Crossover Fan Fiction / Crossover With Non-anime Series Fan Fiction ❯ Chisato Wick ❯ John Wick ( Chapter 2 )

I awoke to the sound of cutlery and dishware moving around. And the smell of roasting coffee. It seems I am still here.

There was a dinging bell over the door and a voice called out: “Are you open?” They were greeted with the traditional welcome. I heard the sound of coffee poured, payment taken, people seating and chatting.

I stretched and sat up. My uniform is wrinkled, and there are gross bits of stuff that came off of the girl’s uniform now in the bedding. The owner of this futon will be pissed off if it isn’t aired out properly, and beaten clean. I need to get clean. If I try and board an airliner coated in gunfight and explosives I’ll be arrested as a terrorist by airport security. I opened doors, eventually finding the furo and undressed, bathed, and returned to examine my clothes. I note there is a washing machine. I use it. It doesn’t take long. There’s also an evaporative dryer. I use that, taking the opportunity to shave the few hairs off my cheeks and chin. I suspect that while this is Japan, it’s probably the future. At least a bit. Or maybe slightly off. There’s noise in the dryer and I realize I hadn’t removed the gold coin from my pocket. I stop the dryer and remove it, looking at it while the dryer restarts. The indicator of the dryer shows water content is dropping fast and my clothes will be dry soon. I stop it and remove them, lowering an ironing board and using the available iron to get them tidy. In tidy clothes I look less like a Yakuza and more like a slightly scroungy student. I dress and straighten up my tie. Presentable, even with the white piping. You’d never guess I was a wizard.

I approached the front of the shop and found my patient and her very dear and intimate friend in traditional shop clothes from a century ago, serving coffee and sweets to a dozen guests. I grinned. It was the kind of place that Yuigahama would love to work if she could find the grace to do it. The girls were effortless, and there was a small blonde glaring at me with a huge suitcase in front of her. She wasn’t even 150 centimeters tall. I grinned, to be contrary and took a guess.

“Thanks for the use of your futon. It’s going to need to be aired out and cleaned.”

“Great. I’ll have it burned. I had to get one delivered because there was nowhere to sleep. It isn’t here yet. There’s been some chaos in the city overnight,” she intoned quietly. She glanced to Chisato.

“Sensei says that’s your doing?” she asked me. I nodded.

“Never seen a talent like that. Never heard of a talent like that. And you don’t wear the owl pin,” she added.

“I’m no Heaven Canceller, if that’s what you mean,” I suggested. She frowned thinking. Then remembered and frowned harder.

“That setting was dumb. All the villains giggled. How did that ever get popular?” she asked.

“The girls were cute and the hero was oblivious. It was Ranma ½ for a fresh audience,” I suggested. “Also, there’s some implied romance outcomes which are obvious to the audience, but not to the heroes.”

“Like what?” she asked, interested.

“Well, the spiky haired hero can cancel any skill, and the electrical heroine shoots lightning when she’s excited. Now imagine she’s in a frisky mood and she kills her partner by accident. Say this happens a few times. Now imagine she meets a guy who can disable this thing so she can actually do the thing she’s been interrupted from doing all this time, and how crazy that makes her realizing subconsciously that he’s the one guy who can get her off and not die. She has no other choices. It’s him or nobody. And he’s crazy popular with the ladies.”

“So when I met him I cured most of his brain damage and fixed up a children’s hospital long term care ward, preventing a nuclear meltdown and destruction of a billion yen elevated freeway. Healing can be a very disruptive act.” The girl considered this, then shrugged.

“Okay, so you can have the futon. I still think you’ll want to clean it,” the tiny blonde decided. 

“Yeah, that’s fair. Your preferred perfumes are a bit overpowering.”

She grunted, returning to her seat. I noticed a discreet laptop was facing her, and she sipped her coffee, scrolling what is probably news.

“A wave of gun violence has wracked New York City in recent days, with the murder rate spiking,” reported the tv news announcer.

The number of customers leaving the shop and the number coming in began to slack off eventually. Chisato finally finished cleaning up the shop and wiping down the tables. She looked very happy. It is hard to imagine her a gunfighter who Death liked, but there you go.

She went to the back of the shop and was gone for around an hour. I sipped coffee and ate a ham croissant prepared by Sensei, who was idly checking inventory and making orders by phone. Chisato returned wearing her uniform, cleaned and repaired. So did Takina. Both girls had book bags that looked heavy with weaponry and probably armor.

So Death, about that transportation? I asked myself, thinking loudly. A portal appeared in the hallway behind the girls. It was swirling, like they do, and I could see the entrance of a building with stone steps and brass railings. Noise and fumes and the sound of gasoline engines emerged. The girls spun, Takina quick drawing her weapon.

“So we’re going to New York City to meet your father, Chisato. I just got the story last night. I have never been to New York City, but I think my English will do. We seem to have a portal to our destination there. So, shall we go?” I asked. I stepped past the girls and into the portal. I felt my Ocato’s activate Stoneskin and a bullet bounced off. They don’t have much mass and the spell stops them pretty well. I climbed the steps and turned to regard the portal. The girls followed, brandishing their weapons. The front doors were missing, and there was glass all over the floor. I waited for the girls and followed behind, glass crunching under my street shoes. No chance I’m taking mine off here. The girls found men with brooms eyeing them carefully.

“Gentleman, ladies. There is no business to be conducted here,” ordered the very tall and dark African with a slight English oxford accent, standing behind a desk.

“Holster the guns,” I translated. The girls did so.

We approached the desk walking past the workers cleaning up what had probably been a huge gunfight. There was a man spraying down some floor and walls where blood had spattered. It stank, but it looked like something that had been done more than once. I stepped up to the counter and laid down the gold coin.

“I’d like to speak to the manager,” I said in English. The concierge stared at me coldly, then at the token, then back to me. His eyebrow rose.

“There’s been a change of management. Are you sure?” he asked me.

“I have instructions. This is regarding John Wick,” I answered. Both eyebrows rose.

“If you are sure. Your body guards, too?” he confirmed.

“If he’s here then yes.”

“Very well,” answered the man, Charon. Apropos for a false name for the underworld. “May I have your name?”

“Roberts would be appropriate for me, but he’ll be interested in Chisato,” I said.

He picked up a phone and dialed. He gave the message. His eyebrows rose again. He hung up the phone, and placed a placard on the counter. It read: the concierge will return shortly.

We followed him down a hallway and into a vault, whose door was open. There were guns on the walls. Well, this IS America. This is probably what every American basement looks like, right? Chisato entered the room behind me and stared at the wounded man there, who put down his drink. He was bearded, bleeding, and needed my assistance. I cast Heal Other and began expelling bullets and closing cut arteries and bruises. He needed his blood. His spleen was intact, oddly. His ribs had been broken many times, including in the last week. That probably hurt. I healed them next and reopened a section of collapsed lung. His color improved. There was perforated intestines, in several places, and liver damage from absorbed lead, probably bullet fragments. I expelled that.

“What are you doing?” John finally said, noticing he was feeling stronger.

“You have a patron. She asked me to heal you,” I answered in English. He grimaced, lifting up the piece of lead wire erupting from his skin. That was the liver piece. It came loose.

“That’s disgusting,” he finally said. Chisato approached and stood just out of reach. I finished the biggest healing issues and worked on the scars. He had a lot. Also tattoos, which I left. Those were probably important.

“Why is she here? Why are you here?” he asked me, then his daughter.

“Apparently she inherited your ability. She wanted to retire and run a coffee shop, but some terrorists kept dragging her back into combat. See the news in Tokyo?” I asked him.

“I’ve been busy here. The last two weeks have been brutal,” Wick said.

“Considering all your wounds that is probably true,” I answered.

“So, you are my father?” asked Chisato.

“Yes. I wanted you safe from this world. I had to kill a hundred Yakuza to make sure of it.”

“A hundred? Are there even that many?” Chisato asked seriously.

“Not anymore,” John answered.

“Out of personal curiosity, are you planning to purge the rest of the goons or is this just to get breathing room and restore fear in your name? You don’t have to answer,” I added at his look.

“What is the nature of my patron?” he asked in response.

“Ever seen Deadpool? Or read the comic, more importantly? Or maybe Sandman?” I asked. He looked confused.

“My youth was spent on training, not comic books,” John Wick answered. I was fixing the breaks in his fingers. Each of the bones had been broken multiple times. His healing was nearly as good as Deadpool, to be honest, just the kind that’s slow enough not to gain attention, but still effective over time.

“Well, let’s just say that the Hot Goth Girl with the Ankh necklace is accurate, and the Norse version is probably the most descriptive and historical origin.”

“You are talking about Death? As a person? Or a goddess?” he queried in serious disbelief.

“Anthropomorphic personification. And eternal incarnation. Something like that. She seems to have some admiration for your grasp of her purpose and you’ve brought many evil souls to her for processing. Death is just the beginning,” I quoted.

“That was a dumb movie. I remember watching it as a kid.”

“Yeah, but it was a fun movie. Like Raiders of the Lost Ark,” I pointed out, finishing his other hand. I looked at his feet. They were showing all kinds of damage, including punctures and broken bones.

“Please don’t get upset, but I need to take off your shoes. There will be no foot massage.”

“Thank God. That would get weird.”

“Daddy?” Chisato finally interrupted our banter. Her very human heart continued to beat healthily. It might affect her bullet dodging slightly, but I suspect not very much. “Where have you been?”

“Eh… I was married for a few years, but my wife got cancer and recently died. I got a dog and was looking after it and then some Russian mafia punks killed my dog and stole my car, so I had to get even and remind them why my retirement was important.”

“And brought 299 people to Death in the process,” I muttered under my breath. It was a popular bit of movie trivia in my original world.

“Hey, they had it coming,” John interrupted me. I got his shoes off and then socks. The puncture wounds and infections would make walking incredibly painful, and kicking people with glass in your feet isn’t great either. I started extracting shards and healing punctures and infections as I went. This was slow going, but there’s 29 muscles and a number of small bones, all of which need to work properly to walk. Severed tendons, damaged tendon sheaths, various ruptured blood vessels and scar tissue. All of it needed healing so I used my spells and the more advanced skills I’d learned from using Heal Other so much. Hard to believe I’d once been a lazy Japanese teenage boy in Chiba who enjoyed playing my Vita-Chan handheld and ignoring annoying text messages from Christmas Cake sensei. Someone, please take her!

“I feel much better now. And I’d like some dinner,” John finally said on standing up and feeling no pain for the first time in two weeks. Charon, please prepare something for my daughter and I in the main dining room. It is time I’m seen.”

“Chisato? I shall leave you here, if that is okay,” I offered. She looked at me, gave me a quick soundless hug, and waved goodbye.

“Uh… thank you, whoever you are,” John said to me, half confused and half grateful in that special Keanu Reeves way.

“You’re welcome? I guess.” I shook his hand and he slipped me two large gold coins. What I do with those in all the other universes I kept visiting I will never know, so I pocketed them, turned to the left and stepped forward into the Portal that was suddenly there.