Chapter 18
Never to Forgive, Never to Forget
Royal Precinct, Tianjing
Eight days had passed since Yasuko killed Prince Wupeng and there was no word from Prince Sturla in all that time. With nothing else to do, she continued her training under Yung. He wasn't an easy master by any stretch of the imagination, but Yasuko was happiest when she was active. She had to get an early start because they had to do their first round before he went about his morning duties. Usually Yoon-hee would wake her, but she didn't show up this morning. When Yasuko got up on her own, she was already over an hour late.
"Dammit..." she muttered to herself.
It was her own fault for relying on someone else. She thought she knew better, but she must have been getting careless. The luxuries of the Capital had a way of doing that to you.
The door opened and she was expecting Yoon-hee, who would've gotten a piece of Yasuko's mind, but instead it was Yung.
"Oh, ah, sorry I missed our training," she said. "I guess I overslept. Yoon-hee was supposed to wake me up."
"That is not why I have come, Miss Yasuko," Yung said. "I have been asked to relay a message to you from Ms. Hongxia."
Hongxia? What did she want?
"I don't think I wanna hear this..."
"I would recommend that you do, Miss Yasuko."
"Alright. What is it?"
"Ms. Hongxia would like to settle accounts, as it were. There is a temple in the Zhuque Quarter of the Comital Precinct where matters can be attended to without interruption or interference."
Yasuko remembered what Hongxia told her the last time they saw each other, that she had neither forgotten nor forgiven. Walking into whatever trap she had set to get her revenge didn't seem like the brightest idea.
"I think I'll pass on that," Yasuko said.
"You may want to hear the rest of the message first, Miss Yasuko," Yung replied. "She wants you to know that she has, as she put it, 'your little Zhao creampuff' and if you do not make an appearance at the appointed time, she will be made to endure everything Ms. Hongxia intends for you."
"'Zhao creampuff'?"
The realization slowly sunk in.
"Yoon-hee..."
"Miss Yoon-hee did not report in for her morning duties," Yung said, "and she was not in the servants' quarters. The last she was seen was around midnight."
Dammit. This was exactly why she didn't want to get any closer to Yoon-hee. Now that it had happened, though, Yasuko owed it to the maidservant to try and save her.
Sighing, Yasuko then asked, "What are her conditions? She want me to show up to the fight naked or something?"
"Fortunately, no, Miss Yasuko," Yung replied with a hint of a smile, quite unlike him. "You may wear your muscle suit, but do not bring any weapons."
"And what does Sturla have to say about all this?"
"His Highness declined to comment. It would seem that he would like the two of your to sort out your differences yourselves."
Sort out their differences? That was one way of putting it. Prince Sturla intervened the first time they tangled, so why was he staying out of it now?
"So he doesn't care if I kill her... or vice versa?" Yasuko asked, though she didn't much want to contemplate the vice versa.
"It would seem you have reached the point where there can be only one."
"And what's your take on all this?"
"I am obliged to be neutral, Miss Yasuko, but if I could pick sides... I would favor you. Remember that Ms. Hongxia fancies herself as a woman without limits. You too must fight without limits if you are to best her. There is no trick she will not use. Expect the unexpected. And be prepared to lose Miss Yoon-hee even if you are victorious."
Yasuko of course had every intention of saving Yoon-hee, but she had to acknowledge that Hongxia was spiteful enough that she would kill Yoon-hee no matter what happened. Even so, there was still a chance she might be saved and that was reason enough to go.
Yasuko got up out of bed, straightened herself up and delivered the covered fist wushu salute to Yung as a sign of respect. He returned the gesture in kind, the handed Yasuko a slip of paper.
"Here is the address of the temple. The appointed time is in two hours. Make ready and go."
* * *
Disguised as a servant, Yasuko made her way to the temple where Hongxia was waiting. Yasuko had come across a number of different religions on the surface—not that she really observed any of them ever since TÃa Nayeli died—, but she hadn't encountered any significant religious observances here in the Capital. She could be forgiven for thinking they didn't have any religion at all. What did the Celestials even worship anyway?
When she entered the main shrine, she had her answer and it shouldn't have surprised her. There was a four-meter golden statue of the late Emperor—heavily idealized but still recognizable as him—set in a raised alcove surrounded by hundreds of candles whose light reflected off the beaten gold leaf that gilded the interior of the alcove. The shrine was otherwise quite bare, with laminated hardwood floors (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and six thick red pillars with gold bases and capitals. Standing in front of the statue of the Emperor was Hongxia and suspended from the rafters behind her was Yoon-hee. Yoon-hee was dressed only in her under-robe and by the glint of the candles Yasuko could see the spiderweb of microfilament wires binding her.
"I had a feeling you might not come without some incentive," Hongxia said. "I did not know what I was going to do. I could not very well abduct your mother and you are not the sort to have friends, but then I was shown something interesting. How like a mere halfbreed to fall for the help. And here you are."
"Miss Yasuko," Yoon-hee said, "do not worry about me. Just go. It is a trap."
Before Yoon-hee could say anything more, Hongxia held up her hand, pressed a button on a bracelet she was wearing and bent her finger ever so slightly. Yoon-hee made a short, choked cry of pain as a thin red line formed around her throat.
"That will be enough out of you," Hongxia said.
"Let her go," Yasuko said. "It's me you want and you've got me. You don't need her anymore."
"On the contrary," Hongxia replied, "we need an audience and when I beat you, she is going to have a very important role to play in your... education afterward."
"I'm pretty sure you mean if you beat me."
"My, your experiences have not served to humble you any. I am going to have a lot to do."
Yasuko cracked her knuckles and replied, "No, you aren't."
Hongxia pressed the button on her bracelet again and this time tightened the other wires, just enough to cut through Yoon-hee's robe and bite into her flesh.
"No more smart remarks from you," she said. "I have had my fill of them. Now, show me that you have abided by the terms and come unarmed."
Yasuko turned off the stealth mode of her muscle suit, then took off all her other clothes. There was no place to hide any weapons in the muscle suit, after all. She held up her hands and turned around slowly to demonstrate that there was indeed nothing on her.
"You know," Hongxia said, "I did toy with the idea of stripping you down to your skin again, even having you make the trip here stark naked, but that suit is your confidence and I intend to break that confidence."
This time Hongxia pressed not the bracelet but her wrist directly, revealing that she too was equipped with a muscle suit.
"I am going to break you," she said, "and I am going to take my time doing it."
Yasuko would have told her to shut up and get on with it if she didn't think Yoon-hee would have to feel the bite of the wires for it. Hongxia reached into her robe and flicked her wrist. Yasuko didn't react fast enough and took a knife to the chest for it. It wasn't a particularly long knife and it didn't go in that deep thanks to both her suit and the muscle underneath. She plucked out the knife and looked at it. As she was doing that, she started to feel the wound burn. Not a paralytic this time, but poisoned all the same. The effect would wear off shortly, but Hongxia didn't need to know that. And now Yasuko had a weapon, or so she thought.
Hongxia held up her hand threateningly and said, "No weapons."
Yasuko tossed the knife aside. Her bare hands were enough to get the job done. She just had to get in close enough.
Before Yasuko could even take her first step, though, Hongxia held up her hand again to threaten Yoon-hee.
"Surely you did not expect me to fight fair, did you?"
She threw another knife. This one got Yasuko in the leg. She plucked it out and tossed it away like the last one. Even though it wasn't in there long, it was time enough for the burning poison to take effect.
Hongxia chuckled and said, "The way you keep yanking those things out, blood loss is going to do more than the poison."
Yasuko didn't think of that, not that she could do much fighting with knives sticking out of her. Her augmented healing may have worked faster than normal, but it wasn't so fast that it could heal wounds on the spot. She couldn't afford to take too many more hits like this.
"What was all that 'bout breakin' my confidence?" Yasuko asked. "You're not gonna do it from up there."
"Do you think I am such an amateur to be so easily provoked?" Hongxia asked in turn. "If you are so eager to get up close and personal, you do not need to worry. Once I am done leveling the playing field, the real fun can begin."
She threw another knife, but Yasuko dodged it this time, though she could tell her left leg was already starting to feel sluggish. Hongxia responded by tightening the wires on Yoon-hee, making her cry out.
"You are going to take your medicine or we cannot continue," Hongxia said. She sighed. "Now I only have two left. An arm and a leg then."
Yasuko glared at Hongxia as she let the next two knives hit her, in the bicep and the thigh on her right side. She looked at the knives and wondered if it was worse to take them out or to leave them in.
"Quite the conundrum, is it not?" Hongxia said with a serpentine grin. "Leave them in and get more of the poison or remove them and risk bleeding out. Everyone's blood vessels are a little different, so who knows what I may have hit."
It would take time, but Yasuko could metabolize the poison faster than the wound would close up, so she left the knives in Also, when Hongxia got in close, she'd have two weapons at the ready if her bare hands weren't enough to finish the job.
However, now that her four limbs were effectively crippled, fighting Hongxia was going to be a lot more difficult to say the very least. This was exactly Hongxia's plan, of course, but what was Yasuko going to do to turn the tables?
"You know, I considered making you look like a pincushion," Hongxia said, "but I think this will suffice."
She undid her sash and slid out of her robes as she descended the dais. Her muscle suit had a slightly different design than Yasuko's. Yasuko wondered how different the capabilities were.
Hongxia grinned.
"You are so easy to read. You are wondering about the suit and how it compares to yours. Let me show you."
She broke into a sprint and delivered a shove that knocked Yasuko back several meters.
"My suit has three times enhancement, more than enough to best even a trained soldier."
That may have been true, but without the suits, Yasuko was fairly confident that she was stronger, so the practical gap between them wasn't so great. No wonder Hongxia felt the need to 'level the playing field'.
As Yasuko was getting up, Hongxia said, "You think you still have a chance, but I have another surprise for you."
She pressed a button on her left wrist and the striations in the suit's inner mesh began to glow red. She sprang at Yasuko faster than before, grabbed and threw her into one of the pillars. She hit hard and may have coughed up a little blood when she hit. She wasn't sure.
Though still a bit dazed, she watched Hongxia press the button again so the red lines faded.
I also have an overdrive that further doubles the suit's base performance," Hongxia explained, "enough to stand to-to-toe with any man with the standard four times enhancement. The only drawback is that it heats up very quickly. I can only use it for a few seconds at a time."
"You sure you should be tellin' me all that?" Yasuko asked.
"It is safe enough," Hongxia replied. "After all, it is only going to take a few more seconds for me to defeat you."
"Funny, I was thinkin' the same thing."
She didn't like that. Not one bit.
"You impudent—! I will rip that wagging tongue out of you!"
For someone who said she couldn't be provoked easily, she could certainly be provoked easily. It was good that she was getting angry. It meant she would start making mistakes. It was going to hurt in the meantime, though.
Yasuko managed to dodge Hongxia's initial charge, which was intended to push her back into the pillar, and delivered a punch to the ribs, but it probably hurt Yasuko more than Hongxia because she used her right arm. Not thinking about the risk of blood loss, she picked the knife out of her bicep and stabbed Hongxia in the ribs, right in the same place she just punched. Before she could drive the blade further in and hopefully get a lung, Hongxia backhanded her to knock her away.
Apparently Hongxia didn't worry about bleeding out either, because she took out the knife and came at Yasuko with it. Struggling to hold back the knife, Yasuko lost her balance and fell onto her back. The earlier wound to her chest made it difficult to keep the knife from going into her face, so Yasuko took the knife in her leg and stabbed Hongxia in the stomach.
Yasuko twisted the knife around so Hongxia's attention wouldn't be focused on stabbing her. It worked, but instead Hongxia started punching Yasuko in the face and when that didn't do the trick, she jammed her thumb into the knife wound in Yasuko's arm. That got her to let go of the knife and now Hongxia had two. She reared up to break Yasuko's grip on her other arm and looked like she was going to bring both blades down on her, but Yasuko seized her by the throat first. Now, Yasuko's arms were shorter, so Hongxia still could've stuck those knives into her torso, but instead she stabbed both of them into her arm.
Struggling against pain and paralysis, to say nothing of the poison setting her blood on fire, Yasuko tried to hold Hongxia back, but she kept leaning forward.
"My prey has never given me this much trouble," Hongxia said. "You can be sure I will pay it back a hundred millionfold."
From ten thousand to a hundred million. That was quite a jump and it was looking more and more like that was what Yasuko had to look forward to. She couldn't hold out much longer.
"Miss Yasuko!"
There was a plinking sound near Yasuko's head. She recognized it almost immediately. It was the little spike from the bracelet she gave Yoon-hee to defend herself. Hongxia must have overlooked it when she kidnapped her. There was no time to think about it. Yasuko picked up the spike with her free hand and drove it into Hongxia's eye. Hongxia let out a horrific screech, letting go of the knives to clutch at her face.
Seeing an opportunity, Yasuko pressed the button to activate Hongxia's overdrive, then pushed her off from on top of her. Even though Hongxia was overwhelmed by the pain from her eye, she seemed to realize something bad was about to happen. She wasn't fast enough, though, as Yasuko wrenched her arm behind her back so she couldn't reach the button. Hyperextending her shoulder, Yasuko was able to force her to the floor and get on top of her to pin her down. Hongxia tried grabbing for Yasuko with her other arm, so Yasuko trapped that one too. Hongxia thrashed her legs about wildly, screaming all the while, but couldn't get any purchase to make use of her strength enhancement. True, Yasuko was weakened by her injuries and the poison, but so was Hongxia and now the courtesan was half-mad from the pain and couldn't think straight long enough to figure a way out of her current situation.
It wasn't long before Yasuko could feel the heat through her own suit. She thought she might get burned too, so how much worse must it have been for Hongxia?
Eventually, her terrible screaming died out and so did she, baked alive in her muscle suit. Even as much as Yasuko hated her, it was a sick way to go.
Yasuko didn't want to worry about her coming back, so she took one of the knives out of her arm and drove it into the base of Hongxia's skull. She figured even Celestial medical technology couldn't bring you back from a destroyed brain stem.
With Hongxia finally out of the way, Yasuko's attention quickly turned to Yoon-hee, who was hanging limply by the wires.
"Yoon-hee!"
Yasuko went up the dais as fast as her injuries would let her. For Yoon-hee to get the spike out of the bracelet and throw it to Yasuko, the wires had cut deeply into her wrists and arms and she had already lost a lot of blood.
"No, no, no," Yasuko muttered as much to herself as the seemingly unconscious Yoon-hee. "Don't do this to me. Just hang on."
She took the other knife out of her arm and started cutting the wires. She had to be careful because they were supporting her weight. One wrong move and they could cut right through her. Using her own body to carry the load she was taking from the wires, Yasuko eventually managed to cut her free. She was deathly pale, though, and Yasuko had to work quickly using strips from Yoon-hee's tattered under-robe as makeshift bandages for the worst cuts. Hopefully that would at least slow the bleeding until she could get help.
Yoon-hee's eyes started to open and she said in a weak voice, "Miss... Yasuko..."
"Yoon-hee! Don't talk! I've gotta get you to a doctor."
"You came... for me... You risked your life... for me... ...a servant..."
"What're you talkin' bout? You're not just a servant, Yoon-hee. You're my friend and I ain't got many a' those. Now shut up. I'm gettin' you outta here."
Yoon-hee managed a faint smile before closing her eyes again.
"Oi, Yoon-hee! Stay with me!"
Dangerous as it was to move her, leaving her here was even worse. Yasuko put Yoon-hee on her back and tried carrying her, but as soon as she did, her leg buckled under her. It seemed she'd pushed herself as far as she could go.
"Dammit, no... Come on, Yasuko, get it together..."
As she tried to pick herself back up, this time it was her arm that gave out. She tried dragging herself along, but now neither of her arms were working worth a damn. The bitter tears started to well up in her eyes. It wasn't for herself. Yung warned her that Yoon-hee probably wouldn't make it no matter what she did, but she wanted to believe she could save her against the odds. It looked like she was wrong. If there was anything that could make her cry again after all these years, her failure to save even one life amid all the lives she'd taken was it.
At this point, she didn't much care what happened to her. In the end, even in death Hongxia beat her and her defeat made everything else fade out of focus. Her mission, her revenge, all of that didn't seem to matter at all. If this was how things were going to turn out, it might as well end here.
She almost didn't notice all the figures in white as her vision started to get blurry. It didn't much matter.