Carefully turning, I let out a breath, eyes prickling with relief. I’d expected to see angry red lines covered in multiple staples, maybe purpling flesh, but my shoulder looked pale and smooth, only a network of light red lines to show where she’d cut into me.
“That looks—that looks good. Right?”
“Very good. Given your gifts, the incision lines should be gone in a few days. We’re going to restore feeling, now.”
That was all the warning I got; I choked, hissed to keep from screaming when every nerve in my shoulder lit on fire. It felt like someone had drawn a dull saw across every last one of them and I gasped again, squeezed my eyes closed against the ambushing pain and felt tears spill down into my hair. Dr. Arai’s hand didn’t move. “Shhh, shhh, breathe and count.”
I choked a laugh—like I didn’t know that drill already. But counting helped and my nerves sorted themselves out, decided what was still hurting and what wasn’t there anymore. The torturing rasp became a throbbing ache and then just a feeling of tightness and heat.
“Now?”
I sighed. “Better. Mostly gone.”
She removed her hand. “That may be a poor choice of words, little miss. Sit up. Carefully.” When I did she guided my left arm through a sequence of rotations. No sudden flashes of pain, no seizing, but it didn’t feel right. Not at all.
“I had to remove significant sections of tissue from both muscles.” She probed lightly with her fingers. “Thanks to Doctor Nakada, the surviving tissues have been joined and are now nearly as strong as if they had always been together, but you will find significant weakness remains—you simply have less muscle there now than you did. I do not know enough about your particular breakthrough to predict future healing. Do you regenerate?”
“N—no.” I tried to feel the differences, shook my head. “I heal fast, but I don’t think if I lost a finger or arm I’d regrow it.”
“Then you may not recover complete strength in this shoulder, and that will affect your arm. You might be able to strengthen the remaining muscle-tissue sufficiently to compensate, but that is for a physical therapist to help you with. I look forward to seeing what you do with it.”
I swallowed, forcing myself to be optimistic. “Thank you.” Muscle mass has nothing to do with what we are. Atlas had once told me that, but it wasn’t quite true; my physical muscles still shaped the expression of my superhuman strength somehow—one of those mysteries Dr. Beth was forever going on about. I could feel the difference, even without trying to push my limits. “Do I need to be careful for now?”
“We do not need to immobilize or support your shoulder, no. But go lightly, Hikari-san. I know enough about fighting to say that it will throw your movements off, fool your physical reflexes until you relearn the balance of your body’s strength.” She finally gave me a full smile. “I have practiced superhuman medicine for seven years, so I won’t tell you not to fight. But yes, be careful.”
I could do that. At least, I could confidently say that I had no intention of trying to go out and arm-wrestle an insane godfish.
Chapter Twenty Five
“Japanese society applies tremendous pressure on its people to ‘conform and perform.’ Social harmony is vital, for families, for organizations, and for the nation. This creates powerful social cohesion and strength, but at the cost of enormous psychological strain. It is, therefore, no wonder that Japan has the highest breakthrough-to-population ratio of any developed nation. It is also no wonder that a disproportionate number of these breakthroughs are ‘dark breakthroughs,’ destructive manifestations of complete psychotic breaks.”
Dr. Mendel, Cultural Stressors and Breakthrough Phenomena.
* * *
Agent Inoue’s solution to the issue of our legality, which he explained as we made our way from the infirmary level to his office, was laughably simple; Defensenet had registered us as “attached consultants.” It was exactly the designation given to foreign capes who came to Japan legally to work with Defensenet in some vital capacity. Mostly it was for training, but sometimes to provide a unique power or skill set.
So after all that, the magical disguises, the stealth entry and re-entry, the sneaking and the hiding, we were legal. All they did was check a box for the unknown but provisionally trusted mystery man category. They had a box for it. Easy? You bet—it was just that we were the first “hypothetically Japanese citizens” the category had ever been applied to. It was insane; we were criminal trespassers, they knew it, but they needed us and so we weren’t because if we were they couldn’t work with us. And when it came to superhumans, Defensenet was the Law and the Government.
It made my head hurt.
None of it meant I was suddenly popular; Agent Inoue was obviously keeping what he thought he knew about us compartmentalized, which meant to everyone else in Defensenet Shinjuku I was still a ronin. Back in costume, the most tatted-up yakuza thug, carrying holstered autopistols and spitting on the carpet, couldn’t have stood out more than I did in my magical-girl-in-black coat and shades. Outside of the guards and medical staff, base workers visibly shrank away from me. Me, little miss pixie.
I wondered what they’d think of Riptide.
I knew what he’d think of them—he’d have loved to go three rounds with Kaminari, the looming leader of the Eight Excellent Protectors, except that the Latino ex gangbanger had been raised not to hit girls. The first words out of her mouth when she met us in Agent Inoue’s office were “We speak of duty as Americans speak of liberty. It is the great virtue of our people.”
That was her response to my polite “It is an honor to meet you.” I honestly didn’t know what to say to that, but Agent Inoue went on with introductions as if Kaminari hadn’t just verbally spat in my face.
“Hikari-san and her friends have agreed to assist us in recovering our lost asset, Kaminari-san,” he explained calmly. “In return we have agreed to treat them as colleagues until our business is concluded, and to refrain from holding past crimes against them so long as they refrain from future unsanctioned activities.”
On our way up to his office he had informed me that the Three Remarkable Ronin were teaming up with the Eight. Why not the Nine? Or a mission-mix of both? No idea, but then I still didn’t understand why Japan’s two biggest and most iconic national teams were girls’ and boys’ teams.
Now Kaminari measured me from head to toe with obvious disbelief. “And they can help us?”
The knife-sharp pleats in her skirt and creases in her uniform jacket had told me something about her before she’d opened her mouth, and she’d stepped close enough that having to look up at her made my head hurt worse. I’d already had enough from Miss Tall and Angry.
I shrugged. “No we cannot, Kaminari-san. I am a liar grasping at straws and promising anything I can think of to win my freedom. If you want to take shots at me, then shut up and fight like a girl.”
You arrogant sailor-suited crapweasel.
The vein in her forehead stood out like it was about to explode but Agent Inoue just smiled, obviously amused. “Do you question my intelligence, Kaminari-san?”
She smoothed her face, but didn’t back down. “Perhaps I question your desperation, sir.”
Good answer. Maybe her disgust was personal? They’d missed us in Shibushi—we’d walked right by them that first morning in Japan, and that had to sting. I sighed and dialed it back; who knew that my inner bitch sounded a lot like Megan?
“I apologize, Kaminari-san.” I even gave her a bow. “In honesty, if we can assist you at all then it is through recent circumstance and by nothing special that we ourselves can do.”
Agent Inoue smiled and shook his head. “You are too modest, Hikari-san. The Three Remarkable Ronin sought and found our asset where we could not. Together, I am sure that we can find him again.” His gaze nailed Kaminari and she looked like she was sucking on something sour, but she nodded.
“Then our first move?” she asked me directly.
“Go pi
ck up a sword and look for a door? Bring your team’s onmiyoji.”
* * *
Meeting us in the garage, the Eight Excellent Protector’s onmiyoji turned out to be a stereotype—a wisp of a woman with less to her than I had going for me but stretched out with more height. She wore thick bifocal glasses, carried a big magic book everywhere, and looked like a stiff wind would blow her away if she let go of the book.
Which was kind of appropriate since her superhero codename was Kochi.
“The names of the Eight Excellent Protectors,” Shell whispered in my earbug, “are Kaminari, Kochi, Seifu, Kitakaze, Minamikaze, Raitoningu, Taifu, and Arashi. They mean thunder, the east, west, north, and south winds, lightning, typhoon, and storm. Someone has obviously been stretching for atmospheric symbolism, and none of their names have anything to do with their powers.”
We exchanged greeting bows. “What kind of gun do you use, Kochi-san?”
“I’m sorry?” She blinked at me from behind her thick lenses. Which I noticed were secured to her head by an athlete’s strap.
“I can smell the gunpowder.” I tapped my nose, sniffed lightly to demonstrate. “Either you shoot one every day or stand beside someone who does.”
Kaminari scowled behind her, but Kochi actually laughed. Then she opened her thick doorstopper of a book and showed that the last couple of inches of “pages” hid a holster pocket. I didn’t recognize the make of the sleek black pistol inside, but the intricately carved symbols that covered it shouted that its purpose was shooting interesting targets.
“For when there is no time for writing spells.” She let me lean over and properly admire it.
I had to ask. “Charmed bullets?”
“Of course. And jade or silver rounds, blessed.” She was a regular pistol-packing ghost hunter and her smile was a boast of its own. “You did a very good job in Tenkawa.”
“Jacky and Ozma are going to love her,” Shell whispered, and I had to agree.
Kochi flew (riding her book) but Kaminari rode with Agent Inoue and me in Defensenet’s own variation of an aircar. I didn’t recognize the ultra-light material, but the quadcopter design with its four containing rings was something we were seeing more of back home. Our ride returned us to Golden Gai in minutes.
It was a ride I’d have rather not taken; Kaminari’s frozen disapproval was bad enough that I’d have flown myself if she hadn’t made it clear I was riding in the quadcopter with them—but the view of Golden Gai was worse. It wasn’t there anymore.
“No one was killed?” I asked, looking down as we circled in to land beside the crater. I’d been told the answer already, but seeing the damage in the light of day made it impossible to believe. The pocket-neighborhood of tiny buildings and narrow alleys had been devastated; Raiju’s transcendently explosive death really had flattened half the place. It should have set the rest of it on fire.
When Kaminari didn’t answer Agent Inoue cleared his throat. “Defensenet monitors on the area saw you go in hard. It’s standard procedure to evacuate an area when a fight between unknown superhumans begins. Also, when an obviously self-destructing Raiju emerged from the gate, Kaminari ordered the teams’ force-manipulators to erect containment walls. Most of the force of the explosion was channeled down and up.”
That explained the deepness of the crater and the mostly intact buildings beginning at its rim. If they hadn’t been there… Fighting the sudden urge to vomit for the second time in one morning made me dizzy.
Raiju had been dying because we’d killed him, because we had gone in after Ozma without knowing what we would be facing. We’d gone into a hot situation, against breakthroughs of unknown power, in the middle of an unsecured zone full of innocent bystanders.
If Defensenet hadn’t done our job, dozens could have died. Atlas would have been ashamed of me. I was ashamed of me. Blackstone would be when he heard—they’d taught me better than that.
Shell didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
We landed by the crater rim, the four foils kicking up a cloud of concrete dust from the shattered foundations. Wind and rain hadn’t had enough time to cleanse the site, and crews already worked in the dust to tear down the broken but still standing structures that ringed the crater. A unit of looming three heavy mecha and ten tinman suits who reminded me of Littleton’s Cerberus unit guarded the crater perimeter. Were the tinmen Ajax-Type breakthroughs, or was the armor fully powered? The tinman with the fanciest shoulder flashes stepped away from the shade provided by one of the heavy mecha and saluted us—Kaminari, really—as we got out.
“The perimeter is secure, ma’am,” he informed us through his suit speakers. “We have not seen the ronin Base informed us would be arriving.”
“They weren’t watching hard enough,” Jacky stepped out of the same shadow, Ozma behind her. The officer’s face was hidden by his helmet, but his whole body twitched and a cluster of red targeting laser points spotted my friend’s black-clad forms.
“Hey—” Before I could finish my protest the red dots were gone.
“Great fireteam discipline,” Shell whispered. They could probably give the Scoobies in Camp Necessity a good fight.
Kaminari ignored Jacky. “Has anything happened in the crater?”
“No ma’am. Crews stopped trying to remove the sword before dawn, and the gate has remained quiet.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected there to be any danger, but if they’d posted three heavy mecha here to watch it then they were treating the gate like it was the potential beachhead of an invading army. But then again, maybe they had reason to.
Post-Event Japan had been through a rough time. Being just across the sea from China didn’t help things (although that really was getting better); but the Japanese Islands were still basically under siege from the Kaiju Plague—the Godzilla Plague until different types started showing up. Tokyo Bay was now protected behind massive sea walls and weapon emplacements, but the nation had responded to the threat by also drafting every known Japanese Verne-Type breakthrough into national service to build the “mechanized forces.” Mecha, from the powered armor teams to the fifteen-foot tall Street Mecha, were designed to fight kaiju—but they also came in handy against unique and sometimes horrific breakthrough manifestations.
They’d had more than one awful experience with “gate intrusions,” too, and being the first line around a site like this was as much part of their job as backing up Defensenet capes.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll go recover my sword, then. Kimiko-san?” I turned to Ozma. “If you could speak with Kochi-san about our experiences on the other side, they want our help recovering someone we are both interested in.”
Ozma stepped into my vacated spot, giving Kochi a bow. Standing together, if I ignored the military schoolgirl uniform and black coat and shades then they looked like a prim librarian and respectful student. If the student had close to a century of life on the librarian…
Kaminari and Jacky followed me, none of us speaking as we stepped and slid down the cracked and dusty slope of the crater. We could have flown, but I was totally conscious of a now-invisible gate somewhere over our heads where the shop’s second-floor room had been. Cutter had stayed right where I’d left him, but the rock around him had been fractured even more—evidence of where superhumans and machines had sought leverage trying to unsheathe him from the earth. I pulled him from the ground in one smooth draw, using the motion to swing him through a series of one and two-handed arcs to test my shoulder.
He didn’t say anything, but he hummed in my hands and when I reached back to put him away he twitched and positioned himself for a snug slide into the sheath. He made me look much better at handling him than I was, and I hid my smile even as I flexed my tight and weakened muscles.
Wearing the Cape 5: Ronin Games Page 24