we meet Kiko

“Get your hands off me!”, the girl yelled. Once again some pervert was trying to grope her ass as she rode on the crowded train. People were too close for her to swing a fist at the man so she shimmied around and jammed her knee into his balls. The man grunted in pain and surprise, turning red from agony and embarrassment. Her response was always swift and painful. The man scooted away, putting other bodies between himself and the beautiful, dangerous girl.



“ You fucking pervert!, she yelled. Fury twisted her beautiful face. If she had been able to



do so, she would have followed up the knee with a good swift kick in the gut, but his



retreat put him out of reach, and the press of other bodies in the train car prevented the



retaliatory strike.



This was not the first time Kiko had been groped on the train, she had the sort of figure



that compelled some men to want to touch her, most men thought it, some tried to act on



that thought. It was their mistake.



Every eye in the train car was on her, polite young women didn't behave and speak as she had. Luckily there was a stop coming up and she moved toward the doors. Most women suffered in silence, ashamed to acknowledge that they had been touched. It was not in her character to suffer anyone to manhandle her.

The train came to a stop and the doors sighed open . Though she was nowhere near her destination Kiko exited onto the crowded platform. As she crossed the threshold a man's hand snaked between the crush of entering passengers and pinched her bottom. Before she could turn, the doors sighed closed and the train was moving. Rubbing the painful place on her bottom, the girl climbed the stairs that led to street level. She stumbled on the steps and accidentally crashed into a nice looking young executive type. The nonplussed man grabbed the girl to keep her from falling down.

“ Sorry, I tripped,” she said to the man.

“ Oh that's alright, we all trip at sometime” the man replied.

Kiko went on up the stairs, tucking the man's wallet into her jacket pocket as she climbed .

It was time to get out of the city for a while she thought. The press of people all around her was more than she could stand.



Kiko thought of the peaceful mountain lake where she had often gone to collect her serenity when life on the streets of the city was too much for her to bear. People were the source of her income and also her curse. She did not feel as if she belonged in this place, though she was born in this land of crowded cities and carefully cultivated farmland. In a land where everything was centered around the family and your job, she had neither. Kiko was an outsider.

At the top of the stairs two men lounged against a low wall, their eyes scanning the faces of the crowd. Both men wore wrap around sunglasses and suits that were expensive Italian custom cut. They were too young to be able to afford such clothes. One man elbowed the other man pointing with his chin toward Kiko as she reached the street level. Both men launched off the wall, shoving off with their backs and made a bee line to where the girl stood. Kiko saw them coming and was prepared. The nearer man reached to grab her arm. She slipped his reach and punched him in the throat, the second man was just realizing what had happened to his partner when her second punch caught him in the throat. Both went down in a heap and Kiko walked away as a crowd gathered to gawk.

Even the criminal underworld considered her an outsider. Then there was the Yakusa, Japanese crime families. They were territorial in nature and resented anyone who cut their turf. Business was business and the lucrative nature of the merchandise that she provided at last caused the more aggressive of the crime bosses demur and leave her to her own devices. Some had sent enforcers, who were bloodied and sent packing. Negotiations were carefully entered in to by the girl, using safe locations in large open spaces where she could see that the envoy was in fact alone, where there was no ambush, had hammered out a working relationship with the various bosses on her circuit. From time to time some underling tried to impress the bosses by making an attempt to corral the maverick pickpocket. Once they were properly chastised, usually through a good beating, the trade continued, after a renegotiation which was always in favor of Kiko.

As she walked away, Kiko looked at her right hand.

“ Damn, broke a nail, that almost never happens,” she muttered to herself.

Kiko's hands were uncannily quick, and it was this trait that made her a good living as well as allowing her to defeat any foe. She was trained in karate, and had the ability to strike an opponent three times before they could raise their guard. Usually it took only one good punch to immobilize each attacker, her favorite was the throat punch. The area was soft and didn't damage her manicure, three quick punches would incapacitate three attackers, the rest usually backed off, if they knew what was good for them. Some didn't, and then she had to ruin her nails, and this made her really pissed off. Usually they paid a heavy price for such a mistake.

Kiko walked to the nearest main intersection and grabbed a taxicab. She gave the driver an address that was several streets away from where she was actually going. It was rush hour in Osaka and the fare was high, because the going was slow. At last the taxi pulled up to the false address. The woman reached into her jacket pocket, removed the stolen wallet and handed the driver the stolen credit card. Without hesitation he swiped it through the machine on his dashboard, handed it back to her and she was out on the sidewalk, walking away.

Two streets over, Kiko entered a small mom and pop bar. The old woman was at the front counter.

“Is the old man in the back?” said Kiko. The old woman said nothing she just pointed with her chin toward the curtain at the rear of the small room. Keiko crossed to the opening and stepped into a short hallway that led to the back store room and office. A wizened old man sat at a desk, there was a calculator, but he used an abacus to tot up figures, entering them in a ledger by hand.

“ Hey old man, I have some merchandise for you,” she said by way of greeting. Kiko tossed the wallet on the desk. The old man checked to see if there were any currency.

“ No money in it? he said.

“ Nobody carries cash any more...” she replied.

“True, that makes it difficult for you.” he said.

“ That's why me and your boss have a deal,” she said, “ and that's why I'm moving on, I've been here too long, need a change of scenery.”

“Yes, a change of scenery for one in your business can often be good for the health”, the old man replied.

“ Same deal as always,” Kiko said, changing the subject.

The old man counted up the items of ID and credit cards, debit cards, and tossed a condom sealed in foil, in the trash. He made a few rapid calculations on the abacus, pulled out a steel cash box and counted out currency on the desk. Kiko watched him carefully, scooped up the currency, counted it again then slipped it in her pocket. She made her living from the pockets of lusty businessmen, and unwary passers by. This often put her in possession of the identification and credit cards of others, a commodity that there were men willing to pay for. These men had tried to put her under their control, but Kiko was not easily controlled. In fact several would-be controllers had simply disappeared from the city streets.

No one knew what had happened to them, but word went around that it was best to simply transact the business at hand and to think on no further relationship with Kiko.



Kiko turned to leave, there was no goodbye, she walked out the door, down the short hallway through the curtain and out onto the street. A few blocks away was the Onsen where she stayed. It was a tile roofed three story private home in which she rented sleeping space. A futon, a television and a meal in the morning was all that was provided, that and access to the white tiled bath in the basement of the house. The girl was a smart dresser, she affected a business-like demeanor, and wore clothes appropriate for a young woman in management. This appearance of normalcy and camouflage most often allowed her to remain in the back ground and avoid suspicion. Her one handicap was also her asset, her physical beauty and remarkable figure. Kiko dressed to remove attention from her breasts, they were larger than those of the average Japanese girl, but there was no way to hide her beautiful face and well formed derriere.

She found it necessary to move from time to time, relocating from neighborhood to neighborhood, then after a circuit of the city that she was in, she moved to a new city. This gypsy lifestyle suited her rootless soul, and kept the cops from getting a bead on her activities.

At the Onsen, Kiko settled her bill with the landlady Mrs Nakamura, informed her that there would be no forwarding address. One was not necessary, Kiko never got mail. She did use E mail, but not much, her activities didn't lend themselves to an online presence. She was an avatar in the real world, just passing through. Kiko went to her room and packed her clothes in a suitcase, her cosmetics in a carry case and called a cab. She had the train schedules committed to memory, so there was no need for her to check time tables and destinations, she had made this trip many times, up to the mountains, up to the lakes, clear and silent, devoid of motorboat traffic.



The train trip was uneventful. Snow clung in a deep silent mantle across the knife ridges and valleys of the highlands. It was pure and white away from the cities. Sparkles of light danced from the powder as the sunlight threw harsh shadows across the landscape. Where the dark pines and cypress trees clustered in the valleys and darkness lay there in the deep slits between the knife edge ridges, Kiko's eye lingered. Her thoughts were more at home there in the shadows, the shattering whiteness of the ridge tops made her glance move away.



The beautiful young girl sat on the dark shore. The flat surface of the lake mirrored the



equally flat and empty surface of the sky. Her obsidian eyes were absent the spark of life,



though her chest rose and fell with regular breaths. No moon or stars broke the darkness,



yet there was a luminescence which drifted mistily through the air. Like a poppet the, girl



waited on her shelf. She had no wants, no desires, no needs. She was an empty vessel



waiting for her master to posses her.



Once she had been human, once she had a lover, but now she awaited the coming of her owner, the thing which gave her a reason to live, or die. The thing which used her for it's own purposes, for it's needs, it's desires.

The formless evil came from the an abyss in the depths of the lake and filled the space where the soul of the girl had once been. Sparks of fire danced in her eyes, and she stood, moving away from the lake shore, toward the town, her masters needed more mannequins, more vessels for their wrath to manifest.



They are rage personified, they seek to destroy all that is good, simply because it is good. Kindness compassion, love forgiveness are anathema to them and all who possess these characteristics are their enemy, or their food. Kari rose from where she keeled at the edge of the lake. She walked toward the lights of the town. There was a purpose to her step as she went along.