The King and a Hunter

I woke up to a noise coming from the workshop. I opened my eyes slowly, I got out of bed. When I stood up, almost fell to the floor, my head was still hurting. I went to the bathroom, I opened the faucet and poured water on my face, then went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, then went to the workshop, door raised, "Good morning Mr. Ren" said Goro, "What time is it..." said I while covering my face from the sun, "08:40 in the morning sir" said Goro, "Shit..." I said, "I see you are not ready yet, I will wait until you are" said Goro, "Thank you Goro..." said I.

I took off my jacket and left it on the workshop table, I went to the kitchen again and from one of the shelves I grabbed some headache pills, I took two, then headed back to my room, took off my clothes and put on clean ones, then I took out a suitcase, put in t-shirts, pants, underwear, a pair of boots and the jacket I wore last time. I left the suitcase next to the door frame of the room and went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face again, I went out grabbed the suitcase and the temperature regulator, went into the workshop and before leaving I approached the helmet rack and grabbed the helmet with Killer’s modifications, the same one I used last time, finally, from under the rack I took out the drone suitcase and put it with the clothes. When I left I grabbed the jacket from the table again,  put it on and took out the knife and the gun and left them on the table, I checked my pockets and also took out the mask, I only kept the cell phone, I approached the door and got up, Goro had not moved "Time to go Mr. Ren" he said, I just nodded and got into the car.

It was a long drive, we crossed from the most dangerous areas of the city to Ota, the place where the airport is located. As we drove out of Tokyo's Hell area I got to think about how much the danger in the city has expanded. In the past, Adachi and Shinjuku were among the most dangerous neighborhoods, years went by and people became desperate for money, the economy worsened. The rich kept more and the rest just kept losing and losing until things got to where they are now, it is no longer just Adachi and Shinjuku, Itabashi, Kita, Toshima, Bunkyou, Arakawa, Nerima, Nakano, all fell, now it is just a neighborhood called Tokyo's Hell, the name of the criminal gang that dominates all areas and fills it with drugs, prostitution, chaos, and death, it is a place where not even the law has a say. It's dangerous for anyone to be there, but not for me, not for Kid, nor Killer, Dragon, Butcher, Gunner, Snake, Asuka or Kaen. We control it, we don't make chaos, chaos makes itself, people kill each other, it's always been like that, we just generate money to provide, it's like Tokyo's Hell is a kingdom with me being the sole ruler, the executives are nothing when I'm the one instilling fear, but also hope. It may sound like I'm against it, but as long as me and my people are protected by the barrier between Tokyo's Hell and the rest of the city, we can follow the plan until we finally achieve it. When we are out of Japan, no one will know it was us, they will never suspect it was a foreigner, this is how we will finish off The Elite from the shadows and share the truth not only with my people but with the whole world, this way I will avenge my parents and give them the life they deserve. I may die and I may fail, until that moment nothing will change regarding what we will do, each one of those people who participated in the creation of The Plague and who want to profit from our deaths will end up being the mockery of those they wanted to kill.

"We have arrived Mr. Ren" said Goro, "Thank you Goro, take good care of my parents while I am gone" I said, "I will sir, best of luck" said Goro. I grabbed my suitcase and got out of the car. I walked through the door and right there was Kid, "You are early" he said, "Look who is talking" I said. We went to the luggage documentation to leave the bags, the robot attended us, we left the bags and it gave us the boarding passes, then we went through a security checkpoint where they scanned passport, identification and the veracity of both documents, then we went to the security area where they do a metal scanner and another to verify that you do not try to smuggle any object inside the body. We passed without any problem. Then we just went to the plane to wait for takeoff. Once we were in the air Kid told me: "In Osaka, we will meet a man named Hunter, he will provide us with the equipment outside Tokyo" "Is he reliable?" I asked, "He has known Killer for years, he was the one who provided the weapons in the assassination of the president seven years ago" said Kid "I see..." I said, "Be confident Ren, Hunter is convinced that what we do is for the greater good, to achieve peace first there must be war right?" said Kid, "You're right..." I said.

After a while, in the air we could visualize the Kansai airport, a platform over the sea from where dozens of planes were taking off simultaneously. "It's beautiful, isn't it? It's perfectly planned" said Kid, "Yes, it is... This is the first time I come to Osaka and I am impressed by what they have done" I said, "It is impressive, it really is... Did you know that before modernization all transportation was operated by humans?" said Kid, "Nowadays it's hard to believe, but yes, I know... When oil was the most valuable thing, when we decided to push the planet to the edge" I said, "Now we do our best to look like the good guys: seventy percent of world transportation is electric and automatic, countries now only use renewable sources to provide energy... We are just scum trying to look good" said Kid, "Not us, they are, we were just naive, that's why we took revenge, because of the lies we have been told for as long as we can remember" I said, "You are more than right Ren" said Kid.

The plane landed on the platform and headed to the disembarkation area, when it slowed down the door opened and the separations of the seats were lowered, we did not have to wait long to get out, our seats were among the first ones. Once we were out we went through security and then we went through immigration, we picked up our bags and headed to the airport exit because that is where Hunter would be waiting for us.

We stood on the sidewalk under the January cold waiting. Two minutes later a car stopped in front of us. The doors opened, Kid went first, then I. "Kid, Ren, it is a pleasure to meet you, as Killer told you I am Hunter, from this moment on I will be your equipment supplier outside Tokyo and Japan, any instrument or artifact you need I will get it, weapons, explosives, gases, no problem either" said Hunter, "Good to know" I said, "No problem" said Hunter.

We left the airport and crossed the bridge linking the tarmac to the city. The landscape was clean, more orderly and neat than in Tokyo, the buildings were big and tall, the roads crossed the whole city up to the highest floors, it was quieter and more peaceful than Tokyo, I liked that, I needed a break from everything that was happening there. I spent some time watching with admiration for the trught the sale, but in a moment everything disappeared, there was a garden full of flowers and fountains, so big that you could not see the end, "These are the gardens surrounding the business area" said Hunter "What are we doing here?" I asked, "I just brought you here so you can see the area, after all this is where Ash is" said Hunter "Are we staying here? " asked Kid, "No, but we will come here often, it is necessary to know all Narukami's movements to know when it is good to attack him," said Hunter, "What do you know about him?" I asked, "He is a lonely guy, he lives in his house in the upper area of Osaka, he has no wife or girlfriend, no children either and his parents died years ago, he likes to attract attention, but he has a schedule that he follows to the letter, he would not like to lose everything he has and everything he has fought for" said Hunter, "I see..." I said.

I know what it feels to be alone, all by yourself, I know what it feels to not want to lose everything, and I know how Narukami Kanto scum feels, that's an advantage, this will be another mission accomplished and another step closer to the extinction of the ruthless killers.

"These are Ash's offices" said Hunter, "It's a big building..." said Kid as he looked up through the window, "Is it going to be necessary to enter? A building of such a size that belongs to the largest tech company in the world must have more than one guard and more than one security code" I said, "That's true, the entire building has around forty security codes" said Hunter, "That's quite a lot" said Kid, "It is" said Hunter, "What exactly do we need to infiltrate the building for? We already have his schedule and besides Killer already knows all the security blind spots around Narukami's house" I said, "Ren, one of the two most important people in Japan was killed not more than a week ago and you two manage to make it look like a massacre with suicide, for the other most important person in Japan to commit suicide not long after that is pretty suspicious, how were you going to cover it up this time? " said Hunter, "We were going to blame it on hir loneliness, he committed suicide because he couldn't take it anymore" said Kid, "Most of the world may buy that story, but for the two most important people in Japan to die in such a short span of time is going to look suspicious to more than one. Now, that they both committed suicide screams that there is someone behind it" "What do you propose then?" I asked, "An attack like the one on America in 2001" said Hunter, "So... We need to get into the building to find out what floor Narukami is on and what floor to hit the plane against to do the most damage and kill that bastard," said Kid, "Not a bad idea, Hunter" I said.