Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ BLEACH Side Story: Chain/Gun/Gear ❯ Part 1.3: Hole in Your Belly/Gun in Your Hand ( Chapter 4 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: SpectralTime 
3...
2...
1...
Ready?
Anime/Manga: Bleach Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Comedy / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.09.2009 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.7K | Visits: 129 | Status: Work In Progress
3...
2...
1...
Ready?
Anime/Manga: Bleach Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Comedy / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.09.2009 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.7K | Visits: 129 | Status: Work In Progress
Now Tom said, "Ma, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy,
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries,
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air,
Look for me Ma I'll be there.
“Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand,
Or decent job or a helpin' hand,
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free,
Look in their eyes Ma, you'll see me."
The highway is alive tonight,
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes.
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light,
With the Ghost of ol' Tom Joad.
--Bruce Springsteen, a.k.a. The Boss
“The Ghost of Tom Joad”
******
--Later stolen by Rage Against the Machine
********
The world is dark tonight.
The thin moon and pale stars do little to cast light down into the dark, long-abandoned junkyard outside the town. Formed during the American occupation of Japan, its patronage vanished with its makers, leaving its spires of ancient trash and earth lonely and abandoned.
What few bulbs illuminate the street do not penetrate into its inky depths, and the nearby town’s dim lights serve only to blunt more natural sources. Even the small fire stoked at its heart little aids the purposes of the observer. Still, as the eye of narrative adjusts, motion begins to swim into focus. Four shapes can be made out in the darkness.
A misshapen, blubbery form resembling a mushroom lumbers forward on two short, plump legs. Its four long, spindly arms end in short, corpulent fingers, each one tipped with a mushroom cap heavy and drooping with spores.
The smallest of the opposing shapes attacks with what appear to be firearms, while the largest releases a mighty, three-foot long bolt from its forearm. These weapons prove ineffective: the bullets and spear sink harmlessly into portly flesh without penetrating, before bouncing away.
“Hoo hoo,” chuckles the creature stupidly, its voice as flabby as its body, before a third blow, this one composed of a glowing mass of near-pure energy, bowls it over like a nine-pin.
*******
Sado, having brought the creature down, rushed ahead to survey his handiwork. Behind him, he heard the massive, mysterious bulk of Lance do the same as engine noises revved to life that Sado had learned in Mexico to associate with saw-bladed chains spinning at great speed.
Suddenly, the creature rolled backwards onto its massive “cap,” and, utilizing both the elastic nature of the structure and the muscular strength of its plump trunk, bounced easily up to its feet. Again, Sado was subjected to a sensation of blurring speed as the machine-like guardian rushed past him. However, he barely had time to note the outline of Lance’s upraised left arm, the chainsaw set into its bottom edge glittering and whirling in the sparse starlight, when the Hollow’s cap let out a great puff of spores which were sucked into Lance’s body.
Lance stopped instantly. The whining, engine-like noise of the being’s operation came to a sudden halt, as the guardian fell to the ground, stiff as a board. Sado, frank shock appearing for a moment on his normally stoic face, pulled up short and began to circle the Hollow, which continued to grin and lumber towards him.
“Hoo hoo,” it laughed. “Hoo hoo. I could feel it. Pulling ectoplasm out of the air to run itself. But,” the Hollow raised a thin arm and thick, three-fingered hand, and flexed it, letting out a shower of spores from its mushroom-cap fingertips, “with these, none comes in. He shuts down, even if he’s made of metal. Works that way for soft things too, ‘cept they still can run and feel. Soft like a Soul Reaper. Or you.”
The creature licked its lips with a fleshy tongue, before dropping more spores from its cap and taking in a massive breath that visibly swelled its body like a balloon. Pausing for a moment to figure range, it blew it back out, spraying an enormous puff of drifting spores in Sado’s direction.
Sado leaped out of the way before he could inadvertently inhale some, but more and more filled the air with each passing moment, flowing away from the thing’s body in thick ribbons. He drew back his fist to prepare another shot, but, to his surprise, found it restrained. The mushroom-Hollow laughed stupidly as Sado looked down at his body.
The spores, dropping beneath the level of his head, had crept along the ground and produced pale, luminous, vine-like mushrooms. The fungi were even then winding their way around his arms and upper torso, and though he pulled and struggled with all his monstrous strength they held fast. Each one stretched elastically, unable to tear or break, and each one sprayed more spores. Despite his best efforts, some entered the poor man’s lungs and began capping off his accumulated spiritual power.
“Hoo hoo,” the Hollow chuckled, still advancing on Sado. “Hoo h—”
Suddenly, the beast was knocked back by an invisible force that sent it sprawling at least half-a-dozen feet away. Sabata winked into being in front of the Hollow, legs bent to a crouch and head perpendicular to the ground. “#Are you injured? #” she asked, quietly, as the Hollow once again used its springy flesh to bounce to its feet.
“#No, #” answered Sado. He had an idea. Relaxing his muscles, he crouched low to the ground, letting the fungi wrap more coils around him and pull themselves tighter.
“#Good, #” said the lady ghost, who vanished. Suddenly, the Hollow was buffeted with a storm of blows from seemingly every angle, both hand and foot, visible by the deep impressions they left in the Hollow’s soft body. However, despite the volume of the strikes, the beast’s rubbery flesh proved neigh invincible to simple blunt trauma.
Just as the creature opened its mouth, and Sado braced himself for another stupid chuckle, Sabata suddenly appeared in front of its mask holding a small, open pouch in one hand. At speeds approaching those of her earlier quick draw, the black-clad ghost swiped a small fragment of something that, even in the dark night that reduced everything to black outlines, faintly *gleamed* with sharpness.
Quick as a whip, she hurled it into one of the Hollow’s eye sockets.
The creature screamed in pain, shattering many surrounding glass objects, and smashed the woman to the ground with one of its arms before she could use her speed to vanish again. “YOOOooooUUUUU!” it screeched, its pained voice very different from its normal one. “YooooOOOOOoooUUUUuuuu biiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIII—”
Sado made his move. Pulling in one sharp breath, he focused all his remaining strength into his bent legs and pushed against the fungi with all his might. Stretched taunt already by winding around him, they could only desperately grip the ground until, with a mighty roar, Sado stood upright, tearing the fungi that bound him out of the ground by their roots. The mushrooms unwound from his body and began dying rapidly as they fell to the earth. Sado swung, and the energy blast he had been preparing for minutes smashed into the Hollow, hurling it off of the lady ghost.
Sado took advantage of the beast’s rage and confusion to rush to the wounded woman’s side. Sabata was still conscious, though she had lost her hat and outer gunslinger’s cloak in the confusion. Slowly, painfully climbing to her feet, she turned her head to look at him, hands on her knees.
“#You have… strong spirit powers... Do you know about... Soul Reapers? #” she asked, her breath coming in short gasps. Sado nodded once. “#That was... a fragment, #” she breathed. “#Taken from... the shattered blade… of a Ghost Cutter. Kill it... without fear. #”
Sado stood up, flexing the fingers of his armored hand. The mushroom-Hollow had staggered to its feet, ichor dripping down its mask from its punctured eye. Howling in barely-coherent pain, the beast once again surrounded itself with a cloud of spores and drew in a massive breath that swelled its body like a balloon.
Sado rushed at the beast, head bent and body crouched to maximize speed. He rolled right to dodge the massive breath cloud it sprayed out, then leapt left to avoid the luminous fungi that rose up from the earth to bind him. As he neared it, the beast suddenly struck a simultaneous blow with all four of its spindly arms.
The spirit pressure of the strike blew up a small dust cloud for a moment. When it cleared, Sado stood tall, having wrapped his massive hand around all four spindly wrists. The two combatants struggled for a moment, each one pushing or pulling with all their might. Then, Sabata winked into existence one last time, this time in the air over the mushroom’s cap.
And this time, she was carrying her metal coffin.
Sabata fell heavily, forcing the Hollow’s rubbery body down, and granting Sado the leverage necessary to rip off all four of the creature’s arms in one pull.
The Hollow howled in impotent rage and terrible pain. Shaking free of Sabata’s weight, it straightened up. Two of its arms had given at the elbow rather than the shoulder, and it flexed these stumps even as it bled profusely from them.
It prepared to draw in its breath for another blast of spores, but Sado tackled it before it could even drop a puff of them. Pining its body beneath his mighty left arm and lower body in a classic submission hold, he raised his armored right hand and hooked his fingers through the gills of the cap.
With a great grunt of exertion, he tore with all the monstrous strength of the Braza Derecha del Gigante and ripped the cap away from the stalk of the mushroom’s body.
Great gouts of black ichor gushed in spurts from both the severed cap and remaining stalk. The now-helpless creature glared up at him. Sado stared down at it, his face as stoically blank as it usually was, and deep in wrathful darkness of the of the creature’s remaining eye he saw a frightened, self-hating human face staring up at him.
His fist came down like a sledge hammer, shattering the mask and pulping whatever lay beneath.
Even as the creature’s body went limp in death, the rubbery substance that composed it began to dissolve, soft white flesh fading away to reveal the human skin beneath. Light shone, and a child’s face stared at him for a moment, smiling a happy smile. As it faded away, he heard a chuckle, happy and wonderful, echo through the junkyard.
Sado stood where he was, allowing the armor of the Braza Derecha del Gigante to fade from his arm. His night vision once again destroyed by the apparition, he almost missed the shape in black that appeared behind him. It was Sabata, who had taken the time to recover her hat and coat, and once again had the chain of her coffin in hand.
“#Come with me, #” she said, and turned to walk back into the firelight. Sado followed.
*******
“#I won’t ask who you are, or how you gained the power to see things normally left unseen, even by the most sensitive of humans, #” said the ghost, once again seated atop her coffin. Sado, who remained silent, remembered Shuhei, during guitar training, telling him that few of even the most spiritually gifted humans could even see Soul Reapers. “#I will say that we wish to remain secret from the Reapers. #”
“#Why? #” asked Sado, after a moment’s thought.
“#We have some powers, but we are for the most part still simple Wholes. They would wish to force us to go over by... what is the word...? #”
“Konso,” answered Sado.
“#Yes. As you can see, my chain will grow no shorter, and I am in no danger of becoming a Hollow myself, or at least no more than any other Whole. In America, we had achieved a sort of… understanding, but here they have yet to encounter us. #”
After this statement, she grew silent, and Sado followed suit.
When Sabata and Sado had sat, unspeaking, for a long moment, a third voice joined in. “#We exist to help the helpless as their representatives, not their superiors. Who shall be the watchmen? The soldiers or the citizens? Who shall serve the weary? The priests or the laymen? #”
Sado turned his head and saw the leader from before, still clad in his trench coat and beret and standing in front of a spire of mingled earth and refuse. He spoke in perfect Japanese as he walked toward Sado and Sabata. “So many of the spirits upon the earth have much left to do. Why should they be forced over against their will? So many of them are devoured, unsaved, while the living receive all the coddling of the Soul Reapers. Why should they not have the means to fight back on their own?”
Pausing before the fire, he turned his head to look into Sado’s eyes. Sado looked into his large blue eyes and saw his face, joviality burned away to reveal solemnity beneath, tightened jaw and fiercely bent eyebrows. “ ‘*A well regulated militia* being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ If they won’t look after us, we’ll just have to look after ourselves. I said it once, long ago, and I say it now. I am Jonkheer, First of Gunmen, and you stand in the headquarters of the Wild Bunch.”
Silence filled the clearing anew, save for the crackling and popping of the fire as salvaged garbage burned. Jonkheer spoke again, this time in English. “#I trust you. Go, and take your memory with you. I ask only that you would spare us from those who would end our work. Please, don’t tell anyone, okay? #”
The ghost’s joviality had returned, and he smiled at Sado, who relaxed, slightly. “#Call it a gift, #” he added, “#for saving her life. #” Jonkheer turned to smile at Sabata too, who, surprisingly, smiled back, if minutely and briefly.
Sado nodded. “#And the machine? #”
“#Lance? #” asked Sabata. “#He will recover. I believe we might simply be able to wash out his primary extractor to cleanse the spores from his system. #”
“#Good#.” Sado stood up and began to leave.
“Why didn’t you try to fight your way free of Lance and Sabata early on?” called Jonkheer, arms crossed in front of his chest.
Sado stopped. His left hand went to the peso on a chain around his neck, and he raised his right to the level of his eyes. Looking at it, the large man spoke thoughtfully. “God didn’t give me my hands to cause pain. I hurt those who hurt me, and who profits? My might is not to use for my own profit.” He balled it into a fist. “My strength exists… that with it, I might protect others.”
Jonkheer smiled. Sado resumed his walk, soon leaving the circle of firelight. They heard the clink of wire as he exited through a gap in the fence, then the click of his shoes on the asphalt of the road.
“#There goes a good man, #” muttered the spirit in his native tongue.
--------
_______
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries,
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air,
Look for me Ma I'll be there.
“Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand,
Or decent job or a helpin' hand,
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free,
Look in their eyes Ma, you'll see me."
The highway is alive tonight,
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes.
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light,
With the Ghost of ol' Tom Joad.
--Bruce Springsteen, a.k.a. The Boss
“The Ghost of Tom Joad”
******
--Later stolen by Rage Against the Machine
********
The world is dark tonight.
The thin moon and pale stars do little to cast light down into the dark, long-abandoned junkyard outside the town. Formed during the American occupation of Japan, its patronage vanished with its makers, leaving its spires of ancient trash and earth lonely and abandoned.
What few bulbs illuminate the street do not penetrate into its inky depths, and the nearby town’s dim lights serve only to blunt more natural sources. Even the small fire stoked at its heart little aids the purposes of the observer. Still, as the eye of narrative adjusts, motion begins to swim into focus. Four shapes can be made out in the darkness.
A misshapen, blubbery form resembling a mushroom lumbers forward on two short, plump legs. Its four long, spindly arms end in short, corpulent fingers, each one tipped with a mushroom cap heavy and drooping with spores.
The smallest of the opposing shapes attacks with what appear to be firearms, while the largest releases a mighty, three-foot long bolt from its forearm. These weapons prove ineffective: the bullets and spear sink harmlessly into portly flesh without penetrating, before bouncing away.
“Hoo hoo,” chuckles the creature stupidly, its voice as flabby as its body, before a third blow, this one composed of a glowing mass of near-pure energy, bowls it over like a nine-pin.
*******
Sado, having brought the creature down, rushed ahead to survey his handiwork. Behind him, he heard the massive, mysterious bulk of Lance do the same as engine noises revved to life that Sado had learned in Mexico to associate with saw-bladed chains spinning at great speed.
Suddenly, the creature rolled backwards onto its massive “cap,” and, utilizing both the elastic nature of the structure and the muscular strength of its plump trunk, bounced easily up to its feet. Again, Sado was subjected to a sensation of blurring speed as the machine-like guardian rushed past him. However, he barely had time to note the outline of Lance’s upraised left arm, the chainsaw set into its bottom edge glittering and whirling in the sparse starlight, when the Hollow’s cap let out a great puff of spores which were sucked into Lance’s body.
Lance stopped instantly. The whining, engine-like noise of the being’s operation came to a sudden halt, as the guardian fell to the ground, stiff as a board. Sado, frank shock appearing for a moment on his normally stoic face, pulled up short and began to circle the Hollow, which continued to grin and lumber towards him.
“Hoo hoo,” it laughed. “Hoo hoo. I could feel it. Pulling ectoplasm out of the air to run itself. But,” the Hollow raised a thin arm and thick, three-fingered hand, and flexed it, letting out a shower of spores from its mushroom-cap fingertips, “with these, none comes in. He shuts down, even if he’s made of metal. Works that way for soft things too, ‘cept they still can run and feel. Soft like a Soul Reaper. Or you.”
The creature licked its lips with a fleshy tongue, before dropping more spores from its cap and taking in a massive breath that visibly swelled its body like a balloon. Pausing for a moment to figure range, it blew it back out, spraying an enormous puff of drifting spores in Sado’s direction.
Sado leaped out of the way before he could inadvertently inhale some, but more and more filled the air with each passing moment, flowing away from the thing’s body in thick ribbons. He drew back his fist to prepare another shot, but, to his surprise, found it restrained. The mushroom-Hollow laughed stupidly as Sado looked down at his body.
The spores, dropping beneath the level of his head, had crept along the ground and produced pale, luminous, vine-like mushrooms. The fungi were even then winding their way around his arms and upper torso, and though he pulled and struggled with all his monstrous strength they held fast. Each one stretched elastically, unable to tear or break, and each one sprayed more spores. Despite his best efforts, some entered the poor man’s lungs and began capping off his accumulated spiritual power.
“Hoo hoo,” the Hollow chuckled, still advancing on Sado. “Hoo h—”
Suddenly, the beast was knocked back by an invisible force that sent it sprawling at least half-a-dozen feet away. Sabata winked into being in front of the Hollow, legs bent to a crouch and head perpendicular to the ground. “#Are you injured? #” she asked, quietly, as the Hollow once again used its springy flesh to bounce to its feet.
“#No, #” answered Sado. He had an idea. Relaxing his muscles, he crouched low to the ground, letting the fungi wrap more coils around him and pull themselves tighter.
“#Good, #” said the lady ghost, who vanished. Suddenly, the Hollow was buffeted with a storm of blows from seemingly every angle, both hand and foot, visible by the deep impressions they left in the Hollow’s soft body. However, despite the volume of the strikes, the beast’s rubbery flesh proved neigh invincible to simple blunt trauma.
Just as the creature opened its mouth, and Sado braced himself for another stupid chuckle, Sabata suddenly appeared in front of its mask holding a small, open pouch in one hand. At speeds approaching those of her earlier quick draw, the black-clad ghost swiped a small fragment of something that, even in the dark night that reduced everything to black outlines, faintly *gleamed* with sharpness.
Quick as a whip, she hurled it into one of the Hollow’s eye sockets.
The creature screamed in pain, shattering many surrounding glass objects, and smashed the woman to the ground with one of its arms before she could use her speed to vanish again. “YOOOooooUUUUU!” it screeched, its pained voice very different from its normal one. “YooooOOOOOoooUUUUuuuu biiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIII—”
Sado made his move. Pulling in one sharp breath, he focused all his remaining strength into his bent legs and pushed against the fungi with all his might. Stretched taunt already by winding around him, they could only desperately grip the ground until, with a mighty roar, Sado stood upright, tearing the fungi that bound him out of the ground by their roots. The mushrooms unwound from his body and began dying rapidly as they fell to the earth. Sado swung, and the energy blast he had been preparing for minutes smashed into the Hollow, hurling it off of the lady ghost.
Sado took advantage of the beast’s rage and confusion to rush to the wounded woman’s side. Sabata was still conscious, though she had lost her hat and outer gunslinger’s cloak in the confusion. Slowly, painfully climbing to her feet, she turned her head to look at him, hands on her knees.
“#You have… strong spirit powers... Do you know about... Soul Reapers? #” she asked, her breath coming in short gasps. Sado nodded once. “#That was... a fragment, #” she breathed. “#Taken from... the shattered blade… of a Ghost Cutter. Kill it... without fear. #”
Sado stood up, flexing the fingers of his armored hand. The mushroom-Hollow had staggered to its feet, ichor dripping down its mask from its punctured eye. Howling in barely-coherent pain, the beast once again surrounded itself with a cloud of spores and drew in a massive breath that swelled its body like a balloon.
Sado rushed at the beast, head bent and body crouched to maximize speed. He rolled right to dodge the massive breath cloud it sprayed out, then leapt left to avoid the luminous fungi that rose up from the earth to bind him. As he neared it, the beast suddenly struck a simultaneous blow with all four of its spindly arms.
The spirit pressure of the strike blew up a small dust cloud for a moment. When it cleared, Sado stood tall, having wrapped his massive hand around all four spindly wrists. The two combatants struggled for a moment, each one pushing or pulling with all their might. Then, Sabata winked into existence one last time, this time in the air over the mushroom’s cap.
And this time, she was carrying her metal coffin.
Sabata fell heavily, forcing the Hollow’s rubbery body down, and granting Sado the leverage necessary to rip off all four of the creature’s arms in one pull.
The Hollow howled in impotent rage and terrible pain. Shaking free of Sabata’s weight, it straightened up. Two of its arms had given at the elbow rather than the shoulder, and it flexed these stumps even as it bled profusely from them.
It prepared to draw in its breath for another blast of spores, but Sado tackled it before it could even drop a puff of them. Pining its body beneath his mighty left arm and lower body in a classic submission hold, he raised his armored right hand and hooked his fingers through the gills of the cap.
With a great grunt of exertion, he tore with all the monstrous strength of the Braza Derecha del Gigante and ripped the cap away from the stalk of the mushroom’s body.
Great gouts of black ichor gushed in spurts from both the severed cap and remaining stalk. The now-helpless creature glared up at him. Sado stared down at it, his face as stoically blank as it usually was, and deep in wrathful darkness of the of the creature’s remaining eye he saw a frightened, self-hating human face staring up at him.
His fist came down like a sledge hammer, shattering the mask and pulping whatever lay beneath.
Even as the creature’s body went limp in death, the rubbery substance that composed it began to dissolve, soft white flesh fading away to reveal the human skin beneath. Light shone, and a child’s face stared at him for a moment, smiling a happy smile. As it faded away, he heard a chuckle, happy and wonderful, echo through the junkyard.
Sado stood where he was, allowing the armor of the Braza Derecha del Gigante to fade from his arm. His night vision once again destroyed by the apparition, he almost missed the shape in black that appeared behind him. It was Sabata, who had taken the time to recover her hat and coat, and once again had the chain of her coffin in hand.
“#Come with me, #” she said, and turned to walk back into the firelight. Sado followed.
*******
“#I won’t ask who you are, or how you gained the power to see things normally left unseen, even by the most sensitive of humans, #” said the ghost, once again seated atop her coffin. Sado, who remained silent, remembered Shuhei, during guitar training, telling him that few of even the most spiritually gifted humans could even see Soul Reapers. “#I will say that we wish to remain secret from the Reapers. #”
“#Why? #” asked Sado, after a moment’s thought.
“#We have some powers, but we are for the most part still simple Wholes. They would wish to force us to go over by... what is the word...? #”
“Konso,” answered Sado.
“#Yes. As you can see, my chain will grow no shorter, and I am in no danger of becoming a Hollow myself, or at least no more than any other Whole. In America, we had achieved a sort of… understanding, but here they have yet to encounter us. #”
After this statement, she grew silent, and Sado followed suit.
When Sabata and Sado had sat, unspeaking, for a long moment, a third voice joined in. “#We exist to help the helpless as their representatives, not their superiors. Who shall be the watchmen? The soldiers or the citizens? Who shall serve the weary? The priests or the laymen? #”
Sado turned his head and saw the leader from before, still clad in his trench coat and beret and standing in front of a spire of mingled earth and refuse. He spoke in perfect Japanese as he walked toward Sado and Sabata. “So many of the spirits upon the earth have much left to do. Why should they be forced over against their will? So many of them are devoured, unsaved, while the living receive all the coddling of the Soul Reapers. Why should they not have the means to fight back on their own?”
Pausing before the fire, he turned his head to look into Sado’s eyes. Sado looked into his large blue eyes and saw his face, joviality burned away to reveal solemnity beneath, tightened jaw and fiercely bent eyebrows. “ ‘*A well regulated militia* being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ If they won’t look after us, we’ll just have to look after ourselves. I said it once, long ago, and I say it now. I am Jonkheer, First of Gunmen, and you stand in the headquarters of the Wild Bunch.”
Silence filled the clearing anew, save for the crackling and popping of the fire as salvaged garbage burned. Jonkheer spoke again, this time in English. “#I trust you. Go, and take your memory with you. I ask only that you would spare us from those who would end our work. Please, don’t tell anyone, okay? #”
The ghost’s joviality had returned, and he smiled at Sado, who relaxed, slightly. “#Call it a gift, #” he added, “#for saving her life. #” Jonkheer turned to smile at Sabata too, who, surprisingly, smiled back, if minutely and briefly.
Sado nodded. “#And the machine? #”
“#Lance? #” asked Sabata. “#He will recover. I believe we might simply be able to wash out his primary extractor to cleanse the spores from his system. #”
“#Good#.” Sado stood up and began to leave.
“Why didn’t you try to fight your way free of Lance and Sabata early on?” called Jonkheer, arms crossed in front of his chest.
Sado stopped. His left hand went to the peso on a chain around his neck, and he raised his right to the level of his eyes. Looking at it, the large man spoke thoughtfully. “God didn’t give me my hands to cause pain. I hurt those who hurt me, and who profits? My might is not to use for my own profit.” He balled it into a fist. “My strength exists… that with it, I might protect others.”
Jonkheer smiled. Sado resumed his walk, soon leaving the circle of firelight. They heard the clink of wire as he exited through a gap in the fence, then the click of his shoes on the asphalt of the road.
“#There goes a good man, #” muttered the spirit in his native tongue.
--------
_______