Deleting Honor

That sky. A grey-blue dawn that poured out from the west like a sleepy ocean. The yellow Navant moon shone through the shallows of the blue. A green light was cast down on a pale ren-face. A stern look rested upon the face. Unspoken words of righteous anger written upon ridges and hard lines of tightened muscle. The face of Kato Ichiro. Ichiro raised his hand and pulled a metal mask down over his skinless face.

"You are going to die now, Atanari." Ichiro drew his rashi and held the point just behind his enemies neck.

"Why tell me? Just do it!" The grey-headed Guchi Atanari spat on Ichiro's heavily armored foot. Ichiro's machine eyes looked down on the spit. The spit was thick with blood and a small piece of broken tooth rest on it briefly before sinking."It is the honorable thing to do."

"You destroyed everything you stupid tin-can. I was going to build a new empire! I would have brought back the old ways." He was quiet a moment and pensive.Then he screamed out, "You wanted back the old ways!" His face was red and his lips flung specks of blood.

Ichiro sighed from beneath his metal-mask. "I know. It is true. I still do. I hope one day it will be so."

"Yet, here we are. Your blade at my neck. Just days until my dream --your dream became a reality. Why? Why would you cut the head from your own dream?"

"Because." Ichiro said. "Because of the difference between good men and bad men."

"Oh? What does a machine like you know about good and bad? What do you know about what it takes to run an empire?" Atanari laughed.

"I know the emperor to be a good man. I disagree with the emperor. Because he is a good man however and because I trust good men; I can trust that the emperor is following his heart."

"Huh? Following his heart? What database did you down-scan that poetic shit nugget from?"

"Irrelevant input." Ichiro chimed in computer-tinged speech. "You are a bad man. You chase after money and power like a starved wolf. You have betrayed friends and even fam-"

"Because they didn't believe in the dream Ichiro!" Atanari flung his head about angrily and pulled against his restraints. "They didn't believe in the dream! They were the cold water to our warm sleep! I'm right! Can't you see that I'm right!"

Atanari felt the cold steel of Ichiro's rashi touch his neck. He was suddenly motionless but his face smoked with anger.

"I can't serve a bad man Atanari. Had you become emperor I would have been serving a bad man. A very bad man." Ichiro adjusted his stance and brought his sword over his head in perfect form. He eyed the back of the defeated lords neck. "You are going to die now Atanari because I would rather serve a good man, than a bad man. Even if the good man is wrong."

Guchi Atanari tore open his blouse and held his hands to his chest. After a deep breath, he began reciting the the last verses of an old warriors song.

"...we are dead. We were born to die. here we walk in our pleasant tomb. Bury me next to my enemies. So that in my death, I may keep them-"

His last words were cut away as his head left his body. Ichiro's cold-blue machine eyes tracked the head as it fell and hit the ground.

Ichiro waited while head stopped rolling and the body fell into the dirt. He had heard the song before. He spoke the words slowly hoping he might recall when or where he had heard it. "So that in my death, I may keep them dead."

He did not recall however. Instead, his eyes suddenly opened and he found that he was no longer standing over his defeated enemy. A fluid that had been surrounding him began to drain away. He was momentarily blinded by bright lights and consoles. When his eyes adjusted to the light he saw humans all around him.

Many of the humans were wearing lab coat and a few were heavily armed. A man looking quite a bit like a politician stepped in front him. "This is the third damn simulation! I'm tired of wasting time on this thing."

"This isn't easy. We'll eventually get the psyche to accept the new interface." An older woman with long gray hair stepped around and stood beside the politician.

From beyond the armed guards a voice called out, "Move!"

The soldiers stepped aside revealing Guchi Atanari. "The son of a bitch killed me again! This guy must really cakin' hate me! I was this close to encoding him this time too! Your monster cut my head off!"

Ichiro clearly recognized him as Guchi Atanari. However this man was no emperor. His face had been riddled with piercings. His skin was marked with ink. His royal attire had been replaced with sandles, shorts and a shirt declaring him to be, "The Most Awesome."

"You took to damn long!" The politician shouted.

"Oh? Have you tried fighting this damn thing? Let me adjust his damn protocols for cake's sake." Guchi protested.

"No." The woman in the lab coated chided. "It doesn't work like that. The combat protocol only triggers him to fight. The skill is all organic. That's all him."

"Oh, yeah. This Red-One guy here, he was some kind of super-bad ass. Part of some big bad merc outfit. This guys a genuine swordsmen of the old school." The politician said cheerfully. "Now he works for us-or he would if you people would get your heads out of your asses."

Guchi scoffed and chortled. "So I'm people now? The whole time I've been here it's been alien this and alien that. Xenphobes."

"Oh? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Why are you here? Oh because you got some kind of big idea about seperating renu from the rest of the universe."

Guchi crossed his arms and shook his head back and forth smugly. "Nope. I'm here because someones paying me a lot of money. I've never even been to renu and I don't give a shit what they do. Or what you do for that matter. So long as you keep paying me."

"Let's do it again!" Guchi turned and passed back through the soldiers. The fluid began filling again and Ichiro faded into blackness.

Lord Ichiro of the Akana Clan and son of the house of Kato, found himself standing on the battlements of the imperial palace. He couldn't help feeling like he had been here before. "Oh well." He said and raised his gaze to the sky. That sky...