CITY HUNTER: SERVANT OF DEATH

1

She calls herself Yuu. Tall for a Japanese woman, she has a cute face and sweet smile that would charm anyone. Her brown eyes look bigger because of custom contact lenses, which add to her appeal. She walks with a slow grace on the hotel corridor dressed in black and white French maid costume. Rounding a corridor, she saw the room that she's been looking for: Room 306.

There are two men on the corridor, dressed in black, expensive suits and sunglasses. Yuu's eyes are sharp enough to see the bulges on the men's suits. These guys are obviously bodyguards packing pistols. Yuu kept a close watch on them as she pretends cleaning a painting on the corridor wall. She could feel the bodyguards watching her as well.

Yuu saw another French maid walking on the corridor pushing a cart of laundry. She knocks on the door one by one, taking out dirty bed sheets and towels. The second French maid is also tall, with short pink hair and angry, piercing eyes behind round eyeglasses. She calls herself Sakura, which means cherry blossoms. However, Sakura's cold and menacing demeanor is anything but bloomy. Yuu didn't like her at all, but respected her skills in her specialty.

Sakura pushed the cart towards room 306. The bodyguards stopped her and said something that Yuu couldn't hear. Sakura lifted the cover of the cart for the bodyguards to see.

Suddenly, another French maid popped out of the cart like a jack in the box, her hand snapping out like a cobra. She is Keiko, an expert with knives. The bodyguard pulled himself backwards but Keiko buried the Japanese kunai blade on the neck of the man. The second bodyguard reached for his gun but Keiko's left hand lashed out, another kunai flew in the air and the bodyguard fell dead with steel on his left eye.

"God, you're messy," remarked Sakura as Keiko climbed out of the cart. She is considerably younger than Sakura. Keiko drew a Glock 19 pistol from her apron.

"Look who's talking," Keiko answered with a grin.

Sakura grunted in annoyance as she removed the towels on the cart and brought out her weapon, a Daewoo K3 5.56mm light machine gun with the 200-round belt magazine. Yuu sighed as she approached the duo, a chrome Beretta 92FS nine millimeter pistol on both hands, Akimbo style. "Let's go," she said. "We don't have much time."

Sakura kicked the door of Room 306. The heavy wood flew open inward, surprising the three men guarding the living room. Sakura pulled the trigger of her machine gun and held it, spraying bullets on the men before they could pull out their weapons. The bodyguards fell in bloody mess as well as most of the furniture, wreaked by Sakura's indiscriminate fire.

Yuu stormed inside, her Berettas held in front as they hear people screaming on the hotel. A bodyguard appeared on the bathroom and fired his pistol. Yuu dropped on the carpet, her Beretta spitting rounds. The man dropped like a stone. Another appeared on the 2nd room aiming his shotgun at Yuu's prone form. Sakura's K3 ripped the man and the wall in half.

Yuu stood up and nodded her thanks to Sakura. She kicked the master's bedroom open and saw a fat man cowering behind a bed. The man fired his pistol at Yuu but she is quicker. A well-placed 9mm slug hit the fat man on the right arm. He dropped his pistol screaming in pain. Yuu aimed her Beretta on the man's head. "Wait…" he yelped. "Don't kill me…please…I'll give you money…"

Yuu pulled the trigger and the man's head exploded.

"Let's go!" shouted Keiko.

The three ladies excited the room and ran towards the end of the corridor. Suddenly the elevator door opened and five men came rushing out, brandishing firearms. Yuu's Berettas fired in unison, Sakura's K3 erupted like a chainsaw and Keiko's Glock spit fire. The bodyguards were turned into Swiss cheese by 9mm and 5.56mm slugs.

Yuu reloads her pistols as they descended on the stairs, ignoring the deathtrap elevators. Fortunately, they were only on the fifth floor so they reached the ground floor in seconds. They simply walked fast on the lobby as people ran in fear of the gun-totting French maids. A security guard tried to stop them but he collapsed on the marble floor, a kunai embedded on his chest.

They went out of the front door just in time to see two police cars screaming towards them. Sakura didn't give them the chance. Smiling with a sadistic grin, she fired her machine gun and stitched the cars with lead. Bullet holes appeared on the cars, glass shatters under the onslaught of a hundred rounds. A policeman driving the first patrol car was decapitated as .223 caliber slugs blasted his face. His partner was also killed instantly. The second driver was fortunate enough to drop down and was wounded in the shoulders; his partner was dead with a bullet in the heart.

Sakura's mayhem caused a pileup as other cars crash into each other, drivers and passengers trapped and terrified. Sakura reloads her K3, slapping a new belt home.

"Sakura, stop this!" yelled Yuu.

The crazed machine gun maid ignored her. She went closer to the wrecked police cars and saw the wounded officer on the ground, clutching his shoulders. The policeman forgot about his gun, fear enveloped him as Sakura approaches. She smiled sadistically, enjoying seeing fear in man's eyes. Sakura mercilessly machine gunned the policeman.

She then saw a car that had crashed in a telephone pole with three teenagers trapped inside. Her K3 jackhammered the car and killed the civilians instantly.

"Sakura!" Yuu shouted in anger, seeing innocent people get slaughtered.

But Sakura turned her attention in a stuck school bus. The school children inside are crying and screaming. Yuu's blood ran cold and she ran towards her comrade. "No!"

Sakura pulled the trigger, but Yuu kicked the machine gun upwards. Bullets drilled in the sky. Sakura aimed her gun at her fellow maid but Yuu's Beretta was already pressed on her chin. Yuu tilted the Beretta, making sure that the muzzle was inline with Sakura's medulla oblongata. "You kill more innocent civilians and I swear, I will kill you myself," Yuu growled in a cold voice that seems to come straight from hell.

Sakura looked at Yuu's brown eyes and suddenly, the sadistic smiled disappeared from her face. She is certain that Yuu is dead serious, one wrong move and she would pull the trigger, severing her medulla oblongata and killing her instantly before she could even touch the trigger of her K3.

A black van pulled alongside the two. "Let's get out of her," Keiko shouted on the open sliding door. The driver of the van was another maid named Minami, a small girl that looks like a high school student but is deadly with explosives. On the passenger seat is the fifth maid, Ai, the group's sniper. She is covering the two with the muzzle of her scoped FN FAL rifle.

Yuu took the K3 with one hand and threw it inside the van. Keeping her eyes on Sakura, she entered the van and sat inside. A few seconds later, Sakura also entered the van and closed the door.

"You were just lucky, Yuu," Sakura said, her voice dripping with venom.

"Yes I am," Yuu answered, holstering her Beretta.


The maids ditched their van along with their clothing, sinking them all in Tokyo Bay. Wearing civilian clothes, the girls rode an SUV towards the city of Kawaguchi in the suburbs of Tokyo. As always, the talkative Minami tried to lighten up the mood, but Yuu and Sakura remain stone faced on the journey.

"You should see the guy, Minami," Keiko said happily, she is riding shotgun on the Land Cruiser. "He begged for mercy but Yuu simply shot him in the head. The bodyguards are no sweat, they are just like sandbags with guns."

"Really?" Minami replied, keeping her eyes on the road as she drives. "One-chan is the best, isn't she?" The little explosives master is a protégé of Yuu and they treat each other like siblings.

"We went through the bodyguards like scythe through hay," continued Keiko. "One guy was ripped apart by Sakura, he must have got a hundred bullets on him, haha. I almost feel sorry for the guy." Keiko looked at Yuu at the backseat to share the fun.

Yuu's eyes made contact with Keiko's. Suddenly, Keiko saw a vision that made her smile disappeared. Returning the tall, maid's gaze, Keiko had a disturbing vision that came and went like a sudden flash of lightning. She saw row upon row of neat, white, unmarked tombstones that jutted like teeth on the green grass all the way to the horizon, with the swirling sky the color of bullet lead. The vision was so oppressive Keiko's mouth went dry and her throat ache.

"Music, please," asked Yuu.

Keiko broke contact with the hard brown eyes and hit the CD player. Japanese pop music blared inside the Land Cruiser. Minami, Keiko and Ai continued chattering like school girls going on a picnic while Sakura sat silent. Yuu tried to concentrate of the music of Utada Hikaru but she is well aware that the three are talking about the killing today and others before it.

Yuu felt a cold knot on her belly. The girls that she treated like family are becoming more and more callous and enjoyed the wet work way to much for comfort. Yuu can kill a person without blinking an eyelash, but while she can be a cold blooded murderer, she really hates killing. She kills not for enjoyment or self-fulfillment; she kills because she is a professional. Seeing her friends slipping more and more to the dark side made her worried, especially for Minami.

Minami stopped the car in front of a club. Yuu stepped out and went inside without saying a word. The others followed her.

A man is drinking on the VIP room. He is thin, with Chinese features and wears black rimmed eye glasses He stood up as the girls entered the dark, windowless lounge. "Congratulations," he said. "Job well done, Servants, as always. Takada is eliminated with extreme prejudice."

"Where is the money, Kai?" Yuu said without preamble.

Kai took a gym bag from under the table and tossed it to Yuu. She placed the bag on a small table and opened it. Inside are stacks of money in American dollars. "How much?" she asked Kai.

"Two million."

Yuu took three stacks of money, each an inch thick. She pocketed the money on her jacket.

Kai noticed it. "Uh…Yuu…that amount is too small or you. You should take 400 grand."

"This is enough for me." She passed the bag to Minami. "You can take the rest of my share."

Minami shook her head. "We will divide this equally."

"Well then," Kai remarked. "Until the next job."

"No, Kai," said Yuu somberly. "I'm out."

Everyone froze in shock. "What?" Kai said, laughing. "Don't jive us, girl."

"I'm serious. I'm out. I quit."

Kai's expression turned dark. "What are you saying? Do you need more money? We can give you more. Come on, Yuu. You're the best. Don't do this."

"This is not about the money, Kai. I had it with all this killing."

Keiko spoke up. "Yuu, we are the Servants of Death. Bombs and bullets, blades and beauty. We are five but one. You cannot leave us like this."

"She is right, Yuu," Ai added. "A few more job and we can all live a quiet life…"

Yuu snapped a sharp look that made Ai stepped back in fear. "Live a quiet life? Do you really think we can all live happily ever after? The whole Japanese police force is looking for us. The families and cohorts of the people we killed all want our heads. There is no way we can live quietly."

"One-chan," Minami said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Then why are you quitting, Yuu?" asked Kai. "You know damn well on what's gonna happen."

Yuu turned her heels and walk towards the door.

"Don't you turn your back on me, Yuu!" Kai thundered. "I can kill you right now!" His hand reached for his pistol.

Yuu didn't look back. "You know me, Kai. You would be dead before you can even pull that weapon out."

Kai stepped back in anger. He knows the skill of the maid in gun fighting and what she said is true. "You bitch…"

"Go if you want," Sakura said. "We can live without you. Just a word of advice, Yuu. Keep your mouth shut and disappear. If I meet you again, I will kill you."

Yuu opened the door and went out. "One-chan!" Minami followed her sempai. "Please don't go."

Yuu hugged the little girl. "I'm sorry, Minami. I have to do this. Please don't be mad at me."

Tears flowed from Minami's eyes. "One-chan…."

"Save up your money, Minami. And leave the group as soon as you can. You are still very young, there is still a bright future ahead of you. Goodbye." She kissed Minami's forehead and walked away without turning back.

Kai watched Yuu drive her Porsche away from the bar on the CCTV screen. He drinks in anger as Sakura, Keiko and Ai sat quietly, contemplating on what had happen. Kai took out his cellphone and called a number. "Yes, this is Kai. We have a problem. Get me the Akizuki."

Sakura looked up. They all know Akizuki as yakuza boss with a private army. "I don't like Yuu, and she doesn't like me as well. But she has a word of honor. She will disappear. You don't need for us to eliminate her."

Kai laughed. "You won't. You girls will have a more important project. Akizuki and his men will take care of Yuu."

"Don't forget one thing, Kai," Sakura warned ominously. "Make sure Akizuki have a good supply of body bags."