Science Ninja Team Gatchaman - Part 1 Chapter 1 by Translations by Ainikki / Anime Blog Tracker

Science Ninja Team Gatchaman - Part 1 Chapter 1

.post p { margin:0 0 .75em; line-height:1.75em; text-indent:1.5em; } Science Ninja Team Gatchaman Written by Toriumi Jinzō Illustrated by Ōtori Workshop Part 1: Joe Asakura, God of DeathChapter 1 “Mom, dad… what happened?” Joe asked. A horrific tragedy had befallen his family ten years before. Standing before the graves of his parents, old memories pressed to the fore of his mind. He hadn’t forgotten what had happened, at least not entirely, but the memories were more vivid now that he had returned to the place where he’d grown up.Joe’s father, Giuseppe, had been a pastor. They’d lived in a church that overlooked a botanical garden in the town. Joe’s room was in the attic. When he was eight years old, four men broke into the church in the middle of the night and shot his parents dead.Joe witnessed the attack from the top of the stairs. He was so terrified that he fled across the roof and jumped down. He kept running all the way to the beach, sensing pursuers behind him. The next morning, Joe was discovered by police, shivering and making himself small inside a fishing boat close to the shore. To this day, his parents’ murderers were at large. No one had ever identified or caught them.All of this had happened in Sicily, Italy. At the time of the attack, the region was a melting pot of many races and cultures, though not all of these groups got along. The Mafia had its origin in Sicily. The term Mafia is now so well-known that it is essentially synonymous with organized crime. Complex racial relations were linked to the Mafia as well as criminal enterprises. Organized crime was nothing new in the world, but the Mafia operated on a grand scale. They used high-performance computers and sophisticated technology to administrate their operations and avoid the notice of law enforcement. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, and murder were just business, but the Mafia didn’t stop there. They were on the cutting edge of utilizing and developing technology that could be used to support a life of crime. Murder and other crimes became commonplace, and local law enforcement were at a loss. The Mafia colluded with politicians, making their prosecution even less likely.The rapid development of science and technology in the second half of the twentieth century encouraged criminal organizations to innovate in creatively cruel ways. Cooperation is a positive human trait, but the Mafia used their people to work against the common good of humanity.Although it was never proven, Joe was convinced that his parents had been murdered by the Mafia. He had no idea why. Nothing was missing from the church after the attack, so the motive wasn’t material gain. It was clear that his parents’ attackers had intended to murder them.The senseless deaths of his mother and father weighed heavily on Joe as he stood before their graves. They weighed on him at all times, but the feeling was so much worse when he faced their tombstones, cold and silent.***The city was quieter at night. Old Baroque buildings loomed overhead, half-lit and seeming half-alive in the shadows. It was before ten o’clock, but few people were out at this time. This was a dangerous area. The occasional car headlights that Joe saw belonged to police cars. He saw a trooper sitting an intersection holding a semi-automatic machine gun.Joe turned onto an avenue lined with plane trees. In the bright light of day, the street would be swarmed with people going to the many boutiques and high-end shops. The rows of shops were all closed: their lights were off and their doors were shut and locked.Joe turned onto a side street close to a Muslim temple that led to a public park. Trees grew thickly along the street; the overgrowth spilled into Joe’s path, narrowing the area where he could put his feet. This was a shortcut to his hotel.The parks were lit at night. Insects swarmed around the electric lights overhead. It was a warm evening, though the breeze was pleasantly cool. The number of sirocco winds (hot, dry wind storms originating from the Sahara Desert) had been increasing in recent years. Global air pollution was the cause of that.Joe walked along a path that wound around flower beds as he headed back to a main road. He stopped mid-step, listening hard. He sensed something.The insects flew around the streetlamps, undisturbed.But Joe sensed something. He was sure of it. He’d sensed many strange things of late. The sensation was like a premonition of coming horror. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his palms sweated onto his jeans.These feelings were never false. They were always a warning.The prickly pear cactus in front of Joe shook. At first, Joe thought that the wind caused this change. He took a step back when a huge man emerged from behind the cactus.Joe stared, waiting.The man approached Joe without a word. He was tall and muscular. His face was concealed by a black mask.Joe’s teeth set; he was more on edge than the last time he’d gone to New York City, where violence in the streets at night was commonplace.The man’s stance was confident and aggressive. He wanted a fight.Before Joe could react, the big man shoved him hard, sending him sprawling onto the cobblestone path. This was a modified judo move.Joe looked up, dazed. “Look, dude, I think you’ve got the wrong guy.” He grumbled under his breath. He didn’t think of himself as a particularly violent man, but he’d been in his fair share of fights before. This was the first time he’d been so thoroughly embarrassed within the first few seconds of an encounter like this. He hadn’t even had time to dodge. It was clear at a glance that the big man was a much more experienced fighter.The man didn’t attack again, nor did he say anything. He stood there, still and quiet, waiting for Joe to get back up.So much for Joe’s hope that he’d been mistaken for someone else. He was sitting half inside a street light’s wide circle of light; the big man could certainly see his face now and would know if he’d attacked the wrong person.Joe made a show of standing up, then tackled the big man’s leg. As the big man fell, Joe kicked him hard in the gut.The big man grunted in pain, but swiftly moved to defend himself. He and Joe traded a few blows back and forth.Joe grinned fiercely. This was a much more even fight. All he’d needed to do was seize his opportunity.Unfortunately, Joe’s advantage didn’t last.The big man jumped to his feet at great speed. Joe braced himself for the next hit, but it didn’t come. The big man was looking behind him.When Joe glanced behind him, keeping one eye on the big man, he noticed that two other men were watching them with the same inscrutable expression. They stood to either side of Joe, one to the left and one to the right, with knives shining in each hand.Joe frowned. The one-on-one fight had turned into a three-on-one fight. He didn’t like those odds. These men are going to kill me. They’re going to try, at least…The two men with knives slowly advanced. One was tall, the other short and thickset. Joe noticed at a glance that they were trained, at least somewhat: all three of his attackers were in good physical shape. He guessed that they were proficient in martial arts like judo, wrestling or boxing.Being stabbed to death was a slow and painful way to go, but men who knew how to use knives would manage to kill him without much trouble. Joe was unarmed.The three men remained silent. The big man blocked Joe’s escape route. The other two attacked Joe at the same time from opposite directions. Joe managed to catch the tall man’s knife before it could stab him, but the shorter man’s knife struck to and sank into his left side under his ribs.“Ugh…”Joe knew these men were here to murder him, but until this moment, he hadn’t believed that he would truly die. His wound radiated pain and heat through his whole body as a second knife slashed into his right shoulder. His white shirt was dyed red by his own blood.The big man grabbed Joe around the shoulders as he fell and punched him in the head. Joe spat blood from his mouth into the man’s face. He was hurt badly, but still conscious. Better than that: he was wide awake, focused, and determined to fight until his last breath.“I can’t die… I can’t die.” He’d had many premonitions of his death during races, but he’d never felt such an intense attachment to life as now. He hadn’t known this kind of fighting spirit was in him until he was looking death in the eye.With his body weakened and his mind sharpened, Joe transcended himself, landing a powerful kick directly to the big man’s groin. There was a howl like the cry of a dying animal, and then Joe was falling away as his attacker fell backward.Joe bent himself forward so that he wouldn’t lose his balance completely. One of the knife-wielders tripped over his half-bent body and went sprawling to the ground with a heavy thud. Joe, covered in blood, managed to hold himself upright. There was a manic gleam in his eyes.The fallen knife-wielder recovered and joined his comrade. Joe faced them down, feeling stronger than he’d ever been in his life. The knife-wielders attacked together and separately. Despite Joe’s will to survive, he couldn’t block all their slashes and lunges. He fought on his feet, then crawling, always rising one more time as his attackers wore him down.Like a mouse at the mercy of two predatory cats, Joe fell one last time, huddled into himself and played dead. The two knife-wielders stood over him, hesitating.Joe let out a heavy breath and started to stand up again. One more try. The men stepped back and got ready.And then an engine revved, loud like a sudden explosion. Joe jerked toward the sound and nearly fell again. His attackers were similarly startled.The screech of tires stopping too fast on stone accompanied the appearance of a sleek motorcycle. Joe’s attackers made no attempt to avoid the motorcycle’s lights. They stood there staring at the motorcycle, transfixed.The motorcycle didn’t slow down. Joe’s attackers collected themselves enough to jump out of the way of a moving vehicle, but their reactions were too slow. The squat man narrowly dodged being hit and managed to slam his taller companion directly into the motorcycle’s path.The tall man screamed and fell to the ground.The motorcycle passed them on the path and turned around. The driver was revealed in the illumination of the streetlamp. She was young and slim-built, with long dark hair flowing down past her shoulders beneath her helmet. Her off-white sweater and short gray skirt blended in with the matte gray of the motorcycle’s exterior. Her features were East Asian: Japanese or Korean perhaps.As the young woman came into clear view under the streetlamp, Joe’s attackers exchanged amused glances. They stood in her path, ready to intercept the oncoming motorcycle. The young woman flushed red as she charged forward on her motorcycle, coming to a screeching halt before the men. Her control of the motorcycle was perfect as she half-rose from her seat and kicked the taller attacker in the jaw with one long leg.“Ei!” She cried out as her leg connected with the man’s jaw to make her strike stronger. Her skirt lifted briefly, revealing her white undergarments.That was all Joe saw before everything faded to black.

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