2 cobra 12

 

Chapter 12

 

“The Black Rose gumi is very resistant to talks,” said Tarquin. “They don’t seem to think that our killer can reach their inner circle.”

“It won’t be easy,” I said. “Old Hikaru rarely comes out of his fortress. And he keeps his sons close to him; Daichi and Isamu are rarely seen. However, Daichi fancies himself as a swordsman. I could issue a challenge, that his kinsman has offended against me, and that I am prepared to settle it sword to sword.”

“Are you good enough?” asked Tarquin.

Being Tarquin, it was a question for clarification, not a slur on my ability.

“Yes,” I said. “When I was an angry little boy, my sensei had used the sword to give me focus, both to fight, and to learn that the best way to win was to be the blade; and that the blade is not angry, or sorrowful, or vengeful, nor does it gloat or take joy. The blade is cold steel which dances in the air and brings whispering death in its path, not because it enjoys it, but because this is the way of the sword.”

“I don’t pretend to understand the mysticism, but if it makes you a better swordsman, I am happy,” said Tarquin.

Willow smiled and fed him another strawberry muffin right out of the oven. She understood the mysticism, and that was enough.

I used the medium of the newscast. Why not?  Jay was a celebrity.

“There was a tragic death in the last task,” I said. “Somehow, Ichiro Fukuhama fell when roof-running. It’s a skill he has always prided himself on; and I have to say, my own opinion is that he has not taken into account that age catches up with us all, and a man of thirty-two is not the man of twenty-seven that he was when he first won ‘Extreme.’ The drone man thought that a bird flew into his face and startled him, which may well have happened. However, it did happen, he is dead, and for some reason, Sanji Fukuhama chose to blame me.  Now, someone has been trying to kill me all through the show, and it’s my belief it was Ichiro. I can’t prove it, but I assume it is because he saw something in me which he had in his prime. I consider that I am the injured party, but Ichiro’s relatives are too cowardly to meet me for a duel or anything like that, being nothing more than stinking criminals, even if they wrap their criminal acts up in beautiful paintings, poetry, and culture. They are filth, and worse than that, they are cowardly filth only capable of acting with remote toys. Not one of them has the courage to meet me mano a mano in the arena in The Rubble at dawn tomorrow.”

I planned to make sure any additions to the party were able to be dealt with by my people in The Rubble.

It would be covered by the trids, so nobody would be likely to try anything untoward, but hey, better safe than sorry.

“That should stir Daichi,” said Willow. “Old Hikaru is too canny to be drawn out by that, but I imagine his sons both want to murder you.”

“Yes, but if they do so in any other way than at the duel I suggested would mark them as the cowards I called them,” I said.

“If you kill one, the other will come for you at the last task,” warned Willow.

“I was hoping so,” I said.

“Rick! You’ll not have anything to counter him,” scolded Willow.

“Only this,” I pointed to my head.

“Be careful, Rick,” said Willow. “We don’t want any little Cobra to grow up without a daddy.”

I stared.

“You mean....”

“It’s a perfectly normal phenomenon when a honey bee loves a flower very much,” said Willow, gravely.

“I... I will try to respect that you know what’s best for you and I promise not to be a nuisance pampering you,” I said, my head spinning.

“I trust you for that,” said Willow, kissing me tenderly. “I don’t mind a little bit of pampering, though.”

“Right,” I said. “Chocolates and flowers, though, not the skull of Daichi Fukuhama to make into a goblet.”

“It would play merry hell with the dishwasher,” said Willow. “Especially before you cleaned the flesh and brains off. The bill for unclogging the drains would be astronomical.”

I kissed her and we went to bed as soon as Tarquin had hurried off. We didn’t say a lot in bed, but everything we didn’t say was important.

 

 

Have I ever mentioned how much I do not like predawn starts? If I have not done so before, let me do so now.

In two hours either Daichi – I thought it would be Daichi – or I would be dead.

Willow, however, had essentially forbidden me to die. And I had so much to live for.

Of course, it’s a crazy way for any self-respecting assassin to operate, one on one, a fair chance. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be a fair chance, however. I work out against people who put their best into it; and I suspected that Daichi was facing partners who did not dare to be too good. I also studied other forms of swordplay than just katana, because though the fighting form is driven by the shape, reach, and dynamics of the blade, there are also lessons to be had in other styles. And my tsuba or hand-guard was not a standard one, incorporating as it did a thumb ring. I’d learned that one from the Falcon, a Polish assassin.

Being able to perform something called the moulinet – from the French for Windmill – a move where a blade can be swiftly reversed in direction – would give me an edge.

Sorry, no pun intended.

I also hoped that I was right about Daichi’s practice practices.

If he really was a man of iron and pushed himself to the limits, I might just be dead.

 

Willow went with me, of course. She does not stand back and weep her tears at home whilst worrying and watching the clock. She prefers to face whatever happens head on.

 

I was expecting the arena to be deserted.

What was almost more eerie was that it was full of spectators, all of them silent. My people in the Rubble know that Jay Silverheels is their friend, the Cobra; I don’t even try to hide it from them. Being mostly failed attempts to merge human and dog dna, a lot of them can smell who I am. And that is something I can’t change. It’s a flaw; but it’s also a strength. My people know me whatever face I wear.

And Algy and Croc were there as bodyguards for the Neon Flower. Algy, you might recall, was a large feline with a narwhal horn on his nose, which My Little Vetty had cut down and capped to be at least useful. And Croc was a crocodile on horse’s legs. Algy was a telepath.

He looked at me straight.

“All this guff on the news; you don’t do honour fights for your good name. It’s a way to kill someone who never comes out, right?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

He nodded.

“I’ll let you know what he’s thinking,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” I said, hastily, touched, knowing how he hates ugly thoughts.

“The Neon Flower wants you home in one piece,” he said, gruffly.

Willow hugged him and kissed his face.

Algy and Croc adored Willow. She treated them like people.

 

 

It was Daichi. He turned up with his contingent of cutthroats, so sorry, most honourable bodyguard. He sneered at the residents who had come to see the excitement. He and his guard were all armoured.

“What a bunch of eta,” he said, contemptuously, of the locals. Eta is a word for untouchables; those who deal with the dead, and with dead meat and other things below the notice of the majority.

“Greatest warrior in world still buried by eta when he dies.” I said. “”I see you really are a coward to come against me in armour when I wear none.”

He bared his teeth, and stripped off the armour. He was dressed traditionally for his culture; I honoured the real Jay Silverheels by wearing buckskins and warpaint. I doubted that Daichi could read what my warpaint said, as he was sneering at it. I had a black handprint on each cheek to symbolise my experience as a warrior and my success in hand to hand combat; a yellow lightning bolt on my forehead was to call for speed but in a colour which said I was ready to fight to the death. Red on my cheekbones declared me the happy warrior and was another symbol of strength.

Any first nation warrior looking at me should have quailed. And my supporters at least were, many of them, knowledgeable. Seattle has always had a closer relationship with its local tribes than many places.

We went out onto the arena.

“I trust that you at least know some of the amenities of civility as regards to the sword?” asked Daichi.

“More than you, probably,” I said. “I know the civilities in more than one culture after all. But I know to bow before we start, if you were wondering.”

His lip twitched.

We took our places, and bowed.

Each of us watched the other whilst bowing.  He was outraged that I kept an eye on him; I was amused that he kept an eye on me.

He kept eye contact as we circled before even drawing weapons; then he went for the iajutsu draw, the fast draw which culminates in a stroke which is fatal if not countered.

My own iajutsu draw was quite as fast as his, which surprised him when his arms jarred for  his sword meeting my blade going the other way.

There was a spontaneous cheer from the crowd.

Daichi pulled a sneer at me, close as we were.

“You look like something out of Naruto,” I said, cheerfully. It’s a manga tale, told and retold many times over, but to be compared to a populist manga tale irritated him for some reason. Maybe because it’s about Ninja, who are technically eta.

He disengaged and swung at me. I rotated away from the blade and kept going. I caught him a glancing blow across one leg.

That enraged him.

He was putting all his strength into his blows, and I was blocking, or rolling away.  I jumped over his blade more than once, to the polite applause of the audience.

When his tsuba caught me on the pressure point of the thumb and my sword flew out of my hand, I confess I was a trifle concerned. Daichi started laughing at this moment. The crowd had gone quiet.

“It was an accident, friend Cobra, but he plans to hurt you as much as he can before finishing you up,” said Algy, worried. He had been sending me pictures of Daichi’s intent, most of which I had read anyway from his body language.

“I’m not defeated yet,” I reassured Algy. He saw my intent, and chuckled.

I seemed to stumble as I retreated, and as Daichi leaped forward to do his worst, I turned the supposed stumble into a back flip and used its momentum to throw me forward again, kicking Daichi as I went,  and then rolled right past his legs to retrieve my dropped sword.

The applause was thunderous.

Daichi was furious.

Good.

An angry foe is a defeated foe.

There is no fight, there is no enemy, there is only the cutting.

I am the blade, I am the whistle in the wind.

I meet his attack and then disengage whilst he is still pushing, so that his blade falls aside, and so my blade, free, spins on the moulinet and comes up from under, and enters his body just below the ribcage. It keeps going.

That’s a lot of blood.

That really is a lot of blood.

Daichi is screaming, a thin scream which chokes and finishes... I am the blade... I have done my work.

I shake my head to stop the roaring in my ears, and shake the blood off my blade.

I cut him damn near clear in half.

I bow to the defeated.

“Whispering death comes

As the rains fall in winter

Grey as the steel blade,” I said.

The referee, an elderly man, made a note of it.

“You understand the way,” he said.

“I am warrior. I am the blade,” I said.

He nodded.

“I will inform my lord that his son died well and fell to an honourable opponent,” he said.

“It won’t end it,” I said. “Your lord wants me dead, and it will only end when I am dead or his clan destroyed.”

He did not contradict me.

“He will be merciful to one who has observed the niceties meticulously,” he assured me.

“He will be dead if he does not bow to the inevitable,” I said.

“Karma, neh?” he said.

“Hai, so desu; Karma,” I agreed.

Karma nothing; government will allied to government cash. But he was a nice old boy trying to persuade me, in his own way, to run before I was killed.

 

It turned out that the bodyguard were less honourable than the old boy; and had been... restrained by my lads.

That is to say, several of them bore dog bites on the ankles, and all of them were prevented from interfering by being held back by a variety of weapons.

“I am disappointed,” said the old boy.

“Take Daichi’s body back to his father,” I said. “And let it be an end to it.”

I could say that quite safely.

It wouldn’t be.

And we all knew it.

Which meant I could plot against the two who were left with a clear conscience.

 

Were you wondering where the cops were whilst a death duel, declared in the news, was going on? You’ve forgotten that what happens in The Rubble stays in The Rubble.

Anyone who accepts a death duel there and dies is held to have committed suicide.

A few had turned up, off-duty and incognito as you might say; those who were fans of mine, or had money riding on me.

“Jay! Don’t do these things til you’ve won!” said one of them.

“I want a chance to survive to do my winning,” I said. “It was a calculated gamble. One less to try to kill me.”

“Is it true that you won’t have any gear at all for the final?”

That was no cop, there were reporters here.

“Indeed, it is true,” I said. “As if killing Jay not good enough, organisers try to turn Jay into Jaysicle.” I made the joke on popsicle.

There was uneasy laughter.

“Will your ego shrink when you are dropped naked?” asked another reporter.

“We are allowed to retain our underwear and footwear,” I said. “Prime time not ready for the glory of naked Jay Silverheels. Even shrunk to just above average size.”

I had made the character a bit flamboyant. It would make Willow giggle.

It did.

“The bigger they come, the harder they fall,” she murmured to me.

“What a nice word ‘hard’ is,” I murmured back. “I need you.”

I did.

I don’t enjoy killing; I just happen to be good at it.

But I would need a new profession once this damned gumi were out of commission. Not that I needed a profession. My shares from this job were astronomical, and the game paid well too; but I like to keep busy.

Maybe I’d go back to teaching the awkward squad, without having to worry about spies on the staff. I had enjoyed it a surprising amount, and it felt like I was doing real good.

Plus the odd pro bono job, of course.

And first I had to survive the last task, and Hikaru and Isamu.