The Sword of Kuromori. Jason Rohan

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      ‘Oww!’ Kiyomi said, squirming away from the huge servant’s grip as he applied antiseptic to the cut on her head.

      ‘Oyama used to do sumo,’ Harashima said, as if this explained everything. He was pacing the floor in front of the screen covering the TV monitors.

      ‘So who were those guys, the ones who jumped you in the car park?’ Kenny said, putting down his hot chocolate and pinching his nose to stifle a yawn.

      Kiyomi’s face twisted in disgust. ‘Bosozoku,’ she said. ‘A biker gang.’ She glanced up at her father, whose face remained impassive. ‘I got into a race with one of them a while back, beat him easily. He said I’d cheated and wanted my bike as payment. Fat chance.’

      Kenny nodded. ‘So they were waiting for you?’

      ‘Yeah, bunch of cowards. I could have handled them if they hadn’t snuck up on me.’ Kiyomi touched her scalp, felt the broken skin and pulled her hair back down to cover it. ‘Feels like a taiko drummer inside my head, but I’ll live,’ she said. ‘You did pretty well, though. Where’d you learn to fight like that?’

      Kenny turned away. ‘You don’t spend seven years getting shunted from one boarding school to another without learning how to defend yourself.’ He was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. ‘Plus, my grandad taught me a few moves last summer.’

      Kiyomi tilted her head to appraise him. ‘You were lucky. You have poor technique, no balance. If those guys could fight properly, you’d be mincemeat.’

      Oyama cleared the medical kit from the table, bowed and left.

      Kenny waited for someone to say something, but both Kiyomi and her father seemed comfortable with the silence.

      ‘Sir?’ Kenny said, when he could stand it no more.

      Harashima inclined his head to acknowledge him.

      ‘I came back, like you wanted, right? So, what happens now? I mean, you must have a plan, to stop this thing. How’s it going to happen? How are all those people going to die?’

      After a long pause, Harashima replied, ‘I don’t know . . . exactly.’

      ‘Then what do you know? If I’m supposed to help you, I need to know what I’m being asked to do.’

      Harashima nodded. ‘You are right, Kuromori-san. You deserve answers and you will have them, only not now. You are exhausted. You have had a long and . . . eventful day, with much to take in. You will rest now and in the morning you shall have answers. Is that acceptable?’

      Kenny yawned a huge jaw-splitting yawn that made his face hurt. ‘OK. I’m too tired to argue.’

      ‘Oyama will show you to your room.’

      The huge servant returned and motioned for Kenny to follow him.

      ‘As for you, my child, remain where you are,’ Harashima said to Kiyomi, who had been sneaking towards the door. ‘You have some explaining to do.’

      Kenny awoke. Light was bleeding into the room through small square windows and he knew he was dreaming. He had always been able to tell when a dream was a dream. ‘Lucid dreaming’ was what scientists called it. Sometimes Kenny was able to influence the outcome of a dream, but not tonight.

      He was lying on a camp bed in a metal hut with corrugated-steel walls that curved overhead. The tinny sound of Frank Sinatra crooned from a radio outside. Kenny rolled off the cot, yawned and stretched. He was wearing an olive-drab service uniform with brass buttons.

      Outside, under a forbidding grey sky, he saw that he was in an army compound with chain-link fences, barbed wire, jeeps and off-duty soldiers heading out in small groups. The American flag drooped from a pole.

      Kenny strolled out through the gate and the contrast couldn’t have been greater. He had crossed into a devastated wasteland where once a city had stood. Rubble from burnt-out homes and shattered roof tiles covered the ground to such an extent that Kenny could not tell where the road was supposed to be. He wandered past hundreds of silent, hollow-eyed Japanese people, huddled in groups, dressed in little more than rags. The luckier ones had fashioned huts from cardboard, rocks and chicken wire. An old man bathed in rainwater collected in an oil drum. A young girl accepted a kiss from a teenage American soldier in return for a Hershey chocolate bar. An elderly man traded a priceless Japanese sword for a bag of flour.

      Quiet sobbing carried across the gloom. Kenny listened and followed the sound to the nearby ruins of a house, picking his way through the wreckage. He pulled open the broken door and saw a girl crying inside. She knelt with her back to him, but he could see that her hair was long and black and she was wearing a plain, white kimono.

      ‘Kiyomi?’ he croaked, his throat dry. ‘Is that you?’

      The girl slowly turned towards him and Kenny cried out. She had no face; only a blank, featureless mask, as smooth as eggshell. He backed away, but the ground crumbled beneath him and he felt himself falling, dropping into an endless black void, tumbling over and over.

      After what felt like an eternity, he landed with a crash at the bottom of a huge chasm. Kenny gingerly picked himself up, dusted down his fatigues and peered into the gloom. That was when he realised he wasn’t alone. There was something down there with him in the dark. Something huge. Something ancient. Something evil.

      Kenny woke with a start. His heart was pounding and his clothes were heavy with sweat. He was lying on a futon but the house was dark and still. He checked his watch, which was still set to Pacific time. 12:23. That meant it was almost four thirty in the morning, local time. The night sky was a pale indigo, heralding the approach of dawn. Kenny sat up and rubbed his face, afraid to go back to sleep. He had never experienced a dream as vivid as this before. It was unnerving, as if his subconscious mind was trying to tell him something – but what?

      Six kilometres to the east, in Shinjuku’s skyscraper district, lights burned in the corporate headquarters despite the earliness of the hour. The visitor exited the lift on the sixtieth floor and knocked once on the heavy walnut door.

      ‘Enter,’ came a voice from within and the visitor hurried inside.

      Seated behind a mahogany desk and dressed in a black pinstripe suit was a stocky Japanese man. His thinning hair and sagging jowls placed him near retirement age. He set down the dossier he was reading. ‘Miyamoto-san, it is good of you to come at short notice. What news?’ the older man said.

      Miyamoto bowed deeply. ‘Shacho . . . ’ he began, then hesitated. ‘The boy, sir, he got away.’

      The older man cocked his head. ‘He . . . escaped? From Sato? How? He must have had help.’

      ‘He did, sir. Details are as yet unclear, but it would appear that Harashima-san may have been involved.’

      ‘How can СКАЧАТЬ