Samurai by Jason Hightman

body. He was a man who put people at ease as soon as they met him. He always had candy for the children, a firm handshake for the men, and a warm smile for the women.
    He was a plastic surgeon.
    He was terrible at his work. He could be counted on to make awful mistakes, slashes and slips and slices and slivers, but no one ever sued him or stopped him from practicing medicine. No matter how much he fouled up people’s faces and bodies with his wretched surgeries, the patient always left feeling sad, but satisfied; miserable, but calm; and almost no one ever complained.
    If they did—if they were strong enough to resisthis enchantments—they were eliminated by the doctor’s “associates,” cruel men and women who were skilled at painful assassinations. Not quick. Not clean. But painful.
    His medical practice had begun many years ago when he realized he could treat burn victims who had been harmed in his fires, and could take even more joy from their suffering.
    Dr. Najikko, as he styled himself, was not content with the agonies he could create in just one hospital. He was the head of a massive medical corporation called Murdikai, which operated hospitals in twenty-seven countries, most of them in Asia. In these hospitals, death rates were extraordinarily high. People checked in complaining of a sore throat and a cough, nothing serious, really—and they were never heard from again.
    Their organs were heard from again, however. Dr. Najikko extracted from dying patients their hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys, and so on, to secretly sell to people who needed transplants. He would sell the organs and make huge sums of money, and then the people who received the transplants usually died anyway.
    Dr. Najikko, the Serpent of Japan, had no fondness for humans.
    One day, a long time ago, a human had attackedNajikko and badly injured his leg. It was injured so badly, in fact, that he did not have a leg; he now has a golden artificial leg attached to his body. You could see it only when he was in his Dragon form; otherwise, he looked like a normal man, unspoiled, handsome. The injury, however, was a constant reminder of the dangers of human beings, and when he felt anger rise in him, the gold-plated leg would glow with the heat of fire beneath it.
    For Najikko, the best part about being a doctor was the ability to cause injuries like his own.
    He considered the false leg to be his only blemish. His Serpent body was gold-silver, and armored like a rhinoceros, with a black pattern on it that looked like randomly scribbled biohazard signs spread all over his skin. His Dragon head was small and sharp, with horns at the top, a twisted fist of spikes he often made use of.
    Najikko lived in Tokyo, in a penthouse above a hospital, so that the pain of the sick and dying would always be there, close by, to give him strength. Except for a parlor to receive guests, his house was not really a house at all, but a series of enchanted operating rooms that were in use. His chairs and couches and appliances and such were placed nearby operating tables, while ancient medical instruments—hooks and syringes, axes and saws—decorated the rooms.Paintings of medical procedures were carefully placed on the walls, to bring a feeling of serenity and quiet happiness to him any time he looked upon them.
    As he wandered alone from room to room, his tail sliding behind him, he could hear the low moaning and pleading of some of his patients, who were supposed to be in real operating rooms, but who instead had been secretly brought up here for a brief stay by the hospital staff who directly served the good doctor.
    As he casually picked up his tea from the sterile steel kitchen, Najikko clicked a button, and one male patient (in his forties, nonsmoker, businessman, complaining of troubled breathing) was given far too much medicine, and quickly passed away.
    He pulled back from the sense of joy that flooded him. Equilibrium always. That was the key. Mustn’t allow