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Twilight Neko: Chapter Six |
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Chapter Six
Land of Kings
The guns trembled in their user’s hands. The two men looked deep into their adversary’s eyes, both to see whom had made the empty threat while the three people, the couple of secondary students and the cat girl in disguise, sat on the couch, too stunned to even speak, let alone run away.
“I-I had you killed!” Reyes shouted, still in a shook, shaking with no restraint, frightened to see the ghost of the past standing before him with drops of pear nectar dripping down his chin.
“It takes more then a few bullets to kill me, Reyes.” Makide grinned, cocking back the gun, pointing it directly at his enemy’s head.
“Obviously.” He tried to control the trembling in his voice as he spoke, trying to keep up his tough guy act. “But the news...” Esteban still had trouble speaking staring into the shaft of Makide’s gun.
“You should’ve told your goons not to kill an innocent kid.” Vivid, horrible images of the afternoon still pierced Makide’s memory. The three scars on his back burned as they did that afternoon. He felt the stinging pain once again of not only being shoot, but of also watching a helpless young boy die before his eyes.
“Perhaps it was my lucky day after all. Unfortunately, the kid your men killed was already dead when my friend rescued me from the ditch.”
“Damn them!” Esteban cursed his useless thugs. “They know my rules! No killing the innocent!”
“Let’s follow those rules then.” Makide pointed to the terrified threesome on the couch, all of whom were trying to make sense of what was going on. “They go,” He waved his hand at Neko and Asuke, “and she goes.” He referred to Maya, who was quietly sobbing in Asuke’s arms.
Reyes gave a stressful, yet relief filled sigh. “...Deal.” Esteban nodded toward the door, looking straight into the eyes of his daughter as more tears full of confusion and fear fell down her cheeks. “Don’t worry, mi amor. Go home and I’ll talk to you later.” He said attempting to comfort his girl.
She gave a weak nod and stood, Neko and Asuke following suit. They headed to the door, all huddled together, Makide and Esteban still in a deadlock.
Asuke met Neko’s eyes as they passed the giant television. He waved his hand twice in a quick, clockwise motion, keeping it close to his pocket, so as not to alert the men with guns. Neko understood his orders and readied herself. When they reached the door, Maya in Asuke’s arms and Neko coming up from behind, Asuke turned his head around and mouthed the word “Now.”
In a flash that demonstrated her feline speed, Neko turned around in an instant and, with a great force of energy, threw her arms out on each side. A sudden impact of wind hit the two men. Reyes flew through the doorway he stood with his back to, knocking his body and gun far across the room, and Makide, who was thrown in the opposite direction, flew from the couch to the adjacent wall.
The strength of Makide’s collision accidentally caused him to fire his gun in the direction of the adolescents in the doorway. The bullet whizzed through the air, flying past the tip of Maya’s arm, not hitting the young girl, but scraping across her forearm, ripping apart the superficial skin and veins under her light forest green jacket sleeve.
Maya fell to the ground as the echo from the blast was absorbed into the walls. She began whaling, holding her hand upon the open wound, trying to suppress the blood and pain. Makide got up in an instant from the ground and sprinted to the girl, putting his gun in it’s holster. He bent down, throwing her arm out of the way as he inspected the graze.
Asuke frighteningly asked his uncle as the commotion happened and was settled in the blink of an eye, “Is she all right!?” His breath was heavy, almost panting, genuinely concerned about the girl. Neko came to his side, holding the boy tightly, also scared for her well being.
“She’ll be fine. It’s just a graze.” Makide said with great relief. He didn’t want another death on his hands. Makide stood, ripped the sleeve of the wounded girl’s jacket, wrapped it tightly around the cut, and picked up Maya from the ground. He strode to the couch and slowly let her down as she began to calm herself. “Put pressure on it.” Makide instructed, then turned to Asuke and Neko. “We gotta run!” With that, he sped out the door and down the hall to the stairs, leaving the two in a daze.
From the room to the right, Neko and Asuke heard footsteps enter and a loud, heavy voice. “Sir! We heard a gu-” A distinctive click came from the room as the footsteps neared the door. A mans head popped out of the doorway, inspecting the area.
He saw a young woman silently laying on the red couch, holding her forearm covered in blood, a shell casing across the room in the middle of a golden swirl pattern across the red carpet, and people in the lower level dancing and parting through the television screen, lights flashing across the room. Nothing more, nothing less.
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“I can’t belive you shot her!” Asuke yelled at his uncle, who sat on a stool drinking a cup of coffee, a bottle of vodka to the left of him. He leaned on the kitchen counter, rubbing his hands across his face.
Makide took another hit of alcohol straight from the bottle and gave an annoyed groan. “It was just a graze. She’ll be fine.” He corked the bottle and looked at the label. “This is good stuff.”
Asuke grabbed the bottle from his hands and placed it on the counter. “Can you tell me what the hell that was all about?”
Makide leaped from the stool, hitting the tiled floor with a clang. “You should be more worried about your girlfriend. I hope she gets home safely.” He stole the bottle back from Asuke and drank some more. “Ro sure does have good taste.” Makide exclaimed as he swallowed the bittersweet liquid.
“Ne- I mean, Kaira can protect herself... and she’s not my girlfriend!”
Makide laughed as he opened the refrigerator door. “I saw that back in the club.” He rummaged through the food. “Got any beer?”
Asuke put a hand on his uncle’s shoulder, turning Makide’s attention to him. “Just tell me what happened with you and Reyes.” He spoke in a gentle voice, trying to gain his relatives trust.
“Take a seat. It’s a long story...”
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Two Years Earlier
Darkness. A car engine’s roar could roughly be heard from where Makide was as all the pistons worked at full blast, the car making it over rough terrain. Makide began to wake in a daze, the back of his head felt as if it was just hit, and chances were it probably was, by a giant rock. He looked around in the enclosed, rectangular space from which he had just woken in, feeling the bumps of the vehicles as it kept on the rocky path.
Makide tried his hardest to regain awareness as a fainting spell was cast upon him. He pulled through, rubbing his sweaty, bloody palms across his face, his arm’s tightly tied together with a plastic handcuff. He struggled, hitting his body against the carpeted interior, when he felt something in his right black jeans pocket rub against his thigh. Makide reached into the pocket and pulled out his sleek cell phone.
“Useless idiots.” Makide whispered with glee in the blackness as the car rolled on. “At least this time it worked in my favor.” He gave a satisfied smile and turned on the phone, the light illuminating the darkness with weak blue rays. Makide quickly pressed in a multitude of numbers and put the phone to his ear.
“Makide!” Yelled the voice from the other line seconds later. “Where the h-”
The car came to slow halt as the voice was hushed by the frantic man. “Shut up! Whatever you do, don’t talk! Just get in your car and listen very carefully to what I say!” Makide commanded. Two doors were opened and shut. In a panic, he pressed the speaker option on it’s touch screen and put the phone back in his pocket with the speaking end poking out in a subtle, inconspicuous way.
Suddenly, the trunk door from which Makide was in came ajar, Outside stood a tall, muscular man waiting in the light red, orange rays of the setting sun in the distance. He grabbed Makide and threw him across the dirt ground. The young man looked around and was surprised to find himself in the middle of an empty construction sight, a large ditch to the right of the car 20 meters away, and fencing surrounding the perimeter.
Another guy came up to Makide and took out a switchblade. He bent down and held it up to the captive’s neck, a cocked, chipped grin on his dirty face. The filthy man putting the cold metal close, yet not close enough to cut, to his victim’s skin. Makide kept his eyes shut, waiting for the less then swift movement of the knife penetrating his skin, letting the blood seep and drop from the open wound until his life was no more, but it never came. Instead, the man with the knife cut the plastic wrap around his captive’s wrist then grabbed him by the collar of his vintage leather jacket and threw him closer to the ditch.
In his odd sense of humor and a way to notify his friend, Makide stood up, chuckling, and said, “Construction sight, huh? Western mob cliché meets the eastern world.” He gave one of his patented grins when the muscular man walked up and punched him across the face, knocking the man to the ground, giving his own brand of smile to the fallen man.
“Shut it, Makide.” The man spoke in his rough, deep toned voice. “It was the only place in Kyoto that we could find.”
Makide spat out blood after bitting his tongue when the large man hit him and stood as if nothing happened. “What’s the matter, big lug? Have no sense of humor?” Makide joked, wiping the remaining blood from his lower lip.
“I said shut up!” He held his fist up, ready to hit the stubborn man across the face once more, but the other man, the one who looked as if he had dirt across his face, gave a shy whistle.
“Not now, big guy.” The other man commanded, playing with the blade, tossing it from one hand to the other. He spoke with authority, making it clear that he was a higher rank. The larger man stepped down and leaned across the closed trunk of the black, plateless car. “Now listen, Makide.” The man with the knife began. “You screwed Reyes over. You knew this was coming, right?” He spoke, again enforcing his authority with his tone of voice, pointing the knife at the young man.
“I didn’t do s**t to that p***k.” Makide spat another glob of blood from his mouth, to both clear his throat and metaphorically spit at Estaban.
“Watch it, you little ********!” The large man yelled, placing one hand in his jacket that was hiding a holster and a silenced 9mm.
“How was I supposed to now that the Imo Power Company was going to be shut down!?” Makide tried to plead not guilty to the mobsters; his judge, jury, and potential executioners. “All I did was give Reyes free power in change for some protection and a minuscule cut of his profit. I had no idea that the company was going to crash!” Though he knew at heart that without his older brother’s leadership, the company wouldn’t have stayed afloat, he tried to sound as convincing as possible to the two men before him.
“Too bad. I guess luck wasn’t on your side.” The man with the chipped smile sarcastically said, lacking any grief. All of a sudden the sounds of a fence moving came from behind. A young man, not older then Asuke was in present time, came walking into the ordeal, his back to the men, a carton of cigarettes in one hand.
“Phew... Didn’t get cau-” The boy was speaking to himself when he turned around and saw the three men. “Umm... Who are you?” His nervous tone sounded almost childish as he spoke.
“Speaking of bad luck.” The large man laughed, walking over to the youngster, he grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him next to Makide, making him drop his smokes. The man with the knife picked them up and took one cigarette out, lit it, and began to suck it’s fumes.
The goons then took out pistols, both with silencers attached, and held them at the boy and Makide. The adolescent kid began to cry as the large man barked orders. “Get up and turn around!” He yelled, pointing the gun at the boy’s face. He did as he was told, whimpering, tears falling.
“Shut up and you might make it out alive,” Makide whispered to the sobbing kid in confidence, unafraid of the men or their guns. “It’s too late for me.” He accepted his fate, knowing that his life would end then and there.
“You too! Turn around!” Makide followed the directions and faced the western sky.
In the distance, the two young men watched through the pillars of steel of the building in progress as the sun rolled behind the adjacent building tops, making, to what Makide believed to be, its final descent in his ugly, yet beautiful world...
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Asuke’s face was filled with disappointment. “You were stealing from my father?” He stood from the stool and grabbed a glass of water, drinking it slowly to avoid Makides' eyes.
“Essentially, no.” Makide began to explain. “It wasn’t too long after he died. I became one of many owners of Imo Power, but sold my shares to Esteban. Reyes was an old acquaintance of your fathers. They made a lot of deals back when he was alive.”
“So that’s why Esteban’s lounge looked so much like our old parlor room.” Asuke made the connection between the two rooms.
Makide nodded and took a sip of his coffee, just realizing the rooms characteristics and their similarities. “At the end, Reyes got free power and I got the sensation of having power. When the company went under, he blamed me, and he's notorious when it comes to dealing with people that crossed him.”
“Do you think he’ll come after me or Kaira?” Asuke worried about the possibilities.
“Naw. You don’t have to worry about him.” Makide reassured his nephew. “You heard him before. ‘No killing the innocent.’ ” He got up from his seat, grabbed his helmet, and headed to the front door, Asuke following. “But it does mean I have to leave. I can’t put you in danger... not again.”
Filled with sadness, Makide opened the door and walked down the steps through the darkness of the early morning. He stopped about midway through the flight and turned around. “Before I forget. I went through your notes while you were at school and... I think you're right. Hiromu wasn’t one to kill himself. He cared about you too much.” Makide’s words pierced through Asuke. Someone else's acceptance meant everything to Asuke, and now that he had it, he wouldn’t disappoint.
For one last time, Makide jumped on his motorbike and revved the engine. “I have some old documents that belonged to Hiromu locked up in storage.” He spoke louder than the roar of the engine. “I’ll have someone send them to you when I get where I'm going. Hopefully they’ll help."
Makide waved goodbye and Asuke watched as he raced down the dark street, making his way north, until his bike was a red speck in the distance. He didn’t know if he’d ever see his uncle again, but he did know that he’d miss Makide and his weird sense of humor that reconnected ties with family thought to have been broken years ago.
 Helm of Demonica · Mon Apr 27, 2009 @ 11:19pm · 0 Comments |
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