The Rising Sea

43

Ushi-Oni stood by a dilapidated building watching the helicopter leave. He would have preferred to be on it, but Han had ordered him to stay behind and had promised to arrive shortly with his payment, assuming the swords were authentic.

They’d better be authentic, Ushi-Oni thought to himself. He’d killed three policemen and half a dozen Shinto priests and monks to obtain them.

He glanced at the sword in his hand. It was the famed Honjo Masamune, if the dying monks were to be believed. Ushi-Oni wasn’t sure. He had to admit the weapon was light; in fact, it seemed to weigh almost nothing at all. And how it gleamed.

All around him was rubble, crumbling concrete and tangled vines. The clouds were growing thicker and lower as the threatened storm closed in, but the sword caught what little light was reaching them and amplified it.

Rumor had it that Masamune had worked crushed gemstones into his blades. Oni wasn’t sure, he could see nothing of the sort, and such an act would make the weapons brittle and useless for fighting, but the weapon was almost luminescent in his hand.

A rusted metal door opened behind him and Han’s lead scientist Gao poked his head out. Gao’s face had a feral quality to it. He reminded Ushi-Oni of a rodent emerging from its den.

“You need to come with me,” Gao said. “Han wants everyone inside.”

Ushi-Oni shook his head. He wasn’t fond of closed-in spaces. Time in various prisons had seen to that. Besides, he was sweating. The fever was coming back. He needed more powerful antibiotics. “You go, I’m staying out here.”

“Suit yourself,” Gao said. “But I’ll need the sword. We have to examine it in the lab.”

Instead of handing Gao the sword, Oni extended it toward the diminutive scientist, bringing the tip within an inch of Gao’s chest. “After I’ve been paid.”

Gao pulled back, putting some distance between himself and the blade. He took one more glance at Oni and then retreated into the stairwell, shutting the decaying wooden door behind him.

Oni turned to the surroundings. There was not much to see from his vantage point, only abandoned monoliths and a broken hill that had been hollowed out by the miners. Still, the ruined island begged to be explored.

Oni could smell the rain coming, but he didn’t care, it might even help quell his fever. Picking a direction at random, he crossed the open expanse where the helicopter had landed and walked out into the dark.