Eternity in Kyoto, page 20
We had a clear path to enter undetected.
Next, we slid down to land on the sacred ground. After unhooking the ropes from our harnesses, we found ourselves surrounded by graves. That confirmed we had entered through the cemetery, at the back of the temple. The humid summer mist wreathed the tombs like a veil. The six-story pagoda emerged through the thickness of the trees like part of the mountain’s vegetation. Mist clung to the roof of the temple, giving it a ghostly aura.
A sudden rustling among the bushes surrounding the graves made every hair on my body stand on end. Reiko nudged me and whispered:
“Don’t worry, it’s a tanuki raccoon dog.”
I looked through the bushes and could make out the outline of that strange animal. It looked like a giant, chubby weasel with tiny legs. Its eyes gleamed in the darkness as it moved slowly, sniffing the ground for fallen berries.
A crow perched on one of the graves seemed to give us a disapproving look.
Huddled behind a stone lantern, Reiko checked the maps loaded on her phone. According to the plan, to avoid triggering any motion sensors, we had to enter the main temple pavilion through a very narrow vent that only Reiko could fit into. We crept quickly and stealthily from one stone lantern to another, until we reached the back of the pavilion where the vent opening was. She slipped inside with feline agility.
Following the plan, I carried on alone, skirting the temple building until I reached a corner from where I could see the courtyard and the main entrance. The moon was high in the sky, illuminating the compound with its milky glow.
In the center of the garden, facing the temple’s access stairs, a statue with a human silhouette stood out in the dim light. The crow cawed from the cemetery before flying to perch on the temple roof, directly above me. A slight gust of wind caused cedar leaves to fall. Some kind of big round seed also dropped from a tree, rolling down the stairs with a dry, rhythmic tapping.
Hidden under a low roof, I waited for Reiko to open a window from the inside. The air was so humid and thick it was hard to breathe. Sweat trickled down my forehead into my eyes, blurring my vision and making me feel that the statue was observing me.
The crow cawed again, as if warning me of something.
I took a step out of the shadow of the temple to get a better look at the statue watching over the courtyard. It seemed to me that one of the statue’s arms had moved.
Was I still in Kyoto Mythos? I reached behind my ear and felt the small bump of the last remaining freckle.
Another gust of wind cleared the mist for a moment. It wasn’t a statue, but one of Genji Corporation’s guards. He was heading toward me. Several LEDs began to glow on his face, beneath his helmet. Without my thermal suit, he would have detected my presence earlier.
The crow cawed again several times, and the guard looked up at it.
I hid back in the shadow of the temple building. As I did so, I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped in fright.
“Don’t move,” whispered Reiko’s voice behind me, coming through an open window.
I reached for Reiko’s hand, and despite the danger, her warm touch made me feel safe. With the other hand, I slid the window open wider and climbed through it to the temple interior.
We were in a tiny room barely the size of six tatami mats. The dim light of several candles revealed golden walls. Hanging on one wall was a painting of a phoenix flying toward the sky, escaping from a widespread fire below it. It made me think of my conversation with the phoenix Feng Huang in Kyoto Mythos about the power of time to destroy everything that has ever existed or will exist. I also remembered that Feng Huang had entrusted me with finding the Kusanagi sword.
With the dim candlelight at our backs, we cautiously advanced down a corridor with creaking floorboards. According to our maps, the door at the end of the corridor led to the main hall of the temple.
The door was locked with a padlock, something we had anticipated. Trying to control my nerves, I took bolt cutters from my backpack and, gritting my teeth, applied all my strength until the padlock broke. The noise reverberated inside the temple. When the echoes of the noise had died down, we opened the door cautiously. Just as our maps had shown us, a set of stairs led to a basement where the chest with the sword was located.
As we descended the stairs, we heard footsteps creaking on the wooden floor of the corridor we had just walked along. We wondered if the guard was coming to check the source of the unusual noises. We closed the door behind us, but it was impossible to put the padlock back in place from the inside.
Once in the basement, we made our way to the center of a room filled with bronze Buddhas. They all gazed toward a greenish chest resting on a small altar illuminated by candles. As I took a step toward the chest, I felt a chill. Irrational fear suddenly paralyzed me. The Buddhas seemed to be staring at me, judging what I was about to do, and even judging my entire life up to that moment. I found myself questioning was real and what was not.
I closed my eyes to escape those thoughts but then I was overwhelmed by a sense of panic and confusion that was almost physically painful. For a moment, I was tempted to collapse onto the tatami and give up. Then I felt Reiko’s warm touch on my shoulder, her hand caressing the freckle behind my ear. I remembered her words: “Promise me you won’t be a coward.”
Gathering courage, I advanced toward the chest and opened it. There was the Kusanagi sword, lying on the velvet lining of the chest, covered in rust and imperfections after spending so much time at the bottom of the sea. At first glance, it didn’t look like one of Japan’s three most important treasures.
As I was about to grab it, I once again felt a mysterious force paralyzing me, maybe a kind of warning that I was about to desecrate something sacred, and that doing so would bring a terrible curse upon me. After a few seconds of hesitation, I pulled the sword out of the chest. With a triumphant gesture, I turned to show it to Reiko. To my surprise, she fell to her knees on the tatami like a dead weight, revealing the figure of the guard behind her. With one blow from his baton, he had knocked her out, and she lay unconscious on the tatami. The LEDs on his helmet pointed toward me.
Remembering Reiko’s words—“We’ll only use the guns in case of emergency”—I drew the 9mm with my free hand. But as soon as I did, the Genji guard struck my arm with the baton.
In pain, I dropped both the pistol and the sword, which fell onto the tatami beside Reiko’s body.
I was left with only jujutsu to combat the adversary who was ready to subdue me, just as he had done with Reiko.
Without a second thought, I leaped to lift my legs in the air and executed a flying juji gatame. It was the first time I had used that hold in a real fight. It was a risky move, but it caught him by surprise. Wrapping my legs around him, I grabbed one of his arms and brought him down. I bent his arm, applying leverage until he began to scream in pain. Two more guards came running down the stairs. I left the first guard writhing on the floor, and crawled to retrieve my pistol.
Lying on the tatami, I shot at the foot of one of the two guards running toward me. The first shot missed, but the second hit its mark, causing him to fall to his knees.
Too late . . . The other one reached me and disarmed me with a blow.
With me on the ground and my enemy standing, I lost hope. The first guard I had taken down with the juji gatame had recovered and was also coming for me. On the stairs coming down to the basement, I saw the unmistakable light of Kamyu’s bionic eye.
“Our savior,” I thought.
Kamyu strangled one of the guards from behind. The other guard swung his baton toward Kamyu’s ribs, but Kamyu managed to dodge it and counterattacked with a punch. The guard fell onto one of the statues.
After leaving the three of them practically incapacitated, I saw Kamyu swaying strangely. Moments later, he collapsed unconscious.
When I tried to get up, I realized it was impossible; my strength was leaving me, and I was short of breath. I realized too late that the guard I had shot had just thrown a gas bomb. They were protected by helmets, but we had no escape. With one last breath, my instinct led me to caress Reiko’s arm with one hand, while gripping the Kusanagi sword with the other. I felt myself sinking with it into the depths of an abyss.
38
THE STORY OF THE SWORD
I was awakened by a gentle nudge from Reiko. We were sitting on a leather sofa, and in front of us was a tray with green tea and a bowl of dried fruit. Through a glass window, dawn was breaking over Kyoto.
I was dizzy and still struggling to focus my vision due to the effects of the gas. A little beyond Reiko, sitting in a chair next to the sofa, I could see Kamyu.
I didn’t know this room, but I knew we were on the west side of Kyoto because below us the Golden Pavilion glittered in the morning sun, which was beginning to rise behind the mountains where we had carried out our mission.
“Good job, guys,” said a slim, middle-aged man behind us.
From Reiko’s disdainful expression, I knew that this must be the person who had captured us after gassing us.
The man took a seat on the other side of the table with his back to the window. He wore a navy suit with a striped tie. On his wrist, I noticed a limited edition watch, designed years ago, that only a few millionaires had been able to afford.
“Dear Reiko, you’ll never learn that Masa lacks style,” he said, ignoring my presence.
“Well, maybe you have style, but you’re an unscrupulous loudmouth.”
“I find it ironic that you talk to me about scruples when you work for him. You broke into our temple to steal something that doesn’t belong to you and you shot someone.”
Our elegant captor lifted his teacup and, after the first sip, turned to me.
“Forgive me for not introducing myself, Nathan. I’m Roku, the CEO of Genji Corporation. My men offered you a job when you arrived in Kyoto, but you let that opportunity pass you by.”
“I remember being attacked by your men and having to run out of the sushi restaurant,” I replied. My mouth was dry and my eyes felt gritty.
“Sometimes we use unorthodox methods. Masa is allied with the government and the imperial house. We play at a disadvantage, so we have to resort to force and industrial espionage/ But it’s you who started using guns.” He smiled, making a playful gesture with his hands like a Wild West gunslinger. “Bang, bang!”
“We risked our lives to recover the Kusanagi sword, which belongs to Masa.”
“Masa may have told you he rescued it from the bottom of the sea,” he said, as one of his guards gave him a box. He opened it and extracted the sword with a theatrical gesture. “But it’s a lie. Or a half-truth. That dog is always hiding information.”
“I doubt you’re an example of transparency. But tell me, what hasn’t he told me?”
“He hasn’t told you that the sword belonged to my family, the Genji, before it fell to the bottom of the sea. It all goes back to the same era that is simulated in Kyoto Mythos. This is where you will find the origins of what is now Taira Corporation and my company, Genji Corporation.” Roku placed the sword on the table before continuing, with the calmness of someone who holds all the cards. “Japanese people don’t make a huge effort to preserve buildings and monuments because of the frequency of earthquakes and tsunamis that destroy them—we have no choice but to rebuild them regularly. But we preserve history through family lineages, which are extremely important to us. In the past, Japan was divided into provinces controlled by feudal lords called daimyo. Each one protected their own province, and gradually they organized into clans that controlled several provinces. Over time, the daimyos have been replaced by private companies. The CEOs of the major corporations are the new daimyos of Japan.”
“So you’re saying that a Japanese company is an extension of the family?”
“Exactly, and you decided to sign with Taira Corporation. Whether you like it or not, you’re now part of Masa’s family.”
“He pays me well.”
Roku laughed scornfully.
“Do you also get paid well?” he asked, addressing Reiko and Kamyu.
“Go to hell,” Reiko replied, sunk into the sofa, still looking sleepy.
“What a lovely mood your girlfriend is in,” Roku said, turning to me.
Reiko leaned forward, fixing him with a firm stare, and said firmly, “I’m not his girlfriend.”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, and although it was true, I couldn’t help but feel a pang.
Roku responded to Reiko with a slight smile, which I interpreted as a gesture of disdain.
“In 1180, an ancestor of Masa’s, from the Taira family, became a government minister who was favored by the imperial family,” he continued. “Using all his power and influence, he married his daughter to a member of the royal house, and managed to make his grandson, Antoku, the new emperor. As a result, the Taira family took control of the imperial treasury, including the Kusanagi sword,” he said, pointing to the relic on the table. “As you can understand, my family, the Genji, didn’t like this at all.”
“Prince Genji! I know him,” I said, feeling like a time traveler.
“It’s because Masa is so obsessed with that era that he’s created Kyoto Mythos. When your family took over the imperial house, the Genpei War began, in which the Genji fought against the Taira. This war marked a turning point in Japan’s history, establishing the first bakufu military government in the city of Kamakura. This government had more power than the emperor. By the way, Kamakura is a beautiful place—you should visit. Anyway, in the naval battle of Dan-no-ura, which occurred in the last year of the Genpei War, your Taira family was defeated. Most of your family was on board one of the ships while the battle was taking place. Young Emperor Antoku, only six years old at the time, was taken in his grandmother’s arms as she jumped overboard. They both drowned. This was preferable in the grandmother’s eyes to facing the misfortune and dishonor that awaited them. The sword also sank, preventing it from being recovered by us, the Genji, the winners of the battle.”
Roku leaned back in his chair, glancing sideways at Reiko, who was listening to us with a bored expression.
“The Genji sword spent centuries at the bottom of the sea until Masa came along, squandering his resources and exploiting his friendship with the current emperor to find and retrieve it. As you can understand, we had no choice but to take it back. Since we defeated you in the battle of Dan-no-ura, it belongs to us.”
Definitely, something Masa and Roku shared was the tendency to tell endless stories. Moreover, they seemed to be obsessed with the same topics.
“So, to sum up, Masa lied to you. The Kusanagi sword originally belongs to us,” Roku stated.
“It depends on how you define ‘originally,’” I countered.
“At Genji Corporation, we’ve also launched our first general-purpose quantum computer,” Roku said, ignoring my interjection. “Our own simulated world is in the testing phase. Of course, we also need the Kusanagi sword, and you, and the samsara gene you carry. If you work with us, we’ll pay you twice as much as Masa does and give you shares in Genji Corporation. I can also offer you something more important than money,” he said, standing up and coming to sit next to me on the sofa. “We have the technology to make your freckles grow back. I bet your greatest fear is that soon you’ll have to decide whether to stay inside the virtual world and discard your biological body.”
“He’s lying,” said Reiko. “Don’t believe anything he says.”
Roku put his hand on my head and pushed back the hair behind my ear. Kamyu made a move to stand up, as if to protect me, but one of the guards forced him to stay seated.
“You only have one freckle left, Nathan,” Roku said.
“Don’t listen to him, Nathan!” Reiko shouted.
The sword began to vibrate on the table, followed by a violent shaking of the room. Coffee cups fell to the floor, spilling liquid at our feet.
“Is it an earthquake?” I asked, frightened.
“No,” Reiko said, smiling.
A rumble echoed through the building followed by several explosions. The door of the room crashed to the floor, and several men in military attire appeared. They wore the Taira Corporation logo on their uniforms. Roku stood up with a frustrated expression. He didn’t seem scared. I had the feeling he might have experienced something similar before. Then came the characteristic faint squeak of Masa’s wheelchair as he entered the room.
“We’ve come to reclaim what belongs to us,” Masa announced. “The Genpei War is not over yet.”
“You damned lying idealist,” sneered Roku.
Amidst the confusion, Reiko grabbed the Kusanagi sword and brandished it in front of Roku’s nose.
“You’re not just a tramp, you’re a rebel,” Roku said, raising his hands and smiling sarcastically.
Kamyu lunged at one of Roku’s guards, giving Reiko and me time to run over and position ourselves with Masa’s men, where we were protected.
As we left the room following the wheelchair, several soldiers from Genji Corporation appeared through another door, ready to attack us.
“You’re late, you useless good-for-nothings,” Roku said.
