A Masterpiece of Death and Color #3
But Toma. I could not see Toma. The all-red assassin had been on the right side of the field where the first explosion went off.
A shudder of fear ran through me.
Where is he? Come on.
I had lost Daisuke too and had no way to find him in this smoke.
Please be okay. If you two turn into ghosts. . .then. . .that might be the end of me. . .
Kaede was near the plane’s stairs, battling with Mr. White. The staircase had just warped from the blast.
Yoichi was a streak of gold in the center, tearing men apart with his bare hands. Blood coated his fingers and arms. His silver fang charm glowed bright in the moonlight, something I’d never seen happen to him before.
Where is Satoshi?
For some odd reason, thinking of him made me wonder about the gifts that he’d gotten Nyomi’s grandmother.
I should have asked what he got? Just. . .in case. . .
I shook my head.
No. Don’t think that way. He’ll live and then I’ll find out.
The most fucked up thing about war was death, and the fact that war always left scars that outlasted the battles.
I looked again for Toma, Daisuke, and Satoshi, and then a memory rose before I could stop it—the Claws Cocktail Party. The whole ballroom lit up with that beautiful massive dragon’s claw hovering over us.
The music and food.
The enticing smells.
And we had danced.
My Claws and me.
The six of us.
Orphans of madness.
With fathers who brutally beat us, mothers who did not want to protect us, houses where unsurvivable trauma lived in the walls.
We became each other's family because our actual families were broken in ways that could not be repaired.
We did our best to love each other, even though we didn’t know how. We turned into men that. . .were ruthless. . .vicious. . .wrong. . .but still yearning for. . .warmth in the coldness of life.
And I thought of the way Nyomi loved us so much. She didn’t have to do all of that. I’d asked for a party, not a celebration of us that rang down to our bones and shook our souls.
Not a true undeniable symbol that we were so loved.
So cherished.
We all felt it. I knew it as we danced together at the end of the night. The smiles on my Claws’ faces.
Our laughter rising in the air.
Had the twins ever laughed like that before in their life?
I doubted it. I’d bet all my money that they hadn’t.
In fact, I would bet my soul. The twins laughed so intensely that it made me laugh, and that sound had been one that had lived somewhere deep in my chest under all the ghosts, grief, and lollipops.
How had our Tiger found those laughs in us?
She had built an entire evening for the broken men of her new family.
And we had felt it.
Wouldn’t that make us strong for tonight?
Wouldn’t that keep every one of us alive?
Because. . .to think that we experienced all of that love. . .finally. . .after never knowing it. . .and then dying. . .just like that. . .
No.
My chest closed around itself.
We will laugh again. . .together. . .
I bit back my anxiety and continued to look for them. The whole field had become a complexity of death moving in a hundred directions at once.
At least the baby girl is gone.
I scanned the grass where she had been sitting, and some tension left me.
Ghost or not, please stay gone, baby girl, until this is over. I cannot fight and watch you bleed at the same time.
Reo pointed. “Akiro is right where we want him.”
I put my gaze there.
Akiro stood at the bottom of the stairs with his mouth parted in shock. The kusarigama hung loose in his hand. The chain pooled at his feet.
His men had their guns out and surrounding him.
He pulled out a phone from his jacket as he took in the dead men who had been holding the rocket launchers and the currently dying assassins.
Kenji chuckled. “Now you understand who we are, brother.”
As if he could hear Kenji, Akiro's face went pale as he quickly made a call. But who could he be calling? The Butcher? Other reinforcements that were near?
“Now’s the time.” Kenji headed out.
The twins got to his side.
Reo flanked them on the left, I got on their right.
More of Kenji’s guards followed and a few jumped ahead.
The whole walk forward, I kept my gaze on Akiro.
Finally, we can end this.
Then Akiro turned around and began to quickly move up the stairs, shoving his own guards out of the way.
What? Are you fucking serious? You came to us, brother.
The engine of the plane came back on. The roar of it rolled across the field even through the noise of the war. The propellers began their slow turn. The body of the plane shuddered as the engines woke, and the wheels began their first half-rotation against the grass.
He’s running again.
“No, brother!” Kenji broke into a run, rushing forward into the chaos. “You will not escape tonight."
Fast, the five of us moved as one body across the field toward the plane.
Kenji roared, “Goryū, stop him!”
And before Akiro could disappear into the hatch, he froze two steps away, blocking his men and shocking me to my core.
What? Well. . .point two for the dragon-shadow. I may need one of my own.
“We’ve got him.” Kenji picked up his pace.
We do.