The Way of Death

by James Von Ohlen

  Reiji’s eyes went wide inside Onryo and he was speechless for a few seconds.

  Tod stood in the center of the room, a blade held tightly in each hand. Covered in blood and surrounded by the corpses of eight Cent-Sec men and two constables. He was motionless and silent. To Reiji he barely appeared to be breathing.

  Something clicked inside the boy’s head and he looked up seeing Onryo towering in the room. He smiled and waved with both hands, gore-slicked swords still gripped tight.

  “Hi Rage!”

  Reiji was still taken aback by the whole situation. He’d rushed here to save the boy, but the boy hadn’t needed saving. Quite the opposite.

  “Tod, what happened?”

  The boy scowled as if playing the events back in his head before he answered. “These guys came in and told me I had to go with them,” he motioned to the Cent-Sec corpses littering the area around him. “Then they said I better listen to them.” He motioned to the constables. “Then they told me I couldn’t go with the girls no more. Then one of them hit me.” His brow furrowed even harder, digging deep to remember what had happened.

  “Then, uh… then I was standing here looking at them.” His eyes widened. “And they’re all dead.” He pointed around the room with the swords. “Hey Rage, where’d all the girls go?”

  THREE hours outside of Milton, Cent-Sec finally caught up to them. On a stretch of road that ascended to flat salt plains, reaching as far as Reiji could see in all directions. There would be no losing them off-road. Behind him the Milton Tesla tower loomed in the moonlight, but showed no signs of the fires raging below.

  After Reiji had fetched the boy from the whorehouse, the mixed group of soldiers and constables seemed to have sorted out who was in charge and what they should be doing. Or, at least, they all agreed that they should be cutting Reiji and Onryo into tiny pieces.

  A noble sentiment perhaps, putting down the threat in their midst. But Reiji had no interest in them until they’d attacked. Tod did as he was told, and ran to hide in a nearby alley. They never stood a chance. The fight had been short and brutal. In a few moments some thirty men were dead and several small fires had started.

  Perhaps the constables did double duty in Milton as firemen as well, Reiji mused. When he’d finally put the kid back into the APC and dismounted Onryo to take the controls and leave town, the small fires had been left unmolested. Merging into one sizable fire that was rapidly spreading in all directions.

  Half the people of the town seemed to be on the streets, screaming and running aimlessly. They looked at the APC as it passed, glaring as if they knew that Reiji had done this. Fuck you, was his thought as he saw them. A few times he shared it over the vehicle’s loud speakers to a barrage of thrown refuse and threats that ultimately amounted to nothing.

  With the town of Milton behind them, Reiji could see a column of dust rising into the moonlit air. Approaching the town from the other side. The rest of the Cent-Sec expedition, no doubt.

  The column of dust rising into the air had stayed in view the whole time Reiji drove the APC away from the town of Milton. Growing larger as the trucks beneath it grew closer. Eventually he could see them through the rear-facing camera. Five trucks in total. That meant up to one hundred men, wanting to kill him and retake their vehicle and exoskeleton.

  Outrunning them didn’t seem to be an option. The APC reported its remaining fuel range to Reiji as 150,000 km. So he could make a few laps around the planet without having to stop, but the vehicles top speed was significantly lower than that of the trucks pursuing him. They’d catch up to him in a few minutes. And then?

  Then, there would probably be a fight. He could just run their trucks over and crush them beneath the APC’s treads. But them he might damage the vehicle and be stranded. Walking through the middle of the fucking desert again.

  Reiji considered just driving along the road, as if the scores of soldiers chasing him weren’t there. A casual rude gesture out the window if they happened to make eye contact, and a refusal to stop. But that could go on for, well, forever. And if there was one thing he loved, more than money, more than pussy, more than alcohol, it was a good fight.

  With the exoskeleton, there was a good possibility that no matter how many of them there were, he would be able to crush them. And wouldn’t it be fun to find out?

  Reiji’s reverie was broken by a warning from the APC as a truck pulled up along either side. Men inside the trucks, either in the cabin or the canvas covered bed, shouted at Reiji over loud speakers.

  “Stop the vehicle and come out with your hands up.”

  Tod took a deep breath and looked at Reiji, mouth wide with excitement. The boy seemed to be doing a lot of that lately, Reiji thought. He activated the APC’s autopilot and indicated a destination five hundred kilometers straight ahead. That should give him more than enough time to deal with this.

  Seeing that he had no intention of stopping, the trucks pulled away. They maintained pace alongside the APC, but put more space in between them. Two more trucks pulled up behind them. As Reiji watched, flaps opened in the canvas cover and men with longbows took aim at the armored vehicle.

  Reiji began to laugh, and Tod laughed along with him. Surely they didn’t think they were going to stop the APC with arrows? And then he saw what was on the end of the arrows.

  Instead of arrowheads, there were shaped charges. A decidedly low-tech method of delivering them, but one that would avoid the wrath of Overlord, and likely blow the treads right off of Reiji’s ride. The first arrow was loosed and the APC swerved violently on its own to avoid the incoming explosive.

  It fell short of the mark, and detonated in the road behind them, sending chunks of salt-crusted asphalt into the air like shrapnel. Three more flew and the APC moved to avoid them again, littering the road near and behind with blossoming clouds of flame. Reiji took control of the vehicle once more, aiming to run the truck to his left off the road.

  But there was nothing off the road to impede its progress. The truck simply swerved away and maintained its distance while more explosive tipped arrows fell near the APC. A round caught the edge of the vehicle and detonated with the sound of the mother of all hammers smashing into it from the outside.

  Tod screamed and covered his ears as Reiji corrected the vehicle’s skewed course. Damage reports entered his thoughts. No serious damage, but the armor in that section was now compromised. Self-repair would take several hours. Further hits to that plate might penetrate it. And that would result in Reiji being very dead.

  He was going to have to deal with this. One way or another. Reiji issued a series of commands to the APC and turned to Tod.

  “Stay here.”

  The boy nodded in agreement as Reiji moved to the rear compartment. Onryo sat where Reiji had left the exoskeleton, in a crouching position. Reiji moved beneath the suit and pushed himself back into it, feeling the embrace of the alloyed monster as the suit closed around him. There was a moment of darkness and then a popping noise in the back of his head as the exoskeleton automatically plugged itself into his neural interface implant.

  The world came back to life around him as a thousand new senses flooded into his mind. Suddenly the back of the APC was far too small for him. Data merged into his thoughts, flowing from the both Onryo and the wireless interface with the APC. The rear door opened outward at his approach and Reiji became airborne as he leapt out.

  A lone truck was taking the rear of the convoy. The driver tried to swerve when he saw the armored behemoth flying straight towards him, but it was too late. Reiji’s feet slammed into the hood of the truck as he landed, simultaneously stabbing forward with the exoskeleton’s sword in a single handed thrust. It pierced the truck’s windshield and impaled the driver, continuing through him for nearly a meter and sinking into flesh beyond him. Instantly, the truck swerved wildly. Reiji gripped the edge of the shattered windshield with his free hand, holding himself in place as the hood of the vehicle began to give way under his weight
. Smoke began to pour out from the engine.

  The man in the copilot’s seat produced a weapon, some type of axe by the look of it, and began trying to chop at Onryo’s wrist. To sever his grip from the vehicle. Reiji lurched forwards and grabbed the man by the shirt, pulling him out and throwing him back over Onryo’s shoulder with one motion. The truck bounced as it ran over the hurled man.

  Reiji ripped his sword free from the driver, still alive but clearly on his way out. The man writhed in pain and attempted to speak through the blood flooding his lungs and mouth. Nothing intelligible came out, but he grabbed the steering wheel and jerked on it.

  Time seemed to slow in Reiji’s eyes as the truck turned violently to the left and then began to roll. He shoved himself away from the flailing vehicle and took to the air once more with a powerful thrust of his legs. Onryo landed and slipped to one knee, but was upright again in the blink of an eye.

  The truck and its crew were not so lucky. Men were ejected from the tumbling wreckage, flying through the air in seemingly random directions. Most screamed and few moved after they impacted the hard ground. One or two groaned, but none rose. A shaped charge detonated amidst the wreckage, shattering it and engulfing it in flames.

  Reiji turned to see the APC steadily moving into the distance, jerking left and right to avoid explosives lobbed at it. Onryo broke into a sprint, eating the distance between the Oni and the moving vehicles, growing closer with each stride. Reiji had hardly started breathing as though he was training when he realized how fast he was moving. Just over 100 kilometers per hour.

  As he approached, a threat-red highlight forced its way across his vision. Onryo moved to the right as an arrow passed by his chest and exploded somewhere behind him. Reiji wondered, if the arrows could damage the APC, what would they do to the exoskeleton? Best to not find out.

  Another round passed by Reiji’s head as he closed on another of the trucks. Two on each side flanked the APC. He chose the rear right vehicle for his first target. Reiji ran along the side of the truck. He reached up and grabbed a soldier that leaned out to fire an arrow at him, and throwing the unfortunate man to the ground where he rolled away in a heap of broken bones and internal bleeding.

  Not missing a step, Reiji reared back with the huge blade he carried and swung it into the side of the truck, cutting through metal and the flesh of a half dozen men alike. Onryo leapt into the bed of the truck, in among the soldiers where their weapons would be of no use to them.

  Another wide swing of the huge sword struck down five men and Reiji pulped the skull of another with a hammer-fist. An idea danced through his mind and he gripped the blade with both hands, driving the point straight down through the floor of the truck bed. There was a moment of resistance and then a mighty snap that Reiji felt up his arms, through the exoskeleton. The drive shaft of the vehicle was severed and it was, for all intents and purposes, out of the chase.

  Threat warnings flared and the few Cent-Sec soldiers that still lived in the back of the truck screamed. Reiji looked up in time to see one of the other trucks bearing down on him. It broadsided the truck he stood in at near top speed, sending him flying through the air and the disabled vehicle rolling.

  The world spun and then suddenly stopped. Pain flared through his head, and Onryo informed him that nanobots were being injected into his bloodstream to treat several broken bones. A burning sensation ran down his left arm and his head continued to spin as he rolled over onto his hands and knees. Reiji looked to his left and his right, seeing that his sword had had the common decency to land within a reasonable distance of his current position.

  He felt weak and nauseous and the wind roared in his ears as he pushed himself up to one knee. Reiji took a deep breath and felt stabbing pain in his side as he reached out for the sword. The exoskeleton’s onboard systems suggested that his ribs were cracked and he should wait until the nanobots had done their job before attempting such motions again. He ignored it and closed his hand around the grip of the Claymore.

  “That’s not going to do you much good,” a heavily distorted voice spoke to him. Accompanied by heavy footsteps that seemed to crush the very earth beneath them. Reiji turned his head towards the newcomer and, for some reason, wasn’t surprised at what he saw.

  A Cent-Sec combat exoskeleton.

  Some thirty meters or so beyond stood a single Cent-Sec truck with a crowd of soldiers gathered in front of it. There to watch to show no doubt. To see their man avenge the dead back at the warehouse and take back their property. The exoskeleton stepped closer with a hiss of hydraulics.

  It was unmodified in the manner Reiji had used to reshape his own into Onryo. There was no mistaking the shape. Cent-Sec standard issue. It was like a fat man made of steel. All bulbous shapes in contrast to the lean, stylized shape of Onryo’s Kozane.

  With a speed that caused this new foe’s shape to blur, he surged forward and kicked Onryo in the face. Men cheered as the world spun again, but Reiji didn’t lose his grip on the sword this time. He lashed out as he fell backwards, aiming to take his opponents legs out from under him. The blow was blocked with an equally huge sword, and Onryo warned Reiji against combat actions until further notice, giving extensive injuries as the reason.

  Not an option, asshole, Reiji said inside his helmet as he ground his teeth. He threw up his blade just in time to stop a blow aimed across his shoulders from the back. There was no telling if the weapon would penetrate his armor, and Reiji felt that better safe than sorry was a good modus operandi. He twisted his body, falling to the side and struck at his foe’s legs again, rolling to his feet as the blow was blocked.

  Pain screamed through his arms and ribs and Reiji had just enough time to see a massive steel fist closing on his face. The punch rocked him back on his heels and a kick to the side of his leg dropped him to his knees. Reiji choked up on the handle of his Claymore and lashed out with the pommel of the weapon, but the blow was blocked and Reiji received a solid knee to the face for his troubles.

  “This is fucking bullshit,” Reiji spit out as he looked up at the night sky, lying flat on his back. Heavy footsteps drew closer to him as his vision swam. A distorted laugh answered him.

  “How so?”

  “If you hadn’t run me over, I’d have already killed you.” Reiji spoke, feeling a slight twinge of shame. His only reason for complaining was to distract the other man, even if only for a second. But it still made him feel like he was covered in filth. Made him feel like an epic cunt. His free hand slid down to the compartments along Onryo’s waist. Another laugh from the Cent-Sec man, mocking in tone. Enjoy it while you can, motherfucker, Reiji cursed to himself.

  “That might be true. But probably not. And I did run you over, so now you’re going to die.” Reiji wasn’t sure he liked that answer. Just a little closer though, asshole, Reiji thought as his hand closed on the object he sought.

  Another step closer, to administer the coup de grace, and Reiji rolled and leapt to his feet. Drawing, activating, and striking with the projected forcefield knife in one smooth motion. Iaido, the ancestors called it.

  Reiji’s opponent roared in pain as the blade cut through his face plate and gouged out both of his eyes. The blade fell from the wounded man’s hands as he screamed and raised both hands to protect what was left of his face. Reiji pushed the man away and turned back to retrieve his Claymore. With his foe incapacitated, Reiji would pick him apart at his leisure.

  Suddenly warning signs filled his vision and he could hear the humming of a capacitor charging. The bottom of his stomach fell out as the input from Onryo told him exactly what was happening. The combat exoskeleton that his opponent wore was equipped with a functioning variable frequency laser. And it was about to be fired.

  Suicide by Overlord, and taking his enemies with him. Reiji was surprised that more people hadn’t gone this way when he thought about it. Then again, most people weren’t crazy and didn’t want to die.

  The combat exoskeleton took several quick
steps backward from Reiji to increase the distance between the two, lest Reiji strike again and disable him before he could kill them both. Another warning sounded and Reiji threw himself to the ground yet again.

  Just in time to avoid being crushed to scrap by the APC bearing down on both of them at top speed.

  The armored vehicle slammed into the Cent-Sec combat exoskeleton, knocking it to the ground and continuing over it as the suit skidded along the ground with a long, drawn out crunch. The vehicle slammed on its breaks and skidded to a halt, throwing a cloud of sand and grit into the air around it. A split second later the APC reversed direction, once again hitting the exoskeleton as it began trying upright itself. But this time, the vehicle came to rest on top of the Cent-Sec soldier.

  With the mangled war-machine wedged firmly between its treads and the hard earth below, the APC began spinning in a tight circle. Repeatedly turning completely within its own length and grinding the Cent-Sec pilot and suit into shredded waste and bloody pulp with its insurmountable weight.

  When there was nothing left of the exoskeleton and its pilot but tattered pieces of shredded metal and a crimson stain spreading into the crust of salt below, the APC stopped. Reiji looked at the mess, remembering that there were other foes about and then turned to see where the other trucks had gone. Two burned in the distance and the third, and last, was beating a hasty retreat. The door to the driver’s compartment opened with a hiss, and Tod’s head poked out.

  With a huge smile on his face he looked at Onryo before shouting.

  “I got ‘im Rage!”

  “AGAIN.”

  The old man’s voice was loud. Full of authority. The voice of a man who expected to be obeyed. Reiji hated it.

  The man’s voice made him want to cut this throat just to shut him up. But it was just one of the many things he tolerated with saint-like patience in the training hall.