Authors Note: This is a short piece that was written as background for one of my original charactors from my fanfic "Shadow of the Past". I wrote it a while ago, in a rough form, but I just recently gotten it to a point where it's finished, so I've decided to post it here. If you've read "Shadow of the Past", you'll probably recognize the references being made. If you haven't, well, then you'll be disappointed to realize that no, the Rangers don't come into this one - not for another six years, anyway. Enough commentary already, here's the story for those who are interested:
Long Shadows
By Winston deLeon
Tokyo, Japan, 1984:
A tall, thin mouse was leaning casually against the wall of a small shop, staring intently at something a good distance away across the street. That something was a small black car in the parking lot of a research facility. The mouse had long brown hair, tied back in a tail. He was wearing a blue kimono, a dark grey hakama, and a pair of swords, one longer katana and a matching short wakizashi. It was the clothing of a samurai.
He glanced up at the sky briefly. The sun was sinking, getting lower. It wasn't quite sunset, but it was a little past the point at which work usually got out for the day. Dr. Shimomura, it seemed, was running a bit late today. He resumed staring at the car. Just have to have patience, he told himself. He never deviates by more than ten or fifteen minutes, it'll happen soon...
Another mouse, a female, joined him, leaning against the wall next to the male. She was dressed in similar clothes and carried her own pair of swords, and she was slightly shorter and had black hair.
"Mariko... I see you've decided to stick around after all." the male mouse said, mildy surprised. "Everyone else cleared out once were done installing that thing. The only reason I'm still here is because it's my responsibility to confirm that everything went according to plan."
"Of course I'm still here, Terou... Just had to take care of something first. This is going to be a spectacular show. I wouldn't miss it for anything." she replied.
"I guess it had better be, for all the trouble the Empire's gone to in order to make the arrangements." Terou commented.
A few more minutes passed. The two waited, watching in silence, until at last a human wearing a white shirt and tie and a pair of grey pants emerged from the building. He walked across the parking lot, carrying a briefcase in one hand and a white lab coat in the other.
"Looks like the doctor has arrived. Better cover your ears." Mariko commented as she proceeded to clap her hands as tightly over her ears as she could. Terou took her example and did the same.
The doctor reached his car and unlocked the door. He tossed his briefcase and labcoat in the passenger seat, then climbed into the driver's seat and shut the door behind himself. Slowly, he placed the key in the ignition, but stopped himself, reaching over to fasten his seatbelt first. Finally, reaching down and grasping the key in the ignition, he turned it. For a split second, the car tried to turn over...
The shockwave hit Terou with a roar louder than anything he'd ever heard before, even with his hands covering his ears. He could feel the pressure in the air pushing against his body, though at this distance it wasn't strong enough to knock him down. The car was engulfed instantly in a huge but extremely brief fireball. Two of the wheels were ripped off and thrown across the parking lot. Many of the windows in the nearby research lab building instantly blew out, glass shards flying wildly as they rode on the compression wave. The body of the car, being fairly small and light, was lifted almost seven feet straight up into the air before it fell back to the ground again. The roof of the car was torn completely open, and the sides bulged out, the car's frame ballooned outward by the force of the blast. When the noise of the explosion settled down and the car was motionless, it resembled a large twisted metal donut more than anything else. There was nothing burning in the wreckage, however - the blast's detonation velocity and pressure wave had prevented anything from being able to catch fire. The car went swiftly from being a massive center of concentrated energy to simply being a silent, inert pile of scraps. The change struck Terou as being a bit eerie - he couldn't help but notice how frightening an illustration it was that a person's life could end so quickly and without warning.
For a moment, everything was incredibly quiet. Nothing moved, as if the terribleness of the blast had stunned the whole world into brief inaction. Birds had stopped singing, cars on the road had pulled over and their drivers stared in utter silence.
Terou finally spoke. "I guess you were right about that being a spectacular show." He said at last.
"Yeah... the batch of dynamite we used was brewed by Izumo, and he makes the sharpest nitro I've ever seen. The guy's a genius when it comes to blowing things up. He's incredibly expensive, though, especially for a big order like this one, but they paid his asking price gladly. Upper level command really pulled out all the stops to make sure we only used the best." Mariko said. "They must have considered this threat really important."
"Well, of course they did. If he'd been able to prove what he suspected, we'd have a whole new set of problems to worry about." Terou said.
He remained silent for some time, lost in thought. "I wonder if he would have appreciated it." Terou asked himself quietly, looking at the wreckage.
"What? Who?" Mariko asked him.
Terou looked up at her in surprise. "Dr. Shimomura, of course. Given his research into unusually intelligent rodents, I just wonder if he would have appreciated the irony of his fate. Not that he could have had even a remote chance to realize what hit him, of course..."
"Well..." Mariko pondered, "I suppose we have made history here. First human, as far as we know, to be intentionally assassinated by rodents. It is kind of an irony, especially given that Shimomura knew how smart we are but no one believed him. Interesting thing to be a part of, huh?"
"Yeah... a great accomplishment." Terou said, sounding a bit sad.
"You almost sound like you regret what you've done." Mariko accused him with an amused smirk.
"And you almost sound as if you just plain don't care." Terou responded, starting to get irritated at her failure to take what they'd just done seriously.
"Maybe that's because I don't." She said dismissingly. "But whatever, the job's done, so there's no point in hanging out here anymore. Now let's go before the fire department and police show up and everything really gets crazy."
"Good plan." Terou had to agree, and they turned to leave. In his mind, though, Terou was struggling with the question of just how much crazier things could really get. After six years of long, dragging war, he often found himself wondering if there was a shred of sanity anywhere to be found among the rodents of Japan. Most of the time, it didn't seem like it. When this whole thing had started, he felt like he'd been fighting for what was truly right, something that was worth killing and dying for. Now he felt as if he was fighting for the lesser of many evils, hoping for victory not for the sake of victory, but just so that the killing could end. In the meantime, though, there was nothing he could do but keep going with what he'd started.
As he walked, he suddenly noticed how long and dark his shadow had grown now that the sun was so low in the sky, and how red the light had become. Red, like so much blood, he thought to himself darkly. So much blood already... and undoubtedly, still more coming in the future.