Interlude: Reina

Reina Sato had come to the bay as a little girl. Her mother talked about how she’d been an executive with a big company in a big skyscraper in Tokyo.

And then Leviathan had come. And if Tokyo had not been struck, other than the tidal waves, the economic devastation had been nearly as bad. Her big skyscraper went dark. There was no need for executives, especially women, and mother ended up on the street, before she found a little apartment building.

Reina had been young then, but she had wondered, even then, why throw Mother out? Nobody else came to the happy house where her stuffed toys and games had been, and people were living on the street, refugees from Kyushu, and people didn’t treat them well unless they had family.

Hibakusha some mentioned, comparing them to the survivors of the Atom Bomb blasts.

Mom worked long hours and her pretty face was careworn.

So Reina took over watching her little brother, Jun.

And then one day, Mom came back, her face shining. She’d made a deal. They had some money and they were going to America. Mom would be a maid, working in a rich household, and they’d be living in a city where the gangs didn’t rule every street, and Reina would get a diploma from an Americanschool and get a good job, maybe even move to California!

Reina wasn’t certain. At the ripe old age of 10, she’d learned that many Americans weren’t happy with the tide of refugees, but that night, there was a shooting and the old couple down the street who had been short on their payments to the Yakuza were found dead.

And the old kids the ones graduating high school simply joined the gangs or found work on the streets—having a diploma didn’t mean anything.

So they boarded the rusty freighter, staying in a container with no light or ventilation. Several times the doors were locked and they were told to be quiet as men boarded the ship and spoke in English.

Then they were unloaded at a port, a place called Boston, and they were driven in a bus down to Brockton Bay.

And then Mom was told what her job was, and Reina wondered if one of her friends had died, the way her face changed after the other adult took her into the other room. She came back and sat down and told Reina and her little brother (who was only two), that they’d have to wait a while before they could move to California but that she had a… good job. It wasn’t being a maid, but it was a good job.

And they had an apartment, and it was a nice apartment, better than the one back home. The part of the city they lived in was under the Protection of Lung, and nobody dared trouble them, not like back home where every other day there was a gang fight. Reina went to a school where many of the kids were from Japan—but they laughed at her accent. According to one, only fools didn’t try to get an American accent.

So she learned.

And Mom went to work and came back in fine clothes and sometimes a black car, a new car would stop for her, and she’d dress up and put her makeup on and then go out, sometimes for a day, sometimes for several.

Reina would take care of Jun, making certain he ate dinner and went to bed, playing with him and telling him bedtime stories like Mom did, as well as watching TV.

Only in English. Reina didn’t want anyone thinking she was stupid, and Jun would never go back to Japan.

Mom brought home good food, but cried now and then. She never explained why, or why it was sometimes worse after the car brought her back.

Until one day, just before Reina was to enter junior high school, she didn’t come back. Someone else did. They gestured for Reina to get into the black car, and she brought Jun with her. They drove a while and then stopped at a house and Reina walked in and blinked.

Lung was there. Along with Oni Lee and some others. And a man who was tied up and gagged, blond hair, and E88 tattoos showing. Reina knew about those. You avoided those men.

“Your mother is dead,” he said.

Mom? Dead?

“This man killed her. Slowly. You cannot see her body, for I would not have that be your last memory of her. But the insult was to your family.” Oni Lee stepped forward and handed her a blade, heavy in her hand.

He killed Mother. Reina held the blade, looked at Lung, and bowed, deeply, as Mother had shown her.

Then she drove the blade into the murderer’s heart, his muffled scream soon silent as the hot blood spilled on her hands.

And then Lung explained the situation. His mercy in assisting her mother to come from Japan had not come without cost. The debt now fell upon her.

Reina bowed again. That made sense, and after all Lung had done for Mother, Reina, and Jun, she could do no less.

And so, after school, she ran packages for the ABB. She was careful, always working to stay in the shadows, but sometimes, she carried the knife she had avenged her mother with. Oni Lee had given it to her, and she treasured it above all other things.

She was a junior at Winslow when the new principal came and enjoyed the stupidity of the E88 and some of the dumber ABB members. They flaunted their membership, and if they were trusted for street brawls, by this point, Reina was carrying bundles of money, sometimes thousands of dollars for the ABB. Twice, Lung honored her by letting her dine with him.

She knew what Mother had done. Reina didn’t think any less of her, for it had brought Reina and Jun to this paradise, but she would serve Lung, pay her debt, in other ways.

And then, one day, a police officer, one of the ones who served the E88, pulled her into a car and forced himself upon her after arresting her. They did not find Lung’s money. She had put it in a safe place, and when she was bailed out by the ABB’s lawyer, she immediately returned the money to Lung. And Lung commanded her to not speak of the police officer to others, but to make recordings when he came back. To entice him. And she did. However much her skin crawled, she did.

And then, Lung let her watch on the day when other ABB members presented the officer with the recordings and the threat of revealing them to the public and E88, unless he became Lung’s servant.

It felt almost as good as the day she’d killed her mother’s murderer. Her duties grew, organizing the chess matches with Lung, organizing the ABB members at the various schools. Not the ones wearing colors. Those were open, obvious. She handled the quiet members. The ones who would serve Lung in the same way Reina did. She lived with some older ABB members, nice but not Mother, so she still read Jun his bedtime stories and made certain he ate.

She wondered why Lung played so many strange games. One day she was assigned to bring him chess players. Than Go players, and on one odd occasion, he demanded she bring the best school riddlers in the ABB. And always with gifts.

And one day, she realized. Lung’s mind grew the same way his body did. And it needed to be challenged.

And he looked up at her from where he was staring over a chessboard, and she realized that he knew.

“Stay,” he rumbled.

She stayed.

He looked at her for several moments, then turned and walked out of the room, returning with a tea set.

He poured for her.

He poured for her.

“What is my power?”

Reina told him. She wondered if he would kill her for this. It would be terrible if someone else were to find out.

Perhaps that was the reason for the tea. To give her one final courtesy.

“You did not hesitate to kill the murderer of your mother.”

“No.”

“And yet you did not kill the police officer. Why?”

“You could use him, Great Lung.”

“As I did.” Lung paused. “I had considered revealing his treachery to the E88, as a gift to you, a reward, but now… I believe I have another gift. But this gift could come with a price. You could die. You could become a monster. And even if not that, you will never be free of it. Do you accept?”

“Yes.” Reina did not hesitate. She was sent back home to prepare, given papers on meditations that she had to undertake.

Reina didn’t understand them, but there was a questionnaire that she filled out, and one day, she was told to stay home from school and eat nothing that day.

She did. A woman came to her door and knocked on it.

“You are prepared,” she said, her dark skin gleaming. She opened a case and pulled out a vial.

“Yes.”

“Drink this, as quickly as you can. It will give you powers.”

“To serve Lung?”

“To do whatever you desire. You know the risks.”

“Yes.”

“Then there is nothing more to say.”

And Reina drank it, and as she’d been warned, it hurt. But she fought the pain down. She might die. She might become a monster.

But after this, she would never be weak.