Anodyne

He moved through the streets of Osaka like a god, though he was nothing more than a guest in this city. Here to fulfill a contract that had dragged on far too long.

She had slipped through his fingers every time — for years. A shadow that wandered with the setting sun and only spread once the city sank into darkness. Time and again he had drawn closer to her outside of her contracts, only to lose her once more — until tonight.

The narrow alleys of Tsuruhashi offered a rat like her the perfect hiding place. Tight and abandoned, quickly accessible and even quicker to leave behind when one wanted to disappear.

One house corner later, he saw her — exactly where he had ordered her to be. Punctual as an expensive Swiss watch.

Anodyne, standing in the middle of the small intersection as though she were the mistress of the night. A dark green wool coat that reached to her bare knees, and sunglasses, despite the sun having long since vanished. A cigarette glowed in the darkness between her red-rimmed lips.

“Anodyne.” He spread his arms as if embracing the whole world.

Given what his contract was, he really did feel like it. Finally getting rid of her had been his greatest dream for years.

“Never thought I’d see you again,” he said lazily. “Figured you were out of all this, after everything that happened a few years back with that sweet little partner of yours. Korean, wasn’t she? I still remember her eyes. She had this hateful look right before I gouged them both out.”

She drew on her cigarette, leaving a deep red imprint on the filter as her fingers guided it away from her face.

“Ever; never; only over my dead body.” Her left hand moved elegantly through the air, the cigarette trailing a thread of smoke that rose slowly into the night. “In our line of work, those are all empty words.” She smiled briefly. “Except for ‘only over my dead body.’ The ones who end up lying down tend to stay that way.”

It was his turn to smile. “Apparently not in your case, Anodyne. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” He began to circle her slowly. A hunter with his prey squarely in his sights, making it perfectly clear how serious things were. “Surprised you actually showed up, but I won’t complain. Chasing you down would have cost me real time.”

She would not leave this intersection alive. If at all, then only in a body bag — and even that only if his boss permitted her remains to be found.

Slowly, she removed her sunglasses while the cigarette fell from her hand and, seconds later, died under her designer shoe. “Have I ever stood you up?”

“Once I took care of that pitiful partner of yours, and I’m fairly certain I sent you an invitation back then, but you didn’t come,” he attempted a pout. “Shame, really. I gutted her especially for you.”

She only smiled — which made his heartbeat quicken. Sometimes, in the darkest nights when they had lain in wait together, he had imagined what it might have been like to climb the ladder of Japan’s underworld side by side with her. Just the two of them, hand in hand, with weapons no one could have stopped.

God, they would have been like demons carving their way into heaven — if it weren’t for his employer and the 120 million yen that one bullet in her head would earn him.

“Close your eyes. I’m not completely heartless,” he said with a broad smile, raising his weapon and pointing it at her. “And it’s nothing personal, honey, but better you than me.”

Honey — he knew exactly how much she hated being addressed with a sexist pet name like that. But what was the worst that could happen? She was going to die here.

“Shouldn’t an old friend at least be granted the honor of a self-administered death? We’re alone. No one will ever know you weren’t the one to put the bullet in my head.”

“Old friend?” He laughed loudly, the echo scattering through the empty streets. “If I remember correctly, we always only ever wanted to kill each other.”

She smiled, her gaze drifting down to his weapon. “Some things never change, I suppose.”

He shrugged lazily. “We are what we are, and if we’re being truly honest for just one second, we both know it had to end this way. Mercenaries don’t have friends —”

“Only clients,” she finished the sentence, her voice flat. “Yes. I know the rules.”

And yet he stepped closer.

Of course he did.

“Your hand over mine, understood? I’m certainly not about to hand you the weapon just so you can put a bullet in my head,” he grinned. “I still have a few things to take care of before I leave Japan.”

His weapon rose slowly, waiting for her hand — for long fingers settling over the back of his — and in the moment the cold muzzle touched her temple, she moved.

He felt her left hand shoot out from beneath his arm before it closed around his wrist and twisted — against the joint, hard and without warning.

Cursing, his fingers locked around his weapon. Certain he would never let go, that he would end this with his own hands. A balancing act, and for a few seconds he thought he might still pull the trigger, might still shoot her down.

Until he felt her right knee between his inner thighs. Staggering, his weight crashed forward — seconds of inattention in which his own reflexes turned against him. Fast, before the thought even reached his brain, his fingers released the pistol to catch his body before the fall.

Fuck — his last thought, as he closed his eyes and tried to crawl away on all fours.

Then she reached into his hair, and he knew this was the end.

Her fingers closed around the roots, tearing a few strands from his scalp as she wrenched his head back — a brief moment in which he saw the star-filled night above him — before she drove him forward into the wall.

Unforgiving concrete against perfect teeth. The sound was ugly and final, and she smiled.

“Shame about your expensive dental bills, honey,” she used the hated nickname as a last farewell. This time there was no smile on her lips.

Again she pulled his shattered skull back toward her, drew back, and slammed it into the wall once more — which bloomed into a beautiful shade of red.

Just to be safe. She couldn’t afford him surviving all of this to tell stories. You didn’t need teeth to give the cops a description; you did need a little remaining functional brain matter, and that was currently spreading across the black asphalt beneath her expensive boots.

“One chance to pull the trigger,” she said down to him, as her long hair brushed softly across his cheeks. “One chance to finally push your enemy over the edge into the abyss.” Her lips curled into a pout she hadn’t used since she was twenty years old, standing in front of her mother. “Shame you wasted yours.” She released the safety with a quiet smile. “Looks like my client paid considerably more than yours did to have me killed.”

No need to aim — the muzzle of the gleaming pistol was already resting against her victim’s forehead.

Almost too easy. She shook her head. Where was the honor in a death like this? Shot among the garbage that had collected in Osaka’s streets throughout the day. He would die on a beautiful starlit night, beneath the Osaka sky — alone, yes, but not for long. The city would wake soon, and some poor soul, most likely one of the municipal garbage collectors, would find a body in the middle of a tiny intersection.

The shot that startled a few homeless men still drifting through the empty streets echoed through the night. Everyone knew that at sounds like these, it was better to pretend you hadn’t heard a thing and simply carry on with whatever you’d been doing.

And as the rats scurrying among the rubbish settled back into their routines, Anodyne slipped the weapon into an inner pocket of her wool coat before crouching down.

“It’s nothing personal, asshole,” she said, checking his pulse — which had gone still forever. “But better you than me.”