7th Moon

The four were exhausted from their first night in the city and crawled into the shrine for shelter while they rested. Once this shrine had been revered as an honor to the emperor, but it had been many years since there had been an emperor and recently the faith of the people faltered and the shrine had been all but abandoned. There were still some people who came by the shrine to pay respect, but mostly it was people who were so desperate that they needed some ray of hope and praying to forgotten gods was all they had left. There were also priests and mikos, but they were more for show. The espers remained undisturbed by the grace of the sacred ground that protected the only pure souls left in the city.

In the afternoon they finally woke up, starting with Douji, “Kichiku san, wake up I’m hungry.” The hunger caught up with them since they had not eaten since lunch the previous day. They really had no idea how they were going to get food, there wasn’t anything on the shrine grounds, so they headed out to the street in hopes of finding something. In the daylight the neon signs were not so bright and they were able to focus more on the people. Everyone looked strange, wearing various colorful outfits. Some people looked like them, dressed in more traditional garb, others were dressed in suits like Han Toromi, and still others were completely different and showed no similarity to either end of the fashion spectrum.

It wasn’t the sense of sight that led them to their destination though, but the sense of smell. They were drawn to the smell of a restaurant. They walked in breathing in the sweet aroma of noodles in a broth of vegetables. “What is that wonderful smell?”

“The best ramen in Tokyo!” Said a man behind the counter wearing all white and a tall hat with a big smile on his face. “Want a bowl?”

“Four please!”

The chef ladled out four bowls of ramen and handed them the bowls with chopsticks. They weren’t sure about eating the noodles as they had never had ramen before, but they had used chopsticks to eat rice back at the shrine so they made a go of it. They found the noodles were much easier to eat than rice and the broth tasted better than daikon. Just as they were happily finishing their meal, the chef slapped down a slip of paper and said “That will be three thousand yen!”

They looked at him with a quizzical look. “What is this ‘yen’ everybody keeps talking about and why do you all want it so much?”

Suddenly the chef went from smiling and happy to very angry. “You mean you don’t have any money? What kind of joke is this? I don’t have time for freeloaders!”

Just then another man interrupted. “It’s okay, I’ll pay for them.” He put down a stack of colorful paper much like what had been placed on the stage in front of the girls at the club the night before. The chef counted the money and once he was satisfied that it was all there he turned around and went back to work on making ramen for his other paying customers.

The four looked at the stranger who helped them. He looked somewhat unkempt, with oversized denim overalls, a yellow shirt and an orange cap. It took them a moment, but they recognized this man, he was the same man who told them about the Moe club the day before. “We saw you last night, have you been following us?”

He looked a little embarrassed at having been caught. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?” He gestured for them to leave with him. The five of them went outside and walked down the street. As they passed an alley Hidariude pushed the stranger into it with his cyber blade against his throat. “Who are you?”

“This is a nice thanks for someone who just paid for your lunch.” The stranger answered. Hidariude moved his blade enough to let him know he wasn’t messing around. “You may call me Shuurikou. Yes I have been following you. In case you didn’t notice, a cyborg, a cat girl and a giant dressed like clergy kind of stands out. I mean here in Harajuku, not so much, but you were sticking out like a sore thumb walking in from Kanagawa. What were you doing out there anyway? That place has been off limits for three years, I honestly didn’t even know there was anybody still out there at all.”

“Before we answer that, tell us, why are you so interested in us?” Hidariude asked.

“Well, at first I was just curious about how out of place you were. Then I saw you jump on top of that train. It took me a little time to catch up, but when I did, I saw you fighting the New Wave Elite. Nobody fights them, at least not head on and live to tell about it. Honestly, I think you should tell me how you did that, because getting that answer is why I’m here right now. Clearly it is better to have you as an ally than an enemy, so it’s your turn to talk.”

Hidariude retracted his blade. “New Wave Elite? That’s what they’re calling themselves now?”

“N.W.E., same initials as New World Enterprises. You’d think the Seventh Moon would be smarter than to leave a trail like that. But they have everyone under their thumb anyway, the only people who could do anything are only so healthy and wealthy because they bow down to the company in the first place. They cut off anyone who tries to oppose them and the few communities that survive independently get taken down in raids.”

Hidariude and Kichiku both felt their hearts sink when they heard about the raids. With a very shaky voice, Hidariude asked “Just how many raids are you talking about?”

“There’s got to be one every few weeks, maybe more. It’s hard to keep track, communications about those sorts of things are kept on the down low. You have to be there to know, if you’re too far away the news gets lost in the shuffle, messengers get killed, transmissions get intercepted. New World Enterprises may say they’re all about food, medicine and energy, but they have their hands in everything. What they don’t own, they leverage. What they can’t influence they destroy, like Kanagawa.” Suddenly, realization dawned on Shuurikou’s face. “You’re the ones they sent to Kanagawa aren’t you?”

Hidariude hung his head in shame. Kichiku answered for him. “Yes. It was our first mission and our last. When we saw what we were actually a part of, we left and hid at a shrine. It was wrong to be a part of that raid but we had no choice. They raised us for one purpose and we had no way to escape. All the same, we do have blood on our hands, and to redeem ourselves, we must stop things like that from happening.”

Keisei took over. “If you know anything about what the company is up to, let us know, and we’ll be more than happy to take care of the problem.”

Shuurikou smiled. “That’s why I’m interested, I need someone who can fight. I’m part of a resistance group. We can’t do much, none of us are strong enough to fight. Mostly we just hide in the outlands trying to salvage what we can from abandoned towns and grow food so we don’t have to be tied to the company. I came to the city to pick up a few tools and spare parts for some projects I was working on, but finding you, I think I hit the jackpot! The nearest base is pretty far away and we’ll probably encounter some N.W.E. soldiers along the way, hell we’ll probably run into one before we leave the city. I’d appreciate if you could escort me back there and if we make it, you should prove yourself plenty en route to join us. But first, we have to get you some new clothes, and something for you too.” Shuurikou gestured at Keisei and Hidariude. “The arm, the ears, the tail, if anyone is looking for you, and I’m sure they are looking for those features. They really stand out in case you hadn’t noticed. You need to cover those up. Fortunately I still have some money and we are in the best shopping district in Japan.”

As they followed Shuurikou to a shop, they took another look at the people around them. They realized he was right, not one person had cybernetics, and all of the women had normal human ears. Hidariude knew he was the only cyborg on Seventh Moon and it occurred to him that he may be the only one that existed at all, and based on the assumption that Keisei worked at Moe, it seemed that it was not typical for females to have animalistic features. First Shuurikou picked out clothes for Keisei because she was naked. Her fur covered everything important, so she looked like she was wearing a fur bikini, but she could only get so far before it gave somebody the wrong idea. Shuurikou found her a red kimono with room for her tail and a hair band to cover Keisei’s ears, though it took a while to get one that fit comfortably. To hide Hidariude’s arm, they got a black hand wrap from an athletics store. Hidariude thought it looked stupid and was comfortable with his arm showing, but to make sure nobody looked at them weird, he agreed to wear it.

With everyone set, they headed back out across the city. As they walked along they noticed that the city seemed to be so big and full of people and energy, the complete opposite of the world outside the city. When asked about this Shuurikou explained, “After World War Three, most of the world had used up their resources and couldn’t go on. New World Enterprises arranged to have new alternative energy sources set up to keep the status quo in major cities. The problem is, it’s just not feasible to keep up every city like Tokyo. The very wealthiest cities in the world have managed to get deals like this where everything just keeps going like the war never happened, the other ninety-nine percent gets the shaft. As soon as we get out of the city, things are going to start looking a lot more like Kanagawa. Out there we have two kinds of people, salvagers like me and scavengers. Salvagers try to make do with what’s out there and help make the ruins and settlements livable. Scavengers on the other hand, just seem be really pissed about how twenty years ago, everybody lived like this, and now they’ve got nothing, so they just try to take what they can from other people. The problem is there’s so little, scavengers generally have to fight and sometimes kill to get what they want. Nobody really does anything about it except to keep them out of cities and salvagers try our best to protect ourselves and our settlements. It’s really not easy because whenever we get anything going and working, the New Wave Elite show up.”

“Sounds like you’ll need us a lot.” Hidariude said with a laugh.

“Now you understand why I followed you guys around.” Shuurikou continued. “I figured anyone who could survive in Kanagawa was pretty tough but I had no idea until I saw you fight the New Wave Elite last night. So you’re really AWOL from Seventh Moon? I still can’t quite believe it. But we are so desperate for someone who can fight back. It’s just, they’re so strong.”

“Well, we are genetically engineered to be above normal human limits.” Hidariude took over again. “I’d say I’m probably the weakest relatively speaking, but that’s not saying much. We are a tough breed.”

“Genetically engineered?” Shuurikou was genuinely shocked, he had never put it together before. “You mean they actually used that technology to make you guys from scratch?” They nodded to him. “So it’s not just our imagination. Well here we are.” Shuurikou had led them to a parking garage near the Moe club. He had parked a truck here the night before when he had gone looking for them. It had some stuff in the back, all in bags, boxes and crates. “I was finishing my shopping when I ran into you guys last night. You guys are a lot faster than I expected, it took me a while to catch up and this is where I dropped off my truck last night. I’ve been trying to find you guys all day. Well now we are going to hit the road.”

Just as Shuurikou was about to open the door to the truck, bullets started flying. Hidariude threw him to the ground just in time for him to avoid being hit. Hidariude rolled Shuurikou under the truck and told him to stay there with Douji who crawled in next to him. Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku started running and the bullets followed fast on their heels. They had sensed the presence of the threat just in time and knew exactly who it was, they just needed to know where.

“Renzokuken!” Hidariude shouted. “Show yourself!”

“How did you know it was me?” Renzokuken’s voice echoed through the garage, but didn’t give away his location right away. “It was the bullets that gave me away, wasn’t it? Well that was my foolish mistake, yours was returning to the scene of the crime. Just why did you come back anyway?” After looking around and not seeing them or hearing an answer he tried probing with a different question. “How about you just hand over the kid? If you do I’ll just let you go.”

“Never!” Kichiku answered with definite finality. The sound of his voice was all Renzokuken needed to get an idea of where he was and fire off another round which Kichiku narrowly dodged. Kichiku didn’t mind, he was just distracting the shooter while his faster friends got closer.

Keisei had the most sensitive hearing and was able to pretty well pinpoint the point of origin of his voice. With all of her feline stealth she crept up on him and attacked. She was out of flash paper so she had to attack hand to hand. Just as she was about to land a tiger claw, Renzokuken saw her out of the corner of his eye and dodged just barely feeling the tips of her fingernails scratch across the surface of his face. He rolled across the ground and put up his defenses against Keisei. While he prepared for her next attack the ground opened beneath him as Kichiku had struck the ground and caused a fissure. Renzokuken had seen the fissure coming out of the corner of his eye and managed to jump out of the way but Hidariude unleashed an electric attack at him as he jumped through the air. Renzokuken was not sure how to dodge while in midair and desperately shot at the lightning. It didn’t really help, it still hit him but he managed to take the blow pretty well as he landed on the ground. Now all three were coming at him from different angles, fully aware he only had two guns and two hands and could only shoot in two directions, so one of them would probably get to him before he could get them.

Renzokuken shot at Hidariude and Kichiku believing his old comrades to be the most dangerous threats. Hidariude deflected the bullet with his blade while Kichiku pulled some pavement out of the ground to block the bullet. Having missed with both of his attacks he desperately turned toward Keisei and braced for the impact of her attack. Keisei kicked him, angling the roundhouse to land him between Hidariude and Kichiku, allowing them to attack him from both sides. He tried to shoot back at her while somersaulting out of the way of the other two attacking. At this point his attention was divided and his aim was off and he missed Keisei as she flattened against the ground and dodged the bullets. Hidariude both redirected their attacks to follow Renzokuken and managed to hit his legs. When he landed from his somersault, he couldn’t stand up on one leg which had been smashed by Kichiku and was holding the other leg that was cut up by Hidariude.

Renzokuken’s heart was pounding, he was sure he was about to die. He was just supposed to shoot these people and get out, he was not prepared for hand to hand combat. Fortunately, Einji was there to back him up. The last of the bat girls from the night before had come to avenge her sisters. She had been waiting in ceiling above and landed a surprise ambush on Hidariude and began to grapple with him. Renzokuken thanked his luck because now he only had to fight two people instead of three. Kichiku still came after Renzokuken trusting Hidariude to handle Einji.

Einji tore into Hidariude with a fury of vengeance. “They’re dead, all of them, you killed them!” She was so angry she couldn’t even explain to Hidariude that when she checked on her sisters the previous night she found them with one long burn scar across the three of their bodies and they were dead. She couldn’t say it, but the image was stuck in her head, along with the image of him striking them with a lightning bolt from his sword that she saw as she looked back while running away with Gaki. The images were so burned into her mind, it was all she was able to think about consciously, her body was operating purely on savage instinct. With each strike, Hidariude could feel her rage, and with his sixth sense, he could see these images in her mind. He felt bad for her, he felt genuine sorrow that he had killed more people and that she was suffering because of him. However he also felt that now she would not know peace until one of them was dead and he still had the will to live so he had to fight. He just wasn’t sure if he could end this the way he knew he had to.

Fortunately, Keisei jumped in to help him, grabbing Einji from behind in a headlock and pulling her off Hidariude. Unlike Hidariude, Keisei had not yet developed a sense of remorse over killing people when necessary and held tightly around Einji’s neck trying to cut off her breathing. Keisei was not going to allow anyone to kill the man who had her heart, in this moment she was driven by fear that Einji would kill him, and she would turn into the same grief stricken psycho this girl was. Einji tried to repel her by extending her wings and forcing Keisei of her back, but as Keisei lost her grip with her hands, she wrapped her legs around Einji’s midsection and held tightly as she flipped back to the pavement, landed on her hands, and then used the momentum to flip Einji over landing headfirst on the concrete. Einji crumpled to the ground, and Keisei closed the bat girl’s eyes. “Rest in peace sister.”

Meanwhile Kichiku and Renzokuken continued their duel. In their minds it was just like old times, matching punch for punch, kick for kick, and block for block. Part of them just went into automatic, letting the duel go purely on instinct, waiting for a moment where they could see a weakness in the other’s defense. Of course, there was no weakness, after nearly twenty years of sparring against each other; they had fine-tuned their fighting to know every move the other could make. If Kichiku tried a palm strike, Renzokuken knew he couldn’t take it directly and dodged; if Renzokuken tried shooting, Kichiku could recognize the way he was holding his hand before it got to the gun and evaded the shot before he could pull the trigger; if Kichiku tried to cause a tremor by hitting the ground, Renzokuken would jump just before impact.

Once Hidariude and Keisei finished with Einji, they came after Renzokuken, and he found himself once again desperate to find a way out. He realized there was no way out but one way that his pride had been preventing him from taking, but pride isn’t any good to the dead. He pulled a switch out of his pocket and pushed the button activating robots that were on standby around the parking garage. These robots were not slashers like the one at the club, they had built in guns instead of blades and were shooting like Renzokuken, heavy fire but well aimed and focused on the espers. Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku all had to ignore Renzokuken and start dodging bullets, a feat made possible only by their ability to sense where the bullets were coming from before they were fired.

This sense was also what allowed them to locate the robots around the garage. They started running at top speed away from where the bullets were landing and toward where they were coming from. They had no fear, just focus on where to step to be out of the line of fire and knowing how to disarm the robots when they found them. Hidariude was the most efficient, he recognized Renzokuken’s fighting style in the robots and realized that as soon as he got close their defense would be poor and all he had to do was slice and dice, his first strike always being to cut off the hands and breaking the firing mechanisms. Kichiku followed suit crushing the robots and their guns in his big muscular hands. Keisei wasn’t quite so well prepared to fight the robots head on, but she quickly found an efficient method of dispatching them. She’d find pair of robots and run between them drawing fire, and since her reflexes were faster than the robots they would end up shooting each other.

There were a few dozen robots and it took quite some time to stop all of them. While the three were distracted with this task, Renzokuken noticed his real target under the truck. He grabbed Douji by the collar. “There you are you little brat.” Shuurikou tried to hold back the boy and keep him from being taken, but Renzokuken’s genetically altered muscles, though not necessarily a match for Kichiku or even Hidariude, were still more than enough to overcome Shuurikou’s relatively meager strength. As Renzokuken hopped on a motorcycle and drove off holding Douji captive, Shuurikou felt helpless and was reminded that these people were in a league of their own.

Once Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku finished with the robots, they came back to find Shuurikou still hiding under the truck. “Where’s Douji?” Kichiku asked.

Shuurikou ashamedly admitted “He took him. I’m sorry I tried to stop him, but he jumped on a motorcycle and drove off.”

“Which way?” Kichiku asked quickly, “Can we catch up with him?”

“Hop in the truck, I’ll drive.” Shuurikou jumped in the truck and the others jumped in the back. He started up the truck and sped the vehicle off. He was desperate to make up for his mistake, he didn’t want that little boy getting hurt.

As they went down the street, Kichiku used his bond with Douji to track down where Renzokuken had taken him. When he realized that Renzokuken made a turn that they missed he told Shuurikou to make the next turn, hoping they could get ahead and cut him off at the pass. When he sensed that they got ahead, he directed another turn to intercept Renzokuken. It almost worked when they saw Renzokuken speed by just as they came to the corner. This time Shuurikou needed no directions as he turned and rode right up on Renzokuken’s rear. Renzokuken saw them in his rear view mirror and started to shoot back. It was very hard to drive, hold onto Douji, and shoot all at the same time, so his aim was off and Shuurikou was able to pull away before they took too much fire.

As the truck came around the motorcycle. Kichiku jumped off the truck and landed fist first on the ground creating a massive quake and a fissure directed straight up under Renzokuken’s motorcycle, which sent it spinning in the air. Keisei reached out and grabbed Douji off the bike as it went flying over the truck. Renzokuken tried to land the motorcycle upright and when he landed he turned to pursue the truck which was now doubling back to pick up Kichiku. Renzokuken began shooting back at the truck but Hidariude deflected the bullets and jumped back onto the bike knocking Renzokuken off of it.

As they tumbled to the ground, Renzokuken struggled to fight with Hidariude, doing his best to keep Hidariude’s hands back knowing that they were his strong point. Fortunately for Renzokuken, his muscles were made for holding his hands steady against the recoil of a gun and that same strength helped him hold Hidariude’s hands back firmly. The downside was that Renzokuken’s strongest muscles were his arms, and since Hidariude had a sword in one hand and cyber blades extended in the other, he would need both hands to keep from getting sliced. Desperately they began kicking each other as they maneuvered into an alley.

“You don’t have to do this Renzokuken!” Hidariude exclaimed. “You are on earth now, you could leave the company and join us!”

“You mean betray the people that made me like you did?” Renzokuken answered. “I will not be a traitor!”

“You mean you’d rather be a killer? Don’t you understand what they’re using you for? You’re nothing but a weapon to them! They’re trying to take over the world and they’re killing everyone who stands against them!”

Renzokuken laughed. “What’s wrong with that? We are the New Wave Elite! We have been made for this if we do not rise to our full potential as the masters of the new world, what are we then? Failures! That’s what you are, you and your cohorts are all failures! You have thrown away your purpose and now you just stand in our way, and that’s why we must eliminate you!”

“No, we did not throw away our purpose, we found a new purpose, our true purpose. We are devoted to this world and seeing to it that there is no more unnecessary bloodshed.”

“That is why you are a failure, because this path will create more bloodshed. More people will have to die in your wake as we hunt you down, or else you will have to kill us. Either way, there will be blood.”

Renzokuken pushed Hidariude’s right hand against the wall forcing him to drop his sword. Renzokuken didn’t need to hold up the empty hand and reached for his gun with his now free hand. At the same time, Hidariude poked two fingers at a pressure point inside Renzokuken’s elbow to weaken his grip on his other hand. Once Hidariude was free he rolled to grab his sword. Renzokuken fired and Hidariude deflected with his sword. The bullet ricocheted off Hidariude’s sword, then off a garbage dumpster and right back into Renzokuken. He took two steps forward before he felt it, the bullet hit his heart. As he pulled his hand from his wound and looked at the blood, he laughed and said his dying words to Hidariude “See, there will be blood.”