Truth.
We observed the days following the incident at the apartment eagerly, waiting to see how the Yakuza would react to the slaying of one of their members. Their reaction was one of fury but it soon grew into a cold unease when the party responsible could not be found. Through Momo's sources we heard that they first thought the Bratva responsible for the murder but later blamed a junkie looking for a fix on the incident. I should have felt a measure of power, pulling their strings behind the scenes and watching them run around in panic but there was only a cold detachment in me. Only the next mission mattered to me, only the next step before I eventually reached Madam Rhi and Natalov. Nothing else mattered.
Momo was strangely quiet in the last few days, almost like something was holding him back. I had expected him show me the next Yakuza target but he carried on as if nothing was amiss, calmly working the lunch and dinner shifts at the restaurant. Though I was curious to know what he had planned, I trusted his judgment enough not to ask him. He knew what he was doing, so I went along with it. We still had the occasional Yakuza member come in for Sushi and shots of Sake but there was definitely a tension under them. They weren't scared but spooked? Definitely. Someone had dared to intrude on their territory and take down one of their associates and not even Natalov was that stupid. Not after the peace accord signed between him and the Yakuza. It was an alien feeling to them, one which they did not like at all. Once or twice I caught Momo smiling to himself as he saw the shaking of a hand around a Sushi glass or the tremble of a chopstick but I said nothing and simply carried on with my work.
It was about two weeks later when Momo asked me one afternoon to clean and lock up the kitchen. I found it strange in that he liked to keep his finger firmly on the pulse of the business and take care of everything himself. So when the last tourist finally left, I doused the pale yellow lanterns hanging outside, shut the door and cleaned away the remaining plates. Yet there was still no sign of the big man. He was not having a smoke in the courtyard outside, nor in the walk in doing stock taking. For a moment I thought he had gone out to get supplies till I heard movement in the loft upstairs. Carefully, I ascended the wooden rungs and poked my head through the trap door. The massive Sumo was sitting cross legged at the far end of the room with his eyes firmly closed, his breathing deep and regulated.
"Momo?" I asked sitting down across from him, "What's going on?"
He exhaled deeply, centering his thoughts and chi before speaking. "What do we gain by destroying and defeating others?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, unsure of what he truly meant.
"Is it enough for a Samurai to simply slay his enemies and watch them burn at his feet? Is the worth of ourselves measured in blood and pain?"
"It gives self respect to the warrior and validates his existence." I replied, carefully folding my fingers around a white wax candle Momo handed to me. The flame threw spirals of shadow and light on my face, an eerie tableau in the dimly lit room.
"That validation does not come in the suffering of your opponents Helena, but in the fact that you can defeat yourself in the process." He opened his piercing black eyes and steadied his gaze on me.
"So I'm guessing we are not going after the Yakuza again tonight?" A slight sardonic smile formed on Momo's face as he nodded at me.
"The demons are still too powerful inside you and you must face down those devils before we can proceed. The self doubt weighs you down like stone and stifles your clarity of mind and fluency of movement. If you hesitate, even for second, then Madam Rhi or Fear will destroy you. They will not hold back and they will do everything in their power to crush you.
