Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars

by Melisse Aires

  Ow, my head! The concussion I sustained in the stairwell is even worse now. My brain refuses to communicate with the rest of my body. Not now. Not now!

  Matsuda crouches down next to me and laughs.

  “Crazy girl. Do you think you can just get up and walk away from me? You think those nogiku tattoos make you stronger? You may be wild, but I…” He stands and kicks me solidly in the back sending me sprawling out on the floor. “I have captured you.”

  My side erupts in a deep, blinding pain. He aimed right for my kidney, the bastard, and I can’t catch my breath. Can’t move. I’m close to vomiting between the pain and the blood all over my hands and knees from those men and women killed around me.

  “If Taira didn’t want you dead, I’d take you for myself to get back at Jiro.”

  He lunges forward and grabs me by my hair, pulling the bun out and yanking me by the ponytail. If I thought the kidney pain was bad this is worse. If he pulls any harder my scalp is going to come off.

  “Let go of me!” I smack at his hand but he jerks my head. “Jiro!”

  “I sent six men after him. He’s not coming for you.”

  I’m all alone.

  I try to get myself up off the ground so he’s not dragging me, but the pain in my head and my back is bringing tears to my eyes, and I let out a sob that makes me sick inside.

  “That’s right. Cry, little girl. You’re no empress.”

  This is it, my last chance. I have to get away, have to free myself from him before he hands me over to Miura. I’m certain he’s means it when he says he’s going to kill me. I should have known Taira would act first. I never even saw Miura tonight. He stayed away on purpose.

  The only good thing about Matsuda dragging me by my hair is my hands are free. I try to block out the pain radiating through my scalp, reach into my obi, and draw out the dagger Jiro gave me. Act fast, Sanaa. I can’t stab Matsuda because he may not let go and then I’ll be no better off than I was before I had the knife in my hand.

  Quickly, I reach up and, with two swipes, I cut my hair off, releasing me from the agony pulsing through my head. Matsuda looks down at his hand full of my hair, and, taking advantage of his stunned pause, I dive forward and thrust the knife into his abdomen.

  I am no longer afraid of killing. I look him directly in the eye as I shove harder and drag the knife through his insides. It’s the only way I can guarantee he’ll never touch me or anyone I love again.

  My hands and kimono are covered in blood, and Matsuda falls to his knees as I step back. Even now as he sits dying, I hate him for everything, for killing my parents, for making this a war it should never have been.

  “You killed my parents, and now I kill you, Tadao. Justice.”

  He underestimated me. He won’t be the last.

  Even as the last bit of life fades from his eyes, Matsuda laughs. “Justice. How about some mercy, Sanaa? Finish it.”

  Drooping forward, he coughs blood and reveals the katana on his back that he didn’t draw even once because he didn’t believe I could fight.

  With a shaky step to him, I reach out, grab the sword, and raise it high.

  “Here’s your mercy.”

  I bring the blade down squarely on his neck then turn to stop myself from watching his head roll away on the carpet.

  Footsteps echo from the back stairs behind me, and Sakai and Usagi step into the doorway, stopped in shock. They are both bloody and panting. Sakai took a hit to his face, and his arm is wounded. Usagi’s right eye is swollen.

  If Matsuda were not dead at my feet with his sword in my hands, they would surely think I was dying from the amount of blood on me. I drop the sword and try to walk towards them, but my legs won’t cooperate. The adrenaline is gone, and my body feels free to panic. I make it two steps before the black descends upon me.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Five

  I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious, but clawing myself up out of the black is difficult, so I must have been under for some time. Voices around me waver, distorted by the pain in my head. Cool air is filling my lungs. My arms are airy and cold too, and, when I shift, I can feel needles in them. My eyes open and blink but the light is too bright for them to focus.

  Sakai’s face shimmers in the glow of a hospital lamp over me. “Stay still. You have kidney damage and a concussion. No surgery but you’ll need time to heal.” His warm hand comes down on mine, and I sigh. His friendly touch is grounding. I’m so cold my teeth are chattering, and my body is shaking.

  “What… what happened?” I try to swallow but my throat and tongue are completely dry. “Where’s Jiro?”

  A tear escapes my eye before I even know I’m crying, but once I start I’m unable to stop them from flowing.

  “Shhh, he’s okay. Seriously, Sanaa. He came through completely in one-piece. Four stitches in his arm. That’s it.”

  He’s relieved for a second, but the sadness and worry return quickly to his face. Whatever he has to tell me, the news is bad.

  “Mark?”

  “We lost…” His voice breaks. Oh no. “Koichi and a few other men.”

  My body seizes up, and I squeeze his hand so hard I think I’ll break his fingers.

  “Koichi. How?” I’ll never see Koichi’s smile again. Never fight with him again. Never laugh at his jokes again. I remember the way Koichi and Mariko called each other “love” and how Jiro calls me that now, and I want to die. How will I ever face Mariko? She’ll never forgive me.

  “Matsuda. Oh Sanaa,” he says as he grabs my hand and presses it to his mouth, “I’m glad you killed him.”

  I shake my head. No. It wasn’t enough.

  “Mark, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry!” I shout it. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was here! I’m sorry I caused this! I’m sorry I didn’t kill Matsuda before he killed Koichi!”

  The machines hooked up to me are beeping and screeching. I hear the pounding of footsteps entering my room as Sakai is pushed aside by Ku 2 personnel. Ignoring the chaos, I try to remove the IV from my arm. I want out. Want to be away. Time to run.

  Sakai tries to hold me down. “Don’t Sanaa.”

  A nurse rushes over from the dark, and my world is black again.

  * * * *

  I shift through a fog of voices and movement but stay asleep for what feels like months. It doesn’t matter because I don’t care. I just want to see Jiro again, hold him, and tell him I’m so sorry for everything. Nothing I say will bring back Koichi, but I want to do it nonetheless.

  Finally, when I awake, my head is foggy with sleep, but, within a heartbeat, I freeze still. Something is wrong with my room. Last time I was conscious, I was in a hospital, and I am not there anymore. I hold my breath long enough to hear nothing but complete silence. Blinking my eyes does not remove me from this strange place. Unfortunately, this is not a dream.

  My neck is so stiff I can barely move my head. Lifting my arms, faint bruises dot the inside of my elbows where the IVs were. When I rub my face and search the top of my head, my hair is still gone. No one has touched it since the fight, and it’s a ragged mess. Great. I’m sure I look fantastic.

  Cautiously rising from the bed, I clutch at my ribs where Matsuda kicked me. Ow, that hurts. I lift my shirt and all along my side and lower back is a purple and green bruise so large it makes me sick just looking at it. I bet it compliments my tattoos nicely. Ow! No laughing, Sanaa. How can I have a sense of humor right now? Sometimes I worry about myself.

  A quick glance around reveals a plain room: nothing but four walls, some automated dresser drawers, a door, and the bed which I am currently sitting on. This place is too bright, clean, and orderly.

  Wait, definitely too bright.

  A thin, wide, rectangular window over the bed is letting light into the room. Light from outside. I haven’t seen daylight since my trip to Ku 10.

  I get up to look out the window, but I’m a hair too short even standing on the bed. Wow, the ceilings are high here. The wal
ls couldn’t be more than 2.5 meters tall in my apartment, but here they are over three.

  Ow, ow, ow. Stop standing, Sanaa.

  “Hello?” No response. “Sumimasen! Dare ga imasu ka?” Still nothing.

  What now? Without a terminal on the wall and no one to ask, I will have to investigate. I walk to the door but hesitate. I have little in the way of clothes on. In the dresser are plain sweaters, shirts, pants, undergarments, and socks. Another drawer contains slippers. I grab a sweater and a pair of pants and pull them on slowly, carefully. Everything hurts.

  I move back to the door and take a deep breath. I don’t think I’m in danger — the last person I recognized was Sakai — yet the idea of opening the door and going outside is paralyzing. I’ve been through too much lately, and now I’m paranoid.

  My hand hovers over the handle, but I open the door quickly and breathe a sigh of relief. In front of me is a hallway with two doors along its length and an auto-hamper along the opposite wall. At the end of the hallway is an arch leading to an open room. I open each of the doors and find another empty bedroom and a bathroom.

  The light coming from the open room is blinding, so bright my head hurts and my eyes water. I stumble into the wall, unable get my bearings before continuing. I have spent the majority of my life under artificial lamps, and this is overwhelming, especially with my brain banging away in my skull.

  “Where am I?” I say aloud. The giant picture window in the main room answers me.

  The view reveals a high, rock mountain overlooking desert as far as I can see, rolling, long dunes in every direction but the cliff this house is embedded into. Terrifying blue sky looms over the ochre sand with the sun perched directly overhead. Weakness and confusion bring me to my knees, the pain of my healing injuries forgotten as I try to piece together my current situation.

  I’m alone, I could be anywhere within the Dead Belt, and I have no idea how I got here.

  * * * *

  As I sit here on my knees and look out this window, the only thought in my head is, “Mark Sakai, you are a dead man.”

  Ping!

  Wait a second, what was that? Is there a tablet in here? I tear my eyes from the window, and on the table behind me is a tablet I walked straight past.

  When I pick the device up, a faint lightning bolt symbol illuminates on the table’s surface indicating a charge point identical to the kitchen, coffee, and bedside tables at home. Who knows how long the tablet’s been sitting here at full charge pinging and waiting for me. I take it out of sleep mode and one message is sitting in the inbox. The Nishikyō Net is unavailable so I have no other access to anything.

  The message is from Sakai:

  “Sanaa, please don’t be angry with me. I know you must want to kill me right now, and I don’t blame you. I’ve brought you here to protect you while Jiro, Usagi, and I work our way through the Taira ranks and flush out everyone responsible for the attack at the theater. I can’t keep you safe at home right now, so this place will have to do. You will need to be patient with us. I hope the process won’t take long, but I won’t rest until they are taken care of.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t leave anyone here with you. This house is only designed for short stays. There’s not enough storage space for food for two people, and really, I need every spare person here to help. I know how angry it’s going to make you. I’m sorry, again. So there is food in the refrigerator and freezer, enough to last a month, and books and music on the tablet to get you through. I won’t be able to communicate with you until we can retrieve you so please be careful and take care of yourself.

  “Jiro misses you…”

  Gods damn you, Mark Sakai! How can you do this to me? How can you drop me in the middle of the desert, alone, and leave me a message that Jiro misses me? I am going to punch you in the face next time I see you.

  With a deep breath, I pick up the tablet from where I just tossed it on the table and am, once again, thankful these things can survive anything.

  “Jiro misses you, as do Beni, Mariko, and I. Your aunts are fine too as is the rest of the family. Please don’t think any of this is your fault. It’s not. So much of this is history, history of anger between our clans. Taira was always the volatile one. Maybe once they’re subdued, we can live on in peace.

  “We’ll be back for you soon. Rest and recuperate. We still have a long way to go together.

  “I love you. Mark.”

  I sit down at the table and stare out the window.

  Dammit, Mark. You had to go and tell me in print that you love me. Now I can’t be mad at you anymore.

  I sigh and put my head down on my arms.

  Oh Mark, I hate to admit it right now, but I love you, too.

  END BOOK ONE

  Thank You!

  Thank you so much for reading REMOVED. I hope you enjoyed your time in Nishikyō with Sanaa and Jiro.

  You can buy the next book in the Nogiku Series, RELEASED, right now! http://www.spajonas.com/released

  And don’t forget the first Nogiku Series Short Story, REVEALED Part One: New Year’s Eve with Jiro and Mark! http://www.spajonas.com/revealed/

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  This is the first book in the Nogiku Series. You can learn more about this series and my other works of fiction at http://www.spajonas.com

  Thank you for reading!

  A Note About Honorific Suffixes

  In Japanese, the most common way of showing respect to another person’s social standing is with the use of honorific suffixes that are appended on the end of either first or last names. The most common, -san, means either Mr., Ms., or Mrs. When you are addressing someone who is higher in the chain of command than yourself (i.e. your boss or high elected officials deserving of respect) you should use the suffix -sama. When addressing friends or schoolmates, it’s popular to use -chan or -ko for girls (sometimes cutting their first name down to one syllable before appending the suffix) and -chan or -kun for boys.

  It’s important to note that you should never use a suffix on your own name. If you’re introducing yourself, do not call yourself ex. David-san or Smith-san. Just David or David Smith will do.

  The Structure of Nishikyō

  By the time Sanaa’s story takes place, Nishikyō has been around for 350 years already. Built in the northern wilderness of remote Canada, it was conceived to house the last of Earth’s residents after the Environmental Decline. Japan, always technologically advanced and ready for any natural catastrophe, fared the best of every nation on the planet hence the population of Nishikyō is seventy percent Japanese.

  The city is domed for normal habitats due to the heat and decline of atmosphere on Earth, though every ward has distinct buildings to house the residents. Nishikyō has both above-ground and below-ground structures.

  Nishikyō is shaped like a clock with Ku 1 directly north at the top, Ku 2, the Medical Services Ward, at the center, and the rest of the city laid out around Ku 2 clockwise. Ku 8, the Extinction Ward, and Ku 10, the Farming Ward, both spiral out from the city farther into the desert than any of the other wards. Most wards are linked by footpaths and street tunnels but the transitway is the easiest way to get anywhere in the city.

  Nishikyō is divided into ten wards or kus.

  Ku 1 - Administration & Business Ward: This is where all governmental work is done.

  Ku 2 - Medical Services Ward: This ward is solely dedicated to Medical and Pharmaceutical services. Geographically, it’s in the center of the city so that it can be easily reached in an emergency.

  Ku 3 - Multicultu
ral Mix Living Quarters: This ward contains the majority of the Middle East, India, Russia, China, and its surrounding countries’ refugees.

  Ku 4 - Multicultural Mix Living Quarters: This ward contains the majority of European, Australian, African, and surrounding island nation refugees.

  Ku 5 - Multicultural Mix Living Quarters: This is the ward in which Sanaa grew up. Like Kus 3 and 4, it is a mix of residential and businesses and contains the majority of North and South American refugees as well as a high Japanese population since it’s located directly next to Ku 6.

  Ku 6 - Japanese Living Quarters:This is where Jiro grew up, where the Itōfamily dōjō is located, and where most of the story takes place.

  Ku 7 - Entertainment Ward: Izakaya Tanaka is located here as are most movie theaters, gaming establishments, love hotels, restaurants, and okiyas.

  Ku 8 - Extinction Ward: This is where most research is done on plants, animals, and artifacts that have been cataloged and saved after the Environmental Decline. There are no living quarters in Ku 8.

  Ku 9 - Science & Engineering Ward: This is where Sanaa lives when the story first begins. It is solely dedicated to Science and Engineering advances, most especially the colonization of Yūsei.

  Ku 10 - Farming Ward:By far the largest of all the wards, Ku 10 provides food, beverages, and the majority of textiles to Nishikyō residents. All growing, processing, and distribution of these materials originates here. There are no living quarters in Ku 10.

  Glossary

  Since Nishikyō is seventy percent Japanese, most of the people speak Japanese as part of their daily life whether they are Japanese or not. It was important, therefore, to keep some of the dialogue Japanese without explaining too much and interrupting the story. Below, you’ll find a list of terms and phrases that are used in this book.