They went through the creaking wooden door and entered a room that looked like a torture chamber. Lining the walls were racks and racks of: weapons and tools; chains and whips; buckets and cloth; and some other devices Tsugi had never seen before.
"Sorry not this room." Yamo walked through the room and pushed open a pair of swinging doors on the opposite wall.
This room was more light and not as torturous. A woman lay strapped down on the long table with a cloth bag over her head. Tsugi looked up and saw a reflection of himself in the body sized mirror mounted above the table.
"Who's there?" The voice was muffled, but Tsugi could tell, the woman was very frightened.
Yamo walked over and pulled the bag off her head.
Madam Maligun squinted at the bright room, lit by lots of candles.
"Hello Madam." Yamo smiled politely.
"What the hell do you think you are doing? Let me go this instant!”
“I’m sorry but I can’t.” Yamo frowned sarcastically and shrugged his shoulders, tilting his head so it’s facing the same way as her.
“Don’t lie, Yamo.” Volgan entered the room, tying an apron around himself.
“Okay. I lied.” Yamo reached for the bindings on her hand. “I’m letting you go.”
“Really?” Her eyes widened in both shock and relief. “You’ve about lost your damn mind having me tied up in here! Just what the hell were you thinking?”
Yamo stopped before he reached the binds and removed his hand, placing it on his chin and looked up to think. “Actually you know what?” He looked back down at her. “That was also a lie. The truth is, I’m not sorry.” His sinister look appeared on his face and he grinned from ear to ear.
Madam Maligun’s eyes dilated with fear. “What the fuck Yamo! Let me go!”
“Now, now. Shh, shh, shh.” Yamo placed a finger over his mouth. “We have a minor here.” Yamo gestured an open hand toward Tsugi. Madam Maligun turned her head to glance at Tsugi before looking back at Yamo. “He’s here to learn actual useful things, not pointless swear words. So, I’d appreciate it, if you don’t swear in front of him.” Everything about his demeanor was sinisterly friendly.
“I-I’m sorry. If you let me go, I promise, I won’t tell anyone. I’ll do anything you want. You want more money? I’ll give you all the money you want? You want girls? I can find you-”
Yamo clenched his eyes shut, like the thought bothered him and held his finger over his closed lips, shaking his head. “Don’t talk about the girls, like they aren’t human beings.” He hisses through tightly gritted teeth.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. It’s not like I enjoy doing it. It’s just a job. Please.” Madam Maligun cried. “Anything.” She sobbed horribly, making herself look as pathetic as possible.
“I want a list of all your clients in the black market.”
“If I give them to you. Will you let me live?”
“I give you my word, if you give me that list, I will not kill you.” He pounded his fist into his chest, saluting like a knight.
She told them where the list was in her house, and Volgan nodded before taking off the apron and leaving the room.
“So, you will let me go right?” Her eyes were red from crying.
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“Well, do I have the list in my hands?” Yamo raised his eyebrows and frowned, holding up an open empty hand. Madam Maligun shook her head. “Well, then you have your answer. Come here Enron.” Tsugi walked over and Yamo hooked an arm around Tsugi’s shoulders, leading him over to the tray full of surgical tools and proceeded to explain each item to him and what they are used for.
***
“Got it.” Volgan returned after a while and handed the ledger to Yamo.
Yamo took it and flipped through it. “Okay!” He closed the book and smiled brightly. He gave the book back to Volgan and turned to grab the tray, and placed it down by Madam Maligun. “Let’s begin.” He grinned and looked at Madam Maligun, causing terror to rush through her.
“But-but you said you would let me go! You promised!”
“No, no, no.” Yamo waves a finger through the air. “I promised I wouldn’t kill you. I’m a man of my word, I will not kill you.” The words relaxed Madam Maligun a little. “Enron will.” He said, giving Tsugi a broad smile.
Tsugi was surprised by this sudden decision. He was going to kill her eventually, he didn’t expect it to happen this soon, or…like this.
“How?” Tsugi glanced up at him.
“Oh! I forgot.” Yamo walked over to the corner and grabbed a wooden box. He brought it over and placed it down by the table. “There, now you can see what you are doing.” Tsugi stepped up onto the box, and he was now almost as tall as Yamo’s shoulder height as he overlooked the frightened Madam Maligun. Volgan returned and tied the apron around himself again before approaching the table, opposite of Tsugi and Yamo.
“Please boy. Y-you don’t want to do this.” She cried.
“Sorry.” Tsugi shrugged. He started to feel bad, but when he remembered what she does for a living, killing all those innocent people just to make money off of them. The sympathy disappeared, and his heart turned cold. “It’s not like I enjoy doing this. It’s just a job.”
‘I will get rid of the horrible people in the world…like my father.’
“Ho ho!” Yamo laughed menacingly and wrapped his arm around Tsugi, swiftly pulling him in for a side hug. “God! I love this kid!” His beaming eyes looked up at Volgan and grinned with excitement.
His contagious energy flowed through Tsugi, and got his blood pumping too. Even Volgan grinned along with Yamo, in approval of Tsugi.
“You’ll all pay for this! I will have your heads! The other merchants will come looking for me and they will kill you all!” She screamed in anger. Yamo took what looked like reverse pliers and pried her mouth open wide. He then grabbed a scalpel and stood above her head.
“Enron, come over here.” He handed Tsugi the scalpel. “Cut off her tongue.” The words burned fear into Madam Maligun and she screamed frantically, swinging her head side to side. Yamo took the strap on the table and tightly secured her head down.
“I see you more as the learning type to want to do, and not so much listen and watch.” Yamo put on his teaching face and stared down his nose into her mouth. “So, take the scalpel and cut right along here.” He pulled her tongue out of her mouth and pointed to where he wanted Tsugi to make the incisions. Tsugi’s heart pounded in his chest, but he proceeded to follow Yamo’s intricate instructions.
“Slow…slow. I want you to take your time, so we can uncover every single layer of tissue. Cut this part here first. This is called the septum, it attaches the tongue to the lower jaw. If you cut this you can pull the tongue out further, so you can remove the whole tongue.” Madam Maligun screamed and cried, tensing painfully, her tongue twitched and fought to re-enter her mouth, but Yamo’s grip on it was too strong.
Tsugi sliced into it and blood poured out of the incision, quickly filling her mouth as she fought to swallow it.
“There you go, nice and easy. You see this layer right here?” Tsugi nodded his head as looking at the tissue under the top layer of the skin. Yamo took some gauze and pressed against the tongue to wipe the blood away. “This layer is the hyoglossus, and if you cut through this layer, underneath it is the genioglossus. They are the muscles that allow the tongue to move.”
Madam Maligun sobbed and screamed. She choked on her blood and coughed it into Tsugi and Yamo’s faces, causing them to flinch. Yamo pulled out a handkerchief and handed it Tsugi. He pulled out another one and wiped his own face.
“Sorry.” Volgan grabbed a bulb and what looked like a hollow tube and sucked up the blood in Madam Maligun's throat and deposited it into a giant bucket on the floor.
“Oh, I forgot.” Yamo walked over and pulled out a jar from the shelf. “Normally, Volgan would heal, so they don’t bleed to death, cause that’s just plain boring if they die. I instructed him not to, because I wanted to show you this, so you know you can also do it yourself without a healer.”
He opened it and white smoke leaked out of the top and overflowed onto the counter. He saw the perplexed look on Tsugi’s face and smiled. “Liquid nitrogen. It will freeze the skin and cauterize it, to stop the bleeding.” Tsugi reached to feel it. “Don’t touch it! It’ll burn you. Well, you can touch the gas, that’s fine. Just don’t touch the liquid.” He dipped the end of a cotton ball into it and dabbed it onto the open wounds in her mouth. A loud sizzling sound and Madam Maligun cried and writhe again.
After removing the cotton, the blood stopped seeping out. “There, we can’t have you die from choking, when we just got started now can we?” He smiled at her and turned to Tsugi. They removed the tongue with strings of bloody saliva and mucus hanging off of it, dripping onto the table. Yamo continued to explain every part of the mouth to him, showing him every layer of skin and tissue, before moving to pull all of her teeth out, one by one.
After every wound, Yamo would cauterize it to prevent her from bleeding out. After they were done with her mouth, they moved to the rest of her body, starting with her organs. That was the turning point for her. Eventually the pain was too much to bear and she passed out. Which was nice for them, because her voice was screechy and it hurt their ears.
“Why are we doing this to her anyways?” Even though it was kind of late to start questioning now, Tsugi was still curious about his reasoning.
“I used to be the one that did the dirty work for them. I harvested the organs for the buyers. It sucked, but it was a job. I mean, this is a job too. This is a request that usually comes in to get rid of the merchants in the black market. I personally know how horrible merchants can be. This is merely to give them a taste of their own medicine, so to speak. Just like how the body fights infections, the world also has an order. I am one of the many macrophages of this world. It’s my job to clean up harmful substances like her.”