RETROSPECTIVE chapter by mav1973 As I started down the stairs, the only thing I could think of is how strange my hands looked in Father's gloves... Back in the old days Tokyo was a different place, America was the land of the drug addicts, the pushers, and other such scum. I know you are saying to yourself that Tokyo was just as bad, but it wasn't. It didn't start until the second Oil Embargo, when everything started to go to shit. It was around this time that I came into being. My father and my mother met in the red light district, when he was taking down some two-bit hood. I guess my mother was attracted to his strength, for they got hitched a month later in one of the local Catholi-Shinto temples. Neither family approved, guess that's why I never really had more than my folks in the way of family. Anyway, my dad was a rising star in the TPD; the new chief, Tohoi-san, was always over at our home. He and my dad went way back, all the way to the academy, when they were just kids practically. Every week we would have fish cake and tea; usually as the night went on the tea became diluted with Saki and my father would begin singing one of the old songs, the forbidden ones that spoke of the spirit of Bushido and of the ways of the true warrior. That's what he was, maybe one of the last true warriors in our modern nation. What was I? Just some snot-nosed kid; a continual reminder of his only failure, that of turning me into a man. As I walked, all I could feel was the deep itch of Blast deprivation. But where to get it? Any of the pushers would spot me in a second, us beat cops don't have the special training of the Narc's. "Why would I be interested in prolonging this high?" I mumbled under my breath. I don't know, maybe because I always have things under control. No one disrupts my center, yet...the feeling of the burst of power and the noise, the contact sensation of hitting the solid backbone and feeling it give way. I guess it is the closest feeling one can have of being God, the visceral moment of a kill. I stumbled just then and came to my senses; why had I thought that, that isn't me. It was something my Father would have thought... My Father; Who would have knew that his wife was screwing around on him? Not him, especially not with his best friend. I can remember how proud he was when he got the job with the Shinsei, the black ops division of the TPD. I can remember that day; that one moment when everything in our family seemed like it would straighten out. Trust my Mom to screw that up. When he found out he was devastated. My mom said he committed Seppeku on the Moshi turnpike. I still don't believe her, not that we are close enough to talk about it. I remember coming home and he was gone. My mother and Tohoi-san were waiting to tell me the sad news, not that they seemed too sad about the situation. I ran out, kept running...ran until I came to the location they said it had happened at. There were no police, ambulances, or anything that would give you the idea that anything had happened...that's when I saw the gloves, given to my Father by the Shinsei. It was like he had left them to bring me to my senses, to give him one last shot at making me a man...like him. I kept walking, shuddering as the racking pain of withdrawal ravaged my system. I hope I can fight this, "Father, help me to be a Warrior!" I cried, much to the shock of several street-goers. Then the irony of the statement hit me; Father would have been the first to use Blast. Hell, he would have created it had God given him the mind to do so. A perfect killing machine, that would have been his Nirvana. Strengthened by this resolve, I planned on fighting this out, the way a true warrior would have...not like my Father. ----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- "I can't believe he would do something like that, Doc." said Yoshi, a look of contempt on his face. "I've known Alex for six years, we've breathed the same exhaust and ate the same dirt out there and I tell you it just CAN"T be". Doctor Yamato Tokugawa smiled, "Let me humor you then. What do you think the blue liquid was? Lets look at the facts, mah boy; your friend was the only one standing at the scene, he had a funny BLUE liquid on his hands, and someone killed this guy with their bare fists!!" the doctor indicated the smaller, but still abnormally sized, corpse laying on an autopsy table. Yoshi pondered this statement; as much as he hated to admit, it the burden of proof lay pretty heavy against Alex. "So Doc, what's the chances that my friend, if he was addicted to Blast, could get off ...you know, go straight?" Yamoto barked laughter, finally ending in a series of wheezes "Ehe..hhmm...hehe...erRRhmm. Actually the chances are pretty errr...slim, pretty slim indeed" As Yoshi left the building in the service elevator thoughts flashed through his mind like a whirlwind. What to do; Turn Alex in, confront him with the truth, or just watch? How could he do any of these, at least without losing Alex's friendship. And Yoshi valued that friendship very much... Yoshi remembered the first time he had met Alex, back when they had just entered th academy. He had come late to sparring and had rushed onto the mat with his shoes on. The next thing he knew, he was laying on his back staring into the brushy mustache of the instructor. "Pardon me cadet, I seem to have forgot the procedure for entering class. Could you remind me?" "Wha..?" "I said HOW DO YOU ENTER THE CLASS, CADET?" screamed the instructor. Yoshi, still stunned from the sudden throw, had been unable to respond. "Cadet Reij, remind our unfortunate monkey-spawn how we enter and why." A young cadet of average height stood up, bowed, and spoke "Sir, we bow when we enter or leave the Tatami. It spares our bones and softens our falls, do not trample on it with shod feet like a horse." Then the cadet bowed and returned to a lotus position. "Do YOU underSTAND!!!" Yoshi replied "Yes SIR, I understand." The class had continued and as usual he had struggled with the White Belt routine, the flow just seemed not to be there within him. After the class he had caught up with Reij, the cadet who had spoken. "Hey, you really seem to know your stuff. If you had gotten that wrong, I think the Instructor would have worked me over. I owe you." After that they had practiced, ate, and even caroused together. They were like brothers in every sense of the word, the only thing seperating them was their blood; not that they hadn't had that mixed in the heat of combat. If either had asked the other to lay down his life for them, he would have done it. "Damn you Alex, why did you put me in this position. Better you had left me for dead..." said Yoshi. He turned to go towards the Station, he would decide then what to do. ----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- Rika made herself comfortable in the cramped quarters of Alex's rack. She looked at the magazine she had picked up off the bedstand and wondered why it was that all men seemed to think that women were perfect packages, waiting to be unwrapped. As a doctor she saw the true imperfections of women everday, but try to tell a..."What is that noise?" she mumbled. As she listened closer it seemed that someone, in the plural sense, was coming up the stairs. She began to rethink her plan of seducing Alex; how awkward it would be if he and his women were to come in and see her laying draped across the couch in suggestive clothing...She stood and began gathering her things. Hopefully she could make it through the cramped little window in the restroom; it would be difficult as the window was mainly for ventilation, but she had no other choice. "Sooo, this is Alex's apartment...I wonder if he is home?" said a deep voice. Rika's ears perked at this oddity. In all the time she had noticed, Alex hadn't had male visitors. This was something to be looked into and, fortunately, she was well equipped in this area. Her hands flew to the second stud in her right ear, pressed it, and waited. -WHOOSH- The sound had always annoyed her, liquid filling the cornea was so LOUD for some reason. The wall seemed to take on a translucent quality, similiar to a large pane of soaped glass, slowly becoming clear. Two men were waiting outside the door and...hard to make out...THEY HAD GUNS!!! Rika softly pressed the third stud on her ear. A soft voice seemed to fill the air "Smith and Wesson model 618, 10 rounds. Fires 7x62x5mm uranium tipped lead slugs. Estimated 2 additional clips per individual." The voice went away and Rika went into action. "So how do you want to proceed?" said the Fat Man. "Not sure, I..." The door swung open to the inside and a very stunnning nude woman was standing in the frame, rotating the bud of her nipple between her fingers. "How can I Help you gentleman" she said in a very low casual voice. The astonishment in their faces was her signal. Rika lept forward and ripped the guns from their hands, throwing them behind her in the depths of the apartment. She moved forward grabbing the wide man and spun, throwing him into a wall face first. As he slid down the wall, obviously unconcious, she heard a light chuckling behind her "Soto-makikomi...an excellent throw, I have seldom seen it better done." "How the hell had he gotten behing her so quickly" Rika thought to herself. She spun, attempting a low sweep...nothing there...Damn! "De-ashi Hari, a much more basic move; but still, very impressive." "Who the hell are you, Bastard?" screamed Rika. She heard movement and whirled... "Wake up Hoyo-san. You can't sleep against the wall all day" The Fat Man looked up from the pool of congealed blood from his nose "Eh, What happened? My head hurrrts bad." The average man was holding a bundle, roughly the shape of a human, on his shoulder. "Come, we must go. Alex is not here but I have prepared a surprise for him. We will take the girl, it will facilitate the evidence I left." The Fat Man looked into the rack. Laying on the floor were empty vials of BLAST and peeking from under the bed were a couple of full glowing blue vials. Spatters of blood were all over the outside corridor and an ID badge was laying on the floor against the wall. "I see you finally understand, we will force Alex to come to us. He can't go to the police and we have something he wants." The Fat Man turned around "But..." The average man spun about "Question me not fool! Your mind moves as slow as your body sometimes...Come now, we go." Will Alex catch cold as he is walking? Will Yoshi explore his inner child? How the hell does a 'Doctor' know competition Judo and have more cybernetics than a small town? Why does this man want Alex so badly? All these questions and more to be answered { or at least elaborated on :) } by the...(drum roll please) NEXT AUTHOR IN LINE!!!