RUN DIVER RUN

His red eyes pierce the darkness.

Reznor pulls a shotgun out of the gym bag, an X01-Dai, handy and small in size with a release lever, watching the television screen rigged to the wall of the van. Hazel jacked it to her interface via the dive port at the base of her skull, projecting her view from within the Xinsheng offices through the several cameras installed in the adjacent structure. She hones in on her boys Chen and Jia, poking through with their rifles aimed high, weaving between corners.

[Through the left door, that's your mark.] The television goes static, then zooms back to view as the door to the room filled with Xinsheng gangers bursts open. Jia takes point, firing a warning shot from his AK-70 into the ceiling, drywall crumbling on him and across his solid black mask. The room scrambles, Chen fires at a woman darting past him for the guns, stacking one of the tables, riddling her and the wall past her. She goes down with a splat.

[They're in, Haze!] Reznor says.

[Wicked!] Hazel cheers over comms, [I'm bypassing the safe right about... Now.]

[Loud and clear, ] Jia says, veering over to Chen, who is rounding the hostages against the wall. [Make sure no one tries anything funny.]

[Aye-aye, ] Chen prods one of the gangers with his rifle.

Jia kicks the table between him and the locked door to the back compartment. On the other side is the safe they've been looking for. He shoots open the lock, and the door flings loose.

[Showtime, Haze.]

Hazel dials in. A sporadic sequence of unhinging locks fills the air. Then there's a ding. Titanium grinds as the safe door swings open. Stacks of cicies present themselves alongside two silver bricks and five gold bars the size of Jia's palm. He examines the gold to discover it's an heirloom. Etched into its smooth finish are the initials of the founding Mountain Lord of the Xinsheng - Screaming Liu.

[What you got there?] Hazel asks. Jia brings the shimmering gold up to the camera, a grin on his face as he does.

[One of Screaming Liu's prized.]

[Nab it.]

Jia stuffs it into his backpack along with the cicies.

Hazel sweeps through the video feeds, her heart stops at what she sees. Closing on the boys is a man fitted in a tight black Mao suit. His eyes are covered by surgically attached lenses of ultraviolet neon, scanning the corners for any unusual heat signatures. He fastens his gloves, making his way down the hall, mere seconds away from stumbling on the robbery. Then he sees it, halting his footsteps, the 3 hostages against the wall, Chen hovering above them, Jia standing outside the area of the safe. He pulls out his musashi, bracing for the carnage as he presses his back against the side of the wall.

[Yuze Kakihara...] Reznor squeezes his chest, feeling his heartbeat rise.

[Kakihara? He's here?] Jia freezes.

[He's behind the door. Wall to your right.] Hazel says.

[Shit, ] he zips up the bag and aims his rifle at the wall, unloading a burst of rounds. Yuze rolls onto the ground and pulls the trigger with the opposite finger to get an automatic sequence of rounds off. Bullets splinter through the door, flying into Jia's pelvis, flinging him. He screams static into the comms.

"J! Shit!" Chen yanks the smallest hostage he can find, a woman in a tank top with tribal tattoos from the neck down. He slings his rifle, pressing his shashou to her temple, the sub-machine gun on burst fire. Yuze kicks open the door. Chen pops shots at his head. He leans his neck slightly to dodge.

"Put the fucking gun down before I splatter this bitch!"

"Okay, splatter her." Yuze aims his gun at the downed Jia, who is squirming in a pool of blood. "I'll just splatter him. And when I'm finished with him, I'll go for you next. See how this works? Either you let her go or I kill your friend, and we both know who'll last just one on one."

Chen hesitates to fire. The woman in his grasp buckles out from under him, swinging her elbow into his ribs. She knees his crotch and he jerks outward, his grasp of the shashou loose for her to snatch. She presses the barrel into his forehead. Yuze grins as she unloads half the clip into his face and he crumbles, twitching with unrecognizable meat for a mug. She empties the rest of the clip into his frame for Jia to fear for his oncoming butchery.

Hazel rips the cord from the back of her head, springs up, and pulls the YangYang from her satchel as she opens the back door.

"What the hell are you doing?" Reznor pulls away from the TV.

"We can't just leave him to die."

"And you can't just run in there. You'll just die too."

Yuze steps over to Jia, stomping his rifle. He crouches to his level, eyes like the ocelli of a praying mantis, a disturbing image of his reflection smeared within. The hostages break away from the wall, grabbing guns off the table one by one. They crowd around him. His vision goes blurry as the blood drains from his body until it's pale.

"Who sent you?" Yuze asks, "are there others? Speak!"

"What do you want me to do?" Hazel asks, begrudgingly, "just let him fucking die?"

"This whole job is a bust. Don't throw away your life being an idiot."

Hazel hesitates, the guilt eating away at her like acid. She lowers the YangYang and slams the door shut.

"Fuck!" she holsters her weapon.

Yuze cracks his neck to conclude. "You reek like an amateur. Storming in here all foolhardy expecting to flee with our profit." He whistles for the rest of the room to aim their guns. "When we finish with him, search the place for anyone else. I want to find those responsible. This cannot have been acted alone."

"Fuck you!" Jia flips him off, stifling his laughter. Yuze twirls his Musashi, then blows off his finger. He screams, squeezing his wrist. Yuze whistles for the other gangers, swirling his fingers in the air for them to cock their rifles.

They each pull the trigger and Jia's torn apart by gunfire. Hazel watches from the dive port, ripping it out and closing her eyes to regain focus on her surroundings.

"Son of a bitch..." Reznor pushes the button to start the van.

They speed off.

—-------------------—---------------------------------

Isamu glosses over his odds, stirring his tea in Le Babelle, a cafe Eastside of Blossom drive. A priest preaches the word of God standing on top of a table, while others quickly gather their belongings and vanish before the old timer asks them the fine lines of realities between life and death.

"I'm headed to hell soon, father. No need to speed my way up to face it." He sits across from Shintarou, who's eyeing him like death already walked up and kissed out his soul.

"NES? You sure?" Shintarou asks, sipping on a can of green tea.

"Bought a medical subscription for 900. Nice stuff really. Only to hear you gotta fork over more to get this shit outta me." Isamu's left eye's been gashed out, molded over with a deep reddish scar. "Got this the moment it all happened too. Ain't it pretty?"

"Gives you character."

"Always had character. Always. Now it's just put so plainly." Isamu taps the side of his tea cup. "I don't know what I'm gonna do."

"Need money?"

"I don't want your money. I just want a good day out with my old partner in crime. Best I can ask for these days." Isamu says dryly and pulls a cigarette out the front pocket of his red Hawaiian shirt. Shintarou lights it for him.

"Sure that's a good idea?"

"You already lit her, pal."

"Have you seen her yet?"

"Nope. But I'm going to. Harakiri's expecting me any day now."

"What do you think she'll see?"

"I don't know. Nothing good perhaps." Red light streaks across his face. "This is what I get for all the shit I've done. There was never a happy ending for me. Not once."

"Don't pity yourself."

"Pity? We're Razors, Shin. We don't get the easy way out, and I'm no exception. This was bound to happen. All the shit in me is killing me because I wanted it. But being what I am came with a price. This is the price and it's on my fucking doorstep. So don't bring pity into it. Unless some age-old miracle comes up, I'm gonna lose all my nerves to pain like I'm on fire. And when that doesn't kill me, the constant nagging of what I should and could have done is gonna be the thing that eats whatever's left."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. That's just how the cookie crumbles." Isamu sips his tea.

—-------------------—---------------------------------

Hazel lowers her hood and takes the wheel halfway to Vietnamtown. Reznor leans his head against the window, pondering the job, lost within his thoughts as is she. The road ahead is dreary, crammed with crowds scrounging in the shops cluttering the sidewalk. Old plazas scooped out, becoming something else entirely, with old signs faded and without purpose.

Taco Bell's a church at the end of the road, a church for the homeless, a haven for the broken. Walmart's a place where firearms are sold cheaply and run by gangers, who defend themselves from the STAT, who patrol occasionally to witness the steady decline of civilization.

Hazel pulls them out of the neighborhood, onto the vast unwinding stretch of streets as far as Pengsha can reach.

"Hunyh's gonna kill us." Reznor brushes away his black locks and chews the skin off his lips, checking the shotgun under his trench coat. Hazel doesn't say anything, keeping her eyes ahead.

"The D.N.K don't deal with fuck ups too kindly."

"No shit." She punches the wheel. There's a toxic yellow glow as Vietnamtown crops up into small, Saigon-like surroundings. If Shima's meant to be the new Japan after Japan sank, Vietnamtown is the new Vietnam after Vietnam was reduced to cinders.

"Beautiful," Reznor says to the ash falling from the sky. Hazel gulps, easing her foot on the gas.

"What are you doing?"

"Buying some time. I'm not looking forward to this. And neither are you, so just sit back and relax for a sec." She slows the van down at a corner just outside of Vietnamtown, in front of a convenience store posted with two guards out front armed with shashous.

"Hazel's finally scared."

"Whatever, asshole."

"Let's just hope it's just an ass-whooping waiting for us." Reznor crosses his arms.

"I'm sorry I brought you back into this. I thought things would be different this time..."

"Don't sweat it. We both know why we're here, and that doesn't mean shit about how I feel."

"Lilith..." Hazel winces at the very name. Reznor rushes to change the subject.

"How's Monica? How is your girlfriend feeling about all this?"

"She doesn't feel anything. I never told her."

"You never told her?" Reznor's neon eyes flicker with surprise.

"What do I tell her? That I'm working with a psychotic Vietnamese ganger hauling my ass into a robbery for some quick cash, because mommy and daddy don't want anything to do with me anymore? Yeah, no thanks. I'd rather have Hunyh skin my ass alive than have it out with another argument about my fruitful life choices, Rez. I ain't going home to rage. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever, man."

"You should tell her. She's gonna find out soon-- if we aren't killed."

"I'm taking this to the grave, bro," Hazel sighs and starts the van, "so let's hope for the best. Now let's get this going."

—-------------------—---------------------------------

There's a warehouse at the east part of Vietnamtown, a cruddy place, small, wedged between boarded-up buildings spray painted with fresh graffiti. The boys out front let them in, cautiously. They keep locked on until they reach the couch beyond the maze of storage containers and jumbled waste. There are four guards stationed at every rusted wall, eyeing them, waiting for the cue to spill blood.

Reznor and Hazel brought their guns. If things get too hot, they ain't going out on their knees - it'll be a firefight. Asuicidal measure of pride, Hazel would put it.

Bleached hair and an orange collared shirt come into view. Hunyh is watching a cartoon Hazel can't make out, sipping on a monster can with one hand, and dangling a golden Mac-10 down his crotch with the other. He itches his leg with it, glaring over his shoulder as if paranoid someone's watching over him. His composure intensifies the second he spots the two he's been waiting on for the past few hours. He smirks, tosses the monster can, and pops out of his seat, then quickly turns sour as he notices the two are empty-handed with nothing but their guns and their bravado.

"Where's our money? And where are the other two?"

"Lost and dead." Hazel answers.

"What the fuck do you mean "lost and dead?" What the fuck happened?"

"Job went south, Texas south--- Antarctica south. So south you're off the planet, baby." Hazel takes a step back as Hunyh taps the Mac-10 against his temple, looking back at them like an animalistic Neanderthal with only one thing on his mind: murder.

"Tell me why I shouldn't have you two gonks shot for being the biggest fuck ups this side of Nirvana."

Hazel shrugs.

"Sir," Reznor butts in, "we were intercepted by Yuze Kakihara. A setback you can't possibly have expected us to solve."

"When you have a problem..." Hunyh growls. "You eliminate it."

"Elim-- Eliminate? How the hell do you eliminate the deadliest assassin this district has ever seen?" Hazel shouts.

"You--"

"You don't, asshole. It's impossible. We're lucky we got out alive and that he didn't catch us. Because, frankly, you wouldn't last five seconds in a room with him--" Hunyh smacks her across the nose, the floor coming up in a sloppy greet. Reznor aims his shotgun at the D.N.K leader without a flinch.

The four gangers lift themselves off the walls, draw their steel, and close in. Reznor helps Hazel off the ground, her nose oozing. She aims her YangYang at the ganger with a chrome jaw.

"This doesn't have to get hot." Reznor grimaces.

"The kettle's already steaming," Hunyh says.

"Just let it go! We don't have your money, we failed. If you sent anyone else into what we walked into, they'd be in the same boat."

A gunshot booms from the entrance to the warehouse. Hunyh peaks over and hears automatics go off with screams to follow. He flops to the couch and changes the channel to the security feed and sees eight guys, all in black, carrying machine guns. A man in a Mao Suit leads them with nothing but a pistol.

"Xinsheng..." He says. Hazel glimpses, her lungs crushed under the sudden pressure of anxiety.

Yuze is here.

"On me!" Hunyh checks his ammo and primes the Mac-10.

"We ain't going with you, psycho," Hazel says.

"You both are weak. I will eliminate this problem. Show you how it's done." Hunyh bobs his head for the other four to follow him into the fight.

"Let's get the fuck outta here," Hazel leads Reznor through the door of a modular office to the outside into a three-way alley. A few Xinsheng spot them to their left, not like the ones on the video feed. They shoot first, bullets ricocheting by. The two dash forward, Reznor lowering the shotgun to his hip and covering them as they turn a corner. He presses his back against the wall, unloading blindly in his attacker's direction.

"Got any better ideas?"

Hazel digs her fingers into a sewer lid, the wet grime making her squeamish. She attempts to lift it off the ground and staggers off her feet.

"Use this!" Reznor tosses her his hachi - a spiraled knife. She jams it into the edge, plucking it open. The smell violates her nose. She plugs it, hollering for Reznor to follow as she dives right in. He takes one last shot before he descends, shutting the lid. His eyes light the way down.

"Shit!" He slips off the ladder into the sludge below.

"God damn it!" Hazel trudges the knee-high current, miserably collecting herself despite tasting the putrid air. She helps her friend onto his feet, and the two make a break for wherever the sewage line leads. It doesn't matter where they go, as long as they're far away from that wild bunch up the ladder.

—-------------------—---------------------------------

"I think we're good," Reznor says as he catches himself on the wall, the taste of vomit from his previous hurl still fresh in his mouth. Catwalks appear above in the distance, along with makeshift huts of old tin illuminated with lanterns, crowding around the giant sewer well sucking up all the filth. The current becomes rapid the further they reach this ramshackle community.

"Gutter-tech territory," Hazel murmurs. Reznor buttons up his coat as they break the distance, stepping onto a rickety platform of wood and rusted car frames. The people living there scramble the second they spot them, shuttering their homes and arming themselves with old crossbows and katanas. They're in Shima, and Hazel doesn't have to peek up at the surface to know this.

"We're in deep now, sister." Reznor looks for a way out when one of the residents creeps up behind him, clad in black scraps of clothes with tumors concealed by their hood. Reznor doesn't let them get the jump on him. He whirls, red eyes pulsing. The stranger cowers at the sight of the shotgun.

"I don't have anything you need, friend."

The stranger chuckles nervously. "I only wanna help those who don't belong. You certainly don't belong after all. I help people find their way." A closer look, and the whites of his eyes are a sick yellowish green. He pushes his slender fingers together. "I've got the sight, you see. I foretold of you coming."

"Is that right?"

Hazel steps in front of him.

"The sight?"

"Yes... The sight!" The stranger cackles, "I've seen your faces. Seen them hours before you arrived."

"You can see the future, can't you?"

The stranger nods.

"Shit," Reznor rolls his eyes and lowers the shotgun, "we better get moving, Haze."

Hazel shushes him. "What did you see?"

The Stranger grins widely. "Chaos! He knows you're here. He's coming. Tracking you. He'll be here soon."

"Son of a bitch. He's one of those seers." Reznor gulps.

"What did you see, stranger? Tell us." Hazel demands.

The stranger leans closer. "You will die if you are not careful, kid. You will suffer if he catches you. He will not kill you first. He will take his time. Time to feed his sadism. Who he is is a monster. A predator who toys with his prey."

Hazel scans for an exit. "Think you could help us out, stranger?"

"Yeah. You mind showing us a way out of here?" Reznor asks to speed up the conversation.

"Yes! I show you. Yes. This way." The stranger beckons for them to follow. As Hazel readies herself, she's caught off guard by the rumbling down the tunnel they emerged from. A bright light comes into focus, beaming as it advances closer.

"It's him."

Yuze speeds the motorcycle onto the rickety platform, grinning ear to ear at the sight of his targets.

"Shit! How the hell did they find us?" Reznor yells over the booming motor. He aims his shotgun as Hazel whips out her YangYang. They fire. Yuze weaves through the shots, leaping off his motorcycle. Three sets of razor-sharp blades protrude from the top of his forearms. They clash onto Reznor's shotgun, crunching the metal beneath. He struggles to maintain balance.

Hazel pumps rounds at Yuze. He scatters away, slashing through the bullets. The stranger cowers away from them, hiding behind loose piles of trash.

The X01 Dai in Reznor's hand is destroyed, bent at the body. He removes the sling from his shoulder and tosses the heap of metal at Yuze, who carves through it in a flash of sparks. The assassin dashes for Hazel once her YangYang is spent. She rolls out of the way of his oncoming thrust, onto her feet, and reloads.

"Missed me asshole." She grunts and keeps blasting. But no matter what angle she alternates her line of fire, Yuze keeps himself focused, steady, moving smoothly through the haze with an unreal blur of speed. Then a crossbow bolt catches him off guard. He dodges. From there, several katana-wielding Gutter-Techs descend on him from the roofs of the ramshackle huts.

Hazel attempts to find an opening to blast through them to no success. She runs to Reznor, who grabs her arm and rips her away from the carnage.

"This way!"

The two disappear among the rust and away from the community.

Yuze claws his way through the gutter techs. White, foul-smelling blood splashes onto his suit. He roars as his muscles ache, fighting through the pain and slashes along his body. He severs the last attacker in half with both sets of blades.

—------------------—---------------------------------

The stranger leads them to the far side of a northern tunnel.

"This way - hurry!" He stops and points up at a ladder to their left. "This will take you up to Blossom Drive."

"You first." Reznor gestures for Hazel and helps her up. She pushes off the lid and spills out onto a crowded street. The Nirvana air returns like a bad case of whiplash. Blossom leaves flutter and fall to earth, and holograms shine across in a neon mist. Blossom Drive. A place to pretend reality isn't crumbling all around them.

Reznor exits shortly after, and a beat-up Honda honks at them as they take up the street. Hazel reaches a hand down into the tunnel for the stranger.

"Come on, hurry!"

The stranger lends his hand, suddenly convulsing as Yuze's claws gut him from behind. Blood splashes Hazel's horror-torn face. She freezes. Reznor snatches her and slams the lid on top of the assassin.

"Move!"

The two make a break for it, leading them inside a tacky club called the Lotus.

Yuze bursts through the hole.

—------------------—---------------------------------

The club is dead, a handful occupies the dance floor, and the drinks are low in stock, watered down to fill a quota of how much you can and should serve. Isamu blocks out any surrounding noise. He comes here often, to drown himself, to chat up cute guys looking to hear a seasoned Street-Razor reminisce. He looks down at his glass, then looks up at the bartender, Aikawa.

"I'm thirsty."

"It'll cost you."

"Sure." Isamu's sweating from the constant shakes of NES creeping into his system, like the bubonic of hardware output. He wipes the sweat from his forehead. Aikawa picks the biggest glass on the counter, filling it with vodka.

"Thanks." Isamu downs the whole thing as easily as a glass of water. No chasers. Nothing. Just him and the smooth and sweet burning sensation tingling in his throat.

Reznor and Hazel burst through, catching his attention as they rush down towards the back, leaping over a table as they do. Yuze claws his way through to them. Drinks are spilled, people shoved through. Isamu chuckles, not moving an inch the moment shots fire from a YangYang. Aikawa ducks, and everyone inside flings into a panic, frenzying into an escape.

"Damn, and I kinda liked this joint."

—------------------—---------------------------------

Reznor and Hazel exit the back door into the alley blocked off by two fences on either side. Hazel slams the door shut, gunning for the one to her right. She holsters her pistol and tries to climb, Reznor after her. Yuze kicks open the door, dashing for them. He snatches them off the fence, tossing Reznor at the pile of trash and Hazel onto the cold wet pavement. Her elbow scrapes into a stinging ooze of blood. She reaches for the YangYang. Yuze kicks it out of her grasp, pinning her down with his boot to her chest.

"Let it go." He retracts two claws on his right arm, leaving the middle one to do the talking. He leans forward, slowly pressing his blade towards her throat, ecstasy in his eyes.

Hazel chuckles up a storm. "Some assassin you are. Getting your money's worth from a couple of Gutter-Techs? Jesus, you really are sad. I thought you were supposed to be some kind of fabled fucking legend. But you let us give you a run. Ha! You ain't worth shit a Street-Razor half your size!"

Yuze's face contorts with anger. He gashes out her cheek. Hazel shakes, breathing hard, her airways crushed. Yuze smirks, putting more of his weight down on her chest to watch her squirm.

The back door flings open. Out comes Isamu in a cropped leather jacket, smoking a cigar. He ties his hair into a topknot, taking a formal stance to show off the katana strapped to his belt.

"Hate to break up what you got going on, but you spoiled my drink. I take that a little personally." He takes two steps forward, stops, and rubs his fingers together. His reddish scar visible. "Walk away before I have to hurt you."

Yuze giggles hysterically and wipes a tear from his eye. "Don't make me laugh."

Isamu bends his knees, ready to dash. Then it hits him like a sledgehammer to the face about who this man is, what their purpose must be for these strangers.

"Yuze Kakihara... I've heard all about you."

Yuze kicks Hazel off to the side, her back slamming against the wall to the right.

They circle each other. Keep their distance.

"Am I supposed to know who you are?" Yuze ejects his claws.

"Don't really care if you do, pal. For all you know, I'm just a sick bum who's about to kick your ass."

"Don't bet on it."

Yuze growls and spins toward him in a whirlpool of steel. Their blades clash. There's a grinding screech between them as they pull away. Isamu breaks a sweat, shaking. His vision blurred.

"That's the best you got, freak show?"

Yuze takes a breath, his muscles aching from the fight before. Using the last of his strength, he hurls himself, slashing across Isamu's chest, leaving his torso open. The Street-Razor gashes out their neck and kicks him away. The assassin holds his wound, blood spewing between his fingers.

"Fuck..." Yuze says as he gargles, his face turning pale.

"C'mon, I ain't finished with you yet." Isamu drops his guard. Yuze slugs his blows as Isamu dodges lackadaisically. "Almost had me there, really."

Hazel sits up, holding her dislocated arm, grasping for breath to fill her lungs. She looks to Reznor, who breaks from his unconscious state. His eyes pulsing with fury.

As Isamu toys with the assassin, his body is struck with a sudden wave of pain. He coughs, staggering off balance as Yuze slashes through, slicing open his arm at the artery. Hazel blocks her eyes as blood sprays.

"Damn it." Isamu raises his blade, stumbling. He drops to one knee.

Yuze dives for the final blow right before Reznor drives his hachi into the back of his neck and twists it. The assassin goes down, retracting his claws. He grasps for his neck, twitching. Reznor pants as he yanks the knife out and repeatedly stabs him in the back until he falls.

Hazel limps to him, pulling him away from the corpse.

"Easy. Easy..." It hurts for her to speak. Reznor falls onto his back, gazing towards the murky sky. He takes a second before he pulls himself off the ground and addresses Hazel.

"Are you okay, Haze?" He checks her for any other wounds. She shakes her head, then bobs to the downed Samurai type, lying in a sea of his blood.

"Check him," she shivers, the agony having a pull on her. Reznor sets her down easy before addressing Isamu. He flips him over, checks his arm, and tears off the end piece of his jacket to tie a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Wrapping it tightly around the wound, Isamu comes to, reaching out for his neck and squeezing.

"I'm... Trying... To... Help..." Reznor squirms.

Isamu takes deep, ragged breaths as he returns to reality. His eyes bloodshot with rage. He slowly releases Reznor, who rubs his neck, gasping for air. He pulls Isamu onto his feet.

"Thanks for--"

The back door of the club flings open. Out comes a squad of STAT.

"Get the fuck on the ground, all of you!" The lead one says, a modded, hypercharged shashou zooming to life in his hands. Helmets like black orbs and the standard tattered and strapped-together uniforms lined with heavy nanotubes. Tattered shows experience. These guys aren't to be fucked with. Hazel lays flat on her stomach. Reznor's whacked in the face as he's detained, the knife being ripped from his grasp. Isamu stands there clutching his arm, unbothered. He moseys around before someone sweeps his legs out from under, and most of the squad pins him down.

—------------------—---------------------------------

A bright light shines overhead, making Hazel dizzy. She breathes and takes in the chemical stench of ammonia used to make the room spotless.

A man in black sits across from her, chewing on a toothpick, neon blue eyes hidden behind a pair of smoky aviators. He taps his fingers against the metal table. Hazel glances at her reflection in the one way mirror behind them, composing herself, seeing how she can put on her poker face without batting an eye.

She winces at the bruising beginning to develop along her body.

The STAT didn't care to medically evaluate her before dropping her off at the station. Now she's just clutching her arm, helplessly composing herself.

"Mind telling us why you were there?" The man says in Japanese, grumbling through a voice modulizer. It makes Hazel shiver at its abnormality.

"We don't have time for trivialities. Either you answer me now or..." He speaks low and points to the camera behind him, pinching the microphone on his collar. "We send one of our guys in here. Really nasty, he is. So nasty we keep the cameras off and the room over there clear. No witnesses, nothing, just you and him and whatever he wants to do with you. All until you talk." He leans further. "And he likes pretty little things like you. He craves it. So you have five minutes. Speak or I'll snap my fingers and send him running in here. Do you understand?"

Hazel's eyes are wide, her heart skipping a beat. She shakes her head, not wanting to believe what came out of the officer's mouth. Before she can answer, the door flings open. In comes a sharply dressed man in a red suit. Has corporate written on his face. Caramel skin with sharp almond eyes that'd cut through any steel at the right angle. Rico Trang. Hazel twitches with surprise. It's a friend of her father's.

"Get out of here before I have to call your boss and..." Rico makes a click of his tongue and draws a line across his throat. A woman comes out from behind him. Short black hair styled in a pixie, fitted into a white vest and black button-up adorned with short blades. Two shashous are slinging over her shoulders. Her eyes solid maroon. She places her onyx hand on the brim of her musashi at the front of her pants, grinning for the STAT officer to make one wrong move.

"Easy, Kai. We don't want to spook him too bad. He's just a feral dog in uniform, after all. All it takes to put a dog down is a taste of his own bravado," Rico chuckles and takes off his gloves, "we paid for her release. You know the drill."

"Suits. Always paying your way through everything." The officer grits his teeth as he gets a call from a superior in his neural port. The camera above powers off.

"At least I'm not government property, hm?" Rico beckons for him to leave. The officer shimmies past him and out the door.

"Guess you have a lot of thoughts bubbling around in there?" Rico sits across from Hazel. "This is Kai. Kai, do say hello."

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Codyne."

"Why the fuck are you here?" Hazel asks. Rico looks around, the question astonishing him.

"Saving you. Heard you had a lot of heat on you. Sprung your friend Reznor out too. Offered him a deal. Same one I'm about to offer you. This one I'm about to offer you, however, is personal."

"Yeah?" Hazel crosses her arms. "And what's that?"

"I found her." Rico's voice cracks. "I found your sister. I found Lilith."

Hazel uncrosses her arms and sits up, repeating what he said in her mind. She shakes her head in disbelief. "You— you found her? How? I— I've been... You're lying. You're fucking lying, man."

"If I was lying, I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to get you out of here. Now listen. I know where Vermillion is holding her. If you come with me, I can help you get her out. All you have to do is trust me. Your skills as a Diver could prove beneficial to me and to her." He lends his hand.

Hazel hesitates for a moment. Excitement forcing its way to the surface with a twinge of distrust. She grits her teeth at the throbbing in her skull and hesitantly shakes his hand.

"If this is to be a rescue of sorts, there's a guy I think you'd take an interest in. He was arrested alongside us."

"Yes. I know of him. They call him The Boogeyman of Blossom Drive. A dangerous fellow with a reputation of violence as far back as when he was but a mere boy. Yes, he might be just what we need."

"Good. I saw him in action. He's got skill. Worth way more than me in a fight. He practically took out Yuze Kakihara. But something got to him."

"It's NES, darling. I read the report. I'll see what I can do with him. For now, let's me and you see our way out of this shit-hole they call a station, shall we?" Rico stands up and offers his elbow. Hazel accepts.

—------------------—---------------------------------

Isamu wakes to a hospital bed in a dimly lit room. STAT officers crowd around him, ready to use their guns at his slightest twitch. The nurse wraps his wounds with a thick layer of gauze, biting off the end of it, before giving him a shot of morphine. She leaves hastily.

"I must be scary." He groans. One of the officers taunts him with their musashi, ready to blow a hole through his head large enough that a fist could fit.

"Try me." Isamu spits on their shoe. "Maybe we should see what happens when you let the cuffs off."

"Quiet!" A voice yells from his left, followed by a sharp elbow to Isamu's jaw.

"Mother fucker." He spits blood.

Someone goes off on one of the officer's comms, a garbled voice Isamu can't make out through the ringing in his ears. The STAT scatter letting out insults and crude remarks on Isamu's heritage. "Yellow bastard." Is one he can make out. He chuckles.

"I've been called a lot worse, pig."

He hears another set of footsteps approaching from the hall. The sliding glass creaks open, and the curtain is pulled back. A sharply dressed man appears, striking a lighter. The flame glows along his face as he brings it to the cigarette plopped between his lips. A small woman stands guard outside, watching the halls.

"I finally meet the legend of Blossom Drive. A pleasure." Rico flips the keys to Isamu's handcuffs. He takes a long drag and moves to uncuff him.

"Who are you?"

"Rico Trang. And I heard you got a nasty spell of NES. A shame really for someone of your potential. What if I told you I could help with that for a price?"

The cuffs click and dangle off to the side. Isamu rubs out the itch.

"What exactly do you have in mind?"

Rico tosses him an amber vial. He catches it, reading the label: R49. The suppression of NES symptoms. His age old miracle.

"Details will be expelled once I have an answer."

Isamu squeezes the bottle in his hand, "I'm in."

—------------------—---------------------------------

Shima hums restlessly to the red skies. Storm clouds brewing over the horizon promise a storm to come, battling against the homeless who shovel through trash for a place to catch some shut eye.

"Another hurricane? Shit, that's the third one this month." Isamu clutches to his windbreaker as the wind kicks up and splashes him with water. Grime drenches him, putrid, tastes sour like old dirt mixed with sweat. Neon glitters the end of this dreary road. Fluorescents curl into a big blue eye above beating red words reading Truth Seer. A small beat out place at the center of beat out ruins of corporate instigated warfare in the streets. You could smell the old blood in the air from the corpses that riddle the rubble. Their cries of agony mistaken for harsh wind.

Kaneki, a battle zone for what was still the true Japanese of the world before it lost to the corporate giant. The ones who maintain control of what heritage truly is. What tradition could be. And how to sell it. How to make a whole culture of people segregate one another for the truth. For the way things should be. Bottle it up, drink it, move on with tacky labels. Forget your entire nation is thousands of feet under water.

That reality makes Isamu's blood boil. Being here, living here, existing only to express his anger with violence.

"Now I'm going to die, and it didn't help a goddamn soul." He pushes into the building. Cracked tile crunches beneath his booth. The place is filled with dream catchers dangling from the ceiling. Old voodoo dolls and works of the occult fill every shelf. A terminal and a few pencils occupy the front desk.

Standing at the center, Harakiri's sipping on a bottle of green tea, an AK-12 strapped to his shoulder, wearing Dorsai fatigues he scrounged off one of the decaying corpses outside. He scratches a pimple off the top of his shaved head.

"You finally showed."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"We're closing soon, but I'm sure mom will make an exception. Remove your coat."

Isamu nods and unzips. He throws his coat to the side. Incandescent irezumi line his body in orange neon - complex Qilin Kick patterns to show you're a proud member.

The room at the back is candle lit, smells like hot wax and old drywall. His neon creates an ominous glow within the patches of darkness.

An old woman in deep blue robes adorned with crystals awaits Isamu, seating herself gently on a purple zafu. Harakiri beckons for him to approach before shutting the door behind him.

"Come. Sit. Face away from me." The old woman says. Isamu sits, cross-legged. Her slender hands creep onto his back, cold it develops goosebumps and sends chills down his neck.

"Darkness clouds you." She places her palm between his shoulder blades, taking in all of the dark energy she can muster. "Now you must face me."

Isamu flips himself around. She brings both hands to either side of his face. Her eyes flutter and roll to whites, chest thumping with hyperventilation. He can feel her pulling a force from his mind to flashes of death and decay—destruction and violence the likes of which he can't fathom. A woman standing over him, her face hard to make out within the womb like visions clouding his sight. All he can make out is her lips, the color of her bright white hair. Then her eyes, those beating red eyes like blood filled the very irises of her sight. She's covered in blood and chunks of flesh. The old woman pulls back to herself, and writhes, capturing breaths.

"What did you see?"

"I saw..." Her eyes roll back to color.

"I saw your death."