The Way of Death

by James Von Ohlen

The weapon had to stop firing to recharge. And in that brief window, Reiji would close the distance between them and go about his work once more.

  With a shove of the box before him, Reiji began to move. The crate flew directly at Gavin, making a tempting target which he did not turn down. The crate shattered and became a storm of splinters as the weapon fired.

  Onryo’s hand fell to his waist as the distance between the two exoskeletons vanished. Something was still held there that Reiji had forgotten in his haste to seek out this man and kill him. A weapon pathetically diminutive, yet still lethal. Even to men in combat exoskeletons. The knife he’d taken from the Cent-Sec officer in Milton.

  The projected forcefield blade, just about the size and shape of a tanto. A perfect complement to the matched blades stolen from Reiji in what seemed like another lifetime.

  Gavin brought the huge weapon to bear on Onryo, but it was too late. The Oni slapped aside the sonic disruptor with its left hand, drawing and activating the small blade with its right.

  A diagonal slash, moving upwards from right to left, tore into Gavin’s exoskeleton. Starting at his left hip and ending just short of his right shoulder. The metal of his suit screeched and shrieked loudly as it gave way beneath the blade. The smell of hot metal and ozone assaulted Reiji’s senses.

  With a casual reversal of the movement, Reiji stabbed the blade down, through the exoskeleton, and into Gavin’s heart. The two stood still, face to face and locked in the moment of death. Reiji pulled the weapon back out of his victim and toppled him backwards with a push to the face.

  The thud of Gavin’s suit hitting the concrete floor echoed throughout the chamber. Finally, after some minutes of heated battle, there was silence. Onryo reported to Reiji that the man inside the other suit was dead.

  Is that it? Reiji asked himself. He looked up to see Price still clinging to the catwalk, nervously looking down at him. Reiji had half a mind to leap up there and rip the man apart with his bare hands. But like the boy, he had only been trying to help. Reiji shook his head, dismissing the thought along with the realization that the fight only lasted as long as it did because he’d forgotten about the one weapon he carried that could be put to good use.

  Reiji turned in a circle, really looking around the huge chamber for the first time since he’d descended into it. There was nothing here he could see, even in the amplified vision of Onryo that he could believe had led Gavin to murder most of his crew and attempt to finish Reiji as well.

  An outline of a dead man formed in his vision and he took a few steps forward until he could see the face. There was a feeling of relief as he recognized the dead man. Zhou. Or what was left of him. Reiji swore out loud. The boy had done a real number on that one. Vengeance could drive a man to such things. Something that he knew all too well.

  He swore again when he realized that the relief he felt wasn’t at Zhou’s death, but at the fact that it wasn’t Tod laying there. Friends were a rare thing indeed these days. It would be a damn shame to lose one, he thought. Especially one as useful as the boy.

  A voice filled with static and electronic distortion groaned behind him. Reiji turned, taking stance to fight with his hands and the knife, to see that Gavin had impossibly pushed himself up to one knee and had leveled the sonic disruptor at him. Belatedly, Onryo began filling Reiji’s thoughts with warnings of danger and outlined the other exoskeleton in deep red hues.

  The groans turned to laughter as Reiji began to move, but it was too late. Reiji stared into the abyss, and did not flinch as it stared back into him. This was what it had meant. His whole life up to this very point. What he had contemplated seemingly endlessly at the behest of the ancestors after dying so many times upon the tatami of the training hall. The inevitability of his own death in battle.

  The way of the warrior.

  The way of death.

  Reiji found his moment of peace, time seeming to extend forever as everything around him moved in slow motion. The knife in his hand rising to be thrown in one desperate attempt to avoid obliteration, his body shifting to throw itself clear of the coming blast, and Gavin’s arm and weapon tracking his movements exactly. As if he’d finally figured out how to use the targeting systems of his suit.

  This fight couldn’t be won, he realized. But he wouldn’t give up without a fight. Another outline appeared in his vision, friendly blue. Bloodied and battered, and somehow having avoided detection by the Oni’s systems until Onryo had line of sight on him.

  Tod moved through the air, having leapt from some distance back. The strangely shaped blades that he liked so much fell behind him, descending to the floor as he descended towards Gavin.

  The boy hit the sonic disruptor and everything slammed back to normal speed as the weapon changed direction and fired harmlessly past Onryo. The Oni roared forward as Gavin threw the boy away from him.

  A huge kick took Gavin in the jaw, sending him and his exoskeleton spinning along the floor. Reiji was upon him in an instant and the knife, still clenched in his fist, went to work.

  There was no doubt what had happened. An increasingly rare trick that only rich men could afford these days. Rich men like Gavin. For all of his unfounded fears of running into a Regenerator and having to do battle with one, Reiji had finally found one.

  Reports filtered into his vision of the types and numbers of nanobots coursing through his enemy’s body. Reiji laughed and his voice boomed through Onryo’s throat as he cut away the armor that had protected Gavin until now.

  The doors of entirely new possibilities of pain and vengeance were thrown wide open. Metal shrieked and man screamed as the shell was cut away. In a few moments, Reiji was done and he lifted Gavin, thrashing and screaming, by the neck. Reiji held him aloft and glared at him as his faceplate unlocked and slid up past his face.

  “Tod?” Reiji called out without taking his eyes off of Gavin’s face, quickly trending towards purple. The man attempted to say something, but it was lost in gurgling and sputtering as he clawed in vain at the huge metal hand closed around his neck.

  “Yeah, Rage?” The boy’s voice answered.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I think I’m okay.” Tod spoke after a pause. Reiji could hear the boy patting himself down, looking for injuries.

  “Good,” Reiji began with a grin. “Find something to tie this motherfucker up with.” The sound of Tod’s footsteps as he wandered off into the large chamber echoed back.

  “So close, Gavin,” Reiji said slowly. Drawing each syllable out until it was a word unto itself. “Was it worth it?” He asked, resuming a normal cadence of speech. “Your stack of boxes? Was it worth dying over?”

  Gavin smiled and something resembling laughter emerged from his constricted throat. Curious, Reiji relaxed his grip just enough to let the man speak.

  He drew in a great breath and some of the unnatural color drained from his face. “Are you fucking blind, halfbreed? I didn’t come here for a bunch of fucking boxes. Varg and Virgil!” Gavin yelled the last two words. “Where the fuck are you? Get the fuck over here now and cut this halfbreed fuck into pieces.”

  “They’re dead,” Tod’s voice answered, echoing through the chamber with his accompanying laughter.

  The fucking twins. Reiji had completely forgotten about them in the fight. If they had come to Gavin’s aid, that would have been very bad news. No doubt he could have scrapped them, but with the weaponry they had at their disposal, his armor wouldn’t have saved him. Add that to his ongoing battle with Gavin and it had shit-sandwich written all over it.

  And somehow, without any real weaponry to speak of, the boy had taken them out. That kid was really turning into…well, something, he concluded.

  “Lying fucking retard. You two deserve each other. Retard and halfbreed.” Gavin’s voice intruded on Reiji’s thoughts.

  Reiji looked back at Gavin. He sneered and clamped his hand down again, shutting off the man’s voice. What did he come here for? Reiji pondered the question as h
e looked up. The platform in the center of the huge room, lined with dim LEDs drew his attention. Something was up there, in the half-darkness of the chamber. Something large and unrecognizable.

  Onryo’s faceplate slid back down into place and the darkness vanished, showing Reiji exactly what it was that Gavin had come here for. Highlighted in Reiji’s vision complete with scrolling technical data. The man had been right to fear that Reiji might betray him and take it from him. Only one thing could come to Reiji’s tongue when he realized what he was seeing.

  “Holy shit.”

  SCREAMS echoed over the high desert. Day and night they split the air, carried by the hot winds beneath the sun and the cold air beneath the light of the moon. For eight days they lasted. Each of them a note in the symphony that Reiji conducted, like a master of the classics. He worked over Gavin’s body as though possessed by demons.

  Like an artist. His captive’s flesh was his canvas and his blades were his paintbrush.

  The man was a regenerator. That introduced a great many things that Reiji could to repay his own attempted murder. Over and over again, until the tech that continually repaired Gavin’s body was eventually exhausted.

  Reiji carried out his grim work in the courtyard before the Sat-Coms Center. The savage tribesman that paid homage to Coms Officer Price as The Oracle gathered there to feast and to celebrate. To bear witness.

  A great crucifix had been assembled. With the remains of the heavy crates broken far below in the course of the final fight. Tod, dispatched to find something to bind Gavin with, had returned with a roll of barbed-wire. The same that now held the unfortunate man in place for his crucifixion.

  For eight days, Reiji cut pieces from Gavin. Poking and prodding as he saw fit. The man had been defiant at first, attempting to not scream. That had not lasted long.

  A wide array of knives were put to use, but the place of honor at this feast of torment was reserved for Reiji’s matched blades. Kaishakunin and Little Brother. The stolen blades that were the legacy of the Ikeda clan. Retrieved and returned to Reiji by Tod, the boy having found them in a huge dump truck that Gavin and his crew had been traveling in.

  On the eighth day of the bloody spectacle, Gavin’s wounds suddenly stopped healing themselves. The limits of his regeneration abilities had been reached. Reiji looked up at the man, hanging on the cross above him and laughed. Holding something up in his right hand.

  “Do you know what this is?” He asked. His voice carried far and clear in the still air of the midday. Gavin’s eyes, struggled to focus on the object. Finally he stared at it intently for a few seconds and lowered his head. Reiji laughed again.

  “You do know, don’t you? It’s a pre-loaded syringe filled with medical nanobots. The same type that the boy used to save my life.” Reiji smiled broadly. “I’ve got quite a stockpile of them here. Enough to keep this going on for a few more weeks at least. Whaddya say Gavin? Should I inject you? Then we can keep playing.”

  The crucified man mumbled something and shook his head meekly.

  “I can’t hear you.” Reiji said.

  “Please don’t,” Gavin spoke through cracked and blistered lips. “Just let me die.” A pathetic croak.

  Reiji paused to consider this proposition, placing his right fist beneath his chin as he mimicked being in deep thought.

  “Beg me.”

  Gavin’s eyes flared wide with rage and locked on Reiji. If looks could kill, Reiji would have died a thousand times over, he mused as he looked back at Gavin. But the anger that showed there burned itself out quickly. Tears filled the older man’s eyes and he began to weep. Sobbing and shaking his head from side to side.

  “Beg me,” Reiji said one more time. He noted that a crowd had begun to gather. Being called to witness by Tod. Tod the ‘Tard, now become Tod the Herald of Lord Rage.

  Gavin sobbed and took a few deep breaths, his face a mixture of agony and despair. He was broken, Reiji noted with satisfaction.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Please,” he said again louder. “Please kill me!” He finally shouted with what strength he had left.

  Reiji smiled again.

  “Cut him down,” he called. Several warriors armed with spears moved forwards to do his bidding. In a few minutes, Gavin fell limply to the blood-stained ground beneath the crucifix.

  He struggled to push himself up to his hands and knees, lifting one hand to shield his eyes from the sun and a burst of wind driven dust and sand. Reiji stepped forward, approaching Gavin with Kai and Little Brother in their rightful places at his waist.

  Reiji paused and looked down at the man. After a moment of thought, Reiji drew a knife from his boot and tossed it on the ground before Gavin.

  “What is this?” Gavin asked, tears still running down his face.

  “There is no easy way out for you,” Reiji answered. “You will open your own stomach, and then I will finish you. Or you will go back on the cross.” What little color there had been, drained from Gavin’s face.

  His hands fumbled in the dirt, trying to grasp the short knife. Eventually his fingers closed on it, and he lifted it with shaking hands. Gavin attempted a lunge forwards at Reiji, no doubt with grand designs on cutting him down and somehow escaping with his life.

  “That’s not going happen,” Reiji said as he slapped Gavin to the ground. “You can attempt to regain whatever honor you may have once possessed, or you go back on the cross.” Reiji laughed.

  He didn’t give a shit about the man regaining lost honor. He only wanted to see him suffer. And this kind of torture would be hard to beat with that in mind.

  Gavin pushed himself to his knees and began to weep again. Reiji moved to his side and just behind him. If he was honest with himself, he would have admitted that he had no interest in this affair being dragged out any longer. The pain he’d inflicted on this man had been enough to pay him back for what he’d done several times over. The only thing that remained was to take his life.

  With a pitiful groan of despair, Gavin gripped the knife with both hands and shoved it into the left side of his abdomen. He screamed in pain as he pulled it across to the right, opening his stomach. Blood flowed forth from the wound and he growled through clenched teeth.

  Without a word, Reiji stepped forward, drew Kaishakunin, and took Gavin’s head in one smooth motion. Realizing fully the sword’s name. The body slumped forward into the bloodied sand and its feet twitched. Reiji performed a chiburi with Kai, and then wiped the remaining blood off with a cloth before placing the sword back in its sheath.

  A cheer went up through the assembled crowd. He hadn’t realized how many of them there had been until he looked out at the crowd now surrounding him. They began to call to Reiji, not by his name, but by the warped version that Tod favored. Chanting it over and over. A declaration of allegiance, if he’d ever heard one. Here was the beginnings of his army. The beginnings of the force he would eventually use to topple Central Command. They cried out to him in unison.

  “Lord Rage!”

  “YOU have your army, now,” the grandfather spoke to him. Reiji looked out over the vast, forested plain beneath him, stretching away to infinity. The training hall had definitely undergone a few changes. The tatami mats were the same. The sour, old men were the same. But now it was located on the top floor of a massive castle built in the traditional style.

  From the balcony where Reiji stood, the view of the enormous structure was awe inspiring. In courtyards far below him, protected by strong walls of stone and steel, countless armored men trained and drilled. Representative of the men Reiji now led outside of the training hall and in the real world.

  “Yeah,” Reiji finally responded. “I’ve got an army. I’ve even got weapons and armor for them. Transportation. After we spend a few weeks training them how to use the new gear, they’ll be ready to fight.” Reiji turned towards the old man to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder. Uncharacteristic to say the least.

  Reiji forced thoughts of hurling t
he old man from the balcony to the stones far below from his mind. If the program was privy to his thoughts, there was no need to ruin the support he was enjoying here. Digitized personalities, as Price had attempted to explain to him, were like the minds of living people. Always changing and learning, though ultimately not self-aware.

  Assaulting this ancestor would undoubtedly earn him the ire of the others. And now he found that he might actually need them more than ever before.

  “I have the beginnings of my army,” Reiji continued. “Price will be invaluable in dealing with tech, and the boy will be a Yojimbo without peer.” Reiji’s thoughts turned momentarily to Tod.

  The boy had not only defeated and humiliated two hardened killers without scruples and a list of victim’s names a mile long, but he’d fought two machines designed for personal combat and come out on top. The wounds he suffered in the course of the fight had healed within days if not hours, leaving him no worse for the wear.

  Why hadn’t Reiji thought of using the pistol as a booby trap himself? Others had done so in the past, and others had used Overlord as a massive suicide bomb as well. But both ideas had escaped Reiji’s mind when the time to fight had come. The boy was as different from the drooling simpleton Reiji had found in the farmer’s house as was possible.

  Reiji turned his thoughts back to the ancestors. Dead things that somehow still lived, or at least pretended to. No matter what they were, though, they still held several hundred years’ worth of accumulated knowledge. Many had been warriors and soldiers. They would be familiar with the more mundane necessities of the coming conflict.

  “But neither Price nor the boy will likely provide much in the way of planning a war,” Reiji continued. “I do not have sound counsel.”

  The old man raised an eyebrow gone white with age as if he might understand.

  “I will need you, and all of the ancestors gathered here in the training hall. I will need each of you to provide the knowledge that only you can. I will need all of you to act together as my War Council.”