Chapter 6

Jack just stood there, staring stupidly at Frank, stunned. He was not able to accept the implications of what the younger man had just said.

Everyone, in fact, was staring at Frank, trying to work through the meaning of all that they had just heard. Billy rose and set Jacks chair back on its feet, and then helped his old friend to sit down.

Jack sat dumbly, with his arm still extended, holding the strange little object toward Frank.

"But how did your mother get this? I don't understand," said the befuddled man.

It was very clear to everyone in the room that Jack was on the very edge of really losing it. Things that had been suppressed for so many years were now exposed. Jacks mind was having trouble dealing with all of the raw emotions that were flowing through his heart and mind.

A very concerned Raven called softly to Jack in his native tongue, < "Wind Walker! Look at me." >

Raven needed to call for Jack's attention several more times, before he slowly turned his head toward her. Even though he was looking at Raven, she knew that he was not seeing her, but some vision of the distant past. The look in Jack's eyes was absolutely flat.

Still she persisted and asked < "This student would ask her teacher a question... Should not the teacher be an example to the student? Should not the teacher have control of his emotions?" >

The questions engaged a part of Jack's mind, and he began the return trip to reality. Once this first step was taken, all of the training and strength that made up the man that was Jack/Wind Walker/Sudden Knife Gunn came back.

"Billy, would you please get me a stiff drink."

There was an audible exhalation as everyone began to breath again.

< "The student is becoming the teacher! Thank you my little bird." >

Raven started at the use of the endearment. She had not heard that term in many years. She said weakly, < "I thought that I was going to lose you, too." >

< "No. Thanks to you calling me back from the void, I am now here. I am ready to deal with the rest of the story." >

"Frank you have heard my story. Now please tell me your story and don't leave out a word!"

"Are you sure? It isn't a pretty one."

"Just tell me this first. Is your mother still alive?"

"No."

Jack winced, nodded once, and then pushed aside the drink that Billy had placed to hand.

"Ok, let's have it," he said.

Frank looked Jack right in the eye and said, "There are some ground rules that must be laid out first, Sir."

"But..."

"No, Sir! Sir, these are my mother's ground rules, not mine. If you will not honor them, then I am instructed to be silent, and just give that item to you.

"Would you have just half of the story, or the whole of it?" said Frank as he took a folded envelope from his wallet.

"I have carried this with me every day since my mother gave it to me on the day that she died."

Jack nodded and said, "Proceed."

"All right, then. I will tell my part first, and then you will have your Mika's part to yourself. I was born, nine months to the very day, after you proposed to your Mika. It had been a very hard delivery since my stepfather had beaten my mother many times, trying to cause a miscarriage.

"It seems that my grandmother had required a vow of grandfather and my stepfather, that required many things. One of those things, was that no abortions were to be undertaken.

"Grandfather had paid a distant cousin a large sum of money to marry Mother. Both men were brutal bigots. Only a Japanese was human, all others were animals, and were of no account.

"It seems that my grandmother was as powerful as a force of nature. She thought of everything, requiring both men to sign a contract laying out conditions that, if broken in any way, would result in both men losing face and, most important to them, stature.

"You see, grandmother was from a family of high standing in the Yakuza. Man, she was sharp. Mother once told me that if they ever broke the contract, both men and all of their sons would be castrated, disfigured facially and transported to Korea, to live out their lives as beggars.

"I don't know if you are aware of this fact, but the Koreans hate the Japanese.

"The contract didn't stop my stepfather from beating my mother every day. He was a vicious, brutal man. He resented the fact that an American had taken mother's virginity... and, worse, impregnated her.

"The day I was born, that foul man spat on me and then went to the Buddhist Temple to have a curse laid on me. He wished with all his heart that I would die. Because of the contract, I was now legally his son. As first-born, I would inherit everything that he had. He was a very rich man, and it drove him crazy!

"The man beat the both of us every day... until I was ten, that is. I have always been strong for my size and very, very quick. He on the other hand was a fat slob, a very weak man, in every sense of the word.

"Unknown to him, I was getting self defense training by some of grandmother's family. On my tenth birthday, my stepfather was in more of a foul mood than usual. He worked mother over terribly. I stopped him!

"I grabbed the Ritual Tanto from the display. Before he could react I cut him from breastbone to pubes. I then pulled the knife out and, just as quickly cut him from left to right. All before he even had a chance to defend himself or even fall.

"The cuts I used were placed just as if he had done them himself, while committing 'seppuku'.

"I will forever remember the look on his face with great pleasure. It is a very painful way to die.

"Unfortunately, he had already done the damage. Mother only lasted a few days after that beating. She remained conscious long enough to call grandmother. A small army arrived later that night.

"Grandmother praised me up and down for the good job that I had done, and then we set the stage to look as if the beast had, indeed, committed 'seppuku'!

"Before mother was taken to the hospital she gave me the puzzle box that I have placed before you, and this envelope. She knew that she was dying, and she wrote you that letter. She gave me a box with pictures of the time that you spent with her, and a letter telling me all about you, along with her American birth certificate, and passport.

"That was how I was able to reclaim my American citizenship and join the Army.

"My search for you started that very day. It took forever! Finally, I decided to join the Army and work through connections I gained within the ranks. I got assigned to Bill, here, to learn more about you. I thought you might hook up with him, again. It seems I was right."

"You son of a bitch!" exclaimed Bill.

Frank turned his head slowly toward the old soldier and said darkly, "The only reason that you are alive after that comment, is the fact that I KNOW you meant no disrespect to my mother! Don't ever say it again! Do you understand?"

Taken aback, Bill just nodded silently.

Turning back to Jack, Frank continued, "I have tried to be just like you, but I know that my time with that bastard and then growing up with Grandmother has... ah... damaged me. That is why I have never married. I don't think that I would be good husband material.

"So that is pretty much it. I will let mother tell you the rest," he said as he slid the much-abused envelope toward his father.

"Before I read this I want to know where Mika's father is?" said Jack so softly that it was almost a whisper.

"If he is still alive, he is somewhere in the slums of Seoul, Korea, along with his two sons from a former marriage."

"What did they do to him before sending him away?"

"They didn't do anything to him. I did!"

"You? You were only ten years old!" exclaimed Jack.

"As I said, I was a bit twisted from all that I had gone through. My stepfather was very talented when it came to inventive things to do to those that he hated, and he hated us."

"So you cut his balls off, then?"

"That and a lot more. It took me three weeks to do the job. In all fairness I will admit that I only did grandfather. I let the rest of the family do my uncles and the rest of the males of the family, but they followed my lead. They did what I did, once I had convinced grandmother to let me do grandfather.

"I must admit that she was upset with me when she heard my plan. Then, she realized where I had learned how to be so nasty. She became so angry that the men had to restrain her from killing off his whole family tree... with her bare hands.

"However, they did not stop her from having every female in his family taken and sterilized, and then enslaved in some form. In addition, every male ended up in the same state as her husband.

"In fact she was there for every cut that I made. With each cut, she read the name of one of his relatives that was taken. His entire bloodline has been wiped from the face of the earth.

"I think that the fact that his bloodline was being erased bothered him more than the physical pain."

"How was your plan so bad that it upset your grandmother?"

"Oh, the plan didn't upset her, it was that a ten year old could even conceive of such a thing. Drawing it out over days made the pain that much worse, you see. Also I had doctors there to sew him up after each cut so that there would be no chance of infection. I wanted him to live a long and miserable life.

"We didn't bother with that level of care for the rest of them, though. Some of the older ones died of the trauma right off. Others bled out for one reason or another. Some even killed themselves to avoid the extended pain or shame. I never found out which.

"We piled the bodies out side of his cell, so that he would know the full extent of the repercussions of his crimes.

"By the time I was satisfied, my grandfather had no balls, no dick, no fingers, no ears, and no tongue. As a final insult I had his face branded with the Korean symbols for '(I am) Japanese.'"

Jack, with an expression of great pain, looked at Frank and asked, softly, "Are you still that twisted, my son?"

Frank had been talking the whole time, in sort of a trance. He had not looked at anything or anyone, that was in the here and now. He spoke in a flat monotone, and just recited the story.