Neon District: Redux

Part Two Chapter Nine: Pawn Promotion

       Yuka only stared into Sam's bullet-holed eyes, holding his head up with her shaking hands to prevent him from falling over. His body felt heavy and lifeless with his blood now beginning to stick on her skin and clothes. She had held a corpse before- this wasn't her first time. But this one felt different. This was Sam and not some low life that needed to be killed.

       Was Sam just some low life that needed to be murdered? Was there a reason for his death? Why was he dead in her arms right now?

       Yuka slowly swerved her dry eyes over towards Manzo, who was holstering a small pistol into his belt. He appeared unbothered by her or didn't even care to peer down on the woman. He only stared off in the distance into the foggy, wet night. It was only after Yuka laid Sam down on the wet pavement did he heed her any thought.

       "Let's go, our job here is done," was all Manzo said before slowly spun himself around to leave.

       "Why," she started, getting off the pavement, "why did you kill him?" Her body trembled slightly as she took her hands off of Sam and turned away from him to face Manzo. Manzo whirled back around and wore a serious expression on his face.

       "He was just some collateral damage. I wouldn't have shot him if I didn't see fit," he answered, briefly glancing at Sam's body, his blood mixing with the rain water in the puddle. 

       "We would've talked it through... We could've saved him," she muttered, following his gaze to Sam.

       "No," he disagreed, "he was a broken man and would have been killed later anyway."

      "By you," she replied, not daring to pose it as a question. She already knew that Manzo would've been the one to take him out.

       "Miss Hara," he said her name as a sigh, "people will die for what we are fighting for and you know that already." Manzo turned back around and headed for the back roads behind the plaza. "You wanted to live in a world where the poor ate the rich and now we are adventuring very close to that. Sacrifices have to be made for it to happen. I thought you still wanted that."

       Yuka didn't say anything as she followed Manzo.

       A couple Watch officers marched from a maintenance door that led down to the sewers and they dragged along with them a few Syndicate members they arrested. Zoo was among them, but he didn't dare to make eye contact with her. He kept his eyes straight ahead and paid neither of them any attention.

       He was simply a stranger to them.

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       They arrived back at the District Hall and Yuka found herself in Eiji's old office after Manzo left her to attend to a different matter. 

       The office appeared as if it was recently ransacked with furniture turned over, pens and papers strewn about the room, and paintings taken off the walls and discarded on the carpet. The chess board, however, was left untouched. Upon closer inspection she noticed that the white King was toppled over near the edge of the board with a black Pawn and King surrounding it. 

       She knew that it meant something, but her mind was too jumbled up for her to think straight.

       It felt odd being in this room without Eiji being there. But she knew what she was getting into the moment she saw that Manzo won the election. 

       From the amount of money Manzo claimed to have earned from his cult followers he was able to pay off the Watch superiors and have them under his control- even before he knew if he won or not. Hell, he probably was already one hundred percent certain he would win.