“What the hell is going on?” Eve shouted over the countdown.
“We’re going to get a turtle,” Captain C shouted back with a smile.
“Nobody said anything about a rocket! Shouldn’t we talk about this first? This is all happening really fast.”
Captain C misheard Eve and gave her a thumbs up.
“Yeah! She’s the fastest ship in the ocean!”
Eve opened her mouth to respond, but as she did the countdown reached ‘one’ and a deep rumbling shook the ship. Eve immediately clenched her jaw and gripped her fingers into the cushion of the chair. The vibrations shook so hard that Deimos began to feel a deep pain resonate from his ribs and he screamed. Fortunately, nobody heard his girlish yelp as the roar of the rocket engines filled the air.
Then, what felt like an explosion shook the room. The air was sucked out of Deimos’ lungs as he, Siren, and Eve were thrust back into their seats from the force of the rocket propelling the ship forward. The acceleration was so quick, and Deimos’ chest pain was so severe, that he could have sworn he threw up and the vomit was pushed back down into his body by the g-force. He carefully turned his head to his left to see Eve in a frozen, wide-eyed stare, still clenching her jaw and gripping her seat. Next to her, Siren was calmly sitting in her seat watching the monitors with an open-mouthed grin. Deimos forgot Siren had already been through something similar when they went to space thirty years ago. Maybe if he wasn’t in such excruciating pain he would have been able to enjoy it too, but all he could think about was wanting to run to Indiana Drones for another hit of morphine.
The ship continued to accelerate to the point where Deimos felt it lift up out of the water. On one of the monitors, he was able to make out what he assumed was the bottom of the ship and a long fin rising out of the ocean. Deimos was dumbfounded. The four-story tall, one hundred and fifty-foot long warship was also a hydroplane.
After several minutes of unimaginable sound and pressure, the ship reached its cruising speed. The trio were finally able to catch their breath as they were no longer being pressed into their chairs by the acceleration. A pirate technician walked around with blocky, wireless headsets and gave a handful to Captain C. He unhooked himself from his chair and placed them on Deimos, Siren, and Eve’s head. Captain C then bent down to remove Professor Paws’ earmuffs and replaced them with a child’s version of the headset. He put the final one on himself and turned a knob on the side, directing the others to do the same. As soon as Deimos turned the knob on his headset the roar of the engine faded almost entirely.
Captain C spoke and it sounded so clear that Deimos could have sworn he was talking directly into his ear.
“Sorry ‘bout that. The headsets don’t work during the launch phase. Are ya three all right?”
Eve screamed so loud that Captain C nearly ripped off his headset in favor of the roar of the rocket.
“God fucking dammit! What is wrong with you people? Can we go thirty goddamn seconds without some crazy shit happening?”
“Language, young lady!” Siren interjected. “But I have to agree with Eve on this one, a little warning would have been nice.”
Captain C rubbed his beard sheepishly.
“Sorry. I was trying ta show off.”
Deimos slowly rose out of his chair, unaware of how badly the g-forces had affected him. He immediately vomited on the floor. The cast hidden under his shirt had done nothing to mitigate the overwhelming pressure from the ship’s acceleration.
“Gotta get to Indie...” he muttered before dropping back down in his seat.
Siren rushed to his side.
“Babe, are you okay?”
Deimos pointed weakly to his ribs, unable to speak. Siren turned shakily to Captain C.
“He hurt his ribs yesterday. Do you have a sick bay?”
Captain C nodded and held a button down on the side of his headset.
“Sam, Veronica, I need you to take Deimos down to the sick bay ASAP. Possible fractured ribs.”
Twenty seconds later, which to Deimos felt like an eternity, the two pirates were at his side. One was holding a syringe and injected it into Deimos’ arm. Immediately, a warm sensation spread across his body and he blacked out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A scootch over fifty-five hundred miles away from Los Rebeldes, in the small Japanese village of Unmei, a young black man was seated outside a bar. His chiseled features were furrowed into a wary scowl. Beneath his wide-brimmed hat was a head full of dark, curly hair pulled back into a short ponytail. He was wearing a black kimono, the traditional garb of samurai, because he was, in fact, a samurai. The young man’s name was Ikeda Yasuke, and as of two days ago he was the last living member in a lineage of black samurai that had protected Unmei for centuries.
Yasuke was drinking Genmaicha, a popular green tea in his village, and glaring unwaveringly into the bar at two other patrons. They were drunk, boisterous men who were suspected members of the Kasai Gang. Kasai was known for taking advantage of poor families in the region. They would send their members to recruit from coastal villages in attempts to bolster their ranks. Despite Unmei being well known for its vigilante samurai defender, Kasai members would still show up from time to time looking for trouble. They never successfully recruited anyone, but the gang members still enjoyed robbing locals and being sexually aggressive with the town’s young women. For years, Yasuke’s grandfather Takashi had always been there to stop them, but with him now dead, the burden had been passed on to Yasuke.
Inside the bar, the men began loudly singing the Kasai anthem.
“Kasai is the fire that burns the world! Surrender or don’t, Kasai still spreads!”
It sounded better in Japanese, the language they were speaking, because they were, again, in Japan.
The men were being anything but subtle about their presence. Word had already gotten out that Takashi was dead, which meant hot-headed Kasai members would undoubtedly want to push their influence on this highly sought-after village. However, Yasuke wasn’t worried. To him, these two drunkards were simply the first round of losers in what was certainly going to be a long line of challengers coming through Unmei thinking it was undefended.
The bartender finally had enough and threatened to kick out the drunk men if they didn’t knock off their singing. They feigned apologies, but as soon as the bartender turned his back, one of the men reached over the bar and grabbed an expensive bottle of sake. The two gang members bolted out of the bar, giggling to themselves while stumbling over their own feet. By the time the bartender realized what had happened, the men were already halfway down the street. He ran outside to yell after them but noticed Yasuke seated nearby drinking his tea. The bartender bowed and spoke to him in a low, hushed tone.
“Yasuke, I did not think you were still here.”
“Do not worry, Kaito,” Yasuke replied. “I will take care of those men. Please go back into the bar. The streets will not be safe tonight.”
The bartender bowed again and went back inside the bar. Yasuke finished his tea in one gulp, stood, and adjusted his katana around his waist. He looked out from under the cover of the bar’s thatched patio. It had begun to rain. Unmei was primarily a farming village and rain was seen as a sign of good fortune. Yasuke, however, enjoyed the rain for a reason other than healthy crops. It meant he wouldn’t need to clean the gang members’ blood off the street when he was finished with them. He smiled at his luck and took off after them.
Yasuke’s sandals were coated with a rubber base, allowing him to move silently along the wet, cobbled roads. He ran through the dark eaves of the quiet village in pursuit of the drunk gang members. They had already made their way toward a grouping of homes and were passing the stolen sake bottle between each other, loudly singing their gang’s anthem.
“Kasai is the fire that burns the world! Surrender or don’t, Kasai still spreads!”
/> Again, better in Japanese.
Their drunken, slurred speech echoed around the noiseless homes. The cobbled path beneath their stumbling feet turned into a dirt road as they entered the quiet community. Yasuke listened from a distance, growing angrier with each uncivilized word that slopped out of their mouths like the mud squishing beneath their shoes. Even though he did not know these men, he hated them. He hated the type of men they were, those who took what wasn’t theirs and preyed on the weak simply because they thought themselves to be strong. Except Yasuke knew their strength relied on their gang’s numbers. With only two of them here now, Yasuke thought they looked quite weak.
Yasuke knew what his grandfather would do in this situation. He would pull the men aside and give them a chance to apologize. If they didn’t want to talk, he usually found a way to get them to leave the village with their lives. Takashi always taught Yasuke to look for the best in people.
“Even the most hate-filled man started life as an innocent child,” his grandfather would say.
Yasuke always hated that saying. It was that same reserved judgment that had gotten his father killed nearly a decade ago. When his grandfather passed, Yasuke decided he would defend Unmei with a much firmer fist.
However, as Yasuke drew his blade and approached the men, there was a sound of splashing further ahead. It was a young girl, no older than twelve, collecting rainwater in a bucket. Yasuke immediately recognized her as Hattori Hamada, a kindhearted girl who lived with her sickly grandmother. Yasuke had scolded her on several occasions for being out too late, but with nobody else to help her with the chores, she usually had no choice.
The larger gang member nudged his companion and motioned toward Hamada. He nodded his head and they both took one last chug of the sake before they dropped the bottle and walked toward her. Hamada heard the smack of the bottle hitting the mud and looked up at the two imposing men approaching her.
The larger gang member shouted out, “Hey, little girl, do you need some help?”
“You should not be lifting that heavy bucket on your own,” said the other. “We are two strong men. Let us do it.”
Dammit, Yasuke thought to himself, sheathing his weapon.
He couldn’t kill these men in front of Hamada. She was too young to see something that violent. Besides, he had always thought of Hamada as a little sister. He didn’t want her to see him do what he had intended to.
“I do not need any help,” Hamada said bravely to the gang members. “Please leave me alone.”
The men ignored her and stepped over the rickety, wooden fence into her yard.
“So rude!” exclaimed the heavyset gang member. “Do you not know it is impolite to refuse help from a handsome man?”
The man lurched forward toward Hamada, but before he was in arms length of her, Yasuke was between them. He shoved the butt of his sheath into the throat of the gang member, blocking his path.
“Leave her alone,” Yasuke growled.
The man choked as the wooden scabbard pressed into his jugular and he slipped attempting to back up. His companion caught him before he could fall back into the mud.
“You son of a bitch!” the gang member shouted. “Do you know who you are dealing with?”
“Yeah!” exclaimed the other. “We are with Kasai. We have killed people. So get the hell out of here before we kill you too.”
Yasuke stood tall and removed his wide-brimmed hat. With only the light of the partially concealed moon, the gang members were able to make out Yasuke’s dark skin and curly hair. The smaller gang member fearfully stumbled back into the fence.
“Oh shit! It’s the black samurai!” he proclaimed.
His companion wasn’t convinced and stood his ground. He cracked his knuckles menacingly.
“Bullshit,” the gang member said. “The samurai is dead. This is some wannabe. Get out of here, kid. You are ruining our good time.”
Yasuke held his sheathed blade forward.
“She is a child, you disgusting animal. Leave, before I skewer you like the pig you are.”
“You son of a bitch!” the man yelled. “How dare you disrespect me!”
He prepared to leap forward at Yasuke, but before the man could take his first step, Yasuke jabbed the solid end of his sheath into the man’s nose, breaking it. He swept the gang member’s leg out from under him and forced him back with a palm strike, sending the tearful man stumbling into his companion. They both fell backward through the rickety fence and onto the muddy ground.
“I will tell you one last time,” Yasuke said firmly. “Leave.”
The men scrambled over each other, sending mud and bits of wood flying in every direction. They sped off back down the cobbled path.
Through spurts of blood, the largest shouted back, “This isn’t over! Kasai is coming for Unmei!”
Yasuke watched them run out of sight. He then turned toward Hamada.
“Sorry about the fence. I will come by tomorrow to fix it.”
“It is okay. Thank you Yasuke,” Hamada replied softly.
Yasuke chuckled, “Yasuke? That is a bit informal for someone who saved your life.”
“Sorry, Yasuke-sama,” Hamada said, bowing.
Yasuke lifted the bucket of rainwater and placed it in the doorway behind Hamada.
“That is a little better,” he said. “Please, stay inside tonight.”
Yasuke nodded respectfully to Hamada and ran off. He would have liked to stay and make sure Hamada was all right but he needed to catch up to those thugs. The fat one was right, they would simply return in a few days with more men. It would be better to kill them now before they had a chance to regroup.
Unfortunately, when Yasuke made it to the border of Unmei, the gang member’s old Subaru was already racing down the road and out of sight.
Dammit, Yasuke thought again. Not a great first fight.
He made a mental note of the make and model of the car to keep an eye out for it in the days to come. Yasuke then turned and looked back over the little village of Unmei. It was nestled in a valley beside Mount Inaodake and overlooked the Pacific Ocean. It had remained mostly unchanged for two hundred years. Much of the landscape was still covered in terraced paddy fields. Only a single, cobbled road led through the village’s tiny marketplace and into a park-like plaza filled with cherry blossoms. They had bloomed early that year, on the day Takashi died.
Seeing the cherry blossoms reminded Yasuke of his grandfather. His thoughts drifted to how cold his grandfather’s hands had felt the morning he found him. Yasuke had never heard of a samurai dying peacefully in their sleep before. Usually their stories ended in a bloody fight to the death, like his father’s, but Yasuke felt it took an especially great samurai to die of old age.
Something caught Yasuke’s eye on the village’s bulletin board and he walked closer to it. It was a recent news article stating that the Japanese government was partnering with an American billionaire. They were offering research and technologies to assist him in launching a task force that would focus on the rise of criminals known as ‘villains.’ In the article were pictures of four wanted men linked to kidnapping the billionaire’s fiancée and murdering six businessmen.
Yasuke sighed. Malicious people existed everywhere in this world. Gangsters, villains, they were all the same. Yasuke only wished there were more of him to stand up to them. He looked to his right and over the ocean. The sun would be rising soon and he needed to get some rest. Tomorrow was only going to be harder for him if he wasn’t able to get at least a few hours of sleep. He headed back down the cobbled path and began the long trek through the village and up the mountainside to his cottage.
It was nearly dawn when Yasuke finally arrived home. The small, wooden cottage was well secluded from the rest of the village and offered a breathtaking view of the entire ocean region. Yasuke kicked off his sandals, slid op
en the door, and collapsed on the floor. He was exhausted. Between organizing Takashi’s funeral during the day and patrolling the village at night, Yasuke barely had a moment for himself. Yet whenever he did, his mind became so filled with grief that he couldn’t manage to keep his eyes closed. But after two days of torment, Yasuke’s body simply couldn’t fight it any longer. Within seconds he was fast asleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Deimos woke in the sick bay of Redbeard’s Revenge feeling as if a weight had been lifted off his chest. Only an hour had passed since he blacked out, but his ribs felt as if they had been healing for weeks. He would even go as far as to say they felt as good as new. Not new in the sense that they were a baby’s ribs, but certainly newer than they were an hour ago.
He slowly opened his eyes and looked down. The cast on his chest had been removed. He took in a deep, painless breath. After losing the ability to breathe comfortably, regaining it can be better than sex.
Deimos turned his head to check his surroundings. The room was coated in a calming, polished blue finish. State of the art medical equipment lined the walls. There were even a few machines Deimos didn’t recognize. One such machine was displaying an image of what he assumed was an x-ray of his ribs, except it showed the ribs on the left side of his body were glowing with a purple hue.
A soothing female voice spoke out, taking Deimos by surprise.
“Good, you’re awake,” the voice said.
Deimos jolted, thinking the voice was coming from inside his own head, but he soon realized he was still wearing his headset. The woman that the voice belonged to shuffled into view. It was the medic Veronica who had administered the shot that knocked Deimos out. She placed her hand gently on his shoulder.
“How are those ribs feeling, sweetie?” Veronica asked.
Deimos carefully rose to a seated position. Surprisingly, the movement didn’t hurt him at all.
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