The man’s motions were so smooth, they could’ve been the master’s from that old movie. Ken gawked.
In that, he was just like everyone else in the room.
While the second Peacekeeper rolled onto his side and the first staggered to his feet, the stranger went over to the third’s prone form and seized his wrist. The monitoring room went utterly quiet. In the display, the onlookers covered their mouths in a collective gasp. Many turned their heads away.
Ken winced at what was about to happen. The heroes of old weren’t supposed to really hurt anyone, let alone a helpless—
The man withdrew a pouch from the fold of his cloak, removed something from it, and flicked his fingers in several places over the unconscious Peacekeeper’s body.
“Pan in on Peacekeeper 23060,” the major said, breaking the silence.
The Peacekeeper grew in size. Something straight and shiny protruded from his hands, shins, and forehead.
Needles?
With a light groan, the Peacekeeper stirred.
Ken joined in the collective gasp, though only he, because of his love of old media, knew of this medicine, ancient even to the Age of Greed. The stranger was an acupuncturist.
Just like Wong Fei-Hong from Once Upon a Time in China.
“Captain Oyama,” the major barked. “Send a team to extract the fallen Peacekeeper, and apprehend the suspect.”
“Yes, sir.” Captain Keiko saluted, turned on her heel, and gestured her men along.
She paused and met Ken’s eyes. “Ken,” she said.
Why would she stop? His heart raced again. Would she want him to go along with her team? It couldn’t be. It—
She gestured to where some shattered glass lay in a puddle of water. “Please clean that up.”
Chapter 2:
The Cultivator
I n the nearly eight hundred years since Ishihara Ryu had crossed into the World of Rivers and Lakes, the land of his birth had changed. The floating vehicles didn’t come as a surprise; they’d been conceptualized back then, and even appeared in some movies. Nor did the shiny metal skyscrapers in a city which had once taken pride in its ancient architecture.
No, it was the people.
Beyond the fact that someone was picking their nose in public, nobody looked Japanese.
Well, the middle-aged woman sweeping the streets did; but besides her, everyone looked to be in their mid-twenties, with a ubiquitous beige skin tone, dark spikey hair, and eyes of varying shades of brown. That fact in itself wasn’t bothersome: it meant that in eight centuries, mankind had finally gotten past superficial distinctions of race, color, and nation.
No, more disconcerting was their awful taste in clothes. His eyes ached at the garish colors, and the zigzag cuts didn’t seem to follow any logical pattern.
The most perplexing fact was that beneath their outward façade of good health lay a fragility in their Three Treasures. Their Qi trickled, their Essence lacked foundation, and their Spirit wavered.
A simple Splashing Hand shouldn’t have injured his third attacker so grievously, certainly not when his composite armor had absorbed most of the blow. Bystanders had just stood and gawked, nobody willing to intervene on behalf of these poor warriors. Had he not unblocked his victim’s meridians with acupuncture, the man might’ve died in a few years.
At least the soldiers were determined.
The first, whose wrist ligaments he’d sprained, had gained his feet, while the second shouted and charged.
Trying not to yawn, he spun away from the man’s punch, and sent him tumbling head over heels with a Crashing Wave shoulder-butt. He held back though, so that the force only cracked the molded chest plate, and maybe a bone or three.
Well, they’d both be all right, with nothing more than a few fractures and bruised egos.
The first, however, apparently wanted more. These modern warriors were low-key cute, like the village children who were first learning to circulate their Qi.
Though why they’d attacked him, he couldn’t fathom.
Who assaulted visitors asking for directions? Maybe the sect elders were right: that beyond whatever technological advancements mankind might’ve made, these people’s culture and morals were as bankrupt as their Qi. It was all the more reason he couldn’t fail in his mission to seal off the portals between here and the World of Rivers and Lakes.
The remaining warrior tucked his chin behind his fists and hopped back and forth on the balls of his feet. He looked very much like the boxers of Ryu’s youth, before the sport had been banned for, of all things, barbarism. He’d watched matches on television, and now marveled that there weren’t any screens anywhere in this city. Of all the things that had changed from his youth, the most surprising strangest was the lack of screens among the otherwise sparkling towers, dancing lights, and levitating cars.
He let out a sigh and held out a hand. Words came out haltingly in a language he hadn’t used in what, seven hundred and sixty years? “I no want fight.”
“Surrenda, hands on your head,” the warrior shouted, still dancing.
Hands on head. That he could do, and maybe the warrior would spare himself further injury. Maybe they’d even guide him to Honnoji.
Whatever the first word meant…well, English had never really interested him in junior high school. He kicked up his staff, caught the butt end on his toe, and balanced it. Of course, the six Cores embedded in its wood made the trick easier. He then put his hands on his head.
On unevenness. He’d need to ask about scissors, since he’d already gone a week without trimming his hair as all good Fourth-Rank Water Path Cultivators should. He’d also need to find comfort in the warm embrace of a
