Stephen Hunter - The 47th samurai

He lunged left, but it was a feint, meant to drive back the one on the left. It worked. This fat boy stepped back for just a second. But seeing that move, the fellow on the right foolishly interpreted it as commitment, his heart filled with greed and visions of victory and reward, and he drove forward with the horizontal cut, the same crosswind Bob had used earlier. Bob knew it would come and pulled a move of his own devising, which was to thrust forward low, one knee plunging, the other back-kicking, flattening and lowering him. He felt the opponent’s sword roar by his hair, fluffing it, and he cut the man through the knee with a strike that felt slow and weak but that must have been strong and powerful, for it got through the one leg completely and the leg fell away to the right. The one-legged man hopped in screaming horror. Some things can’t be stopped, however, and the blow was too good: it continued, though much less forcefully, and bit halfway through the other leg, trapping itself for a second as the man fell.

He was dead. A brilliant move against one opponent, it was a foolish one against two, for now the fat one, who’d done all the talking, had the advantage and surged forward, flowing smooth and soft like a beautiful river-from somewhere Bob noted that he was well schooled-to deliver the diagonally angled kesagiri issuing from above to split the crouching gaijin.

I die, thought Bob, knowing that he was so far behind the curve he’d never make it, even if he felt his blade pull free. What happened next he saw clearly. Both his opponent and he had forgotten one thing: it didn’t matter to him because his center of gravity was so low and his supporting feet were so widely spaced, one before him and bent, the other stretched behind him and straight, but the venue in which they fought was slick with blood. Fat boy, on the other hand, had a high center of gravity, an unstable one in the slipperiness of the blood. He lost his footing, his sword wavered, oops, oof! omigosh! ulp! He struggled with his balance, the rhythm and timing of his cut utterly wrecked, and by the time he delivered it at about one-quarter speed, Bob got the blocking blade, even turned to take it on the mune of his sword, found the leverage in rising and pushed the enemy blade away and, finding himself in a nicely set-up shimo-baso, with the blade now back and the hilt forward, simply drove the hilt with a monstrous thud into the fat one’s face just below the eye. He fell like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, all dead weight, ker-splash in the blood, throwing splatter everywhere. With one hand he waved the sword and Bob hit it hard with the lower half of his own blade just above the tsuba and it flew away with a clatter. He leaned close, smelled breath, saw sweat and teeth and venting nostrils and fearful eyes, and hit the guy exactly where he’d hit him before with the hilt. It was a solid drive that echoed through his bones. The fat boy groaned and lay flat.

Bob stood, breathing hard. He flicked the blood off his blade, heard it splatter against a wall. He realized he still gripped the saya. All his blows had been one-handed, against all doctrine.

He turned and walked just a few feet to the amazingly contained old man.

“Cut down,” said the old man. “Not just cut. Cutting no good. Blood, no death soon enough. Cut down!”

Christ, Swagger thought, everybody’s a critic.

“Better footwork. Feet all tangled,” said the hipster. “You fight two, no good. Go to dojo. Get sensei. Must learn. You lucky. You use up all luck this life and next life. No more luck for you. You must practice with sensei. Much work to do.”

“You got that right,” said Bob. “I definitely was lucky. Now, old fellow, give me what I came for and I will get out of your way.”

“Fat one not dead.”

“I get that. I’ve got some words for him.”

“Okay. Very nice sword here. Honor to work on. Highlight of life. I appreciate much. Here, let me finish sword.”

He applied himself to it for another minute, held it to the light, pronounced it done, and put it into a red silk bag. It seemed to take him hours to tie the fucking thing, and Swagger saw that he had to do it just right.

Finally, he handed it over.

“No touch blade with stinky Merikan fingers.”

“I understand that. You’ll be all right?”

“Fine. I go stay with family in Sapporo.”

“Can we drop you anywhere?”

“No, I catch bus. It’s fine.”

Bob turned. He walked to the supine form of the one survivor amid the carnage as the polisher Mr. Omote put on some slippers, got a coat on, and made ready to leave.

Bob poked the live one, felt him stir, then groan. The eyes finally came open, blinked as he reacquainted himself with unpleasant memories of the last few minutes.

He touched the wound under his eye, from which blood flowed. It had already started to puff and would soon grow to the size of a grapefruit.

“Hey, you,” said Bob, “listen here or I will do some more cutting on you.”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“Why not, it’s fun.”

“Oh, my face,” said the guy, who, Bob now saw, was about twenty-five or so. His mug issued blood, tears, and snot from a variety of damaged sites.

“Pay attention. You have to deliver a message, all right?”

“Sure, Joe.”

“My name ain’t Joe, asshole. See this?” He brandished the red silk sword bag. “It’s the sword. It’s my sword, I have it back. Kondo Isami wants it bad. Fine, I’ll barter it to him. He has something I want. When I get it, I’ll give him the sword.”

“I hear you.”

“In three days, I’ll take a classified in the Japan Times personals column. It’ll be addressed to a ‘Yuki.’ It’ll be in alphabet code from The Nobility of Failure in English, not the Japanese translation. Got that?”

“What’s that?”

“A book, you moron. Way too hard for you. He’ll know what it is. Can you remember that?”

“Sure, J-sir.”

“Sir I like. The ad’ll give a location, a park probably. He’s to meet me at that park alone the following evening. He gives me what I want. I’ll give him what he wants.”

“Sure,” said the fat yak. Then his eyes clouded over with puzzlement. “You want money? A pile of it?”

“I don’t give a shit about money, clown-san.”

“What you want, then?”

“His head,” Bob said. “Tell him to bring it.”

Kondo was fascinated.

“He said that? He actually said that?”

“Yes. He did.”

“Nii, tell me again. Tell me exactly.”

“I asked him what he wanted from you. He said ‘His head. Tell him to bring it.’”

“Cheeky fellow.”

“He was, Oyabun.”

They were in Nii’s apartment. A private nurse in 8-9-3 employ had stitched and bandaged Nii up, as his own fellows cleaned the sword polisher’s shop after dark, making sure the bodies and all the carnage on the floor-and the chopped leg-were neatly disposed of. Nii, stitched, swollen, returned to his own place, and a few other men of Shinsengumi lingered about, dark-eyed, dark-suited, wary. Kondo, however, was lit up by the situation. Something in it pleased him immensely. He could not keep a half smile off his face.

“Describe him again, please.”

“American. Tallish, not gigantic. When himself, composed. Not one for excitement. His eyes were very still. He knew where to look, how to move. He’d killed before. Blood, the ugliness of the cuts, none of that had any effect on him.”

“Tell me again how he fought. Details this time, Nii. Tell me everything.”

“He was shrewd. We were stupid.”

“You were stupid, Nii.”

“I was stupid. He smelled of drink. He was wild and loud and out of control. His hair was a mess. He was any gaijin you see in Kabukicho, full of wild plans, knowing nothing. I was thinking how to get him out of there without incident, without the police becoming involved. I knew it would be difficult. I missed something.”