Burning

“Gouki. Good to see you wearing pants this time, pal,” Harry said, nodding towards his old foe. Gouki grimaced slightly as Harry talked, the face of a man eating a rotten lemon.

“Ha. Pants,” Yami chuckled, leaning against Gouki’s car, arms crossed and an arrogant grin on his bat face.

“Quiet, freak. Where is it, Harry?” Gouki asked, his patience already wearing thin. Harry could see it in his eyes. He used to call it the Gouki Look, where the normally cool man snapped when something didn’t go to plan, when something was snatched away from him. Harry had caused such a look often.

“You get it, you cut the shit? Those were the terms,” Harry said.

“I’m an evil bastard, Harry. But business is business. Deals are deals.” Gouki spread his arms, inviting Harry to read him like a book.

“Let me ask you something first. What are you going to do with it when you get it?” Harry asked. The other exorcists stared at Gouki intensely, eager to hear what was coming.

“Find out why my grandfather was such an evil, controlling bastard,” Gouki said, his voice still and calm.

“All you want is an explanation?” Harry asked, leaning in.

“For now,” Gouki said, his sneer deepening. Harry thought it strange the first thing Gouki mentioned was the personal. It wasn’t a lie. He never said he wouldn’t use the book for its more destructive purposes. But the primary reason he said he wanted it was answers.

“Honestly, I ain’t your granddad’s biggest fan either,” Harry said. Gouki’s sneer disappeared for a moment, a look of surprise replacing it.

“You read it?” Gouki asked.

Harry held out his hand. An officer walked over, holding onto the diary of Reiji Kageyama tightly. He took the book from him, leafing through it, still seeing the nonsense but knowing what was hidden behind it. Gouki, however, didn’t know it was illegible to humans.

“A bit,” Harry said.

“Strange. I thought grandfather would have coded it,” Gouki said. Harry mentally kicked himself. He either made himself sound like a liar or told Gouki he knew the trick to reading it. “You know…I envy you in a way, Harry.”

Those words were something which Harry had never expected Gouki Kageyama to utter. He honestly did not know what to say for a few moments. “Envy me? The hell does envy me even mean to you, Gouki?” Harry asked.

“I’m curious myself,” Yami said, a furry eyebrow arched as he observed his boss.

“You guys died, sure. But you came back,” Gouki said. He began walking forward, directly towards Harry and the book. The police officer’s hands went to their guns. The yakuza men did likewise, while both exorcists and demons tensed their muscles, waiting to spring into action. But Harry and Gouki remained still, calm and cool as Gouki closed the distance.

“You’re jealous I came back to life?” Harry asked.

“Did Harry Vickers come back to life?” Gouki asked. Those words snapped something in Harry.

“Huh?” Harry tilted his head, the shocks piling up in his brain. Since when did Gouki God damn Kageyama become so philosophical.

“I’ll make it easy,” Gouki said. “You all died. You came back. How many of you are the same as you were before?”

The exorcists were quiet. None of them wanted to admit Gouki had a point. Better or worse, D Day had changed them. His grandfather had forced the change.

“Me? I never got the chance to change! Grandfather ruled me!” Gouki yelled. With a sudden motion he pulled out his gun, pointing it right at Harry’s head. In a flash equally as quick Reo had pulled out his pistol and aimed it at Gouki. Not one of the three men flinched, staring down barrels of guns, waiting for the wrong twitch.

“Tests. Tests and tests and tests…” Gouki muttered, his barely hidden rage beginning to bubble over. “I never had a chance to change. Grandfather saw to it. You think I didn’t want to be a different man? My own man? Screw off.”

Harry saw Gouki different then. No longer was he the blood thirsty gangster who had tormented him so often while he was in Japan. He was the man denied the life he wanted by Reiji. Yet another piece of human wreckage left by the man, his life destroyed in the most personal way. The worst part, Harry thought, was Gouki didn’t even know the real extent of his grandfather’s evil.

And he never would.

“Truth be told, I’m sick of your granddad’s bullshit too. Here, catch,” Harry said, tossing the diary through the air. Gouki caught it, confusion warring with pleasure on his face.

“Gotta be honest, I thought you had more fight in you, Harry. I thought…wait, the hell’s this smell?” Gouki asked. It was then he noticed the string trailing out of the book leading back to Harry. It had fallen out of the book as Harry tossed it, and he held the other end in one hand.

In the other he held a lighter.

“Oh, I have fight Gouki. But it’s a fight I never wanted. Neither did Reo. Or Gaku. Or you,”  Harry said, flicking the lighter on, the flame wavering in a slight wind as if a hidden presence was observing them. It probably was, Harry thought. And it can suck it too.

“Harry…” Gouki said, frozen, disbelieving what he was beginning to believe was happening.

“Or Lisa! And the smell is gas you evil dick! NOW YOU AND GRANDPA CAN BOTH BURN TOGETHER!” Harry shouted his rage into the air, not directing it at Gouki but rather at the book and the old man who wrote it, the man who had ruined them all. The flame hit the gas soaked wick and flew across it, consuming the book before Gouki could react. He screamed and threw the flaming diary, horror pouring from the few words he spat at Harry.

“NO! WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Gouki raged.

“I freed us both. They’re our lives now,” Harry said. Then, unable to keep from smiling, he added a last little dig. “You’re welcome, Gouki.”

“WAR!” Gouki shouted.

The street exploded in violence.

Gouki leapt at Harry, his gun firing as he charged. Harry knocked it away with a swift backhand, engaging with Gouki in hand to hand contact. Beside them, Yami rushed to meet Reo and Hinata. “Hello again Kurosawas! I have unfinished business with both of you!” Yami said, swiping his claws at them. Both dodged quickly, Reo’s sword materializing as Hinata achieved her nine tailed from.

“You killed my friend. You tried to kill my sister. You don’t leave here with your demon,” Reo said, his anger barely contained as he sliced at the bat.

“I’ve got big boy!” Takeshi shouted, his hands burning like twin meteors as he assumed his traditional sumo stance, tearing his shirt off, as an oni stood before him. The oni spit to the side, lightning crackling around it.

“Sounds good to me, round boy!” Gaku said, twirling his staff and smacking several charging ushi-oni in the face, ending in a stylish pose nobody paid attention to as all the police were engaged in fierce shootouts with the human yakuza. “Huh. Uncultured people…” he sighed, disappointed.

Mayumi and Muzuki were back to back, Mayumi’s bow singing as it shot magical glowing arrows at dive bombing tengu, their long red noses pointed directly at them as their wings flapped like mad. Mizuki covered her back with her whip, extending it far longer than should be possible as it cracked against demon flesh.

“We have so earned a vacation after this!” Mizuki cried out.

“Agreed! I’ll even let you pick where!” Mayumi said.

“You burned my diary, you stupid American prick!” Gouki shouted, clocking Harry square in the chin. “My legacy! My family! MY CHOICE TO BURN IT, DAMN IT!”

Harry spit to the side, seeing blood fly from his mouth. “Huh. You’ve been working out. Good.” Harry assumed a fighters stance, fists up. “No hammer. No exorcist powers. You and me. Let’s end this.”

Gouki cracked his neck, his fists raising as well.

“I’ll kill you,” Gouki said.

Harry smirked at him.

“Like you’ll be the one to make it stick,” Harry said as their fists lashed out and the true fight began.