The 47th samurai

“Let them out, goddammit,” he screamed, “then kill them.”

What a good idea, everyone understood, and the crowding at the doorways immediately broke out as the raiders made way and the yakuza spilled out into the falling snow. There was a moment of near poetry, if the death even of evil men can be considered poetic.

Someone’s flash-bang went off in the crowd of fighters. It was a moment with the snow falling in the gentle Japanese fashion, and behind the screen of lulling white, men were briefly isolated by the flare of white chemical light in postures of attack and defense, the cuts stopped in midflight so that the whole had the clarity of one of Kuniyoshi’s woodcuts, an orchestration of muted color and delicate grace though applied to the subject of maximum violence. Fujikawa wished he had seventeen syllables at his command to press into a poem, but then he remembered he was a soldier, and he rushed forward, sword in hand, looking eagerly for someone to kill, aware that the chance to fight with a sword would never arrive at his doorstep again and he’d better take advantage of it.

The raid caught the great Kondo in an unfortunate position. He was in the shower, performing ablutions, readying for the next day’s events, when the first bomb went off, followed by three more.

His first thought: Fuck!

He knew immediately that by some magic, the gaijin had located them. He had a moment’s rage for the fellow’s guile and wondered who had helped him, and imagined their heads on the table next to the gaijin’s.

He got out, threw on his robe-naked, they caught me naked!-and edged quickly to the door. His bathroom was on the second floor, above the living room. He edged down the hall, looking for a view of the events, to decide upon an action. Though he couldn’t see much, he noted shadows on the wall from a stairway leading downstairs. The violence of the shadow-work dancing hard on the wall conveyed the violence of actuality. Then another flash-bang went off.

By chance he’d been looking directly at it and the brightness stu

Fuck!

He knew he could not retreat into the bathroom, for to do so would equal his death or his capture, actually the same thing. Yet he could not go back to his room where his swords were, because he could not see.

He heard the rising screams and smashing of fists, flesh, and swords as the fighting rose and knew that his men had been engaged by a force as large as they. He yearned to rush to his swords, claim them, and turn, whirling with violent purpose into the melee, cutting and cutting and cutting, knowing that he could turn the tide.

But he was blind.

He thought, The bathroom window.

It was a low drop-say ten feet to earth.

Blindly, he groped his way back to the bathroom window, slid it open, tried to remember exactly where the bathroom was with regard to the floor plan of the estate, realized that thinking cost him time and he had no time, so he launched himself forward, fell through cold space, and hit the ground with a thud.

“There’s one,” someone said, “grab him.”

In seconds four men had him.

“Give it up, brother. We won’t kill you if you surrender.”

“Don’t hurt me,” he said, going limp and sad. “I am a cook. Please, I only work here, don’t hurt me.”

Miwa tried to be calm. He listened to the general roar outside and understood what was happening. His only thought was to escape, but of course he was too frightened to attempt such a thing on his own. Therefore he assumed that Kondo, the ever-loyal retainer, would come for him.

After a few minutes, he realized that Kondo would not come for him.

Cursing his luck, he crawled to the doorway, slipped it open half an inch, and saw the same shadows on the wall that Kondo had seen.

They really frightened him.

He fought panic.

He thought, If I can hide, I will survive. They ca

On all fours, he scrambled down the hallway, found steps downstairs, and like a snake, slithered down, into darkness.

“Please don’t hurt me, I am a cook,” Kondo said, as the arms locked him down, and someone pi

“He’s nothing,” said a raider. “Akira, take him to the courtyard; we’ll continue.”

Three of his captors dashed away to join the general melee, still intense behind them.

“Come on, asshole,” said the remaining raider, “get going. Christ, you’re not even dressed, you poor son of a bitch.”

True, he wasn’t dressed, but Kondo blinked and watched as the strobes flashing in his brain shut down. He blinked again, watched vision assemble itself out of sparkly chaos, and he found himself alone in the backyard with his assailant, his arm pi

“Sir, my arm?” he said.

“Shut up,” said the raider, or perhaps meant to say, but somewhere between the Sh and the ut, Kondo got leverage, hit the man with a left-handed dragon punch out of the most basic aikido text, knocked the man to the snow, then drove a palm into his temple with a thud, not knowing whether he’d killed him or not.

He felt the man collapse with a groan.

He snatched up the man’s sword, a good utilitarian cutter, and went to the wall. He was over it in a single bound, lay on the other side, breathing hard, waiting to see if anybody had followed him.

No.

He stood, naked but for the robe, and ran barefoot through the snow. He found a nearby house, broke a window, and entered. He raced upstairs to face a scared man and his wife in bed. “You stay there or I’ll kill you. Now, I need some clothes. And a cell phone.”

Nii got the door open and stepped into the white room. All was dark. To the left he recalled a light switch and, not thinking clearly, popped it. The room leapt to view, all its detail brilliantly exposed-the knotted bed, the television, the painted white window, all of it, white, white, white. But where was the child? A bolt of panic knocked through him, then fear: he could not fail. He ran to the bed, pulling it apart to find nothing, dropped low and looked under it, saw nothing. Then he thought to touch the sheets, found them warm.

She’s hiding, you fool! he thought.

He raced to the closet, pulled it open, finding nothing. That left only the bathroom. He ran to it, pulled the door. It was locked from within. That’s where she was!

“Little Girl, open the door! You will be in big trouble if you don’t open the door! Little Girl, do what I say, damn you.”

The door was silent and still.

Outside, the din of fighting rose to a still higher pitch, the grunts, the shouts, the cries of being struck, the thud of strikes. A part of Nii yearned to join the battle. But he had duty.

“Little Girl! Little Girl, I am getting mad!”

But the child said nothing.

“All right,” he said, “you’ll be sorry.”

With that, he drew back and with his katana began to cut at the door, which, being a cheap and typical modern product, quickly splintered under the assault. He watched it dissolve with three or four great whacks, and when a ragged gap had been cut through it large enough for his shoulder and arm, he reached in, found the lock, and popped it.

Then he heard someone shout, “Back off, fatso.”

He turned, furious, and found himself confronted by what appeared to be an actual Mutant Ninja Turtle. Donatello? Or maybe one of the others. Leo? Raph? That is to say, his antagonist was unusually tiny and thin, dressed all in black, and had a single eye protruding from a mask.

Suddenly the turtle reached up and flicked off its heavy eyepiece and as the thing flew away, it pulled the hair loose and the hair cascaded free, a dark torrent, long and beautiful, and Nii realized he was facing a woman.