MORIKO HANZO POV:
Later that afternoon, after I made my way home to recover from the incident with Ms. Takeda at the hospital…
I'm lying in bed, finally starting to feel comfortable…
When I suddenly get a text on my private "work" phone:
"WE NEED TO TALK."
I can't believe the nerve of that guy…
He gives me the cold shoulder for days, and this is the first message he sends me?
Not like I can decline…but I sure can take as long as I need to get ready~
I need a shower to cool off.
I was trained to fight, and to kill…but handling my emotions was another story.
Some days I can barely breathe. Like the whole world starts to close in on me, and the reality I keep trying to brush aside and deny sets in:
Hiro…might not be coming back.
He could very well never wake up from his coma…and I'll just have to deal with it.
I scroll through our old text sometimes. I used to bully and tease him a lot, but I hope he never took it seriously, or doubted for a second that I really loved him.
It hasn't been easy, but something's still keeping me going.
My bathroom and shower is a mess. My room…the whole apartment is a disaster.
But who cares? It's not like a secret assassin working under the thumb of a crime boss receives many visitors anyway. Only Hiro used to scold me about keeping the place tidy.
After I'm done in the shower, I head into the kitchen with just a towel on, where I'm greeted by a sink full of dirty dishes and countertops cluttered with beer cans. Yeah, a real shithole. The whole concept of entropy and I are practically roomies at this point, and that probably isn't going to change anytime soon.
I proceed to scrounge like the hungry racoon that I am, finding some leftovers in the fridge next to a moldy loaf of bread and a bottle of kimchi:
Two-day-old takeout noodles covered in cling wrap? Yummy! I can't wait to dig in…
I'm really fucking hungry, though, so it'll have to do. And there's a few cans of beer left in the door, so I grab one of those too…
I'm flat broke.
Haven't been working, which means I haven't been earning.
But I guess I should be grateful that Mr. Takeda is only giving me the cold shoulder, and not actively hiring someone to kill—
As I slam the fridge door shut, my newly acquired bounty in hand, I immediately freeze:
Someone...is standing in the middle of my pathetically small excuse for a living room, right between me and the front door.
I've never been to a kabuki play before…but I know one of the costumes when I see it.
Either that, or the Yuki-onna is no longer strictly confined to snowy mountaintops: he's wearing a pure white kimono, with trailing dark hair and a painted-on, sorrow-filled frown—exactly like the old lady ghost of legend. But I can smell charcoal…which I've heard the traditional actors would use to dye their skin so pale.
"Hanzo," the man behind the mask says, drawing a small blade from his sash: a wakizashi, more wieldy than a long blade in close-quarters.
Sigh. I'm gonna need both of my hands to deal with this.
I lose my grip on my towel with my elbow…letting it fall to the floor…
He lunges at me, before I can even empty my hands of what I had managed to cobble together for lunch—
I leap back, to dodge his first attack. Then he raises his arm, preparing another slash but—
Thinking fast, I throw the can of beer—straight into his face!
He reflexively raises his elbow to block it, allowing me enough of an opening to free my other hand of the noodles by placing it on a counter near me.
Whew.
Okay, so now the food is safe....which means I can FIGHT.
We're trading blows: I weave around the reckless swings of his blade, delivering punches and kicks and knee jabs wherever an opening presents itself. Moving like water, as they say.
Right away, it's clear that my opponent is severely outmatched.
He fights without any precision or intent, flailing around like he's mirroring something he saw in one of those cheesy kung fu movies.
I keep up with my dodges until my back is to the sink; cornered against the wall, with little room to maneuver. He moves in for a stab...but I sidestep and duck it, making full use of my small stature to grab his arm that's holding the sword, to clumsily wave it around like a blunt instrument. And then, incorporating the momentum of his move forward, I'm able to turn him around so that the positions are reversed: my back now facing the front door, with wakizashi in hand…and HIM being the one that is unarmed, boxed into the kitchen.
I point the blade's edge toward him...impatient. "Alright…now talk. I'm hungry."
He holds his hands up slowly, in surrender, speaking with a dramatic flair. "You dispatched me so swiftly; without even having to employ your manifestation."
I scoff at his imprudence, finally able to relax a bit. "Oh, please. I don't need to bloody my claws on an amateur like you." I shake my head, sighing—with disappointment, more than anything. "The fact that someone as inexperienced as you would be sent to take care of me is downright insulting!" I glance at the stolen wakizashi in my hand, turning it about to examine it. In doing so, quickly coming to the realization that—
"This thing is...fake?!" I blurted, feeling cheated somehow, throwing it aside then promptly directing my anger onto the playacting assassin as I grabbed him by his collar and shook him. "Then what the Hell was the point of this?"
He slumps to his knees, then, as I let him go from my grasp...laughing under his breath.
"What's so funny?" I ask, taking a cautious step back from him.
I watch as his laughter dies and he slowly opens his haori, gasping when I see it—
Something mechanical, with blinking lights. Strapped to his bare chest.
I damn well know a bomb when I see one!
"It was a test," he says. "And you have passed...Moriko Hanzo."
Luckily, my Inu reflexes are with me: I turn, sprint across the living room and dive out through the window, falling—hard—against the stone wall lining the outside walkway in a hail of glass; barely avoiding being turned to charred ribs by the fiery explosion as it rips through my entire apartment!
I'm a little dazed, in the aftermath. Just a little bit.
I'm bruised, my arm is all covered in blood, and I'm stinging in places where bits of glass must have gotten stuck into my skin. But otherwise…I'm intact.
Somehow, my already crappy life just keeps finding ways to get even crappier…
It isn't long before a crowd gathers in the parking lot and the nearby street, with all these people gawking and screaming at the giant gateway to Hell that just sprang up next door, as I'm hunkering down, keeping myself hidden behind the wall lining the upstairs walkway—hoping to at least somewhat preserve my dignity...
Good grief. Today really couldn't get much worse.
I stay like that, squatting and risking freezing my ass off if not for the smoldering flames of my own damn apartment, until the police and fire rescue comes.
A lady officer named Kanako greets me, offering me a bright orange prison jumpsuit—all she had on hand—to wear. Then she tries to ask me all these questions…but her overly bubbly personality is a huge turnoff: like she's trying WAY too hard to be nice. So, I mostly don't answer...only just giving her the number to Mr. Takeda's personal cell when she gets down to asking me for my emergency contacts.
She gives me a wide-eyed look. "You don't mean THE Mr. Takeda?"
I nodded, with a shrug. "Yeah. He's my sugar daddy." I said, and then glared—showing her a sneaky grin. "He gives me things if I show him a good time at the love hotel!"
Looking horrified, she quickly turns to her colleague to confer with them.
Heh. What can I say? Laughter's been in short supply, so I'll gladly take it where I can get it.
The officer returns after a few seconds, though, with a serious face. Suddenly, all that whimsy she had before is nowhere to be found. "Good one. I'll admit, you really had me going there at first. But let's talk family: don't you have any relatives, or friends you can call?"
"I..." go silent for a bit, being overcome by bitter memories. What feels like a lifetime ago, or several.
My family, they...
"No…I don't have anyone," I tell her. "Only Mr. Takeda."