Chapter Text
1940 - Republic of Anglo Indu
Hell rains down upon them. Gunshots fire through the air, and flames engulf anything flammable, wood and men alike. The sky is ashen and black, and yet still screams rip through the air loud and hard.
A man is running, tripping over his clothes but he pulls himself up every time and continues running. In his hand is a long fruit knife, in eyes is a wild gaze as he scans the fiery horizon hoping for a path to open up. He trods on corpses, wincing every time his foot sinks into something warm. And yet he does not stop running.
And in the corner of his eyes, he sees the center of the chaos. Two armies of vastly different uniforms are facing each other, stabbing one another or blowing the brains out of another. Men hacked at unmoving bodies, just to ensure the enemy was down forever, only to turn around and have a bullet pierce their head as they fell, adding on to the already bloody ground.
Civilians like him ran haywire, carrying children in arms, dragging limbless loved ones behind them as they ran. Some fell, never to get up, and others made it.
This man was one of the latter.
The Anglo and Indu forces were falling to the Japanese onslaught one by one. Many had already begun to retreat, knowing defeat inevitable. They ran with their lives rather than risk it in a pointless battle. The Japanese pushed in, ecstatic at their victory.
But the man runs past, his legs wobbling and his arms aching. Blood coated his hair which reached far down his back, he pushed it away from his face and ran.
Eventually his eyes widen as he comes across a building. Surprisingly it was not on fire, but it looked on the verge of collapsing. He wasted not a second and hurried in.
“May!” He yelled as soon as the door swung open. He hears a commotion from somewhere deeper in the facility, and then someone shouts his name. He treks quickly to reach there. He jumped over corpses and steps into pools of blood formed from stab wounds.
When he reaches, he sees a woman with dark brown skin and a sari standing. She stood with a limp and her breath was heavy. Her sari had been cut down the middle, leaving room for the legs to move more freely. Its usual green color had been marred with blood which dripped down her hands and to the tip of her own blade, a small cooking knife.
Behind her, holding her hair violently was a Japanese soldier. Around her, were 3 other soldiers, along with their commander who watched on from the corner in amusement. The woman grabbed the man behind her from the collar and bent forward quickly to throw him off her. He rolled off her back and landed in an ungraceful heap at the feet of his comrade.
His comrade gave a sound of surprise before jumping over him. The new soldier, still unsteady, raised his katana ready to strike. But the woman beat him there, she came forward and slit his throat in a wide arc motion, moving back to let the choking man die on his own blood.
The man on the floor screamed what sounded to be curses at her in Japanese, she slammed her foot into his face, and cracked the back of his head against a jagged rock. He did not get back up. The man looked into the woman’s eyes and saw a wild look in her eyes. And yet she moved gracefully, brutally yes, but her movement in her fight was not unbalanced nor wobbly.
She moved like a dancer practicing her art.
But the third soldier had come upon her, he came to her blindspot and tried to cut her head off from there. The man rushed in, but he knew he was going to be late.
“May!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. Her gaze flits to him for only a millisecond. “Behind you!”
She whips around, and perhaps the gods were on their side. Maybe the gods had graced him with this one bit of luck, maybe they had used all their luck in their lifetime in this one moment.
But May’s hair hits the man square in the face, it gets in his eyes, his mouth and his nose. He splutters, his hold on his sword releasing as it falls to the ground with a heavy clunk. The man took this opportunity to rush him, tackling the now defenseless soldier to the ground.
But the soldier had gained his consciousness. He grabbed at the man’s throat and pressed his thumb nails deep. The man choked, and tried to roll the soldier off, but to no avail. The man tried to poke the soldier in the eyeballs but his limbs failed him.
It was over in an eye blink though.
May had sat on the soldier's back, and drove her knife through the back of his neck. The man could see the knife protrude from the other end, dripping red onto his face. The soldier’s vice grip on his throat immediately slackened. Blood spurted from his throat wound and landed in the man’s mouth.
He gagged, and pushed the corpse off him. He sat up and wiped his tongue clean of the red stains before turning to look at May. Blood dripped down her cheek, and her body was littered in swollen gashes. And yet, littered around them were the bodies of trained soldiers.
What a woman.
He looked up at her, at her smile, her heavy breathing, the gold ring on her finger, and just everything about her. He sat there absolutely mesmerized as hell burned and collapsed around him. He had been gazing at her for too long, a silly smile on his face in the presence of her that he had forgotten that three was not the number of enemies left.
It was four. And he was immediately reminded of this when a sword came slashed deeply in May’s back.
She screamed, and fell to her knees, the Japanese officer raised his arms again, this time his eyes locked in on the curve of her neck. But once again, like he had with the other soldier, he stands up and tackles the officer.
But this officer stood his ground, he spread his legs and took the man head on. He raised his katana and sliced at the man’s shins. The man let go and howled, grabbed at his shin as if he could magically pull the agony away.
May swung, and her fist made contact with the officer’s nose. The officer grabbed at his nose and stumbled back. He then raised his hand and backhanded her across the face. His knuckles hit the fleshy part of cheek as her head twisted violently to the side.
She did not fall, but when she looked back, the fire of rage in her eyes would have put the fire burning the entirety of their hometown to shame.
The officer smirked, and said something haughty. He grabbed at her hair and held her firmly in place, crushing her feet with his heel. His words were gibberish but his chin was high and his lips were curved. He had arrogance written on him from head to toe. From his belt, he took out a small hand knife, he lightly dug the tip into her chin. He thought he had won.
He had the man on his knees, and the woman with a grievous injury on her back. By all means he should have won. But that’s the thing about men.
In their arrogance, they forget themselves. They crown themselves the victor not knowing the game hadn’t finished yet. Had the officer been even a little bit more aware of his surroundings, he would have noticed the moans of pain from the man had stopped. That the man had dropped to the floor, and reached out for the katana of one of his men.
He would have seen May’s eyes leave him and land on the man behind her, who was pushing himself off the ground shakily, his hands holding the hilt of the sword with a passion that had not once left him. With a passion that screamed live, live, live.
You can’t push someone into a corner and not expect them to fight crazy to see another day. Had he not forgotten this very important fact of warcraft, perhaps he would have won.
In the split second the man’s and May’s eyes met, they moved as one.
May wrapped her arms around the officer, enveloping his own arms and torso in something akin to a lover’s embrace as she pressed her face into his chest. But then she began to slide down, bending her knees but still keeping him in place.
The officer’s expression turned from arrogant to confused as he tried to squirm his way out of her embrace. He never saw the blade coming.
The man stood still, sword swung to the side and up, and he allowed for his body to relax. Relax as if he had not spent the better part of the hour running in panic looking for May, like he did have to push off death’s fallen hand every turn he took, like he had not helped kill a man and like he wasn’t about to kill another. Relax like he had just woken up and was lounging around until work came, where May was in the corner of the room writing a political draft for whatever her work needed. Where all that he could hear was the scribbling of a pen in the background as he tried to force himself awake.
And then he struck. His hands tightened but his posture remained untensed. He recalled watching May fight as if her body had been made of water, her limbs flowed like soft waves hitting the cliff side that turned into a violent spur of water. He had watched her for years, dancing in festivals or at family functions with the same fluidity. How she was learned in the arts and how the arts had come to her defense not even minutes ago.
And he chose to imitate her.
He started with the hip, moving the hip forward and leading with it, his leg followed right after. And then he shifted his hip to the right, pulling the sword in a downwards arc as the blade cut clean through the officer’s neck. His head went flying, his face still morphed into a confused expression as it bounced on the floor until it just laid there.
The man dropped his sword, and fell to the ground, knees bent to the side. He looked over to his side and saw May still hugging the now beheaded corpse. After a few seconds, she let go, and the body too fell. The man moved a bit to get out of the way of the bleeding corpse.
The two stared at each other, their lungs heaved air inside and out. But slowly their breathing slowed and they regained the ability to form coherent sentences again.
But instead, they just laughed. Two very loud laughs, two very different laughs echoed across thin walls, undoing any progress they had made to slow their heartbeat. They laughed their lungs out.
The man, unable to move, watched as May crawled towards him, her back still bleeding but her face giddy. She crawled onto his lap and enveloped him in a real hug. She curled in towards him and rested her chin on his shoulder and pressed herself to him tight. The man awkwardly returned it, being mindful of her back injuries. He buried his face in her hair and breathed it in, it smelled metallic.
But it had been so long since he had felt at peace.
“Like the waves rock violently, it is inevitable to happen,” May muffled against his neck.
A string of unrelated words sewed together to create an almost pathetic saying that makes no sense in any saying whatsoever. It was that got the man’s shoulders to sag and just let the tension leave his body. It was a saying, known to only the two of them, their little code saying. When they had secret rendezvous under the light of the moon when the town had gone to sleep. It had been a saying letting the other know who was hidden behind the wall or bush. That it wasn’t any unruly who would have yelled, or let everyone know of their secret little romance, but it was one of them.
In response, the man hummed, content in the position in which they sat.
And then they hear a gunshot. Both flinch as May scrambles off him, throwing her arm over his shoulder and pulling him up with her. At the entrance of the room, they see a group of Japanese soldiers filing in. If he had to guess, it was around 20 soldiers, armed with guns, not just katanas.
In their hands were torn pieces of the flag of Indu. The inevitable had happened, Indu had fallen.
In the front of the mini militia were two men. One, looked to be high ranking. He had the hat of a very high ranking officer and on his vest were more medals than he could count. He had a cruel tilted grin on his face.
The other man wore no military outfit. Instead he wore a blue long coat, and a red mask with a long nose. The man seemed very old, his hair white and his hand wrinkled with age.
“What do we have here?” sneered the new officer in the Induv language. He looked around the room and saw the corpses. His sneer darkened. “You did this?”
He looked accusingly at the man, who froze.
“I asked you a question boy… Did you do this?”
The man took no action to answer. He stared, panic building slowly in him as he clutched May a little closer.
The new officer's eyes fell on May, and immediately a horrific, disgusting leer came out of his tongue. His eyes raked her, looked at her in a way where the man shivered and tilted himself to block her from his eyes.
“Well, did you kill these men?” asked the older man softly, also in perfect Induv. Still, no answer.
“Forget it,” the new officer raised his gun and pointed it at the two.
“General Moroyori,” said the old man.
General Moroyori cocked his gun and closed one eye. The man’s heart slowed as he tried to look for an exit. The building was dilapidated from the destruction of the city, any exit that was once there was hidden from plain view. The only known exit was the door the Japanese stood guard at.
But he already knew he was a dead man with one gun pointed to him, he did not want to think about what would happen if 20 bullets pierced them simultaneously. Death would be quicker perhaps, and maybe they wouldn’t suffer as much. Death would be to them in a snap, they would not have to wait for their bodies to secrete all its blood outside the body.
But a quick death was not the goal here, the goal was no death.
General Moroyori made a clicking sound with his tongue. He aimed straight and true at his two targets.
The man wrapped his arms around May at the same second she wrapped hers around him. They closed their eyes and expected the hand of Death to claim them in a few moments.
But then a yell rang out, at the same second the gun went off.
“TAGUCHI!”
The old man pushed the general’s arm upward, so that the bullet missed its mark completely and hit a rusted iron bar somewhere above them. The bullet forced it to bend in an awkward way, before the force proved too much and the entire thing broke and fell to the ground. May gave a startled whimper as she pulled both herself and the man backwards.
The old man then leaned into General Moroyori’s ear, tilting in a way so his long nose avoided the general’s cheek. The man thought he was whispering something but the old man’s mouth was covered by his red mask.
Flashes of different emotions came onto the General’s face. The man could not begin to rationalize what was said between them. The General’s face flitted between fury to confusion to fury and then to apt concentration and back to fury again.
The old man pulled back, and the General’s face had settled. His facial muscles relaxed, same with his hold on his gun. He passed a look to the couple for a split second before huffing and standing down.
For a man so wrinkled, and one wearing clothes that resembled nothing like official Japanese military attire, his word alone had a General backing down. The man was equally curious, and terrified, to know what the relationship between them was. Because clearly, the old man held superiority.
The old man looked back and spoke some harsh words to the soldiers. Immediately, the soldiers filed past and made a move for the man and May. The man yelled, moving himself to stand in front of the woman, but the soldiers pulled them apart with relative ease. They dug their fingers into May’s back injury, her head flew back as she screamed towards the heavens. Blood spewed from the gash where the soldier poked harshly.
The man yelled profanities, but he could do nothing but watch as a different soldier came and slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of her head. She fell limp as a doll. One soldier grabbed her by the legs and another from under her arms and took her away.
The same happened to the screaming man, who tried his hardest to slap the guards off him. Except, in his rage, he did not see the rifle coming for his own head. He felt a sharp pain in his left temple and he fell as loosely as his lover. In the edges of his consciousness, he saw the man in the red mask keeping eye contact with him.
Another jolt to the left temple, and he was unconscious. And the red, long nosed, large eyed, bushy eyebrowed, and weird mustached mask watched him as he fell under.
/----~O~----\
When the man regained consciousness, he was nearly blinded.
The light in the room he sat in was such a bright color his vision went so blurry he could hear a buzzing in his ears. The first thing he saw as it cleared, was a tuft of red, before everything was back to normal
He looked around frantically, the walls were a dull gray rock and the only light source in the entire room was from a candle inches from his eyes in the middle of the table. He looked down and saw his hands were tied to said table with a long strand of very thick rope. He tried yanking a few times but he had better luck pulling his entire body toward the table than his arms away from it.
Someone cleared their throat in the background. It was the man in the red mask once again. But this time, he sat on the opposite side of the table, his hands crossed in front of him.
And it was at that second, raw panic surges through the man’s body.
He stood up so rapidly his wrists were thrust back by the rope pinning them down. He couldn’t care less, he vehemently chose to ignore the growing pain in his wrists as he pulled, trying to bring himself as close to the old man as he could.
“May?! Where is she?”
The old man in the red mask took his sweet time to say a reply. And when he spoke, he gave a reply… but not an answer.
“Have you ever wielded a sword before?” He asked.
“I will not answer your questions until you answer mine! Where is…”
“Yes you will. Have you ever wielded a sword before?”
“I will not.” Growled the man.
“I do not think you understand what is at stake here.” the old man leaned onto his chair. “You have killed a Japanese officer and three of our men. This is considered an act of treason, I could easily have you hung for this. Or perhaps shot down like pigs waiting to go to the butchershop. You and your… woman. I could kill the woman first and leave her corpse in your prison cell, wait til her body was so maggot infested and rotten before I killed you. You are not giving orders here. So let us not pretend.”
If the man wasn’t sure then, he was sure now. Indu had fallen. From the hands of one colonizer to another, the nation of multiple millions was tossed around like a rock found on the side of the ocean.
Upon hearing the red masked man’s threats, the man leaned back. The rope’s hold on his wrists lightened as he sunk into his chair.
“Name?” the old man pulled out a notebook from somewhere underneath the interrogation table. He flipped through the book and opened to a new empty page. He pressed the puffed up pages firmly downwards in an attempt to flatten it, only for the pages to bounce back up and retake their former shape. He clicked his pen’s button, and out came the pen point. He rested it on the white page, smearing a dot of black where the two touched.
“Selvon.”
The old man wrote it down in a language Selvon could not read. There were so many strokes for some single characters, and just a curved line for others. He figured it was Japanese.
“What do you work as?” the old man asked. The eyes on his mask stared right at Selvon, but he had an odd feeling that his real eyes weren’t on him.
“A schoolteacher. I teach reading and writing.”
“Ok…” The old man scribbles some more. “I am going to ask this question once more, and only once more. Have you ever wielded a sword before?”
The man took a deep breath. “No, I have not.”
The old man's body froze up, and his pen hand stopped moving. He tilted his head just a little bit, and looked into Selvon’s face.
“Never?”
“Never.”
The old man leaned forward, and pressed his chin on top of his hands, which were held up by his elbows resting on the table. “You have never held a sword before and you sliced the head off a Japanese officer with the ease of a well practiced hand… you expected me to believe that?”
“Well, I…” the man tried to come up with an explanation that could make sense. And the only thing that could work in his mind was the truth. “My… May is a dancer. I had just copied some of the moves she had done during festivals. Our cultural dances were created by warriors of old needing a way to train the new generations, so I just used it for its old use again.”
The old man stood up. The chair fell backwards with a loud thud from the speed at which he had done so. And once more, he reached from under the table and pulled out something long. It took Selvon an entirety of ten seconds to realize it was a sword. He closed his eyes and put his head down. He prayed to all the gods in his pantheon that somehow, they would allow May to live.
He felt something cold touch his fingers. When he opened his eyes, he realized the old man had pushed the sword towards him. The metallic blade brushed against the tips of his fingers. He looked up and saw the old man had a sword of his own in his own hands, unsheathed and held against his shoulder.
Upon further inspection, Selvon realized the sword was a katana, exactly like the sword he had used to kill the men back then.
“Pick it up. I want you to fight me.”
Selvon froze. “I-I’m sorry? Could you please repeat that?”
“Pick up the katana, and swing at me. I’m going to tell you right now that fighting me is no easy feat. I am stronger than those fools you killed before me.”
When he saw Selvon still hesitate, he put the nail on the coffin with his final remark.
“You and your… lover… are on your way to the firing squad. You killed Japanese people, the military does not take kindly to that. If you impress me, I will ensure the safety of both of you.”
Selvon picked up the katana and pulled the blade from the sheath, dropping the leather casing to the ground. The katana had a light gray color on its blade, the handle was a dark, dark black. And it was sharp, very sharp.
Selvon held the sword in one hand and took a stance. He held the sword in one hand, and spread his legs. He curled his fingers into a fist and put them behind his back.
“Good.” said the old man, and then he rushed forward. He thrusted his katana forward, which Selvon parried with a quick downwards swipe. Selvon then stepped forward, turning his hip around and swung in a wide arc to the old man’s neck. The old man ducked and went for Selvon’s shins.
Selvon managed to jump, but the edge of the old man’s blade still slid across his foot. The cut wasn’t deep but it still hurt. Selvon made an effort to transport most of his weight to his uninjured leg, but found his balance had been disrupted.
Selvon swung and parried. His memories of the dances he had seen and had become accustomed to over the years guided him as he made his movements. The dances had always been a movement of fluidity. One part of the body must move in a specific way, and the rest of the body must follow.
The old man was able to parry with an even grace. Yet the way he moved was different than the way Selvon moved, different style, different motions. And yet, he was able to hold the much younger man back, his brow dry and free of sweat, unlike Selvon who could feel his body get hot and steamy.
But no matter how well Selvon was able to hold himself, the old man was still better. He knew the game was over when he felt a foot slam into his injured shin. Selvon fell sideways, shielding his head with a bent arm, and as he did that, he dropped his katana. The old man, with a dexterity Selvon did not expect despite having fought him just now, pushed the katana away with his foot. He didn’t even have a moment to get up, the tip of the old man’s katana was on his throat, pulling just the tiniest bit of blood but nowhere near enough to be lethal.
“It seems you’ve lost. Get up.”
Selvon dragged himself up, and away from the katana, only for the katana to stay connected to his neck his entire way up. He sat himself on the chair, leaning as far back as he could, only for no distance to be enough.
“Now what?” he croaked out. His hair was wet, his neck and collar too. Be it from exhaustion or fear as to what fate has gambled out for him and his lover. Maybe a bit of both. “Are you going to kill me?”
He didn’t like the question coming out of his mouth. But he hated the feeling of uncertainty even more. If he was to die, let fate draw her cards and lay it out in front of him. At least he would be stuck in a limbo of maybe and maybe not.
And then, the old man said the most unbelievable word.
“No,” the masked old man placed his katana on the table. “You have potential.”
“Potential?” Selvon sat a little straighter. Without the threat of death hanging over his head, he seemed to be doing awfully good for himself.
“Yes, potential. Selvon I am going to give you an offer you cannot reject.” the old man folded his hands on the desk and moved closer to Selvon.
“And… if I rejected it?” Selvon tried.
“You would be blindfolded and placed in front of a firing squad.”
“Hard to argue against that.”
The old man cleared his throat. “I work for an organization on the Japanese mainland, we are called Demonslayers. We fight and kill demons to protect innocent civilians. I want you to train under me and join this organization.”
Selvon raised an eyebrow, demons? This old man must be crazy. But he went with the flow.
“And you trust a foreigner, who just watched the Japanese massacre his people, to work for you? Why not have Japanese people work this?”
“The war has taken many of our members overseas. Japan is in serious need of demon slayers, but in even more need of soldiers. So we are in a shortage, and are looking elsewhere for manpower. The government would rather have foreigners in the demonslayer corps than in their military. And also, we have your lover. As long as we have her, you will do as we say.”
The old man must have seen Selvon turn angry, he spoke before Selvon could lunge for him.
“Accept the offer, it's the only chance for both you and her to get out of this alive. Also know, if you try to desert at any time, your lover will be punished in your steed.”
“Bastard,” muttered Selvon. But he did not raise his hand to strike him. The old man was right, if Selvon messed up, they were both going to end up cold corpses on the floor. He pulled his collar over his mouth, tilted his head down, and allowed his fury to wallow.
“May… your lover… that’s her name right?”
Selvon paused. “Yes…”
“She is a politician right? Minister of Public Welfare under the old Anglo governance right?”
“Yes… she works as the head of the National Public Welfare department of Indu.”
“They let an ethnic Induvian have such a powerful position in the national government? Typically colonists don't want that. I’m surprised the Kingdom of Anglo allowed it. Politics?”
“It always is.”
“Ok then. So then Selvon, do you agree to my terms?” the old man jumped onto the desk and waited. He did not need to wait long for the young man’s final decision though.
Selvon did not believe in demons. He figured it was code for something he’ll learn eventually. “Yes, I will join this… demonslayer corps.”
Selvon could have sworn he saw the old man smile under his red mask. “Good. My name is Urokodaki Sakonji, clan name Urokodaki and personal name Sakonji… the Japanese invert their names.” he said upon seeing Selvon’s confused look.
It was after this, Urokodaki actually did smile. He gave a soft laugh as he continued.
“Now Selvon… do you want to see May?”
/----~O~----\
The prisons in Indu had never been properly maintained. Not before 1913, not after even when the Anglos came and took down the previous kingship. Some of the older generations said they had even deteriorated since most prisons were used to contain Induvian rebels.
The walls were ashen and dusty, and water dripped down every crevice. Urokodaki led him down winding stairways with only a fire lamp as light. When they got to a panel of cells, people were huddled together, pushing themselves as far away from the new colonizers as they could. Rows and rows of Induvians filled the filthy cells, mostly men. There were women and children scattered here and there, but were few in numbers.
The light began to get better the deeper down the hall they went. Someone had finally lit the halls. Eventually Urokodaki stopped at a cell and pulled out a pair of keys. He talked to the guards in front of the cell, before they moved to the side. He opened it, and stood to the side.
“Three minutes, that’s all I could convince the officials to give you.”
Selvon didn’t pay him any attention. In the mass of men huddled in one corner, was a lone female in the other corner. He walked briskly past Urokodaki and called out her name.
“May!”
The woman looked up, and so did some of the men, more curiously than anything. May’s eyes lit up once she recognized Selvon.
“Selvu!”
She attempted to stand up, only for her face to scrunch up and her hands to spring to her leg. She would have fallen onto the cold rock floor had Selvon not reached out to catch her. He brought her slowly up to her feet, and wrapped her in a hug. He laughed into her hair.
May wrapped her own arms around his waist, and pressed her face into his right shoulder blade. She muttered something but Selvon for the life of him could not understand what she was saying.
After a few seconds of silent hugging, Selvon pulled away from the hug, but kept his arms on her shoulders.
“How are you?” he said, his reaction a mixture of laughter and crying.
“Could… be better…” she muttered. And that’s when he finally got a good look at her. Her clothes were dirty and torn. Her back was still bloody and her wounds were not dealt with. In fact, he could see more injuries he could have sworn he did not see before.
“Wha-what happened?” he asked, he spun her around, seeing large bruises on her throat and hips. Along with bleeding slices and nail marks on her arms. Her back seemed to have more blood, and more lacerations. “Did they do this because of us killing that officer?!”
“Not really. Questioning… they wanted to know about my place in the government.”
Selvon whipped around to look at Urokodaki, who was looking anywhere but at him. He stood hands behind his back, blocking the cell door.
“Could be worse though,” When May laughed, blood dripping from the corners of her mouth. Selvon looked down at her in horror, before wiping away the blood using the back of his hand. “Selvu they are going to kill us. These injuries are nothing. We are dead, Selvu.”
“No we aren’t,” said Selvon quickly. “I have struck a deal with that man over there.” He pointed to Urokodaki.
“May, we will be ok. I will go to Japan and work some job. You will be safe, I’ll be safe too. I have been promised this.”
“Job?” May looked confused. “What kind of job is this?”
“To be honest… I’m not sure” Selvon was honest in what he said. This “Demonslayers Corp” sounded ominous. “Just a job of sorts.”
“Selvu this doesn’t sound safe…” May looked hesitant. She reached for his hands and gave them a squeeze.
“We don’t really have another choice.”
“Yes I get that Selvu but…”
“One minute!” yelled a new voice. There was some commotion of surprise from the male crowd in the cell, and the couple nearly jumped. Selvon looked panicked.
“May, once they release you from here, you have to find Kamat. Tell him what has happened, he will look after you in my stead.”
May gave a weak smile. “Selvu don’t worry about me, I’ll be just fine. Worry about yourself, this job could be bad.”
“It can’t be that bad. At least not as bad as dying. I’ll be fine…”
“Time’s up, you have to go,” two pairs of arms grab both of Selvon’s. They begin to yank him back.
“Wait! It’s not been a minute yet!” Selvon yelled as he tried to push away from them. The guards did not yield, and pulled him harder. “May!”
“Selvu!” She tried to grab at his arm, but one the guards kicked her in the knees, she fell with a grunt.
“HEY!” yelled Selvon. One of the guards wrapped a cloth around his mouth, muffling him.
“Wait wait! Let me just give him something!” May cried out. She looked to Urokodaki imploringly.
“Just give them 20 more seconds. It hasn’t been anywhere near three minutes yet,” he ordered in pity. The guards gave him a dirty look, before loosening their grip on Selvon ever so slightly, but still not letting go.
May gave forward quickly and took something off her finger. She grabbed Selvon’s left hand and slid her gold ring onto his ring finger. It was a thin ring, with a small diamond trail in the middle, converging in the middle of thin lines of gold forming a tree of sorts. Like the ends of branches connecting.
She took his fingers, and closed it, covering his fist in her hand.
“Selvu… be careful.”
Selvon did not know if 20 seconds had passed or not, but the guards began to drag him. He was outside the cell door before clicked on it. But by then, Urokodaki had shut the door and locked it.
“FIND KAMAT! YOU HAVE TO FIND KAMAT!” he yelled at her from the other side of the bars. The guards yelled swears at him in Japanese, but he struggled all he could against them. He watched her smile fade as the distance between them grew and obscured the sight.
When they had made it to the staircase, he pulled himself out of their grasp.
“I’m not going anywhere! So let me go.” he tripped forward slightly but caught himself against the railing. The guards looked to Urokodaki, who nodded. They left him and Urokodaki alone.
“If I do this, I want her to receive medical attention. I will not do this if you are going to let her die of her injuries like a shot rabid dog! And I do NOT want any of your men to harass her again!” He reached forward to grab the lapel of Urokodaki’s shirt, but the old man swatted him in the face.
“Granted. I have already let them know of your agreement and have told them to look after her better. Don’t stand, keep walking, I do not want to be here any longer than I have to.” Urokodaki pushed him forward and up the stairs. Selvon, seeing no other choice, began walking up. He looked down at the new accessory on his finger. A glint of gold greeted him back. He ran his other finger down the curves and designs, staring at the ring the whole way up.
“Also you’ll need a new name. A Japanese name to make you fit in.”
“Why can’t I keep my own name?” Selvon sounded annoyed. “Why should I change my name?”
“Because the Japanese don’t take kindly to foreigners. With a little grooming, I can make you look Japanese. I’d have to teach you to speak and write Japanese… but you’re a reading and writing school teacher, it can’t be that hard.”
Of course ignoring the fact that Japanese has little to no relation to Induv be it phonetically, grammatically or otherwise, yes it cannot be that hard. But, even Selvon knew it had to be done.
“Ok then, do you have any idea on what to name me?”
Urokodaki placed a hand on Selvon’s shoulder and squeezed, much to the younger man’s chagrin. The older masked man laughed warmly.
“I was listening to your lover and how she called you by a nickname: Selvu. I took some inspiration from that and thought of a good name. Giyuu. Your Japanese name henceforth will be Tomioka Giyuu.”