Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ BLEACH Side Story: Chain/Gun/Gear ❯ Part 1.2: Edge of Town ( Chapter 3 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: SpectralTime 
In which a familiar face is given reason for great consternation.
Anime/Manga: Bleach Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Comedy / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.09.2009 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.3K | Visits: 135 | Status: Work In Progress
In which a familiar face is given reason for great consternation.
Anime/Manga: Bleach Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Comedy / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.09.2009 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.3K | Visits: 135 | Status: Work In Progress
Everybody's got a secret, Sonny,
Something that they just can't face,
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it,
They carry it with them every step that they take.
[….]
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop,
I'll be on that hill with everything I got,
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost,
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost,
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.
-- Bruce Springsteen, a.k.a. The Boss
“Darkness on the Edge of Town”
Behold the rice.
It sits in its plain, blue-patterned bowl, silent and pure white as new fallen snow. Steam wafts from it, present but thin, deliciously signifying that its source is at the perfect temperature for human consumption.
To its right and left are a container of soy sauce and a pair of chopsticks, respectively. All three are arranged with almost ritualistic precision, as carefully placed as the components of a mystic’s mandala.
Let the lens of narrative view draw back. A single cup rests behind this rice, full of tea at an equally perfect temperature. It too steams. One sees the table upon which the meal rests, simple, brown, low to the ground in the Japanese fashion. Beside this table, a guitar and case lean against the wall.
The room is small and cheap, and, though some effort has been taken to keep it clean, a certain set of intangible qualities, a certain disorderliness in the furnishings, the barely visible mound of dishes in the sink, identify this as the room of a firm bachelor.
Before the table sits a man. His facial features bespeak Asian ancestry, while his swarthy skin creates an impression of Latin blood. His muscular body is near perfect in its physical form, his face stoic and beautiful. Clad in a flowery shirt, a necklace with a single coin for a pendant around his neck, he stares down at his meal in perfect silence.
One graceful hand slowly moves toward the container of soy sauce. Slowly, carefully, it decants the perfect quantity of sauce upon the rice, causing the delicious smell of the dish to grow even more so. Placing the container back in its place, the man now picks up the chopsticks in his other hand and begins to eat from the dish, each time carefully removing a small lump of soy-laden rice from the bowl and placing it in his mouth.
He eats without speaking, maintaining a near-perfect silence even with the scraping of utensil on bowl. This is a near-sacrament, the consumption of rice.
A haiku:
Ah rice! Meal of men!
Truly wonderful it is,
Tasting rice at dusk.
Another:
Salty in the mouth,
Full of strength in the stomach.
Ah, how sweet is rice!
A last:
Truly, a man might
Compose on rice for three lives
Yet not dip beneath.
Then, a person rushes straight through the matter of his wall. The room’s occupant, noticing him, ceases his repast and turns his mighty head to look.
This new visitor seems winded. Hands on his knees, he huffs and puffs, drawing in heavy breaths. His clothing is simple, coat and pants, but his garish headband and the conspicuously displayed firearms on his back and sides are a source of great disquiet. The faintest trace of consternation, visible only as a slight quirk of the eyebrow, shows on the room’s owner’s face.
*Whuuuu* gasps the visitor. “#Four… Staccato… in a… row… What was I… thinking?#” Still wheezing, the trespasser straightens up. The room’s occupant sees that the strange intruder is a gaijin, and notes the strange, capped chain hanging from his chest. Further consternation becomes visible: the mouth becomes a good millimeter smaller.
Suddenly freezing, the intruder slowly turns to face the occupant. The occupant continues to stare at him, unmoving.
“#Crud!#” the spirit screams in English, before leaping through the other wall. The room’s occupant listens to the sounds of his footsteps as he rushes through the building. After they fade away, he continues to sit, expressing his great consternation for all to see.
…Those who know him very well, anyway.
Then, he silently returns to his meal.
********
Yasutora Sado was not ordinarily given to taking long nightly walks without moonlight. He did occasionally meet his friends late at night, and they did occasionally walk, but on the whole he preferred to be inside, sleeping, playing guitar, or watching his Carnivore Kingdom DVD collection.
However, after the strange visitor’s appearance had interrupted his nightly snack, he had taken a walk outside to follow the spirit’s trail.
It was difficult. Sado lacked the great spiritual sense of his Soul Reaper friends, and his quarry had barely any spiritual presence at all to follow. However, here and there, he could see other ghosts and spirits standing in the streets, staring after something, and many of them, having seen him around town, were willing to give him directions.
Sado heard from them that his quarry often ran along the ceilings of local buildings, but always dropped through their floors rather than leap across larger streets. It was clear that, whatever the strange man was, he couldn’t use his powers to walk on thin air like a Soul Reaper. This was a relief, as neither could Sado.
Following the strange being’s trail across the suburb of Karakura and into the outskirts, Sado soon passed the old construction sites at the edge of town, one of which held memories near and dear to his heart. He walked past the town boundaries and followed a string of low-level lights and an old homeless-ghost down to the ancient, long abandoned junkyard outside the city limits, where the old man-ghost promised he had seen many a strange spirit walking.
Thanking the specter in his silent, manly way, Sado quietly circled the junkyard, whose many spires of earth and refuse clawed at the night sky. Examining the old, rusty, barbwire-topped fence that surrounded it, he eventually found a hole large enough to fit his large frame through. With a grace belying his massive body, he moved through the heaps of waste in the dark, eventually noting a fire burning and giving light amongst the refuse. Silently slipping from one shadow to another, he began to approach it.
Sado, as a former resident of Mexico and a diligent student in Japan, was quite familiar with the English language, more so perhaps than any of his friends, and thus had little difficulty understanding much of the conversation he overheard, though some strange words failed to register in his mind.
“#—per! I put out its eye and Staccatoed away, fast as I could, and when I stop to catch my breath in some guy’s room he can *see* me!#” spoke the voice of the being from his room. “#God! How many damn sensitives are there in this town? You can’t walk down the damn street without *tripping* over some! Why the hell are we here, anyway? This is a high-risk area, and I’ve never set up shop in a shittier junkyard before!#”
“#We’re in Japan, dude,#” explained a lighter, more relaxed male voice. “#Anything they can’t burn gets recycled. Land scarcity. I’m kinda surprised we even found an old one. But hey, long as The Woo Machine gets power and the old Lagann has a parking spot, *I’m* a happy camper.#”
“#You did well nonetheless,#” said a woman’s voice in quiet, precise diction. “#Returning here was a good move. After the others arrive from their patrol rounds, we can discuss this more thoroughly. You are certain you were not followed?#”
“#’Course not,#” said the voice with which Sado was familiar. “#I left that Hollow with plenty of juice in him. No way the Soul Reaper managed to pick me up. Speaking of which, I really gotta know. Why *did* we come to a town where everyone can see us? Seems kinda counterproductive to me. Like, ya know, trying to take over the world by blasting a great big hole in it with some kinda gemstone powered cannon, or—#”
#”#—or,” interjected the other male voice, #”#trying to teach your students a lesson in philosophy by trapping them on an island and starving them and having the shit beat out of them and generally putting them in mortal danger, or—#”
“#—or setting up a long, complicated, rambling plot to capture a series of weird, kaiju-esque creatures with your secret society of immortal assassins, *then* waiting to get started till everyone and their sister has one bound to ‘em, or—#”
“#—or trying to kill the big cheese gang leader after all the ‘Can you dig it?’ stuff for no reason at all really, or—#”
“#Wait, what the hell? That doesn’t fit! That’s just an example of doing something random that makes no sense, not doing something that seems self-defeating! Plus, it’s from that piece of crap film, the… the…#”
“#Hey, we were running out of examples and I wanted to keep going! Besides, The Warriors was the *shit*.#”
“#It sucked! Even before they went back and put in all those damn comic book transitions. And, anyway—#”
A loud *whoosh* of air interrupted him, and a new voice spoke.
“#Ah, you two. Still bickering like an old married couple on Blockbuster night. Hello, Sabata dear. How did it go?#”
“#As well as could be expected,#” the woman’s voice replied.
“#That bad, huh?#”
Sado, having reached the cover of an ancient, tank-like washing machine, leaned around the edge to get a decent look at the gathering.
To one side stood the intruder, guns and belts unslung and lying on a legless table next to him. He was leaning against an old rusty post that protruded from the junk.
Beside him, lounging in the back seat of a wrecked convertible automobile, lay a dark haired man, facing away from Sado with his hands behind his head. An assault rifle lay propped against the seat, its muzzle facing to the sky.
The woman, who was facing Sado’s hiding spot, was dressed in clothing that Sado tentatively identified as coming from a macaroni western: wide-brimmed hat, dark, cloak-like coat, loose pants tucked into thick boots. Only her voice and long hair, braided up into twin pigtails in a business-like manner, identified her as a woman.
Her face was mostly shaded by her hat, and only her mouth, set into something halfway between a scowl and a blank expression, was visible beneath it. She sat on a large metal coffin, relatively clean despite the filth of the junkyard.
The final, and newest member, was clad in a long trenchcoat and sneakers. He stood nearest the fire in the clearing, an easy smile on his face and a black beret on his head. His dark blue eyes, wide and bright with firelight, stood over high cheekbones and a gentle chin. His hands were out and warming themselves over the fire.
Each of them, or at least the ones Sado could see, had a Chain of Fate dangling from their chest, its broken end capped with an unusual weight. The man from his bedroom had one shaped like a pair of wings, while the woman’s resembled a Western hourglass. The man in the trenchcoat, unlike his companions, had one under his clothing, and the man in the car was at a bad angle to see.
“#Sir,#” called the man in the carseat, without getting up, “#tell him we *have* got a good reason to be in this town, and that The Warriors was the *shit*.#”
“#Jonkheer,#” said the more familiar man almost immediately, “#tell *me* what reason we had to set up shop in a town where *everyone* can see us, and tell *him* that The Warriors was *plain* shit.#”
“#Wyse, you’re right, The Warriors was a flawed-but-fun film—#”
“#Score!#” yelled the man lying across the car seat, pumping his fist in the air.
“#— and Bill, while I see your point, we need to see if we can pick up anybody else like Stephen while we can. This place, *because* it’s full of people who can see us, fits that bill to a T, to mix a metaphor. Besides, it means we get to catch up with Margrave and maybe even meet with the master again.#”
Having finished speaking, the trenchcoated man, apparently a leader, Sado thought, stretched and yawned. “#Whew! I’m headed under. Let me in on the details tomorrow, Sabata.#”
The woman nodded silently, still seated atop her coffin.
Still yawning, the man (Jonkel, they called him Jonkel, Sado thought) walked over to a pile of garbage and moved easily into it, phasing through its matter. All three spirits were silent for a moment, when he leaned his head back out, now hatless and revealing his short, thick dark hair.
“#And watch the cussing. It takes years off your life.#” He leaned back into the pile, and all present heard him chuckling until it faded away.
“#Told ya,#” said the man reclined across the carseat.
“#Ah, shut up. Let’s go watch some Yojimbo down below. *That’s* a good movie.#”
“#Damn straight!#” agreed the other, leaping to his feet and snatching up his weapon. He immediately jumped through the ground. The other, having gathered up his shotguns, prepared to follow him before turning to the black-clad woman seated on the coffin.
“#Hey, Sabata, you mind letting me know when the gang’s all here so as I can give that report?#”
“#No,#” spoke the woman. (Sabata, thought Sado.) “#Enjoy yourselves.#”
The ghost-man leapt into the ground like a diver might leap into the water, and it closed over him.
Sado, leaning back behind his cover, began to muse on the situation when an odd clanking sound distracted him.
“#Lance,//#” said the woman, greeting vaguely evident in her clipped tone. “#A threat?#”
#perhaps lady sabata.# spoke a voice, its tone and inflection strange and atonal. #i believe that someone may be in the junkyard but have been unable to ascertain their level of spiritual energy. i was built for tracking guarding and combat purposes. spiritual energy assessment is beyond my capabilities.#
“#Then return to the spot where you first detected it and follow their trail,#” said Sabata. Sado began to edge back toward the fence. “#Avoid being seen or heard, and if they either stay away or fail to notice us, then leave them be. Otherwise remove them, using nonlethal force, if possible. Bill correctly assessed that this suburb contains abnormally large proportions of living sensitives and ghostly remnants.#”
#certainly.# replied the odd voice, followed by a series of quiet clicks and clanks. Suddenly, Sado became aware of a strange prickling sensation over his entire body.
#ah.# said the voice. #it appears the visitor is quite close milady. i offer up my sincere apologies. he is attempting to leave and from his behavior judge he has seen us. permission to take action?#
Sado straightened up and began to run.
“#Granted.#”
Suddenly, a whirl of motion kicked up a cloud of dust in front of Sado, temporarily blinding him. When he had cleared his eyes, a large figure stood directly in front of him, a good half a meter taller than his own great height. It was broad, and while his night vision had been shredded from staring at the fire in the night, he easily made out the many whirling, moving parts on its massive arms. Its body, though not proportioned quite right, left an impression of powerful strength and strange, jerky grace.
stop, said the voice, its Japanese perfect but just as toneless and oddly inflected as its English. i mean you no harm. i trust you have seen lady sabata at least. you will come to no harm but i must ensure your silence.
Sado, who had long ago sworn never to fight only for self-preservation, stood tall and silent as the strange, machine-like guardian waited for an answer. They stood like that, frozen in tableau, for nearly a full minute.
After several moments of silence, Sado heard a grinding sound behind him. Turning his head ever so slightly to look, he saw Sabata walking up to them, dragging her coffin along behind her via a long chain slung over her shoulder. She stopped a good few meters away and called “#Why aren’t you grabbing him Lance?#”
#a programming oversight milady. if he ran fought or gave a response i could act but he has as yet done nothing. this is not one of my prerecorded outcomes and without a precedent i cannot take a course of action.#
“#Very well. I don’t speak his language at all, so I must ask you to translate for me. Please—#”
“#I speak some English,#” said Sado, unmoving. “#I learned a little in Mexico and have studied more here in Japan.#”
The woman showed some surprise at this, before replying, “#Very well. I have no wish to resort to violence. Surrender to Lance and we will release you in a few days, devoid of your memories of this incident. The process is painless.#”
Sado was silent for a moment. Then he spoke. “#I have no wish to lose my memories. However, if you insist, I will not fight back.#”
“#I insist,#” she said, almost sadly, Sado thought. Then, as Lance moved forward to take him, a scream racked the junkyard. All three figures turned to look as the world began to bulge out in front of them. “#No,#” whispered Sabata, more in disbelief and irritation than fear. “#__No.__#”
The bulge split open and a Hollow lunged out. Its grinning mask leered at them over a round, four-armed body. Strange-colored puffs of spores fell from its stubby, mushroom-shaped fingers, three to a hand.
Instantly, Sabata drew twin long revolvers from under her coat and fired at the creature. At the same moment, Lance twisted and fired what looked like a three-foot-long steel spear from his right forearm.
Sado, who had no qualms about fighting these particular foes, bent his head and concentrated his thoughts on his dead grandfather. Thick armor, red and black and covered in flanges, coated his right arm and protruded over his shoulder. He flexed its fingers for a moment, massaging it with his other hand, before firing a blast of energy from his fist at the resilient Hollow.
The thought of fleeing and saving himself from both sets of enemies, leaving his captors to fight alone, never even entered his mind.
Something that they just can't face,
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it,
They carry it with them every step that they take.
[….]
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop,
I'll be on that hill with everything I got,
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost,
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost,
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.
-- Bruce Springsteen, a.k.a. The Boss
“Darkness on the Edge of Town”
Behold the rice.
It sits in its plain, blue-patterned bowl, silent and pure white as new fallen snow. Steam wafts from it, present but thin, deliciously signifying that its source is at the perfect temperature for human consumption.
To its right and left are a container of soy sauce and a pair of chopsticks, respectively. All three are arranged with almost ritualistic precision, as carefully placed as the components of a mystic’s mandala.
Let the lens of narrative view draw back. A single cup rests behind this rice, full of tea at an equally perfect temperature. It too steams. One sees the table upon which the meal rests, simple, brown, low to the ground in the Japanese fashion. Beside this table, a guitar and case lean against the wall.
The room is small and cheap, and, though some effort has been taken to keep it clean, a certain set of intangible qualities, a certain disorderliness in the furnishings, the barely visible mound of dishes in the sink, identify this as the room of a firm bachelor.
Before the table sits a man. His facial features bespeak Asian ancestry, while his swarthy skin creates an impression of Latin blood. His muscular body is near perfect in its physical form, his face stoic and beautiful. Clad in a flowery shirt, a necklace with a single coin for a pendant around his neck, he stares down at his meal in perfect silence.
One graceful hand slowly moves toward the container of soy sauce. Slowly, carefully, it decants the perfect quantity of sauce upon the rice, causing the delicious smell of the dish to grow even more so. Placing the container back in its place, the man now picks up the chopsticks in his other hand and begins to eat from the dish, each time carefully removing a small lump of soy-laden rice from the bowl and placing it in his mouth.
He eats without speaking, maintaining a near-perfect silence even with the scraping of utensil on bowl. This is a near-sacrament, the consumption of rice.
A haiku:
Ah rice! Meal of men!
Truly wonderful it is,
Tasting rice at dusk.
Another:
Salty in the mouth,
Full of strength in the stomach.
Ah, how sweet is rice!
A last:
Truly, a man might
Compose on rice for three lives
Yet not dip beneath.
Then, a person rushes straight through the matter of his wall. The room’s occupant, noticing him, ceases his repast and turns his mighty head to look.
This new visitor seems winded. Hands on his knees, he huffs and puffs, drawing in heavy breaths. His clothing is simple, coat and pants, but his garish headband and the conspicuously displayed firearms on his back and sides are a source of great disquiet. The faintest trace of consternation, visible only as a slight quirk of the eyebrow, shows on the room’s owner’s face.
*Whuuuu* gasps the visitor. “#Four… Staccato… in a… row… What was I… thinking?#” Still wheezing, the trespasser straightens up. The room’s occupant sees that the strange intruder is a gaijin, and notes the strange, capped chain hanging from his chest. Further consternation becomes visible: the mouth becomes a good millimeter smaller.
Suddenly freezing, the intruder slowly turns to face the occupant. The occupant continues to stare at him, unmoving.
“#Crud!#” the spirit screams in English, before leaping through the other wall. The room’s occupant listens to the sounds of his footsteps as he rushes through the building. After they fade away, he continues to sit, expressing his great consternation for all to see.
…Those who know him very well, anyway.
Then, he silently returns to his meal.
********
Yasutora Sado was not ordinarily given to taking long nightly walks without moonlight. He did occasionally meet his friends late at night, and they did occasionally walk, but on the whole he preferred to be inside, sleeping, playing guitar, or watching his Carnivore Kingdom DVD collection.
However, after the strange visitor’s appearance had interrupted his nightly snack, he had taken a walk outside to follow the spirit’s trail.
It was difficult. Sado lacked the great spiritual sense of his Soul Reaper friends, and his quarry had barely any spiritual presence at all to follow. However, here and there, he could see other ghosts and spirits standing in the streets, staring after something, and many of them, having seen him around town, were willing to give him directions.
Sado heard from them that his quarry often ran along the ceilings of local buildings, but always dropped through their floors rather than leap across larger streets. It was clear that, whatever the strange man was, he couldn’t use his powers to walk on thin air like a Soul Reaper. This was a relief, as neither could Sado.
Following the strange being’s trail across the suburb of Karakura and into the outskirts, Sado soon passed the old construction sites at the edge of town, one of which held memories near and dear to his heart. He walked past the town boundaries and followed a string of low-level lights and an old homeless-ghost down to the ancient, long abandoned junkyard outside the city limits, where the old man-ghost promised he had seen many a strange spirit walking.
Thanking the specter in his silent, manly way, Sado quietly circled the junkyard, whose many spires of earth and refuse clawed at the night sky. Examining the old, rusty, barbwire-topped fence that surrounded it, he eventually found a hole large enough to fit his large frame through. With a grace belying his massive body, he moved through the heaps of waste in the dark, eventually noting a fire burning and giving light amongst the refuse. Silently slipping from one shadow to another, he began to approach it.
Sado, as a former resident of Mexico and a diligent student in Japan, was quite familiar with the English language, more so perhaps than any of his friends, and thus had little difficulty understanding much of the conversation he overheard, though some strange words failed to register in his mind.
“#—per! I put out its eye and Staccatoed away, fast as I could, and when I stop to catch my breath in some guy’s room he can *see* me!#” spoke the voice of the being from his room. “#God! How many damn sensitives are there in this town? You can’t walk down the damn street without *tripping* over some! Why the hell are we here, anyway? This is a high-risk area, and I’ve never set up shop in a shittier junkyard before!#”
“#We’re in Japan, dude,#” explained a lighter, more relaxed male voice. “#Anything they can’t burn gets recycled. Land scarcity. I’m kinda surprised we even found an old one. But hey, long as The Woo Machine gets power and the old Lagann has a parking spot, *I’m* a happy camper.#”
“#You did well nonetheless,#” said a woman’s voice in quiet, precise diction. “#Returning here was a good move. After the others arrive from their patrol rounds, we can discuss this more thoroughly. You are certain you were not followed?#”
“#’Course not,#” said the voice with which Sado was familiar. “#I left that Hollow with plenty of juice in him. No way the Soul Reaper managed to pick me up. Speaking of which, I really gotta know. Why *did* we come to a town where everyone can see us? Seems kinda counterproductive to me. Like, ya know, trying to take over the world by blasting a great big hole in it with some kinda gemstone powered cannon, or—#”
#”#—or,” interjected the other male voice, #”#trying to teach your students a lesson in philosophy by trapping them on an island and starving them and having the shit beat out of them and generally putting them in mortal danger, or—#”
“#—or setting up a long, complicated, rambling plot to capture a series of weird, kaiju-esque creatures with your secret society of immortal assassins, *then* waiting to get started till everyone and their sister has one bound to ‘em, or—#”
“#—or trying to kill the big cheese gang leader after all the ‘Can you dig it?’ stuff for no reason at all really, or—#”
“#Wait, what the hell? That doesn’t fit! That’s just an example of doing something random that makes no sense, not doing something that seems self-defeating! Plus, it’s from that piece of crap film, the… the…#”
“#Hey, we were running out of examples and I wanted to keep going! Besides, The Warriors was the *shit*.#”
“#It sucked! Even before they went back and put in all those damn comic book transitions. And, anyway—#”
A loud *whoosh* of air interrupted him, and a new voice spoke.
“#Ah, you two. Still bickering like an old married couple on Blockbuster night. Hello, Sabata dear. How did it go?#”
“#As well as could be expected,#” the woman’s voice replied.
“#That bad, huh?#”
Sado, having reached the cover of an ancient, tank-like washing machine, leaned around the edge to get a decent look at the gathering.
To one side stood the intruder, guns and belts unslung and lying on a legless table next to him. He was leaning against an old rusty post that protruded from the junk.
Beside him, lounging in the back seat of a wrecked convertible automobile, lay a dark haired man, facing away from Sado with his hands behind his head. An assault rifle lay propped against the seat, its muzzle facing to the sky.
The woman, who was facing Sado’s hiding spot, was dressed in clothing that Sado tentatively identified as coming from a macaroni western: wide-brimmed hat, dark, cloak-like coat, loose pants tucked into thick boots. Only her voice and long hair, braided up into twin pigtails in a business-like manner, identified her as a woman.
Her face was mostly shaded by her hat, and only her mouth, set into something halfway between a scowl and a blank expression, was visible beneath it. She sat on a large metal coffin, relatively clean despite the filth of the junkyard.
The final, and newest member, was clad in a long trenchcoat and sneakers. He stood nearest the fire in the clearing, an easy smile on his face and a black beret on his head. His dark blue eyes, wide and bright with firelight, stood over high cheekbones and a gentle chin. His hands were out and warming themselves over the fire.
Each of them, or at least the ones Sado could see, had a Chain of Fate dangling from their chest, its broken end capped with an unusual weight. The man from his bedroom had one shaped like a pair of wings, while the woman’s resembled a Western hourglass. The man in the trenchcoat, unlike his companions, had one under his clothing, and the man in the car was at a bad angle to see.
“#Sir,#” called the man in the carseat, without getting up, “#tell him we *have* got a good reason to be in this town, and that The Warriors was the *shit*.#”
“#Jonkheer,#” said the more familiar man almost immediately, “#tell *me* what reason we had to set up shop in a town where *everyone* can see us, and tell *him* that The Warriors was *plain* shit.#”
“#Wyse, you’re right, The Warriors was a flawed-but-fun film—#”
“#Score!#” yelled the man lying across the car seat, pumping his fist in the air.
“#— and Bill, while I see your point, we need to see if we can pick up anybody else like Stephen while we can. This place, *because* it’s full of people who can see us, fits that bill to a T, to mix a metaphor. Besides, it means we get to catch up with Margrave and maybe even meet with the master again.#”
Having finished speaking, the trenchcoated man, apparently a leader, Sado thought, stretched and yawned. “#Whew! I’m headed under. Let me in on the details tomorrow, Sabata.#”
The woman nodded silently, still seated atop her coffin.
Still yawning, the man (Jonkel, they called him Jonkel, Sado thought) walked over to a pile of garbage and moved easily into it, phasing through its matter. All three spirits were silent for a moment, when he leaned his head back out, now hatless and revealing his short, thick dark hair.
“#And watch the cussing. It takes years off your life.#” He leaned back into the pile, and all present heard him chuckling until it faded away.
“#Told ya,#” said the man reclined across the carseat.
“#Ah, shut up. Let’s go watch some Yojimbo down below. *That’s* a good movie.#”
“#Damn straight!#” agreed the other, leaping to his feet and snatching up his weapon. He immediately jumped through the ground. The other, having gathered up his shotguns, prepared to follow him before turning to the black-clad woman seated on the coffin.
“#Hey, Sabata, you mind letting me know when the gang’s all here so as I can give that report?#”
“#No,#” spoke the woman. (Sabata, thought Sado.) “#Enjoy yourselves.#”
The ghost-man leapt into the ground like a diver might leap into the water, and it closed over him.
Sado, leaning back behind his cover, began to muse on the situation when an odd clanking sound distracted him.
“#Lance,//#” said the woman, greeting vaguely evident in her clipped tone. “#A threat?#”
#perhaps lady sabata.# spoke a voice, its tone and inflection strange and atonal. #i believe that someone may be in the junkyard but have been unable to ascertain their level of spiritual energy. i was built for tracking guarding and combat purposes. spiritual energy assessment is beyond my capabilities.#
“#Then return to the spot where you first detected it and follow their trail,#” said Sabata. Sado began to edge back toward the fence. “#Avoid being seen or heard, and if they either stay away or fail to notice us, then leave them be. Otherwise remove them, using nonlethal force, if possible. Bill correctly assessed that this suburb contains abnormally large proportions of living sensitives and ghostly remnants.#”
#certainly.# replied the odd voice, followed by a series of quiet clicks and clanks. Suddenly, Sado became aware of a strange prickling sensation over his entire body.
#ah.# said the voice. #it appears the visitor is quite close milady. i offer up my sincere apologies. he is attempting to leave and from his behavior judge he has seen us. permission to take action?#
Sado straightened up and began to run.
“#Granted.#”
Suddenly, a whirl of motion kicked up a cloud of dust in front of Sado, temporarily blinding him. When he had cleared his eyes, a large figure stood directly in front of him, a good half a meter taller than his own great height. It was broad, and while his night vision had been shredded from staring at the fire in the night, he easily made out the many whirling, moving parts on its massive arms. Its body, though not proportioned quite right, left an impression of powerful strength and strange, jerky grace.
stop, said the voice, its Japanese perfect but just as toneless and oddly inflected as its English. i mean you no harm. i trust you have seen lady sabata at least. you will come to no harm but i must ensure your silence.
Sado, who had long ago sworn never to fight only for self-preservation, stood tall and silent as the strange, machine-like guardian waited for an answer. They stood like that, frozen in tableau, for nearly a full minute.
After several moments of silence, Sado heard a grinding sound behind him. Turning his head ever so slightly to look, he saw Sabata walking up to them, dragging her coffin along behind her via a long chain slung over her shoulder. She stopped a good few meters away and called “#Why aren’t you grabbing him Lance?#”
#a programming oversight milady. if he ran fought or gave a response i could act but he has as yet done nothing. this is not one of my prerecorded outcomes and without a precedent i cannot take a course of action.#
“#Very well. I don’t speak his language at all, so I must ask you to translate for me. Please—#”
“#I speak some English,#” said Sado, unmoving. “#I learned a little in Mexico and have studied more here in Japan.#”
The woman showed some surprise at this, before replying, “#Very well. I have no wish to resort to violence. Surrender to Lance and we will release you in a few days, devoid of your memories of this incident. The process is painless.#”
Sado was silent for a moment. Then he spoke. “#I have no wish to lose my memories. However, if you insist, I will not fight back.#”
“#I insist,#” she said, almost sadly, Sado thought. Then, as Lance moved forward to take him, a scream racked the junkyard. All three figures turned to look as the world began to bulge out in front of them. “#No,#” whispered Sabata, more in disbelief and irritation than fear. “#__No.__#”
The bulge split open and a Hollow lunged out. Its grinning mask leered at them over a round, four-armed body. Strange-colored puffs of spores fell from its stubby, mushroom-shaped fingers, three to a hand.
Instantly, Sabata drew twin long revolvers from under her coat and fired at the creature. At the same moment, Lance twisted and fired what looked like a three-foot-long steel spear from his right forearm.
Sado, who had no qualms about fighting these particular foes, bent his head and concentrated his thoughts on his dead grandfather. Thick armor, red and black and covered in flanges, coated his right arm and protruded over his shoulder. He flexed its fingers for a moment, massaging it with his other hand, before firing a blast of energy from his fist at the resilient Hollow.
The thought of fleeing and saving himself from both sets of enemies, leaving his captors to fight alone, never even entered his mind.