Originally posted December 20, 2011
The opening door revealed Yukiko, her eyes red rimmed and cheeks tear stained. Her boyfriend Danny stood next to her, his hair unkempt. Neither had changed out of their bedclothes. They stood in the door way dressed in fall jackets pulled over t-shirts and flannel pajama pants. Chance's sister fell into his arms, launching a stream of Japanese too fast for Mac to catch. Chance rocked her then looked at his wife to translate. "Yukiko's grandfather passed away last night," he explained. "She is his only grandchild." He paused, the weight of the news settling on him. "We have to go to Japan."
--
Mr. Negishi bowed deeply to the young woman. She wore a dark blue kimono, its obi tied plainly, befitting the occasion. She stayed steadfastly at her grandmother's side, the old woman never far from the open casket containing her husband. "Watanabe-san," he told Yukiko, "I was just with your grandfather a few weeks ago. He spoke very highly of you. He was very proud of your accomplishments."
"It is very kind of you to say so, Negishi-san," Yukiko replied, straightening from her deep bow to him. "My grandfather valued your years of friendship. He always appreciated your willingness to cooperate. You did much for the community, together."
"Thank you. Are you staying in Japan long?" Yukiko nodded before answering. "There are many details I must attend to." Mr. Negishi hid his scowl. The old man had left no male heirs, leaving this child to resolve his estate with his poorly aging wife. "Perhaps we may meet for tea," the young woman suggested, "before I return to America. I am interested in your last meeting with my grandfather."
The vice officer pulled a thin brass case from his jacket and retrieved a business card. He extended it to Yukiko with both hands. She accepted, carefully reviewing the details before tucking it away in the folds of her robe. "Thank you, Negishi-san." Yukiko bowed again as Mr. Negishi exchanged a few words of sympathy with her grandmother and then stepped in front of the open casket to pay his respects.
The old man couldn't have waited two more weeks, the two weeks Mr. Negishi needed to reach retirement. The police officer felt the stiffness of his joints as he tucked a few cigarettes along the side of the open coffin, joining others already placed by previous visitors. Within days, the country would erupt in a violent gang war as the young and disrespectful hoped to take advantage of the confusion among the old guard caused by Watanabe's passing. Two weeks. All he needed was two more weeks before it would become someone else's problem.
Mr. Negishi stepped back from the coffin, years of late night meetings and shared whiskies rising up in his memories as he bowed deeply towards his old, dead friend. He turned. The number of people in the overcrowded room surprised him. Gold and the hints of hidden tattoos sat and stood on one side, ill fitting and uniformly navy suits on the other. Mr. Negishi recognized a few faces amid the wrinkles of age on both sides of the room. He did not recognize the four foreigners present, their blonde hair and pale skin singling them out from the native crowd. One of them even wore a kimono and hakama, dark and properly tied. The half-breed's friends from America, the detective supposed.
He spared one more look back at his departed friend then stepped away from the casket, wondering how many wakes he had yet to attend.
--
Chance had not been invited to sit vigil. He spent the night tending to Yukiko and Grandmother Watanabe, getting them tea as their pot grew cold, looking in on them from the adjoining room. MacKenzie stayed up with him as long as she could before jet lag and her condition caught up with her and she retired. Try as he might, Yukiko's boyfriend, Danny, fell asleep propped up in an uncomfortable, wooden folding chair.
The next day, the funeral procession slowly wound its way on foot through the stairs and streets of mountainous Ikaho. Grandmother Watanabe never complained, taking each timy step in her tightly wrapped formal kimono, carefully placing each geta as she walked. Chance smiled before relating to MacKenzie the local prefecture was known for strong cabbage, strong winds, and strong women.
In time, after the bones had been pulled from Yukiko's grandfather's cremated remains, after they ate together, they settled in the Watanabe family compound. Yukiko drank whiskey with her grandmother in the old man's study. They shared quiet words and a few tears.
Chance and the others gave them some privacy as he led them on a walk through the resort town. "Hot springs," he explained. "The city is filled with them. Ikaho is a popular destination for native Japanese. You can sit in the onsen and enjoy the waters and the natural beauty of Mt. Haruna. If we get a chance tomorrow, we should visit Mizusawa Kannon, a temple just outside of town. The appraoch is quite stunning. You can see the mountain... the lake...."
Yukiko had just gotten her grandmother to bed before falling asleep on the couch as she waited. The three of them returned from their walk, Danny lifting his girlfriend to take her back to her childhood bedroom before reluctantly settling into the adjacent room. Exhausted, but tightly wound, Chance led MacKenzie back to the room assigned to them. "I want to show you something," he told her.
They took a moment to slip into thin, cotton robes then padded through the compound. They walked outside the house, though a covered walkway and the cold December air, to a small building on the grounds. Mac could feel the heat and humidity as they stepped in. "Watanabe-san tapped his own spring," Chance told her. "We would come out here to talk." A clear, steaming pool, roughly three meters square filled one side of the room. Wooden pegs lined one wall; a row of low sinks, stools, and washbasins, the other.
Chance pulled the yukata from his wife's shoulders, then his, hanging them from a peg. He led them to the sinks. They bathed each other, taking time and care in scrubbing off the jet lag and exhaustion; enjoying the first moment of privacy they'd shared since arriving in Japan. Freed of the day's exertions, they settled slowly into the hot, spring water.
After a lingering kiss, MacKenzie turned her husband away from her. She let her magics dribble into she shoulders as she kneaded the tight and knotted muscles beneath her hands.
"This is not how I wanted our first trip to Japan to go," he confessed.
"I know," she answered, smiling.
"You were great at the wake and the service, today. It's pretty weird standing out so much, huh?" She grunted, her fingers working a lump in his neck. "I'm not used to all the smoking," Chance continued. "I'll have to get my kimono cleaned. I saw Roz take you outside for a bit. She's one of my oldest friends."
"She told me," MacKenzie mentioned. "She used to babysit you?" Chance nodded, closing his eyes as the tension eased from his neck. "Roz teases me, you know?"
"She does? About what?"
"That I'll be recruited."
"Into the family?
"Family? No. Dutch intelligence." Mac cocked an eyebrow as Chance turned around to face her and ask. "Family? What family?"
Mac's eyes looked everywhere but his. "Well, Roz was talking about stuff today. So I just,… umm… I assumed… I was noticing a lot and, umm uh… never mind."
"Not a chance of that, Pow," Chance told her with a grin. "What family?"
"Umm... Yukiko's grandfather's."
The laugh blurted out before Chance could stop it. "Mac, I'm a fucking foreigner. They don't want me. They hated that Watanabe-san would even entertain me.
"Oh," she blinked with her surprise. "I... uh, I didn't know. I'm sorry."
"It's ok." He lifted his hand out of the water to trace the edge of her jaw. "Most of 'that family' are hoping Yukiko will just go back. Watanabe-san built a strong coalition. It would be easier for most of them if it just died with him." Chance's sigh carried the weight of exhaustion, jet lag, and lack of sleep. " Watanabe-san belonged to a different age."
"What is she going to do?"
"Yukiko?" Chance asked. His wife answered with a nod. "Watanabe-san wanted her to live her own life. He didn't include her in…" His eyes darted away. She frowned, unsure. "Chance?"
"I've been working with Watanabe-san and a few agencies to reduce human trafficking for about the last year. Without him?" Chance titled his head side to side in the Japanese equivalent of a shrug. "The PSIA and MI6 and the US State Department just lost their best contact in the Yakuza. All of our work…." He shook his head.
"I am sorry love. I know this is hard on you too." She leaned in and kissed him. "What was that for?" "Because you looked like you needed it," she told him, smiling, "and because you are my husband and I love you."
A smile flitted across his lips before fading away. "All that work." He shook his head. "I want to win. The kids, the chinpira here that think they're Yakuza? I'd fight them to a a draw at best. It's going to get worse for a lot of people, so much worse."
"I know love," she said with a nod,"but we can't win them all."
His blue eyes found hers. "We can try." "Yes. We can," she agreed then kissed him, her cheeks flush with the warmth of the room. Chance closed his eyes, enjoying the lingering embrace. He leaned back against the edge of the pool, sinking more deeply into the water, and resting the back of his head against the tile floor. He opened his eyes.
"Mac? Are the shadows in the rafters moving?" His wife looked up as human figures detached themselves from the wooden timbers and attacked.
Chance lept out of the water, defending MacKenzie's only slightly slower reaction. The darkly clothed figures fought with fists, swords, knives, and darts. His lithe, naked body twisted to cover their retreat. Cuts and welts opened on his arms as the mass pressed. He spared his wife one glance and hissed, "We need to get back to the house."
He pulled their robes from the pegs, wrapping one around a hand, twirling the other in the air to deflect any number of tiny metal projectiles. He heard the door to the courtyard open before his wife quietly exclaimed, "Oh, Lord and Lady...." Chance looked.
Twenty or so figures surrounded the Watanabe house were climbing it's wall or fighting inside. A figure caught Chance's attention as it slipped into the house through a second story window, a violent shock of electric blue hair. Someone had hired Kitsunetsuki to lead the attack. Someone wanted the remaining Watanabe family members very, very dead.
Someone didn't know that that the Watanabe family had powerful friends.
Chance grinned when he noticed the flickering glow of plasma beams through a few windows. Danny must have found a gauntlet from his Junior Defender armor. He could hold off this entire force, if given enought time to get that suit on. He watched as his wife summoned lightning from the night sky. The attackers fell back surprised by the magic. Chance extended is arm, his fingers frantically gesturing. From inside the house, he felt something stir. A sudden wind brought his katana, Kokoro, to his hand.
The naked couple moved though the throng of attackers as one. MacKenzie's magics healed the cuts on her husband's body as quickly as they appeared. Chance cut down any attackers daring to approach. The two left a trail of unconcious bodies with their passage from the bath to the house. It wasnt until they stepped inside that they smelled smoke.
Chance heard Kitsunetsuki call a retreat at the same time he hear Danny shout out his name. Staying low in the thickening smoke. MacKenzie and Chance made their way deeper into the wooden structure to find Danny and Yukiko. Grandmother Watanabe lay in Yukiko's arms. The young woman looked up at Chance as he entered the bedroom. "She's dead."
Danny had managed to slip on a targeting eyepiece and a single, armored gauntlet over his cotton pajamas. "Lead us out of here, JD," Chance told him. "Mac, help Yukiko with the body." Hope flared for a moment. Perhaps his wife could save the frail woman with her magic. "I'll cover the rear."
The small group made its way slowly out of the house, the heat of the fire and the dark smoke pressing them ever closer to the floor. They stopped a short, safe distance away. Chance surveyed the area. The retreating attackers had taken their fallen comrades away with them. No trace remained. Flames engulfed the house as Chance took one of the yukata and placed it over MacKenzie’s shoulders. She looked up from the fallen woman and shook her head once. Chance felt the tears in his eyes build as Yukiko’s history burned.
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