Vicious was dead, and so was I. I was just meant to be dead amongst the living. Life sucks, and today was no different. With no bounties on the horizon, I had decided to visit a local joint, seeing if I could kill some time.

As I left, I noticed something. Something you wouldn't notice if you had something on your mind.

Fortunately, I didn't. Someone had just gone around the corner in front of me, hoping I wouldn't notice.

I pulled out my gun and prepared for a fight. My back up against the wall, I slinked over to the corner, jumped out, pointed my gun and quickly scanned the confined alley for an enemy.

Nothing.until a flash of some metal reflecting light caught my eye. Someone dressed in black quickly approaching, and I didn't want to know what would happen if they got close enough.

I shot. In what seemed like a cowardice move, the figure threw his coat before him hoping vainly to stop the bullet. Strangely though, the long, black coat stayed in the air. Under it, something long and thin was holding it up.

That something had also stopped my bullet in its tracks. The coat slowly slid off, revealing a long katana. The figure's face had a familiar sneer on it, and I was sure of who was about to kill me.

I shot again. He rushed me, the bullet narrowly missing his shoulder. With the flat of his sword the gun was knocked out of my hand.

He stabbed at my stomach, and I twisted to the side, getting into a position that let me connect a solid punch with his face.

Rolling with the punch he shifted into a flawless back flip, landing on one hand then pushing off again. His feat landed on the wall of the alley, and he pushed of it sending him flying towards me for the kill.

I, meanwhile, had caught a sight of my gun. I ran toward it, sliding feet first next to its location where I picked it up, and shot from the ground.

I landed a shot on his chest, altering his decent toward me, and causing him to crash into the wall adjacent the one he pushed off. I heard the cracking of bone as he impacted and watched him slide him off the wall into a clump of the street. As I got up, and assumed he was lifeless, until I noticed just how tightly he was gripping his sword.