February 5th, 1981
“Dr. Sokolov, I presume?” the young man asked in Japanese. He was tall, for a Japanese man, at 180cm and dressed sparsely for the cold, Hokkaido winter with just a light jacket and jeans. And yet, for some reason, he was not so much as shivering and, even stranger still, there were no clouds of condensation coming from his breaths.
“Y-yes, indeed,” Dr. Ilya Sokolov said, eyeing his confronter. He had a… normal looking face. For some reason, the twenty-five year old biological engineering genius could not make out any distinguishing facial features of the young man. He could tell that he was probably in his early twenties, and asian, but other than that, nothing else. The Japanese dialect sounded familiar too but, once again, he somehow could not pinpoint the origin. Ironically, the oddest thing was that he could not accept that it was odd at all. Ilya took off his round, rimless glasses and cleaned them with a microfiber cleaning cloth before putting them back on and staring at the man again.
“I’m using a device that prevents others from remembering what I look or sound like, if that’s what’s confusing you,” the man said, taking a drink from his coffee. They were outside a shabby looking cafe, though that did not particularly distinguish it from anywhere else in Hokkaido. Ever since the soviets took control after the second World War, everything in Hokkaido looked drab and gray, barring a few historical landmarks and some tightly controlled tourist destinations.
“Then you must be Akakabuto,” Ilya said, leaning in and whispering. Akakabuto merely nodded in confirmation as his eyes scanned the area. The street was a far cry from the outdoor shopping centers of the American Commonwealth of Japan but there was still the occasional passerby. Mostly older people, housewives, and the occasional midday drunk.
“There’s been a change in plans, we have to leave now,” Akakabuto said. He got up and started walking away from the table, bringing his coffee with him.
“Wait, my fiance-,” Ilya said, protesting as he got up to follow the odd yet not odd man.
“Kikabuto has already extracted her. Thoroughly tore through your house, made it look like she was kidnapped,” Akakabuto explained. It was better that way, it meant that the Soviets were less likely to hold her family responsible for fleeing. Plus it would look like someone had held her hostage to force Dr. Sokolov to obey them.
A silent, twenty minute taxi ride later, Akakabuto handed over a fat wad of Soviet rubles to the taxi driver and helped Ilya out. An even fatter stack of rubles got them past the gate guard and into the docks. They headed past some shipping containers and almost made it to the water’s edge when five armed men popped out of nowhere, pointing AK-74 assault rifles at them.
“I was wondering why a strange, unidentifiable man showed up out of nowhere. Looks like he was trying to steal away our dear Dr. Sokolov,” One of the men said in Russian-accented Japanese. He was dressed far more casually than a soldier, sporting an American-style bomber jacket instead of an army uniform with a patch that indicated that he was a Soviet sergeant and letter codes that indicated that he was a member of the famous Obmorozheniya (Frostbite) unit. Two of the men lowered their guns and pulled Ilya out of the way. “Shoot the asian.”
“Henshin,” Akakabuto said, crushing the coffee cup in his hand. There was a badge of sorts hidden in it which caused some sort of flash of light, through it lasted only long enough for the soldiers to have realized it happened and was somehow not bright at all. Not that they cared. What they noticed was that, in place of the tall asian man was a man in a crimson bodysuit and what appeared to be a mix between a samurai helmet and a motorcycle full face helmet. Honestly, it was a pretty ugly design.
A blink of an eye later, four of the soldiers were down and out and the last one, the leader in the bomber jacket, had thrust his arm forwards. Icicles flew towards Akakabuto, though he swatted them away, and caught one. The russian soldier grinned as ice began creeping up Akakabuto’s white glove. That was put to a stop though as flames ripped down the length of his arms and melted the ice clean off. Akakabuto threw a stream of fire at his opponent’s head but it was lazily dodged.
“Fire versus ice huh? I should have figured I’d be stuck fighting Akakabuto,” the soviet said, lamenting his disadvantage and poor luck. “I’d really rather not have to kill a fellow super but it’ll be pretty hard for me to hold back.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Didn’t you just gleefully tell your men to shoot me back then?” Akakabuto said in reply, throwing a few more fire lances and dodging a few icicles himself. It was an odd spectacle, the acrobatic and flowing movements of Akakabuto and the quick, but minimal movements of the soviet.
“Hey, I said shoot, not kill,” he answered, narrowly dodging a fire blast that singed the tips of his boots. “Wait, where are you going?”
Akakabuto had grabbed Ilya and leapt off the dock, ignoring the doctor’s shouts of panic. The soviet soldier threw one last icicle, this time it was thinner and faster, as though it actually had thought in effort put into it, compared to the earlier ones. Akakabuto kicked off fire from his feet, melting the icicle mid-flight and giving himself a minor rocket boost to propel him further. Independent flight was a pipe dream for him, let alone whilst carrying another man, but it was enough. A pod came out from under the sea and opened up, allowing the two of them to land in it. It quickly closed back up and submerged.
Suddenly, an icicle, about 2 cm thick, smashed through the hull, punched a hole through Akakabuto’s chest, and through the other side of the miniature submarine. The smell of gas started to permeate the tiny, still pressurized, area. If the icicles holding the pressure in were not enough to dissuade Akakabuto from using his powers, the gas definitely was.
“Shit,” he swore. The shock meant there was no pain at first, but that probably was not going to last long, He was coughing up blood already. Sure, he could have just heated up his body enough to melt the icicles in his body, but then he would be bleeding far more quickly. If he was not afraid of the gas leak, he would have done that anyways and just cauterized the wound.
“It went through your lung,” the doctor said, his breathing more ragged than usual. He reached over in that tiny, cramped space to help out but Akakabuto shrugged him off, taking care not to break the icicle.
“Let’s not flood ourselves,” he said, waving at the breaches in the hull. “It’s a thirty minute trip til we’re out of enemy waters and can surface then rendezvous with the coast guard vessel.”
“You could be dead by then,” the doctor protested.
“So be it. My mission was to get you out alive and make sure you can reunite with your fiance, even at the cost of my own life. Consider that my Japanese pride. My bushido if you will,” Akakabuto said, the last part with a bit of a laugh that he immediately regretted doing as he coughed up more blood inside his helmet. Probably not the best time to be making dumb jokes.
“Can you at least tell me your real name?” Ilya said, a long pause later.
“Tetsuo, Kurogane Tetsuo,” he said.
“Then I swear on my own Japanese pride, my own bushido that if I make it and you do not, I will everything I can to repay you,” Ilya said, solemnly.
“You’re not even Japanese,” Akakabuto said, trying not to laugh at Ilya’s mimicry of him.
“Sapporo, born and raised,” Ilya said, defending himself.
“I suppose that’s good enough for me,” Tetsuo laughed, coughing up some more blood.
“It’s a beautiful city you know?” Ilya spoke slowly and deliberately, “Not like the rest of Hokkaido, It’s actually somewhat of a tourist destination. Lots of color, lots of people. They’re just as miserable as everyone else but they’re at least miserable together. There’s this tiny hole in the wall ramen place three blocks north of the Sapporo Station, next to a store that sold yukatas. Used to eat there all the time...”
He kept talking for the next thirty minutes, obviously trying to minimize Tetsuo’s suffering. Tetsuo appreciated it nonetheless and listened intently, taking in every word as they may be the last ones he ever heard. Eventually, the submersible surfaced and the top opened up, revealing clear blue sky and a Japanese Coast Guard boat lowering a ladder down to them.
“I’ll have to remember that. Maybe I’ll visit it one day, maybe in my next life…” his voice trailed off and his eyes closed again for likely the last time.