Hong Kong. It was one of two special administration districts in all of the People’s Republic of China, the other being Macau. It was a sprawling urban morass that one couldn’t fully imagine until they’d actually walked its streets. It had inspired movies, video games, television shows, and cultural trends, and it had been a center of international business for decades. These days, its population exceeded 9 million persons, and almost all of them were concentrated in the north of Hong Kong Island and the legendary city of Kowloon. Though many of the world’s common people have continued to remain blissfully unaware of it (despite innumerable movies and books on the subject), Hong Kong had also been the center of Triad activity since around World War II.

Just over two miles southwest of Kowloon, and across the Hong Kong Harbor, was Lan Kwai Fong, for the past several decades one of the two most famous and frequented night life scenes in the entire city. Whether you were a tired expat businessman just looking for a good place to stop in for a drink after a long day of work or a young tourist looking for a good place to party the night away, Lan Kwai Fong had a place to meet your needs. C Club, one of the Hong Kong’s most popular and reliable dance clubs, was one such place.

A little after midnight in mid-July, the temperature still hovered somewhere around 80 degrees, and the air was hot and sticky. Despite this, Lan Kwai Fong was as crowded as ever, with hundreds of people of both genders, and many different nationalities roaming the streets. Working his way slowly through the crowds, and leaning heavily on an antique cane, was a man who was nearly a century older than most of those he passed. For the most part, the crowds parted willingly as the ancient little man approached, eyeing him quizzically and hiding a smile as he passed. Many of them wondered what a helpless old man like him thought he was doing wandering around Hong Kong’s Party Central at such a late hour - none of them would ever realize that he was probably the least helpless person on the entire street.

The bouncers for C Club were not really prepared when the oldest looking man they’d ever seen requested entry into the club, but they are not really prepared for how disarmingly polite and charming he was either, and almost before they’d had time to realize what was going on the old man was past them, and hobbling his way through the crowds towards the back of the house. Their confusion was short-lived however; within moments, both bouncers quite literally had no memory of the old man’s passing; it was as though he never existed as far as they were concerned. Within, the old man was quickly swallowed up in the churning crowds, lost to both sight and memory.



Flitting between the Hong Kong skyscrapers, far above the milling nighttime crowds below, Tso Gui made his way to his target. Technically, Tso Gui was only a sze kau in the Wo Shing Wo triad, but he was also a nova, and so he was so much more than a mere sze kau as well. In fact, it would have been fair to say he was a rising star within the Wo Shing Wo. Someday soon, Tso Gui expected to be promoted. But for the moment, he had his mission.

Tso Gui was about to kill a man. It wouldn’t be his first time, oh no, but it would be one of the most important kills of his career. With this one kill, his entire brotherhood would be pushed to the fore of the Hong Kong underworld and the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood would be quickly crushed under their heels. Tso Gui could hardly wait - it would be just like in the movies - guns blazing, quantum powers flashing, honor, betrayal, sex, death, glory, and power! He would be a hero.

But first, he needed to stop his freefall, or else he would only succeed in becoming a wet stain on the concrete. Hard to become a hero after that. Focus, Gui, focus.

Catching himself on one of the hundreds of banners that hung between the buildings of Central District, Tso Gui spun on the taut chord, letting go when his body was horizontal, the street and its crowds some 40 or 50 meters below his back, and launched himself at a phenomenal speed into the heart of a narrow street more crowded with banners and flyers above than with people below - and there was quite a crowd out tonight, too. He performed a dazzling series of mid-air back flips, twists, and turns, and narrowly missed steel cabling, sturdy billboards, and hanging banners with each maneuver. Each time Tso Gui began to lose altitude, a quick spin on one of the dozens of steel cables spanning between the buildings, or a casual leap from a ledge or scaffolding was all it took to regain it again.

Finally, Tso Gui reached his destination via a stunning display of silent acrobatics that required the use of three billboards, two ledges, one handy scaffolding, and two more steel cables, all of it culminating in an ever so soft landing on a window ledge a mere three stories over the heads of hundreds of late-night partiers stumbling back and forth between the pubs and clubs that line Lan Kwai Fong street. A few quick, furtive movements with the window’s catch, and it was open. Tso Gui told the building’s alarms to keep silent, which they did, and then he slipped in through the window and into the room beyond. Now, he just had to wait.

Above C Club was C Bar, which, coincidentally enough, served drinks and provided a quieter venue for those wishing to get off their feet and enjoy a good time with friends. And above C Bar? There are few who knew, and most of them knew many other things besides, most of which could get them arrested.

Ru Fei Long is one of those who knew what was above C Bar - indeed, he was above C Bar now - and he did know quite a bit more besides, and yes, much of it could (and probably would) get him arrested one of these days. Ru Fei Long was a member of the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood. His number was 49, and he was assigned as a bodyguard for Chiang Wang (no relation to the much more famous Kai-shek), whose number was 415, and who was the White Paper Fan of the Chiu-Chiao chapter in Hong Kong. The rooms above C Bar were the offices of Chiang Wang, which is why Chiang was here, which in turn was why Ru Fei Long was here.

“What time is it?”, asked Wang.

Yang Shan glanced at his watch and stifled a sigh of irritation, “it’s just after midnight, Chiang.”

As Chiang Wang was the advisor for the Chiu-Chiao Brotherhood in Hong Kong, so Yang Shan was the advisor for Chiang Wang. As such, his position carried more authority, if not more respect, than that of Ru’s own position in Chiang’s retinue.

Chiang Wang cursed under his breath and glared angrily ahead as he walked, “Goddammit! How do I always wind up late to these conference calls?”

Ru Fei Long rolled his eyes and said nothing.

“With respect, brother”, said Yang Shan, his tone dry and only slightly reprimanding, “you were the one who insisted on stopping in Wan Chai first. Perhaps we should wait until after these meetings before seeking out entertainment for the night?”

“Oh, don’t lecture me, Shan, not right now!” muttered Chiang, “and you, Fei Long, why didn’t you say anything? Aren’t you supposed to be watching out for us?”

Fei Long had learned enough about his new boss in the two months since he’d been assigned to him to know that he wasn’t really angry, at least not at him. This was just his way, and Fei Long took no offense at it.

“Apologies, Tai Lou, I will strive to do better next time.”

“Ha! You see?”, chuckled Chiang Wang as he gave Yang Shan a slap on the shoulder, and shook his finger playfully but annoyingly under Shan’s nose, “Fei Long knows how to show proper respect! You could learn a few things from him, I think.”

Yang Shan smiled and was about to respond, but instead he jerked his back sharply, the smile still on his face, but the light gone from his eyes. Ru Fei Long, who had just looked back with a smile of his own on his lips, knew immediately what had happened, and immediately reached for his guns as he spun around, his smile gone as quickly as it had appeared. Behind him, Yang Shan’s corpse traced a lazy arc through the air before it hit the ground, blood just beginning to stream from the bullet hole directly through the center of his forehead.

The door to Chiang Wang’s office was still nicely closed, a single bullet hole marring its surface, when Fei Long turned back towards it. As he watched another hole suddenly appeared next to, and a little below it, and this time he heard the cracking sound as the wood splintered with the bullet’s passing. He also felt it as the bullet hit him in the left shoulder, nearly spinning him around with the force of it.

Just for the hell of it, Fei Long raised the gun in his right hand and fired off three shots at the door.

*Damn, this hurts! Gotta move! Gotta get the boss, and move!* he thought as he turned and ran back down the hall. He grabbed Chiang with his good arm and hollered, “go!”, gritting his teeth in pain as he fired off the gun in his left hand and felt the recoil as it vibrated past the gunshot wound in his shoulder.

For a baseline, Ru Fei Long was very good. In fact, it was not entirely out of the question that he was the most dangerous baseline on the island - perhaps the entire territory. But even so, when the door to Chiang’s office suddenly flew off its hinges and went hurtling down the hall towards Fei Long and Wang, his reflexes were only just fast enough for him to more or less fall on top of his boss, dragging them both down to the floor as the door went sailing overhead.

No sooner was the door past him than Fei Long was up and moving, but no sooner was he up than he found himself watching what his fear-addled mind irrationally identified as one of the Eight Immortals moving towards him, hobbling on a cane. *Must be Iron Crutch Li, then* thought Fei Long, wondering if maybe blood loss was already causing him to experience hallucinations as he raised his gun to fire at the old man.

Fei Long didn’t see the old man’s cane move, but he certainly felt it when it struck his hand, leaving him with one more stinging pain and causing his gun to fly out of his hand and bounce off of a nearby wall before skittering across the tiled floor of the hall. Then the Immortal slipped between him and the terrified Chiang Wang with no more difficulty than water, and continued down the hall.

Stunned, frightened, and in pain, Fei Long turned to watch his hallucination as it limped towards the battered doorframe of Chiang’s office and the dark figure that now filled it. The assassin was dressed in some kind of futuristic-looking ninja suit or something, complete with a mask. But one look at the glowing red eyes peering out from that mask, and Fei Long knew what he’d already begun to suspect; his enemy was a nova, and all that stood between them was Fei Long’s hallucinations.

*This is not my night* thought Ru Fei Long.

*Shit!* thought Tso Gui, *this is not my night!*

One of Tso Gui’s more useful powers was the ability to see the heat patterns of living creatures - even through walls and other obstacles - which was how he’d known just where to aim to kill Yang Shan. The problem was, his “heat vision” really was heat vision - it worked just like that really great MilSpec Thermal Imaging technology you saw in the movies. So while he could see all three of the men approaching him through the door of Chiang’s office, they all looked more or less the same - just a human-shaped blob of mostly white and light grey walking through a sea of mostly black and dark grey.

And the real problem was; Yang Shan was not the man he’d been sent to kill.

*Shit!*

He knew he’d made a mistake the instant that bastard Fei Long had turned and ran with the third man - the one he’d thought was Yang Shan - and hustled him down the hall without even glancing at the dying man behind him. He’d fired another shot immediately, but Fei Long had ruined things again by getting in the way of the bullet. That wasn’t entirely bad, but it was nowhere near what Tso Gui wanted, which was to see Chiang Wang’s corpse bleeding on the ground at his feet!

Two quick steps and Gui was at the door, one swift kick and the door was gone, spinning and twisting down the hall ahead of him and leaving a trail of splintered wood in its wake. He was pretty sure that the door hadn’t actually hit either Chiang for Fei Long (how lucky was this stinking bastard, anyway?!), but it had sent them both sprawling to the ground, and that was all the advantage he’d needed. He’d heard about Fei Long, and he knew the man was good - but he wasn’t a nova, and there was simply no way he’d be able to get back up and turned around fast enough to pop off a shot at Gui, let alone hit him. It was over.

But then things had to go and get all screwy.

As he stepped into the battered office doorframe, Tso Gui thought he saw something moving down at the end of hall, near the stairwell. Unfortunately, the door he’d kicked (a little too hard, it seemed) was still spinning and twisting, and it just happened to be twisting into a more or less upright position as he looked, completely blocking his view of the hallway for an instant (he‘d already turned off the “heat vision“ after the trouble it‘d caused him - now he wished he‘d left it on).

Then, just as the door had reached an almost perfectly upright position within the hall, one of its bottom corners ricocheted loudly between the floor and the wall. It seemed to catch in the process, and this, combined with its momentum, caused the entire door to bounce away from the wall and spin sideways on what would have been its hinges as it did so.

The doorknob slammed into the opposite wall with a tremendous banging noise, shattering the illusion and sending the door bouncing chaotically towards the stairwell once again. But that wasn’t what Tso Gui was staring at.

As the door had “opened” on its invisible hinges it had opened to reveal a strange and, in this context, truly surreal image. A little old man was there, hobbling down the hall as though nothing were amiss, as though a full-sized office door careening down the hallway towards him, missing him by probably no more than five or six inches, while two panicking men - and one dead man - lay on the floor in front of him was nothing unusual.

Ru Fei Long was up and - probably feeling just as confused as Tso Gui - he raised his gun and pointed it at the old man. Tso Gui felt the first tingling of fear as he watched the old man’s withered, ancient arm swing out and use his cane to disarm Fei Long. It wasn’t just the incredible speed of the maneuver that started the tingling - though only a nova could move that fast, and a nova here just meant more trouble for Gui - it was the supreme confidence, serene smoothness, and seeming carelessness of it that triggered Tso Gui’s alarm.

Growing up, Tso Gui had always been fascinated by the many different martial arts traditions that had been developed by the ancestors of the Chinese people in days long past, and he frequently attended Wushu demonstrations in Hong Kong, and had watched many more on the OpNet. But only rarely had he been treated to the sight of a real Ancient Master, like the ones from the stories, demonstrating their kung fu skills for the public to see. And every time he’d watched one of those wizened, bent old men shuffling about, executing seemingly simple, yet infinitely subtle movements, he’d always been struck by how casual, how almost careless they looked as they moved.

These were men who’d spent so much time learning their art, who’d had so many decades to dissect and study every movement from every angle, who had mastered their style so utterly, that they had boiled the movements down to their concentrated essence and so could accomplish with a flick of the wrist what younger men required a powerful long-handed strike to accomplish.

As he watched the newcomer shuffle effortlessly past Fei Long and Chiang Wang with that same detached look of calm serenity, Tso Gui knew he was looking at a real life Master - probably a Grandmaster - and probably of a style so old and so secret he didn’t even its name. Ok, so maybe he was getting a little carried away with that last bit.

Whoever he was though, he was obviously a nova, and he obviously had skill, and he was definitely heading directly for Tso Gui. Things were going from bad to worse, and he was getting sick of it! Time to end this.

Tso Gui stepped into the hall, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.

Guo Zhenglai did not jostle his way through the crowds of the C Club, and they did not jostle him. He stepped where there was a place to step, and he did not step where there was no place to step. His progress was smooth, unhurried, and efficient.

When he reached the stairs up to C Bar, Guo Zhenglai did not wrestle with his arthritic left hip, nor did he force his legs to carry him up the stairs faster. He moved at the speed his old body set for him. His progress was slow, unhurried, and difficult.

When he entered the C Bar it was much less crowded, and most of its patrons were seated, and so presented no obstacle, but Zhenglai did not hurry his pace. Halfway through the bartender called out to him, asking if he could be of any service. Zhenglai stopped and walked up to the bar, asking what teas the man might have available. Death waited at the top of the next set of stairs, but Zhenglai felt no concern, he felt no worry, and he felt no need to rush towards the inevitable.

Surprisingly, the bartender had a decent selection of teas available, and Zhenglai gladly accepted an oolong tea, which the bartender was kind enough not to charge him for, out of respect for his advanced age. Zhenglai quietly accepted it, and sat contentedly enjoying his tea for several long minutes. While he drank, he watched three young men in expensive business suits, one of them obviously packing hidden firearms, and all of them in an obvious rush, storm through the bar and make their way up to the third floor above. Zhenglai turned back towards the bar and took one last sip of his tea.

“So”, asked the bartender, “what’s your story, old timer?”

“I’m not sure, yet”, answered Guo Zhenglai, smiling and setting his teacup carefully back on its dish, “but I will let you know once I’ve reached its ending.”

The bartender chuckled as he watched the little old man go, and then he promptly forgot all about him.

Guo Zhenglai’s progress up the second set of stairs was no faster, and no slower, than it was up the first.

As he reached the top of the stairs, Zhenglai found there was quite a lot for him to take in. Aside from the two men who were just in the process of falling flat on their faces, there was also the dead man already lying on the floor behind them.

*Ah, there is the first of the death that I foresaw* thought Zhenglai, *but there is yet more of it to come; best to be cautious.*

There was also, of course, the large office door hurtling down the hallway towards him as well (apparently the explanation for the two men diving to the ground in front of him), and, just stepping into the doorway at the far end of the hall, was the man from his visions, the one he’d come to find. The Dark Man, who was lame, and more than half blind, though he did not know it. The agent of demons, and unwitting harbinger of a war not yet come. He would be dead very soon, though it saddened Zhenglai to know it.

Guo Zhenglai’s visions had not prepared him for a door flying directly at him at something in excess of thirty kilometers per hour, but it was no matter. The Dao taught one to remain free of expectations, and to tread without worry or complaint the path that was set before them. Zhenglai knew he was still on the correct path, and he would hold to it, come what may.

*Ah, but to ‘hold until full is not as good as stopping’* thought Zhenglai amusedly to himself, and he stopped. Sure enough, so did the door. Its edge caught on a corner of the hall and it spun suddenly on its axis, opening the way for Zhenglai as it then continued on its own.

*Very good, then* he thought, as he continued forward.

There passed the exchange between himself and poor Ru Fei Long, wherein the latter lost his weapon and the former continued on without slowing, and then Zhenglai was facing the object of his journey.

The Dark Man stepped into the hall, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.

Guo Zhenglai stepped to one side and watched the bullet go past him.

Turning back to the Dark Man, who was looking at him with a stunned expression in his glowing red eyes, Zhenglai spoke softly to him.

“Perhaps you should put your gun down”, he suggested, “I do not think you will be needing it again tonight, my son”. The figure dressed all in black seemed frightened at his words, and even more bewildered than ever, but he obediently stooped down and carefully placed his gun on the ground at his feet before standing again.

For approximately two seconds Guo Zhenglai stared calmly while the Dark Man stood awkwardly with his hands at his sides, not quite daring to meet the Ancient Master’s gaze, like a nervous student awaiting a scolding from his teacher.

Finally, he mustered up the will to look the old man in the eyes with his own red ones and ask with a gruff and uncertain voice, “who are you?”

Zhenglai looked saddened and disappointed as he answered by saying, “that is not the question you should be asking, my son. You know the question, but you do not ask; are you so afraid to know the answer?”

The Dark Man swallowed hard, and seemed very nearly terrified, but he still managed to ask, “why won’t I need my weapon anymore tonight?”

Guo Zhenglai nodded in approval and answered, “that is the correct question. You will not need your weapon anymore, my son, because you have reached the end of your journey”, he paused briefly, and the sadness crept back into his ancient eyes, “and because the young man whom I disarmed earlier has just regained his own weapon.”

Zhenglai sighed as the Dark Man’s eyes grew wide and he looked past him with the sudden light of realization in them. But the light died as quickly as it appeared, accompanied by the deafening roar of inevitable fate, which was carried on the backs of three 9mm shells that had exploded from Ru Fei Long’s gun a few microseconds before.

The Dark Man took one staggering step forward, the final step in the journey of his short life, and then, falling violently to the ground, he passed through death’s door.

The ancient little man with the ancient brass cane stood and gazed at him with pursed lips and sad eyes while a man almost one hundred years his junior walked up next to him and stopped, joining him in his contemplation of a corpse.

“Tso Gui”, muttered Fei Long, “nova enforcer for the Wo Shing Wo. Fucking bastard. A curse on your family, you erupted shit.” Then he turned, and walked back down the hall to tend to his boss.

*'Tso Gui'?* thought Zhenglai, *how ironic. And how appropriate.*

Then he turned his back on the corpse and started walking again.

Ru Fei Long turned as the little old nova came doddering up behind him. He had no doubt that the old one was a nova; it had not escaped him how the Wo Shing Wo’s assassin had been so easily manipulated into dropping his gun and signing his own death warrant in the process. Fei Long wasn’t sure if he trusted the old man, but that he and Chiang both owed him a debt was certain.

“Pardon me, Tai Lou, but are you alright?”, asked ‘Iron Crutch Li’ (as Fei Long still thought of him in his mind).

Chiang Wang seemed taken aback by the much older man’s use of the traditional Triad honorific for a senior member of a brotherhood; ‘Tai Lou’, which meant essentially ‘elder brother’. For that matter, so was Fei Long. This man was clearly their elder, and he was clearly at least partly responsible for Chiang’s continued good health. For Wang to be addressed in such a way by such an unusual person was, well… unusual!

Gathering himself visibly, Wang took stock of himself before answering, “Uh, yes. Yes, I believe I am. Thank you.”

“You are welcome”, answered ‘Iron Crutch’.

Fei Long, still feeling anxious, went back to take a second look at Tso Gui before taking his weapon (he looked dead, but you could never be sure with a nova), and then he moved to check poor Yang Shan.

Chiang Wang noticed. “Is he- ?”

“Dead”, Fei Long answered. “Probably before he hit the ground.”

Fei Long pulled out his cell phone and began muttering in a quiet but urgent voice, probably trying to get some more sze kau in to help protect Chiang, as well as to help clean up the mess. He seemed to have forgotten about his wounded shoulder entirely.

Wang seemed equal parts outraged and sad at the news of his advisor’s death. He began to pace, and as he did so he smoothed out his suit, tried to fix his hair, checked his watch, then he stopped, cursed, and stamped his foot as he did so.

“I’ve missed the conference call! The Japanese will be outraged! This whole night has been a disaster!”

“Ah”, said old ‘Iron Crutch, seeming to perk up suddenly, “yes, your meeting. It is very important that you tell me who it is you are supposed to speak with.”

Chiang Wang’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, and behind the old man Fei Long stopped speaking.

“With respect, honored elder”, stated Wang delicately, “that is Triad business, not yours. Now, I ask you, why do you need to know?” Behind them, Fei Long took a step closer to the old man.

“Is it not a enough that I stopped your killer?” The ancient Immortal seemed utterly genuine, even a little confused by the sudden tension in the hall, but even so, he was making Fei Long nervous.

Chiang Wang said with finality, “No.”

The old man stood quietly leaning on his cane for a long, tension-laden moment, and then nodded his head and “hmmmed” with a finality of his own.

“Very well then, young man”, he said, “I will show you what has brought me here.”

Chiang Wang appeared confused for an instant, and looked as though he were about to ask something else, but then his eyes widened dramatically, and sweat could actually be seen to burst from his forehead. He squinted as though in pain, and half-stumbled until his back was to the wall behind him.

Fei Long’s guns were out faster than many novas could have managed. Both barrels stopped an inch from old ‘Iron Crutch’s’ temple, and Fei Long’s voice was low and intense as he pulled back both hammers with his thumbs. The sound of the weapons as they were armed was surprisingly loud.

“What the hell are you doing to him, old man?”

But Wang put his hand up suddenly, his face pale and drawn, and said, “no, it’s alright, Fei Long. Our new friend has just shown me… many things. Terrible things.”

Fei Long started to respond, but Chiang Wang silenced him with his hand again and looked up at the old man through pain-slitted eyes.

“Is it true? Is it all true?”, he asked.

“The visions led me here. I have no reason to believe they are false”, responded the old man. Then, with more gentleness in his voice than Fei Long would have believed possible under the circumstances, old ‘Iron Crutch’ asked, “now will you tell me what I need to know?”

Wang hesitated for a moment, but then his shoulders slumped like a man forfeiting a battle. “Kuroi Kiri”, was all he said.

“Thank you, very much”, the old man said simply, and then the phone began to ring. The sudden shrill sound startled both of the baselines, and Fei Long nearly shot the damn phone in surprise, so jangled were his nerves after all the excitement. But the old Taoist Immortal seemed lost in thought as he stared in the direction of Wang’s office and the phone within.

“Answer it”, he said after only the second ring, “it is the man you came here to speak to. ‘Kuroi Kiri’. I sense he had troubles of his own. He was delayed, as you were.”

“What? Are you certain?”, exclaimed Chiang, already moving for his office. Fei Long just stood where he was, feeling increasingly lost and out of the loop.

“I am”, responded the old man. “Chiang”, he said, stopping the other in his tracks, “give him a message for me. Tell him I wish to meet with him in precisely twenty-four hours.”

Chiang looked over his shoulder and his jaw went slack. The old Immortal was standing in front of a shimmering golden-rimmed opening in the air that looked onto another place. Gathering his wits, Chiang blurted out, “wait! Where will you meet him?”

The old man just smiled. “Wherever he is at the time”, was all he said.

Chiang Wang and Ru Fei Long both stood staring stupidly as the little nova walked through his warp for about a second, and then Chiang again blurted out, “wait! I don’t even know your name!”

But it was too late; the mysterious old man had gone, as strangely, and as quickly, as he had appeared.

Guo Zhenglai stepped through the Pathless Way and emerged in an opulent Tokyo high rise suite. The interior design managed to project an image of traditional Japanese simplicity and sparseness, while still making clear the wealth of its occupants. It spoke highly of the interior designer that this dualistic image of simplicity and opulence was not utterly ruined by the sizeable gathering of thuggish-looking Japanese men in flashy suits who were all currently pointing guns at Zhenglai’s chest and forehead. He was unsurprised to see Ru Fei Long standing in the midst of the them, his left arm in a sling. Fei Long had been in the vision that had, in part, led Zhenglai here, after all.

An unremarkable looking man of hard to determine age, wearing an expensive but practical suit, stood up from where he had been sitting at an elegant couch and stepped forward. “Ah, you have come”, he said in Japanese, and performed a respectful Japanese bow, “I am Kuroi Kiri.”

Fei Long stepped forward and spoke, apparently having been assigned the task of translating, in the event the mysterious old nova only spoke Cantonese, “he says-”

“I know what he says, young man”, Zhenglai cut him off, speaking fluent, but accented, Japanese. Kiri, and several of those gathered (who were all still pointing their guns), raised an eyebrow at this.

“I am honored that you are willing to see me”, said the old man, performing an even more respectful, and utterly authentic looking traditional Chinese bow, “I am Guo Zhenglai.”

Introductions having been made, the younger man turned and indicated another couch opposite the one he had been sitting at. “Please, have a seat, honored elder.” A subtle look, and a movement of his hand, and the guns were put away, and a room full of Yakuza thugs tried very hard not to be intrusive while their betters spoke.

“So”, said Kiri, “welcome to my humble home, Guo-san. Now, what did you wish to speak with me about?”

The old man merely stared back at him with an unreadable expression and replied, “this is not your home, Kiri-san, and I did not come here to speak to you.”

Fei Long, standing off to one side, wondered if the old man was crazy. His answer to Kiri had been tantamount to an insult, and it could be seen as an implied threat. Already, several of the Yaks were starting to reach for weapons again, and the tension had just been ratcheted up several notches in as many seconds. The old fart seemed to have a real talent for creating tension, now that Fei Long thought about it. And if he got himself killed, it was likely that Fei Long would be as well. He really had to wonder how his fate had suddenly been so tightly wound with that of this mysterious, old, and complete stranger.

‘You’re being sent to Tokyo in the morning, Fei Long’, Boss Chiang had told him. ‘They’re going to need an eyewitness to verify the old man’s identity.’ Ru Fei Long had tried very hard to hide his exasperation at this. ‘But why, Tai Lou? Why all this fuss over one crazy old man? We have problems of our own here. I should be here, protecting you. That’s my job.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong, Fei Long. Things have changed’, Chiang had said, with a strange light in his eyes. ‘Things have changed.’ Ever since last night when old Iron Crutch had done… whatever it was he’d done to Fei Long’s boss, Chiang had been acting funny. He was almost impassioned, like he was a different man. Fei Long didn’t like it.

He’d already mentioned the possibility that the old man had mind control powers to Kuroi Kiri once he’d arrived in Tokyo, and he expected the Black Mist of the Nakato Gumi would be dealing with this ‘Guo Zhenglai’ anytime now. But now that the moment had come, it had suddenly begun to occur to Fei Long that he was essentially all alone in the land of the enemy, and it had been his very own boss who had arranged this meeting and vouched for the old man, and if the old man provoked the Japanese into a killing frenzy, there really wasn’t much of a guarantee that he would be escaping unscathed, all things considered.

Kiri had been sitting and staring back at the elder nova before him with a serious expression on his face for a few seconds, but suddenly he smiled. “It seems we cannot deceive you, Guo-san. No, this is not where I live. Please, pardon us for the deception, but I felt it best to feel you out.” He looked Zhenglai over once, and added, “to determine what you know… and how.”

He stared expectantly at the old man, obviously expecting a response of some kind, but he got none. Guo Zhenglai simply sat there, looking old and bent and not a little senile as he moved his gaze, seemingly at random, over the room and its occupants. One might almost believe that he’d forgotten that Kuroi Kiri was there at all.

Kiri was a very talented and, in his own way, powerful nova, especially in the social arena, so he hid his chagrin at the old man’s behavior quite well, and none of the baselines in the room had any inkling of their boss’s rapidly worsening mood.

He sighed and, making a concession to the old man’s age and the possibility that he really was just a bit senile, he decided to skip the subtle displays of power and implied threats and jump right to the point, and said, “if you did not come to speak with me, then why have you come, honored elder?”

“Ah”, said Zhenglai, his attention returning to Kiri, “very good. That was the correct question, and it was your first; I am most pleased.” He nodded to himself and chuckled in a satisfied manner, and in that moment there was not a man in the room who did not wonder just how old their guest really was. “I did not come here to speak with anyone”, he said, “the information I require will reveal itself presently without the need for discourse. And the only person I specifically wish to be introduced to here is a woman.”

This time, there was not a man in the room who did not wonder just how senile their guest really was. Many of the them laughed openly at his remark.

Kuroi smiled, but it held no insult in it (or none that he would let show, at least), “apologies, Guo-san, but you are mistaken. As you will see if you look around you, there are no woman here!”

Guo Zhenglai smiled in an open and guileless way, accepting the light mockery of those around him with an easy humility that surprised and impressed many of them even as they laughed. The old man was easy to like, even if he was a bit soft in the head.

“No”, Zhenglai said, still smiling, “I am quite sure of myself. The woman I speak of is standing right there, in plain sight of everyone, even if they don't know it yet”, he pointed to an empty place next to the couch Kuroi sat in. “Unless”, he added with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “you mean to say that is a man who stands next to you!”

This time Kuroi Kiri was not quite able to completely hide his surprise and dismay at Zhenglai’s words. He stared at the little old man in front of him, opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and then closed it again. Then he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, and gestured dismissively with the other, speaking in a low tight voice, “Youkai-san! Show yourself.”

For a moment nothing happened, and then suddenly the air next to the couch that Kuroi was sitting on began to clear away as though it were a fog or mist, revealing a slender, diminutive Japanese woman as it did so. At first her appearance was exceptionally average, to the point that her face became difficult to remember clearly within moments of looking away from it, but then her average looks seemed to thin and fade like a fog as well. When it had cleared her appearance had become, instead of exceptionally average, exceptionally beautiful. Striking even.

Everyone in the room was staring at her in surprise, and it was apparent that even many of the Yakuza thugs present had not known that she had been there. Around the room there were whisperings and mutterings, and over and over again the same word was repeated in hushed tones. “Youkai”. A word that meant “Phantom” or “Ghost”, but it had a secondary meaning as well; “Solution”. As in, “The Final __”.

All those who had extensive dealing with the Yakuza had at least heard rumors of Youkai, the specter, the invisible hand of the Yakuza. Enforcer, spy, and sometime assassin, no one on the street even knew if Youkai was a man or a woman - though all knew Youkai was a nova. Ru Fei Long had heard of Yukai all the way over in Hong Kong, and now he even knew ‘he’ was a ‘she’. A damn good looking ‘she’ too, even if she was Japanese and a Yak. This was turning into one crazy night. Fei Long had had enough of crazy nights - with or without the hot chicks - he’d had enough.

Youkai was looking intently at Guo Zhenglai, and he looked back, his expression inscrutable.

Kuroi Kiri, trying to break the tension once again, said, “it seems there really is no deceiving you, Guo-san. I must, once again, apologize for my rudeness. Honored elder, allow me to introduce one the Nakato Gumi’s chief nova enforcers, known as ‘Youkai’ within our ranks. Her real name is unknown, even to myself.” Youkai said nothing, but only looked from Guo Zhenglai to Kuroi, and back again. “Please”, continued Kuroi, “forgive her if she does not introduce herself, as she never speaks. She is mute, you see.”

Leaning forward again, Kiri asked Zhenglai, “now I must know, how could you possibly see her? As far as we know, Youkai is capable of becoming completely invisible to all known means of detection. How is it you knew she was there?”

“The answer, Kiri-san”, said Zhenglai, “is that I could not see her. Not at all. But when I looked at the future, I saw that she had been standing there all along, so I knew she would be standing there when I pointed at her as well.”

“A precog”, said Kiri, as though to himself, and then he continued more loudly, “please tell me, what else have you seen? Is this how you knew to be at Chiang-san’s place last night?”

“I am sorry”, answered Zhenglai, “but I cannot tell you that now, for we are out of time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kuroi Kiri, smiling benignly even as he glanced meaningfully at the men behind Zhenglai. “We have all night, Guo-san, surely you can take the time to tell me a little about yourself?” Behind the old man several Yakuza thugs were beginning to move in towards him, and their expressions were hard. Standing next to Kiri, Youkai’s posture tensed minutely, though her expression remained detached and unreadable.

“But I cannot”, answered Zhenglai, “we are all about to be shot at. A conversation would be most inappropriate.”

Kuroi Kiri stared, Youkai’s posture tensed visibly, and behind Zhenglai, all of the Yakuza thugs froze dead in their tracks. Ru Fei Long let out a small, highly fatalistic sigh, and reached for his gun with his good arm. He didn’t trust the old man, but somehow, he knew he could believe him.

The window behind Kuroi Kiri exploded in a hail of bullets, and then all was chaos.

As thimble-sized chunks of teflon-coated death sprayed across the high rise suite, several men died. But other men reacted, and Fei Long was among them. His good hand had already started reaching for the firearm tucked under his jacket at the strange old man’s words, so he was among the first to react when the bullets started to fly, and in short order his own bullets were added to the chaos. He was not the only one to react quickly, though.

A split-second after the first bullet punched through the glass of the window that doubled as the suite’s western wall, a swirling, churning blackness exploded outward from Kuroi Kiri, completely enveloping him and growing rapidly to fill over half the suite. An instant later, though, the entire mass of it boiled out of the broken window and went roiling across the empty expanse of air between their building and the one across the street where, Fei Long realized, the shooting was coming from. As the suite emptied of the cloud of moving shadow, Fei Long saw the one called Youkai reach out and grab Kiri - and then they both vanished into thin air. A second after that, the mass of churning shadow impacted with the building across the way, and then vanished within.

All around him men were stumbling and running, shooting over their shoulders as they did so, all of them beating a hasty retreat out of the apartment, now that their boss had vanished. Fei Long figured he should join them. As he looked across the street while taking a last parting shot at his unknown attackers before fleeing, he was surprised to that it looked like their building was being hit with mortar rounds or something. Entire chunks of the building were being blown to powder by some unknown force. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that force was probably a nova, though, and there were only so many of those around. He didn’t think it was the old guy - it just didn’t seem like his style, somehow - so it was probably Youkai or Kiri. Speaking of which, where was that crazy old nova?

As Ru Fei Long sprinted out the door to the suite and into the hall on the other side, he tripped on a corpse and fell. As luck or fate would have it, this saved his life. Twice. It probably saved the lives of many of those in the hall as well. Both a bullet and a frag grenade flew over his head from the direction of the hall elevator just as he fell, narrowly missing him as they impacted inside the apartment suite. Had Fei Long still been standing, the bullet probably would have killed him, and the grenade definitely would have killed him and, in all likelihood, all of the Yaks pressed up against the walls on either side as well. He didn’t have much opportunity to ponder on his good joss, however, as the grenade exploded at about the same time that he was hitting the ground, and it took another second or two before he could think at all, let alone ponder deep thoughts.

Trying to clear his head, Ru Fei Long used the corpse as cover, and peered over its torso, taking aim at the men with guns he could see firing from either side of the elevator at the end of the hall. A second passed, seeming to take whole minutes with it, and then a man’s head looked out from the elevator’s door. A quick squeeze of his weapon’s trigger and that man’s life ended. He followed that up with a few extra rounds fired in the general direction of the other heads peeking out here and there, causing most of them to promptly duck back behind the narrow walls on either side of the elevator.

One of Kiri’s men signaled him and shouted. “Quick”, he said, his Japanese coming out so rushed that Fei Long could barely understand him, “we’re taking the service stairs to the roof!”

He looked, and saw a door one of them had kicked open off to one side, out of the way of the crossfire. Standing placidly to one side of it was the old Immortal, Guo Zhenglai. He stared at Fei Long with a disconcerting frankness that made him avert his eyes. Crazy old goat. There was still no sign of Youkai or Kuroi Kiri.

Leaping to his feet and running through the open door into a dimly lit service hallway, Fei Long wondered what else could possibly go wrong tonight?