Showcase: Sunburst

A Star Reborn

by CSyphrett

Takeo Soto took flight over his city. He had been out of action for so long. It felt good to be in the air again. He had missed his alter ego.

He had missed being Sunburst.

Like Tokyo, he had repaired himself since the Crisis was ready to again defend the shores of Japan from any threat.

Sunburst flew over where he had been buried swiftly. He needed no reminders of his recent death. Someone waved at him as he rushed by. He waved back at the well-wisher as he turned and headed towards the bay.

Plenty of ships and smaller boats moved through the busy sea lanes as he swept down over the water. He gave them a once-over before turning back to land. He had other places to visit on this first flight back from the dead.

Afterwards he would check on his friends and family.

What little of those he possessed.

Takeo Soto’s first flight was witnessed by millions, but only one thought of it as a hindrance. He aimed his boat for open water, following a course provided by guess work and surmise.

He aimed for a spot in the ocean away from the sea lanes and dropped anchor. His charts of the prevailing current gave him a curling line to search for his prize. He donned his air tanks, watching the energy trail fade over the city. Then, he fell backwards over the side of his boat and headed for the bottom of the ocean.

The diver headed for the sea bed just outside Tokyo Bay. He searched until he almost ran out of air. Then he headed for the surface and switched the tanks. He drifted down to the ocean bottom again.

Finally, he spotted what he was looking for being gently pushed by the current. He was several miles from his starting point, happy to have found it at all He played the beam from his light on it. He smiled behind his mask.

He placed a marker balloon and watched it drift up to the surface. Then he swam back to his boat and sailed it to where the balloon bobbed on its anchor. He began to refill his tanks before starting the next phase of his operation.

He mused on the return of Sunburst as he prepared a small meal to mark the end of his working day.

***

Takeo Soto landed outside of the city. He felt tired from his flight. Of course, he had only been back from the dead a few hours. He hadn’t even looked for a place to live yet.

Being dead puts a crimp on your financial resources, he thought. At least he had some cash he had hidden under his house. That would carry him over for a while until he got back on his feet again.

He wondered why he had been brought back. He had never returned from the dead before. Maybe he should talk to a priest.

Later.

First, he had to get his money and then find a place to live. He doubted he could just reclaim his holdings, since he had probably been declared dead, and the contents of his will acted upon. Besides, he felt challenged by this turn of events.

It meant he was really alive.

***

The diver waited for night before trying to recover the treasure he sought. He left the lights of his boat on to ward off any passersby while he was diving. This close to success he didn’t need to risk a wreck before he was done.

He donned his swimsuit and reloaded air tanks. He went over the side, dropping a cable attached to a winch first. He followed the steel rope to the bottom, looking for the glowing cord that marked the treasure he had located earlier.

He attached the cable to the rusted box. He made sure the handles would hold when he cut the winch on. He swam upward, his boat glowing against the surface of the Pacific.

He was minutes away from his dream.

He could hardly believe it.

He climbed the boarding ladder of his boat. One lever pull recalled the cable and his treasure chest. He stripped off his tanks and kept a watch to make sure the cable would not catch on anything as it ascended.

Finally, the cable brought the box out of the water, suspending it in the air. He swung the rust and barnacle covered thing over his deck. Then, he gently lowered it to the wood. He unbound the cable and wound it all the way around its spindle.

He went below deck to change clothes and gather a sword stand and a hammer. He came back, placing the sword stand beside the locked chest. He hefted the light hammer in his hand, before bringing it down on the lock. The metal sprang apart in an instant; the lid popped open in reaction.

He smiled.

His prize gleamed in the moonlight, reflecting it in a dazzling array of rainbows.

***

A man dressed in white sat at his desk, scratching the spot behind his cat’s ears absently. He frowned as he watched the events unfold in Tokyo. Perhaps he should have chosen another path to accomplish the task set before him.

The cat rumbled at him.

“I know,” said the man quietly. “Too late for misgivings now. We have rolled the dice. Hopefully we won’t crap out.”

The cat nodded as if it understood its human. Perhaps it did because it lay in front of the burning wood in the fireplace, mumbling to itself.

“I know,” said Baron Winters quietly.

***

Takeo Soto walked the streets of Tokyo, people watching as he went. He had gotten a change of clothes and his mad money out of storage, all of which made him feel better. His weakness had faded as he stopped using his powers and rested.

He wondered about that.

He had never needed to recharge when he was alive.

Being dead had new rules of existence.

At least he felt alive.

A small tremor shook the street. The people on the street went about their business. A small earthquake was nothing to worry about if no damage had been done to the buildings that littered the skyline of the city.

A tsunami might be in the cards, but a warning would be given long before it hit the shoreline.

***

He sailed his boat into Tokyo Bay. He had placed his new treasures on its stand. He had an urge to hold them in his arms. He fought that down.

It wasn’t time yet to allow unseen feelings to wash over him.

He needed to go ashore and take the swords where they had been forged. That was the first part of the ritual. He had to get there before the sun rose over the horizon.

Then, he would have to dip the blades in the elements to ensure their allegiance. His family would learn the price of their contempt and folly.

It had taken years, but now he was within reach of his goal.

***

Takeo Soto found a hotel that rented lockers to sleep in for little money. He rented a space to sleep for the night and went to bed.

The locker reminded him of a Western coffin, but he kept that thought to himself as closed the small door and locked himself inside.

Tomorrow, he would get tested and see if he had really returned to the living, or if he was suffering from some kind of pretense.

That would help him decide what to do with his second chance.

If he was really alive, maybe he could take this time to enjoy life a little more and worry less.

***

He had made use of public transportation to cross the massive urban area that was Tokyo. He was able to catch a train into the mountainous central region of the island. He got off the train and headed inland on a rented bicycle.

The twin swords weighed on him in the bag he had hidden them in. The bag had rested on his back most of the trip from the city and grew heavier the further he went.

He climbed the mountain minutes ahead of the dawn. Before the sun reached his vantage point, he prepared his necessary ingredients.

His family had said he had no talent but to shame them in every way. They would change their minds when he came into his power.

These swords would help him accomplish his goals. People would fear and respect him at last. He would forge a new shogunate, and all would bow before him.

These swords would assure that.

They were his destiny.

As the sun rose over the horizon and the first rays crept towards his place on the mountain near a bubbling stream of water, he had built a fire in the ancient and decrepit forge. He readied himself for the next steps he must do.

The sun touched the dark blades, casting a torrent of rainbows in the air.

First, he heated the matched blades until they were red hot. Then, he cooled them in the babbling brook, creating a cloud of steam. Two passes through the air to wave the cloud away. Then, he thrust both swords through a small plate with metal on the top and wood on the bottom. The points dug into the earth.

A tremor erupted from the buried swords, shaking the land for a mile in every direction.

He smiled. He had succeeded in his foolish quest. The power of the blades were his. Next, he would humble all those who had spat upon him in the past, avenging the wrongs done him.

He grabbed the hilts of the swords to pull them free of the plate. Dark lightning ran up his arms and throughout his body. He held on for too long, unable to release his grip.

He was not the swords’ master.

They were his.

***

Takeo Soto shifted in coffin-like cell. He pushed the door open and crawled out. He felt the sun shining, renewing his energy.

He quickly realized that another tremor had awakened him. He rubbed the cobwebs from his eyes as he left the hotel.

He walked along, glad that none of the nearby buildings had suffered damage in this second quake.

Maybe a flight would cure the twinges I feel, Soto thought.

Decision made, he walked to where he had left his clothes. He would change and do a fly over the city to see if he was needed anywhere.

***

The shadow swordsman lifted his weapons, spinning them in circles to get the feel of them with a human body again.

It had been many years since he had possessed a body, even one as paltry as the one he wore now.

He shifted his weight slightly from one foot to the next to learn how to balance and move with the new resources at his disposal.

He sliced the air, spilling blackness from the torn reality. The stream fell on the grass, killing it instantly. The pool spread gently as the black ooze slowed its rain from the closing rent. A patch of blackness remained where the substance had fallen.

The swordsman laughed silently.

Time to begin.

***

Sunburst glided in the upper air, using thermal winds to glide so that he could conserve his energy. The morning sunshine wrapped around him, filling him up with fuel.

Maybe he didn’t need to eat in this changed state.

A stream of black ooze erupted on a rooftop to his right. He turned, attracted to the strangeness of it. A man in black robes stepped from a hole in the air. He sliced an x in the sky. A river of blackness dropped toward the street below. People began to run, trying to get out of the way of the falling semi-liquid.

Sunburst ignited his power, diving towards the street. He rolled, pointing his hands at the stream of repulsive ooze. Twin beams of light directed solar heat on the black blood of the universe. It boiled away as the resurrected hero tried to catch all of the falling stuff in his beams.

His beams flickered out of existence as the rip in the sky finished closing. He had used all of his solar power in one display of power fighting the darkness. It was all he could do not to fall back into his grave from the height he floated at.

He slowly floated up to the roof top, on guard against the threat he perceived his enemy to be.

“I see you have used yourself up,” said the master of darkness. “That is too bad since I can rip the sky as many times as I want, as often as I want.

“Your city is doomed, hero. You can watch as I slowly destroy it.”

Sunburst landed on the roof. He tried to keep his breathing even as he walked towards the swordsman. He held out his hand calmly.

“I think you have done enough damage for the day,” the hero said. “Surrender your weapons, and I will ask the magistrate to be merciful in your sentencing.”

The swordsman laughed with mirth.

“Take them, if you can,” he said, sheathing them at his hip and falling into the classic karate stance.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sunburst asked, dropping his hand. He had learned some basic self defense over the years but was not an expert.

The swordsman advanced, throwing a simple punch. Sunburst blocked it, finding himself forced back from the blow. The hero tried a counter punch. His fist landed in the palm of the other man’s hand. Before he could draw it back, the man in black was squeezing his fist in a steely grip of his own.

“Surrender, weakling,” demanded the swordsman.

Sunburst punched with the other hand. His fist collided with the other man’s parrying arm. The punch slid off and to the right before the hero could recover. The swordsman backhanded him before he could bring his own arm back to defend himself.

“You’re pathetic,” said the villain. “A woman fights with more will than this.”

Sunburst concentrated his remaining reserves of energy into his captured hand. He had enough for one blast of energy. He closed his eyes and fired. He didn’t know which one of them cried out louder, but he was free.

He flexed his hand as his enemy tried to stem the flow of blood from his own.

Sunburst wished he had enough for one more blast as he fell on top of the swordsman before he could draw his weapons. He began to pummel the man while he was in shock from his destroyed hand. He collapsed beside the man, all of his energy gone in an instant from the exertion.

***

“Is it done, Baron?” asked a young Oriental woman as she was ushered over the threshold of Wintersgate.

“Your brother has been stopped,” said the man in white, leaning on his walking stick. “You can return to your home without fear.”

“The swords of Morimoto?” she asked.

“Your police have them as evidence of wrongdoing,” said the Baron. “They also have your brother and are holding him for trial.”

“Your agent was supposed to kill him,” gritted the young woman.

“My agent was supposed to stop him, which is what has been done,” said the Baron, coldly. “Anything else is up to you. Have a nice flight home.”