Pain Case

                                             Part III:


My soul is quiet
my body retaliates
yet, I feel nothing.

In my training, I have acquired certain skills that make me trained to kill with precision and indecision for the betterment of the empire of the sun.  I will deny my existence to those who catch me and would rather die with honor than sell out my country.  Therefore, in the eyes of the world, I work alone and with only myself to blame for the destruction I cause.

To kill someone in a tortuous way, one simply needs to cut the cerebellum from the nervous system at the bottom of the skull in the back.  This can be accomplished with a swiss army knife but I would hardly debase my skills by using something so primitive.  This is why my government has honored me with a physical upgrade, they call an ocular implant.  All of a sudden I was able to move quicker and know the heartbeat of time and space myself...

In one beat of my own heart, my movements could match and overcome that of an inferior foe and everyone became inferior.

To initialize my story, I will tell you of my very first mission.  As I said before, a small knife, inserted at the bottom of the neck and twisted will sever all nerves and cause instant paralysis as one begins to watch as their lungs and heart stop working.  Depending on the point of insertion...  But death is not the best choice for getting information.  To do that, you want a similar instrument but less of an instrument of laceration and more for puncture.  You want a nerve toxin.

The night was quiet as I remember and the sweet stink of cherry blossoms filled the air in Shinjuku park. He sat on the bench waiting nervously for a friend that he would never meet with.  I waited in the shadow of a Himalayan Cedar for the best cover I could muster.  As time ploded on like a Brahmin walking on coals, I realized the target would never show and with my enhancement, I calculated a trajectory that put my needle into his spine in a shorter time than it would have taken him to stand up.

As I dropped the plunger he did not have the time or sufficient power to scream before I pulled him back into the tree leaving an undisturbed vignette. The nerve toxin incapacitated him in a fraction of a second as it coursed directly into the CNS and PNS control center.  He was not only paralysed but, as I had injected it close to the man's reticular formation, I imagine he instantly fell asleep.

We meander the quiet corridors of the blackened abyss and come to a light in the base of a dismal abode.  I strap him to a chair and calculate pressure and amounts of pain a body can endure, determined in synaptic impulses, before he dies or loses consciousness.  The equations are complex but I have been given the brain of a computer to complete the necessary details.  It's so easy as I throw him in a rusted out shell and fill it with salt water.

"Eventually, you will die here Mr. Hisagi, but first you will tell me a few things.  First, Why you wish to alert the Americans of our remilitarization? And second, why you are such a dishonored scum to betray your own people?"

"PLEASE! I..."

"黙れ 豚！."

He remains quiet as the ballet begins.  In my mind, I hear the beauty of war; the sound of cannons, both musical and explosive, and the screams of people shouting "no," as my ancestors have bayonets rammed into their guts by white men who know nothing of honor.

"檜佐木さん," I continue, "You do not deserve the luxury of a true Japanese name, therefore, I will call you Mr. Smith."

He begins weeping like a little girl as I cut the first shallow slice into his skin with speed so swift and shadows so dark, it seems no more than a blur from the darkness to him.  I see the room as clearly as day with my upgrade and ask him with condescension, "Mr Smith, who is your contact to the United states?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"We know who you are and we know what you've taken."

"I took nothing! I am only a low level government employee.  I serve papers but I never would observe anything!"

"A small concession.  We're making progress!"

Swiftly I cut two more lacerations in his skin as the salt water begins to seep in and burn him with malevolence.  The upgrade has given me the ability to be so far detached from the moral compass I used to have that I find it splendid for things like a quick torture case.  For a second, my lesser faculties take hold and I ponder what the other superpowers would do with such technology, the Americans?  Their old cold war rival, the Russians?  This is surely the greatest technology to be achieved in an arms war since nuclear weapons were discovered and Japan is the victor, not those two arrogant fatheads.

As I circled him like a cloud circles earth waiting to send forth its lightening retribution.

"名前..."

"ごめんなさい！私は知らない！"

"You will tell me Hisagi san.  You see? I can be kind if you let me.  I give you your name back in exchange for hers."

"How did you know?"

"So it's a she?"

"NO! I misspoke! I know nothing."

Two strikes of lightning and the cloudy salt water in the tub tints red.  I observe his facial fluctuations.  I sense his pulse, I smell his fear and I begin to determine the answers I seek myself.

"So the girl, I assume she's close to you."

His pulse goes up and I hold my hand and dagger as I circle and determine his lies.

"...Very close?"

He gasps in a small, inaudible shock.

So, is she family? A girlfriend? a spouse?

All of a sudden, he goes calm and I can not read him.  I sense that he is beginning to use the pain as a crutch.

[So you are surely Japanese] I think to myself.

I have figured it out, Mr. Hisagi, you are no longer needed.  It is your wife, Mrs. Hisagi.

His pulse lifts and he begins to stir.

"...But how?  How did you know?  What kind of demon are you whose eye glows read and who moved with such speed and agility that even a ninja could only hope to imitate?"

"I knew because you just told me and beyond that?  I knew it was someone close and even with your level of concentration and training, you are not impervious to lie detectors such as me.  I see inside your head through your eyes and her image is imprinted in your brain to make you calm as well as the pain you use to enjoy your misery.  The yin and the yang defense cannot be broken by human beings but I am Japan.  I am her military now but I will give you one last courtesy for being strong as she has taught you to be."

Within an instant, my knife thrusts into his stomach and carves his chest open as my sword removes his head in one simple gesture.  One series of movements that eliminates unnecessary steps to become one movement calculated to precision.

As I leave the dilapidated apartment building, I wipe my instruments clean as a chef cleans his knives of gristle.  He died with honor.  I gave him that.  Now time to end his lineage with his Eve.