Hanzo And The Dragon

Hanzo Shotozumi, Oyabun of the greater Seattle area, stood in front of his ornate wooden desk gazing down upon the man before him. "Aka Ryuu" The dragon. The man knelt, one knee and one fist on the ground. Even with his shoulders bent the man merely had to look up to gaze directly into Hanzo's eyes. The man had no shirt on and the tell-tale dragon tattoo was plainly visible. Its tail coiled around his lower abdomen, the wings spread out across his broad shoulders, it's claws clutching his floating ribs, its long neck snaking up his own, its face and jaw dominating much of the man's own face. Taller, broader, and just plain stronger than any Ork and most Trolls, the dragon was one of the very few beings that chilled Hanzo to his soul.

And here he was, returned after almost half a decade, changed. Hanzo still fondly remembered the philosophical, easily impressionable young Gaijin decker who had come to him a decade prior and offered him his cyberdeck, and his loyalty in exchange for some muscle Augs and Wired Reflexes. The boy was tall even then, though far thinner. However that boy was hardly a shadow next to the hardened, bio-engineered 2.2 meter tall hour-glass shaped specimen standing before him today. Anger and passion had dominated that boy. Nothingness now dominated the dead eyes of the Dragon. The boy was not even a memory in the bio-mechanical shell that stood before him.

"The Zaibatsu have begun to make their choices and Akira has more on his side than I do. You understand?" Hanzo didn't wait for a response. "You will be used to keep those in my way in line, and to ensure those on my side stay loyal. They respect and happily use my resources when it suits them, but they do not need them and know that should Akira win his resources will serve them just the same as mine have. They do not need me so you will make them fear me."

The dragon had not moved, his black eyes stared down at the ground in front of Hanzo. Hanzo's left eye quivered ever so slightly as he wrestled with the fire that had risen up when he had spoken of Akira. The old man who had presumed Hanzo was just another dutiful puppet and required unyielding loyalty but returned nothing to Hanzo or his Gumi. How many opportunities lost because of Akira's focus on the old ways. Hanzo had nearly completely stolen Seattle from the Mafia and even when James O'Malley and his Finnigans came he could have beaten him if Akira had supported him ... but nothing came and O'Malley salvaged the Italian operations. If only Akira had ... Hanzo noticed the shimmer across the room and froze the second the shadow began to race across the room towards him. So it had come to this Akira? Was the Dragon compromised? Icy terror raced through his veins. His Wujen had refused to be in the same room with the Dragon. He felt vulnerable for the first time in years.

The ninja was faster than the door guards and with a flurry of acrobatics dove by them. He was now only meters away and Hanzo fumbled back to his desk, his hand reaching for the Wakizashi on the wall. He was well trained and incredibly fit but this was a creature of magic with a massive edge. He had the charm on at all times but he didn't trust it would last long against the ninja. Then the Dragon stood up, dead eyes narrowing to focus as the ninja rushed by on his left. The ninja ran up the wall across from Hanzo and then sprung through the air over the desk at Hanzo with his ninjato in reverse grip along his back.

The Dragon's speed belied his size and just before the ninja was to reach Hanzo he stopped in mid air and dove sideways as the desk between them drove straight up and hit ceiling. The ninja landed in the space the Dragon had previously been kneeling, the Dragon stood next to the shattered remains of the desk, pieces still dangling and falling from the breach it had made in the low ceiling. Hanzo watched the two face off for a moment frozen in time before the ninja, sensing his time running out as the guards from across the room began to close in, dove towards the wall of man-machine that now stood between him and his objective.

Unarmed and unarmored the attack was still in vain. The Dragon was simply stronger, faster, and better. The ninja was smart enough not to come in with an easily sidestepped thrust and instead attacked with a sweeping arc that came down upon the Dragon's right shoulder, slowing considerably as it tore through various layers of hardened resin sheathing and bio-engineered muscle fibers, finally bouncing off the hardened steel endoskeleton beneath. The ninja had no time to react from there as the Dragon deftly snapped the man's sword arm at the elbow, nearly breaking it off entirely. The Dragon's hands slid down to the ninja's shoulders which held the torso in place as he drove his knee up into the man's right side, collapsing the ribs and splintering them into the ninja's right lung. The Dragon's right hand found the ninja's left fumbling with a kill switch of some kind. The Dragon crushed the man's hand with his own. Mechanically he laid the man down on the ground and then drove his hand into the man's mouth, brutally ripping out the false tooth containing the poison capsule. The Dragon's dead eyes found the ninja's as his tortured breathing and gasping was interrupted with harsh gurgles of blood. "You will live."

The ninja's will had been broken under the impossible weight of the Dragon's. Hanzo could see the man stop struggling, giving in to inevitability. The ninja were highly trained and secretly passionate but no will, no matter how disciplined, could handle being thusly disabled and undermined. And usually in the event of failure the ninja was at least promised a quick death, but the Dragon had taken even that from this man and Hanzo watched that realization wash over the man's eyes. It was easier to go to a quick death, easier to prepare and make your peace with oblivion if you knew it was only a breath away. This man, helplessly looking up and watching the wound on the Dragon's right shoulder already beginning to knit itself back together, now understood that the rest of his life would be agony. Now understood that no amount of will, discipline, or passion could overcome the mechanical inevitability he now saw in those dead, black eyes of the Dragon and the terrifying will that drove him.

Hanzo Shotozumi, a man with the blood of thousands of men tarnishing his soul, felt a mountain of pity for his would be killer. No man, enemy or friend, deserved to be so thoroughly broken like that. The Dragon had returned, his Dragon, and the lucid realization that he was unleashing him on his enemies made Hanzo's hands shake. He could not decide who was the real monster, himself or the Dragon. He quickly regained his composure and started to walk over to the man, there was a lot of work yet to be done and a lot of questions he needed answers to starting with "Who helped you get this close?"