We reached the edge of the orchard where the menacing ramparts and high keep cast a shadow on us. On the gravel path leading to the green-copper gates, tracks were visible in the dirt. I immediately recognized the prints of the Marine weighted boots, and Ali decided to go straight to the castle, forgetting about the Ark, which landed uphill.
“It looks like the set of the movie Throne of Blood, doesn’t it?” my partner remarked once we hit the fort’s entrance. On both sides of the door lay dying androids which she shot in the head.
“Excellent observation.” I thought she fell asleep watching this old Japanese movie with Nora and I. “This castle—with its wood and stone walls—is its replica!”
“Except for this design on the jade lintel. It looks like clouds,” Ali pointed out before pushing the heavy gate ajar. The crunching of the doors on the dusty ground resounded in the vast courtyard.
About thirty meters away, at the foot of the curved-roofed keep, an Oda had landed in a hurry, inevitably damaged by a violent space battle.
“I don’t like this. I think we should act quietly or—”
“Yossef?” Ali shouted. “Yossef Braun Kamirov!”
“—or we can do it your way…” I muttered.
The echo ricocheted against the buildings’ wooden beams and ramparts. My partner’s tactic proved to be effective however, as we were immediately joined by the Soviet tumbling down at our feet from the dungeon’s walkway.
Covered in blood, Major Rasputin was severely injured. Something had lacerated his face and right arm, and a bullet had punctured his abdomen. He groaned when my associate put her hands on his soaked tank top.
“Can you talk?” Ali panicked. “Where are the others?”
“We got screwed…” the Marine grumbled before a stream of blood flowed from his wounds. My partner dragged him to cover under the abandoned stables’ archway. “We lost your sister over Korea as the Ark was hunting an enemy… It was a mess…”
“Shut it for now, idiot!” Ali grunted, pressing her palms against Braun’s belly.
Her trembling hands could barely stop the blood from oozing. From the fear glowing in their eyes, I understood something had grown between them.
Looking for possible foes, I glanced at the brown sky and the rampart above the iron gate. There, on one of the black wooden battlements, I surprisingly caught a glimpse of a familiar figure.
“Kumo Raïda?” I said, and my partner turned over. “The Oda was his? I don’t understand.”
“Great!” my associate exclaimed before dolefully smiling at Braun. “It’s a friend!”
“Ali! No!” the major shouted with the few remaining air his lungs had to spare.
There was a stealthy movement up the ramparts and the shadow disappeared before a loud shot rang out. The latter bounced against the courtyard walls, hiding its true origin.
The few seconds of hesitation that followed seemed like an eternity. And my partner collapsed on top of the soldier, her head against the wounded man’s chest.
“Sacrebleu!” I immediately slid to the ground, trying the best I could to keep a little stability in Earth’s random gravity. “Ali!”
Sat on the edge of a loophole sheltered by a wooden canopy, the shadow lifted his straw hat before throwing it away. It was indeed Kumo Raïda, our friend from the Mellifluous Caverns and an old acquaintance of Félix. The samurai in a summer kimono jumped and landed a few meters from us at the same time as his sugegasa. With his modified katana in hand, he conscientiously walked forward, judging each of our possible movements.
Confused, I leaped to my partner and the unconscious Soviet when a second shot kicked up dust near my muzzle. The bullet had just missed me. It had ended a few inches from my right front paw. The small fragments of metal that hadn’t embedded themselves in the slate pavement floated away and slid over the visor of my helmet.
“Fate is a cruel mistress, isn’t she?” the bounty hunter uttered once he was a few steps away from the stone arch. He cocked again the hammer of his built-in .44 caliber, which rattled loudly. “A new generation of Koviràn betrayed their Auxiliaries’ duties. Such disgraceful…”
“Raï! This is all a—we can explain!”
“Explain? Show some dignity!” the swashbuckler scoffed, slowly walking. “In the past, I respected your oblivious behavior. But you must now assume the consequences. Didn’t I warn you enough? Wouldn’t it have been smarter to keep a low profile after the Blazing Firmament?”
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“You don’t understand! You—”
“That is curious,” he interrupted me. “I heard the same argument years ago.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am referring to my dear friend. Félix Koviràn.” Kumo Raïda was two meters away from us; the regulation distance for a killing without blunders or risks. “It was me, you know—for the same reason I am standing here today, it was me who mercifully executed him.”
The revelation came as a shockwave. I barely remembered that fateful day. Half the neighborhood had been burnt to the ground. There were dozens of dead in the streets. Ali fell off the cliff leading to the river, hidden in the mud under steel beams crushing her legs. And my friend Félix… I saw Raï closing his eyes. He must have been going over the same painful memory. How dare he? This scum appeared today as the one responsible!
“He was like a brother to me. As grim as the outcome has been, I am glad I had to kill him myself for betraying his duties. I wouldn’t leave that task to the mechanical executioners the Moon sent after his mischiefs with the Omega,” He paused. “I truly feel sorry for ending the life of his daughter today—but you are, like him, a catastrophe waiting to happen. Whoever flies the Kitty always becomes their own and only enemy…”
The samurai fired. His bullet passed through my visor, cutting the vibrissae of my left cheek. Dazed by the gritty air, I fell on the ground beside Braun.
“I was also sent to Titan for this purpose, you know? Killing the children. But I could not,” Kumo Raïda resumed. “What a fool I was. It was beyond stupidity to let you wander around like that, hoping you will fade in the vast cosmos. The pity I felt for you that day precipitated terrible events…”
“You can shove your pity up your fucking ass!” exclaimed Ali. She immediately punctuated her return to the livings with a series of shots that raised a cloud of brown dust around us.
My human riddled the samurai’s traditional clothes with bullets. Without taking the slightest momentum, Raïda instantly jumped in the air, unfolding a yakata lined with Kevlar. Walking in the void as if by magic, he reached a barbican next to the keep. I heard him fire a third time, but Ali was no longer in his sights. She was with me and Braun in a box stall.
“Lee… I think… my radio’s dead.” I heard Ali panting as she removed my helmet.
“Speaking of dead…” I said before wincing in pain. The bullet had burnt the back of my head by piercing the metallic shell.
“What? The slug embedded itself in my suit’s lining,” she scolded me, massaging her groin. “It’s just a regular internal bleed. That’s where the blood is supposed to be anyway, right?”
“What’s next?” I grumbled, despite the joy of knowing she was safe. “On her perch, Raïda is watching the court as well as the exit!”
“Wriggling around in the air like that, he’ll stay in the open,” Ali answered, throwing her helmet against the wooden wall. “With a covering fire, you can sprint to the Ark for help while I keep Yossef safe. Hopefully, there are still people alive!”
“Alright!”
“Ready?”
“No.”
Pushing me with her foot, Ali opened fire towards the dungeon. But the samurai was no longer there. It was time to take advantage of it! I immediately ran but was stopped in my tracks when a bullet pierced my leg from behind, pinning me to the ground.
It was impossible unless… “Ali! Up there!”
As incredible as it could be, Kumo Raïda stood motionless in the air just above me, as if suspended from the orange clouds. I learned by the movement of his shadow that he was preparing a second shot to finish me off. Faster, my human retaliated. Unbalanced, the samurai aimed too far to the left and tripped.
This interlude allowed Ali to come and get me. Crossing the rest of the courtyard, she broke down the iron door leading to the dungeon’s first floor.
“Damn! Lee? Are you okay?”
“The bullet went through—what is this place?” I asked before lumping on black tatami mats.
The painting occupying the huge wall facing us was unequivocal. Kumo Raïda, younger, was depicted with all the members of his family. All were wearing space suits inspired by feudal Japan’s traditional armors.
After barricading the door, my partner had joined me in the center of the room and subtly let her surprise show: “Dang! We’re at Raï’s place!”
“This is the Kumo do Raida…. No… Kurau do Reidā clan’s home,” I concluded, wincing in pain. “The honorable secret armed hand of the Metacastes.”
“Never heard of these assholes… did you?” Ali commented, glancing at her wrist-computer as it beeped.
Her implant transcribed the various epitaphs carved in the dark stone pillars through the offline translator. On each of them hung a single sword over a funerary urn which rested within small alcoves illuminated with artificial red candles. We weren’t in a dojo, but in a gloomy chapel bathed in dust.
“One of the altars is empty,” Ali noticed. “But there’s a name on it.”
“It says Akira…” replied the samurai as he climbed down from one of the narrow windows. “The last of the Cloud Riders.” Without giving us a break, our assailant lunged and his sword whistled. It struck my partner’s .50 caliber barrel and deprived her of her weapon, which bounced off the mural. “What do you think you are doing in the castle of my clan?”
“Your clan needs a house cleaner,” mocked my sapiens while holding the samurai’s severe look.
His blade danced under her chin. Only Ali could come up with such nonsense at a time like this.
“I reckon you have the glibness of your father,” the warrior said before rolling the tip of his sword over my human’s heart. “But do you possess his bravery?”
“You keep speaking of my father like I would care about your triflin’ conflicted feelings. Right now, I just want to smash your fucking traitor face, Clown Rider.”