Ninja Girl
Chapter Eighteen

Silence descended on the room. For a single instant, the entire world seemed to freeze in place. All of the world except a small circle around the trio simply fell away into nothingness until all that remained in all of the universe was that room.

“What?”

Nick’s voice sounded flat, almost dead, as if the word had simply fallen out of him rather than having been spoken.

With the force of the word entering the atmosphere, everything seemed to suddenly come back to life. The world snapped back into place and everything started moving again.

Anya turned. On the far side of the room from the door, there was line of desks and computers and consoles. She made her way over to them and started typing and hitting random buttons. Nick hurried over to her side.

“What are you doing?” he asked, grabbing at her hands. She pulled free and moved down the line to another console. Nick followed her and kept trying to grab at her. “What the hell is going on? What are you trying to do?”

“There has to be a self-destruct or emergency deletion program or something.”

“Why do you want that? If that… thing in there is alive, you’re going to be breaking your no kill streak by doing that.”

“He deserves to die!”

Anya had turned and shouted this directly in Nick’s face with enough force that he actually took a couple steps back away from her. His eyes went wide as saucers as he watched her. He had never seen her like this before. Her movements were frantic, clumsy. Every step she took she seemed to almost trip or collapse. Most shocking of all were her eyes. They had started to well up and tears began to flow. Nick stepped over and placed a hand on her shoulder, but she immediately pulled away from him.

She turned away and crossed her arms, keeping her face locked away from both Nick and the silent body of Kokatsu.

“I… I didn’t tell you everything about him,” she said softly. “Back when… that first time that he attacked our village… when they had found him guilty and he struck back and attacked. He… he didn’t just murder people and… and burn buildings. He also…”

Anya’s voice cracked and she had to stop speaking for a moment. She bit her lower lip and looked up at the ceiling, like she was hoping to keep tears back by simple force of gravity.

“My mother was married at the time. To the village leader, Takeshi. That made them both special targets of his rage. He… he brutally beat Takeshi, breaking both his arms and legs, and then…” Anya was shaking now, her lips trembling so much she could barely continue forming the words. “… and then made him watch as he… as he…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.

“Oh, God,” Nick said.

Anya turned and smashed her fist through one of the consoles.

“He doesn’t get to live! He doesn’t deserve to! That… beast… in there does not deserve to get a second chance!”

She moved to another of the consoles and started pressing away at the buttons. This time, Nick did not move to try and stop her.

“He’s why you swore off killing,” Nick said, his words more a statement than a question.

“What?” Anya snapped, slamming her hands into the desk and turning her face in his direction, though she was still unwilling to meet his gaze.

“Five years ago. That’s when you said you swore off killing. It’s because you killed him, isn’t it? You killed him, and even though he’s a monster, he’s still family, and so you swore off killing.”

Anya’s face clenched. Even though her lips were pressed together, Nick could tell she was clenching her teeth.

“It’s not that simple,” she said. “I just… I’m the one who killed him, yes. I slit his throat and watched him bleed out. It was a slow and painful death, and I enjoyed every second of it. And that… that scared me. That enjoyment. I realized it must have been how he felt when he took a life. I had spent so long trying to be able to bring him down that I didn’t realize that I was becoming just like him.

“I couldn’t live with that. I couldn’t let myself be the monster that he was. I had to be different. It is as I told you before. I had to find a way to remove the darkness from my life, or else risk being consumed by it.

“So I have sworn off killing, yes, but this is the exception. He does not get to live. He. Must. Die.”

With her last few sentences, Anya had once again begun pressing buttons on the console. With her last three words she pressed a button in time to each word. On the last press, an alarm started blaring almost immediately.

“What did you do?” demanded Nick, looking around frantically.

“I have no idea!” replied Anya, who began trying to press more buttons to see if she could get it to stop.

“Uh…” said Nick, suddenly unable to speak. His eyes had come to rest and now he was frozen in terror. “A… Anya…” He reached out for her with one hand, not looking, and missed. He continued trying to grab at her until his hand finally found purchase. “Anya,” he continued, “look!”

“What?” she snapped, turning to face him, but then noticed where he was looking. She spun around, and then she, too, froze.

Kokatsu’s eyes were open.

Once again, the world seem to come to a complete stop around them. Nick tried to tell himself that he was seeing things. He tried to tell himself that the eyes had always been open. He tried to tell himself that nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

Kokatsu stirred.

The movement was so weak, so miniscule, that Nick could not be entirely sure if he had imagined it or not. Then the dead man stirred again, and Nick’s world was shattered.

Suddenly, everything seemed to be moving in double time. It was as though the world was trying to make up for the moments where everything had frozen.

Kokatsu pulled against his restraints, pressing against them, pushing them to their limit, until finally one snapped. His right arm now free - a terrifying arm more machine than muscle - Kokatsu was able to use it to pull off the remaining straps until after mere moments he was free from his prison and down on the ground. He looked up, his eyes dead and glazed over as though he were sleeping, and seemed to notice Anya and Nick in the next room watching him.

He rose, and immediately began punching on the thick glass wall with the robotic arm. The pane had to be at least a couple inches thick, and more likely than not bulletproof, but from the first blow a crack was visible in its surface, and with each progressive blow, the crack only widened.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

The door to Kokatsu’s room suddenly flew open and three armed mercenaries entered, guns raised, ready for action. Kokatsu turned toward them.

Two of the men immediately ducked back out of the room. One stood frozen in terror. Kokatsu was on him in the blink of an eye, slamming him against the wall hard enough that blood came dripping out of his mouth. Kokatsu took that same, horrifying right arm and punched the man straight in the head.

Through the thick glass they could hear nothing, but Nick did not need to hear the sickening crunch in order to feel it.

“Oh, God,” Nick said, turning away.

Kokatsu followed the remaining soldiers out of his room and disappeared from sight.

“No!” Anya screamed. She looked as though she had just woken from a dream, or, really, a nightmare. She suddenly sprang into action, launching herself at the crack in the window pane and pounding her own fist against it. The effect her fist had in comparison was practically nonexistent.

“Anya! Stop it!” Nick shouted. He ran over to her and grabbed her up in a bear hug from behind, pulling with all his might to get her away from the window. “You’re just gonna break your hand!”

“No!” She screamed, kicking wildly at the air. If she had tried, she could easily have broken his grip and gotten away from him, but all rationality had fled from her at the sight of what had just unfolded before her.

Suddenly, there was the roar of an explosion, and the world around them rocked back and forth. Nick lost his grip and the two tumbled to the ground.

A moment later, the door to the room burst open, and armed guards poured through just as they had into the room holding Kokatsu moments earlier. Also just the same as before, they stood no chance.

Anya was little more than a flash of light as she covered the distance between herself and the guards. Her arms, her legs, even her body danced patterns over and under and around them in the brief number of seconds it took before they were all flat on their backs or collapsed against walls. Then she was gone down the hallway, back in the direction of the warehouse.

Nick followed behind her, pausing in the hall to look over the three fallen men. He wondered if he should check them for a pulse. How far from her path had Anya already strayed?

Another explosion rocked the building, knocking Nick to his knees. He scrambled back to his feet and hurried on after Anya.

He found her just past the security door, standing in front of some boxes. Her legs were out in a “V” shape, both arms at her side, and each hand clasped around a dagger. She was turned away from him, watching across the boxes.

Kokatsu was out there, surrounded by armed soldiers. He was a whirlwind of motion, tearing through one man after another. Most of them he killed, typically in a particularly brutal fashion, while the rest he simply sent flying through the air or sliding across the floor. No one got back up or continued fighting after taking a hit. The whole time, Kokatsu’s face was emotionless. Still. He was more like a killing machine, a robot, mechanically eliminating enemies with no concern or feeling. It was a horrifying experience to watch.

A soldier ran up not far from Nick and Anya, blocking some of their view. He fired at Kokatsu, who simply leaped across the room in a single bound to get at the soldier. He reached out with his regular, human hand, grabbed the soldier by the head, and slammed him into a nearby steel girder. He then turned, and casually tossed the man halfway across the warehouse.

Kokatsu turned, and noticed Nick and Anya standing there. His head lifted as he regarded them, but if he recognized his daughter his face betrayed no hint of it. He took a step towards them, and then another. He was in no hurry. Such a casual attitude toward ending so many lives. Anya knelt down, coiling up like a cat preparing to pounce, and growled dangerously.

The sound of gunfire came from off to their left. A dart – one that looked large enough to take down an elephant - drove into Kokatsu’s neck. He immediately pulled the thing out, and held it up in his hand to look at it. He might as well have been an old, tired, high school science teacher seeing his ten millionth dead frog under a microscope for all the emotion he gave off. He turned in the direction of the gunfire.

“Oh shit,” came a voice.

“That’s impossible,” said another.

“Keep firing!” a third voice commanded.

The men did as they were told, but Kokatsu leaped into the air, away from the gunfire. He ran along some boxes, and the jumped again to the ground and then once more took to the air, leaping over the heads of the soldiers. He brought two fists down as he came down, one for the soldiers on either side. He hit them square on the tops of their heads, and even across the distance Nick and Anya could hear the snapping of bones in the men’s spinal columns. Kokatsu punched out with his robotic arm, grabbed the remaining man by the throat, and then threw him across the room back to where Nick and Anya were standing. They saw him fly past, blood flying freely from where his throat had been moments before.

“NO!” screamed Anya, though whether in horror at what her father had just done or in anger at the idea of him getting away and continuing to live it was impossible to know. She sprang over the boxes before her in a single leap and turned towards Kokatsu.

“Anya, no!” Nick screamed. His heart was racing, pounding against his chest like a jackhammer, and he could feel the mind-numbing fear eating through every fiber of his being. After what he had just witnessed, he was not sure even Anya could beat the monstrosity come to life before them. They never got the chance to find out.

Another explosion ripped through the warehouse, and this time it was near them. Nick was blown off his feet entirely. A huge segment of roof collapsed to the ground between Anya and Kokatsu, and then the whole place started to creak and groan and collapse.

“No!” screamed Anya again, and she began to climb the debris pile in front of her. Another explosion, and great chunks of ceiling came tumbling down straight on Kokatsu. He roared, a guttural, inhuman sound, and then he was gone.

Anya paused, shocked by what had just happened. There was the horrible wail of steel joints snapping. A metal girder being dragged down by the weight of the building swung out and caught Anya by the side of the head. The force was strong enough to lift her off her feet, send her spiraling through the air like a well thrown football, and collapse several feet away from where she had been standing. She came to a stop on the cold hard cement and did not stir again.

“Anya!” Nick cried, pushing himself to his feet. The building was continuing to crumble around him, but all he could see was Anya lying on the floor, unmoving. He moved faster than he ever had in his life, leaping over boxes and debris to get to her. He slid on his knees as he came upon her. Reaching out, he felt for a pulse. It was thready, but it was there. He felt around her neck and her limbs. Nothing seemed to be broken. The only real sign of damage was the large red gash on her temple. He ripped off his shirt and tied it around her head, in the hopes of stemming the bleeding.

“Please don’t die,” he found himself repeating once again, an echo of the events from almost exactly forty-eight hours previously. “Please don’t die.”

He lifted her, once again surprised about how easy it was to do so, and placed her over his shoulder. They had to get out of there before everything literally came down on their heads. Nick turned to look around for an exit. The doorway they had used to enter the building was blocked off from sight now, but some debris had formed more or less into a ramp shape leading up to a hole in the wall. Nick wasted no time, hurrying up the mound as quickly as he could while carrying Anya. Once he reached the top he jumped through the hole.

They came down hard on the other side. Nick lost his balance and collapsed to the ground with his load. He did his best to cradle her fall, to take the worst of it on himself so as not to aggravate her injury.

More explosions came from inside the building, and it collapsed even further.

“Oh, God,” Nick said, worried that they were still too close to the devastation. He was not fully recovered from the drop, so to put more distance between themselves and the building he had to grab Anya by the armpits and half push, half drag them one step at a time. Finally, after he had pulled them about fifteen or twenty feet he collapsed in exhaustion.

Nick lay on his back, trying to catch his breath. After a time he pushed himself up on his elbows and stared at the burning building. The explosions had led to fire, and the building was now a raging, churning inferno collapsing in on itself.

“At least,” he said, to nobody in particular, “nobody could survive that.”

There was a rumble, and one of the larger mounds of rubble stirred. Large and small chunks of debris fell away or collapsed further, and in their place rose a dark shadow. The shadow kept rising until it took on the shape of a figure. The figure stood straight and tall, one foot raised up on the rubble like the picture of a conquering hero.

The fire cast flickering blades of light across the figure, and even in the dim light Nick could see the metallic gleam flashing across the figure’s skin.

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