MORIKO HANZO POV:
I can remember it so vividly...
The satisfying crack of clashing shinai, and softly sliding footsteps...
The roaring yells of "Men!" and "Do!" uttered...
Sunlight reflects off the smoothly polished wooden floors, creating a harsh white sheen.
If I listen closely, I can hear the sound of cicadas crying outside the thin walls.
It was my first time in a kendo dojo, and I was nervous. And like a sore thumb, I was the only girl, the only child; doing her best to swallow her nerves and keep still and quiet, so as not to bring any attention to herself. Even the smallest-sized kendōgu would be too large a fit for me, in this club full of men and older teen boys.
I remember, my father was there...
He was wearing a gray yukata, standing with arms crossed like a statue in a far corner of the room.
Most of the time, I only ever lifted my gaze high enough to glimpse his rough beard, and that scowl...always a disappointed sneer: aimed at me, himself, at the world...at everything. Everything else about his face was a blur, except for that sneer. He was the reason I was practicing kendo in the first place, claiming it was my "sworn duty" as a Yamato-blooded descendant of the Hanzo bloodline...only there to make certain that I didn't do something to make a fool of myself.
Before then, I had only ever trained with my father in the mountains...so I didn't know what to expect. I only feared the beatings I would surely recieve...if I were to lose.
I think...it was meant to be his idea of a final test for me.
FWOOSH!
The sensei entered through the sliding door, prompting the disciples to stop whatever they were doing and wait for his instruction.
"Everyone!" he declared, motioning to me. "We have an esteemed prodigy with us today!"
Uh-oh...
I really wished he hadn't said that.
Because now, I felt all the curious gazes of the disciples turned unto me. Some were smiling, some softly chuckling...while others looked at me with determination: ready to squash me like a bug. Even at the time, I thought that I must have looked like an insult to them, being heralded as a prodigy at only ten-years old…all the while trembling like a leaf, in front of these tall strangers who turned their heads and scratched their chins in deliberation of me.
"Introduce yourself!" My father barked, causing me to jump.
"M-my name…" I quickly bowed, keeping my face low. Hidden. "Is Hanzo, and I will be your opponent."
One by one, the disciplines took turns challenging me to a match.
Kendo as a sport...is all about coordinating intent with action. When striking, or countering an opponent's strike, you do so with precision by also declaring the name of your technique. It is not enough to simply land an attack on an opponent's vital point: the strike must be exact and performed with proper posture for it to count. The victor is decided by the best of three within a set time limit.
My father was strict in his teachings...but he was no madman with a false sense of grandeur.
I knew what I was doing. I could hold my own, even against these skilled opponents, decisively winning several of my bouts. Some matches were closer than others, particularly against the senior students...but the end result was always the same.
What first seemed like an insult was suddenly positioned as a very serious threat.
After more than half a dozen rounds, the sensei began conversing with my father: I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, but I could tell he was impressed.
The disciples weren't nearly so enthusiastic, however.
I could hear the ones I'd defeated as they watched on from the sidelines: grumbling and cursing under their breaths, casting me dark gazes.
It was making me nervous. My strikes were getting sloppy, costing me points.
Eventually it got so bad that I tore off my helmet after a particularly narrow victory, panting and dripping with hot sweat.
"Hanzo is tired, so we shall finish here!" The sensei announced.
"No!" My father demanded gruffly, stepping forward. "She can still fight: the Hanzo bloodline does not produce weaklings."
"Mr. Hanzo, but your daughter...can't you see that she's—"
"It is all for show! We will continue, and only stop after she has challenged all of your students!"
I tried to drown out the sounds, burying myself in my own thoughts.
I did not wish to be here. I would have much rather be back to the mountains, where I had once lived with my mother and her family. Where, for the first years of my life, all I knew was happiness and love. When everything seemed...brighter. As if, through my unspoiled eyes, I could see the spirit of the divine that exists in all things of creation.
Now...my eyes see only dull wood and steel, and cold cement skyscrapers. A line of faceless, loud obstacles that must all be swept aside. My father's unamused scowl.
"GRRR..."
My attention slowly drifted, as I began to sense something else that was familiar…
A presence that always lurks, haunting the corner of my senses...
It was the second shadow that followed her everywhere…
It looms in the corner of her eye, always: a writhing, swollen black mass of fur and sinew.
Gnashing its woflike jaws, licking its chops and drooling with hunger...
It beckons to me, unraveling my senses like thick outer garments then burrowing its fangs into the soft flesh underneath.
It craved blood. It craved carnage and death.
I would come to find out later that the fencing dojo my father had brought me to that day...was actually owned by one of the vassal clans of the Takeda.
And, that a certain up and rising member of the family had taken a keen interest in me...
…
"AH!"
Hanzo awakens from the nightmare, lying in a pool of her own sweat.
"Geez...not again.
She'd spent the night at Kanako Kojima's house in the suburbs, sleeping on the pull-out bed in the living room.
In front of her, seated on the edge of the bed with their back turned to her, she sees Kana... casually dressed in a lime green tank top and grey lounge shorts. She's playing Mario Kart on the widescreen TV, energetically rocking and swinging her arms back and forth with the controller.
I sit up, clearing the gunk out of my eyes. "Shouldn't you be working on my case, officer?"
She answers without peeling her attention from the screen. "It's my day off—"she grimaces, hit by a honing spiked blue shell while she was in first place—"I'll waste it however I want!"
I start to crawl on my hands and knees across the bed, smiling about what I was about to do.
Coming up behind Officer Kanako slowly, until I'm close enough...to POUNCE!
"Ah! QUIT it!" She yells, her face glowing bright red as she turns to face me. "This is...too improper!"
"Relaaax," I reassure her. At the same time, massaging her shoulders with both hands. "After all it's your day off, isn't it?" I then brought my mouth close to her ear, continuing in a whisper: "Though, I'm more inclined to believe you called in sick today...just so that you would have another shot at interrogating me." I pucker my lips into a kissy face, taunting her. "Because what you REALLY want is to get the juicy dirt on Takeda out of me, don't you?"
"I—" Kana makes a small noise, like she's fuming...but relents. She's in 5th place now.
Content that I had managed to pierce through Kana's thin facade of courtesy, even before breakfast, Hanzo then rolled out of bed and dragged her way to the kitchen.
...
I grab a slice of pizza from the box that got left out overnight on the counter.
Wow! Everything in this kitchen so damn clean and slick..
Does this cop bitch have a freaking maid!? Did she just move in a week ago, or just never even used her stove before?
Oh God...what if she's a total clean freak? (Again, except for the cat hair...)
Just to be safe, I make sure she isn't paying attention, first, before sticking the pizza slice into the microwave without a plate.
Whew. I just woke up, and I already feel exhausted.
While I wait for my food, I take a seat on one of the comfy leather stools around the center kitchen island.
"This...is nice. I could get used to this."
"If there's anything else you need...like a toothbrush, or shampoo..."
"Eh?" I glared at her in shock. "you're saying you don't use shampoo? But your hair looks so nice and soft!"
She laughs. "Ah, that's not...what I meant. I mean, if there's a certain kind you need—"
"You're too EASY, Kana! I'm just fooling with you."
DING! The microwave
When I go to retrieve my breakfast meal, Kana's cats suddenly won't leave me alone! they're meowing like crazy, circling and rubbing against my legs, standing up and padding me with their fuzzy paws like furry little demon beggars. Heh...almost like the little brats are expecting something from me.
"Haven't you fed your children yet?! Hear that? They're starving!"
"They smell the pizza," she huffs.
"Well, they can smell all they want, but now they're gonna watch me eat it."
"Just give them a couple pepperonis."
"No way! I need my protein."
She kisses her teeth. "It's fine that you're making yourself comfortable, but don't you start abusing my fluffers."
DING!
Breakfast is ready.
"Actually...I think I'll eat outside," I tell Kana as I'm heading for the door. "Gonna check out the neighborhood. Do you have a front porch?"
"Uh," I hear Kana mumble, with the sound of her pausing her game again. "I don't think you should—"
Too late! I'm already outside.
The morning is chilly, and clear. Not so many clouds in the sky.
Her house has a front yard, boxed in by a neatly-trimmed hedge and white brick and stone wall with a gate. There's a garage, a mailbox with a cat's paw print sticker...
It's really a nice place; I'm actually a little jealous. Maybe it's true what they say: crime doesn't pay—literally! I mean, why don't I get to have a fancy kitchen that looks like it was just ordered through a magazine catalog? Or a needlessly large flat-screen TV and video games? Or annoying ass cats? I deserve much better than the frigging bones Takeda has been throwing me all these years!
"Unbelievable," I mutter to myself, about to take another bite from the pizza...when I notice someone watching me from the porch of the house across the street.
It's an old man, sitting in an old rocking chair.
The top of his head is balding. His face is covered in liver spots and streaked with wrinkles. He's wearing a grim frown on his face as he continues to just sit there and stare...unblinking...ignoring a kid flying by on his bike on their way to school, and every car in the street; just staring daggers at me.
And so, I'm of course staring back at him, with both eyebrows thoroughly raised...when Kanako comes out through the door behind me, gently pushing her cats back with her foot before slamming it shut.
"Hey," I greet her, still maintaining eye contact with the old guy. "Who's that?"
"Oh," she says, in a deflated sort of way.
"Oh, what?" I glanced sideways at her. "Is he the neighborhood pervert?"
"The neighborhood busybody, more like it," she whispers to me with an irritated look.
I recall that I'm still dressed in a bright orange prison jumpsuit. "Is he gonna tell everyone you're harboring an escaped fugitive?"
"Let's get you a change of clothes," she says, not-so-subtly easing me back to the door.