I didn’t expect my past mistakes to catch up with me so damn quickly. Should have listened to my gut feeling, it tried to warn me throughout the evening. My bad.

Glaring through the small spectacles Sato made a few steps forward, a slight limp showing in his walk. The white knee brace over his left leg pushed a bitter memory of Emil’s reckless behaviour to the front of my mind. His stick had crushed Sato’s knee and his left hand, which was now shaking like that of an old man’s as he took out something from his pocket.

While I briefly wondered if our encounter was a pre-planned thing or just an unfortunate coincidence he passed the object into his other hand and jerked it forward in a quick motion. Dread filled me as the thing in his hand expanded into a full-length telescopic stick.

“Nik san, imagine my surprise when I saw your head sticking out amongst the crowd at the Hozomon gate,” Sato spoke, hitting the stick lightly against the side of his leg.

“Look, you know it wasn’t my plan—“

“Oh, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with that French pervert too. I know where he is and it’s only a matter of time. But you disappeared and I looked for you for a while…I thought, maybe you left the country.” A devious smirk speared on his lips, while he adjusted his spectacles with his cramped left hand. “But lucky for me, you were not that smart…”

During his speech the other bikers unsaddled their motorcycles, some pulled out sticks, others readied their fists, and a couple of them swung baseball bats in their hands.

“Hey, hey, you assholes!” K shouted out, adding some words in Japanese, which, judging by the looks on the men’s faces, were anything but polite.

I gazed upon my drunken companion with concern. Seeing her agitation, I knew I had to act fast. It was my mess; K had nothing to do with it. My peripheral vision fed me the necessary data and my body reacted. Grabbing her arm, I drew us both backward, toward the abandoned warehouse behind us. Her eyes widened at me in expectation as I shoved her inside the building through the open metal doors and slid the rusty bolt across it.

Stirred by my action the thugs with Sato at their front rushed forward all at once and surrounded me.

K banged on the door, shaking it with her punches. “Nik! What the fuck! Let me out! Let me out, dammit!” Her furious shouts were heard by everyone.

With K safely out of the way, I could now focus completely on my enemy. My shoulders pushed back, my chest expanded, I felt like the enormous, fierce Nio guardian at the Senso-ji temple intended on protecting the gate with all its demonic fury. “Okay, Sato…Let’s get going!”

For a moment, hesitation and bewilderment appeared on Sato’s face. My behaviour was obviously not what he expected. He broke out in a muffled laugh of disbelief, which soon turned into loud, uncontrollable laughter. Pointing his finger at me he said:

“Aren’t you brave!” His mocking voice was shaky from laughing. “I’ll tell you this…once we’re done with you, we’ll have fun with your girlfriend too.” Then he roared out a command and some of the thugs began to move toward me.

K’s banging and yelling intensified. “Nik!...Nik! Let me out of here, you fucking idiot!”

When the first stick hit me I was so full of adrenaline I felt no pain. My body responded by itself. My hands grabbed, my knee went to somebody’s head, and my fist to another one’s stomach. As I was shoved away I realized I had a stick in my hand. Great, I thought, my fingers squeezing around the stick as if it was golden. My narrowed eyes passed over the rest of the thugs, my mind was emptied of thoughts. I surprised myself with how resolved and committed I was to protect the door.

Sato scoffed and then more came. I was hitting, punching, and kicking everywhere and everyone, as soon as they were in range. A few times I got pushed and smashed against the door but nobody managed to pin me down or reach the bolt.

While some of the thugs writhed on the ground, others were closing in on me. I saw blood on some, their shoulders lifting and falling from the anger and frustration. The fists, the sticks, the bats, all ready for me.

I leaned against the door with my back, feeling it tremble from K’s punches. She wasn’t yelling anymore, she was pleading: “Nik, please, unlock the door!” Her voice mixed with the sound of my loud breaths:” Please, Nik, listen to me!” Then it was Sato, yelling in Japanese at his men, his dark small eyes zooming in at me.

K raised her voice again. “Let me out!” she shouted repeatedly and then smashed against the door with such force I saw its metal surface protruding out in the shape of her fist. I shook my head and looked again at the damaged door in disbelief. I’m imagining it, I told myself. She couldn’t possibly have such strength. In the next instant, several came at me, many with sticks, but I countered them, utilizing the deeply embedded memories of my sword fight with K at the pond. I blocked and countered, blocked, blocked again and countered, then I started hitting before they even attacked, sensing their intentions early.

While striking one of the guys with the stick, I realized he had a bunch of newspapers wrapped tightly around his torso with duct tape. The newspaper layer acted like armour, absorbing most of my hits and preventing any real damage to the body. A clever way to protect one’s self, but I was no fool either. The next time he attacked me I hit his head and the guy didn’t get up again. Sato’s thugs tried but still couldn’t overpower me or drag me away from the door, no matter how hard they tried. Then the heavy cavalry came in. Two guys with baseball bats were closing in from both sides.

The one on the left was quicker and so in anticipation of his strike, I raised my stick in front of my head to protect myself. But before the man reached me, something whooshed past me and slashed right across the thug’s fingers that were clenched around the bat, leaving a red trail of blood. The guy yelped and dropped the bat. Just as I turned toward the other one the same happened to him, his bat making a thumping sound as it fell on the ground and rolled away.

From somewhere above, Shin landed by my side like a sleek black cat. My mouth quivered into a smile, my eyes welcomed him. I had never expected to find an ally in Shin. His sudden appearance silenced for a moment the thugs as well who were just as surprised. But as soon as they recovered their faces became even more zealous and meaner, especially Sato’s, whose grinning mouth was salivating from excitement.

“If you got any more of those…now would be the time to use them,” I said under my breath, making a suggestive glance at the recovered baseball bats, which were picked up by other thugs.

Shin shook his head.

“Nik! Are you still here? What’s happening?” K cried out from behind the door.

Hearing her voice, Shin’s eyes above the black mask widened at me in utmost incomprehension. His gaze darted between the door and me until he suddenly sprang at the bolt.

“Stop!” I yelled, pushing the bolt, which was already half out, back to its place, and shoved Shin away. “Don’t let her out! Too dangerous!”

When Shin regained his balance, his eyes continued to stare at me with the same utter puzzlement but also telling me to back off. Before I knew it he was at the door again.

I put myself between him and the bolt. “The fuck man! Stop it!” I couldn’t understand his persistence. Didn’t he comprehend the situation or what?

From the corner of my eye, I noticed slightly puzzled looks on the thugs’ faces. Our little private show put them on hold and made them hesitant about their next move, but soon they got bored and came wielding their bats and sticks again. Not just at me this time, but at Shin too. He had no choice but to abandon his stubborn intent to free K and defend. He was very good at it too. What he lacked in strength he made up in agility, speed, and technique. Some of his moves were on the verge of being acrobatic.

But despite both of us standing our ground, it was becoming evident from one minute to another that the numbers were against us. They attacked us in turns; when we fended off some of them, the others came, leaving us no time to catch a breath. Shin saved me by kicking away the bat that was about to connect with my head and then fell down under the punches of the men that ganged up on him. I wanted to help but I was occupied in a stick fight with two other thugs. The will was stronger than the body and as soon as I knocked them out, I threw myself like a hungry lion on the top of the gang that was beating Shin. It was messy, but at all times my eyes were vigilant for anyone, even Shin, that might try to open that door. In all truth, the thugs didn’t even try because I and then Shin were their primary concern.

In this pure, street survival fighting with no rules, I could hardly control myself and at certain point, I started biting, scratching, pulling, and poking at whoever was near or on me and growled with rage like an animal.

I was at the edge of exhaustion when arms grabbed over my torso and dragged me backward. I was resisting, but they were too many, shouting enthusiastically while pulling me away from the door towards Sato. He was limping in my direction, his face bloated from eagerness. My legs dragging on the ground, they raised me up slightly in front of him. Messed up and limp I was hanging on their arms like some scarecrow, looking through blood and sweat at Sato’s neat and clean figure in front of me. His eyes glowed dark beneath his small glasses as he raised the stick in his hand and hit me over my stomach. I jerked forward almost throwing up. His lips twisted with devious satisfaction.

“Which knee?” he asked.

I looked at him vaguely, not understanding his question at first. Then I chuckled and tilted my head further back to see him better.

“Both,” I said; “but just know, I will repay in kind.”

He simpered, looking at his companions. “Huh, what you said, stupid gaijin?”

Some commotion issued behind my back. I turned my head to see, but Sato slapped me. As I recovered, K stood next to my captors. Seeing her uninjured and so oddly self-confident I felt relieved. Sato flinched at her sight, briefly adjusting his glasses; her sudden appearance surprised him as much as it did me.

K spoke fast and in an obnoxiously calm voice. I heard the word Yamato Damashi, which, once she uttered it, made a visible effect on the face of Sato and my captors, whose grip on me loosed significantly. Sato listened, his face like a stone. Fear rose inside me, fear for her, for what might follow.

She finished talking; a moment of silence followed, and then the police sirens broke the quietness of the street. I couldn’t say if it was K’s speech or the approaching police that spooked Sato into the flight, but he and his gang were gone. Riding off into the street they disappeared with their motorbikes as quickly and as suddenly as they had earlier appeared.

Dumped by the two thugs, I flopped to my knees. K’s body grew in front of me as a tall, dark building, threatening to collapse forward at any second and bury my bones and flesh beneath.

“Don’t you ever—“ Her small hand clenched into a fist, but her voice trailed off. Her glaring eyes widened into worrying ones and scanned my body. “A-are you okay, Nik san?” she asked in a strict voice that didn’t agree with the emotion in her gaze.

I couldn’t respond. Instinctively I rubbed both my knees with my hands, my whole body shaking. Sato’s threat to my knees, which, if it had been executed, would most certainly mean the end of not just my fighting career, but also my ability to move, still lingered on my mind and I was only now beginning to realize how lucky I was.

“Yeah…I’m fine…You?” I said, my lips trembling. My body was still too full of adrenaline to feel the pain.

She nodded, her concerned eyes still gazing down at me. Shin loomed behind her back, poking at a tear on his shirt, but otherwise looking much more composed than me.

The police cars stopped somewhere at the beginning of the alley. I got up, my legs were still shaky and unstable. K grasped my arm and helped me stand firmly. She was looking over my shoulder into the alley behind my back.

“How did the police know…“ I gasped.

“I called them…” She let go of my arm and took some distance. Any softness that was there before was now gone. “You’re fucking lucky I had the phone on me. Now let’s go… before they see us…”

“But…why?” Just as I asked the pain came, striking various parts of my body at the same time. My eyes became watery from the effort of bearing it. I was glad that there was no time to deal with it. K grasped my hand and pulled me along. Same as Sato and his gang, the three of us disappeared into the streets of Asakusa.