41: Atonement

During the next several months I only get a glimpse of Yuna a few times from a distance. I was taken out of the group training to do one-on-one training with Nori and the other man with yellow eyes, Regal. Sometimes Master decides to join in… and those days are worse than hell.

They train me to use different firearms. Endless hours of shooting until I can hit a target perfectly with each shot no matter if it is a handgun or a rifle and can tell which type just by the sound of the bang. Endless hours until I can reload in mere seconds with my eyes closed and can disassemble then reassemble a firearm with ease. The smell of gunpowder and the vibration in my hands becomes normal for me.

As the months tick by, I become stronger and more agile than I could have imagined. The longer I train, the more and more I despise them. I try to escape several more times, thinking if only I could find Officer Yamamoto again, he would believe me. I know it. But I always end up back in the cell, screaming bloody murder. The “medicine” is to help me learn my lesson. Eventually… I do.

At least that’s what they think. I know I won’t be able to get out any time soon. So, I will go back to my original plan. Gather information and wait until the opportune moment. Still, if I make a mistake, back to the cell. If I mock Regal too much, the cell. He makes it too easy though.

It becomes a game as I find myself chained up each night since I keep getting out of my cell to walk about the halls, testing how long it takes to get caught again. They shouldn’t have taught me how to pick locks and slight-of-hand if they didn’t want me to use it. It’s the only bit of fun I get apart from calling Regal names, which makes him livid. And because I know I can survive the “medicine”, any bit of wasted resources or annoyance I can give them is worth it until I am able to do more damage.

A year goes by at least. Master has been… excited. She keeps talking about a ceremony I will be a part of. The thought of it unnerves me.

On the special day I am brought to a wide room where I find the group of kids I used to train with. I am taken aback, noticing how much most have grown. Have I also? How much time has gone by?

Regal tosses out some knives across the group, and I reflexively catch one without much thought. Then I notice there aren’t enough for the whole group, and I get an eerie feeling.

Master stands before us. “I’ll get right to the point. This is the last test most of you will undergo,” she says with that smug smile that makes me want to wring her neck. Her eyes rest on me. “The last one standing will be given a wonderful gift today.”

I look across the faces that I hadn’t seen in so long. While we hardly spoke to one another, we all had this unspoken bond as prisoners in this Domain. But now their eyes are all on me, like lasers on a target. Right. I’m the one that has been getting special treatment. I’m the biggest threat. Which means…

“Well, go on now,” Master says, clapping her hands hurriedly. “Get to it!”

They converge on me.

After it is all said and done, I stand amidst the bodies of my former peers, covered in blood, my hands trembling as I grip the knives in my hands. My body feels so far away as I stare at the empty faces on the floor. I can see blood dripping from my wounds but can’t feel them. I can’t feel anything. I have to bury it all. I have to do whatever it takes to save Yuna.

I am allowed to shower, and I avert my eyes from the blood swirling down the drain. Any other time it had been from my own wounds, my own blood. But this time…

Then they dress me in black robes and bring me to a large room with many guards in rows, bowed. They have me kneel before an altar, where Master stands on the other side. On the altar sits a golden cup and as she recites words in some foreign tongue she slides a knife across her arm, letting blood drip into the cup.

“Rise,” she commands.

I stand.

“You have passed all but one of my trials. Surprisingly so at a younger age than I normally see, but I believe you to hold an immense power within you. Should you drink this elixir, you will have access to this power,” she says and her black gaze bores into me, as if seeing into my very soul. “Do you want to be strong? Will you pay the price for this power?”

She holds the cup out to me, and I take it, staring into the crimson liquid. My stomach churns at the thought of drinking blood, but what she says rings in my ears. If I have power, I can save Yuna. That’s all that matters. I have to be strong. I’ll pay any price to save her.

I press the cup to my lips and drink.

California (Present day)—

For a long moment I stare out at the yard, the events of that day still as confusing as ever. “I… do not remember much after that. But after that they called me ‘Red Dragon’.”

Kiara still sits silently as I recount my life, words spilling from my mouth now that the dam I had kept up for so long has been broken.

Without realizing I had reached up to cover my face. “And my eyes changed.”

For a moment I cannot find the words. “I… used to look normal, but now… I do not know what happened or how to explain it, but now I look like a demon or something.”

“After that… It was the middle of the night and Master told me that day was going to be ‘Red Dragon’s grand debut’.” I gaze out, not seeing. I suddenly feel so numb, the words spilling from my mouth. “We were in Shinjuku… She picked out a man, told me he was Yakuza. Then said to execute him right there.”

My breath leaves my lungs. “I panicked. He was in the middle of a crowd. I did not even know him. I had nothing against him. He was with an older woman, maybe his mother or some other family. How could I kill a man in front of his family? But all I could think was what would happen to Yuna if I disobeyed… What would happen to me…”

My throat tightens and I clench my fists. “I took aim like I had hundreds of times at the practice targets and pulled the trigger. I… did not miss once after the first month of target practice, but the bullet hit the building behind him.”

“And Mast… She was furious. She took me back to the practice room. Then she brought Yuna in and made her stand at the end of the room and hold a target over her head. She told me to hit the target with every bullet I had.”

I can feel the tears in my eyes, but I have no strength to stop them. “I begged her for a second chance… but she said if I did not do it, she would kill her right there. And…” my voice wavers, “Yuna smiled at me… Told me not to worry. She told me no matter what she loved me.”

My chest aches, my heart feeling as if being torn apart and I lean over, my arms around my chest. “I took aim… and Yuna smiled at me again, but her eyes were dead. She said silently to kill her… She looked so sick and frail. Could barely hold herself up. I could only imagine what they did to her, the pain she was in. And the look on her face as she begged me to end it…”

Kiara sniffles and I try my best to hold myself together.

“I-I pulled the trigger… Ran to her. Held her… I… could not even tell her good-bye… Or apologize… or tell her I loved her too…”

The tears drip down my face and I remain unmoving, my body having gone completely numb. I hear Kiara sob again, but I have no strength to even turn my head.

“Everything I had done… the blood I had spilled… It was all for nothing. She was all I had. I promised to save her, and then I… c-could not even give her a proper burial. The only thing I could tell myself was that she was no longer suffering.”

For a moment I stare out. “But after that I… lost all sense of who I was… Nothing mattered anymore. I didn’t care anymore. I became ‘Red Dragon’. At the top of Japan’s most wanted list, running from police like it was just another day… killing whoever I was ordered to. I was so numb I no longer thought twice about it.”

“You asked why, but I do not completely know. What was the point? There were times I was ordered to kill people who they tried to bring into the Domain, only for them to refuse… or other members who tried running.”

“Other than that, a lot of Yakuza… A few government officials or police who somehow learned of the Domain. Some paid the Domain a high price for me to kill their competitors or finish their fights. People I never knew who had lives and families… dreams. But I, who had nothing, no longer even a name, killed them simply because I was told to.”

“And ever since I woke up here, after waiting for them to come looking for me only to realize by some miracle I actually got away… I keep thinking if it was really so easy as to leave Japan… Why did I stay? If I had left or even turned the gun on myself those people would still be alive. I let it all happen so… how can I ever hope to be deserving of an actual life like they had? How do I atone for that?”

Before I realize, I am looking over to see her crystal blue eyes, tears glistening in the moonlight reflecting my own. Then I notice the blood on her thumbs from having picked at them so much and my heart wrenches.

“K-Kiara your fingers…”

I find myself reaching over only to hesitate and she seems frozen, still picking at them as if in a trance. My heart pounds and I quickly pull the sleeves over my hands. Then I reach over, covering her hands. She flinches, gasping, and I move back.

“S-sorry… I… ah…” I mutter.

Dammit, I freaked her out. She will never want to talk to me again. For a moment, the silence is deafening and the weight on my chest becomes heavier and heavier.

“I did not plan to tell you all of that, but c-could not stop talking. I ah…” I say, staring down and grimace. “I’m sorry… That was too much.”

She gets up from the table, not saying a word, and I feel myself begin to shatter. Of course, she would leave. Any sane person would.

Then she turns to face me, holding back tears. “Shyba,” she whispers, “can I hold you?”

For a second, I am completely stunned. After all that I said, all that I admitted, that is the first thing she says to me.

“You… B-but I…” I stammer.

She moves closer and my heart pounds, though I remain frozen.

My breath wavers. “You are not disgusted? Or afraid? You do not… hate me?”

“I’m disgusted that this sort of thing happened… That you got caught up in it. That something like this even exists and by how much it hurt you,” she tells me, her voice cracking. “But I’m not afraid of you. I could never be afraid of you.”

Once again, my eyes are wet, and I lose my breath. Is this really happening? There has to be a catch. She is in denial, or the horrible truth has not completely sunk in yet. Just this once though, could I pretend like everything will be okay? Just for this moment, can I pretend that by some miracle she could ever really want me?

Before I can talk myself out of it, I pull my arms around her, keeping my fists balled up inside my sleeves. The floral scent from her hair lingers and my face flushes as she wraps her arms around me. Wow, she is so warm. Can I just stay here forever?

“Kiara… What should I do?” I whisper. “I am still so lost. I want to do the right thing, but if I go back… If I am found… I-I want to know what I am supposed to do.”

She gently rubs my back, my heart doing kart-wheels. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t think anyone can answer that question but you,” she tells me and leans back to look up at me.

“I don’t think there is a right answer for this. What you did was wrong… but I don’t think the reason you did so was bad. If my family was being held hostage, I would do nearly anything to save them so I might have made the same choices that you did. But I can’t know for sure, so I can’t give you a truthful answer. And from the way this organization sounds, they could have had others do their bidding for them, right? So, the lives you… t-took aren’t solely on your shoulders like you seem to think. Anyone else could have been in your position.”

She continues, gazing at me with tear-filled eyes, “And I… I would like to believe that your sister wouldn’t want you to torture yourself over this. She would want you to do your best to live your life to the fullest and help people, you know? Helping others wouldn’t be a bad way to find atonement, right?”

My mind reels. What she says makes sense, only there is one problem. I lower my head. “The only skills I have are to hurt people,” I mutter.

“That’s not true,” she says, shaking her head. “You’ve learned a lot this past year, right? I know I taught you how to cook some and about gardening. Jer showed you a lot about horses and you helped him with projects around here. If you want to learn other skills, you could. And it comes naturally to you to make the people around you happy and help out.”

She smiles, my heart aching. “You saved me and Nicky from getting beat up. When Jade and Harmony beg you to play with them you always do so even though I know it bores you. And when Mama needs something done, you’re the first person to volunteer. When I’m upset you always find a way to cheer me up. And…”

Her brows arch, blush forming across her cheeks. She glances away for a moment before looking back up at me, giving me that smile I adore. “I’m really glad we became friends, you know?”

As I gaze at her I run her words through my mind again. “We are… still friends?”

She nods. “Of course. Is… that okay?”

The aching in my heart only seems to increase. All I can think is how much I want to tell her I am in love with her, but now probably is not the best time. She most likely no longer likes me the way she did moments ago. Of course, it is only natural after learning all of this.

Still, she is willing to continue being friends. That is more than I could ever ask of her. I should be grateful she does not hate me.

I nod and force a small smile. “Thank you. I am… happy to still have you as my friend.”