enough to keep Glorious Victory Unsought for himself, so no one else in the Wind could use it to kill Shoji’s son. And now here it was, the fateful blade in its fateful place, with Mariko’s hand on its grip.
She thought of the kaishakunin of old. When a samurai committed seppuku, he had a second to behead him if his suffering became too great. But Mariko was no samurai, and Joko Daishi didn’t deserve a samurai’s death.
Then she remembered what Furukawa had said about Streaming Dawn. Maybe she wouldn’t have to play the kaishakunin after all. Maybe she could just pull out the shard that was keeping Joko Daishi alive. But Furukawa never told her what to look for or where to look. That was probably deliberate; no doubt the Wind planned to steal it from the body once Joko Daishi was in the morgue. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t about to start prodding a pulped, mangled man in hopes of finding the shard. No, there was only one way to end this painlessly.
Pity and resentment came to blows in her mind. She hated destiny, and she hated the fact that it wouldn’t be destiny that killed Joko Daishi. It would be Mariko. She wouldn’t even be able to assuage her guilt by saying fate guided her hand. This was a deliberate, willful, fully conscious choice, and the worst part was that Mariko already knew what it was going to be. Apparently fate did too.
“Goddamn you,” she said. “I don’t want to do this.”
She said it in English, not intending to. Now she couldn’t tell if she meant to say it to herself or to Joko Daishi.
Maybe he deserved his pain. Maybe he deserved hours and hours of it. He’d certainly caused enough pain. But for Mariko that was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was that an old woman had suffered enough. Shoji would spend the rest of her life grieving over what her son had done and what she might have done to prevent it. If Mariko could ease her burden even a little, then that was what she ought to do.
She set down the phone. Even that sickened her, deliberately positioning it so she could see what she was doing. Her sensei’s sword had never been so heavy in her hands. She lined up the cut. Joko Daishi closed his eyes.
Mariko raised the sword and let it fall. She wasn’t sure she could ever pick it up again.
54
Han came for her just before she reached the platform. Paramedics hadn’t arrived yet, or else his right arm would have been in a sling. There was no way his rotator cuff could have survived being dragged by the train. Not having a sling, he just carried his right arm in his left. He had a nasty limp too. In fact, the whole right side of his body must have been bruised to hell. He didn’t need a sling; he needed a stretcher, a neck brace, a backboard, and a quick route to the nearest emergency room. But he came for Mariko instead.
She watched him grit his teeth and groan as he lowered himself down to the tracks. He was backlit by the red taillights of the train, which stood parked and empty at the platform. Behind him, all the passengers were being directed up the stairs. The whole station was a crime scene now. None of them could see Mariko—the red light didn’t penetrate that far into the dark tunnel—and she waited until they were gone.
“Mariko!” Han doubled his pace as soon as he saw her, though it obviously hurt like hell to do it. “I called for them to stop all the trains. I called them as soon as you went in the tunnel. I swear—”
“It’s okay.”
“I called them. I swear I did. I said stop every train, there’s an officer on the tracks. Then I heard that damn thing coming, then I saw it—”
“I’m all right. I wasn’t hit.”
She wanted to hug him, but he was beat to hell and couldn’t use either arm. She settled for squeezing his good shoulder. She was so happy to see him that she almost cried. Only now did she fully understand how close she’d come to dying. Fear was strange that way, catching up only after the danger had passed. The fight with Joko Daishi had terrified her, but it wasn’t until she saw Han that she understood everything she could have lost.