The sidewalk directly in front of the headquarters, as well as part of the street, has been roped off. Here, more of the Young Dragons distribute to passersby free copies of the latest issue of
Wavefront
Honjowara
, a monthly journal describing major events affecting the clan and plans for the future, as well as important news related to Nagato Corp and Nagato Combine as a whole. Here, the crowds gathered outside the velvet ropes watch several large displays now running trideos about the clan, its organization and objectives, its relations with the clans of Nagato Combine, its continuing efforts to rid its districts of crime and improve people's lives, and so on. The twenty-odd
kobun
posted here, and their headman, spend most of their time talking, answering questions, and making conversation, hoping to enhance the clan's image. The only true elements of security here are the four GSG flanking the revolving lobby door, and the four Nagato SDF officers in the red and black jackets of the clan who clear visitors to the headquarters through their security checkpoint.
Also at the checkpoint stands Gongoro and one other, a skinny old man with thin white hair, dressed in the plain gray linen clothes of an ordinary worker. Uekiya-san. He carries a dark canvas bag and a small box wrapped in pastel gift-paper. Even now he asks in a loud voice that wavers with age for Machiko
-sama
to be called. She is nearly to the checkpoint when he sees her.
He smiles and draws a handgun from the canvas bag.
"
Gun
!" Gongoro roars, and in that very instant he is moving, moving forward, hurling himself bodily at the old man, and the SDF officers and
kobun
standing nearby are reacting, too.
It is all so sudden, so completely without warning, that the scene is unfolding before her eyes before Machiko can draw a breath, open her mouth, and shout, "
STOP!
"
Gongoro slams into the old man like a battering ram. Two SDF officers and one of the
kobun
are falling against his back even as he drives the old man to the pavement.
People shout, a woman screams. The crowd nearest the checkpoint surges back and away, and more shouts and cries erupt as people are banged about, some knocked off their feet.
Gongoro, the four SDF officers, and three
kobun
are all piling atop the old man before Machiko can reach them, shouting, "
Get
off!
Get
back
!" She uses her hands like weapons, striking blows, paralyzing arms and legs with pressure-point strikes, even kicking, in her efforts to rescue the old man.
Finally, she is face to face with Gongoro. He gazes at her as if she is insane.
Of course he does. The realization all but overwhelms her with shame and anger. Until today, their seniors—Sukayo, Mitsuharu, and Jiksumi—monitored activities inside the headquarters. Gongoro routinely monitored activity at the barricades or up on the rooftops. Machiko herself kept watch over the front entrance and the security checkpoint. So she knows Uekiya's story. So she knows that he has come to practically every Open House since the first Open House. So she is aware that he has owned the small market just Up the block for decades, that he has been robbed many times by gangers, though never on this block, and, as a result, habitually carries a gun, a compact Fichetti 500.
It is more than a gun. Uekiya has come to look upon it as more than a gun. He has never been robbed while carrying the gun, and, for him, it has become a
kami
, a kind of Shinto deity who guards elderly grocers from violent gangers.
And so it was arranged, years ago, that Uekiya-san would be permitted to bring this
kami
, his guardian gun, to the Open House, so long as he surrendered it at the checkpoint. He was told by the Chairman himself to give the gun to Machiko, to ask for her by name if she was not present, so there would be no confusion.
She failed to communicate this to anyone now working the checkpoint. The responsibility for this incident is hers alone.
For an instant, she fears the old man is dead. He lies half on his side, half on his back, unmoving. Yet, as she summons medtechs via her headset, Uekiya-san breathes and pushes slowly against the pavement, struggling to sit up.
Machiko kneels at his side. "Uekiya-san," she says, gently gripping his shoulders. "Do not exert yourself. I have summoned medtechs. Be careful. Please."
But the old man will not lie back. He sits up. He covers his face with his hands and affects a series of bows. It is as if he feels ashamed for having caused this terrible incident. "Please excuse me. Excuse me. Forgive me,
please
! I did not—"
It is almost too much to bear. "Uekiya-san," Machiko says, "please do not apologize." She herself bows, but the old man still holds his hands over his face. "You are blameless, Uekiya-san. The fault is mine, Uekiya-san."
Then, two medtechs are there. Machiko holds the old man's shoulders till it becomes clear she is interfering with their work. She draws back onto one knee. She notices the new wall of GSG, SDF officers, and
kobun
standing between her and the headquarters entrance. She hears the onlookers around her asking questions. Some speak of seeing the gun. Others recount to their neighbors how they were pushed and shoved and banged around, and Machiko realizes that this incident must be explained before rumors begin raging and the reputation of the clan is further smeared.
She stands and looks around at the crowd and says in a loud, clear voice, "A terrible error has been made. The guards at the checkpoint were not informed that this honorable gentleman, Uekiya-san, has the Chairman's permission to carry a weapon to the checkpoint. The responsibility was mine, and I will answer to the Chairman for this shameful failure, as soon as we are assured that Uekiya-san is all right."
People grow quiet. Several of the onlookers bow as if impressed or perhaps embarrassed by her statement. Gongoro glares at her as if disgusted. Machiko can well imagine what his opinion must be of her now, but she does not care. Whether she is fit as the senior of the Guard is irrelevant now. If Uekiya-san is found to be all right, she will escort him to the Chairman directly, and in any event she will explain what has happened and ask to be punished. For a failure of this magnitude, here before the headquarters, during the Chairman's Open House, her punishment should be severe.
The medtechs treat Uekiya-san for several bruises, cuts, and scrapes, but the old man is lucky. His
kami
guarded him well today. His bones may be old, but they are not brittle. Nothing is broken. He has suffered no serious injuries.
When he is ready, Machiko helps him to stand. He is still bowing and hiding his face and asking forgiveness. Machiko feels the pain of his bruises and shame for what has happened. She bends to pick up Uekiya-san's canvas bag and his gift-wrapped present, a gift for the Chairman. Uekiya-san accepts them still asking forgiveness, still hiding his face.
"We will go to the Chairman now," Machiko tells him.
He bows and bows, asking forgiveness.
With an arm around his back, her hands at his shoulders, Machiko guides Uekiya-san ahead once more to the checkpoint. Only one can pass at a time between the uprights of the weapons sensor, so Machiko moves ahead, taking hold of the old man's arm to lead him through.
The sensor naturally detects all her weapons and begins beeping. The alarm is immediately canceled.
She draws Uekiya-san ahead.
The sensor beeps.
Uekiya-san hesitates. And suddenly Machiko finds his free hand descending to his side, his eyes broad and round and gazing into hers with a look of awe. "Forgive me," he whispers. "Forgive me." And the hand at his side is dropping the gift box and dipping into the canvas bag slung beneath his shoulder, and the look on the old man's face is changing from awe to fear to terror, and then something beyond it, beyond all emotion, beyond existence.
The Void.
In the fleeting moment that all this occurs, Machiko feels her own emotions go from wonder to puzzlement, then to a sudden chilling certainty that something is wrong, something so far beyond mere wrong that the beeping alarm from the weapons detector is practically meaningless.
In the periphery of her vision, she sees Gongoro looking to the sky as if to beg the gods for assistance in dealing with one very trying old man. And she realizes that Gongoro does not understand. He does not see what Machiko sees. He does not perceive the threat.
No one does.
So now she is the one moving as if by instinct, clamping down on the spindly old man's arm, twisting, pressuring nerves, forcing Uekiya-san to bend. And as he bends she drives her whole body against his flank and back and thrusts him face-down toward the pavement. As the two of them fall, she glimpses Gongoro's look of astonishment. She hears exclamations of shock and surprise. Then, she sees a boiling cloud of smoke and dust spreading across the concrete earth, billowing up around her and Uekiya-san, and she feels the earth shaking, roaring with an explosion that seems to erupt inside her own head.
In the final moment, she wonders if she is dying.
When she wakes, she is lying on a couch in a small quiet room. Her eyes seem full of grit. Her ears are ringing and her head feels as if it has been split open. She lifts a hand to her brow, her nose, her mouth. Some parts are so tender and full of anguish she cannot bear to touch them. Gently, she brushes at her eyes with just a fingertip. Her eyes are bleary and sore and difficult to focus, but momentarily she finds a Nagato medtech, a female elf, seated beside her, seated on a stool, now checking her vitals with some piece of equipment.
"Don't try to get up," the medtech says. "You appear to have suffered a minor concussion."
Machiko spends some moments trying to speak. Her throat seems full of phlegm and dirt. "Where . . . Where is . . . ?" She coughs harshly, till her head seems ready to split. "The Chairman."
"The Chairman is fine," the medtech says. "He has ordered that you remain here with me. You are to lie quietly and rest."
"Uekiya-san . The old man."
"I'm sorry," the medtech says. "I don't know who you mean. Several people were injured in the explosion. That's all I know."
Machiko searches for her headset, but that seems to be missing. She tries to work the commlink on her left vambrace, but it refuses to function. She feels barely conscious, a thousand years old, and very, very tired.
Someone, the female medtech, squeezes her shoulder. "Try to stay awake."
Machiko finds she lacks the energy to ask why.
It is enough to merely try to obey.
Exactly how many hours go by she is unsure, but when she wakes Machiko finds it is after 11 p.m. She manages to slide her legs over the front of the sofa and sit up without feeling like she may die. Then she begins coughing.
The medtech brings her a bowl into which she may spit, and then a glass of water so she may rinse out more of the grit that seems to coat the inside of her mouth.
"Thank you very much."
The medtech bows, then steps into an adjoining lavatory to rinse out the bowl.
Machiko spends a moment looking around. Immediately before her is the varnished wood stool the medtech used for a seat. Beside her left ankle is the large orange box of the medtech's emergency medical supply kit. Machiko takes a plain white linen cloth from the kit and lays it open over the wooden seat of the stool. Fine linen would be preferable, but this will do. She lays her left hand on the cloth, presses it firmly against the stool, her fingers tucked under, crab-like, all but the little finger, which is fully extended. From the sheath at her waist, she draws her
tanto
and moves the razor-keen blade to the third knuckle of her little finger.
Here, she will perhaps save Chairman Honjowara the trouble of punishing her. It is the traditional means within the clans of atoning for failure. It is called
yubitsume
, finger-cutting. Certain remarks Honjowara
-sama
has made suggest that he does not consider this practice to be entirely in agreement with the precepts of his New Way, but Machiko is sure he will accept her offering. He is a man of great vision, seeking always to move the clan ahead, but his roots were formed in a different age, before the advent of the Awakened. He understands the classical forms.
As she settles her spirit, preparing with one determined cut to do what she must, she becomes aware of another, the medtech, lunging at her, seizing her hand, and shrieking.
GSG appear as if out of nowhere, six or seven of them, Ryokai among them. The knife is wrenched from her grip. She is forcibly pinned against the cushions of the sofa.
Have they all lost their minds?
Then the Chairman's counselor Zoge-san is there, commanding her to rise, to go with him . . .
Understanding comes slowly. She is not to be permitted to atone for her failure by means of
yubitsume
. The only alternative is plain. She finds her sword on a black lacquered stand at one end of the sofa and gets to her feet.
She needs a moment. Her balance is uncertain. She feels a bit light-headed. Ryokai slips an arm behind her and steadies her shoulders, but his favor is not necessary.
Zoge-san turns and leads her out. The others draw back and bow, honoring the Chairman's counselor. Machiko steps into the hallway and abruptly realizes she is on the headquarters' third floor. Just down the hallway is one of the western-style offices Honjowara
-sama
often uses while visiting this part of the plex. Flanking the door and standing opposite it are as many as twenty members of the Guard. Quite understandable, given all that has occurred. The senior of the detail bows to Zoge-san.