Jisedai

By Daniel P. Riley

Gabriel is a killer for the mega-corporation that raised him, trained in the ancient arts of Bushido.

Hana was kidnapped, forced into a world of depravity and darkness.

When the two meet by chance on the grimy, rain-soaked streets of a frightening future Harajuku sector, it changes both their lives forever. For honor, Gabriel must now face the group of trained killers and soldiers that he swore loyalty to and bloody his white hare katana to protect the young girl and her strange pet.

Dark Angels and wicked assassins wage war in the ruins beyond the borders of oppressed Tokyo in Jisedai!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Whimsyland
• Release date: Mar 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201599348

Book preview

Chapter 1

Akiller walked these streets. The brilliant neon cacophony of lights was blinding, an array of colors strewn across the landscape. LED displays and screens had replaced street signs and shop placards years ago. The crowded streets of Shibuya in what is known as Harajuku have been the height of esoteric fashion for decades until the mega-conglomerates reduced the beautiful and strange fashion center of Tokyo into a series of streets known for exotic iniquity and perversion.

These cramped streets now displayed acts of depravity upon myriad advertisement screens, young men and women engaged in carnal acts dressed like children or popular characters from modern and ancient entertainment. Each building housed troubled people within its walls, enslaved by avarice. Those who succumbed fully to their wants huddled amidst the trash in the streets, high on designer drugs and cortex stimulations provided by Virtual Reality Connectors or VRCs covering their eyes and ears. The virtual world of NG3 or New Game 3, the current platform peddled by NuActiv Corp, provided an unhealthy respite from the rigors of life.

From one of the many dens stumbled three men, their suits wrinkled and their ties loosely hanging from their collars. They sang bawdy songs, arms around each other’s necks as they fumbled down the street. Each man is unique in life, if not dress. Makai Shoda, senior accountant of GuMao Corp, Otori Hiro, senior editor of marketing for GuMao Corp, and Suzuru Tando, Vice President of Marketing for GuMao Corp. Only the last of these men was marked for death by Suzakushin Corp, which did not care if the other two survived the night.

Such acts were commonplace in 2447, since NuActiv Corp’s patenting of non-lethal weapons and its government sponsored ban on deadly force in 2392. While weapons of self-defense were relegated to plastics, rubber, and the Shinsengumi’s own Orpheus NLO (Non-Lethal Ordinance) weapons which use localized sonic pulses to render a living creature unconscious, MegaCons engaged in a low war using archaic tools of murder to carry out their illegal acts.

Taken at young ages from orphanages or families who could not afford children, MegaCons groom the kids into lethal servants to their boards and directors. Using the ancient tenants of Bushido or Shinobi, they are trained and nurtured to carry out the directives of corporate violence against its rivals. Suzakushin Corp’s top ranked warrior, known only as GenBu: The Black Tortoise, has cultivated a small unit of highly skilled killers. Each given the name of an Archangel of the old Judeo-Christian ethos, rarely recognized within the walls of the AP (Asian-Pacific) Alliance consisting of Japan, China, and Korea. Of these three former countries, China’s Communist Army took root and MegaConglomerates, though Japanese, were controlled by Chinese authorities at the top.

The Killer known as Gabriel wandered the Harajuku streets, sucking the chocolate off of a Pocky stick trapped between his lips. He was waiting for these three, ordered to eliminate only one as a warning to GuMao Corp. Just another businessman wandering the streets at night looking for perversion, that was always his cover story. The skies above rumbled, the first droplets of water landed around him as he walked lazily toward the three drunken men. The black saya or scabbard of his White Hare sword bouncing gently against the back of his thighs.

As he came closer to the three, Gabriel crunched the pocky stick into his mouth and chewed it up while his hands moved behind him to untie the saya from his belt. He pulled the weapon around in front of him, drawing the blade of his White Hare sword.

The three men stopped dead, horrified surprise in their eyes as they stared at the weapon then the simple man wielding it. One raised his hand; index extended and shook it at Gabriel. Y-y-you can’t! What is this?

Gabriel surged forward suddenly, slashing across the pointing man’s gut. His body exploded open, guts and ichor spilling out over the concrete. The two other men scrambled back as the first fell forward, raising their arms defensively in front of them while screaming mercy. Gabriel cut them both down with singular precise strikes, one severing an arm to cleave into his skull and the other stabbed through the chest plate into his heart.

As the Samurai began to sheathe his weapon, a shrill laughter echoed around him. He dropped the saya to the street, hearing it clatter as his head lifted to look about. From up the road sauntered a shadowed figure, the outline of a sword resting upon his shoulder. Gabriel faced off against the dark form, holding his katana in a relaxed manner.

How quickly you dispatch the weak. Where’s the fun in that? The shadowed man called out, languidly strolling closer and closer still. One should savor the kill, yeah? Revel in death’s call. The figure stopped moving, taking a shoulder-width stance while bringing the long, straight blade down off his shoulder. I am Kuryo of GuMao, I will be your death.

There is no honor in torture. Gabriel regarded the shadow with a cold stare, vigilant in the still moments between threat and battle. The clouds above began to open wide, more drops of rain descending upon the neon street battlefield. He lifted his head defiantly. Gabriel of the Suzakushin Holy Eight. Announcing himself as was the custom of Corporate Bushido, lifting his sword to present it. A hand forged weapon, folded a thousand times in the Soshu tradition and etched with a sprinting rabbit on its silvered blade.

Yet you murdered all three? Called the man at the far end of the neon street. Brutal.

No witnesses. Gabriel replied flatly, running forward to meet the enemy who came at him.

Rain fell, staccato patterings on metal awnings that lined the street. Flashing steel clashed as Gabriel engaged Kuryo of GuMao, a skilled warrior in a long purple leather coat. Kuryo’s wild eyes hardened as he struck, an overhead slash of his compound steel ninjato that rang against Gabriel’s hand-forged White Hare katana. Their weight pressed, locking blades as the two men exerted their wills against the other.

Kuryo was tall and lean, his face scarred down the right side that marred a strong nose and high cheekbones. His hair was shorn close to the scalp on the sides, the top moussed up into a fanned mohawk that was loosening in the rain. He grinned madly, a flash of a gold tooth glinting in the streetlight.

Underneath the purple leather, Kuryo wore nothing. He feared nothing and so armor was of no import to the man. His bare chest was a testament to the battles and pain he had endured, flesh broken by scars old and new over taut, violent muscles. His designer jeans were cinched by a studded leather belt and his feet were encased in rawhide cowboy leather with purple bandanas tied around the ankles.

Gabriel, though waterlogged, wore his customary tailored suit. Damp wool weighed him down, the Kitou Senshyo Corp suit made of wool layered over durarmor fiber mesh. Black jacket and white durarmor shirt beneath created layers of protection for the Corporate Samurai from the neck down. His brown belt was simple and plain leather that kept Kitou Senshyo Corp slacks bound to his waist. On his feet were simple brown wingtips, rubber soled.

He appeared more sickly than he was, engineered by Suzakushin through rigorous DNA treatments and nanite injections to be the ultimate self-sustained warrior in the Conglomeration wars. A side effect of those treatments was a pale complexion, a near deathly pallor that made his deep brown eyes appear darker and emptier than they were. Nanites repaired him, leaving no trace of scar upon his bloodless, handsome, young face. A face that was tense with the singular moment in front of him as Kuryo let out a primal scream of spittle and spite.

The psychotic shinobi pushed as hard as he could against the braced blades then, seeking to overpower Gabriel in one burst of strength. Gabriel relented, letting Kuryo stumble while his feet performed a crescent slide across the puddled rain collecting beneath them. His body twisted out from under the shinobi’s pressure, leaving the man off-balance as he heaved forward. White Hare circled high, a practiced and perfected motion that left it shining bright above Gabriel’s head before the blade descended down Kuryo’s back.

Its finely sharpened edge bit through leather, splitting the coat and digging deep into the flesh beneath on its sweeping arc down toward the wet concrete. In its wake, red spilled free from pink skin. Kuryo screeched in anger, sparing no moment of hesitation. His compound steel ninjato flashed in a lateral circle as the shinobi twirled to strike, forcing Gabriel to back-step twice to avoid the slash. The Samurai centered himself, knees bending low while his front pivot foot rotated to loosen the ankle. It settled flat and forward. His katana was held upright, drawn back near the right shoulder. Hasso, the ancient fourth stance of Kendo.

Kuryo hunched low like a coiled viper, his legs bent deep and crossed over the other while his blade was held across him. Pain fueled his rage, the burning down his exposed and bloody back became the burning in his heart to kill this man. Two elements faced off, fire and water as Gabriel calmly stared down his opponent with his dark, empty gaze. His body did not twitch a muscle despite the chill rain and the adrenaline of battle.

Kuryo screamed, summoning his fury and his body uncoiled into a lunging slice with the compound steel sword. Gabriel countered, sidestepping and slicing downward with his katana. In the flash of blades, red arced from each combatant. Gabriel misjudged the ninjato’s length, its tip slicing through the durarmor shirt at his waistline and scraping flesh. White Hare cut deep into Kuryo’s shoulder, however, forcing the shinobi to drop his weapon. A practiced killer, Kuryo’s left hand snatched the sword up underhand as it clattered on the concrete, and the wild man began to spin toward the Samurai.

Gabriel was left on the defensive, his White Hare flashing in constant downward circles to bat the offensive slashes of Kuryo’s steel sword as it came in low and mid and low and mid while the mad shinobi danced across the wet concrete. Gabriel’s only chance was to disrupt the twisting, his sword batting aside the ninjato to create an opening that a wing tipped foot could capitalize on. The leather shoe snapped upward, catching Kuryo in the chin with its toe. The shinobi’s head snapped back; his body’s momentum disrupted. Like an injured beast, he scrambled a few steps and recovered back into that coiled serpent stance.

Feeling the nanites closing the flesh wound already, Gabriel recentered his stance and slid his lead foot forward. It angled slightly inward as he lowered himself for more stability, turning his middle away from his opponent. His White Hare Sword was lowered to his hip, settled with the blade back and away as if it were resting in its scabbard while both hands gripped the weapon securely. Gabriel watched his opponent over his left shoulder, rain dripping down his ashen face.

Kuryo recognized the trap easily, surging forward with his ninjato braced along his forearm. Gabriel’s sword swung forward and up, but Kuryo twisted aside its arc and back-kicked out with great force into Gabriel’s stomach. The Samurai stumbled back, giving the deadly shinobi the opening he required. Kuryo’s blade struck true, impaling through Gabriel’s neck-tie into his chest. He forced the Samurai down with his body weight in a lunge. Gabriel screamed