The Morbidly Obese Ninja (5 page)

Chiya got right to work on his iKatana. For safety purposes, Chiya put her store into hover-bus mode and detached from the plaza. She wanted to stay on the move to make it harder for the Gomen to find them. Basu agreed it was a good idea. Her plan was to move the bus once an hour to a different side of town.

While Chiya worked, she gave Basu access to her kitchen and he made full use of it. He pulled every bit of meat she had out of the freezer: three packages of bacon, six tubes of sausage, a bag of meatballs, and some ahi tuna steaks. He fried them all up in the same skillet, draining the grease into a coffee can that he put in the refrigerator.

Basu wasn’t sure why Chiya had so much meat in her freezer. She wasn’t much of a carnivore. It looked like it had been there for a long time, as if she had kept it in there just in case he came back.

On the two-seat dining table, Basu shoveled the greasy meats into his mouth from a serving platter. He had a fork in each hand. Oki sat across from him, watching with bemusement. The machine boy leaned forward in his chair with his chin in his hands, hanging on the ninja’s every movement.

“How do you fit it all in?” Oki asked.

Basu grunted at him with a full mouth of chewed sausage.

Oki’s stomach started to growl within his metal torso. He touched his cold hard belly.

“Can I have some?” Oki asked.

Basu stared up at him. He chewed for a while and then swallowed.

“Do you even need to eat?” Basu asked.

The boy nodded. “Of course I do.”

Basu angrily stabbed down on his mountain of meat with a fork, splattering grease across the table like a small bomb had just gone off. The boy sat up straight in his chair, wondering what he had done wrong. Basu pulled his fork out of the pile. There was a meatball on the end of it. He handed the fork to Oki and then went right back to shoveling food into his mouth. With one fork missing, he used his bare hand to pick up sausages and squeeze them into the side of his mouth as he chewed.

Oki smiled at the meatball on the fork. He twisted it around in his hand, spinning it in circles as he nibbled around the edges.

After Basu had finished eating, he took the meat grease out of the fridge. It had congealed into a white paste that he scooped out with a butter knife and spread on four slices of toast. He added cinnamon and sugar and called it dessert.

After dinner, Oki and Basu sat on the couch together. Oki looked up at Basu. The size of Basu never ceased to amaze the boy.

“What’s that for?” Oki asked, pointing at a hover-scooter in the corner of the room.

Basu grunted.

Oki kept staring at him, waiting for an answer.

“It’s for flying,” Basu said.

“Is it fun?” Oki asked.

Basu grunted.

They stared at the floor for a while.

“So what do you do for fun?” Oki asked. “Besides fighting and eating.”

Basu grunted.

“Do you have any roboplex dolls?”

Basu grunted.

“What about turbo balls?”

Basu grunted.

“Holo-cards?”

Basu let out a long grunt. Then a short one.

“You know what your problem is?” Oki said. “You don’t know how to have fun.”

Basu looked at him.

Oki pointed at his metal chest. “I try to have at least a little bit of fun every single day. You should try it. If you had more fun things to do maybe you wouldn’t eat so much.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Basu looked around the room. Then he pulled the iPet disc out of his pocket and turned it on. The cartoon cyber-frog caught Oki’s attention as it popped up into the air and landed on Basu’s lap.

The plump cyber-frog looked at Oki with a big cartoon smile. It hopped up into the air and did a flip for him. Oki moved closer. The frog flipped again. Then again. It smiled every time it flipped.

Oki looked up at the obese man.

Basu winked at him. Then he looked down at the flipping frog, then back at Oki, and back at the frog. Then Basu smiled and grunted a little laugh.

“What?” Oki said.

Basu grunted and looked down at the frog. Then grunted a louder laugh.

“What?” Oki repeated. “Is that supposed to be fun or something?”

Basu stopped smiling.

Oki laughed. “That is the dumbest toy I’ve ever seen. Look at it.”

Oki pointed at the frog as it smiled and hopped.

“That toy’s for babies!” Oki said.

Oki burst into more laughter, pointing at Basu.

Basu frowned.

“You play with a baby toy!” Oki teased.

Then Basu grunted angrily. He snatched the cyber-frog out of the air, flicked it off, and put the disc back into his pocket. Then he jumped off of the couch and stomped out of the room, while Oki lay on his back kicking his feet up in the air with laughter.

Basu ran into Chiya in the kitchen.

“I need to get some sleep,” she said, rubbing her swollen eyelids.

She yawned so wide her mouth became the size of a dinner plate.

“Is it done?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she said. “You’ll have to spend the night. I’ll finish in the morning.”

“I needed it done by now,” he said. “Oekai is expecting me back tonight.”

“You’re not getting it done tonight,” she said.

Basu sighed. He didn’t feel comfortable out on the streets without a functioning CPU on his iKatana.

“Okay,” Basu said.

She stepped away from him and went to the counter to pour herself some sake.

Basu looked out of the hover-bus window, examining the vast landscape of lights and buildings. He knew that Crow was out there somewhere, looking for him. He knew that before this mission was over, he was going to have to face him again.

Crow and Basu had known each other for years, back when they went by their real names, before Crow became birdlike and Basu became morbidly obese. Crow’s name was Susumu. Basu’s name was Keigo.

They went through training together and both graduated at the top of their class. Both were recruited by the same company, Arashi Industries. They moved up the ranks together. They became Arashi Industries’s star employees and each became a general of his own small army. They wore the burgundy-red suits and red ties that were the signature uniform of the Arashi. They wore the white five-horned masks of the Arashi ninja.

Although they thought of themselves as equals, Keigo was considered the company’s champion and Susumu was considered his understudy.

Keigo was stronger and a little faster with a sword, but Susumu was smarter, cleverer, and quicker at working the computer functions on his iKatana, not to mention that he was proficiently ambidextrous and could fight with a chain sickle in his left hand while swinging a sword with his right. Susumu also had twice the number of kills over Keigo. But Keigo was still regarded as the deadliest ninja in the industry.

Susumu resented the fact that his talents were not fully recognized by his employer. He resented Keigo for making more money. In time, Susumu grew tired of Arashi Industries, and eventually he grew tired of his friend Keigo.

Their friendship ended the day Susumu became Crow. After a couple years in Keigo’s shadow, Susumu decided to show the world he was the industry’s true champion ninja. He broke his sworn oath to stay forever loyal to Arashi Industries. He sold company secrets to the Gomen Corporation and helped with a hostile takeover that resulted in the largest company war of the decade.
One day, Keigo walked into a meeting and discovered the conference room filled with headless executives. They were sitting around the table in their red suits and red ties, their posture straight and alert, their hands folded neatly in front of them. But their heads weren’t attached to their necks. They were on the table in front of them, staring at each other with blank eyes.

Aside from the dead executives, there were three men standing in the room. Two were Gomen in business-casual ninja outfits. The third was a man with a crow head wearing the Arashi Industries red suit and tie.

Keigo raised his iKatana and pointed it at the black-feathered man.

“I’m so happy you could get here on time, Keigo,” said the crow man.

Keigo took off his mask. “How do you know who I am?”

The crow man cocked his head and pointed the handle of his iKatana at him. “Everybody knows the great Keigo of the Arashi.”

Keigo lifted his sword, ready to strike at any second. “Who are you? Why do you disgrace the Arashi by wearing that uniform?”

The crow man hopped up onto the conference table and clicked across with his black bird feet.

“You think you’re so strong, don’t you, Keigo?” said the crow man. “But you’re not the best. You’ve just made everybody think you’re the best.”

The crow pulled a black chained-sickle out of his suit. Keigo recognized the weapon. He looked up at the crow man. Then he recognized the suit he was wearing. He recognized a tone in the crow’s voice.

“Susumu?” Keigo said.

The crow paused. It was as if he was smiling, but no smile could be seen with a beak on his face.

Then the crow attacked. Clinking metal sounds ripped through the air as the chain sickle flew at Keigo. Jumping two feet back, Keigo knocked the sickle out of the air with his iKatana.

“Susumu was a fool,” said the crow. “He no longer exists. I am Crow.”

Crow struck again with his sword. Keigo dodged. The sword sliced less than an inch away from his throat.

“Susumu,” Keigo said, dodging the attacks. “What have you done to our executives?”

The sickle was reeled back toward Crow’s black claw fingers, cutting into Keigo’s shoulder.

“They were fools, too, Keigo,” said Crow. “It is shameful to be a fool. I put them out of their misery.”

The two Gomen ninja joined the fight, forcing Keigo to defend against all three men, but Keigo would not yet take the offensive.

“Susumu, you are my closest friend,” Keigo said. “What have you done?”

Crow twirled his sickle like a helicopter blade, holding it in front of him as if using it as a shield.

“What have
I
done?” said Crow. “What have
you
done? I’m not the one responsible for turning these men into fools. It was you. You made them believe that you were the strongest ninja in the industry when we both know that you are not. You have disgraced yourself and Arashi Industries. Neither of you should be allowed to live.”

Keigo composed himself. “I see. You could no longer advance with me in your way. I understand.”

Then Keigo sliced the sword-arm off of one of the Gomen. Blood exploded onto Keigo’s red suit. The Gomen stood there, shrieking in agony, staring at the red fluid geysering out of his stump across the conference table.

“If killing me is the only way you can prove your honor,” Keigo said, “then I must not deny you this fight. As my closest friend, I owe you this much.”

Crow’s sickle stopped twirling and shot out of his hand at Keigo, wrapping around his sword arm.