NINJA BIG BATTEL
EPISODE I
THE IRON BUTTERFLY
I

     Wong stood perched at the very tip of the boat’s bow as a butterfly might perch upon the most fragile of leaves. He appeared weightless upon the boat as it glided by an unseen magic through the ocean’s waters. His eyes were set upon the horizon, watching for the moment that his destination appeared upon it. It was a stain to him, Japan; a massive multicolored stain amidst the most precious of blue cloths.
     Had anyone ever asked his opinion on the subject, he would’ve referred to his native country in one of two ways. The first being that Japan was the kind of pebble that got stuck in your boot or sandal, and no matter how hard you dug for it, or how many times you thought you got it, once you replaced the footwear, there the pebble was, digging into the tender underbelly of your foot.
     The second version would’ve compared Japan to the Demon Tick; a creature he was positive populated the entirety of the world. The tick would burrow into the skin of it’s victim and begin the cycle as a minor irritant on the skin. Slowly it would grow into a cancerous, pus laden sore, and eventually – when the tick had dug into the blood – it would unleash a storm of toxins into the bloodstream. These chemicals would induce internal bleeding that couldn’t be stopped. The victim would go into violent fits of vomiting up their own blood until they died a slow and terrible death.
     Wong felt that of his country. It was causing him a slow and terrible death, and tonight would be the head of that death.
     He closed his eyes and felt the spray of water cast up by the boat’s course on his face. His memory was clear. He’d killed his adopted family with swift ease. They’d taught him the means to extinguish the flame of life far too thoroughly, and then they’d made the mistake of giving him the information he never wanted: how he came to be.
     Their words detailed the dealings between them and a criminal family in the heart of Japan; it’s capital city of Edo. This family, a Yakuza, had failed to deliver on their end, and offered, as compensation, their first born child. A boy. They accepted, and took the boy, raising him as a dog at first, and then to be an assassin. Because of his Japanese heritage, Wong was given the assignments that needed someone to slip seamlessly into Japan’s isolated society. Wong was taught the culture of Japan and its people, and taught the many ways of delivering death.
     After the tale was complete, Wong cut down his adoptive family (if it could be called that) with his butterfly swords with such quickness and ferocity that the dead bled oceans and rivers before the fell to the ground and into the final sleep of life.
     Anger was a small word. Too small to explain the emotional context of Wong’s inner being. He was succumb to these emotions, and they had become him. Even the Gods’ lacked the words to describe his wrath.
     The boat’s underbelly struck a sandy shore of Japan, and Wong leaped into the air. When his feet landed upon the sand, they were off of it again as he jumped another twenty to thirty paces. He settled into a winded sprint that carried him through the forested landscape.
     Vengeance would be his, and, like his adopted family before them, his blood family would fall to his twin blades as they cleaved through their flesh like a butterfly’s wings cleaves through the air.

II

     "You’re mad!" the youth exclaimed.
     "No, boy," Boss Jakuson said, "I’m just drunk."
     "But they’re both here right now," the youth continued. "If we strike now, we’ll control all of Edo."
     "We’ll control nothing. Hasegawa and Tanaka will settle their little quarrel by tomorrow evening, there is no chance for it resolving any other way."
     The youth’s emotions boiled. Although Boss Jakuson was his superior, he felt as though the man was old and senile. His visions for the future lacked in direct confrontation; this laying in the long grass for the weak to come to them was the old way. The new way, the youth’s way, was to strike now when the weak showed their underbelly by laying in the comfort of your own home. He wasn’t a lazy tiger like the old man, and he saw no sign of bewildering enlightenment in the old man’s eyes. It was just alcohol. He was a drunkard and an oversexed cretin who happened to be born with the proper last name. Jakuson needed to be done in. His death would leak the fuel that would ignite the fire in the youth’s passion that would bring him all of Edo; he knew this to be true.
     "You’re very comfortable in that possibility," the youth said.
     "Comfort has nothing to do with it, boy." The elder stood. Jakuson hated all of them, and he knew they feared him. He likened himself to the great tigers of old, the man-eating monsters of myth and legend. He glanced at all of them, and all the men, all eleven of them, kept their heads slightly bowed, and their eyes off of him. All but that infantile youth that sat at his direct opposite. His son. Not by blood, not by marriage; but by adoption. He took the boy in when he was a cub, when no one else wanted him. And now, he knew, the boy was looking for any excuse he could to slip a dagger into his back.
     "Hasegawa and Tanaka are old friends, despite their rivalry. A little sake and a few women, and they’ll be laughing like old times again, and everything will become fluid and calm between the Yakuza families. We will do nothing, we’ll make no moves, and no blood will be spilt in this house. Not while I live. If any of you dare to challenge me," he started, looking directly into the youth’s eyes, "then do it now. Otherwise be silent."
     None of them moved. The youth squinted his eyes, making them like small slits in his face, and burrowed a hole in the center of the elder’s chest. He saw the elder scoff and turn his back.
     "Now, I have more sake to drink, and I have a whore in my room that requires my attention. You may go."
     And with that final word the men stood, bowed, and waited for Jakuson to disappear from the room. Once he was gone, the eleven men left, leaving the youth in the room by himself.
     "One day, father," he started, "you’ll be on your back with my sword in your chest, and I will be smiling and all of this, and all of Edo, will be mine."

III

     Wong scaled the walls with ease. Three steps and he was over it, and coming down on the other side, where two moderately armored guards stood talking to one another. Unprepared, they both fell with a handful of quick strokes, and the butterfly swords cut through the armor to the core, slicing open the meat and bone of them, and spraying the night air with their blood. Wong was off again, scaling the Jakuson home – which was almost the size of a small castle – before the two bodies hit the ground.

IV

     Jakuson drank from the bottle sloppily. The liquid spilt over his lips and down his naked chest. He wiped his chin with his hand and stared at the woman. She sat with her back to him, her kimono draped over her lazily so that it hung off of her naked shoulder. He made his way over to her, grabbed her by the hair brutally, and stuffed her mouth into his. She didn’t fight. He broke away and laughed, tugging the kimono down to bare her breasts, then he took hold of them. Not tenderly, not the way a lover might, but fiercely. The way a tiger would clutch onto the flank of it’s prey. He made fists of his hands with her breasts in them, and he laughed.
     She didn’t scream.
     Tears welled in her eyes, and blood trickled from where his fingernails pierced the skin, but she didn’t scream.
     That was what he wanted, and she would never give him that.
     He laughed again, and made a gorilla’s attempt at kissing her: brutal and harsh, teeth gnashed and bared, biting at her tongue. He squeezed her breasts harder, tugging on them as though he wanted to rip them from her body. She didn’t scream. He pushed away and threw her to the ground. He laughed more, and drank more, and then stalked her, again picturing himself as a mighty tiger.
     He was completely oblivious to the slender feminine man that had crept in through the window. His soundless body carried him across the room with an ease far too fluid to be anything natural, and he watched the old man carry on with the poor girl. He picked her up, filled his mouth with hers, and slipped a hand down between her thighs. He pulled it away, balled it into a fist and backhanded her across the left side of her face. She fell back, and crumbled into a helpless pile of heaving sobs.
     "Why aren’t you ready for me?!" he yelled.
     She cried heavier in response.
     He balled up his fists and prepared to strike her again.
     "Boss Jakuson," Wong said.
     The large man turned, stammered, a look of shock and terror fell over his fat face. "Who are you? How did you get in here? Guards!"
     No one came.
     "They’re all dead," Wong said, matter-of-factly. "I killed them all and I’m going to kill you."
     The girl got to her feet and started to run. Jakuson turned to her, his arm flying through the air, but the blow never connected. It was stopped short by the glinting steel of a butterfly sword as it sailed through the air and stuck into the wall behind Jakuson, but not before severing his hand at the forearm. Blood jet into the air, decorating the room with a coat of macabre paint, and Jakuson, even as dulled as his senses were from far too much sake, cried out in immense pain. The girl fled, leaving the room, and it was Jakuson’s turn to sob and cry.
     For as much as he liked to imagine it, Jakuson was no tiger. His men were the tigers of his jungle, and he was a fat glutton who held the whips that tamed the beasts, nothing more. He liked his sex and he liked his drink and he liked his food all a little bit too much.
     "Who sent you?" he barely got out, his voice cramped with pain, and slicked with spittle.
     "You did," Wong said. "Father."
     "Father? I’m not your father. I have no sons. You’re mad."
     "You did once. Long ago."
     "Mad…" he clenched his hand over the wound, his blood spilt over it.
     "You sold me to men in China."
     "No, you’re wrong! They stole you from me!"
     Another butterfly sword flew through the air and caught Jakuson in the gut where it stuck.
     "Your lies will get you nowhere this day. This is the day you die," and Wong was on him. No mercy is what he was taught. No time for a flair of the dramatic, even though he wanted it. It was only a time for death, and whatever came afterwards would come. He gripped the handle of the blade and thrust it upwards into Jakuson’s body. It dug deeper, slipping through organs and cleaving them in half until he pulled back with the might of a god and split Jakuson’s chest in two. Before Jakuson fell, Wong made another quick motion with the blade and took his head cleanly. And it was done. Revenge was had, and his father was dead, and he’d have no answers.
     Answers weren’t what he was looking for, however. Deeper meaning and enlightenment were all the skills and mysteries of monks and priests, his was the way of death; the path of the assassin. He knew nothing but killing and he felt satisfied and lazy, as if his hunger was now placated by a grand feast. He made his way to the wall where his other sword had been thrown into and retrieved it.
     He lied to his father just before killing him. He told him that all the guards were dead, an attempt to prevent further screaming from the man, when he had only killed a small handful of them while making his way to this room. He was going to have to fight his way out of this building, and he preferred it no other way. There would be many deaths tonight and Wong smirked at that.

V

     Boss Hasegawa’s heart burnt with rage. The blood decorated the walls like a fresh coat of paint, and the bodies of his brethren, and the adopted sons of his friend, Boss Jakuson, were strung about the floor like a child’s discarded toys. He clenched his hands into fists, balling them tightly; they groaned as each finger tightened.

VI

     The more blood that slicked Wong’s blades, the easier the edges of the blades slipped into the meat of his opponents. Hundreds had fallen to the Butterfly Swords already, and more continued to drop with each slashing arc that cut into the air and into the flesh.
     Wong himself, however, remained free of the stains of combat. Not a single drop of blood had splashed onto his flowing, vibrantly colored robes, nor dyed the color of his skin. He was a gleaming symbol of perfection flowing effortlessly amongst the chaos and carnage he was creating with his dual paintbrushes of death.
     He had reached the courtyard of the house swiftly. Two more guards awaited him there, both armed with swords of their own. Up until now, Wong’s assassination had gone unchallenged by another practitioner of what he called the Art. They had weapons, of course, short swords and daggers, but none of them were armed with the famed katana, the Soul of Japan. These two men stood before him, the tips of their katana pointed at Wong’s heart.
     The first man stepped forward and struck with his blade, the arc cut through the air, aimed at Wong’s neck. The blade was stopped short by one of Wong’s own swords. Wong elegantly pushed the blade down, and swung at it with the other, slicing the famed Japanese steel in half, and then following suit with the sword’s owner, opening his midsection to the cold night air. Steam rose from his blood and entrails as they splashed to the ground. The man’s face lost color, went slack, and then he, too, fell to the ground.
     The second man let out a battle cry and charged with his katana held high. Wong smirked and let loose one of the blades. It flew through the air swiftly and struck the man in the face, the force of the impact splitting his head in two, allowing the blade to fly through it and imbed itself in a tree some fifty paces behind him.
     This man fell to the ground, just as the one before him, and the hundreds before him. Wong smiled, and began the fifty pace trek to recover his blade.
     "Wait," he heard a voice call.
     Wong turned to meet the voice and did so just as effortlessly as he did everything else. He was not prepared for what met him as he turned.
     The first blow came to the midsection and crushed the muscles there, tenderizing them to the point of jelly. The second blow landed in his chest to his right side, obliterating ribs and rupturing organs. Wong looked up and tried to strike with his remaining weapon, but his opponent caught the blade with his bare hand and clenched a steel-like fist around it. He squeezed harder and turned the blade into a fine powder that exploded and sent shrapnel into Wong’s left eye; destroying it.
     Hasegawa kicked Wong back. "Fetch your other blade, dog. Bring it to me."
     Wong rolled over from his back onto his hands and knees. The pain in his abdomen burned, the pain in his eye boiled, and the pain in his chest scolded. He crawled anyway. His only chance would be to retrieve his other sword, to retain it and to remove this bastard’s head. That was his only means of getting out of this alive. He had to do it. No matter how hard it was, and no matter how badly each movement he attempted rendered a pain that shook the core of him so fantastically that consciousness attempted to flee his mind with each crawling step.
     Boss Hasegawa walked behind him, stalking him like a Great Cat would it’s prey.
     Wong collapsed and blood crept from its rightful resting place into his lungs. He coughed and the blood came with it, splashing the grass and soil. Wong had never known defeat. The shame that was slithering into his head now wasn’t something he knew, it wasn’t something he was comfortable with, it was almost more unbearable than the pain. He had to do this. He had to have his redemption from his father, and from this place, the Demon Tick Japan, and he would have his victory over this strange bald man who could crush steel into powder. He moved again, slowly crawling on the ground, now on his belly rather than his hands and knees. The tree was closer
     Hasegawa smiled.
     Wong’s fingers touched the base of the tree, clinging to it’s bark, but the will of him was done. Tears were in his eyes, blood was in his mouth and throat, and his body had no more to offer him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t stand to his feet and reclaim the blade that was once his, the blade that would offer him salvation from his current torment.
     Hasegawa went down on his haunches next to Wong. "This is nothing compared to the hell I’m going to send you to, boy."
     He stood again, and Wong felt the cold fingers of Hasegawa’s right hand clutch the back of his head and then he was in the air. His body was dead weight, and he couldn’t even lift his arms, but Hasegawa was lifting him into the air by his head. His skull began to fracture and splinter as Hasegawa began to squeeze. Blood crept from Wong’s nose and ears, trickled from the tear ducts in his eyes, and eventually it cracked and opened like a bird’s egg. Wong’s lifeless body fell to the ground.
     Hasegawa flung his hand to the ground and snapped his wrist, flicking the blood, skull, and brain matter from his fingers. He smiled.
     He smiled knowing this small victory would be but a small pleasure to what’s coming ahead. Nothing would stop Tanaka from taking hold of all the Yakuza now. Hasegawa’s men were gone, killed by Wong’s blades. Not only had Jakuson’s men fell, but Jakuson himself had also fallen. There would be a war for sure.
     The idea of that made his smile wider.