Nogitsune

by Amaris Laurent

  “There’s a way out of all of this, to keep from marrying Shinji and to free yourself of your father’s control.”

  Keiko looked up and even though she knew that Yuki might have been selling her a pipe dream, she had Yuki’s undivided attention.

  Yuki sat down to compose herself, mixing being a good friend but under someone who was yakuza royalty. “Me, Ayame, and another good friend have been discussing a plan to make Kento and the rest of the Inato pay and get you out of your little arrangement. All of the yakuza’s are going to pay.”

  “Hold on! What about my father?” Keiko asked.

  Yuki stood up and went close to Keiko. From there, a spark of red appeared in Yuki’s eyes that froze Keiko. “Do you trust me?”

  Keiko nodded and blew a slight breath. “Yeah, I trust you.”

  “Then believe me when I say that your father won’t be harmed.”

  “What do you need from me?” said Keiko.

  Yuki smiled, “We need to find some assassins. Preferably women with some true muscle.”

  Keiko nodded. “Then what?”

  Yuki chuckled. “Then we’re going to incite a war.”

  SPARKING THE FLAME (炎の火花)

  A dirty, wrinkled and grizzle-bearded Robert Martin woke the next morning with Kento’s men dressed in all black three-piece suits in his room staring at him as if they were anticipating him waking up.

  “What the fuck?” said Robert.

  “Time’s up Mr. Martin,” said Daigo, one of Kento’s assassins.

  Robert tried to get up, but he nearly slipped. Luckily, his men were right there to grab him before he fell.

  “Look, look! Tell Kento to give me a little more time,” Robert panicked. “I’m waiting for my partners to come here with the money. He’ll get his money. I promise!”

  Daigo smirked. “Mr. Karahawa has already informed us that if you do not have the money then dispose of you in the most violent way possible. Truthfully, if you had the money he was going to kill you but you for running from him, it’s nothing personal it’s just the principle of the thing, you know.”

  Kento’s men grabbed Robert and dragged him from the bed. “Wait, hold on!”

  Robert knew that there was no more talking. Kento didn’t come himself, which meant they were the clean-up crew there to clean up Kento’s messes once and for all. Kento’s men put Robert on his knees and held his arms as Daigo walked toward him with his razor blade. Daigo raised the blade to strike Robert.

  Before he could, someone appeared on the bed, moaning seductively.

  When Daigo and his men turned around, Robert’s new friend, the stripper Illicit, was lying naked on the bed with her hands between her legs. Daigo and the rest of the men stared in awe as Illicit’s fingers pillaged and ravaged her body in-between the sheets.

  “Who the hell is that?” Daigo acquired.

  Before anyone could answer, Illicit disappeared and the edges of the white sheet came dashing toward one of the assassins holding Robert’s arm. After the sheet passed him, the Inato men stood still and suddenly, his head rolled off his neck and fell to the floor next to Robert.

  “Shit!” said Robert.

  “What the fuck?” said Daigo.

  The other two Inato assassins brought out their guns, circling around each other as the sheet headed towards the next assassin standing by the door. He raised his gun and began firing at it, but it was no use. The sheet wrapped him entirely inside of it. When the sheet unwrapped itself, the only thing left of the assassin was his bones charred and broken apart when they hit the ground.

  Daigo immediately took out his gun and prepared to shoot. A gentle wind blew past Daigo’s ear. He quickly turned and began firing. Robert ducked for cover.

  When Daigo turned back around, he saw his partner wrapped in the white sheet. Daigo aimed and fired at the sheet and his partner. The sheet turned crimson red and evaporated into a red vapor as Daigo’s partner fell to the ground, his body full of bullet holes.

  Daigo grabbed Robert by the arm, stood him to his feet and aimed the gun at his temple.

  “You have three seconds to show yourself bitch before I kill him,” said Daigo. “One…… Two…..”

  “Three!” whispered Illicit.

  Daigo gasped for air and dropped the gun. When he looked down, he saw Illicit’s arm sticking out through the front of his chest, holding his heart. Illicit crushed Daigo’s heart and dropped it and his body on the floor.

  Robert fell to the floor and crawled backwards. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU?”

  Illicit smiled and walked toward Robert in nothing but the blood of the assassins she took pleasure in killing.

  “Who are you?” Robert asked again.

  Illicit bent down to Robert and gently rubbed his face as her eyes began to glow.

  “Remember!”

  Instantly, visions of the crimson moon, falling from the roof, and making love to Illicit, and seeing Daiki’s death through the eyes of Illicit came flashing back to his mind.

  “Illicit!” said Robert. “It was you? You killed Daiki?”

  Illicit smiled. “And it will be me that kill Kento along with all of the rest of your enemies.”

  “When? When are you going to kill Kento?”

  “In due time,” said Illicit.

  “That fuckin’ maniac could be coming to my door right now looking for his money and you’re picking out a timeframe to kill him? Are you FUCKIN crazy?”

  “Kento’s not going to kill you. He may get someone else to do it, but he’s not going to personally risk killing an American military man on Japanese soil and bring all that attention on himself.”

  “But he killed my brother!”

  “Your brother was not military. He’s just another criminal in their eyes. You’re a decorated captain, even though you’re out of the military. Only you and they know what a scumbag you really are. Trust me, if Kento wanted to kill you, he would have done it on the roof with your brother. The money means nothing to him.”

  “So what now?”

  “Now the Queen positions itself to take the king,” said Illicit.

  ****

  Ryu Korashi loaded the clip in the AR-15 in Kento's office in downtown Shinjuku. “So how do you want to handle this Fukushima problem?”

  Kento stood looking out at the city from the stretched-out window. "If it's a war they want, then I'll give it to them. I'll bury them, their children and everything that’s associated with them.”

  “What do you think Mr. Inato will say about this?”

  “I’m beginning to lose my patience with him,” Kento responded abruptly. “My brother's dead because of these Fukushimas and he's telling me to be cool and patient? Fuck being cool.”

  Chion entered the office with a delivery man entered the door with a box.

  “Where do you want me to put this, sir?" Chion asked.

  “Asoko,” said Ryu as he pointed to Kento’s desk.

  Moments later, Kento’s phone rang with unknown caller on the screen.

  “Hello!"

  “Did you get the package that I sent you?"

  Kento snapped his finger at Chion and pointed to the package on his desk. Chion took out his metal detector to recheck and see if there were any explosives in the package. When he was finished, Chion shook his head.

  “Who is this?"

  “You don’t recognize my voice?”

  Chion opened the package and jumped back. “It’s Daigo.”

  When Kento walked over he saw the head of Daigo, the leader of his clean-up crew.

  “Robert!"

  “Surprise to hear from me?”

  Kento balled up his fist, “Indeed! I expected you to be reunited with your brother. It would appear I underestimated you.”

  “It would seem so."

  “It won’t happen again."

  “If you send any more of your men after me, you can rest assured they’ll be sent back to you in small packages."

  Kento burst out in lau
ghter. “When I find you, God himself won’t be able to protect you. This was strictly business. Now, it's personal. The 10 million that you owe me? I’m going to spend twice that much just to have you killed.”

  "FUCK YOU, DO YOU THINK I’M AFRAID OF YOU? I’LL KILL YOU AND THE WHOLE FUCKIN’ INATO FA--”

  Kento hung up the phone.

  “I want Robert Martin found and brought to me NOW,” said Kento.

  Kento answered the phone and calmly put Robert yelling like a banshee on speaker phone.

  “YOU HEAR ME, MUTHAFUCKA! I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU BITCHES. I’M GOING TO BURY YOU BITCHES WITH THAT BITCH DAIKI!”

  At those words, Kento slammed his hands on the desk of his new office. In a calm voice, trying to not sink to Robert's screeching level, he said calmly, “You...are dead. You? Your family? All...dead!”

  “WHAT THE FUCK CAN YOU DO TO ME? YOU FORGOT BITCH I’M AMERICAN.”

  Kento hung up the phone. “Ryu, find everything that you can on this gajin. His family, his friends? Anything that he values and holds dear! If he has a child, I want you to find him or her and put a bullet in their head and make sure he knows that it was me that did it.”

  Ryu nodded and quickly walked out the door.

  Kento turned to another assassin. “Chion, I want you to find this piece of gajin shit and bring him to me alive. Hire the best assassins that you need to and inform them of the yen placed on his head. An example needs to be made of him to the Fukushimas to show them what happens when you oppose us. The longer he lives, the more it makes us look weak.”

  “Don’t worry! We'll find him,” said Chion. “There aren’t too many places he can hide that the Inato family can’t find him.”

  Chion turned and began to walk out of Kento’s office.

  “Chion, if you don’t find him, everything that I was going to do to him, I'll just have to do to you. Do not fail me.”

  Chion bowed. "I won’t fail you, Mr. Karahawa!"

  ****

  Susumu Ohba had earned a reputation for himself as man who could dodge danger. As a young hood, he clocked up various convictions for assault, firearm possession, abduction, armed robbery and escape. When he grew older he moved into the drug industry, dealing in cocaine and heroin using Southeast Asian pipelines. He was rumored to be in some famous hits and was said to be a clear rival of Daiki Fukai, the more celebrated Inato assassin.

  Luck hadn’t been kind to Ohba since then. He was ousted from Inato’s rivals, the Fukushimas, but because he stayed loyal, he was given a chance to make a family of his own as long as he remained loyal to the Fukushimas.

  He was trying to escape with his girlfriend on a well-earned vacation, but only ended up getting punched in the face by Detective David Hamada as he bust the door down and slapped the handcuffs on him.

  From there, he was brought into Hamada’s precinct in Yokohama.

  David put him into the interrogation room himself as he spoke to him alone.

  “Where is he?”

  Ohba looked left to right and back. “Where’s who?”

  David slapped him clean in the face. “Don’t start that. Where’s Hideyoshi Ioka?”

  “Like I talk to him anymore. I don’t talk to anyone since I left the family.”

  A back hand slap from David came across Ohba’s face. “You deal drugs for the Fukushimas. Don’t tell me you don’t. We’ve been following you.”

  “Then why the hell am I here?”

  David took a breath. “To send a message. Just tell Ioka him to let us deal with finding his wife’s killer. If he gets involved, I won’t have any choice but to arrest him.”

  Susumu Ohba smirked.

  “Fuck that!” he whispered.

  “What was that? What the hell did you say?”

  David stood right to his shoulder. “You think you special or something? Think you can’t be touched?”

  Then, in a flash, David raised Susumu by his shirt collar and roughed him up against the wall, punching him in the kidneys. Two blows to the midsection paralyzed Susumu to the point where he went into a cradle position. However, David kept kicking him and three of his men had to stop him.

  They took him out of the room and Hayashi hugged him tight as David stopped in his tracks.

  “It’s okay!” Hayashi said. “It’s alright. I got you. Go home for the night. I’ll continue the case.”

  “I’m fine!” David bellowed.

  “I know you are. Just do it for me, okay?”

  David took a couple of breaths and just walked pass his partner.

  ****

  David Hamada returned to his home and right away, he let his anger loose. He threw his suitcase down, screamed obscenities at the top of his lungs and threw some other objects across the room. Myoko Hamada entered from downstairs to see David losing his mind and she shouted, "David, what's wrong?"

  David ignored and continued cursing in Japanese. When Myoko got close, David pushed her mistakenly. When he saw Myoko on the floor, holding onto her sprang ankle, David stopped himself. He tended to Myoko, apologizing as he lifted her off of the floor and laid her on the sofa.

  "Are you okay?" David asked.

  Myoko held to her ankle. David caressed the bruised ankle, slightly relaxing her.

  "What happened?" Myoko asked.

  "I don't want to talk about it," David responded.

  "Is this how the rest of your days are going to be? Coming home mad and pushing me down like that?"

  "Look, I'm sorry, okay?"

  Myoko touched David's chest. "I just want you to talk to me. That's all!"

  "I don't bring my work home. That's the rule!"

  "Well, from what I saw, it looked like you did."

  David put her ankle on a pillow. "I'll get you some ice."

  He went to the kitchen and took out some ice cubes. Seeing his hands and how red they had become, he crushed all the ice cubes with one hand. His mind went back to Ohba's beat-down.

  "What the hell is wrong with me?" David whispered. "Why did I lose it like that? That wasn't me...that wasn't me!"

  ****

  Kento Karahawa drove his Maybach down to the Inato Compound in Saitama upon invitation from the boss. A part of him dreaded going to the heavily-guarded fortress, but he knew that he was going to have to answer for all that had transpired in the last few weeks.

  When he arrived, there was a soldier right there to open the door for him. He got out only to find black-suited men standing by waiting and anticipating when they were called in. Some were smoking cigarettes and others just admiring the sun. All were silent, not saying anything that would draw attention to themselves.

  Like most yakuza crime families, the Inato organization was a well-oiled machine, taking its model from their rivals, the old-school Fukushimas. However, the difference laid in the fact that while the Fukushimas mostly consisted of elderly and middle-aged yakuza that should be looking at retirement, the Inato were full of young ambitious go-getting faces with no regard to rules or tradition.

  Kento Karahawa was one of the models for the brash new yakuza, proving time and again that nothing was beyond reach and no one was untouchable.

  Two Inato lieutenants approached Kento. “He wants to see you now.”

  Kento took a breath and followed the two lieutenants. His legs were shaky as he made the move forward, always thinking from the time he was inside to the time he reached the double doors leading to a conference room, he didn’t know if he was going to be bowed to or shot point-blank range.

  The two lieutenants spread their hand out and Kento Karahawa entered the conference where the other men stood except for one: Tomonubu Inato, the 60-year-old oyabun of the Inato crime family. All took one deep bow while Tomonubu nodded his head, before the men sat down.

  Hiroyuki Takayama, a 40-year-old Inato underboss, spoke. “We’re here to discuss all that has happened the past few weeks and what will happen soon.” He turned to face Kento. “Kento Karahawa! What you have done has shamed our family. Wh
at we do, we do in secret. That’s why we survive for so long. You have caused us to face another possible war. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Kento took a breath and said, “Nothing!”