He saw the blow tube still gripped between her teeth, noted with sorrow that the tiny steel shuriken had not been launched. On the other hand, her ferocious expression, not unlike a tigress about to strike its prey, filled him with satisfaction. She had died a warrior's death."That bastard Hitasura.''Still, he did not like losing a member of his family, especially one as valuable as Fukuda had been.The rumble of the subway trains in adjacent tunnels filled the flickering semidarkness, building to crescendos, then dying away in echoes."That bastard Hitasura came in here with his troops and did this."Koi, the hard machine who had once been Honno Kansei, knelt by his side. Her fingers touched the crepuscular flesh of Fukuda's cheek. ''Hitasura's men didn't do this.'' Her voice was cool, detached. "Before she was shot, she went one on one with someone. Someone better than she was.""Tori Nunn." Big Ezoe spit out the name. "That's why, at the first sign of the trap, Hitasura escaped the Kinji-to to get his men.
