Virtue Among Thieves: Chapter 2 – Family Over All, but God

Chapter 2 – Family Over All, but God

Today’s job has us in a city that is Suzuki’s home away from home. He takes us to a Tatsu restaurant for breakfast and speaks in his native language to the waiters, which gets us better food and quicker service than the other customers who speak English. Right now, we’re in civilian clothing and just appear to be a group of friends to those who don’t know any better. Scouting moments like this, where we pretend to be normal, are precious to me since I don’t have anything to go back to at my house. I admire the faces of my friends, the youthful appearance of Kelly, who has half blue and black hair, Suzuki’s grizzled face that is a lot like mine, except I have a goatee and grey hairs, while he still looks relatively young, and the always put-together Al with slick black hair and the fires of youth in his eyes.

“Ace, what do you think?” Kelly asks me.

“About what?” I ask.

“About getting better food and service if you speak the language of the natives. It sucks for those who don’t know.”

“I don’t care for it as long as we get good food anyway.”

Al says, “I’m telling you. It’s entirely normal.”

“Does it happen in your Mediterranean restaurants as well?”

“Yes, it happens there and in our marketplaces.”

“Tch. I’ll never understand the discrimination in your cultures.”

“It’s not discrimination. It’s just preference and respect for people who respect our language and way of doing business.”

“Preference is discrimination. They should treat all people the same.”

“Tch. I don’t expect a Slav to understand these things,” Suzuki says.

“I don’t expect hyper-traditional cultures like both of yours to understand my point of view either.”

“This is why I prefer the Chimaera way of doing things. It prevents useless conversations like this from happening,” I say.

“I do prefer them as well,” Kelly says.

The waitress gives Suzuki the paid check and another piece of paper, and he gives her a tip. Suzuki puts away the tip and reads the other piece of paper that’s written in Suzuki’s language.

“What’s it say? Did you get her number or some kind of love letter?” Kelly jokes.

“No. Just information on our targets,” Suzuki says.

“Was she our informer with our organization? I thought we didn’t accept any help from them.”

“Nope. She’s an informer for my family.”

Understanding what he means by “family”, Al says, “Friends of the family are usually better informers than those who are paid to do so.”

“Really?” Kelly asks.

“Yes,” Suzuki says. “Their reward is the preservation of their neighborhood and its safety. For our job, the family and we have the shared goal of getting rid of hostile foreigners.”

“I heard your family helps the Tatsu government a lot in that aspect,” Al says.

“We do, and we heard your family has a hand in that in both your native country of Lupa and the Chimaera States.”

“Okay, okay, boys. We can talk about how good and honorable both your families are yet again some other time. What are we going to do, Suzuki?”

“We’re going to clean some scum out of the neighborhood. Let’s go back to my apartment to get our cleaning tools.”

Going to Suzuki’s apartment, we find it in exquisite condition with not a spec of dust in sight, decorated with both pictures and statues of historical figures of Tatsu and Catholic saints, Mary, and Jesus. Suzuki grabs his revolvers and tanto knives; I grab my long pistols, Al assembles his rifles and puts an underbarrel shotgun on it, and Kelly gets her pink machine pistols. We go out to where Suzuki’s friends instructed him and get there just in time as a Tatsu man is being restrained and about to be publicly beheaded by Middle Eastern men with a curved sword. As we rush to stop it, three other Tatsu men in suits, armed with katanas and pistols, run out from a nearby street and beat us to it. They cut off the hands of the man with the curved sword before cutting off his head while the others gun down the Middle Eastern men.

Picking up the Tatsu man who was almost publicly beheaded, I ask him, “Why were they trying to kill you?”

“I was going after the rape gangs of the Pale Green Horse with a tanto because the authorities won’t protect our sons and daughters, so I have to,” the man says.

“The authorities rarely come down here because of the Tatsu’s relation to the Vorfahren. They don’t want to associate themselves with a race that embraces a hostile ideology to their own,” Suzuki says.

“I can’t blame them for not wanting to associate with you, but I can blame them for not helping you with these situations,” Kelly says. “Why are the members of the Pale Green Horse beefing with you?”

“Who don’t they beef with?” Al asks. “That death cult is hostile to everyone who doesn’t believe in the same things they do.”

“I thought they were mostly hostile toward Israelis.”

“They’re targeting the Tatsu because they’re trying to get us to change and take our children,” the Tatsu man says.

“We have to move and get our job done by taking care of the hostile ones,” Suzuki says.

“We need to do more than that,” the Tatsu man says in a suit with a sword and pistol at his side. “We need to make an example of their men and women and destroy their places of worship like how they’ve done the same to ours.”

“A man of honor doesn’t kill those who can’t defend themselves,” Suzuki says as he squares up with the men in suits, both sides having their guns out.

“You’re weakened by the faith of suffering and mercy that you’ve embraced, brother. They’re all a corrupting force to our country, the men, women, and children, so as far as we’re concerned they’re all threats in one way or another. We’ll handle the dirtier parts of the job that you can’t handle.”

“I won’t let innocent blood be spilled while I’m around. We’re only going to kill those who fight us. Everyone else will get the message when they’re dead and back off.”

“They will, but some may seek revenge. That’s why we need to burn our message into their souls. Stand against us, and you betray the family.”

A few moments of silence pass before Suzuki says, “I have my family behind me, and my God is further above them.”

Staring at each other for five more seconds of silence, both sides back off and put their guns away.

“I can’t argue with a man who will die for what he believes, and I can’t say that he isn’t a man of honor. We’ll do what you want, Suzuki, but if they act up again while you’re gone, then we’re going to have to handle things our way,” the Tatsu man in a suit says.

“Deal.”

“You’re still in the family. You’re still a samurai like us.”

“I am who God made me to be. That’s all I need to be.”

“Okay, okay. Enough with the talk of honor and moral posturing. Let’s get to work!” Kelly says.

The samurai and Suzuki agree, and they lead us to a neighborhood where the people from the Middle East are encroaching on the Tatsu neighborhood. More samurai with pistols and katanas appear from the Tatsu homes, restaurants, and shops and clash with them. The four of us, with four other samurai, go around the chaos and enter the church of the Pale Green Horse. In the church, priests are blessing weapons, explosives, and men and women with explosive vests on.

“Hmm. I think I have the right tool for this,” Kelly whispers as she rummages through a bag she’s brought and then takes out Molotov cocktails. “Haha. It’s a Slav revolutionary special.”

“I like this lady,” one of the samurai says.

“Are you all ready?” I ask everyone as the four of us get our masks on and the samurai get their lighters out. “Let’s get this done.”

We light up the Molotovs and throw them down at the people and explosives below, immediately setting people and fire and blowing up both the suicide bombers and the church. Running out of the church, we escape the scene of our crime to run to an apartment that the samurai says holds the victims and predators of the rape gangs.

One of the samurai says, “Remember. The innocent slaves are the only ones who get to live. The clients and slavers will receive death and nothing more.”

“Fine by me,” Suzuki says, and we all agree.

Suzuki knocks on the locked front door. When someone opens it, Suzuki stabs the man in the balls with his katana, then shoots him in the head with one of his revolvers. Suzuki and the other samurai handle the men and women of the rape gang in much the same way, shooting or stabbing their groins first, then their throats or faces. These men of Tatsu move in unison as if they had already rehearsed the attack. Meanwhile, Al, Kelly, and I are clearing the rooms they don’t charge through. In most of them, we find other Middle Eastern men caught having their way with women of all ages, and we find goats in the rooms for some reason I’d rather not find out.

On the top floor, Suzuki puts away his katana and now dual-wields his revolvers, constantly firing them at everyone who wields a gun against us until they’re empty, only for him to switch to his other revolvers in his jacket. As we go through the rooms, I double back when I see that one of the clients that we shot wasn’t Middle Eastern. It’s a woman of another race, and given her suit on the floor, she’s a woman of wealth. I look through the inside of the woman’s suit is the same dragon emblem that the chief of police from the other job and many others had.

“Cowboy, what’s going on?” Kelly says as she enters the room and sees the dragon emblem in my hand. “You’re kidding me.”

“Does it look like it?” I ask.

“Guys, what’s…no way,” Al says as he comes into the room.

“We have to question whoever is left. Come on! Before the samurai kill everyone!”

Quickly joining Suzuki and the samurai, we help them kill the lesser guards and clients.

“We have to question whoever is important over here. They seem to be connected to a wider plot,” I say to Suzuki.

Taking cover, Suzuki looks over to me, and I show him the dragon emblem.

“Brothers, there’s a greater conspiracy against us. We need to capture the leader of these degenerates for questioning,” Suzuki says.

The samurai surprisingly agree to this as we enter an office where we find more guards and a well-dressed man. We kill the guards, and then the samurai literally disarm the well-dressed man with a slash of their swords and hold him down.

I show who we presume to be a man of importance the dragon emblem and say, “Do you know what this emblem means or what group it’s associated with?”

“No! I don’t know anything!” the man says.

The samurai look at each other, accuse the man of lying, and cut off his toes with their swords.

“Speak the truth!” one of the samurai says.

“Alright, it wasn’t the whole truth! They’re from the city and state government! They offered to look the other way and get more of our people into the country so we can spread our religion through it if we allowed them to have their way with our slaves!”

The samurai and Suzuki then unload their guns into the tortured man, ending his misery.

“It would’ve been better if we took him in alive, but I guess that was never an option,” I say.

Suzuki and the samurai tear through the office and break into the safes and secure cabinets, and tell me to help them look through them.

“These people may be low-IQ, third-world animals, but they aren’t entirely stupid. They have to have backup pictures or files to bribe the officials they’re in league with,” one of the samurai says.

Sure enough, we find the disgusting pictures of the woman who had the dragon emblem that I only look at for a second to confirm it’s her before turning my eyes away.

“You’re right. It’s here,” I say.

“What are we going to do with this and the other compromising pictures of the officials? Anonymously turn them into the authorities?” Kelly asks.

“No,” Suzuki, Al, and the samurai say.

“The authorities were in league with this trash, so they’ll want this evidence erased. We need to put these files into the hands of the people so they’ll become outraged and so that real change can happen, maybe even have the other authorities prosecuted or executed,” Al says.

“I like his thinking. Are you part of a family of your race?” one of the samurai asks.

“I am.”

The samurai smiles at Al, who I have a feeling is smiling back as the two shake hands. Kelly agrees with Al’s idea, and we take all the pictures of the authorities caught in degenerate acts and pictures of screenshots of texts and emails of the agreements between them and the cult of the Pale Green Horse all the way back to the Tatsu neighborhood, where we see them being aided by Mediterranean men and women. We entrust the pictures to a trusted contact of the samurai’s family who is going to make copies of them and distribute them to everyone in the city and on the internet before going out to see what’s going on with this sudden Tatsu and Mediterranean alliance against the Middle Eastern people.

Questioning a man in a suit, he says, “We heard a man in the family needs help, and when a family member needs help, everyone has to chip in.”

Looking to Al, he says, “They were all too eager to help out when I texted them what was going on.”

“Two families from different races working together against a common enemy. I never thought I’d see the Tatsu and Mediterraneans working together like this outside of the old world,” Kelly says.

“Why wouldn’t we? We may have different ideas about what true honor and loyalty look like, but we can at least work together and find common ground, unlike the people of the Pale Green Horse who only want to conquer, corrupt, and enslave,” Suzuki says.

“Are you joining the fight?” the Mediterranean man in a suit says.

“When a family member needs help, we help them. What greater honor is there than to be a servant of love and your family?” Al says.

The samurai and Mediterranean men of honor nod their heads in agreement. The four of us aid the Mediterranean and Tatsu people in pushing against the Middle Easterners until they retreat into their neighborhood. When the cops finally show up, the four of us leave the area and hide out back at Suzuki’s place. Later in the day, our findings are on the news, and the people of the city are rioting against the government and cult of the Pale Green Horse. As this is happening, my friends and I go to a local Tatsu restaurant and toast Sakae in celebration of our success.

“To virtuous counter-revolutionary justice,” Suzuki says.

We toast to it, and despite our victory, I still can’t help but feel unsatisfied and craving more justice. The people with the dragon emblem are not only in the government, but they’re also using criminals to change things in the country; for what purpose? We’ll have to wait to find out. They’re not only a rival criminal organization, but also a disgusting one if their members defile the innocent and associate themselves with a death cult. God, help us to bring justice upon them.