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Homeplot (2)
The Empty Room in Osaka
Apartment 217, in a nondescript block of an apartment building on the outskirts of downtown Osaka, Japan.
Laying on a bare floor, a clunky mobile phone began to ring. Despite the amount of money such a phone would cost in the late part of the eighties, before the big rush really began, it wasn't even the most expensive item in the room. The real treasures in this tiny, bare apartment had to do with what was in the closet, which bore a simple combination lock.
The ringing seeped into O-Ren's consciousness even as she struggled to wake up. How late had she been out last night? That wasn't like her, and surely Angua and Dean would have had questions. Was she sick, then? Why the heavy haze around her? The fucking ringing was beginning to wear itself out, too.
O-Ren snapped up from her futon so quickly that she had to brace against the window. She was no longer even a bit sleepy, so aware she couldn't keep her hands from shaking as she patted herself down. Same self that had gone to bed the night before.
But a look around confirmed this was her old apartment. Only a few pots to boil ramen in. Blood spots she'd never bothered to clean up. Locked closet. Mobile phone ringing on the ground. She'd cut the regular telephone line herself, preferring this.
It stopped ringing, and O-Ren took a deep breath. "What the fuck."
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She wished she had her Braavosi-style swords. Still, she'd make do.
"Let's not stand around here, then," she said, sizing up the building, then stepping forward.
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There might have been nearly that many, though, swarthy and bulky men who seemed barely contained by their cheap black suits. Bright flashes of tattoo peered up from behind sleeves and buttons. Yakuza, all of them. She noted, in a quick, numb way, that their weapons varied from sword to chain to bat. No guns? It seemed unlikely.
And there, at the top of the stair, lounged a figure in white. Her vision crossed and blurred and she couldn't tell if it was her own self, twenty years from now, waiting for the Bride to ascend, or if it was the Man in White.
It was Bill, of course, and in lazy, patient Japanese, he gave the order to begin.
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Still. She couldn't help but feel like the kindly man wouldn't have approved. But the kindly man wasn't here, and this was O-Ren's world.
And O-Ren's enemy, but that didn't stop her from, out of pure instinct, pulling a gun and aiming for the top of the stair.
But the room was already moving, and she had to change targets as the first of the yakuza came at them.
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As her feet hit the floorboards in front of the first step, she felt fingers take hold in her hair from behind, sending her skidding backwards. She kipped back up to her feet, putting a bullet between the man's eyes, but already she could see more of them closing in-- and Bill turning away, going through the doors to the courtyard outside. "No," she screamed, turning to place Arya, unable to leave her, unable to let the last of her work slip away.
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She stepped in and took the gun off one who hadn't quite figured out he was dead yet, despite the bullet that had entered through the top of his skull, and kicked him into another couple to buy them some room.
Enough to extend both guns at arm's length, switching from target to target, creating a wary semi-circle of yakuza with weapons drawn.
"O-Ren, go," she said. "Leave these camel's cunts to me."
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Bill had been her mistake. She hadn't closed the circle, and it had swallowed her until she'd been the one at the top of the stairs.
There were kinks in the story this times, knots in the circle to keep it from moving. O-Ren blinked, light exploding behind her eyes as if the Buddha himself had slapped her. The world throbbed in perfect understanding, vibrant hues.
With her own gun held out to cover the gap she was about to set, O-Ren took three quick steps. The pistol's muzzle swept past Arya's cheek until O-Ren had one wiry arm around Arya's neck and the other arm holding off any enemy fire. She pressed her mouth against Arya's, catching roughly at Arya's lower lip.
"Ganbatte yo," she whispered, and slipped her gun into the waist of Arya's pants.
Her feet were light on the stairs as she ascended.
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She had absolutely no idea what had just happened; it was, in its own way, harder to process than the fact she was in some strange version of Japan, surrounded by yakuza thugs who wanted to kill her.
One of them rushed at her and her free arm whipped up to shoot him with her other gun, without so much as looking around.
Then she turned, and ducked under another blade, and fired again, and lost sight of O-Ren altogether.
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But now the sakura was blooming, and the petals scattered in the downpour.
Across the courtyard, Bill threw back his dripping hair.
"You and I," she said, "have some unfinished business." With a soft sliding sound, comforting in its familiarity, her sword came loose from its sheath.
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Then again, there were only so many of them, and some of them had guns, too. She was going for them, first, using pillars and tables and even their own fellows for cover, squeezing off a round every time she saw a hand come up, but ignoring the ones that were trying to close was getting wearisome.
She rolled across a table as a chain slapped down where she'd been, kicked it up and into his face as she leapt to the next, looked around and didn't see a single gun left in a hand that wasn't twitching. Clubs, chains, knives, certainly. And swords.
"I'm not scared of you," she told them, and found that it was true. All the adrenaline coursing through her left no room for it. She brought the gun up on one of them, with a katana in his hands and another on his hip.
The gun clicked empty. He charged. "Because this is probably a dream," she said, and simply threw the gun into his face. She'd known how many bullets she'd used. She could count, and his surprised flinch as it crushed his nose let her slip past the blade, put her knife in his throat with one hand and draw that sword on his hip with the other.
"And in my dreams," she said, spinning clear, eyes snapping to a target to her left, who braced himself, only to look surprised as she lashed out to her right, took down another, snarling, "I'm a wolf."
She wondered how O-Ren was getting on. For all her tough talk, she didn't know how long she could keep this up.
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Her naked blade was at her side, and for a moment, her sopping hair obscured her face. But the light struck her cheeks as she moved forward, struck on Bill's cheeks as she stepped forward, her arm braced out in front of her.
"YAMETEYAGARU!"
She shook Bill's head at them by his wet, greasy hair. "You yakuza have no business being here anymore! Go!" There was a movement, some man reaching for a weapon, and O-Ren snapped her fingers, sharp and hard as a shot. "No," she said softly. "Understand me. This man killed my father, and now I've killed him. You fuckers are going to clear out, or-- I will collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here."
"Arya," she said. "Pull the pin on the grenade and throw it up here."
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Her latest opponent had a chain wrapped around the wrist of her sword-arm, and had likewise paused, just as he was about to yank. They eyed each other, his eyes flickering between her and O-Ren.
Arya took out the grenade and removed the pin with her teeth. He let go, started backing off with the others.
She straightened, still holding the grenade, glancing uncertainly over her shoulder, up at O-Ren.
But she wasn't going to ask if she was sure, not in front of these cunts. So she shrugged, and threw it up to her.
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They only needed one, anyway.
She put his head firmly on the post at the top of the staircase, and sprinted down, still a mess of rain and blood. Most of the yakuza were well aware of what she'd done, and they ran too. O-Ren smiled to herself, a little, as she grabbed Arya's wrist and kept running. Those men could belong to her, if she wanted. Be her own personal army.
But as she skidded out onto the slick street, the neon lights of the city competing with the starry night, she'd tell them all to go to Hell. "Any minute now," she whispered to Arya.
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And then, inside, the grenade went off, and the building was, too.