Riku
Riku dan.
Three weeks of sparring, practicing our spells, practicing how to fall without hurting ourselves, how to throw a punch or a kick and fight with melee weapons. We ate, breathed and slept combat and when we were finished Hanzo arrived and picked us up in a car. We were blindfolded and drove.
"Take off your blindfolds."
We obeyed and Hanzo nodded.
"All right, you got your asignment right?"
"Yeah, work at an airport."
"You know why you're getting that job?"
The three of us shrugged.
"Tanaka, Sato, Dan... This summer wasn't about training you, not just about it rather. It was about finding out what your skill set is, what your personality set is, your maturity levels."
"So we failed."
"No...no, you proved that you can put your nose to the grindstone. A lot of people older than you flake out after the first month, you three took the hardest level of training right down to the wire. When you were working the job, you whined and bitched don't think we didnt notice that."
We cringed.
"But you always made sure that it was just about the work. You didn't disrespect your coworkers, you didnt disrespect your boss. You proved that you could work with civilians. This..."
He paused.
"I won't lie to you, this isn't a kushy gig. It's a rough one."
He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.
"But it's also an important one and in the end we decided it would be best to start you out here."
"Why?"
"Gambling... Well, you could run one of our arcades, and probably do a pretty good job of it, or bounce in front of our clubs. Dan you're more willing to tone things down so I would trust you to handle some of our more social stuff."
He took another drag.
"Really the only thing you were disqualifed for was prostitution."
"Why?"
Tanaka sounded offended.
"Tanaka you're a horndog who sees women as sex objects, Sato you get shy and blushy around pretty girls and act like they're goddesses"
I chuckled.
"Dan, of the three of you, you're the worst."
"What?"
"Sato's problem is easiest to train him out of, he just needs to talk to women enough to know that they're people. Tanaka just needs a good woman to reign him in but you... you have a problem with women."
"There's a place for them and I'm not rude to them."
Hanzo looked at me.
"We purposefully had you all interact with women, local girls, during training. Sato would act like a blushing mess, Tanaka would break out pickup lines that didn't work and you just treated them with restrained fury....our girls are people. They're people who are just trying to pay their bills. This isn't an insult but I don't think any of you have the maturity to handle that kind of business."
He paused, his eyes turning towards the road.
"So who's going to be in charge."
Tanaka's words hung heavy in the car.
"You're asking who's going to be in charge out of the three of you?"
He nodded his head.
"No one, all of you are going to be given a team of 4 younger brothers and you're going to have different tasks."
I decided to ask a question.
"So how did we get in at the airport?"
"Simply put the government fucked up."
Hanzo leaned back and took another drag.
"The locals were not consulted by the goverment when they were creating the plan. So they learned about the plan from the news and that just isn't done. They also used eminent domain to take land instead of trying to build a consensus."
"Were we...?"
"No...none of the families were in on this one. You think we would be involved, you know use us to bully people into selling, but in this case our hands are clean and thank the gods because this was a cluster fuck. So the socialists, communists and other crazies got involved. Now there were riot cops on one side, student activists and commies on the others and none of it looked good."
"So that doesn't answer why we're in now."
"The government needed someone who could talk to the locals and try to break up the alliance they had with the commies, with the chu's. If you're wondering if we busted heads, no. What we did is we found people who got screwed over by the land deal, people who were pissed off about it or who had raw feelings about it."
He stopped the car.
"Then we bribed them."
I blinked.
"What?"
"Yeah, restaurants sprung up in the airport, the employees all local, the owners local. Then bars sprung up. Then businesses. The government couldn't admit they fucked up, they would lose face. So we talked to people and worked on the problem piecemeal."
"And."
"And riot cops were getting hurt and it looked bad. The government didn't want to play the role of the bad guy. Having us do it, that works better. When things look bad we go in and play the heel, break things up."
He looked at us.
"No killing people."
"But."
"Most of the people involved in this shit? They're kids who are in over their heads. Get them away from their leaders, get them to fucking talking things out and some times you're able to reach them. Your average protester? They're not bad kids."
"Chu's?"
"They're different. They're dangerous, they like to hide themselves among the normal people, amongst those kids who are in over their heads. They're so convinced they're the hero of their little fucked up story that they're willing to go to very dark places."
Hanzo's voice was deadly serious.
"How dark?"
"Lost my eye, they used some dark stuff. Keeps the winters from fixing it."
His voice was filled with anger.
"How will we tell the difference between normal protesters and the Chu's?"
"I could tell you a whole bunch of bullshit, but the truth is this: people say that seeing is believing but experiencing is knowing. Only way to really learn the difference is to be in the shit....sorry."
We stopped at the edge and looked at the city below us, from the sky it looked gorgeous. Hanzo smiled.
"Wish it was that pretty down there but it isn't, things are never the same up close as they are from a distance."
Three weeks of sparring, practicing our spells, practicing how to fall without hurting ourselves, how to throw a punch or a kick and fight with melee weapons. We ate, breathed and slept combat and when we were finished Hanzo arrived and picked us up in a car. We were blindfolded and drove.
"Take off your blindfolds."
We obeyed and Hanzo nodded.
"All right, you got your asignment right?"
"Yeah, work at an airport."
"You know why you're getting that job?"
The three of us shrugged.
"Tanaka, Sato, Dan... This summer wasn't about training you, not just about it rather. It was about finding out what your skill set is, what your personality set is, your maturity levels."
"So we failed."
"No...no, you proved that you can put your nose to the grindstone. A lot of people older than you flake out after the first month, you three took the hardest level of training right down to the wire. When you were working the job, you whined and bitched don't think we didnt notice that."
We cringed.
"But you always made sure that it was just about the work. You didn't disrespect your coworkers, you didnt disrespect your boss. You proved that you could work with civilians. This..."
He paused.
"I won't lie to you, this isn't a kushy gig. It's a rough one."
He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.
"But it's also an important one and in the end we decided it would be best to start you out here."
"Why?"
"Gambling... Well, you could run one of our arcades, and probably do a pretty good job of it, or bounce in front of our clubs. Dan you're more willing to tone things down so I would trust you to handle some of our more social stuff."
He took another drag.
"Really the only thing you were disqualifed for was prostitution."
"Why?"
Tanaka sounded offended.
"Tanaka you're a horndog who sees women as sex objects, Sato you get shy and blushy around pretty girls and act like they're goddesses"
I chuckled.
"Dan, of the three of you, you're the worst."
"What?"
"Sato's problem is easiest to train him out of, he just needs to talk to women enough to know that they're people. Tanaka just needs a good woman to reign him in but you... you have a problem with women."
"There's a place for them and I'm not rude to them."
Hanzo looked at me.
"We purposefully had you all interact with women, local girls, during training. Sato would act like a blushing mess, Tanaka would break out pickup lines that didn't work and you just treated them with restrained fury....our girls are people. They're people who are just trying to pay their bills. This isn't an insult but I don't think any of you have the maturity to handle that kind of business."
He paused, his eyes turning towards the road.
"So who's going to be in charge."
Tanaka's words hung heavy in the car.
"You're asking who's going to be in charge out of the three of you?"
He nodded his head.
"No one, all of you are going to be given a team of 4 younger brothers and you're going to have different tasks."
I decided to ask a question.
"So how did we get in at the airport?"
"Simply put the government fucked up."
Hanzo leaned back and took another drag.
"The locals were not consulted by the goverment when they were creating the plan. So they learned about the plan from the news and that just isn't done. They also used eminent domain to take land instead of trying to build a consensus."
"Were we...?"
"No...none of the families were in on this one. You think we would be involved, you know use us to bully people into selling, but in this case our hands are clean and thank the gods because this was a cluster fuck. So the socialists, communists and other crazies got involved. Now there were riot cops on one side, student activists and commies on the others and none of it looked good."
"So that doesn't answer why we're in now."
"The government needed someone who could talk to the locals and try to break up the alliance they had with the commies, with the chu's. If you're wondering if we busted heads, no. What we did is we found people who got screwed over by the land deal, people who were pissed off about it or who had raw feelings about it."
He stopped the car.
"Then we bribed them."
I blinked.
"What?"
"Yeah, restaurants sprung up in the airport, the employees all local, the owners local. Then bars sprung up. Then businesses. The government couldn't admit they fucked up, they would lose face. So we talked to people and worked on the problem piecemeal."
"And."
"And riot cops were getting hurt and it looked bad. The government didn't want to play the role of the bad guy. Having us do it, that works better. When things look bad we go in and play the heel, break things up."
He looked at us.
"No killing people."
"But."
"Most of the people involved in this shit? They're kids who are in over their heads. Get them away from their leaders, get them to fucking talking things out and some times you're able to reach them. Your average protester? They're not bad kids."
"Chu's?"
"They're different. They're dangerous, they like to hide themselves among the normal people, amongst those kids who are in over their heads. They're so convinced they're the hero of their little fucked up story that they're willing to go to very dark places."
Hanzo's voice was deadly serious.
"How dark?"
"Lost my eye, they used some dark stuff. Keeps the winters from fixing it."
His voice was filled with anger.
"How will we tell the difference between normal protesters and the Chu's?"
"I could tell you a whole bunch of bullshit, but the truth is this: people say that seeing is believing but experiencing is knowing. Only way to really learn the difference is to be in the shit....sorry."
We stopped at the edge and looked at the city below us, from the sky it looked gorgeous. Hanzo smiled.
"Wish it was that pretty down there but it isn't, things are never the same up close as they are from a distance."