassin. “Yes. I could break his neck with my boot. Stab out his eyes with my fingers. Choke him up close. Strangle him with the rope he used on me. Force its knotted end down his throat until…”

“That’s enough.” Mai pulled her away. “He won’t harm anyone again. Come with me.”

With a brief check to reassure herself that Hibiki had the situation in hand, Mai led Grace over to the small wooden house where the Clan had practically imprisoned her parents.

“Sometimes things do have a happy ending,” she said with her hand on the door. “Even if it does take twenty years.”

For Mai, this homecoming had become very sweet. The things she had said to Bishamon, the words that had torn apart her heart, the undying knowledge that her innocent childhood and all the love shared between a young girl and her parents had been torn to shreds, dissipated a little now.

And, for the first time she could remember, it totally vanished as she stepped through the door and into the open, loving arms of her parents.