A Prickly Ally

Sky says, "Who here speaks Jap? Ask this jasper for what reasons we should withhold from putting him six feet under the farm he's buying right now. And hey -- if someone were to mar or efface the magic letter mark whatis doing him healing, would the healing stop?"

Sky cuts the cards in his hand with a onehanded cut

With his other hand, he grabs one of his guns out of his dropped coat without burning himself on the hot metal. Good thing Daddy Masterson always taught his son to wear gloves.

Sky cuts the Ace of Spades.Luck is smiling his way again!

He grabs a gun by the handle, which by great good luck was in a small puddle and isn't steaming hot like the rest of the gat.

Kaze says, gently:

"Ah, Saburo...
"Ani, Watashi wa anata o minogashite iru"
"Youkoso, Ani.."

Saburo, perhaps out of a wish to be polite to the Grimnoir, replies in English.

"I thank you, Kaze, but I need the pain. It is how I know the kanji has been purged from my essence."

He gasps, and drops the burnt-out torch.

"It ... is done," he says. "You are now safe."

Kaze says, "You are joining us, Saburo?"

To the others, "His powers are at odds with his personality, but he does fight well."

"Do you know where they would have retreated?"

Saburo says, "Joining ... you? No. The Grimnoir seek and destroy magic they consider evil. They cull the very Power we need to make us strong. I could never help you in that quest."

"No, I removed my Bottomless Well kanji so that Hitomi can no longer track me. It gave me great reserves of Power -- I could make a spear as long as a pine tree, or armor a meter thick -- but it taps from the same reserve Hitomi uses, so he can sense when I use it, and where I am."

"Hitomi left me to die. He broke my neck, in fact, but I had the foresight to grow a second spine on the left side, so I did not die. Thus I saw him explode a company of Special Air Landing Force commandoes, to prevent the war between Japan and America which would eventuate from such a blatant invasion of American soil."

"I cannot serve a master who would sacrifice me so. I am a ronin, a samurai without a master. I would not be even a samurai, but the Power chose me and I cannot be other than what I am now."

"Hitomi will start a war. It is not his intention, but he goes about everything with the impetuous fury of a drunken bull. So many kanji have given him the unshakeable belief that he is all-powerful, and that all difficulties will be overcome by the force of his destiny. And if he is even partially correct, his crusade will bring all the Earth incomparable ruin. So I will help you kill him, and those who have taken fire from his crusade and must be killed as well."

Kaze says, "Your help is welcome, but Saburo, when evil magicians are culled, the magic doesn't go away. It goes back to the Source, does it not? To be distributed again."

Saburo replies, "The magic, yes. But not the skill. That is lost forever, when all humanity may have need of it at any moment."

Kaze: "True .. although it does appear Hitomi has discovered a way to intercept the magic as it returns. Is that itself a magical gift or is it a manipulation of forces that others might learn?"

She muses.

"Though more to this moment's problem, where have the Iron Guard gone now... and what will they do with Richter, the dying man they took with them?"

Saburo says, "Hitomi has teleported them to his American headquarters, where they will recover their strength. He has American Actives, many of them, on his side, and likely will start bringing them up to combat readiness. This may take weeks or months; they are young, and do not seem serious."

"Richter will not die. Hitomi will not allow it. And if he does, why, Hitomi is a Lazarus. So he will talk."

"Hitomi wishes to know how to gather more Powers into himself. Richter seems to have done this with the kanji on Hitomi's severed leg. This is a talent Hitomi himself does not possess. When he takes a kanji, he takes the soul as well. It is, I think, one reason for his insanity."

"So Richter will suffer until he tells. And once he does tell, he will teach Hitomi how to transfer Powers. And then, Hitomi will indeed transfer Powers, all he can reach. He has students at this American school with virtually every one of the Thirty-Six Talents. He has not stolen their Powers before, because killing them would dishearten the others, perhaps weaken their connection to the Source. They have not yet been branded with the Bottomless Well, so their Powers are yet weak. But once he does not need to do so, they will be copied. Hitomi has a variation of the Well, called Great Disorder Under Heaven, on himself, so large it wraps around from front to back. Once he copies a Power, it will operate at a great intensity."

"But I have not answered your question. This thing Hitomi does is not his own Power. It is something he learned, from the Chairman and others. What he can learn, others can learn. Richter appears to have learned a variation, in which he moves Powers from one person to another without killing them."

Voinovich has been looking back and forth from the two Japanese. Now he interrupts.

"Where exactly is his American headquarters?"

Saburo nods. "Of course. It is in St. Louis, Missouri. The Carpenter School for Talented Children."

Voinovich: "He'd have Richter there?"

Saburo: "Of course."

Voinovich: "And what else? You said he had students."

Saburo: "Students, yes. American Actives, mostly children, whose Power he is developing with training, though not so rigorous as we undergo in Japan."

Saburo nods to Kaze, as though they had something in common.

Saburo: "We had exactly one Shadow Guard and one Iron Guard squad covertly present in the United States. Hitomi has expended both. There is no more to draw upon, without summoning reinforcements from the Home Islands. And this he cannot do, for the others on the Advisory Council do not know of his plan to gain supreme Power, nor, I think, would they approve if they did know."

Voinovich: "And what does he intend to do with this power once he has it?"

Saburo: "That ... I do not know. I was never told. Yurasu and Rock were his confidants in the Iron Guard. We were informed that anyone who has seen the Power, the Source as we call it, with his own eyes was to be gathered and thoroughly interrogated. Ben Bernardi, Jake Sullivan and Faye Vieira are the only three surviving persons who fit that description. Other units are working on them. Or were ... we do not as a rule assign Blanks to covert operations on American soil, because their loyalty cannot be assumed."

Voinovich: "What's a Blank?"

Saburo: "Persons without Power."

Voinovich: "Mr. Masterson, it seems to me we need to interrupt Hitomi's interrogation of Richter before he learns too much. Should we proceed there at once, calling in any other Grimnoir who may be able to meet us there?"