Flesh of My Flesh
Chapter nineteen
Hiro
The Fox had dragged himself against the rear bulkhead. One arm hung ruined and wrong from the shoulder. The other still held the second empty gun, and his ruined face turned up at the two of us standing over him, and I watched the moment he understood.
He had hidden from us for many nights. He had owned the people who ran Yoshiwara Depths. He had bought the men who would have died for him. He had threaded his blackmail through every space.
He’d even gotten the Butcher’s help.
And now his network would be ash, and his men were dead in the grass on the island, and his last defense was a broken arm and a shaking hand.
I looked into his eyes.
Defeat filled his gaze. Still, he tried to raise the empty gun anyway.
“Enough.” Kenji kicked it out of his hand.
The gun skidded across the tilting floor and vanished under a crate.
The Fox's empty fingers spasmed in the air where it had been. “Wait.”
Kenji got to my side.
The Fox’s bottom lip quivered. “You both passed the test.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“This war. . .w-was to see if you both could truly sit on the throne alone and now—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Kenji sneered. “We started the war. You hid and pitted our own brother against us. Whatever you have to say now. . .let it be a prayer to whatever god will listen to you before you die.”
“Y-your mother.” The Fox shivered. “She would be disappointed right now. She would never want you to kill me—”
“My mother is part of the reason why we won tonight. Her people helped. Her bloodline gave me a beast. And her guidance helped me pick the strongest woman to ever walk this planet.”
The Fox’s mouth parted.
“You wanted to meet my Tiger?” Kenji spat on the floor. “You could never be in the same space as her.”
I smiled. “Never.”
Then, my brother looked at me. "Have your fun, Hiro."
"We kill him together."
"No." Kenji put his view back on our father. "Do it alone. . .for Nura."
Pain hit my heart.
And then she was there.
Nura’s ghost stood in the cabin between me and our father. Her dark brown skin glowed from a light that lived nowhere in this red cabin.
For the first time, she wore a white gown that rippled in no wind. The bullet was gone from the side of her head. The blood was gone too. There was only her face, and her parted lips, and the smile she had given me in my father's hospital room in the half-second before the world took her away.
Nura looked at me, and she nodded.
“I’ll do it for Nura.” I yanked my knife out of its sheath.
“Wait! Hold on! We are family!” The Fox scrambled backward along the bulkhead, his good hand clawing at the floor, his ruined arm dragging, his useless legs pushing him nowhere. He hit the corner. He had run out of plane. “You are my sons! Flesh of my flesh! I am your father!”
“Nura.” I crouched in front of my father. “That was her name. Did you know that?”
“W-what?”
"And then there’s Sora." I slashed at his chest.
He shrieked and threw himself sideways along the wall, and Kenji was already there—standing in his path, a wall of my brother, blocking the way without lifting a hand. “You won’t escape this. Tonight you die on this plane, and no one will ever remember who the Fox was.”
“Please!! There is no honor in killing your kin!” The Fox reversed and clawed the other direction.
I was on him before he made two feet. "Nao."
I sliced the back of his hand, getting the extensor tendons that fanned out to the fingers. The ones that let a man grip and hold a gun. They were instantly severed. His fingers fell slack and would not close again.
“Kenji! Just shoot me! Hiro is insane! You know this!” The Fox dragged himself forward on his elbow. “Don’t let your brother—”
“I told you to shut up.” Kenji shifted one boot and closed that path too.
“Have you two no shame?!” The Fox crawled into my brother's legs, looked up the length of him, and found nothing there to beg to. “Without me, you would have never been born!”
I took his ankle, slicing into the Achilles—the thick cord at the heel that let a man stand, walk, and run. I cut through it all and his foot went slack. "Riku."
“What is wrong with you?!” He cried out in pain and tried to kick out with the other leg. “Stop saying names!!”
"Hiroko." I slashed the right heel damaging that Achilles too.
By now he was sobbing. His thin chest heaved and the wet rattle in his breath had no dignity left in it.
Somehow, he still tried to pull himself forward with the one working arm.
The elbow scraped the metal, and his loose fingers grasped at nothing.
“You. . .w-were a-always. . .insane. . .seeing. . .the people. . .I killed in the. . .house. . .I s-should. . .have killed you too.”
"Nura. Again. Because she is so important." I cut inside his elbow. “Because. . .Nura and I. . .we could have been. . .everything. . .because of her. . .I wish I could kill you a hundred times.”
The Fox had nothing left to move with. Every cord that let him crawl, every line that let him grip, every cable that would have carried him one more inch from his sons—I had taken all of it.
He lay in his own blood on the floor of his own plane. . .sobbing.
I stood over him.
The knife dripped blood onto the metal.
Then she crawled into the red light. The baby girl in the pink onesie came around the edge of the nearest crate on her hands and her chubby knees. She was always so curious.
Thankfully, no blood ran from her temple.
With a little gurgle, she sat back on her haunches beside my father's ruined body and looked up at me with those calm dark eyes that had probably never learned fear.
"And. . .” I stared down at him. “And this for the baby girl in the pink onesie with Nyomi’s eyes."
Kenji's head turned. “What?”
“Her eyes, they look like Nyomi’s eyes.” Sad, I shrugged. “But what do I know? Maybe it’s because those eyes have so much curiosity and peace. . .and in our world. . .no one usually has eyes like that.”
Kenji studied me.
I crouched down by my father, gripped his hair, and lifted his head off the floor. “Tell me something.”
Tears left my father’s eyes.
“Why would you bomb Tokyo tonight? Why kill so many innocent people?”
He blinked. “What?! That was you and your brother!”
“We were on the island.”
“But the Lion’s men were in Tokyo, and who else had the Lion’s ear—”
“Kill him, Hiro.” Kenji stepped forward.
My stomach twisted.
The Fox looked at my brother and then me. “Oh! You didn’t know how cruel the Dragon could be? Did you? How ruthless Kenji truly is when he wants to win?”
A dark laugh left him.
“Fuck you.” Fast, I drew the blade across his throat.
Deep.
All the way through.
In one long unbroken motion that opened his throat from one side to the other. The strength went out of him all at once.
When I let go, the Fox's head settled back against the riveted metal and our father did not move again.
The baby girl watched it happen.
Then she was gone.
Silence rolled into the cabin behind the wind.
The engines hummed under the floor. Air poured through the open hatch and the two small holes the bullets had torn.
Reo's voice carried back from the cockpit. “The pilot is turning us around!”
The Lion bombed Tokyo? Not Akiro or our father. That. . .makes more sense, but. . .
The plane banked slow beneath us and started its long arc back toward the island.
Kenji stood beside me. His chest rose and fell.
The Fox lay open at our feet, and Akiro lay crumpled at the base of the dented wall, and there was nobody left on this plane who wanted us dead.
It was done and I was exhausted.
Forget about the Lion, bombs, and Tokyo for now.
I let out a long breath.
Kenji spoke, “We won.”
“We did.”
Then, someone sobbed far behind us.
I turned toward it.
One of the twins sat on the floor in the red light. He had his mask off.
Yuki.
He had his brother, Aki, gathered up against his chest, and the kitsune mask was still on Aki’s face, gleaming, golden-toothed, grinning the way the artisan had carved it to grin.
Yet, a bullet hole was right in the center of Aki’s throat.
Blood spilled out.
No.
Aki shook in his arms. Small tremors ran the length of him. His matching kitsune mask had tipped back. His masked face pointed up at the ceiling at an angle a living man does not hold his head.
“Please. . .say something. . .” Yuki’s bloodied hand went back over the bullet hole, trying to stop more blood. “Aki? Aki?”
Yuki reached up with one hand and pulled the mask away from his brother's face. “Don’t go. . .you said you wouldn’t. . .”
Aki’s eyes were open.
“N-no.” I almost crumpled to the floor, barely able to hold myself up. “N-no way. He’s. . .got to be okay.”
Yet, Aki looked up at the ceiling and saw nothing in this world. Those eyes were dark, still, and vacant. I had seen enough dead men's eyes in enough bad rooms to know them across any distance in any light.
“What the fuck happened?” Kenji headed over.
In a blur, Yuki quickly pulled out his gun and pointed at Kenji. “Stay right there. I’ve got him. I know what to do. . .no. . .one touches him.”
Kenji stopped. “What are you doing?”
“H-he’s not gone.” Tears left Yuki’s face. “D-don’t touch him.”
I held my hands out. “Let us check, Yuki.”
“N-no! Nobody touches him. He’s cold and. . .he’s not. . .”
I shivered. “What?”
“He’s still, but. . .” Yuki looked at me and more tears left his eyes. “Does that mean he’s gone?”
Kenji held up his hands. “No. Let me come over and check—”
“No, you stay right there.” The gun shook in Yuki’s hand. “I know my brother. I know him.”
“You do.” I nodded.
“He’s gone.” Yuki’s face twisted into agony and his voice cracked. “He said he wouldn’t leave me!!!”
“Yuki, wait.” I tried to step forward.
He shot in front of my feet and intentionally missed me, but it was a clear warning to stay away.
Yuki shook his head. “W-what do I do now?”
Kenji’s voice went calm. “Let us help you.”
“W-who am I without him?” Yuki leaned his head against Aki’s and sobbed. “Who am I?!”
“A lot.” I trembled more than I had all night. The war didn’t scare me as much as this moment. “You’re everything, Yuki. Everything. And. . .I love you. I need you. Give me the gun. Everything is going to be okay. Just give me the gun. We’ll do this together like we always do—”
“But Aki—”
“Aki would want you to give me the gun. . .” I shivered. “Please. Please, Yuki. . .”
For several silent seconds, Yuki held his brother against his chest and rocked him.
And I knew that he was the twin that always did that. Yuki was the one to console, even when they were young. He would always put his tiny hand over his brother’s and soothe him back to peace.
The plane’s engine purred.
Reo came out of the cabin, saw Yuki rocking Aki, and stopped. “No. When did that fucking happen?”
“Yuki.” My whole body trembled. “I’m coming over. Okay?”
“Okay, Hiro.” Yuki wiped a few tears away and kissed Aki’s cheek.
Then he reached down and placed his hand over Aki's.
Palm to palm.
The same gesture from their childhood. The hand he always used to calm his brother through every bad moment and remind him nothing in the world could touch them as long as there were two.
“Just. . .give me the gun.” I took one step forward. “Alright?”
“I love you, Hiro.” Fast, Yuki placed the tip of the gun against his own head.
“Yuki, no!” I raced for him. . .but it was too late. . .Yuki pulled the trigger and just like what happened to Nura, a bullet left a gun and sliced through all that mattered, ripping Yuki’s face apart and splattering his blood all over his dead brother. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
I ran over there. “No. Check if he’s okay!”
Kenji tried to grab me.
“Check!!” I fought him.
Reo got me too.
“Come on!!” Tears burned my eyes. “That’s not fucking fair!!”
They dragged me to the ground.
“Not those ghosts!!!” I punched Reo and elbowed Kenji, getting out of their hold. “I won’t do it! I won’t live without them!”
They got me again and held me down.
“Not those ghosts! I can’t!!! I can’t!”
Kenji tightened his hold on me. “I’m here, brother.”
“Let me GO!”
“Never.”
“Please!”
“I’ll never let you go, Hiro. I love you too much.”
“N-not those ghosts.” I shut my eyes. “I can’t. I can’t. I fucking can’t.”
How long did I say that?
“I can’t.”
Over and over.
Screaming it.
Sobbing.
Choking on those two words.
“I can’t!”
Kenji wouldn’t let me go.
Neither would Reo.
And those same damn words ripped out of me again and again.
“I can’t!”
Until my chest caved in.
Until my eyes watered out the vision of death before me.
“I can’t.”
Until I saw the twins and me dancing together and laughing at the cocktail party and my throat burned as I screamed, “There is no God!”
What God would do that?
What master plan would this be to take them from me? Rip their souls out of my existence when I was barely holding on.
When they were part of the reason why I lived.
My father was dead, but what did it matter now if the twins were gone?
“I can’t!!!”
And then. . . I opened my eyes.
And the twins were there.
Their ghosts.
Standing together in the red emergency light at the edge of the crates, side by side, the way they had stood at the cocktail party in the warm gold light of the ballroom, laughing and shooting bubbles.
Aki on the left.
Yuki on the right.
NO!
My chest broke open, and an ocean of sorrow poured out into the darkness of the cabin, drowning me. The agonizing water rose hot and salt-heavy, filling every chamber I had built to hold myself together.
It found the cracks in my ribs.
It found the dark spaces behind my sternum.
It filled my heart, then overflowed.
And I could not stop it.
I could not breathe around it.
I could not be the man holding it together anymore.
I was the water now, and the water was the pain, and the pain had taken my shape from the inside out until there was nothing left of me that was not made of grief.
My bones turned to riverbeds.
My lungs turned to tide.
And the pain had no bottom.
And. . .I let the water. . .have me. . .