Reminiscences (IV) / Requiem For A Vengeance

"When I heard those words, I immediately screamed at the phone, trying to get more info from her, but the call had been terminated, there was nothing I could do. I immediately called Makoto’s family, asking if she was with them, and, when they replied negatively, I was in panic. I called the police, saying that a person had been kidnapped and I just received a call from her asking for help. The police arrived, asked me questions and then tried to triangulate the position of her cell phone: however, it was off. There were two people there, probably detectives: a younger one, that looked like he was new to the service, and an older one, with the veteran aura that someone that lived that life for long gave off. The younger one wanted to go away and do things with calm tomorrow, saying that, in that neighbourhood, having help would have been difficult, but the old one stopped him with harsh words, then asked me as many details about Makoto as possible: who she frequented, if she had any contact with bad companies, things like that. Then, he turned and said to the young detective to mobilize as many forces as possible and search the entire area, saying that that kidnap was something serious. Then, before going away, he turned to me and said 

“If we are going to try and solve this, we need your help, Silent Checker: the police alone aren’t going to do great things here, so we need your help. I have an idea about who might have kidnapped her, and I think you also have: we need to find them. So, please, lend me your help, or let me lend you a hand”. 

Then, he went away, or better, he went down, considering that he had decided to watch me so that, if anybody tried to approach me, he could catch it and then we together could interrogate it. He knew who I was, which was a pleasant and unexpected surprise for me, and that’s why he stayed and tried to get as many details as he could out of me, so that he could help me. Plus, he probably had my same idea: those who kidnapped my Makoto were the same people that killed Anastasia, which meant that they were targeting the Anemakai, which could have meant more deaths, especially Makoto’s one. I immediately called all the other senators and my family and asked that everyone was put on the streets searching for Makoto together with the police and that, if anyone from the neighbourhood knew something, they had to tell it both to them and also to the police. I was unable to sleep, so, even though I knew it wouldn’t have helped me, I started searching for Makoto myself, while that old detective, whose name was Nisetogi Hajime, kept an eye on my house, if someone had the idea of venturing there and leave me something, as he somehow thought they would have done. That night, I didn’t sleep a single more minute, searching in every cranny for Makoto, together with my gang and the few gangs that were affiliated to us, which gave us a big help in the research. Then, around eight in the morning, I received a call from Hajime, saying that he had caught someone who was leaving me a package. I immediately went to him and together we interrogated the guy, who spoke a language I had never heard, but that, somehow, the detective knew, which made the guy, a young boy with some tattoos on his face, scare a bit, then they chatted a bit and the detective gave him a pat on the head, before punching him right in the face, which made him lose consciousness. When I asked him what he said, he looked at me with emotionless eyes, then replied. 

“He said that he doesn’t know who that girl is and where she is, but he said that he brought you a gift. Then, I kind of forced him to say me some things, under the pretext that I could have left him free and make his bosses know that he talked to the police, and he said some things”. Then, before continuing, he lit a cigarette, then added “He said some guy named Ivan knows something, but that is all: then he just acted like an asshole”. Then, he turned towards me and said “Akira, I’m gonna be honest with you: this is going to be difficult. If you want to understand why, just look in that box. But I am advising you: you are not going to like what you are going to see”. 

I immediately reached for the package, unwrapped it and discovered what it concealed: inside of it there was a finger, with a ring that I gifted to Makoto when we went to Tokyo. When I saw it, when I saw it… from there, I remember rage and fear possessed me, and then, apparently, I passed out. When I woke up, another package was in front of my home: this time, it contained an ear. That meant that they were torturing her, and the thought of my dear Makoto being touched by such cruel beings… I couldn’t sustain it. Then, I continuously searched for her, for days and days, without a pause, feverishly, together with Hajime, interrogating suspects, almost killing some and trying to make our way towards Makoto’s position. No more packages arrived, which didn’t give us hope: if they weren’t touching her anymore it was because they were planning something, and we had to be quick in finding her. However, unfortunately, we arrived too late. Once, I woke up and before my door stayed a trash bin. I immediately knew what there was inside, but I couldn’t get to look inside it. I called Hajime, who was still investigating some ropes, to get to my apartment and open it, and, when he did, I could see his expression transmuted in a horror one, then he looked at me and shook his head, destroyed, his eyes emanating a glacial aura. “Those bastards did it again… dammit!” he said, slamming his hand against the wall. That was when I looked inside the bin… and there… there was…”

Akira didn’t finish that sentence, his eyes filled with tears. He cried, and cried, while Samai stayed near him, looking at him, sharing his cry with some tears that were coming out of her eyes for what she just heard. Then, through the tears, Akira tried to continue that horrific tale.

“She… she was so young… so beautiful… so full of life… and the last image… I had to have… of her… was like that…” Then, he looked at Samai, right in the face, tears still coming out of his eyes. “I… I can’t describe what I saw… but the scars… oh my god, the scars… they were so deep…”. Then, he looked away and cried silently for some minutes, without adding a word to what he said. Some minutes passed, and then, when the tears stopped coming out copiously, Akira went on with what had become an hellish story.

“After that, Hajime called the cops and they brought Makoto’s body away. When her body left the bin and the eye could fully see all of her, I remember even the coroner looked at me with eyes full of compassion and sympathy, a thing that the other cops were doing even before. Then, her body was put on an ambulance, and her exit under a white cloth was welcomed by the whole of Anemakai, of the cops, of her family and of the neighbourhood people, who were all crying, from the first to the last: even the cops were shedding tears for her. However, the monsters who did that to her made a big mistake: they left their mark on the body, probably to boast about what they did, an emblem I had recognised and so did Hajime. A few questions here and there before departing with the body and we got the location of their headquarters. So, when the corpse was brought away, together with me and her family, who at least had the fortune not to see her body in that condition – a thing that they still did after, a thing that they said to me that they regretted doing: they wanted to be left with the beautiful image of their daughter, not with the image of that body, the same thing I wanted -, I knew what to do next. That day after, I presented myself, alone, right at the entrance of their headquarters. And…”. Before continuing, he took a deep breath, then he said it, the thing he never said to anyone, even though many knew. “I… I killed all of them. 22, to be more precise: that was the amount of people who were in that building when I entered, the entirety of that gang. I didn’t use any weapon at first: I used only my fists”. After saying that, he looked at his hands, which also draw the eyes of Samai, then he continued. “I remember that, when the guard saw me, he understood what was awaiting him and tried to talk things out, but, before he could even finish a sentence, I threw a punch right at his head and, when he collapsed, I kicked him as hard as possible for a few times, before entering the building. However, before doing that, I picked up a bat the guy I beat had with him: I wasn’t that stupid to go into the lion’s den without a weapon. Then, inside, the pandemonium started: they all tried in some ways to stop my fury, but nobody could do that. After some corpses had fallen, my bat broke, and that was when I had to switch to a sword that one of the fallen had with himself, then I went on with my revenge. However, I had something different in mind for the boss of the organization: I would have gladly liked to make all of them suffer the agonies of hell, but that wasn’t possible. At least, not with my presence while they were suffering. I still remember the moment when I entered the boss’s office: he tried to shoot me with a machine gun or something similar, but, when he had to reload, I jumped out and punched him right in the stomach. Then, while he was on the ground, I picked up a gun that was near him, checked if it had ammos – I had barely ever used a gun up to that point, but I still knew how to shoot – and then shot four bullets: one for his right arm, one for his left one and one for both of the legs. That way he was immobilized on the ground. Then, I shot another bullet in his stomach, wanting to see him slowly bleed to death, suffering the pains of hell. But you know how I would have really wanted to kill him in the first place? I wanted to burn him alive, but then I thought that I had to listen to his voice while he screamed, so I discarded that: he wasn’t worth of even emitting a sound, and that’s why, with the sword, I also cut his tongue. Then, when I saw his eyes were starting to close and the blood was coming slower and slower out from the wounds, I whispered to him.

“This is for Makoto, you bastard. An eye for an eye, twenty corpses for one. Remember these words in hell”.

I remember the fear that appeared in his eyes when I said that: he finally understood who I was, which served to increase my rage. He killed my love... and he didn’t’ even know to whom he tore her off? Then, while my eyes were literally emitting flames, I saw his head bending to one side, and like that, he died. A miserable death to be sure, but still better than Makoto’s one. When I contemplated the massacre I made alone I didn’t feel any sort of satisfaction: instead, I sat on the ground and cried like a child. I cried because what I did couldn’t have possibly brought Makoto back to me, and I was full aware of that: I did what I did just in search of vengeance, in search of something that could satisfy my thirst for blood, for those who killed my dear one. But now, nothing remained for me: it is really true that revenge doesn’t leave nothing behind, apart from a desolate land where nothing can grow again. Or, at least, that was what I thought back then. Before leaving, I saw a tank of gas in an angle, near a motorcycle. That was when I decided that I didn’t even want to make their bodies recognisable, to leave everything behind me by destroying everything. I poured all the petrol the tank had out and then I draw a straight line up until the entrance, where I searched the body of the first shed blood in order to find something with which to lit a fire. Fortunately, that guy smoke cigarettes, so he had a lighter with him. I moved his body inside, then, after looking at the little flame that the lighter was emitting, I threw it towards the wake of petrol, which lit up in an instant, emanating a small blue and red flame that quickly propagated through the whole building. But I didn’t see that, because I had turned my back to that horrible spectacle and went away, back to what remained of my life. I then got to know that the fire totally destroyed the building and that the police were investigating, trying to find the arsonist. I was prepared to get arrested and sent to prison: I didn’t care anymore, I just wanted Makoto back, an impossible thing to obtain, unfortunately. That was when Hajime came to visit me: I thought that he was going to arrest me, instead we chatted briefly about the investigation, what news there were and other things and then, when he was about to leave, he shook energetically my hand and, with tears in his eyes, he said to me

“You did the right thing, killing those bastards. If you didn’t, I would have done that myself. So thank you, for eradicating those bastards from this earth”.

That was when he told me that those monsters did the same thing to her daughter, when he was on their trails back when they were in another zone of Sapporo. Since then, he was behind their back, trying to find them and make them pay for what they did to her. That was why he was thanking me: I granted his wish. That was when we both cried our souls out, embraced one with each other. Then, he turned to go away and said that I didn’t have to worry about the investigation: even if there were traces that could have conduced to me, he said that they would have archived the case as unresolved. Then, he went away, and I remained alone: this time, probably forever. I stayed in my room for the next two weeks, depressed, without any will to live, waiting only for the police to come, even though Hajime said that they would have never arrived. I got out only for Makoto’s funeral, another occasion in which I cried my soul out. I… I don’t want to remember that event: the sadness, the pain, the sufferance of all the people near her, remembering all of that still makes me feel a strong pain in my chest… After those two weeks, I got out of my apartment thanks to a call: it was Hajime, telling me they archived the case as unresolved, effectively making it become a cold case. He then thanked me again for what I did, and then hung up. I got out of my room only to do a thing: I wanted to go away, as far away as possible from there, from the memories, from the pain. Me, Hana, Eduardo and Viviana quickly liquidated the gang, following what we decided before Makoto was kidnapped, and then we said our farewells, knowing full well that it would have been difficult to see each other again. Hana and Eduardo went to Brazil, where they had two children: I have heard them various times from then, and they told me that I was always welcome if I ever wanted to reach them. However, I have never done that. Viviana went back to Europe and, the last I got to contact her, she told me that she had been accepted in a college in the United States, a prestigious one, just to show her capabilities. As for me… I escaped to Tokyo, wanting to forget myself in the impressive amount of people that inhabit that city. That was also the time when I promised myself not to get involved with people again: I was scared to get hurt again, and the memories I had – my parent’s death, the Anemakai’s ones, Makoto’s one – made my will unshakeable. I quietly went through a public high school, missing the majority of the lessons, not making any single social interaction and being saved only by my marks – after all, studying was the only thing I had left to do -, but then I didn’t go to university and started living a dull and soulless life, full of void and forgettable days, all identical to each other, haunted by my memories. Wanting to escape even further, I lived for a brief period in Russia, but then I returned, unable to apparently adjust myself to another country, as it seemed like I had become a void shell. That was when an old member of the gang, Mikhail, the one who suggested that me and Makoto went to Vladivostok for that trip, showed up at my door, wanting to see how I was, and offered me a job in an IT business that a friend of his had started. IT was one of my other passions, one of the few that remained to me, so I accepted his offer, even though I knew that I wasn’t going to escape my demons by that. And that brings us to the present: I worked for some time for that business, but, then, I escaped again, followed by my demons. Then, I arrived here, and the rest is history”.

When he finished that sentence, he turned towards Samai and, with a bitter smile, said, with tears in his eyes,