The fat man mumbled something incoherent, throwing his head back he felt something heavy drop nearby with an unnaturally dull thud.
Those were his last words, and the last sound was a terrible, wet crunch that of his own spine, snapped by Saigo, who had slammed into him feet-first.
Stringbean, stunned, let go of her hands. He released Daya and lunged for his short sword, but Saigo was already upon him.
Not a punch a piston-shot of an elbow under the jaw, through the mail coif.
CRACK!
Stringbean folded in half, blood gushing from his mouth in a fountain. He crashed onto his back, instinctively raising his dazed gaze and saw only the sole of a boot blotting out the sky.
CRUNCH!
The skull cracked like fragile eggshell. The soldier's body dropped like a scythed haystack.
Daya lay on her back, unable to move. The girl was in shock, but it was too early to relax the sound of the fight was already drawing the footsteps of patrols.
Saigo sharply turned to her. He repeated the gesture he'd shown her before a finger to his lips, the sign for silence.
Daya couldn't even nod; the investigator's words raced through her head: "If you learn anything... an imperial reward... it will be very, very large..." But this one... he had saved her.
Betray him? She couldn't... but her family…
He melted around the corner a couple of seconds before guards poured out of the darkness.
"Where?!" the sergeant barked, his eyes scanning the corpses on the ground.
With tears in her eyes and a trembling finger, Daya pointed into the alley where Saigo had just vanished.
"He's here!" a guard screamed, his voice cracking. "Alarm!"
…
Central HQ:
The routine hum of operational work ceased in an instant. The door to the strategy room was blown open with a crash a messenger burst in, his face alight with alarm and awe.
"The Cotto killer, northeast! He's heading for the wall!" the messenger reported, dropping to his knees, trying to catch his breath… Silence hit his ears; he fearfully raised his head and immediately met the gaze of Marcus, whose mouth was stretched in a wolfish grin.
"Gather all available units. This farce is finally over. And remember, boys, we take him alive. Only alive."
…
Saigo ran for all he was worth. The streets wove into an endless, hostile maze.
He tore through the distance with desperate bursts of speed, but couldn't shake them. Here and there, new figures leaped from alleys.
WHOOSH!
A halberd shaft whistled a centimeter over his head, embedding itself in the rotten wall of a shack.
BAM!
A counter mid-kick precise as a shot dropped the attacker stone cold. "Damn, probably broke his ribs."
Scrambling onto a sloping roof, he found more waiting on the other side; he vaulted to the next one, flying over three guards in the jump. They only had time to duck, and he was already behind them.
"Get him!"
"He won't get away!"
He surged forward again, lungs burning, but his body worked on its own; his thoughts were elsewhere.
Did he regret saving the girl? No. Though he was now paying for that generosity in full with his potential freedom, maybe even his life.
"Stop, kid!" someone yelled from behind. "The Empress! She wants to... make you emperor! Stop, you blockhead!"
Saigo didn't even blink; he wasn't buying such nonsense, it only angered him further.
WHOOSH! A secret police officer with a club, who had jumped out from around a corner at a most inopportune time, was grabbed by the wrist; a lightning-fast throw over the shoulder, and he was lying in a puddle, incidentally tripping up two pursuers.
"Hold him!"
A hulking brute latched onto his tail, breaking from behind his comrades. A powerful swing with a two-hander... but flat-sided! Saigo noticed…
"They want me alive." That thought didn't make him feel better or worse.
BAM!
The blow whistled past his temple. "Damn, close!" Another emerged from behind a tent. Saigo spotted him by his shadow—and hurdled over him, using a nearby crate as a springboard.
The ambusher crashed into his brute comrade, knocking him down, and Saigo ran on, tirelessly searching for a gap, an opening... anything, but the street was rapidly turning into a branch of the city square on market day.
WHOOSH!
A club a blunt strike to the crown of his head; the opponent had cleverly caught the moment, striking from behind a pile of garbage. The wood cracked, splintering.
Blood trickled hotly down his face.
BAM! A counter-punch to the jaw teeth sprayed like white shards. The brute collapsed into a gutter. "Damn... gotta break through," he thought while his body dealt with the rest.
BAM!
The first in the chain was thrown against a wall.
WHOOSH!
A dodge and a kick to the knee the second crunched down onto his ass.
WHOOSH!
Saigo grabbed the edge of a canvas awning and yanked it toward himself. The fabric collapsed, covering a group of pursuers in a gray shroud.
It bought him a couple of seconds. He was at the target, and he couldn't delay any longer. The wall smooth, gray, impregnable, a harbinger of his failure stood opposite.
"Screw the rope, there's another way, and screw the cost."
Saigo froze, his eyes... rolled back. His pupils vanished, leaving only white, blind lakes.
Rage? Pain? Power? All mixed in the leap and in one instant, he was at an unreachable height. Fingers, heated to infernal heat, melted the stone, leaving white, smoking indentations.
"Grip. Pull up. Hold on." He repeated it like a mantra. Moving with inhuman speed, almost on the verge of flight.
Those standing below froze in dumb amazement, their mouths agape so wide a flock of pigeons could have comfortably nested in each.
"He... is he a warlock?"
"No... But the wall's smooth! How?!"
"Run to the tower! Intercept him from above!" someone yelled, turning around.
But Saigo didn't hear them; his world had narrowed to the wall. To the pain in his fingers. To the pain in his eyes, burning like two hellish coals.
"More... more... I'll come back. I will come back. Even if I go blind. Even if I have to die trying."
Grabbing the crenelated edge, he hauled his body over with his last strength, rolled over the parapet, and stood up on the wide wall.
"Halt!"
Dozens of halberd tips flashed, aimed at him. At their head stood an armored knight in his forties. Polished plate armor shone, coldly reflecting the light of the rising sun.
In his hand a longsword, point lowered to the flagstones. The face under the open helmet was tired but impenetrable. Shadows under the eyes spoke of sleepless nights that Saigo had so generously gifted him.
He took a step forward, and in a voice low, weary, but not faltering one iota:
"Stop, Saigo of the Cotto clan… I want to talk."
Saigo remained silent. His answer was his foot, slamming into a stone slab of the wall, tearing out a fist-sized chunk.
Shards of granite sprayed like shrapnel. The maneuver was so wild, so unexpected, that the guards instinctively raised their shields expecting any other reaction to a rock flying at your face would be foolish.
And Saigo was already lunging forward, toward the very edge of the battlements.
"Screw it. I'll catch myself with my hands or a rope... Tuck for the fall. The chance of survival isn't zero. It's enough for me."
The chasm yawned below. The battlements right there, within reach... One more step! A jump!
His body hung over the abyss. The main knight's hand strong as a vise clamped onto his collar. The man didn't even blink, just tensed his bicep, holding his weight.
"Are you a fool?" he asked calmly.
The answer was a kick to the face; the knight's hand opened, and Saigo, by inertia, flopped back onto the stone paving of the wall.
The knight wiped the blood trickling from his nose with his sleeve. His eyes narrowed.
Saigo, meanwhile, was tearing at the fastenings on his wrists.
Meteorite gauntlets the only thing that survived that hell with the dragon. Steel and an alloy black as cosmic night shifted on his fingers, glimmering with a dull blue light.
Marcus (for it was he) didn't wait. The look on the guy's face was clear: nonsense was useless here, and the decisive argument would be weapons and the strength of their wielder.
"Don't interfere!" he threw to his men, not taking his eyes off Saigo, and charged.
Saigo's first blow came with a running start. The gauntlets howled; two compressed streams of air, visible as a shimmering heat haze, shot toward Marcus.
He was no fool: understanding that the gauntlets were deadly at close range due to their speed, but distance was his friend. He prepared to sidestep...
But the streams didn't go further. They hung in the air for a fraction of a second incredibly, Marcus managed to notice it.
BANG! BANG!
Two explosions, small but deafening. The shockwaves threw Marcus sideways.
Saigo's hands inside the gauntlets were on fire; the skin under them instantly blistered with blood. Pain pierced his brain, but the fight wasn't over.
Saigo dove into a sweep, trying to close the distance.
WHOOSH! Marcus's longsword, planted in the flagstones like an anchor, blocked the path. He had to tumble emergency otherwise, his leg would have stayed on the wall forever.
Spinning, Saigo drove his fist into Marcus's armored boot.
BAM!
The guy smiled through the pain, peering into the dust plume. The wind dispersed it instantly. Before him stood Marcus whole, unshaken, only his armor slightly dented.
As if answering the silent question, Marcus smirked, adjusting his vambrace:
"Between the strike and the detonation there's a window. And I'm fast... though not young..."
He didn't get to finish; Saigo's knife whistled past his temple.
Marcus parried the blade with inhuman precision and immediately launched a counter-strike in a wide arc, forcing Saigo into a crouch.
BAM!
The same situation? No.
Marcus's leg wasn't where Saigo expected it.
KIA! A treacherous kick drove a steel-toed boot right into the guy's solar plexus.
Air rushed from his lungs with a groan. Blood gushed from his nose, mouth, sprayed from his ears. The world swam, blackening at the edges.
"I... I can't..." Saigo mumbled, feeling his consciousness slipping away like sand through fingers.
"You can," Marcus replied in an icy tone. "Hold him."
And delivered the final blow, flat of the blade, but with full force, to the temple.
CLANG!
A ringing, metallic sound slammed into their ears. Saigo didn't collapse he dissolved into the darkness that swallowed him whole.
His body went limp, a lifeless doll.
Marcus stood over the defeated man, breathing heavily.
There was no triumph on his face, but inside he rejoiced over two things: his victory and the realization that if this psycho had faced him one-on-one in his best form, his chances of winning would have hit rock bottom.
But that feeling quickly evaporated, leaving only the festive satisfaction of a master who had completed a complex, exhausting job.
"Clean, efficient, and taken alive, boys." He turned to the guards. "Prepare your armor for new insignia..."
Thunderous, joyous laughter erupted. He lowered his sword and sheathed it with an elegant motion… and looked at the guy.
"All good things must come to an end, but whether your good thing has ended or is just beginning depends on you."