Chapter 39 Bullets and Fire
Chapter thirty-nine
Bullets and Fire
Kenji
On the other side of the curtain, laughter erupted—bright, full, delighted. A thousand hands clapped in rhythm. They had no idea a woman had just died ten feet behind velvet.
Slowly, I lowered Hiroko to the ground, yet didn't let her go.
The white flowers were still scattered across the floor. Petals crushed under boots. Stems bent and broken from the chaos.
But some were still whole.
I gathered a few with one hand and placed them beneath her head. Where the blood was pooling.
Then, I released her body but stayed on my knees beside her.
The blood seeped into the petals, blooming outward in slow, crimson veins until the white disappeared.
Kneeling next to her, I checked behind us, gunfire cracked from the rafters. I looked up and saw the Claws already handling the snipers.
Kaede fired. The crack split the rafters.
The sniper’s head snapped back, and his body tipped off the catwalk. He fell through beams of stage light, arms flailing, coat twisting in the air before he slammed onto the stage below. The impact shook the floorboards.
Daisuke’s blade flashed silver. It struck deep into the second man’s throat.
He tried to scream but only managed a wet choke as blood spilled over his collar and down onto the lighting grid.
Toma finished the third before the echo of the first shot faded. The body crumpled against the rigging, then hung there—swaying slightly above the stage.
On the other side of the curtain, the orchestra swelled. Applause broke out. Standing ovation energy for a performance, while Hiroko's blood soaked into white petals on the other side of the curtain.
"Snipers are done!" Reo called from somewhere to my left. "But we need to move. Now."
I would have to leave Hiroko here.
My eyes watered.
She deserved more than this. For the woman she was. For all she'd done in her life. For the guidance she'd given my Tiger.
She deserved better than to die in the back of some fucking theater near the exit of a pleasure district while strangers applauded on the other side.
"Kenji! Let’s go!” My brother shoved at me.
My chest ached. My heart felt like it was breaking open. And I was shocked at how much it hurt.
How deep the grief cut.
Reo kneeled by me. “Kenji, we have to go. Akiro and his men are here."
I kept staring at her lifeless eyes. “Who killed Hiroko?”
“There were three snipers above us, guarding the Yoshiwara entrance and must have caught us sneaking out of the service exit. They’re dead now. Put her down.”
“I want their family’s information.”
“I’ll get it once we are safe, but we have to be safe first. Which means. . .we have to leave her here.”
I’m sorry, Hiroko. So sorry.
I closed her eyes with my thumb, and my hand was shaking.
When I stood, the world narrowed.
The gunfire dulled. The orchestra became distant.
All I could hear was my own breathing.
"Goddamn it, Kenji!" Hiro got in front of me, and his eyes were wild. The same grief carved into his face, but something else sat on top of it.
Fear.
"Akiro is here." Hiro scowled at me. "Coming down the center aisle with at least twenty men. All branded as commanders."
My blood went cold. “I want to kill him.”
“Then, get your ass in the fucking game.”
I looked down at Hiroko and the blood-soaked petals framing her face.
I have to leave you.
The thought made me sick. Made my stomach turn and my vision blur. But I couldn't carry her and fight. Couldn't protect my crew and mourn at the same time.
I'll come back for you. I swear it.
Hot rage roared through me.
I looked down at my guns and switched the mode to both—bullets and fire. “I’m back. Let’s go.”
Hiro stayed on my side. “That’s what the fuck I’m talking about.”
The Scales used their knives to quickly tear through the curtain, slicing the velvet fast. Gold fringe snapped. The heavy fabric split with a violent rip.
We burst through the rupture.
The performers spotted us. Men and women in elaborate Kabuki costumes with painted faces frozen in exaggerated expressions of anguish and fury and wearing ornate robes in red, gold, and black.
They screamed when they saw us with our guns out and death in our eyes.
They scattered like startled birds into a blur of color and flapping robes.
One tripped over his own robe and quickly crawled toward the wings.
The audience saw us.
For one second, nobody moved. It was just a thousand faces staring with mouths open and hands in mid-air from clapping.
Then a woman screamed. All at once, the dam of calm broke.
People shoved each other away, climbed over seats, and trampled toward the exits.
We raced forward and hit the stage lights.
The whole theater opened up below us. Hundreds of seats. A panicking crowd. And somewhere in that chaos—Akiro.
The orchestra pit was directly below. Horrified musicians screamed and raced away. A cellist scrambled over his own chair and ran with his bow still in his hand.
We jumped off the stage.
The drop stole half a second of air from my lungs.
For a heartbeat, I saw the entire theater from above—red seats, rising smoke, gold balconies, bodies in motion—before gravity took me.
We hit the orchestra pit.
I landed on a violin. The neck shattered beneath my boots. The strings snapped upward.
Hiro crashed through a music stand beside me, breaking it under his feet.
Reo landed on a cello and put his foot through it.
The twins dropped in together—one's blade caught a stand on the way down and sent sheet music spiraling into the air like paper birds.
The rest of the Claws landed.
A harp lay on its side nearby, strings still humming.
And then I saw him.
Coming down the center aisle.
My brother.
Akiro.
He was moving fast. His men flanked him on both sides. Twenty of them. Maybe more. All armed and with fox brands on their necks.
He looked up at me, and even from this distance, I could see the smile on his face.
The new puppet.
He thought he was going to win.
In his hands, he held a kusarigama. A chain and sickle. The blade gleamed under the theater lights.
Curved and wicked-sharp.
The chain was maybe ten feet long with a weighted ball at the end.
He spun it once.
The weighted ball smashed into the arm of a chair. Velvet ripped. Wood splintered.
"Kenji!" Akiro called out, and his voice was light and playful. "Welcome, Brother. Come give me a hug."
I pulled the trigger.
The bullet tore forward.
The fire followed.
A column of flame roared down the center aisle, racing over velvet and wood. Seats ignited in a line of orange fury. Heat blasted outward.
Gold leaf blistered along the balcony rails.
Smoke climbed toward the chandelier.
Three of Akiro's men were too slow. The fire hit them chest-height, and they went up screaming.
Flailing.
Rolling across the floor.
The audience devolved into feral chaos. A woman in pearls clawed at a man's face to get past him.
The mass surged toward the exits.
Akiro dodged left. He was already moving toward the far wall. Toward the staircase that led up to the performance boxes.
He's running.
"Hiro! Reo! Clear the floor!" I vaulted out of the orchestra pit, shoulders straining as I hauled myself up in one violent motion.
My boots cleared the edge, and I didn’t break stride.
I leaped up and used the tops of the chairs as stepping stones.
My first landing crushed a chair’s velvet flat beneath my sole. The chair rocked dangerously under my weight, wood groaning in protest, but I pushed off before it could tip.
My boots hit one, two, three, four—each top of the chairs launched me forward.
On the fifth step, a man ducked too late. My coat skimmed the top of his head as he dropped into his wife’s lap.
On the sixth, an armrest splintered beneath my heel, snapping backward into the aisle.
The seventh chair buckled the instant I left it and collapsed into the stampede below.
The theater blurred on either side—red velvet, flashing diamonds, flailing hands, rising smoke—everything collapsing into motion while my focus narrowed to a single point ahead.
Akiro.
He slung people out of his way to escape.
“Brother, where are you going?! I want to give you that hug!” Moving too fast to fall, my body leaned forward, momentum carrying me from one impact to the next before gravity could catch up.
Akiro's men tried to intercept. One climbed over a row to block my path. I shot him in the chest without breaking stride. Fire caught his jacket, and he fell backward into the seats, thrashing and setting another in flames.
Another of Akiro’s henchmen rushed for me.
One of the twins—Aki I think—appeared beside me like a ghost. Aki’s blade flashed, and the man's hand separated from his wrist.
He screamed.
Aki kicked him in the chest, and the man went down.
Yuki appeared on my other side. A man lunged at me from below, grabbing for my ankle. Yuki drove his blade down through the man's shoulder and pinned him to the seat.
The twins stayed with me. Step for step. Like shadows I couldn't shake.
I checked around us.
The whole theater was now a battleground.
Hiro had one of Akiro's men by the throat, using him as a shield while firing over the man's shoulder.
Three.
Four.
Five shots.
Each one found a target.
I checked for Reo and found him to my right.
Blood ran down his face from a cut over his eyebrow. He wiped it with his sleeve and cut a path through the center aisle. His blade moved in tight, efficient arcs.
No wasted motion.
Every cut was a kill or a cripple.
A man swung at him with a pipe. Reo stepped inside the swing, drove his blade up through the man's jaw, and pulled it free before the body hit the ground.
Another came at him with a short sword. Their blades met three times—fast, ringing, sharp—and then Reo feinted left and opened the man from hip to ribs.
The man looked down at himself.
Reo didn't wait for him to fall.
Then more of Akiro's men poured in from the wings of the stage.
Fuck! Another wave!