"Okabi, realize that I do not accuse you, no. Accusation means there is room for rebuttal. I was framed for, charged with and convicted on seventeen counts of first-degree murder, brother."
His cheek is a little of flesh, his teeth now visible from the outside. And yet no remorse, no rue registers in my mind.
"You were working with someone from the inside, Okabi. But whom?" With mastered patience, I inquire, gripping his chin and craning his neck to glance up at me.
"Alone! I made my commissions all on my own! Who among your koban would dare overstep their boundaries, break a code of conduct, huh? A...a fight of honor...to...to the death, Tsumibito," he manages to cough out, and a genuine smile curves on my lips at his request.
I glide fingers through his bloody locks of wet hair, yanking hard.
"Who are you working with, Okabi!"
Bloody spit hits the front of my shirt at his burst of fake, hearty laughter, and my jaws involuntarily clench at the sight.
Another nerve-numbing strike to his unscarred jaw, and his neck snaps at the impact -more scarlet spitting against wall.
"A fight to the death? You seek a fight to the death, do you, Okabi!" I find myself yelling; my spirits vexed whilst the knowledge of his betrayal continues to engrave itself in the deepest pits of my memory.
And as I bellow the frustrations, the exasperation, I feel for my pockets, grab a penknife, slice right through the dense sisal ropes allowing them pool around the captured's seat, toss blade to the side. He stumbles and struggles to his feet, throws his head back in maniacal chuckles, furiously wiping on the red that trickles from his busted lips.
He grabs the seat, violently tossing it in my direction, but it misses the locks on my head by mere inches, makes contact with the cement grounds behind me, causing the frame to shatter with ease.
"You let our sister die! You let Xian's life slip right through your fingers! You had one job, one job as the Oyabun! And you failed, Tsumibito! That is why I collaborated with Hanain!"
He is quick in his reflex, moving with the mastered agility of a black mamba, spinning midair and landing the front of his foot into my jaw.
I stagger a few meters back, shake my head to clear the dizziness, spit the red that fills my mouth. Then, I assume an attack position, thunder clapping, lightning flashing, the rains lowly humming as I do.
"Yes, I want a battle to the death to avenge her, to assume your position as the new Oyabun! She died because you let her, because your weren't, you aren't capable a leader!"
"That is not true, Okabi, and you, better than all, should have knowledge of this!"
"You deceitful fuck!"
I evade, twist body, duck his deathly punches and blows, counter his brutal kicks and strikes, ram the iron rings right into his windpipe twice, and at such a vengeful force. It takes me a full minute before the gravity of my actions drills its way through to my brain. All this while, Okabi's eyes are wide and bulging, skin of his neck sipping and leaking.
His nails dig harshly into the flesh of my wrists, his weight faltering under his buckling knees. I hold him to me, hold him as his breathes grow more prominent. Sudden sharp pain cripples me; an excruciation in my abdomen area. But still, my hold around him never weakens, never loosens, till he takes his last whiff.
With the penknife plunged inside my guts, I kneel, rest him against grounds, press a kiss to his forehead, brush unruly locks of disheveled hairs out of his face, cup his face in my palm. I can only grunt, groan at the burning intensity of the hurt, stagger on my feet.
I turn, and that's when my eyes make out the blurry figure of a female stood by the steps leading to the surface, a glass of liquid clutched firmly in her palm. Darkness sips in, the void emptiness laces my vision, and again, I stumble, knees kissing the hard cement floors, a single elbow baring the weight of my upper body. I lay on my back glancing up at the high blackly ceiling walls.
My ears pick the sound of glass shattering against floor as she scurries in my direction, mumbling incoherently and cussing profanities under her breath. Then, she halts dead in her tracks beside me, spares my pathetic state a stare as hard as granite. And I stare back with almost-shutting eyes, with blacking vision, silently pleading that she leave me for death.
For a millisecond, a fleeting nanosecond, one minute, two minutes, three, she's just glued there immobile, immoveable, arms clasped behind her back, scornfully staring down at me, deeply pondering, contemplating her options, her next actions. She spins on her snickered heels in humble muteness, smoothly pads over to the fleet of stairs, mounts and exits the room entirely.
Wise choice indeed.
More seconds fleet, more minutes tick, and the thrumming of my heart turns louder. The redness glides from my mouth and down my cheekbones. I struggle, zoning in and out of reality, memories of my lifetime crossing the front of my brain. From a great distance, doors screech against cement grounds and booted feet climb down steps -jogging in my direction. Could it all be a hallucination, a figment of my imagination?
My body is levitated, numerous arms on my backside, on my upper and lower limbs; lifting. Orders are yelled and screamed with such conviction in the native tongue. And there, at the foot of the staircase, she stands by in muteness, eyes perusing, spying, studying and arms shoved deep inside pockets.
She's done a thing unfathomable to me; outrightly chosen to be my salvation. A life for a life, perhaps...
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BINABASA MO ANG
Red As Snow...(BWAM, Yakuza Romance, 18+)
Romance"Growing up, my mama always told me one thing; bad company did corrupt good morals. I did not believe her, did not believe those words she'd said to me with such conviction. That was until I crossed paths with a man so lethal, a man so utterly consu...
Chapter Six
Magsimula sa umpisa
