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Six months earlier.
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The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I was covered in blood.
The second thing I noticed was that this didn’t bother me the way it should have.
I didn’t feel the urge to scream or speak, to beg for help, or even to wonder where I was. Those instincts were dead, and I was calm as my wet fingers slid up the tiled wall, groping for a light switch. I found one without even having to stand. Four lights slammed on above me, one after the other, illuminating the motionless body on the floor just a few feet away.
My mind processed the facts first. Male. Heavy. He was lying face down in a wide, red puddle that spread out from beneath him. The tips of his curly black hair were wet with it. There was something in his hand.
The fluorescent lights in the white room flickered and buzzed and hummed. I moved to get a better view of the body. His eyes were closed. He could have been asleep, really, if it weren’t for the blood. There was so much of it. And by one of his hands, it was smeared into a weird pattern.
No. Not a pattern. Words.
PLAY ME.
My gaze flicked to his hand. His fist was curled around a small tape recorder. I moved his fingers – still warm – and pressed play. A female voice started to speak.
“Do I have your attention?” the voice said.
I knew that voice. But I couldn’t believe I was hearing it.
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“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
– John Banville
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Osaka Prefecture, near Higashiosaka.
Present Day.
Stark gray industrial buildings dot the landscape along the Nagase River. The post-war structures are spartan, with little color other than the occasional blue roof. A narrow road traverses the length of this section of the river, with three large warehouses along the opposite side, lined up in a row. A thick blanket of electrical wires criss-cross overhead and a nearby substation crackles in the distance.
Dan Ryan walks up along the red-bricked sidewalk and approaches a metal door on the side of the second structure. Opening it, he squints his eyes, adjusting to the light as he steps into a vast open room, dark except for the light coming from two mercury vapor lights hanging down from above, with metal cages around each.
Looking around he sees what is left of the James Ryan Dojo, a tattered ring to one side, a track that goes around the exterior wall, and a row of offices opposite them along the East wall. As he walks further into the room he looks around, noticing a large photo of himself on the wall, some fifteen years old, much younger, with a championship belt around his waist, and two more, one over each shoulder. The poster is faded, worn, and is peeling away from the wall in the lower-left corner. He sneers and turns away, walking in the direction of the offices.
Before he can reach them, one of the doors opens and a trio of men emerge. Mr. Takeuchi is in front, flanked by two men, looking to be in their late twenties to early thirties. They stop, hands clasped in front of them, as Mr. Takeuchi reaches his destination and offers a deep bow from his waist. Dan returns the gesture.
“I’m glad you came. I see you remembered the way easily enough.”
Ryan nods. “Too many years spent in this building to forget. I could have drawn it from memory, though it’s a little rougher looking than I remember.”
Mr. Takeuchi smiles. “Time comes for us all, Mr. Ryan.”
Dan gives another little knowing nod.
“Our friend… she’s here?”
“Hai.” Mr. Takeuchi turns and motions for his boss to follow, and the four of them walk back to the same room they previously came from. As they approach it, Dan looks for a non-verbal cue, and Mr. Takeuchi nods. Reaching out, he pauses with the cold metal doorknob in his hand, then turns it. The door opens, and Dan enters. Stepping inside he can see a desk to one side and several chairs propped up along the wall. To the other side, a table with a coffee maker and various coffee supplies. And, in one corner, seated with legs crossed, a girl in her early to mid-twenties, with dark hair flipped to one side, and shaved underneath on the other, raises her head and trains dark almond-shaped eyes at him, speaking with a slight Japanese accent, but in perfect English.
“I visited you last year.”
He held his spot, eyebrows curling into a frown.
“I know,” he said. “But you didn’t stick around. You left me with quite a mess.”
Her face forms something of a half-smile, but it was contorted, and she closed her eyes tightly as she rocked to one side, then opened them again.
“I needed your attention. I’ve needed your attention for a very long time, ever since you left. Ever since you abandoned us.”
He allowed for an uncharacteristic dropping of his guard. “I thought you were dead. I was told… you were dead. There was a body, a funeral, days, months, years trying to come to grips with it. I took it out on everyone around me, and eventually, it broke me. If I had known you were here this whole time…”
She cocked her head in the other direction.
“Ignorance is not bliss. Rather, ignorance is blistering.”
“Well,” he smirked, steeling himself once again. “What now? You sent your message, I sought you out, I’m here. What now?”
She sighed deeply, turning her face upward, and he couldn’t help but recognize an expression in her face that he’d seen in the mirror many times, a frustrated rage.
“People who eventually accept something terrible done to them without seeking payback are just lazy. I’m not the same little girl you left. I was raised around some of the most dangerous people in this entire country. You survived; I survived. We’re together again. I once begged the gods to let me see you – if only for a moment. To see you and know, and let you know I’d made it. Just once; that was all I ever hoped for.”
He fell silent. For several moments they all did, and the quiet had the feel of a deliberate thing. Then Dan said, “All right, we’re back together again. What the hell do we do next?”
She pressed her hands down on the floor and stood to her feet. She was tall for this country, standing nearly five-foot-ten, slender and lean with hair falling down in her face naturally. She pushes it out of the way and snarls her lips upward while smiling coldly.
“I have some ideas.”
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“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to them to look into their eyes and hear their final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps they do not deserve to die.”
– George R. R. Martin
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Narita International Airport. It’s around 11:35 local time. In the South Wing of Terminal 1, there’s a steady buzz of people walking through, conversing, and dragging their suitcases behind them. An airport mall is just outside the entrance to this wing, and people are carrying trays of food and packages as they head for their international flights.
Just beyond the Passport Control area, there is a smaller waiting area separated by partitions and along a large bank of windows out onto the tarmac, a row of chairs. Sitting in one of these chairs, Phyllis Grant nervously fidgets with the bag in her lap, nervously looking around, careful to stay hidden as much as possible. Over the intercom, an announcement tells those waiting that boarding for Flight 3750 to Los Angeles will be boarding in thirty minutes.
Sighing deeply, her foot begins to tap absent-mindedly, and she can’t help but notice four Japanese men, dressed in business suits with dark sunglasses over their eyes, approach the area. She keeps her eyes on them. “Not for me, not for me, not for me”, she thinks, but her heart sinks as they come and stand directly in front of her, surrounding her and looking down at her.
The man closest to her steps forward and reaches out his hand.
“Please come with us, Ms. Grant. It’s not safe here. It’s okay. Mr. Takeuchi sent us to ensure your safety.”
Relieved, she hurriedly takes his hand and rises, following him as the rest of his associates form a diamond-shaped formation around her. They walk through crowds of curious eyes, people muttering about the strange sight, and they approach a door just outside the VIP lounge. Stepping through the door, her heart freezes solid, and the color drains from her face. Sitting behind an executive desk that fills most of one side of the room, Dan Ryan is sitting there, sipping on a high-ball glass of whiskey.
“Where ya going?”
She hears the click behind her, and she knows that she’s locked in. Nowhere to run. She doesn’t answer, but then, he’s not really looking for a conversation.
“Phyllis, I’m disappointed in you. All these years I’ve paid you handsomely to arrange my affairs, to take care of my household, and make sure all of my business dealings are properly cared for. Imagine my great surprise when I learned very recently that you’ve been keeping secrets and some pretty big ones. So, who was the child?”
“Wh-what?”
Dan raises his eyebrows along with his eyes and makes a face as if he’s trying to listen closer.
“The child. You know. The one you identified at the morgue because I was too….. emotional to go down. The child, made up in Danielle’s clothing and placed in a casket.” His voice begins to rise. “The child…. whom in a fit of mental anguish, I dug up last year because I had finally become so consumed with guilt and sadness, and I thought, in the midst of a psychotic break, that bringing her back to me, in even the most morbid way, would soothe some of it, would help make me feel whole again.” Again his voice raises, and he slams a fist down on the desk.
“WHO WAS THE CHILD?!?!”
“I – I -I…HELP!! SOMEONE HELP!!” She turns and furiously pulls at the locked door, but it doesn’t budge. She turns back, terrified, to a smirking Dan Ryan.
“It’s locked from the outside, Phyllis, and the walls are soundproof. I made sure of it. I’m not exactly new at this.”
Another door, to the side, creaks open. From the door, Mr. Takeuchi walks through. Phyllis’ face registers shock, and she knows immediately that she was set up.
“You… you delivered me right to him. Why? Why would you do that, after everything he’s done?? He’s a monster, and you’re practically feeding me to him.”
Takeuchi raises his eyes to meet hers. “I work for Mr. Ryan.”
Dan shakes his head. “I’m not a monster, Phyllis. But I do expect and demand loyalty. You’ve been around me longer than anyone ever has. You know me as well as anyone could. And you know what happens to people who betray me. I have news for you. This isn’t fifteen years ago, or even five years ago. My reach doesn’t go only to a wrestling ring. This is real life. You fucked with my life, Phyllis. That’s what you did. You FUCKED with my life.”
“It was a mistake,” she pleaded. “My intentions were good. You weren’t well! I was trying to protect you both.”
He shakes his head to the negative. “It feels like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.”
Just then, the side door opens again, and Danielle Ryan steps into the room. Phyllis gasps audibly.
“Oh my God…”
Danielle turns her head to the side, a scar on that side of her face becoming evident, and closes in on Phyllis where she stands. Dan Ryan sits back down and crosses one leg over the other. “Phyllis, I believe you know my daughter. If I remember correctly, you used to play with her regularly on our little trips to Settsukyo park.”
Danielle reaches her, and slinks around behind her, snarling and hissing within inches of the horror-stricken woman.
Phyllis jumps at one of these, finally breaking down. “Please….. Please don’t…. “
Danielle stops in front of her and raises up to her full height, and talks in a sing-song tone.
“Don’t be afraid, Phyllis. It’s me, your little lotus flower. Don’t you remember your little lotus flower?” Suddenly her facial expression darkens, with an unbridled rage penetrating from deep inside and bursting out. “I JUST WANT TO PLAY!!!”
She pounces forward.
Outside, in the terminal, four Japanese gentlemen stand guard around the door. Up and down the South Wing, people go back and forth to their airplanes, to grab something to eat, to use the restroom.
From the room behind them, silence.
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“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”
– William Blake
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I am so hungry, starving, anticipating this fight more than any other I’ve ever been involved with.
Now, finally, I have family, a real family again.
No one fights dirtier or more brutally than blood; only the family knows its own weaknesses, the exact placement of the soul. The tragedy is that one can still live with the force of hatred, feel infuriated that once you are born to another, that kinship lasts through life and death, immutable, unchanging, no matter how great the misdeed or betrayal. Blood cannot be denied, and perhaps that’s why we fight tooth and claw, because we cannot, being only human, put asunder what God has joined together.
I’ve subsisted on anger, on rage, for over twenty years, and now I find myself with something else. A purpose. A real, true purpose that matters to me and reckons with my very soul in a way that nothing else ever has.
She was left in the hands of a maniac.
Betrayal is too kind a word to describe a situation in which a grandfather says that he loves his granddaughter but claims he must teach her about the horrors of the world in order to make her a stronger person; a situation in which he watches or participates in rituals that make her feel like she is going to die. She experiences pain that is so intense that she cannot think; her head spins so fast she can’t remember who she is or how she got there.
All she knows is pain. All she feels is desperation. She tries to cry out for help but soon learns that no one will listen. No matter how loud she cries, she can’t stop or change what is happening. No matter what she does, the pain will not stop. Her grandfather orders her to be tortured and tells her it is for her own good. He tells her that she needs the discipline, or that she has asked for it by her misbehavior. Betrayal is too simple a word to describe the overwhelming pain, staggering loneliness, and isolation she experienced.
As if the abuse during the rituals were not enough, this child experiences similar abuse at the little school where they pretend she is going for an ‘education’. When she tries to talk about her pain, she is told that she must be crazy. “Nothing bad has happened to you”, they tell her. Each day she begins to feel more and more like she doesn’t know what is real. She stops trusting her own feelings because no one else acknowledges them or hears her agony. Soon the pain becomes too great. She learns not to feel at all. This strong, lonely, desperate child learns to give up the senses that make all people feel alive. She begins to feel dead. She wishes she were dead. For her, there is no way out. She soon learns there is no hope.
As she grows older she gets stronger. She learns to do what she is told with the utmost compliance. She forgets everything she has ever wanted. The pain still lurks, but it’s easier to pretend it’s not there than to acknowledge the horrors she has buried in the deepest parts of her mind. Her relationships are overwhelmed by the power of her emotions. She reaches out for help but never seems to find what she is looking for. The pain gets worse. The loneliness sets in. When the feelings return, she is overcome with panic, pain, and desperation.
She is convinced she is going to die. Yet, when she looks around her she sees nothing that should make her feel so bad. Deep inside she knows something is very, very wrong, but she doesn’t remember anything. She thinks…. “Maybe I am crazy.”
And now…
Now she rises up. She’s the key to everything. She’s the one who gives me the strength to walk into the Tokyo Dome and release all of my pent-up energy and anger and roiling sadness and fears and strength, to put it upon all of these idiots, because one man can’t leave well enough alone.
He thinks he can get away with it because he always has.
Well, times are changing.
The moment I arrived on these shores, I went away from this town, to take care of family business. Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. Channel it, use it. Let it be. The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. So I’ll do it. I’ll throw myself headlong into this War, and I’ll win it.
Everything that happened to me has been a paradox for life. The very things that I should have done would have been the trap. I believed in something else. You have to work like mad to make people understand. Even if I don’t make it, you know, I really insist on believing, and then I fall off the edge because there’s nobody else to follow it.
So many people running their fucking mouths about so many things, and who cares about any of them. I could reply. I could tell them that a metaphor is inadequate in the face of a bloodbath. That an inclination for dying doesn’t balance out the serious decision to kill. That through the years there has never been great historical infamy committed for which there couldn’t be found a symbol just as big, to justify it. That, in consequence, we would do well to pay attention to great certainties, to great invocations, to the great droughts and rains. That the temper of our most violent outbursts might benefit from a shade less enthusiasm.
Yeah, I could reply. But what good would it do? I have a simple, resigned, inexplicable sensation that everything that is happening is in the normal order of things and that I am awaiting a season that will come and pass because it has come and passed before.
Keep running your fucking mouths, all of you.
Go ahead.
You think it’s over?
We’re just getting started.