Inside a carriage pulled by white stallions with a golden framed door, Vance sat against the red leather seat across a women with green skin, gentle features, and a sword between her legs.
She had white hair, wore a dark uniform with a badge pinned to her chest, and three stars rested upon her shoulders. Revealing the vast gap between her rank and Tooka's.
Tooka sat beside Vance, staring out the window at the passing buildings.
'How skills and gifts work' he looked at the title of the thick book resting in his hands as the carriage sped through the city streets.
"From now on, you'll be staying in the upper district." The women said with firm tone.
Vance turned to her. "Why?"
"This isn't a discussion," She replied. "You'll carry out your assigned duties once there. Do you understand?"
His eyes narrowed. "My assigned duties?"
She stared at him not with anger or indifference, but with a gaze one gives a disobedient child. A spoiled brat that must disciplined.
Her cold narrowed eyes carried a silent warning.
Tooka placed a heavy hand on Vance's shoulder.
"That's enough," Tooka said firmly, using the same tone one would use to calm a stubborn child
Vance jaw clenched as his shoulder nearly popped beneath Tooka's grip.
"I'm not your fucking child," Vance growled. "Let go of me."
Tooka removed his hand as the air turned freezing cold, and ice spread across the windows.
"I don't know who you think you are," Vance continued, turning to the women. "but there's nothing I'll be doing for y.."
He stopped as the world flipped upside dowm. His head floating through the air.
"Thud. Thud." His severed head bounced across the carriage floor.
"What?" His eyes widened as he stared at his body still sitting upright beside Tooka.
Ice sealed the clean cut around his neck preventing blood from spilling then.
He blinked and everything was back to normal.
Vance grabbed his neck, his head was still attached, 'was that an illusion?'
His breathing quicked as he looked at her, and her gaze served as his final warning.
Cross the line again, and death was certain.
'Was it her?' His heartbeat slammed against his ribs.
"You will do as you're told," She said. "Do you understand?"
"I'd rather die, you b..."
"Kurk..." In an instant his bluff was called. An ice shard pierced straight through his throat.
"Kurk..." Blood burst from from his mouth, this wasn't an illusion.
He could feel it. The warm of blood flowing down his neck and soaking his shirt.
"Kurk..." blood flowed through his teeth as he smiled, not because he enjoyed death.
But because he had long made his peace with it.
After all the things he'd done. The thought of death used plague him day and night.
'Would the police gun him down? Would a debtor finally pull the trigger? Would a rival hire a sniper?...' Those fears once consumed him, but eventually the human mind grows tired.
It eventually accepts reality. Vance had long accepted that he would never taste a peaceful death.
And if his final day comes. He wouldn't beg for mercy like the countless fools that had came before him.
He would deny his killer the sick pleasure of seeing him beg, seeing him cling to this unfair thing called life.
That's why, he did bother to cover his neck to slow down the bleeding.
Instead he raised his right hand and showed her, his middle finger as blood flowed down his jaw.
"Swoosh." A blade flashed.
"Thud." His hand fell cleanly onto the carriage floor.
Tooka eyes widened as Vance raised his left arm.
His vision had long turned blurry. There were no grand memories this time, no reflections on life.
Just a petty man clinging to his pride, until the very end.
His smile widened as he could feel his other hand severe after giving his final fuck you at life.
The blood froze as Ice spread from the shard.
'I wonder if I would've found them?' He thought as the world finally faded.
"No only did you fail to inform me that you found an asset." She said turning her gaze to Tooka, "but you also brought me someone who's prepared to die."
Tooka remained silent. To those who've gone to war, there were two types of people you never wanted to come across in life. The first a man with nothing to loss, and the second a man who's prepared to die.
Vance proved to be the latter.
"Knock. Knock." A gentle knock came from outside the carriage.
"We've arrived miss." The driver said opening the door.
"It is now your responsibility to break his spirit." She stood up, "if you fail to do so in half a year, a demotion will be the least of your worries."
She stepped out of the carriage.
"Thud." The door shut behind her, and instant veins bulged through out Tooka's enter body.
His hands balled into fists as he glanced at the Vance frozen body. "You really couldn't keep your mouth shut."
The carriage moved as he took several deep breaths before pulling a small photograph from his pocket.
It was a picture of his daughter.
''I won't fail.'' He spoke with certainty staring at the picture.