The subtle undercurrent of the river Kozu lapped against a small fishing boat, gently rocking itself in an entrancing motion on the water. The crisp wood creaked and groaned its accordance as the water caressed its knots and grains.The warmth of the midday sun beat down from above giving young Tem Hadar every reason to have such a wide smile spread across his face as he gazed up into the heat. Any tension in his body began to ebb away, allowing his hand to drift down and dangle in the water, cooling and soothing his soul.

"Shuichi!" He cried playfully, looking up to his best friend who sat tentatively at the edge of the small fishing boat, with rod in hand and net at the ready.

"Kegoshi, you'll never catch fish with a face like that," Kegoshi turned and scowled back at Tem from underneath his white cloth hood. "they can smell the ugly fisherman a mile off." He chuckled, shuffling up onto his elbows from his horizontal position in the boat.

"I've not caught a fish in three days, even Lucio and his twelve year old friends catch more than me, its humiliating. I'm six years older than he is, and have far more experience under my belt. It's not fair" moaned Kegoshi.

"Ahh, but when you do catch something, it's always grand." Said tem, offering a playful sympathy to his brother. "Just relax, sit back and enjoy this weather, it's not often we get heat like this."

Kegoshi grunted back, sneering slightly at his younger brother.

"Fine, be that way, "said Tem, "Its not as if we actually need any extra in this season's catch, we've got more than enough for the market this month. Nevendo won't be mad at you."

"Maybe not, but what about next season, he wont ask me to come out fishing again. I'll be known as the son who can't even catch a cold."

Tem couldn't help restrain a small giggle at Kegoshi's stubborn silliness.

"Don't be stupid, of course he'll take you, he always does."

The two exchanged a looks, both of encouragement and scepticism.

"I guess you're right, but if he asks why I haven't caught anything, its because you wont keep your big trap shut while I'm trying to concentrate."

"My big trap?!" Laughed Tem, "My big trap, oh, that's it I've had it now." Grinning maniacally, Tem stood up sharply and gripped either side of the little rowboat with his hands and shook himself from side to side.

"What are you doing? You'll tip the boat."

"Are you gonna stop me, "Laughed Tem, before Kegoshi stood up a little too fast, sending the boat and the too men splashing belly up into the water.


They came up giggling with one another as Tem shouted, "HA! Now we both have no fish!"

Unable to break from their uncontrollable fit of laughter, the pair collapsed back into the little boat, and lay, basking in the evervescance of the sun.

The sound of children playing on the shore filled the air. Kites and sandcastles were the flavour of the day, a rippling reminder of Tem and Kegoshi's dwindling years of innocence. Their little brother, Lucio danced his arms in circles through the air, guiding his beaming, red-tipped kite into a pattern of excellence, choreographed to weave the clouds and paint patterns in its wake.
Lucio's gloriously elegant bird dodged and dived, performing an exquisite ballet between the skies with its wings, like the proverbial Phoenix rising from the ashes and setting the sky ablaze.
It was a truly amazing arial display as Tem and Kegoshi watched on,and entranced by its theatrics on the stage above they turned and laughed again. As they watched the performance unfold, time seemed to draw to a blissful crawl, so much so that you could reach out and embrace the moment for all time.




.............


The mist from the mountains slowly crept down the hillside and into the valley in the evenings, cooling the tension of the day as it ebbed onto the lake. It was a ghostly sight to behold as the sun crept down behind the lake and set itself to sleep, dreaming its water-colour dreams of purple and gold onto the farmers and fisherman below.


"When are mama and papa coming home?" Enquired Lucio as he snuggled his head below the quilt of his small bed. His eyes weighed weary with the toil of sandcastles and swimming.

"First thing in the morning." Said Natalia, Lucio's older sister.

"But I cant wait that long." pouted Lucio.

Natalia frowned slightly, and continued, "Well, if you go to sleep right now, they'll be back before you know it."

"Promise?"

"Promise. Now rest your eyes little one," she said reassuringly, brushing his black hair back and kissing his forehead and smiling back into the innocence of Lucio, as he slowly drifted into the land of nod.


Tem sat out on the porch of the tiny wooden house and stared onto the mosaic pattern above that clung to the curtain of night. Kegoshi sat with his small pocket knife, cutting at a piece of soft wood.

"I've often wondered what it'd be like to fly up there. I've heard it's beautiful." Commented Kegoshi. "I've heard the traders say its like nothing you've ever seen before."

"And when did you ever see any traders." Said Tem.

"When father took me into the station one day. We passed by the place where they keep the spaceships, and I overheard them talking."

"I bet you didn't even know what they were talking about." Laughed Tem.

"I didn't, but whatever they said it sounded wondrous.


When I'm around twenty four, I think . . . I might just go back there, and try to get myself up there in the clouds, so you'll see me when you look up at night."

"Ha, you're head was always up in the clouds." Tem giggled, causing his brother to throw a small stick at him.


After a while the candles in the house were extinguished one by one, and the Hadar Family slept, awaiting the arrival of the next day.

"Fight, for what you want from this life.
Protect the ones you love.

Never forget that.

Hold on, and never let go.



Never, never let go.


Never"



The glow from the early morning sun crept over the window sill and settled across the Tem's heavy bed linen. He stretched in contentment as the warm sunlight inched across his bedsheets, casting gentle shadows on the wall.


In the distance he could hear the familiar clip-clop of horses trodding down the path to the farm.

Tem's eyes fluttered as the sun poured over the contours of his face, grudgingly forcing him back into the waking world.

....

"Mother!" came the resounding high-pitched squeal of his little brother's voice.

"Kegoshi! Tem!" He called to his brother's as he galloped in a frenzy along the halls of the small family shack. The boy almost tripped and fell, attempting to run and flip on his small sandals all in the one motion.

"Natalia! Mama and Papa are back!"

Bursting from the front door and out onto the wooden porch, he shuddered to a halt and peered down the long dry dust road leading to the homestead.

"Mama?"

.....

Like a fish suddenly torn from the waters, Tem was jerked awake by a cry from outside.

"Lucio!" He yelled as he recognized the familiar scream of his brother,"I'm coming!".

As Tem was about to reach the front door, three towering men burst through the doorway before him. All three were around six feet in height and were clad in black. Upon their faces they wore cloth hoods that covered everything but their eyes.
The tallest of the group held the limp body of his small brother across his broad shoulders. A small trickle of blood dripped from underneath the frail Lucio's body and down onto the man's dark clothing.

Overcome with a sudden fury, Tem leapt at him, clawing and kicking as best he could but one of the other men swatted him with the back of his hand, knocking him to the floor. The tall man strode over to Tem and pulled up his sleeves. His muscular arms were adorned with tattooes, one in particular a Rancor holding the sun aloft above its head.

It was the last image Tem would see as his vision was rapidly becoming engulfed by a cold claret that ran from his nose.

Some of the blood ran back into his throat, causing him to gag and vomit.

"L'il bastard!" Yelled the tall man.

As his vision became ever increasingly dull, Tem couldn't help but hear the muffled plea's for mercy from his sister as he finally lost consciousness.

</font>


Twelve years later-Present day





Tonight, Meetaneshi city played host to whatever acts of sordid depravity or godless violence took place. The city was nothing more than a glorified hovel to the twisted and sick, catering to an entire spectrum of morality. Once the prestigious capital city of the northern continent, Meetaneshi had given birth to the forefathers of the modern government, a government that struggled to keep order in an increasingly rebellious and discordant time.

An entire variety of outlaws and scum frequented the seedy place, contributing to it's fervent stench of lawlessness.
What fragile peace there was, was maintained through the criminals and underworld factions governing the real businesses that kept the city alive, patrolled by their own police force of hitmen and various intimidators.

Organised crime, prostitution, drugs and gang warfare had replaced the fishing and farming trades that once flourished only years before, keeping the city alive and prosperous. Within a few short years, everything had been crushed under the growing thumb of the crimelords and triad gangs, each stepping over one another -and the general populace- to maintain control over their volatile share of the whole.

At the center of it all stood the Kan-Zen-Ban (KZB) and the Kazuay Triads, who stood locked in an unquenchable blood battle, waging war on one another with a single goal in mind. Which was to hold entire control over Meetaneshi City, only one of several hundred cities over the entire world where the tentacles of their influence spanned, as well as the trail of bodies they left strewn behind.

More recently however, Meetaneshi had received a much welcome lull in the bloodshed, attributed to the recent arrival of the Satesoshi.

The Satesoshi were a criminal organisation who hailed from the much acclaimed southern continent. A land untainted by the touch of the either the KZB or the Triads, a land which still held onto its stability through commerce and trading. The cities in the southern continent, particularly Heeto city, business was the flavour of the day, and commerce and greed were the cooks in the kitchen, ordered around by the criminal head chef.

The head of the Satesoshi was descended from a long line of aristocrats who maintained their social standing through their less-than-legal grip on the corporate world. The man, known simply as Kitano was a much fabled figure in the world of organised crime, at least here he was. It was only recently that his name had begun to be spoken more frequently. The word going around was that the Satesoshi had demonstrated interest in staking a claim in Meetaneshi City, and like buzzards to a carcass, the opportunistic leeches of the KZB and the Triads began fu*king each other over in a bid to gain the partnership of the Satesoshi.

As each crime syndicate saw it, if the Satesoshi showed them favour, they could use that new found power to wipe out their respective enemy and be granted full sway over Meetaneshi city.

However, little did they know the Satesoshi had their own plans in mind. The satesoshi, while being a hugely powerful group, financially, lacked strength in manpower and firepower. And so, it would be in their best interests to combine forces with one of the stronger groups. Kitano was known just as much for his almost insane thirst for combat as he was for his known for his unmatched intellectual acumen. As he saw it, if he could arrange a hit on either a head KZB or triad member, he could in essence spark off an entire new wave of gang wars, essentially wiping out both of his parties of opposition.

To set his plan in motion, he would need to find the perfect hitter, someone on the inside willing to turn. Someone good.


.....................

Meetaneshi City-Red Light District- 2:35am


With an old bronze coin, Tem scratched works of art into the tarnished wood of the bar. He reached over and took another purposeful sip from his glass, letting the brown grotesque liquid cascade down his gullet. The glass' disgusting contents scorched the back of Tem's throat, causing him to gag and splutter onto the floor beside him.

"Another?" Enquired the pungent smelling barman.

"Yes." Coughed Tem. "And this time, leave the bottle."

The barman's concerned facade was quickly wiped into extinction when Tem threw several sparklingly clean credits in his direction.


Tem gazed toward the slender neck of the brown glass bottle which was less of an attempt to concentrate on his pouring but more to try and stop his vision from blurring. His head bobbed back and fourth as his eyes strained to focus. Slowly but surely the lip of the bottle rested on the edge of the glass, spilling its dark sickly contents into the clear container, staining its crystal clarity with its own brownish tint.

Again, he brought the glass to his lips and downed the poison and again he winced and coughed as the horrid sputum raked across his throat. With each gulp he took, he imagined to little effect that he was back drinking fresh gadop juice at home with his mother. The thought did little to ease his queasy stomach.






"Tem


Tem, what happened to mother and father?"

"What happened?"

The harsh excesses of Meetaneshi's red light district had faded into obscurity now, replaced by the thick layer of industrial fog that hung over the city like a stained rug. The sky would be turn from a faecal brown to a sickening orange as the day progressed, and the sun would set basking the night in a black, star less noir of darkness.

The streets meandered in and out of a maze of badly laid out urban dwellings. Their placement was patchy at best, with little thought given to their geographical location on the cityscape. Viewed from above they would probably resemble more of a mosaic of square tiles, dotted here there and everywhere, interspersed with small streaming roads which pulsated with traffic like veins carrying blood to the vital organs.

In the muddle of biotechnological grotesqueness, lay Tem's tiny apartment. Number 46-B of apartment block 743, in some nameless street, in some nameless district. The inability to discern one's dwelling from the next only served to underline his sense of dreary anonymity that hung around this area of his life like the putrid cloud that lay over the city.

A small turbolift would take him to level B every night. The lift would trundle and groan out it's sad song, almost in a sad ritualistic fashion if announcing it's own imminent demise with a funeral lament. On each trip to and from his apartment, he feared that the elevator would seek to release itself from the durasteel bondings that had grown rusted over the years, and send its weary body crashing into the concrete below, ending its pain. He envied that lift sometimes.

Once on level B, a series of catwalks led outward like a star toward each of the six apartment blocks spattered around in an what one could only describe as a near-circle. Like the elevator, and most likely everything else in the whole complex, the catwalks groaned when tread upon, crying out their pains to the world.
The flimsy walkway led on toward his apartment, which at this time of night remained the only one unlit. Even in the evenings, the smog forced an artificial daytime on Meetaneshi city. Few lights went unlit even in the brighter hours where it was clearly unnecessary. Some claimed the fog was a government plot to rake in money with unthinkably priced electricity bills.

His key slid in the lock with a crack, whirring as he turned it. A rush of mouldy air whooshed through as the door slid open and the smell of rotting flesh violated his nostrils. Inside a faint buzzing could be heard, accompanied by a dim white glow coming from the sitting room. Tem ran his hand around the inner binding of the door, his fingers finding the light switch.
Wait! If you turn that on, they'll know you're here.
The thought played in his mind, willing him not to flick the switch. If there were intruders in his home, his chances of being rid of them would be far more favourable if he still had the element of suprise on his side.

Resolving his momentary conflict, Tem removed his hand and began to slowly tread inside as his right hand made a sly grab for his gun. His leather shoes crunched on the carpet which was riddled with a combination of broken glass and splintered wood. It appeared as though the screen door through to the sitting room had been taken out with some force, shattering all over the place.

With gun drawn, he swung around the jagged pain of broken glass. The laser pointer on the tip of his weapon pinpointed that the bluish hue had come from his television set, seemingly left on, by someone.

Static played across the screen, accompanied by the inherent buzzing that followed. On the top of the set, a small pool of thick, crimson liquid had collected and was slowly ebbing down the glowing screen in streaks.

In the relative ambience that had accompanied his entrance, the small droplet that suddenly and furiously drove itself into the pool on the TV was like an echoing laser blast by comparison, causing him to startle.

As if reacting on instinct, he flicked the nearest light switch, which happened to be for this room, and flooded the room in a yellow flash.

His eyes slowly fixated on the crimson pool, and as if in fear, were initially reluctant to move up to the apparent origin of the droplet. Gulping as if to swallow his fright, he glanced steadily upward and was greeted by the unwelcome sight of the body of a man, no more than his early thirties, pinned to his ceiling, soaked in blood.
Dead, seemingly from the massive pike that protruded from his midsection.

A confused frown of disappointment spread over his features, as if he was let down that it was nothing more than a regular body. Just another, average corpse. He was expecting some fiendish creature to jump down from the roof, and the two would engage in a violent fight to the death. But his hopes had been seemingly dashed by this which to him was nothing out of the ordinary.

Nothing unusual, that was, until he noticed that at the base of the pike, as a blood soaked, if still readable note, pinned to the mans upper breast.


East Gitihara, 4 am., read the note, accompanied by a familiar half crescent moon symbol, painted in jet black, that of the Satesoshi syndicate.

It had seemed that Tem's job prospects were looking up this week.

Tem glanced at his wristwatch, noting the time.

11:28 pm read the golden Ronex timepiece.

East Gitihara was a fair distance from his apartment.

4am

There wouldn't be much traffic around at that time, and the subways would still be running, albeit in lesser numbers. At a stretch he estimated it would take two hours to reach Gitihara, then an hour of free time to get to the east side.

I'm famished, he thought as he pulled up a footstool and began to pry the corpse free that was still dangling precariously from the ceiling.

With an almighty yank, the long pike holding the body in place came free, followed by an uncerimonious thud on the floor.

Fetching a calorie-crammed sandwhich from the refridgerator, Tem returned and perched himself onto the edge of his crimson-stained sofa, and scanned the body with his eyes, chewing noisily.

"Who's been the naughty boy incurring some gang wrath?" He jested, morbidly.

When confronted with situations like this which he ran into regularly, Tem had developed a penchant for the combination of food and crude jokes to stave off the nervousness he felt at the odd situation.

As he chewed on the mulsh of bread and meat like a cow, he went over the bloodstained note regarding his meeting with the Satesoshi.

East Gitihara, 4am.

The message contained no specifics, and he was not yet savy to the locations of the relatively new Satesoshi headquarters in the city. Perhaps this unfortunate victim of thier anger would serve as a clue.

Laying his sandwhich atop a thin handkerchief on the table to his left, he lent further forward and began to poke around in the clothing of the corpse, hopefully to find some sort of indentification or buisness card.

From the right hand pocket, Tem produced a long leather wallet, a little on the thin side. Mind you, if this man had money, he probably wouldn't have had any need to be involved with the likes of the Satesoshi.

Leafing through the contents, whistling as he went, Tem uncovered a bloodsoaked ID card.

Wiping away some particles of red, he began to read aloud the details;


Name:Jin jo Kouchi

Age: 37

Current Address: Apartment 14-C
Takayama Building
71st Street
South Gitihara
93#88s90aa0

Phone ID: 120 9382 222


Like the ID card, the wallet was slim on details, he'd have to prob further.

He glanced again at his watch.

"Gah! No time." He growled in distain.


Then, as if by chance, the phone rang.

The abrupt squeal of Tem's phone was enough to make him gag a little on his sandwich.

Swallowing strongly, he reached out to grab the handset but reneged on doing so in mid-stretch. A hundred and one questions suddenly bombarded his mind. What do they want with him? A job? Something more? What would he do? What would he say?

Right, I'll just pick up the phone, its not like I can pick and choose right now . . .




Probably just a wrong number anyway.

Coincidence, random chance.


That's all it is.


Sure."


He twiddled his fingers, finally deciding to lift the receiver from the handset and place it to his waiting ear.


No answer.

A wispy "hello?" crept past his dry lips, echoing loudly in the silence of the receiver's microphone, and then, the line abruptly went dead.

An eerie shiver tingled from the top of Tem's neck and crept coldly down to the base of his spine where it set him upright like a rabbit caught in a truck's headlights.

At first, he hoped it was a prank call, some weird crossed line or wrong number, but it was something else, something far worse.

It was a confirmation call.

His throat now felt like a dry river bread, and he wheezed as his breathing rapidly escalated.

Dropping the receiver onto the floor, Tem clambered to his feet and scrambled to the sink, grabbing a glass and turning the tap on in rapid succession.

He tossed a shot of the icy copper water down his throat, quenching his momentary dryness. He felt overly dizzy all of a sudden, light and sound seemed amplified for a few seconds.
The neon city lights outside the kitchen window pulsated furiously, and the dead tone of the phone rang annoyingly in his ears.

Popping several assorted cheap cabinet drugs into his mouth, Tem tossed his long thick trench coat over his broad shoulders and staggered through the shattered door frame of his apartment and onto the walkway, grimacing as the bitter taste of processed medicine passed over his tongue.

He pulled back his shirt cuff and stared at his watch.

11:48pm it read, or so he thought.

He had to double check as the muddle of tablets had blurred the edges of his vision.

That call served to underline the seriousness of the situation, and Tem quickly found himself unable to tear his eyes from the time.

The building's rickety elevator shuddered down it's rusty tracks on route to the street level. It was a perilous cage to be trapped inside at times, especially when the wind howled outside like it did on this night.

The lift itself was exposed on all but one side where it was questionably fixated to its runner that hoisted it up and down all day. It's glass windows showed the long suffering effects of vandalism and crime. Graffiti and old bloodstains were spattered over the cracked panes, and other parts were smashed out completely, letting the icy wind stab in from the outside.

Tem, wrapped the lapels of his leather coat up and and around his exposed neck and chin, hoping to fend off the blizzard-like gales that were funnelling in through the gaps in the panes.

Letting out a final shriek of metal grinding upon metal, the little elevator jolted to an unsteady halt and wearily opened its doors with a malevolent hiss.

Tem disembarked and made a b-line for the exit to the apartment complex. Ahead and to his left he could make out the buzzing neon sign of the tube-station. Most of the letter was cracked and missing but the sign was unmistakable nonetheless.

Fumbling around in his pocket, Tem produced a crumpled bill and shoved it into the turnstile, which in turn, spewed out a small rectangular pink ticket which he placed in his pocket for later.

The entrance to the subway resembled a large fanged mouth. At each end of the doorway there was one large pincer-like pillar, resembling two large incisors biting down on one another, crunching whatever went in into tiny niblets.

He hurried inside, the overly bright yellow of the lighting provided a relative warmth to that of the wind outside, and so Tem brought down the collar of his jacket and strode forward to the platform.

As he turned the corner and came out of the low tunnel onto the platform, he could see that there was already a train there waiting, and so he dashed to catch it. Nipping through the sliding doors he carefully eyed up his seating.

Most of the benches that lined the train car were patterned with chewing gum, in a variety of nauseating colours. The floor was also carpeted with an array of newspapers and mud, dragged in by the countless passengers the train had saw that day. No doubt the local authorities had conveniently neglected to try cleaning the place.

Finally finding a reasonably sanitary place to seat, Tem unfurled the long tails of his coat and sat down. He reached into the inside of his jacket and gave his gun a once-over, making sure that he hadn't forgotten to load the thing or leave the safety on.

After that, he pulled back his heavy leather sleeve, and checked his watch again.


"Three minutes past twelve." He murmured out loud.

Tem was suprised as he rubbed his cheeks to find that they were blazing red hot.
He massaged his brow and wiped away several patches of dripping perspiration.
It felt like he was having a mild fever, as if something had invaded him and was flicking his temperature switch on and off without his will or consent.

He stood up and began to pace nervously up and down the twenty meter car.

He chalked it up to nervousness, as he often did get like this whenever he was meeting up with one of the major organisations for any kind of job.

Thumbing around in his pocket once more, he produced another batch of multicoloured pills and launched them down his throat which felt dryer than ever before.

Where are you?

The automated subway car rattled into the Gitihara station just around 3:37am as Tem noted from his wristwatch.

As he ascended the dimly lit exitway, Tem kept a firm grasp on the handle of his pistol. Under the circumstances he'd have been a fool not to keep his trigger finger extra itchy.


The mouth of the subway opened out onto a fairly quiet street, littered with the usual trash of Meetaneshi. It was a street one could mistake for any other if it weren't for the streetsigns adorning the lamp posts above. The same brown light hung from the sky and polluted everything below as it did over all of town.


Tem peered through the thick orange smog that carpetted the street ahead. A pair of bright lights, around a meter or so apart blared through the thick layer of cloud, growing brighter as they moved toward him, like a firey dragon, advancing through a mist of hellfire.

A metallic, black speeder hummed up and parked on the sidewalk in front of him. Tem watched from behind the large lapels of his trenchcoat as the passenger side window whirred down revealing a person, partially shrouded by the darkness of the unlit car.


"Mr Hadar, if you please?"


Another door to the rear of the car clacked open.

Pondering for a second, Tem tentatively entered the car.


The warm temperature and soft leather upholstery of the car was a pleasent suprise to Tem as he entered the vehicle. Turning down the collar of his trenchcoat, Tem caught sight of the other passenger seated across from him in the car.

The lone figure opposite him sat half in the dark and half in the limelight of a small spotlamp on the roof of the car. The glow of a lone cigarra indicated the location of the figure's head.

Tem, slightly perplexed at the mystery surrounding his situation, asked the only question he could at the time.

"Who are you?"

A long silence followed, broken by a heavily drawn breath from the other side of the car followed by the expulsion of a cloud of cigarra smoke.

"My name is Mr Dar. I am a representative of the Satesoshi."



"What do you want from me?"


"I would think, that by now, Mr Hadar, our intentions are becoming rather obvious. We wish to offer you . . .a job.

You are, after all an assassin.


I would be correct in thinking that you are, would I not?"


"Yeah, that sounds about right." replied Tem.


"Well one might safely assume that we would contact an assassin to perhaps . . .assinate someone." replied Mr Dar, sardonically.


"There, " he said, tossing a thickly packed brown parcel onto Tem's lap, " that dossier contains your target and a detailed holo-recording of your mission. Please take the time to study them, we will tolerate no mistakes."


Tem fondled the package for a few seconds before turning his glance back to Mr Dar.

"So how much am I getting paid for all of this?" Tem enquired.

"Oh yes, your fee of course. As a gracious downpayment, my employers have seen fit to deposit an inital payment of fifteen thousand credits to you for whatever costs are necessary for this task.

Upon completion a further fifty thousand will be credited to you."


Sixty five thousand? This is either very high profile or these guys are expceptionally generous.


"Do we have a deal, Mr Hadar?"

Tem nodded in accordance.

"Then we ask that you take your leave of us, time is precious."

Tem stepped from the car and watched as it sped away as quietly as it had arrived.