“It’s…okay,” Rachel said slowly, adjusting to Jin’s presence and demeanor. “What are you doing here?”
“I came for Victor,” Jin explained. “I almost feel like I should explain the rest of it, but since you’re alive, you already know.”
“You mean…you don’t…know?” Rachel asked slowly, confusion overtaking her mind.
“Know what?” Jin asked. “What else is there to know?”
Rachel didn’t answer, but her sudden glance over Jin’s shoulder also drew her husband’s attention. When he turned around to see what she was looking at, Jin found Victor Malakai standing in the penthouse doorway. He only vaguely noticed the large bandage around Victor’s injured knee.
“Ah,” Victor said with a falsely warm voice. “What a touching reunion.”
Out of instinct, Jin drew his sword and moved himself to defend Rachel.
“You’re not going to get any closer to her!” Jin growled.
“Oh, Jin,” Victor said with a sadly amused smile. “If only you knew. Your wife has nothing to fear from me. As a matter of fact, she has much more to fear from you than from me.”
Victor limped toward Jin as he spoke, and Jin’s brow knitted together in confusion. He stole a moment to look back into Rachel’s eyes and lowered his guard almost completely. Before he could discern the strange look in Rachel’s eyes, Victor took one massive step forward and drew Jin’s attention back to him by clearing his throat.
Jin only had time to look back around before Victor slammed his massive fist into Jin’s face and sent him stumbling backward. Rachel swiftly backed out of the way. Jin recovered and held his sword close to him, adopting a defensive stance.
“Rachel, get out of here!” Jin barked. “Run down to the lobby, I’ll meet you there.”
Victor turned to his right and took a large claymore off its wall mount and took the time to point it at a large wall display of medieval weapons.
“Do you see all those, Jin?” Victor asked. “Which one would you like to be killed by?”
Jin’s lips curled into a snarl, but he could do nothing else as Victor lifted the claymore above his head and chopped down at Jin. Jin effortlessly leapt to his left and forward to dodge it. He then got to his feet just in time to see Victor swing the massive sword again, and Jin brought his own up to block. However, he’d vastly underestimated the power behind Victor’s attack, and while his sword protected him from the blade itself, Jin was nonetheless thrown sideways into Victor’s wall of weapons. Jin crashed through the glass that shielded the medieval weapons held there and knocked a number of them off their racks. Rachel jogged forward to see what happened to Jin, but Victor held out his arm to hold her back.
Slowly, and shaking his head to re-focus his attention, Jin pushed himself back to his feet. As he did so, he could feel a hot, burning sensation on his left cheek. A warm liquid trickled down the side of his face, and Jin quickly brought his hand up to inspect the wound. When he pulled it back, his fingers were stained with blood.
“Well, well, what do you know?” Victor said mockingly, “The Black Dragon can bleed.”
Jin glared up at Victor.
“You know, Jin,” Victor continued in the same tone. “All this business I’ve had with you today puts me in mind of a story. A story about a man who just couldn’t quite please his wife. A man by the name of Jin Sakai.”
Rage, white-hot and bloodthirsty, shot through Jin’s body and he charged. He raised his sword high for the kill, but was sent gasping and wheezing to the floor when Victor delivered a stiff blow to his gut. Jin dropped his sword, and Victor kicked it aside as he walked away from Jin and toward the mini-bar behind him. Rachel followed him, looking extremely apprehensive.
“Victor, please,” she said quietly, not looking at Jin. “Just get this over with.”
“And miss out on all this fun?” Victor asked, raising his voice just a little. “Not a chance, Hartman. I’ve waited far too long for this.”
At that, Victor turned his attention back to Jin.
“Our story starts about eighteen years ago. Our main character, a man by the name of Jin Sakai, is a young, up and coming assassin. He’s recently been accepted into an organization that calls itself the Black Dragon Clan. It is an elite clan of assassins that only accepts the best of the best into its membership.”
Clutching his gut and gasping for air, Jin gazed up at Rachel, his eyes silently pleading for an explanation. Rachel looked back at Jin for a moment before turning away, unable to hold or bear Jin’s gaze. Meanwhile, Victor continued his speech.
“A few years later, Jin meets a beautiful young woman by the name of Rachel Hartman. They met while Jin was on a job trying to kill an associate of her father’s. Thus far, Rachel had led a sheltered life, blissfully unaware of the shady nature of her father’s business. Yet when she learns of Jin’s true life, she leaves with him, eagerly anticipating a life of thrill and adventure. A couple of years later, they get married and have a couple of kids. Twins as a matter of fact, a boy and a girl. Katie and Alex.”
As the names of Jin’s children leave Victor’s lips, Jin’s eyes burn with hatred.
“For a while, things are all happy-go-lucky,” Victor continued, savoring the expression of outright murder on Jin’s face. “Yet after about five or six years, once the thrill of adventure has passed, Rachel starts to get bored. She misses the adrenaline and excitement that her life had held before the kids came along. Now she’s stuck at home babysitting the pair of brats. Now, don’t mistake her intentions, the kids are adorable. She just wishes they weren’t hers so she would feel so guilty about not loving them like a mother should.”
At this, a red flush seeped into Rachel’s cheeks.
Hearing Victor’s words, Jin’s expression shifted from one of open murder to one of complete shock and disbelief. He looked at Rachel, knowing that she’d refute these claims, knowing that she’d offer up some alternate explanation for everything that had happened in the last five years. But when she turned away from him, hiding her face with her hand, Jin knew without a doubt that everything Victor Malakai had said thus far was true.
That everything he’d held to be true for the last five years had been nothing – nothing but a lie.
“You know, Jin,” Victor said, switching gears as he walked closer to Jin and picked up a large mace that had fallen off the rack, “Dorigan just wanted to kill you. I just wanted to kill you. Neither of us gave a damn about your family.”
Victor walked back to the bar then and held the mace lazily in his hands.
“Yet we were approached by someone. A woman who’d grown bored and frustrated with her life. And it was she who suggested that we kill not just you, but your kids as well. She also told us to fake her death, saying that not only would it cause you even greater pain, but that if you ever found out about her role in things, you’d want to kill her as much as us. So we did. We injected her with a sedative and dressed her up to look like she’d been viciously murdered. Apparently, it worked exceedingly well.”
Jin shook his head, trying to shake Victor’s words out of his ears.
“In case you haven’t already figured it out,” Victor continued, deeply enjoying Jin’s torment, “the woman who approached us is standing in this room, no more than ten feet from you. Jin Sakai, I present you with the true architect of your family’s murder! Your wife, Rachel Hartman.”
Jin couldn’t even begin to comprehend what he’d just heard, and he certainly didn’t have time to. Only seconds after he’d finished speaking, Victor swung his mace down at Jin, shouting in victory. Victor’s shouting, coupled with the massive size of the mace, blasted Jin back into reality and triggered his lightning-fast reflexes. He dove for his sword, leaving the mace to smash through the floor, and wrapped his fingers around the leather-wrapped hilt. Turning his dive into a roll, Jin snapped back to his feet in a crouch, blade at the ready. Yet instead of facing Victor Malakai, Jin stared straight into Rachel’s steel gray eyes.
In that instant, where their eyes were locked, everything Jin had held dear became nothing. In her eyes, Jin saw a tiny trace of shame underneath a mountain of fear. Yet the one thing Jin did not find that he desperately searched for was remorse. Rachel was not sorry in the least that she’d had her own flesh and blood children murdered, and Jin knew then, with unequivocal certainty, that if Rachel had to do it again to get something she wanted, she would. When that knowledge clicked inside of Jin’s head, all of his emotions, all his pain, all his grief, all his hatred and rage, erupted forward and shone through his eyes with a singular focus – Rachel.
His hateful glare bored into her eyes, and Rachel found herself completely overpowered. In Jin’s eyes, she saw nothing but a deadly fire. It was as though his emerald eyes had become gems containing all the power and fury of a supernova. And beneath all of the emotions she could see, Rachel Hartman found a promise. In Jin’s eyes, she saw the promise of death, and she knew then that when all was said and done, when Jin had killed everyone else that had contributed to the death of their children, he would come after her – as Rachel had always feared.
And then, just as fast as that moment had come, it was gone. Victor Malakai recovered from his initial attack, and then threw all of his massive bodyweight behind a right to left spin that sent his mace crashing into Jin’s left side. Instantly, Jin felt the bones in his upper left arm snap, and he let loose with a howl of purest agony. Yet because of Victor’s overwhelming strength, it wasn’t just Jin’s arm that broke. The same second that his arm snapped, Jin was lifted off his feet, sent crashing through the sliding glass door that led to the penthouse deck, and flying out into the night.
He soared through the air, things passing by in an indiscernible rush of wind and dark color. Suddenly, the hard concrete of a nearby roof quite unceremoniously replaced the empty air. The impact knocked the air out of Jin’s lungs and so, when he repeatedly rolled over his broken left arm, his screams were silent. For a split second, Jin felt like he was dying. Then instinct kicked in. His lungs seemed to move of their own accord and sucked in a massive gulp of air, whose first purpose was to give voice to the silent scream locked in Jin’s throat.
In all probability, Jin’s first scream must have shattered a window somewhere. Yet at that moment in time, all it did was scare the living hell out of a woman who’d been standing nearby.
“What the hell?” she shouted in surprise.
She whirled around and saw Jin lying on his back clutching his broken arm and screaming.
“Oh my God,” she gasped, rushing over to help him.
As she looked him over, she could tell that he’d suffered horrible injuries. Judging by the angle at which he was holding his arm, it had been broken. She reached forward to check, and Jin’s right arm snapped across his chest to grab her hand.
“Get…me…inside,” Jin hissed out between grunts and moans, fighting desperately to keep himself from screaming.
“Al…alright, hold on,” the young woman said, helping Jin to his feet.
She walked him over to the door leading inside, and clumsily opened it with half a hand as she tried to support Jin’s weight. They made their way down the stairs, Jin barely able to walk because of the pain, and eventually through another door into an apartment.
“William,” the young woman barked. “I need help!”
A boy, no older than fifteen with blondish brown hair and shock-filled brown eyes, suddenly came into Jin’s view.
“Mom, what…?” he asked, shocked by the sight before him.
“I need you to help this man into my room. His left arm is broken a few inches below the shoulder so be careful. Set him down on my bed, and I’ll be there in a second.”
Completely thrown off by the unexpected disturbance, the boy addressed as William could only do what he’d been told. He helped Jin into his mother’s room, taking care not to mess with his left arm. Hissing and moaning, Jin kept his eyes screwed tightly shut as he lay back on the bed and the woman’s frantic footsteps returned.
“William, out!” she barked.
The door closed behind him.
“What’s your name?” she asked quickly.
“J…Jin.”
“Okay, Jin, I need you to listen very carefully,” she said, loudly and clearly. “I’m going to grab your left arm. I know it’s broken, but I need to find out how badly. Do you understand?”
Jin nodded.
“Okay,” the woman said, taking a deep breath to steady herself as she grabbed Jin’s shoulder.
“That hurt?”
“No,” Jin grunted.
She squeezed, “How ‘bout that?”
“A little,” Jin hissed.
The woman nodded and moved her hand lower. She’d only applied the barest pressure before Jin howled in agony.
“Okay,” she said. “That hurts like hell. Is it just there or your entire arm?”
“There!” Jin groaned tightly.
The woman nodded quickly.
“Okay, Jin, I need to get the sleeve off, it’s the only way I can effectively set your arm. If I don’t do that, the bones won’t heal properly.”
She raised a pair of scissors, but shouted in surprise when Jin lunged forward and grabbed her hands. She stared at him, and despite the ridiculous amount of pain it caused him, Jin managed to work himself out of his coat. Jin whimpered as he lay back down; he hadn’t been in such an extraordinary amount of pain in a long time. Shaking off her shock, the woman continued.
“I know this is going to hurt, Jin, but I need you to lift your left arm.”
Jin nodded his understanding and took a few quick, deep breaths before straining to lift his arm. His face went red with the effort of holding back an ear-splitting scream, and after a few seconds, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. The strength left his arm as he screamed, and the pressure he felt on his arm a split second later only made him scream louder. Vaguely, Jin heard the sound of someone tearing duct tape and felt something press against the side of his arm.
Must be…putting a splint on my arm, Jin thought, still hissing in pain. Have to ask her…where she learned that.
After a few more moments of careful work, the woman was done making the splint.
“There, that should be good for now, but we need to get you to a hospital as soon as we can,” she said.
“No,” Jin half-whispered. “No hospital. Please.”
Before the woman could respond, exhaustion and pain finally took their full toll and Jin passed out.
Chronicles of the Apocalypse:
--<(0)>--
Part 1: Revenge, Everything is Nothing
Chapter 9: The Nightmare
Darkness consumed everything. Directions ceased to exist. All memory, all reason, all life had been extinguished. There was no heat, no cold, no light. Weight meant nothing; gravity had lost its power. Everything that made the world what it was had been erased. Somewhere deep inside this place, Jin Sakai was drowning. He had nothing to hold on to. Nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to want, not even something to live for.
In the world Jin found himself in, everything was nothing.
The world seemed to spin, and Jin tried to steady himself. Against what he had no idea, but he had to try. If he didn’t, he failed by default, and that was unacceptable. His hands felt nothing, no way to steady himself. He was falling in the dark with nowhere to go but down. A feeling of immense helplessness seeped through Jin’s mind, and it was repugnant. He fought that much harder to stop his fall, only to find that the harder he tried, the faster he fell. He immediately began casting around in his mind for other ways he could stop his fall. The list was already small, and not having anything within reach to grab on to further shortened it. Yet even as he thought, Jin noticed that his speed continued to increase. He still couldn’t see the bottom, and he planned on keeping it that way. Worming his way out of his leather coat, and ignoring that his speed had once again increased, Jin held the coat over his head and
attempted to use it as a parachute. Unfortunately, his speed increased to such a degree that his coat flew from his grip. Jin watched it soar into the darkness, and when he looked down, he found that he was heading straight for a bed of spikes so vast that it seemed to stretch on into eternity. Such width indicated that there was nothing Jin could do to stop himself. Still he tried, frantically pawing at the air as a very real fear for his life enveloped him. The bed of spikes rushed up at him faster and faster, and Jin tried harder and harder to stop himself.
Oh God, he half-shouted inside his head. Someone help!
Suddenly, the bed of spikes disappeared and Jin’s descent slowed considerably. Completely perplexed, Jin looked around for an explanation, but found none. Slowly, gently, Jin was righted in the air and set down on a hard surface that Jin could only assume was the floor. His coat too was returned to him. Jin heard a soft fluttering noise and looked up to see the green satin interior floating towards him. Reflexively, Jin reached up and grabbed it. As he slid back into it, he heard the unmistakable sound of a child’s laughter.
“Daddy!” the cheerful voice of a little girl called.
Jin whirled around so fast he popped his neck. Wincing in slight pain, he nonetheless looked up to find the familiar blue eyes and auburn hair of his daughter, Katie.
“Katie?” he asked in disbelief.
The little girl nodded, bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement.
Jin’s jaw dropped in astonishment. Forget everything else that was going on, his daughter was alive! He rushed forward as Katie ran to him. When they met, Katie leapt into her father’s arms, and Jin lifted her above his head, making her squeal. Jin laughed and brought her down to hold her in the tightest hug he’d ever given.
“Oh, my baby,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too, Daddy.”
Chronicles of the Apocalypse: Revenge, Everything is Nothing Page 9
