-Neighpon, Canter Dojo South Shopping District, Ryu-
It didn’t take us long to find my old friend Dodgy Gruff… he just also happens to be a constant on and off again enemy for me. Either he wants to kill me or he just can’t actually commit to that idea of me being dead and wants me to stick around as one of the Yakuza’s most infamous beings in recent history.
It seems like the latter most of the time, because he would have otherwise killed me by now if he was serious about wanting me to die. He’s almost managed to succeed on at least seven different occasions and got it into his head that his paws were the only thing I should die to.
Currently we were witnessing a common sight in Canter Dojo, a diamond dog with wolf like features and a suit delivering a beating to someone that only looks tougher.
The scruffy gray furred guy that wears an eye patch over his right eye was definitely Dodgy Gruff. The minotaur he was fighting seemed to charge forward a lot, but he wasn’t hitting anything thanks to Dodgy slipping around his bull rushing attacks smoothly as if he was made of greased lightning.
The minotaur kept receiving a flurry of paw strikes to his kidneys and spine after each charge and Dodgy was delivering these blows while looking entirely bored with the situation and as if the minotaur wasn’t worth half the effort he was putting into this scuffle.
“Hey Mad Mutt, we need to talk!” At my shout, Dodgy looked away from his opponent and ducked under the fist coming for his head without even seeing it coming.
He then launched a lazy looking right backhanded uppercut into the minotaur’s jaw staggering him and even knocked a few teeth loose, even as he did this he was still focused on me and not his opponent.
“Is it really time again for a real fight?!” Dodgy asked excitedly as his tail swished back and forth, one should never underestimate him because he’s a diamond dog. He’s likely the smartest male diamond dog on the planet, didn’t know anyone else who could fight or run cabaret clubs like him. “Or is this just one of your boring business calls? If so we can discuss things later, I’m kind of busy at the moment!”
Dodgy ducked under the double fisted hammer blow coming for the back of his skull and swung his limbs out and backwards to lodge both his elbows into the minotaur’s kidneys. This made the dumb animal back off from him while wincing.
A minotaur who don’t notice that they are fighting someone well above their level in the great scheme of things has to be as dumb as can be. If they happened to be drunk, then it was close to earning them an award in idiocy for picking a fight with the Mad Mutt of Canter Dojo.
Dodgy was reading the minotaur movements perfectly and he had a wiry build for a diamond dog, but that only tended to fool most people from outside of Neighpon. The people who lived here however? I looked to all the average citizens standing around watching the fight in progress and they were cheering on Mad Mutt.
“You’re going to get a fight out of me one way or another Dodgy, does it really matter if its business or not?” I asked solidly.
“Kick his ass Doggy-kun!” Giving Silk-chan a flat look, I sighed and turned back to him as the minotaur repositioned himself roared and charged towards his side horns first.
Dodgy just grunted at Silk-chan calling him Doggy again, then rolled sideways through the minotaur’s legs and the minotaur, who didn’t immediately arrest his momentum, turned his head after Dodgy.
The minotaur’s right horn slammed into a brick wall, soon to be followed by the rest of his body in a painful looking display that cracked the guy’s horn. Falling onto his back, the minotaur groaned and slowly tried to get up.
Dodgy performed a windmill, did a quick twirl on his head, leapt up onto his feet and wagged his rear end at the minotaur who dazedly grunted angrily at him.
“Look, just finish him off and stop playing with him Dodgy!” I thought the display Dodgy was putting on was just plain rude, of course what I just said was going to turn the slow pummeling in progress immediately into rather a brutal takedown.
“He’s not playing with me, all I need to do is get one good hit in!” I’m sure you do, if you weren’t all talk and just stopped getting up off the ground to address me. It was too late for the minotaur anyway.
“Thanks for the distraction, how many baseball bats do you see? Well you’ll be seeing ‘four’!” Turning to the sound of Dodgy’s voice, the minotaur received a vicious golf swing to the face.
The baseball bat that Dodgy pulled from out of nowhere wreaked havoc with that one blow that splattered blood everywhere. Broken nose, busted lips, both eyes blackened, likely a cracked skull and yet the bloodied minotaur was still weakly holding on to consciousness and reached upwards towards Dodgy with his left arm.
His staying awake was all for nothing, the minotaur should have just let things go and stayed down. He should have also held very still until Dodgy left the general area.
Dodgy took up the bat in his right paw and stepped onto the minotaur’s chest with his left foot while idly swinging the bat downwards towards a very vulnerable spot.
The minotaur’s mouth opened and attempted to let out a scream of pain, but none came before the bipedal bull passed out with a tiny squeak exiting his lips.
Dodgy just stepped off of the minotaur with his right foot and smiled as he continued to walk towards me with the blood covered bat over his shoulder.
“What you got this time Ryu-kun, another rickshaw chase through the streets? One of our buildings being threatened to be blown up by complete idiots? Someone not paying their debts and need to be roughed up a bit by some professional collection agents? Need to walk into another ambush? Whatever it is, provided that it’s deadly, I want in!” Dodgy was also in the running for the most well-spoken and polite male diamond dog, if he didn’t have a wild look in his eye and his spiked tail was wagging for some excitement. “Talk to me here, you wouldn’t seek me out unless it was very important.”
Getting into a row with a minotaur clearly wasn’t doing it for him and I usually dragged him into the best and deadliest situations one could think of for a professional thug like him.
Knife, sword, tonfa, baseball bat, you name it and he’s probably used it in a fight. If he hasn’t, expect him to show up to the next fight in a tutu after having gone through three ballet lessons, he’ll kick your ass with those lessons too.
I watched as the bat disappeared behind Dodgy’s back and didn’t question where he kept it, I just knew that he could deflect multiple crossbow bolts with a single flourish of it while being within ten feet of each crossbow from its current place.
If he entered a dangerous situation, he was always willing to bloody any male in the way of what he wanted. He never hurt women or children though and even had a soft spot for them.
“I’m leaving Neighpon for a while, don’t know how long until I get back… you’ll be in charge of everything.” I watched as his excitement died and he snorted in anger.
“Okay who talked you into whatever it is you’re going to do this time?” He wanted to get into a fight with Blade already and he didn’t even know she existed yet. “Also what is so important that Silk-chan looks almost sad? Is this going to be another box car derby episode?”
“Let’s tell you on the way to the orphanage, I left some… friends… in charge of it in the meantime.” I started to walk away, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Dodgy narrowing his own on me.
“You left some patsies alone with those little monsters so you could spend some quality time with Silk-chan didn’t you? Well we’re in the shopping district, so buy me some booze and food while we’re here, then you’ll absolutely give me a worthy fight and maybe then I’ll even begin considering looking after things while you’re gone.” Dodgy clenched a paw at me. “You run the freaking circus that is Canter Dojo, so I also get a chance to maul the person that talked you into leaving me high and dry for who knows how long with it!”
“Exactly what I thought you’d want, except for the alcohol.” I swear this guy was always a problem to deal with when he was calm, he was worse when he was angry and bizarre when he was drunk.
“Yeah, well, I’m in the mood to drink my face red with this kind of news and I know for a fact that you don’t want me drinking around the children or Silk-chan and I will respect that. In that vein, I’m going to get my drinking in now before you cut me off with business.” Dodgy obviously knew what I wanted of him, there were very few people quite like him that I would trust my backside to. “I don’t know how good I will be watching out for an orphanage, but I guess with her eight legs that Silk-chan will be doing all the real legwork there and can depend on me for help whenever she needs it.”
“Thank you Doggy-kun!” At Silk’s words he crossed his paws and growled. “Oh come on, the children like their uncle Doggy-kun.”
“Stop calling me that!” He was angry, but he never struck woman unless they could fight and were willing to do so, he’d definitely fight Blade to his fullest. Here he was just more bark than bite, mostly because Silk-chan would never outright attack him. “You going to warn the local government about a likely shift in power.”
“Yes.” There were a few times when I wouldn’t, but this was one of those times it was more prudent to warn the government of problems. “I’ll also be conversing with my lawyers, already told the yakuza that I’m going to be leaving Neighpon.”
“Those sharks? Yeah I can see why you would need to chat with them, let me join you when you do.” Dodgy was smart to be there when I eventually told them what I wanted done. He’ll enforce exactly what I wanted to happen and they won’t be able to tell him what I might have said for him or anyone else to do. “I’ll straighten them out if they get too big for their stations.”
My lawyers weren’t turncoats or idiots, but they would try to slip something by me every now and then. It was all part of the organized crime going on around here, things seemed so peaceful since I was walking down this street. One could be the next street over and would be currently getting mugged right about now.
I’ve stopped plenty from picking on the weak and downtrodden around here and yet it still happens, there were some things in the world that would be constants. However there were also some things that needed to be done and this Princess Luna couldn’t leave the moon without the stars that will aid in her escape.
Blade and I would have to convince two others to upend their lives and join us in helping her escape.
I would have said no, but there was something very compelling about helping an actual princess. Probably wouldn’t even meet her face to face, she wouldn’t even likely know what we’d do for her or what we gave up to do it.
When I come back, I’ll be able to tell the children a good bedtime story about this and would continue to keep the darker side of my life out of theirs to the best of my ability.
I bought Dodgy a bottle of whiskey, Silk-chan and I had some snacks while he ate an entire three course meal of sushi and then we set off towards the offices. We told him about running into a few strangers the other day in the meantime.
“So Separate Cloth sent a bunch of poor pony thugs after you and then tried to shank you in the back from above… I’d rather do it in the chest and look you in the eyes when I get around to it.” At least Dodgy was honest about that, no sneak attacks from him. “Then you met a skeleton that somehow hides her appearance during the day that took the blow for you, a yak that smells so horrible he could peel paint and can even control that smell to a certain degree, then there’s this thestral that’s been looking for you but has been getting blocked by just about everyone and their obachan.”
“I haven’t tried to block anyone recently sonny!” A mare with a conical hat crowed out, she was playing shogi and waved a fishing rod in Dodgy’s direction. “Even went fishing with a dragon the other day.”
“Sorry lady.” Dodgy muttered to the mare.
“It is okay, Ryu-kun, Silk-chan and you are all good for this province, especially you when you deal with those punks! It doesn’t matter that your Yakuza, you’re actually doing your job!” The mare chuckled and went back to her game. “Hey, stop cheating!”
“Yes, that about sums it up, I’m intrigued about why some people don’t want me to leave though. I know why a lot of good people like Silk-chan here wouldn’t want me to leave, but some of the bad ones have been intercepting that thestral for quite a while until their friends arrived to save them from nearly being taken out by a hit ninja.” That’s one of the reasons I want to go. “It’s disturbing how much effort was put into stopping the thestral trying to find me. Given that they are mute, it’s surprising how fast word spread about what they are here for and the reaction to it.”
I did want to find out why they were trying to intercept Blade-san and keep her away from me. From the way she wrote down the description of every being in each interception, the Tengu mafia, several ninja clans, other yakuza, random yokai, my own yakuza and quite a few miscellaneous are quite dead set on me not going with her to fulfill this destiny thing.
If they had simply let her come to me, then I might have immediately said no. That they went to so much effort to try and actually kill her… that’s why I agreed. There was something fishy going on around Canter Dojo and I’m going to have Dodgy look into it, he’s survived worse than the possible coming storm that me leaving will cause.
“Be on the lookout for suspicious activity Dodgy, there are some strange movements around Canter Dojo lately and when I leave you’re going to need to be quite sharp.” I wanted him to know this as a fact.
He nodded with a frown on his face and Silk gently cuddled into me.