{"id":251180,"date":"2026-07-13T01:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T22:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/100-gates-pd-kalnay\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T01:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T22:04:22","slug":"100-gates-pd-kalnay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/100-gates-pd-kalnay\/","title":{"rendered":"100 Gates – PD Kalnay"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Is she\u2026 well?\u201d \u201cShe was flown to Kenoshiro. She is not well.\u201d \u201cWhere are Akihiko and Kimiko?\u201d Matt asked. \u201cThey were ordered back to Yarinoshiro, by their grandmother. Akihiko asked me to protect you until you woke. He sent Aoi Sato home.\u201d \u201cWhy?\u201d \u201cShe will last longest there.\u201d Matt stared at his lap wishing he could ask more complex questions? \u201cI wish you spoke English,\u201d he told his lap more than Hattori-san.<\/p>\n

\u201cI speak English,\u201d Hattori-san said with a hint of an English accent. \u201cI watched over my mistress for eight years in London.\u201d That raised a host of other questions that Matt ignored. He had bigger worries. \u201cWhy will Aoi last longest in Kenoshiro? Why isn\u2019t she in a hospital?\u201d \u201cThere is nothing medicine can do. Her spirit has been stolen. What you might call her soul although I don\u2019t know if they are the same.<\/p>\n

Only the body remains. It will live longest in Kenoshiro because that is her home, the place she is strongest. Sending her there allows her family an opportunity to say goodbye.\u201d It was all impossible. Matt wanted to say it was a bunch of superstitious nonsense and tell him that she needed real medical attention. The words wouldn\u2019t come out. \u201cWhere is her spirit now?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, but\u2026\u201d The old man frowned. \u201cBut?\u201d \u201cIt is likely in Yomi, where the eight thunders reside. It may have already been\u2026 consumed.\u201d He remembered Kimiko saying something about thunder before he passed out. \u201cWhat was that giant thunder monster thing?\u201d \u201cA god\u2014or a part of one. Even a piece of an old god is powerful. What you saw was only its shadow, split off and sent out as a servant. There\u2019s nothing you can do for Aoi Sato, except remember her sacrifice.\u201d \u201cA spirit can\u2019t return to its body?\u201d<\/p>\n

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine, or journal. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental. 1kitap1.com\/en PART 1 \u2013 TOKYO 1kitap1.com\/en A 1 rusty Chevy Suburban bounced along a rough, winding mountain road.<\/p>\n

The tailpipe spewed steam and a blue-black haze of burnt-oil smoke. Hank Minamoto kept the old truck out of nostalgia, a deep-seated love of cargo capacity, and because it handled well in the snow. Gas mileage was another story. It might have been cheaper for the three of them to fly. Jenny wanted to take her little Mercedes, and he\u2019d have gone for that, but the damn thing was in the shop again. For the price\u2026 her car should never break down.<\/p>\n

The truck rattled like a spaceship on reentry as it crested a pothole, doing sixty. Hank squinted at the road ahead. High beams illuminated short, curving stretches of asphalt and the closest trees, but left the surrounding forest shrouded in mystery. Moonlight glinted dully on a guardrail that slithered across the mountain\u2019s slope like a galvanized boa constrictor\u2014 intent on strangling the peak. They\u2019d driven for hours since leaving the tournament in Boulder, without a word spoken. The truck\u2019s radio finally died, a week back, making the stereo a sarcophagus for the cassette tape jammed inside for the last twelve years.<\/p>\n

It was Bruce Springsteen\u2019s Born in the USA, and silence was preferable to listening to Side B for the millionth time. The only sounds were the hum of tires on pitted asphalt and air whistling through a window, cracked in a vain attempt at drawing out the stench of sweaty teenager. Matt\u2019s final match put a damper on what Hank had pictured as a pleasant family road trip.<\/p>\n

He decided it was past time to upgrade the truck\u2019s sound system and that Matt had sulked for long enough. Hank leaned over and glanced up into the rear-view mirror. He filled half of it before finding his son. Except for coarse black hair, buzzed down to stubble, dark brown eyes, and eyelids that earned him the nickname Chink Eyes in elementary school, Hank exhibited no features marking his Japanese heritage.<\/p>\n

Matt\u2019s round, blue eyes stared sullenly back. \u201cYou lost focus at the end,\u201d Hank told him. \u201cSecond place is still something to be proud of,\u201d Jenny said. \u201cIt was an open tournament, and Matt was the youngest in his weight class.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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