[Hope you don't mind, Jack.]
Jack Staik wrote:
"I should go now," he said. "You know what would happen if they caught us like
this."
Sadly, she nodded.
After he dressed, he stepped toward the window. Her arms reached around him
and hugged him close.
"I love you, Happosai," she said.
"I love you, Kasumi-chan," he replied.
As he left, he pondered his fate. His was a power that could keep him
alive forever, but it needed strength from measures both perverse and
noble. He could store parts of it - and he certainly had an excess of
perversity built up. Soon, very soon, he would have enough power to
protect Kasumi from any intervention, and then the noble phase of his
life would begin again. Decades of life, until Kasumi's natural span
ran out - assuming, as with his past loves, that she could not be taught
this power too. But to adequately sever all ties with this place, he
had to cancel some insurance...
******
"Happosai! What are you doing here?"
"Reclaiming part of myself."
Dr. Tofu blinked. "If someone left a scrap of your skin here, I would
have burned it by now. There are rules about medical waste..."
"I know, I know, but trust me, *this* part's still alive. I can feel
it." Happosai looked around Dr. Tofu's office. "Always the honorable
one, eh? I'll bet that's how you've lived your entire life."
"You could say that."
"All fifteen years of it."
"I'll have you know I'm fifty-two as of next week."
"That's what you think. False memories." He smiled at the shocked look
on the doctor's face. "Don't believe me? Tell me one thing about your
mother. Go on, anything."
"She...she's..." Tofu scowled in concentration. "I don't remember her.
She died when I was young."
"And how do you know that?"
"I...er...why else wouldn't I know her?"
"The past fifteen years of your life have been real. Everything before
that, an illusion, created when you were born. By me."
Tofu's eyes grew wide. He had often wondered why, when his colleagues
went on and on about their college days, the only thing he had linking
him to any institution of learning was a diploma, one from someplace no
one had ever heard of.
"Yes. I created you to sustain me in case my students turned on me.
And they did. While I was sealed in a cave, you lived on, doing
honorable acts and unconciously feeding the ki to me. You are my
honorable side; without it, I have difficulty being anything but the
pervert most people see. That will have to change, if I am to be with
the one I love."
"What...what are you saying?"
"RETURN, shard of my soul!" Happosai reached for Tofu's chest, and then
inside, as if reaching into a hologram. He tightened his fist when it
reached Tofu's "heart"...
Tofu let out a brief scream, before his lungs were too porous to hold
air. His body quickly disentigrated into an energy swirl, which folded
into Happosai's hand. A few glowing strands could be seen racing up the
inside of the martial artist's arm, then all was silence, broken only by
the sound of Tofu's glasses hitting the floor.
The clinic would have to be burned, of course. A suicide...no, arson,
with a note claiming responsibility by some terrorist group. The media
would have a field day about the demise of this "pillar of the
community". It would not matter to him; there was nothing here of true
value, with Tofu dead.
Well...*one* thing. A past love, so devoted to him that her spirit had
insisted on helping any way she could. But now...
"Come, Betty-chan. It's time for you to have a proper burial."