The thugs formed a loose semicircle around Kin, their weapons steady, their faces hard. The tall boy's screams had dropped to wet, ragged moans. The stocky man had gone silent, his eyes wide with shock. Three guns remained, pointed directly at the barefoot man in the rumpled sweatpants.
Kin stood in the center of it all, katana dripping, the sun blazing behind him.
The first thug fired.
The System granted him speed .The world slowed. The bullet traced a lazy arc through the air, and Kin simply stepped around it. He closed the distance in a single stride, the katana swinging in a tight arc that caught the shooter's hand just above the wrist. The hand, still clutching the gun, fell to the grass. The thug stared at the stump for a full second before the pain hit and he collapsed, screaming. He immediately moved back to where Lina was as if he had never moved from there.
The second thug did not fire. He turned and grabbed a young boy from the crowd—a student, maybe nineteen, who had been too slow to run. The thug pressed the barrel of his gun against the boy's temple and yanked him backward, using him as a shield.
"Back off!" the thug shouted, his voice cracking. "I swear to God, I'll kill him! Back off or the kid dies!"
Lina, still on the ground beside Tendai, grabbed Kin's ankle. "Kin, don't. There's a child."
Kin looked at the thug. At the boy, who was crying, his knees buckling, his hands raised in surrender. At the gun pressed so hard against the boy's skin that it left a red ring.
Then Kin smiled.
It was not a warm smile. It was the smile of a man who had stopped pretending to be reasonable.
"I will not reason with murderers," he said.
The thug's finger tightened on the trigger.
Before he could pull it, something flashed in the sunlight. The thug's hand—the one holding the gun—dropped to the ground, still gripping the weapon, the fingers still curled around the grip. The thug stared at his wrist, at the clean cut, at the blood that had not yet started to spray, and opened his mouth to scream.
Nothing came out. His voice had fled.
Kin stepped past him, retrieved the gun from the severed hand, and tossed it aside. The boy stumbled free and ran, not looking back. He then immediately moved fast back to his protective stance over Lina.
[saved a random civilian +70,000SN)
Kin turned to Lina, who was staring at him with wide eyes. He wiped the katana's blade on his sweatpants—long, deliberate strokes, cleaning the blood from the steel.
Lina stood up, wincing from the blows she had taken, and glared at him.
"You wiped blood on my sweatpants," she said. "The ones I washed for you. This morning."
"They're my sweatpants."
"I washed them. That makes them mine."
"They were in your drawer. That makes them yours. Now they're mine again, and they have blood on them." He looked at the stain and shrugged. "I'll buy you new ones."
"You'll buy me new ones."
"You heard right."
He turned his attention inward, to the blue screen flickering at the edge of his vision.
System, he thought. I need a mission suit. Something I can wear that won't get bloody. Something that won't make people recognize me by my clothes. Something I don't have to wash.
[Request acknowledged. Mission Suit design options will be available upon return to safe house. Cost: 25,000 SN. Durability: Bullet-resistant, self-cleaning, heat-regulating.]
Good. We'll talk later.
He looked up.
The third thug had not run. He had not surrendered. He had raised his gun and aimed it not at Kin, but at Lina.
The shot cracked through the air.
Kin moved. The katana swung, not at the thug but at the bullet—a impossible strike that deflected the round into the dirt. He was already closing the distance, his bare feet silent on the grass, his body a blur. Bullets flew past him, around him, toward him. He dodged the ones aimed at his chest, deflected the ones aimed at Lina, and for the stray rounds that might have hit the students still crouched behind benches, he changed their trajectory with quick flicks of the blade, sending them harmlessly into the ground or the sky.
He reached the thug in less than two seconds.
The katana came down in a vertical slash, splitting the gun barrel in half—and the thug's hand along with it. The two halves of the weapon clattered to the ground. The thug's hand, now two pieces, followed a moment later. He stared at the ruin of his fingers, then at Kin, then at the sky, and fell backward, screaming.
Kin turned.
The girl who had framed Tendai was still there, pressed against the tree, her chest heaving, her face streaked with tears. She looked at Kin approaching and tried to run, but her legs would not move.
Before Kin could reach her, one of the wounded thugs—the first one, the one whose hand he had taken—scrambled for a fallen gun with his remaining hand. He raised it, aimed at the girl, and screamed, "Mira! You brought this on us, you bitch! Die!"
He fired.
Kin moved faster than the bullet. He grabbed the girl—Mira—by the waist and pulled her sideways, dodging the first shot. The second shot whistled past his ear. The third embedded itself in the tree where her head had been. The fourth, fifth, sixth—all missed, because Kin was already in motion, carrying her like a sack of grain, weaving between the bullets until the gun clicked empty.
The thug pulled the trigger again. Nothing.
Kin set the girl down—she was limp, unconscious or passed out, he didn't care which—and walked to the thug. The man tried to crawl backward, but there was nowhere to go. Kin raised the katana, then reversed it and struck the man across the temple with the pommel. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed.
The lawn was silent except for the moaning of the wounded.
Lina walked up to Kin. Her nose was still bleeding. Her cheek was swollen. Her eyes were blazing.
She slapped him across the face.
The sound cracked through the air like a gunshot. Tendai was startled.
Then she grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him, hard, her lips pressed against his, her blood mixing with his breath.
He stood there, stunned, katana dangling at his side, and let her.
She pulled back just enough to whisper, "Don't you ever scare me like that again."
"I didn't mean to—"
"I don't care what you meant." She kissed him again, shorter this time, then stepped back. "We're taking the girl. She's coming with us."
"The police are coming."
"Then we better be gone before they get here."
Kin looked at the unconscious girl—Mira, the thug had called her—lying in the grass. He bent down, picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder.
"Aren't you supposed to ask before you kidnap someone?" Lina asked.
"She framed your cousin. She hired thugs to beat him. She watched while they beat you." Kin adjusted the girl's weight. "She can answer a few questions first. Then we decide what to do with her."
Lina nodded. "The SUV. Now."
They ran.
Tendai limped behind them, his good arm wrapped around his ribs. The silver SUV was still parked where Lina had left it. Kin threw the girl into the back seat—she landed in a heap, still unconscious—and helped Tendai in beside her. Lina jumped into the driver's seat. Kin took the passenger side.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Red and blue lights flashed at the edge of the campus.
Lina started the engine, slammed the gearshift into reverse, and spun the SUV around in a cloud of tire smoke. The police cars were just entering the main gate as she shot out the exit, fishtailing onto the main road.
"Hold on," she said.
Kin held on.
She drove like a woman possessed—cutting through side streets, running stop signs, taking corners on two wheels. The police followed, but their cars were slower, their drivers more cautious. Lina spotted a narrow alley and dove into it, scraping the side mirrors against both walls, then burst out onto a parallel road that led to the freeway entrance.
"Here we go," she muttered.
The freeway was open. Four lanes. Light traffic. Lina pressed the accelerator to the floor, and the SUV surged forward like a beast unleashed. The speedometer climbed—120 kilometers per hour, 150, 180, 200. The police cars shrank in the rearview mirror. She pushed harder, 220, 240, 250.
The wind screamed through the cracked window. The engine roared. The world outside blurred into a smear of grey and green.
Behind them, the police gave up.
Their lights faded. Their sirens grew distant. One by one, they pulled over and turned around.
Lina kept driving for another ten minutes, until the freeway exit for their neighborhood appeared. She took it at 160, slowed to 80, then to 60, then to 40. Her hands were steady on the wheel. Her breathing was calm.
Kin looked at her. "You drive like a maniac."
"You're welcome."
He almost laughed. "Where did you learn to drive like that?"
"My father. He was a getaway driver before he met my mother."
"I can't tell if you're joking."
"I'm am."
She reached over and turned on the radio.
The news was already reporting.
"—chaotic scene at the university this morning, where what began as a student protest escalated into a violent confrontation involving armed suspects. Police have confirmed that multiple individuals have been arrested at the scene, including three men found in possession of illegal firearms. Two suspects sustained severe injuries, including amputations, and are currently receiving medical treatment. Their identities have not been released."
Lina glanced at Kin. "Amputations."
"They'll live."
"Barely."
The radio continued. "Witnesses report that the confrontation began when a group of students attempted to deliver what they called 'street justice' against a fellow student accused of sexual assault. However, police have since revealed that the accuser has recanted her statement, admitting that she was paid to make the false accusation. The victim, whose name has been withheld, has been taken to a local hospital for treatment of his injuries."
Tendai, in the back seat, let out a shaky breath.
"In a related development, several professors who witnessed the event have stated that the armed suspects appeared to be professional thugs, not students. The university has released a statement condemning the violence and promising a full investigation. Students have thus far refused to cooperate with police, citing fear of retaliation from a gang that has allegedly been operating on campus for several years. No students have come forward to identify the shooters or the man who intervened."
Kin turned off the radio.
The SUV hummed along the empty road. The sun was high now, burning off the last of the midday chill.
Lina reached over and took his hand.
"You saved my cousin," she said.
"I saved you."
"I know." She squeezed his fingers. "Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me."
"I know." She smiled—tired, bruised, but real. "But I'm going to anyway."
They drove home in silence.
The unconscious girl in the back seat did not stir.
Tendai watched the city pass by through the window, his good eye fixed on the horizon.
And Kin, for the first time since the System had chosen him, felt something that might have been hope.
***
[System Notification – Unsuppressed]
[Mission Suit: Design options available at safe house.]
[Threat Level: Elevated. Multiple witnesses saw your face. The police are looking for a man with a sword.]
[Lina's Safety: Compromised. The thugs who escaped will report what they saw.]
[New Objective: Interrogate Mira. Find out who paid her to frame Tendai. Reward: 50,000 SN.]
Kin dismissed the notification.
He had a feeling the answers would not be pleasant.