Shiranui Hayate ignored Wes's shouting. Instead, he quickly scanned the entire factory. The facility was expansive, consisting of three levels: two above ground and one basement. The first floor was cluttered with several vehicles, desks, chairs, and sofas.
There were twelve men on the ground floor, all armed and scattered about. Curiously, four of them were clustered specifically at the entrance to the basement.
Four guards for one door, Hayate thought. The basement must be the vault.
Seeing that "Bob" was ignoring him and looking around instead of getting back to his post, Wes exploded in fury. He marched up to Hayate, screaming, "Bob! Are you deaf? I told you to get your ass back outside and watch the perimeter!"
As he spoke, he reached out to shove Hayate toward the exit.
Having already gathered all the intel he needed, Hayate didn't hesitate. He "gifted" the burly Russian a kunai, driving it straight through the man's heart.
Wes stared in disbelief at the blade buried in his chest. He pointed a trembling finger at Hayate. "You... you... you..."
Unable to finish a single sentence, Wes slumped backward, dead before he hit the floor.
Aiden, who had been watching from across the room, froze in shock before screaming, "Bob has turned! Kill him!"
He drew his pistol to fire, and the other mobsters snapped into action at his cry.
Hayate, prepared for the escalation, let eight kunai slide into his hands. With a motion like "scattering flowers," he flung them in all directions.
The blades thudded into the ground at the feet of the mobsters. Seeing that the projectiles hadn't actually hit anyone, several men began to laugh—until they saw the paper tags attached to the handles burst into flame.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A series of violent explosions ripped through the ground floor. In an instant, every mobster on the level—save for those at the basement entrance—was incinerated or torn apart.
Hearing the blasts below, the men on the second floor immediately panicked. "Enemy attack!" they roared, grabbing their rifles and rushing toward the stairs to reinforce the lobby.
At the basement entrance, three of the four guards were killed instantly by the Explosive Tags. The lone survivor was critically wounded. He managed to crawl to his radio, gasping out a warning to the second-floor team and the men inside the basement before losing consciousness.
The smoke from the explosions hadn't yet cleared when the first two reinforcements from the second floor charged down the stairs, weapons raised.
"There!" one shouted, spotting a silhouette through the haze.
They pulled their triggers. Muzzle flashes lit up the smoke as a hail of bullets tore through the figure. But there was no cry of pain, no impact of lead on flesh.
It was a Clone Jutsu (Bunshin no Jutsu)—a mere afterimage Hayate had created to draw their fire.
In the next heartbeat, several shuriken whistled out of the smoke from a completely different angle.
"Agh!"
Two screams rang out as the reinforcements collapsed, dead on the spot.
Hearing the gunfire stop and the screams of their comrades, the remaining men on the second floor lost their bravado. Their frantic charge turned into a cautious crawl. They slowed their pace, hugging the walls and preparing to fire blindly around the corners of the staircase.
Hayate didn't give them the chance. He sprinted toward the stairwell. With a sudden burst of power, he leaped; the concrete beneath his feet cracked from the force of the launch. He moved like a bolt of lightning, surging onto the second floor.
The men waiting to ambush him didn't even have time to blink before Hayate's kunai slashed across their throats.
He didn't stop. He moved through the second floor like a wraith amidst a storm of lead, weaving through bullet paths and reaping lives like the Grim Reaper itself.
The Russian mobsters finally broke. Their counter-attack collapsed into pure terror. Three men smashed through the windows, screaming as they leaped toward the ground to escape the slaughter.
Aside from those three, every man on the second floor had been silenced by Hayate's blade.
And he hadn't sustained a single scratch.
Hayate walked to the shattered window. Looking down, he saw the three survivors limping away, desperately trying to reach the road. Three shuriken appeared in his hand.
Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh.
The blades buried themselves in the men's necks. Before they could even reach the pavement, they slumped to the ground, their blood staining the earth.
Hayate nodded in grim satisfaction. Good. No one got away.
He flicked the blood from his kunai and headed back downstairs to the basement entrance.
He found the "lone survivor" from earlier still clinging to life. Hayate delivered a final, merciful strike, sending him to meet Satan. Only then did he examine the door.
It was a massive security gate—not wood, not a standard home door, but ten centimeters of solid reinforced steel.
He had wondered why the basement team hadn't come up to help. Now he knew; this door isolated the interior from the exterior completely. The men inside were trapped unless they chose to open it.
Inside the basement, the six remaining guards were trembling.
"Tana," one man whispered, gripping his rifle. "The noise stopped. Did they get him?"
The man called Tana didn't answer. He pressed his radio. "Sam, what's the status? Is the threat neutralized?"
Outside the door, Hayate's ears twitched. He heard the voice coming from a headset on one of the corpses. He picked it up and spoke into the mic.
"Sam is dead. And you're next."
Hayate crushed the radio in his palm, letting the plastic shards fall to the floor.
Behind the steel door, the guards exchanged looks of pure terror. Everyone had heard the voice over the comms.
"He can't get in," Tana insisted, trying to steady his voice. "This door was custom-ordered by Boss Viggo. It's built to bank vault specs. You'd need high explosives to even dent it."
The other five calmed down slightly at his analysis.
"Mord," Tana barked. "Call Viggo. Now. Tell him the base is under attack and we need immediate extraction and reinforcements!"
The man named Mord snapped to attention, ran to a desk, and grabbed the landline to dial the boss.