Chapter 1

The girl’s footsteps made a drumbeat like rhythm on Osaka’s cracked sidewalks as she walked quickly. The few people out during the night paid little attention to the small-lost girl wearing a brightly colored Yukata and who was also wondering around aimlessly. She refused to say that she was lost.

Why am I here? She thought. She stopped walking.

No answers came to her and she soon continued with her walking pace. She had long forgotten her original destination. Her throat was dry, her feet ached with every step, and the muscles in her legs were sore from the constant walking. She didn’t know how the daylight had slipped away so quickly. Only a few minutes ago, it seemed like noon. Where had she been the whole day? The girl did know that she’d better return home soon, due to unease of drunken louts that litter the alleyways at night. She refused to say the unease was fear.

The air was warm and heavy, soon she started to sweat. The girl glanced around to find any shops open. She then remembered why she was out in the first place. She, having no money to pay the rent to her apartment, had gone in search of employment. The corner of her eye caught the low glow of electric lights burning about a block away. She began to walk faster now. Her wooden clogs stabbed at her already sore feet, but she didn’t slow down. When she reached the source of the lights, she read a large, poorly designed wooden sign outside. “Ishikawa Sake House” it read. She decided to open the sliding door and walked in. The strange stench of a combination of sake and vomit was in the air. It was a rather small bar, with only four tables, a fairly large set of racks lined up with sake, and crammed counter with five stools lined up in front of it.

“I’m sorry but were closing now. Come back tomorrow.” Said a female voice. It had a distinctive gentleness to it, like a mother talking to her child. The girl focused her attention on the bartender standing behind the counter. She quickly sized her up. The bartender girl was young, probably 18 she assumed, and normal black hair that was tied into a pony tail, had a very pretty face and wore a Yukata that had decorations of flowers on it. The girl wasn’t impressed.

“Are you the owner of this bar?”

The bartender nodded.

“Then why close so early, Miss Ishikawa? Sake bars should not close until early in the morning.” The girl inquired, in a flat and dull voice. The bartender grew annoyed.

“My full name is Keiko Ishikawa. So you can drop the ‘Miss’. The reason I’m closing down is that the police will come by if I’m here past the curfew. Why do you ask?” The bartender said, trying to be as sweet as possible.

“If you’re the only worker in this bar, would you be interested in hiring a helper?” said the girl, as if she hadn’t even paid attention to what Keiko said. Suddenly, Keiko’s face lit up.

“Really? You’d be interested in working here? That’s great!” A smile had developed on Keiko’s face and was beginning to deepen. She then ducked under the counter and fumbled around and came back up with a pencil and a sheet of paper.

“What’s that?” The girl asked

“Well, of course I’ll give you the job but there is some things I need to have on a record. You don’t mind do you?” Keiko asked sweetly.

“Why would I mind?” The girl asked, as if she couldn’t comprehend somebody asking her opinion on the subject.

“Where do you live?”

“In the Katama Apartment District.” The girl replied, in a soft whisper of a voice that Keiko could barely hear. Keiko’s delicate fingers moved the pencil.

“How old are you?”

The girl paused. Her stare and become a look of thought. As if she was trying to remember her age. “Sixteen.” She finally said.

“Do you have any previous job experience?”

“No.”

The girl’s answer seemed unreasonably harsh to Keiko and she didn’t know why. Why is this girl…so..so…serious?

“Can you begin work tomorrow?” Keiko’s voice sounded as brittle as glass now.

“Yes.”

The girl began to wander toward the door. Keiko had stopped writing. Almost like she was entranced by the girl’s last response. She slid the door open, turned her head back and asked “Is that all?”

Keiko snapped to, and focused her attention back to where it was needed. “Yes…I guess that covers everything I need.” Keiko said, surveying her sheet. Her eyes shot wide. “Oh wait!” she shouted, and the girl halted just before leaving the bar. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked this. But—uhh—“ Keiko was quite embarrassed as she stuttered, trying to locate the rest of her question. “What’s your name?”

The girl responded only with another stare, eyes glazed over and locked on the bartender. Keiko immediately regretted asking the question. She wondered how big of a mistake she had made. They both heard the pencil’s clang as it hit the floor.

“Mikiko Yoshida.” The girl said as she disappeared out the door. Inside, embarrassment had overtaken Keiko again. She couldn’t understand why she had became so frightened when Mikiko was in her presence. That embarrassment was replaced by a sense of urgency, she had to close soon. She needed the rest and didn’t want to have to have to tolerate a visit of police.

--------

Colonel Mayu Nagoshi looked out of his office window that overlooked Kobe. He sat in silence, with his back turned to the door. He was in deep thought. He had been very stressed for the past week, and worked hard not to let it show. Although deeply submerged in his thinking, nothing could slip by Nagoshi, and immediately spun around when he heard the creaking door be pushed open.

“Sir, you wanted to see me.” Said Isao Otoma.

“Yes.” Nagoshi said. “Don’t bother sitting down. This won’t take long.” Otoma nodded, without showing concern for what Nagoshi had just said. Nagoshi knew that Otoma very much disliked him, but couldn’t be sure if he hated him. If Nagoshi was anybody else, he would care more about the thoughts of others, but Nagoshi (unlike most Japanese officers) was an individualist, and showed little interest in other’s opinions. “Otoma, why is my newest guinea pig, Corporal Nakai feeling ill? Will he be able to demonstrate for the Germans next week?”

“He’s been vomiting and breaking into cold sweats. But he may be in satisfactory condition for next week’s performance.”

“Good. Now there’s one other thing. Where has Yoshida’s daughter, Mikiko, disappeared to?”

“We believe she left the valley in Oighama and may be in the areas around it. Yoshida had withdrawn her out of school weeks before he passed away.” Stated Otoma. Nagoshi stared at him. His face was abnormally calm, but it had the usual blue and red veins bulging out, that ran up and down, all the way to his neck. Nagoshi detested Otoma’s elderly appearance.

“That’s odd. Yoshida never cared anything about that girl before. Why would he have done something that drastic.”

“We believe he was the one who sent her out of Oighama. The way Yoshida acted to Mikiko before, and then, what seems like, helping her run away is indeed puzzling. Perhaps she is the missing link in Project Oni. A trump card which we overlooked.” Otoma said, in a hurry, almost like he wanted to escape from Nagoshi’s presence.

“That’s an intriguing variable, Otoma.” Nagoshi then closed his eyes and turned his chair away from Otoma. “I have never thought of this theory before. And if it was true…….think of her potential, if put to good use.” At this time Nagoshi and taken his officer’s sword and, with his mind lost in conversation, began stroking and corressing his most cherished family heirloom, handed down form father to son, etc. Otoma grew disgusted. He had seen Nagoshi’s hidden lustful side, which consisted of often stroking inanimate objects and moaning loudly. Otoma assumed Nagoshi pretended they were women, and asked no questions about it. The more he learned about Nagoshi, the more he’d try to forget.

“However…” Nagoshi continued and let the sword drop done, back near his leg. Then, he stopped before finishing his sentence to pop two of the joints in his neck. Nagoshi let out a sigh of relief. His joints had long been cramped and it was both a shock and a relaxing feeling to expel the liquids from them. Otoma responded with a shudder. His brittle bones would surely shatter if his cracked them as loud as Nagoshi did. “There is a much more logical reason to why our work fucking up the way it is. You see, you’re simply making excuses Otoma.” Nagoshi’s eyes shot open and he turned his chair to face Otoma once again. “It is your stupidity that’s the dragging factor in our work! It’s because of you’re inability to produce an Oni transfusion, that three of our test soldiers have died.”

“In fact six test subjects have died because of the treatment. Nakai will, I suspect, be the seventh.” Otoma said quite calmly, in an almost harmless manner.

“Well then. We need to find out why that’s happening.” Nagoshi’s said. His facial muscles began to droop into the form of a frown. “If Yoshida’s little whore had to run away…could there have been lost data?”

“Perhaps it is Yoshida, operating from beyond death, sabotaging our work. Maybe Mikiko is the missing link to all the problems within the Oni Project.”

“Oh God, don’t tell me you actually believe that these people have real life demonic powers.” Said Nagoshi, but Otoma was silent. “Listen Otoma…I will say that the people that you and Yoshida met in Korea were not of ordinary caliber. But I can be quite sure in saying that they were not ancestors of demons or living Gods or any of the bullshit. Yoshida realized the myth for how idiotic it was and thought up a new way of using them. His ideas were almost the same as mine. But Yoshida went too far. He tried to create an entire different race. He tried to be a creator. And for that he was struck down.” Nagoshi began to snicker. “It was his punishment for defying God.”

“But we used Yoshida’s original formula on all the soldiers. So he had to have known what he was—“

“I wanted Yoshida to give me a working sample, like the one he showed me at his home. But Yoshida became greedy, and strayed too far off course. You and him kept giving me worthless reports and other piles of crap that was just an acceptable way of saying that the only samples you had were toxic! Apparently Yoshida and yourself didn’t realize that toxins will actually kill people.” Nagoshi began to smile, as if he found glee in talking about anything that involved death. “Two countries have unofficially contacted us about our Oni Soldiers. Secrecy is imperative if we don’t want to be discovered by our government, filled with bureaucratic leaches, who will in turn execute us as traitors.”

“I have to protest into dealing with these two countries. They obviously want them for sinister purposes and—“

“What’s with the sudden burst of dewy eyed nostalgia, Otoma? Before this, all we did was design weapons for his majesty, Hirohito. Does it matter that these new weapons are living and not a hunk of metal gun?” Otoma was silent. “I thought not. So Otoma, I want you to be courteous when the Russians are here tomorrow. In fact, don’t show yourself at all. Just hide out in the Lab or wherever and—“

“You said that this wouldn’t take long. We’ve been rambling for ten minutes now.” Otoma said in a smart aleck tone as he walked toward the door. “My two associates, Dr. Daidouji and Dr. Shalon will try to find the cause of Nakai’s illness. Now since there is nothing else to discuss with you, good-bye Colonel.” Otoma said as he closed the heavy door behind him. Nagoshi’s face fell back into a frown.

--------

The fire began to die in the head office of the German consulate. The smell of cheap wine was hanging in the air. The smell was enough to slightly intoxicate some people. Two men were busy planning. One, at a desk who was smoking a cheap cigar and rabidly drinking the majority of the wine, wore a gray suit and had a bureaucratic look written on him, was Consulate General Otto Becker.

The other had a much more threatening appearance given to him as he sat in a leather-padded chair. He had slicked back blonde hair, which he thought made him look more professional. His glasses were thick and distinctive, and the man’s face had all the characteristics of a weasel, slick and menacing. His uniform was a black as cinder, with only his red armband a distinct change in color.

“Herr Consulate General--” SS Major Jens Volkmann said in his native language. “Berlin keeps wanting to know why you’re dragging your feet on this project. SD Chief Heydrich is especially curious. You haven’t obtained a single once of data that’s actually useful. We can’t allow you to ruin this.”

“Major Volkmann…” Becker said nervously and he gulped his wine. “I’ve been doing my best. Let me tell you, it was no easy feat getting that information from Colonel Nagoshi. I explained this to you in my report and—“

“They’ll shoot me on the spot if I send that worthless piece of crap back to Germany. It’s amazing that somehow you convinced Berlin and the Fuhrer to help finance this pipe dream. And to make things worse we don’t have a single functioning soldier to display for the Fuhrer. And while you’ve been botching everything up here, just look at what’s been happening in the rest of Japan. We won’t be able to move very freely once the Secret Police become more active. You’re so stupid. What are we going to do with you?” Volkmann said smiling. His canine teeth began to bulge out.

“Major…please take it easy. The Colonel said that his newest test will be ready by the end of the week.” Becker placed his shaking hand near his mouth and took a long drag on his cigar.

“That’s not good enough. Berlin wants results.” Volkmann’s eyes became as hard as stone. “Ten days ago the Gestapo intercepted a top secret message at the Russian Embassy. It hinted that they might know of our plans here. And we can be sure that they’ve already informed any connections they have in Japan.”

“Who would they inform?”

“Perhaps to any Red bastard radicals, or maybe any Jewish refugees. All I can say now is that you will no longer be the main player in the project.”

“You mean to say you’ll be taking control?”

Volkmann chuckled arrogantly and said “No. I’ll return to Germany after today. But this is a job for the SS. I have the perfect man for this kind of work. Enter Lieutenant Felder!” The door began to open and soon entered a young officer. Becker examined him. The Lieutenant was a tall and thin man, barely the age of twenty-seven, his face clean shaven, his black tunic neatly pressed and SS Death’s Head officer’s cap titled rakishly to the side. He had neatly laced shoes, his left hand resting on his pistol belt as he watched the two men with dead gimlet eyes. Becker knew there was something sinister with the young man in the well-cut uniform from the start. Especially after Felder raised his arm slowly to meet with his shoulder and said “Heil Hitler.”