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The ancient saber was showing signs of wear too. Its edge was no match for the fine steel of the Japanese katana. The tarnished old blade was deeply nicked in fifty places, and Pitt knew that one solid blow on the flat side could very well break it in two.
Kamatori amazingly showed no hint of weariness. His eyes seemed glazed with bloodlust, and the power behind his strokes was as strong now as at the beginning of the duel. It was only a matter of another minute or two before he would wear Pitt down and cut away his life with the proud sword of Japan.
Pitt leaped backward for a quick breather to take stock as Kamatori paused to catch Stacy's movements out of the corner of his eye. She stood suspiciously still with her hands behind her back. The Japanese sensed something and moved toward her, but Pitt advanced again, stretching forward on one knee with a rapid thrust that caught the katana and slid down the hilt, the saber's tip just fanning the knuckles of Kamatori's forward hand.
Pitt suddenly changed tactics and pressed forward, seeing an opportunity that he had missed. Unlike the shorter hilt of the old dueling saber, with its shell enclosing the hand, Kamatori's katana had only a small round guard at the base of the longer hilt. Pitt began aiming his thrusts, using a wrist-snapping circular motion. Feinting toward his assailant's midsection during a lunge, Pitt flicked the tip of the blade to the left and caught Kamatori's hand during a vicious upswing, slicing fingers to the bone.
Incredibly, Kamatori simply cursed in Japanese and came on again, blood spraying whenever he whipped his sword. If he felt the cold grip of defeat in his gut, he didn't show it. Immune to pain and injury by his immersion into his kiai, he resumed the attack like a madman.
Then his head snapped back and to one side as a steel object struck him in the right eye. With unerring aim, Stacy had thrown the lock that had fastened her chains. Pitt snatched the moment and lunged, ramming the point of his saber into his opponent's rib cage and puncturing a lung.
Kamatori faltered momentarily and insanely continued to fight. He moved against Pitt, shouting with each stroke as blood began to foam from his mouth. But his speed and power were diminished, and Pitt had no problem fending off the weakened cuts.
Pitt's next thrust laid open Kamatori's right biceps. Only then did the highly burnished steel of the katana waver and droop.
Pitt stepped in and swung the saber as hard as his strength would allow, knocking the katana free of Kamatori's hand. The blade clattered to the floor, and Stacy snapped it up.
He kept the saber pointed at Kamatori and stared at him. "You lose," Pitt said with controlled courtesy.
It was not in Kamatori's samurai bones to acknowledge surrender so long as he still stood on his feet.
His face underwent a curious change. The mask of hatred and ferocity melted away and his eyes assumed an inward look.
He said, "A samurai takes no honor in defeat. You can cut out a dragon's tooth, but he grows a thousand more." Then he snatched the long knife from its sheath and leaped at Pitt.
Pitt, though weak and panting for breath, easily stepped aside and parried the slashing knife. He swung the faithful old saber for the last time and severed Kamatori's hand at the wrist.
Shock flooded Kamatori's face, the shock of disbelief, then pain, then the full realization that for the first time in his life he had been subdued by an opponent and was going to die. He stood and glowered at Pitt, his dark eyes filled with uncontrolled rage, the empty wrist hanging by his side, blood streaming to the floor.
"I have dishonored my ancestors. You will please allow me to save face by committing seppuku."
Pitt's eyes half closed in curiosity. He looked at Mancuso.
"Seppuku?"
"The accepted and more stylish Japanese term for what we crudely call hara-kiri, which actually translates as belly cutting. He wants you to let him have àhappy dispatch.' "
"I see," Pitt said, a tired but maddened understanding in his voice. "I see indeed, but it's not going to happen. He's not going to get his way. Not with his own hand. Not after all the people he's murdered in cold blood."
"My dishonor at having been defeated by a foreigner must be expunged by offering up my life,"
Kamatori muttered through clenched teeth, the mesmeric force of kiai quickly fading.
"His friends and family will rejoice," explained Mancuso. "Honor to him is everything. He considers dying by his own hand beautiful and looks forward to it."
"God, this is sickening," murmured Stacy disgustedly as she stared at Kamatori's hand on the floor.
"Tie and gag him. Let's finish our job and get out of here."
"You're going to die, but not as you hope," said Pitt, staring at the defiant face darkened in hate, the lips drawn back like a dog baring its teeth. But Pitt caught a slight look of fear in the dark eyes, not a fear of dying, but a fear of not joining his ancestors in the prescribed manner of honored tradition.
Before anyone knew what Pitt was about to do, he grabbed Kamatori by the good arm and dragged the samurai into the study containing the antique arms and the gruesome collection of mounted human heads. Carefully, as if he was aligning a painting, he positioned Kamatori and rammed the saber blade through the lower groin, pinning him upright to the wall beneath the heads of his victims.
Kamatori's eyes were filled with unbelief and the fear of a miserable and shameful end. The pain was there too.
Pitt knew he was looking at a near corpse and got in the last word before the eyes went sightless in death.
"No divine passing for a killer of the helpless. Join your prey and be damned."
