The words were as genuine as the replica statues decorating either side of Harada’s office door.
“And for that, I simply must repay Harada in kind.” He made a gesture with his hand and turned to leave. The underling with his finger on the trigger twitched.
“Wait,” I said, holding my free hand up. Toyotomi turned back around. His men continued going to work on Harada’s door, slamming what looked like raid gear into it. “I have a proposition for you.”
Toyotomi crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. “A proposition? What could you possibly have that I want, son?”
I swallowed. Now or never.
“Take Harada. Let me rule over what’s left.”
He burst out laughing before he could stop himself. The man with the gun pointed at my head snickered, but kept his focus.
“I’m sorry boy, could you repeat that for me? I seem to be getting a little hard of hearing in my old age.”
I took a step towards him. The gunman twitched. I held my hand up. “Harada hasn’t been himself lately. Even you must have noticed that. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Toyotomi said nothing, but neither did he gesture for the man to shoot me. I continued.
“Take him. To be honest, I don’t think many people will miss him. He’s not the father we knew anymore. All he wants is money. Take him and leave the rest of the clan to me. They’ll follow me. You know they will. Even before Harada made me lieutenant, the men followed my orders. I have no beef with you. That was Harada. Take him. Leave the rest.”
He considered me for a moment, and then the door cracked. They were getting through. Not long now.
“Harada does appear to have taken a fall from grace lately,” Toyotomi agreed. “I assumed it was a play for a senior position within the Shimada family, what with news of Shimada’s beloved cousin taking ill recently. But I must admit, coming here I was surprised. Everything is so cold. So barren. Harada always was prone to flashy displays of gaudiness. Ever since we were children ourselves on the streets of Rakucho, he had an appreciation for the gaudy. Yet when I stepped in here tonight, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like the building itself is dead. Lacking in charm. Devoid of life.”
Another crack. Not much longer left.
“Just like you’re about to be.”
All the lights in the building went off at once, throwing us into darkness. Someone screamed from below, followed shortly thereafter by another. The temperature dropped several degrees in an instant.
“Where is he? What’s going on?”
“Don’t shoot, you idiot!”
“Sir?”
“Get that door down! Don’t stop!”
The Toyotomi argued with themselves in the dark. I stepped back slowly towards the kitchen, away from the gun, and a cold breeze washed over my skin.
“She’s here…”
33
A bullet zoomed past my head, the bang of the gun filling the air moments too late. I dropped and ran for the balcony. Screams filled the air from the lower floors, progressively getting closer. It wasn’t just Harada and myself that she was after. It was everyone. Everyone that stood in her way. There’d be no family left for me to take control of.
“Don’t let him get away!”
Too late. I burst through the door and threw myself over the railing, dropping the sword as I did so. Something snapped, like our connection severing, but I had more important things to worry about. A bullet grazed my cheek as my fingertips hung onto the edge of the balcony for dear life. Dangling several stories above the ground, I swung, hoped for the best, and let go. The impact knocked the wind from my lungs, but I landed in the same window I’d left, and thankfully, not on the ground below.
Darkness filled the room. A light flickered in the hall outside, and several soldiers from the stairs ran passed. Whether they were running to see what the commotion was, or running to get away from it, I couldn’t tell. The building had plunged into chaos. Nobody knew what they were doing anymore.
I had to reach Harada. Grabbing the door frame, I stuck my head outside and into the hall. Darkness made it impossible to see, and a body collided with me before screaming. The man scrambled to his feet and ran off in the opposite direction. The lights flickered again, and I turned my attention downstairs. My heart stopped.
She was there. On the first floor. Surrounded by dead bodies. Looking right at me.
“There he is!” Toyotomi stood by the stairs to my left. Two men ran passed him and towards me as the lights disappeared once more. A scream ripped through the building; not the boy’s mother, but a victim by the sounds of it.
“Grab him!” Toyotomi’s gruff voice commanded through the darkness.
‘C’mon, think.’ There had to be another way up to Harada’s office. The stairs were still blocked by Toyotomi and his men. They’d no doubt be keeping an eye on the kitchen now, and anything downstairs was out of the question. Not unless I wanted a quick spinal adjustment. Another scream shuddered through my bones. She was at the base of the stairs.
The stairs. Of course. Emergency stairs at the back of the building led to the corner by Harada’s office, his route of escape if things ever went south. They were meant for fires or other such emergencies, but hard to say that this didn’t qualify as one such case.
I ran down the hall, past the stairs and through the gagging swamp smell that wafted up them. Another flicker of light. She stood on the bottom steps, not quite frozen but not moving either. She seemed to vibrate, unable to keep herself tethered without great effort. Several men faced her, trembling and pale, and it hit me that not a single one of them were ours. The Toyotomi men stood unharmed. Terrified, but alive. The bodies around them were Harada men, their faces contorted in terror. Eyes wide, mouths open, the final look of fear they’d felt before death claimed them forever marked on their features.
She was only after us. She wasn’t leaving anyone alive.
I turned the corner and jumped over the numerous boxes filling the hall. The lights died and again plunged the building into darkness. That was okay. I knew where I was going. The door stood just ahead.
“Around the corner! Don’t let him escape!”
Shit. They’d seen me. I ran faster, knocking more boxes over behind me, and hit the door. I fumbled with the handle, jiggling it a few times before it finally opened. Several men were hot on my tail, with Toyotomi barking orders behind them. In the chaos, I realised that the noise upstairs had stopped. They were nearly through, so why? They couldn’t be in already, could they? No. Toyotomi wouldn’t be following me if he had Harada before him.
More screams echoed throughout the hall as I slammed the door shut behind me. No time to hang around and see why. I took the stairs two at a time, pulling myself up the railing. ‘Please be unlocked, please be unlocked.’ I grabbed the handle and jiggled. The door didn’t budge. My heart dropped.
“There he is!” The door below opened and several men barrelled out.
“Come on!” I jiggled the handle harder. Nothing. Locked from the inside, no doubt. “Dammit!” I took a step back, braced, and kicked. A crack appeared. The men turned the corner. They’d be on me in moments. Now or never. I stepped back, braced, and kicked as hard as I could. If the door didn’t open, then nothing else mattered. They’d kill me anyway.
The wood cracked and gave way. I reached through it and grabbed the handle, jumping through and slamming the door in the Toyotomi soldiers’ faces. Their screams rang out behind me as I ran down the hall. Another flicker of light. More screams. The building looked and sounded like a war zone. I turned the corner and found it empty. The men were gone, their equipment left on the ground before Harada’s office door. I jumped over it and started pounding.
“Harada! Sir! It’s me! Let me in!”
No response. The light above flickered. The door was cracked, but not open. They hadn’t gotten through. Why did they abandon their post when the job wasn’t done? The lights went off again. No time
to question.
“Sir! It’s Yotchan! You gotta let me in!”
Nothing.
“Sir! I’m alone! But I’m not gonna be for much longer if you don’t open this door!”
The men were in. Their footsteps echoed in the hall as Toyotomi barked more orders.
Something moved inside. My heart jumped into my throat.
“They’re coming!” I pounded harder on the door.
Something clicked. The door unlocked and opened to darkness beyond.
34
The barrel of a gun pointed at my face.
“…Sir?”
“She won’t leave me alone!” Harada’s hoarse voice screamed. A light flickered above, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. His hand trembled on the gun.
“Sir, what are you—”
“She’s coming!” he screamed. “Don’t you get it? She’s coming for us all! She won’t stop until every single last one of us is dead!”
The mother. Well, it was hard to argue with that, considering the present circumstances.
“Have you seen her?” I asked, my hands in the air by my head in the darkness. My eyes were beginning to adjust to it, and I could make out the faint outline of Harada pointing his shaky gun.
“She took Daichi. Right in front of me. She looked right at me. It was her, Yotchan. Do you get it? It was her! The mother!”
“I know, sir. I know. Put the gun down and let’s talk about this…”
The lights flickered again. He looked to the roof in a panic. “Talk about what? Don’t you get it? She’s coming! She’s toying with us. Playing. Oh, dear god. Yotchan, the boy. What did you do with the boy?”
I swallowed. “I took care of it, sir.” It wasn’t a lie. A half-truth at best.
“It’s gotta be the boy. She’s angry about the boy. You did this! This is all your fault! I should never have—”
He stopped and looked over my shoulder. The hair on my arms stood on end. She was there. She had to be. Another flicker of light. Harada’s eyes were as large as saucers. The gun trembled even more violently in his hand. One slip and my brains would decorate the banister.
“Sir, just put the gun—”
“Hello, brother.”
A deep voice behind me cut me off. It wasn’t the woman he was afraid of. It was Toyotomi. Harada fired, the shot ricocheting off something in the dark. I ducked and held my hands out in either direction.
“Stop! Stop!” I turned to Toyotomi. “Sir! Let me deal with this!”
“I should have killed you when I had the chance!” Harada’s voice broke and another bullet peeled past us, the sound of the gun so close to my ears that it muffled my hearing for a moment. The bright flash lit up the room for just an instant, highlighting Harada’s haggard features. The lights above flickered; once, then twice. Harada looked up and took a step back.
“No. She’s coming. She’s back again. Why won’t she stop? Why won’t she leave me alone! I didn’t do anything! I didn’t even touch her! I didn’t kill her, nor her boy!” He turned to me. “You. It’s your fault. She wants revenge for her boy. You did it. She can have you!”
He fired, but the gun merely clicked. He pulled the trigger again and again, and then screaming in frustration. Toyotomi stepped up beside me, his height almost equal to mine. It was off-putting, like standing in the presence of giants. Was this how everyone felt around me?
“Now, now. That’s no way to treat the boy. Not even he deserves that.”
Not even he? What was that supposed to mean?
“This has nothing to do with you, Akira! Leave!”
Toyotomi laughed. “Leave? Why would I do that, most beloved brother?”
“I’m not your brother.”
“That’s not what the law says.”
“I don’t care what the law says. She’s dead now. You’re nothing to me. Less than nothing.” Another empty click of the gun. Harada screamed in frustration and threw it. The gun went soaring over the balcony, accompanied by another flash of lights. It hit me that downstairs had gone quiet. Too quiet. Where was she? Where was the mother?
Toyotomi stepped into the room. “Well, your sister was everything to me. Let’s not forget why she died, hmm?” Harada fell silent. “Or did you conveniently forget to tell everyone that part.”
“Shut up.”
Toyotomi turned to me. At least, he appeared to in the darkness. It was hard to tell if he was looking at me or something behind me. “I’m guessing he conveniently forgot to tell you a lot of things, huh boy?”
“What are you talking about?” I said. Toyotomi laughed.
“You’ll figure it out one day.”
He turned back to Harada, and the lights switched on. Someone screamed.
“N-No! No!”
The mother stood in the middle of the room, water dripping from her dress and fingertips. She took a step towards Harada, and another, her body jerking at an awkward angle each time. Toyotomi took a step back, and then another. His eyes, wide, turned to me.
“G-Get away from me!” Harada fumbled behind him, picking items off his desk at random and tossing them towards the spirit. She took another step, and another, slowly closing the distance. A stapler landed on the floor before us, and papers went flying everywhere as Harada looked for something, anything, to halt her progress.
“He did it! It wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything!”
The lights went out. Harada screamed, a bloodcurdling scream that made even Toyotomi tense up beside me. He took another step back, almost tripping over something, and then an eerie silence fell over the entire building. The only sound I could hear was Toyotomi’s breathing. Not a single voice or movement in the whole compound. It was as though every person remaining in the building waited with bated breath for permission to move, hung on tenterhooks that would tear them limb from limb if they made one wrong move before they were allowed.
“What is—”
The lights came back on, and Toyotomi’s whisper was cut short. He grimaced and turned away. My eyes followed his previous line of sight and sickness rose in my stomach. A man behind us threw up.
Blood painted the walls, the roof, the floor; everything. Harada’s mangled body twisted and turned like a human Rubik’s cube, dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the room. The exact same spot the mother had died in. His head twisted back, his dead eyes wide in terror and looking right at us.
The stench of swamp invaded my nostrils once more, swirling around me and tying me to the spot. I was all that was left. Quite possibly the only Harada soldier left at all. The lights cut out with a bang before returning a few moments later. The mother stood directly in front of us.
Toyotomi screamed.
35
I ran. Down the hall, past the sword on the floor calling my name, down the stairs and through the dark corridor. Toyotomi’s men hadn’t stop screaming, but their shrill cries blended into the background.
Bodies. Bodies lay everywhere, and they were all Harada men. The lights flickered on and off like an overactive nightclub light, highlighting the blood, the twisted bodies, the looks of horror captured on their faces in their final moments. Not a single Toyotomi lay amongst them, and yet the men upstairs continued screaming. A slap and a few gruff words later, the sound stopped.
Kame’s dead, twisted body lay in the closet a few metres away. Harada’s in his office upstairs. I leapt over a body lying at the top of the stairs, the man’s fingers dug deep into Harada’s expensive wooden floors. Taking the stairs two, three steps at a time, I dodged the bodies the best I could, fighting the overwhelming urge to throw up. Ren was dead. Toshiki was dead. Everyone was dead. Not just those present at the mother’s death; everyone associated with the Harada.
Everyone but me.
I dodged bodies, alive or otherwise, and threw myself out the front door as a stray sword swung for my head. Voices screamed, and a body hung out the third-floor window, screaming and pointing, but if they thought I’d hang around to see what happe
ned next, they were sorely mistaken.
Toyotomi had won, although not by his own hand. There were no Harada left. The clan was gone. Completely wiped out in a single night. No, not even a single night. Wiped out in less than an hour. The way the spirit worked her way through the building, decimating any and all Harada without touching a single hair on a Toyotomi head wasn’t just methodical; it was cold, calculating, and now there was only one left until she’d completed her goal.
I jumped into the car and turned the key. Several men came running out of the building. The key jammed, and the engine halted several times.
“Come on! Come on!”
My hand trembled, and no amount of effort I put into calming it would stop the shaking. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and turned again. The engine started. I roared off down the street as the men ground to a halt behind me. They turned to each other and said something, pointing after me as I turned the corner.
My heart pounded, echoing in my ears. Well. What now?
I drove through the bright streets of Rakucho, my eyes nervously glancing in the rear-view mirror every few seconds. She could show up in the back seat at any moment. She’d done it before, so why not again? Spook me. Cause me to crash. Twist my spine while I hurtled full speed down the road. Make my foot push down on the accelerator. Whatever she wanted. How did one fight an angry spirit? Even the priest didn’t believe she could be dealt with. Not until she’d had her revenge.
Each building I passed, each flashing neon sign, each panhandler trying to pull customers in, they all felt so… final. If I made it home, if somehow I got away from the woman, I could never return here. Not anymore. This was now Toyotomi territory. Some new gang might rise up in time to challenge it, perhaps a conglomerate of the colour gangs once they got a little older and wiser, but Rakucho as I knew it was over for me. The town that raised me. The town that made me who I was. The only town I’d ever known. It was all over for me now. Just like that.
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