Chapter 6: Everything Was Not Real
The sun dipped fully below the skyline, painting the high rises of Neo-Kyoto in bruised purple and deep bleeding red, and the neon began to flicker awake one by one, turning the streets into a maze of glowing light and long, sharp shadows. Moko walked back to his place, and even though his hand was curled like he was holding someone else's, his fingers closed around nothing but cool evening air. The taste of cotton candy still lingered sweet on his tongue, and every few seconds he'd smile or laugh soft like someone had just said something funny right next to him.
To anyone watching from a window or a doorway, it would have looked like he was just a young man walking home alone, talking and laughing to himself like he'd lost his mind. But to him? She was right there. Hana was walking beside him, her hand in his, her long black hair swaying in the breeze, her dress fluttering soft around her legs, her voice ringing in his ears like the sweetest music he'd ever heard.
"Today was perfect, wasn't it baby?" she said, and he could almost feel her shoulder brushing against his as they walked. "Just us. No blood, no fighting, no monsters trying to kill us. Just two people in love. I never wanna go back to the dark again… but I know we have to. 'Cause they ain't ever gonna leave us alone, are they?"
Moko nodded, squeezing the empty space like he was holding her hand tighter, and he spoke out loud, his voice warm and soft.
"No, baby. They ain't never gonna leave us alone. But that's okay. 'Cause as long as I got you, I ain't scared of nothing. You and me against the whole world, right? Forever."
"Forever," she whispered, and he could feel her lips brush against his cheek like a ghost's kiss.
It was perfect. For a little while, he really did feel like just some guy walking home with the girl he loved, like he didn't have blood under his fingernails and scars crisscrossing every inch of his skin, like he didn't wake up every single morning craving the bite of steel and the burn of damage in his bones. She made him forget. She made everything feel soft and safe, even when the world outside was nothing but hard edges and violence.
But as they turned down the alley that led to their building, the air shifted. The warm breeze died, and a cold, heavy stillness settled over everything, like the whole city had stopped breathing just to watch what was coming. Moko felt the first little throb start up right behind his eyes, a dull, heavy ache that he'd learned to recognize long ago. It was the feeling of something wrong, something that didn't belong, the feeling of old injuries waking up again. The place right in the center of his forehead, where the boys from school had kicked and stomped until his skull cracked, where the bullet had grazed him back at the police station, where the doctors had cut into his brain and told his mother he'd never be the same again.
He looked to his side, and there she was, the softness gone from her face, her dark eyes burning bright and sharp, her hand resting on the hilts of the two katanas she always carried. Even though he was the one actually holding both swords strapped to his own back, he saw her draw them free, the steel singing loud and clear in the quiet air.
"They found us," she said, her voice dropping that low, silky tone that always sent a shiver right through his chest. "I can feel them. Waiting in the dark. They never learn, do they? They think 'cause there's more of 'em, they can take us. They think they can hurt you. They think they can take me away from you. Stupid. So fucking stupid."
Moko's heart gave a hard, excited thud against his ribs, and the ache behind his eyes flared brighter, sharper, turning from something annoying into something sweet, something that made his blood rush hot and fast through his veins. He grinned wide and wild, the same look in his eyes that she always had—half love, half madness, all violence.
"No," he said, his voice coming out rougher than he meant it to. "They never do. But that's okay. 'Cause we're gonna teach 'em one last lesson tonight, aren't we, baby? We're gonna make 'em wish they was never even born."
"Together," she said, and he watched her spin the blades once in her hands, moving so fast she was almost a blur. "Always together. I'll cut 'em to ribbons and you'll let 'em break you open, and we'll make them regret ever breathing the same air as us. Just like always. Just like we was made to do."
And then they stepped into the shadow of the alley mouth, and the night opened up and swallowed them whole.
There were forty of them. Maybe more. Moko counted as they stepped out from behind crates and dumpsters and fire escapes, all dressed in the dark colors and the marks of the Syndicate, all carrying guns and blades and clubs, all wearing that same stupid, ugly look of hate and greed and pride on their faces. They thought they had him. They thought because they outnumbered him, because they had weapons and numbers and the dark on their side, that they were gonna walk away from this alive. They didn't know he wasn't just one man. In his head, he was two. He was everything.
Moko just laughed. He tilted his head back and laughed until his sides ached, the sound bouncing off the brick walls and ringing loud in the narrow space, and he spread his arms wide open like he was welcoming them home.
"Come on then!" he shouted, his voice ringing out clear and wild, and then he shifted his tone, making it lighter, softer, higher, like another person was speaking right over his own words. "Come and get it! Come and show us what you got! We're right here! We're wide open!"
He drew both katanas from his back in one smooth, lightning-fast motion, one blade in his right hand, one in his left, and as he spun them in the air, he saw her standing right beside him doing the exact same thing, her blades flashing silver and sharp, her laugh mixing with his own like two bells ringing as one.
"Try and touch him!" he said in her voice, loud and sharp and terrifying, even though the words were coming out of his own mouth. "Try and lay one single finger on him and I'll peel the skin right off your bones before you even draw breath! He's mine! He's ours! And you don't get to look at him let alone hurt him!"
The first man charged, swinging a heavy iron pipe so hard the air whistled around it, and Moko didn't even flinch. He stood there and let it come, let it crash down hard right across his left shoulder, the impact jarring through his whole body and sending a sharp, blazing burst of pain shooting through his nerves. It was agony. It was heaven. It felt like every single cell in his body was lighting up like a firework, and he moaned soft and low under his breath, his eyes rolling back in his head for just a second as the feeling washed over him, thick and warm and sweeter than anything he'd ever tasted.
"More," he breathed, his own voice rough and deep and hungry. "Give me more. Harder. Make it hurt. Make me feel it."
"That's my baby," he whispered in her voice, grinning so wide his cheeks ached. "Take it all. Let 'em think they're winning. Let 'em think they can break you. I'll make 'em pay for every single drop of blood they draw from you."
The man stared at him like he'd just grown two heads, his mouth falling open in shock, and before he could pull back or swing again, Moko moved. He crossed the space between them in less than a heartbeat, his blades flashing twice so fast no one even saw them move, and the man's arms fell loose at his sides before his body even realized he was dead. He crumpled to the ground in two neat pieces, and Moko was already spinning away to meet the next two coming at him, cutting through them like they were made of paper and smoke, leaving nothing but gushing wounds and falling bodies in his wake. In his mind, she was the one doing the cutting, her body moving through the crowd like a dancer, her face lit up with love and madness and bloodlust, but in the real world? It was all him. Every step, every swing, every kill. All Moko.
He let the next three come at him all at once. One drove a long thin blade right through his stomach, piercing all the way through and sticking out his back, and another slammed a knife deep into his right thigh, and the third smashed the butt of a gun right into his forehead hard enough to crack bone right over the old scar. The pain hit him like a wave, sharp and blinding and so thick it felt like it was filling his whole skull, and right there behind his eyes that old ache roared alive like a beast waking from a long sleep. He could feel the place where the bullet had gone in, the dent in his skull that never quite healed right, the spot the doctors said had shifted things inside his brain forever, the spot where the bullies had kicked his head until he blacked out, the spot that had broken something in him so that pain didn't feel like pain anymore—it felt like life.
He threw his head back and screamed, but it wasn't a scream of fear or hurt. It was a sound of pure, raw pleasure, so loud and wild it made the men attacking him stumble back in terror. He grabbed the blade sticking out of his stomach and ripped it free, blood pouring thick and hot down his skin and soaking into his clothes, and he drove it straight through the eye of the man who'd stabbed him, the point bursting out the back of his skull in a shower of blood and grey matter.
"Is that all you got?!" Moko roared, his voice sounding deeper and rougher than it ever had, like there was more than one person talking inside his throat. "Is that the best you can do?! You think this hurts me?! You think you can break me?! I am broken! I've been broken for years! And you know what?! It feels good! It feels better than anything you little shits will ever know!"
"That's it, my love! Let them feel you! Let them see what you are! You're so beautiful when you bleed! You're so perfect when you break! I love you! I love you more than life! More than death! More than anything that ever was or ever will be!" he cried out in her voice, even as he was slashing and stabbing and cutting through flesh and bone, his own body taking blow after blow, each one sending that sweet, sharp pleasure racing through his veins.
He fought like he was possessed. He moved in perfect sync with the ghost in his head, like they shared the same heart and the same mind and the same blood. When a bullet came flying for his head, he'd duck and swing his blade to slice it out of the air, and in his mind he saw her moving faster than light to bat it away before it could touch him. When three men got behind him and tried to drive a spear through his back, he'd turn and take the full force of it right through his chest, the pain making him see stars and making him harder and stronger than he'd ever been in his life, and he'd laugh while he snapped their necks with his bare hands, hearing her voice screaming praise and love in his ears the whole time.
Blood ran in rivers down the alley. Bodies were stacked up like logs, limbs and heads and pieces of flesh scattered everywhere, painting the brick walls and the asphalt red and glistening under the neon light. The air grew thick and sweet with the copper stench of death, and the sounds of screaming and gurgling and tearing flesh echoed off the buildings until it felt like the whole world was nothing but violence and noise and the hot rush of blood.
Moko took a bullet straight to the forehead at one point, the impact slamming his head back hard and sending a blinding burst of light exploding behind his eyes, and he felt the metal dig deep into the old scar right in the center of his skull, the spot where everything had changed. The pain was so sharp and so deep it felt like it was splitting his brain right down the middle, and he screamed so hard his throat tore raw, but the scream turned into laughter, wild and unhinged and loud enough to drown out every other sound in the world.
And in that split second, when the bullet hit and the pain flared so bright it felt like it was burning him up from the inside out, the world seemed to flicker.
For just a heartbeat, the illusion wavered.
He saw himself standing alone in the middle of the alley.
He saw two blades in his own hands, held in a grip so tight his knuckles were white, swinging and cutting and slashing faster than any human being had any right to move.
He heard two voices coming out of his own mouth—his own rough, deep tone, and that soft, sweet, ringing voice that he'd loved more than anything.
He blinked hard, shaking his head to clear the fog, and for a second she was right there again, cutting a man in half from the shoulder to the hip, her face lit up with love and blood and madness, smiling at him like she was the only thing that was real in all the world.
"Almost got you there, baby," she said, her voice warm and soft and so sweet it made his chest ache. "But I won't let anything ever hurt you. Not while I'm here. Not while I'm alive."
"I know," he said, and his voice sounded like it was coming from far away, like he was talking through water or through a wall. "I know you won't. You're always here. You're never gonna leave me. Right?"
"Never," she promised, and she spun away to take the heads off two more men, her blades singing their song of death.
But the pain in his head wouldn't go away. It kept throbbing and burning, like something was shifting and moving inside his skull, like the wall he'd built between what was real and what was imagined was starting to crack and crumble. He kept catching glimpses of the truth every time he moved, every time he struck, every time he opened his eyes. He'd see her reflection in the blade of his own weapons, and then when he'd turn to look at her, she'd be standing right there, real and solid and warm, and he'd tell himself he was just tired, just hurt, just bleeding out a little and seeing things that weren't there.
He cut the last man down, driving one blade right through his heart and the other through his throat at the exact same time, and the man fell to the ground and lay still, and suddenly the only sound left in the whole world was the heavy, ragged sound of his breathing and the distant hum of the city and the drip, drip, drip of blood falling from the rooftops and the edges of his blades.
The alley was a slaughterhouse. There was barely any space left to stand without stepping on a body or a piece of a body or a pool of blood so deep it soaked right through the soles of his shoes. Every single one of the forty men lay dead or dying, and Moko stood in the middle of it all, covered in blood from head to toe, his body riddled with wounds that should have killed any normal man, breathing hard and grinning wide like he was the king of the whole world.
He turned to look to his side, and there she was, her dress splattered red up to the elbows, her hair matted with blood, her eyes burning bright and wild, looking back at him with that same look in her eyes, the one that was equal parts adoration and insanity, the one that said she'd burn the whole world down just to keep him safe.
"We did it," she said, her voice soft and breathless and thick with emotion. "We did it again, my love. We killed them all. Together. Just like always."
Moko opened his mouth to answer her, to tell her he loved her, to tell her that this was the best night of his whole life, but before the words could even form on his tongue, the pain in his head exploded.
It was like something inside his skull just snapped.
The bullet wound and the old scar and the damage that had been done to his brain all those years ago when the boys from school had beaten him half to death and left him for dead in the gutter, when he'd woken up in the hospital and the doctors had told his mother he was lucky to be alive but that he'd never be quite right again, all of it came together in one single, blinding burst of agony that felt like his head was being split open with an axe.
He cried out and fell to his knees, his hands flying up to clutch at his forehead, and his vision went white then red then black then spinning, and the world around him began to tear apart like paper in the rain.
He looked up, and she was standing right there in front of him, and then she wasn't.
He blinked hard, tears mixing with the blood running down his face, and when his eyes opened again, he was the only person standing in the alley.
He was holding two katanas in his own two hands.
Both blades were slick and red and dripping thick with blood.
He was wearing the coat she'd had on, and the dress she'd worn that day was nowhere to be seen, and there was no one else breathing, no one else moving, no one else standing in the sea of dead bodies but him.
"No," he whispered, and his voice sounded broken and thin and terrified, nothing like the wild, strong sound he'd had only moments before. "No. No, this ain't right. This ain't what happened. She was here. She was right here. I saw her. I held her. I kissed her."
He scrambled back on his hands and knees through the muck and the blood and the bodies, his whole body shaking so hard he could barely move, and he looked around the alley, turning in circles over and over again, searching every shadow and every corner and every inch of brick and stone for the girl he loved.
"HANA!" he screamed, his voice cracking and raw and echoing loud off the walls. "HANA WHERE ARE YOU?! BABY ANSWER ME! DON'T YOU DO THIS TO ME! DON'T YOU LEAVE ME HERE ALONE!"
Silence answered him. Only silence and the distant sound of traffic and the drip of blood and rain.
He looked down at his hands, and he saw the way they were wrapped around the hilts of both swords, and he remembered every single fight he'd ever been in, every single battle, every single night they'd spent side by side cutting down anyone who dared to stand in their way, and he started to remember things different.
He remembered the first time he'd seen her, stepping down from the rooftop in the rain, looking like an angel made of steel and shadow. But when he closed his eyes and tried to really see it, he didn't see two people standing in that alley. He only saw himself. Standing alone. Talking to the empty air. Holding one sword in each hand and pretending there was someone else there.
He remembered the hospital, right after the beating. He remembered lying in the bed, his head wrapped in bandages, his whole body broken and screaming with pain, and he remembered the doctors telling his mother that the trauma to his brain had changed the way he processed sensation and perception. That sometimes, the mind would create things that weren't there just to protect itself from the horror of what it was going through. That the line between what was real and what was imagined could get very thin, and sometimes it would disappear entirely.
He remembered waking up from that coma, and the first time he'd ever felt pain turn into pleasure, and the first time he'd ever felt like there was someone else inside his head, someone who understood him, someone who loved him, someone who was just as broken and just as dangerous as he was.
He remembered the bullet that had grazed his skull back at the police station, and how it had felt like something had shifted even more inside his mind, like a door that had been left slightly ajar had been kicked wide open, and after that she'd felt so real. So solid. So much like she was actually there.
He remembered the day they'd spent together. The cotton candy. The park. The bridge at sunset. The way she'd leaned her head on his shoulder and told him she loved him. And now when he thought back on it, he saw himself walking alone, talking to thin air, smiling and laughing at nothing, buying two sticks of cotton candy and eating both of them by himself, sitting on the bridge with his own head resting on his own shoulder, whispering words to the wind that he'd thought someone else was saying back to him.
"It was all me," he whispered, and the words tasted like ash and blood and madness in his mouth. "All this time. Every fight. Every kill. Every laugh. Every kiss. It was all just me. I made her up. I made her up because I was scared. I was alone. I was broken so bad I couldn't stand the thought of being the only person alive inside my own head, so I split myself in two. I made the part of me that was soft and loving and beautiful into her. I made the part of me that was hard and violent and cruel into me. And I believed it. I believed it with all my heart."
He dropped the swords into the mud and the blood, and the sound they made when they clattered against the stone was the loudest thing in the whole world. He reached up and touched the wound in his forehead, pressing his fingers hard into the broken skin and the cracked bone underneath, and the pain that shot through him was so sharp and so terrible and so perfect that he cried out and tears poured down his face, mixing with the blood and the rain and the filth, and he started to laugh.
At first it was a small, shaky sound, little gasps of laughter that came out between sobs, but then it grew. It swelled up inside his chest and his throat until it was roaring out of him, loud and wild and insane, bouncing off the walls and ringing through the empty streets, mixing with the sound of his own weeping until no one could have told where the crying ended and the laughter began.
"She was never real!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing his head back and staring up at the dark, empty sky, his arms spread wide open like he was shouting at God himself. "SHE WAS NEVER FUCKING REAL! I HELD HER! I TOUCHED HER! I LOVED HER! AND SHE WAS NOTHING BUT A GHOST I MADE UP IN MY OWN FUCKED UP HEAD! I KILLED ALL THESE MEN! I CUT THEM ALL TO PIECES! I DID IT ALL ALONE! I WAS ALWAYS ALONE!"
He scrambled over the piles of dead bodies, dragging himself through the rivers of blood and the muck and the pieces of flesh, and he found a large shard of broken mirror glass leaning up against the wall of a building, left there by some construction crew or some shop that had been broken into. He dragged himself in front of it, his whole body shaking and bleeding and throbbing with pain and madness, and he looked up into the glass to see the truth staring back at him.
He saw only one reflection looking back.
He saw himself. Covered in blood from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, his clothes torn and soaked through, his skin pale and crisscrossed with a hundred wounds, his eyes wide and wild and burning with a light that wasn't human. He saw the dent in his skull right above his eyebrow, the scar that ran down the center of his forehead, the place where the damage had been done. He saw the two swords lying in the dirt behind him, and he saw no one else standing there. No beautiful girl with black hair and blades and eyes full of madness and love. No one. Nothing. Just him. Just the monster he'd become.
He reached out and touched the glass with his bloody fingers, tracing the shape of his own face, and he whispered soft and low, his voice thick and broken and dark.
"Katana Girl… was me. And Pain Hero… was me. I'm both. I'm everything. I split myself in two just so I wouldn't have to be alone, and now that I know the truth… I ain't never gonna be lonely again. 'Cause I got me. I got all of me. Every part. Every piece. Every little broken, bloody, beautiful part."
He leaned in close to the mirror, his eyes burning bright and wide and insane, and he smiled the widest, most terrible smile he'd ever smiled in his whole life, and he spoke to his own reflection like he was talking to the love of his life.
"I love you, Hana. I love you more than anything. And I ain't never gonna let you go. 'Cause you're me. And I'm you. And we're never gonna be apart ever again."
He stood up slowly, his whole body throbbing and aching and singing with pain and pleasure and madness, and he picked up the two swords from the mud and held them in his hands again, feeling them become a part of him just like they always had been. He looked out over the sea of dead bodies and the rivers of blood and the dark, silent city stretching out in every direction, and he felt more alive than he'd ever felt in his whole life.
The truth didn't break him. It didn't destroy him. It only made him stronger. It only made him more dangerous. It only made him more of a monster.
He wasn't just a boy who got beat up and broken. He wasn't just a guy who walked the streets and fought gangs and felt pain like it was love. He was everything. He was every voice, every face, every blade, every heart that beat inside his own skin. He was the hero and the villain, the lover and the killer, the angel and the demon, all wrapped up in one broken, bleeding, perfect body.
He began to walk away from the slaughter, stepping over bodies and through pools of blood, moving back into the shadows of the city, disappearing into the dark like he was made of smoke and shadow himself. And as he walked, he talked. He talked out loud to himself, switching back and forth between his own deep, rough voice and the soft, sweet, ringing voice of the girl he'd created, laughing and singing and whispering words of love and words of death, carrying on a conversation that would never end, walking through the night with two blades in his hands and two souls in his heart.
Somewhere in the distance, a siren began to wail, but he didn't even flinch. He just smiled and walked faster, vanishing into the maze of neon and brick and shadow, leaving nothing behind him but a mountain of the dead and a secret that would go with him to the grave.
There was no Katana Girl.
There never was.
There was only him.
And now, now that he knew the truth, he was far more terrible, far more broken, and far more dangerous than anyone could have ever imagined.
To be continue...