There Are Many Tokyos In Flower

Chapter 7: The sky was the colour of a Kurosawa Film

The sky turned grey and the air became unnaturally still, as Martin and the swordsman stared at each other across the street. The ambient nose of Neo Tokyo vanished, the lights dimmed to a faded, storm-cloud grey hue as the swordsman shifted his grip. The colours around them were bleeding out of the world. Even the running lights on Martin's bike looked faded, as if accenting this tense terrifying moment.

The lights from the buildings, the street lamps, and even the highway above them had turned the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.

"Rin," Martin said, as some sort of wood flute began to play. "What the hell is up with the ambiance?"

"Oh, this is Kurosawa mode! The city does this if the setup for a duel fits certain parameters. Traffic will be diverted away from the street. And..."

Rin pointed up. In the sky above their heads, hundreds of tiny specks hovered and buzzed about. "Drones will record it."

"Fuck," Martin muttered. He held his katana in a single hand, about halfway down its very long grip. He was pretty sure it was exactly how not to do it. "So, does this anime junkie have any mechanical parts?"

"Both arms, his jaw, both eyes, a berserker biochemical dispenser, and a couple of things I don't want to talk about."

"Yeah, please don't share," Martin said. "So, think you could overload his eye sockets and cook his brain?"

"How much electric storage do you think he has in his body-mods?" Rin asked, incredulous and appalled, like Martin had given her the wrong answer to one and one. "Best I could do with his eyes is blind him for a second by hijacking the display and showing him a bunch of blinking lights. And if his hacker knows what I'm up to, the window gets even shorter."

Martin stared at his opponent for a moment. A little more time allowed the bruise to begin to show on the side of the man's head, near the scrapes. Sweat was beginning to trickle down his forehead, and his breaths were irregular, erratic.

"So it will work better if you use it now?" Martin asked.

"Yeah. But it could mean I can't help you when it matters," Rin protested.

"Out of curiosity, can you show him anything you want, or are you restricted?"

"His eyes are set up for displaying internet video feeds," Rin said.

The shock hit him hard enough he staggered as if the revelation had punched him in the face,"He could go on YouTube at any time while his eyes are still closed?" Martin asked. He had to use his free hand to close his mouth. "I'm amazed he still gets out of bed in the mornings."

"Has something impressed you, Samurai?" his opponent asked.

"Okay," Martin said quietly, ignoring the swordsman's question. "Rin, I want you to surprise him with an image. A gif, ideally. Something that has a lot of emotional appeal to him."

"I think I have just the thing," Rin said, and squinted.

The swordsman's eyes widened, the grip on his sword slackened so much it slipped out of his grasp, and he let out a slow, relaxed sigh. It lasted for just a moment, before he squeezed the grip again and glared over at Rin.

Martin nearly laughed. It had worked better than he thought.

"You wasted your chance, samurai," the swordsman said, with a flourish of his sword.

"I hate to agree with the anime fetishist over there," Rin said. "But I think he's right."

"Relax, that worked perfectly. What did you show him, anyway?"