Tochi no Beeru (Land of the Veils)

I

Winter 1928

This winter is cold as hell.  I started my mission when the first snow began to fall, and now that I've returned from the countryside, it appears that the city has been pummeled.

Well I'll be damned.   I think to myself as I trudge up the hill through all of this heavy ass snow.   I thanked Kami that I have a fur-lined coat and some great, durable boots, but at the same time this snow is horrible.  Simply.  Horrible.  Oh well, it just feels good to be home.

Tsuki City, even when covered in white shit, is still beautiful to me.  Her aging, rusted gates still greet me with the same gusto as when she sent me away into the vast countryside, complete with stale-ass, understaffed border patrol.  I approach the booth to be welcomed by the sight of a middle-aged, round and dark-skinned man, sleeping and drooling while the static of the radio accompanies his snores.  I wait for a minute to see if he'd wake up on his own, but after a little while my patience grew thin, and I really was at the point where I wanted to be home with a blunt and ol' girl on my lap.  Impatient as hell, I knock on the glass window to wake him.  He jolts in his seat and looks around. He puts on his thick-ass glasses and proceeds to look at me up and down.

"What in the hell?" He says to himself.  I slide him my traveling papers and take off my sugegasa to expose my face.

"Takanaka, Toshiro.  Age: 25.  Biyou distric-"

"Boy, I don't need all that identification bullshit.  I got it right here on paper.  Where you coming from?" He says.

"The Village of Roozu and its surrounding areas." I reply.  He looks up at me and then back down at the paper.  He mouths something to himself and then looks at me with suspicion.

"You were there for a long-ass time.  State your purpose." 

"I was there for three months because I have a business in making veils and headwear, and I met and toured the area with my business partner to find a vendor."  I pass him a business card, and the patrolman nods and looks back down at the paper.  Clearly there is some disbelief because he probably didn't get how another black face, like his, was able to do something of this nature.  To him, I just another kurai-hito, a dark person. 

He finishes reading the papers and then stamps them.  He slides them back to me and then reclines back in his chair. 

"Welcome back to Tsuki City."  He drones robotically.  I tip my hat to him and walk through the gates.   About half a mile up the cobble road I chuckle to myself and look at my papers.  Shiro you are one slick nigga.  I think to myself as I slip the papers into my breast pocket of my coat.  I wasn't on no damn business trip.  I was there to murder an infamous crime boss in the area.  I only use the veil business line to cover my bases.  I'm not a salesmen I am a trained assassin.  The only people that know that are me and the people I work with.  Even ol' girl doesn't know shit about what I do outside of the four walls of our house, and to be honest, I plan to keep it that way.

As I walk through the busy and bustling streets of Biyou district, I thought about my childhood. I wasn't your typical black child. I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I sure the hell did not grow up in the hood. My parents, pops being from the North part of the city, and my mother being from the hood, tried to raise their four children in the best environment they could provide.  We live in a nice-sized house with a nice-ass bathhouse and a dog. Pops owned a small fish business while my mother was an apothecary. They taught us to love school and success along with self worth and stability.  I went to school with all the  fake-ass rich kids, the ones that thought they were making it better than all the rest but they really weren't. They were just fortunate and blessed. As was I. At the time I couldn't relate to them and I decided that I wanted to connect with my hood roots. My mother never allowed us to visit this area. However, as the second youngest son, it was my duty to uphold my role as the rebellious child. My ass was running with hood boys from the end of school to close to nightfall. We would wrestle, run up and down blocks and buy three yills' worth of onegeri. Yeah, that was the life, and I wanted to explore every part of it. When I was in junior high school  I decided to join a street gang. Shin da Rootasu was the name. Us boys, who once thought the world was at our feet as we munched onegiri faded into a darker image of pre-manhood featuring boys that thought they were hot niggas.  We thought we knew everything until we joined SDR.  That petty street shit that we were doing as kids didn't even compare.  From joining the group I got my first real taste of life.  From weed to women and even petty theft, you name it I saw it.  Ten years and a few close run-ins with the law later, here I am as a hired assassin, freelance if you will, from city to city killing wanted niggas left and right, leaving no trace behind.  I know you must think my parents are disappointed in my lifestyle, and to tell you the truth they don't even know.  Shit, no one but my employers, Kami and myself know this, and I intend to keep it that way.