No one else.

The main rule of murder was simply that.

No one else.

Yet Jeebasa Zeinheim, the notoriety known as the Ultimate Mobster, didn't care much for the presence of witnesses in his killings. Blow their heads off, and people see? It didn't matter. Children seeing the death of their loved ones? It didn't matter. One second later, they're all lying in the same puddles made by their families. It never mattered to him. None of it. He had never seen anyone else with his cold, killing intent, and he planned to keep it that way.

He reminded himself of this as he simultaneously repeated the names of his members softly in his head, adjusting his monocle and keeping a low profile in the bustling cities until he crossed the alleyway that marked his hideout. The alley was compacted, trash strewn everywhere, cement covered in grime. No beggar or civilian dared to step in this part of town. The area was too intimidating, too bleak. It was homely to the mobster, so familiar, so peaceful knowing that this whole area was a death trap.

The only thing that pissed him off though…

A blonde man with a monocle similar to Zeinheim's stood near the entrance, waiting impatiently, constantly checking his wristwatch.

Absentmindedly, Zeinheim called out to him. "Yo Fancy Pants," he cooed mockingly, "You're in the wrong alley. Shove off."

"Why you…" The man turned around, and a hint of recognition snuck into the criminal's mind.

Nick Adachi, the Ultimate Lawyer, glared at him with his black eyes. He was a cunning yet conceited character, impatient yet cold. Someone who was like himself. Almost.

"So you're the lawyer that everyone is talking about. From the looks of it, you're not what everyone puts you up to be."

"Au contraire, scumbag," Adachi sneered, fully knowing that he was facing the Ultimate Mobster. He casually adjusted his monocle and challenged, "You don't even have your monocle on the right eye," He laughed, placing his hand on his breast. "Did you know I got this monocle for five thousand Euros from a respectable English trader?"

"You're the only fool here," Zeinhem spat, removing his monocle, fastened on his left eye, "You're the one who can't seem to put his monocle in the right place. In fact, I stole this from a German merchant after blasting his brain out of his little skull. The same is going to happen to you if you don't learn your place."

"You know…" Nick snickered, slowly unbuttoning his jet black tuxedo. "I was going to acquaint and respect you for being higher than everyone else, but your yapping makes me feel sick." He removed the tuxedo fully from his body and tossed it to the spot next to him. His fists were raised to his chest, and his legs shifted his body to an unguarded fighting stance. His eyes, licked with embers of fire, were begging for a fight.

Zeinheim chuckled maliciously, removing his sleek white tuxedo, revealing an equally white undershirt underneath. Nick's cocky expression filtered for a moment, seeing how experienced his opponent was. "Work on your fighting stance, runt," Zeinheim taunted, drawing a set of steel tonfas from his sleeves, "You're too easy to eliminate!"

Nick was only able to blink for a second after registering that his opponent had disappeared. Puzzled, he scanned the alleyway for any sign of life, any sign of his nimble opponent, accompanied with a twinge of increasing fear slowly slithering to his mind.

Metal met the back of his head, and he was thrown forward to the ground, but managed to catch himself with his right hand and save himself from meeting the cement. He used the force of the landing to spring to a point close to the wall behind him, landing gracefully on the balls of his feet. He had no time to pause to catch his breath, however, because Zeinheim was already advancing rapidly towards him, twisting his wrists to let the tonfas dance across Nick's body.

But Nick was faster. He used his arms to deflect the blows, quickly analyzing where Zeinheim would hit him after every unsuccessful blow. He rarely found openings in the hyperactive defenses of the Ultimate Mobster,but when he did, he managed to land concussive blows and kicks to several parts of his opponent's body. Yet none of them seemed to give way to the other, and the swift exchanges echoed throughout the alley, the occasional sound of cracking metal against metal and skin against skin ringing in the contenders' ears.

Zeinheim found himself cornered to the wall behind him, and was left to fully defend himself from Adachi's blows, increasing in speed as he desperately tried to intercept as many as possible. He cried out in pain when Nick's foot met contact with his right wrist, causing him to release a tonfas from his grip.

Seizing his opportunity, Nick dove to catch the tonfa as it fell and let his leg sweep under Zeinheim's torso, right on the sides of his ankles, causing him to fall in a collapsed heap. Adachi leapt to his side, throwing him to his back to bind Zeinhem's hands with his tie.

The criminal still refused to be contained. He dropped the tonfa in his other hand and flung his head back, letting it snap to Nick's face, causing them to recoil and roll away from each other. They nimbly holstered themselves to their feet, retreating to their respective fighting stances, none of them showing the motive to pick up the neglected tonfas on the floor. Both were empty-handed now. They stared into each other's darkened eyes, void of any emotion that did not scream bloodshed. They cackled at each other, impressed by the high caliber each fighter held within their spirits.

"Humph," Zeinheim began, letting his hands fall to his sides, "Not bad, Mister Lawyer."

"You're not the scum people say you are after all," Nick replied, panting, "But I never lose at anything."

"Is that so?" Zeinheim quickly drew two shiny grey glocks from his sides, barrels pointed directly at Nick, whose face was overcome with pallor. "As the old saying goes…"

The trigger fingers were itching to shoot him right then and there, directly to his fear-struck face, but he had to finish his statement first. Just to make sure that he struck even more fear into his heart... "You CAN take the cake and eat it all in one gulp!"

The triggers were pulled. A rain of bullets shot out towards Nick, but a large figure in the shadow and the sound of cracking bones intercepted the noise. Smoke began to gather as a small cooing noise slipped into the chaos, but Jeebasa Zeinheim knew better than to shoot blindly in the dark. He still kept his stance, however, ready to finish off anything and anyone when the smoke cleared.

To his surprise, however, a figure with the body of a muscular behemoth but the head of a pigeon emerged from the dust and darkness. Next to him, Nick's crumpled body appeared breathless, his hands limp, head bleeding, shirt coated with bloodstains and dirt. A metallic pen lingered near his pocket, but Zeinheim found no reason to make it of interest to loot it.

Worthless thing.

The pigeon spoke. "You are very clever not to shoot when I'm around," he proclaimed, casually dusting his tuxedo, "But unlike you, I don't need to take off these garments to wipe the floor with you."

Still steadfast, the Mobster shot at him, unaware of the hidden body armor that the Ultimate Bodyguard hid underneath his suit. He quickly realized that the bullets aimed at the heart of this birdbrain were bouncing off like lint, however, but in a fraction too late.

With a yell, the pigeon-headed bodyguard charged headfirst, bulky hands ready to tear at his throat. He forced Zeinheim to quickly jump out of the way, propping his guns to the head. The trigger was pulled yet again, but the muscular monster deflected more of those with his arm while still charging at him with unrestrainable strength.

Damn! The Mobster cursed under his breath, Is his whole body armored?! He knew that lingering would be meaningless, but he couldn't bring himself to retreat. Yet somehow…

A dark and menacing presence loomed over the battlefield. He sensed that his new opponent knew this as well, seeing by the way his body shifted away from the same direction he sensed the disturbance. Another string of curses escaped his breath. He had to retreat, he had to save this fight for another rainy day. While the bird was distracted, he climbed swiftly up the buildings of the alley and disappeared from the enclosed spaces, sheathing his guns to their respectful pockets.

The remaining warrior didn't seem to notice his opponent's sudden disappearance, but he did, however, notice that a looming figure with a full on three-piece tuxedo lined with fleur-de-lis's was staring at him upon the rooftops, eerily silent.

The figure smiled an innocent smile, still mute. He waved his hand to the pigeon-head, then dropped down gracefully to the ground to give a proper greeting. Perplexed, the armored warrior stiffened his stance and stared deeply into the man's eyes.

Multiple copies of the man began to encircle him, all of them smiling the same equally disturbing smirk. His ears rang with the sound of pigeons encircling him from the top of the sky, his brain frying in the glaring sunlight that suddenly piqued when the mysterious mute entered the alley. The whole arena seemed to shift, with colors inverting to their eerie alternate tones. Everything seemed to spiral out of his own control, and the company of the clones suddenly gave him a feeling of claustrophobia.

Don't think! The bodyguard contested, Fight! FIGHT! He blindly rushed towards one of the clones, bracing himself to feel the impact of his rock-hard body against the fragile body of this unknown perpetrator.

It never came. He crashed into the building behind him, causing cemented debris to fall close to him. The copy was gone, but there were still many to take out. He took the opportunity to charge at the closest one next to him, dodging the debris falling, but causing another building to crumble when the clone, all that it was-a clone -disappeared.

The bodyguard was dismayed. He mindlessly crashed into another building, and the Ultimate Puppet Master, Makiru Hashima, still smiled, unmoving. He took out an old pocket watch and counted the seconds before he felt the buildings below him crash down. He pressed a button hidden at the center of the watch and watched as a chain of explosions run down where the warrior was residing. The remaining buildings collapsed over each other, forming a pyramid of death, cornerstones and shattered glass lining the outside. More explosions followed, and the screeching of vultures resonated within the cacophony of crashing infrastructure.

The remaining clouds of smoke settled once again. Not a thing inside stirred, not a single breath was heard. But Hashima knew the people there weren't dead. He had no interest in letting them escape either. The Puppet Master snapped his fingers, and immediately saw to the emerging barbed fence surrounding the alley. An electrical current ran through the steel lining, rendering it impossible for anyone else to escape.

Before he knew it, however, the pyramid burst out, dismembering to two different piles of brick and block, opening the layout of the battlefield. The torn bodyguard stood in the middle, puffing heavily, bleeding from his stomach yet triumphant from the pile.

Hashima huffed in frustration, wiping his weary eyes. He knew that his opponents were strong, but to burst out of the carefully planned pyramid with that much ease in so little time?

Impossible.

"Found you."

The sound of a gunshot on his right ear made Hashima jump, the bullet from his left grazing his ear. He fell to the unoccupied sector of the prison he just created, closing his eyes as he let the ground welcome him. His bones did not break. His body was still stable.

But he was forced to join in to the fight he so desired to mess with. Another familiar face jumped out from the building, meeting the others. Zeinheim made another entrance, landing smoothly above one of the piles of debris that Unknown, the Ultimate Bodyguard, had so courteously made for him. His shirt was no longer white, his dress pants stained with footprints, dirt, and blood. The hair he kept so clean was dried out, caked with his insides, trampled and unkempt. His face was full of bumps, but his eyes were livid, raging, and unforgiving.

He grit his teeth. "You all," he cursed, pointing his guns at the Bodyguard and Puppet Master, "Are going to have your heads sold in the black market tonight. MARK MY DAMN WORDS!"

Unknown shifted his stance, leaving him guarded from his face down. "You are forgetting someone, soldier." He commented, pointing to the shaking debris to his left.

As if it were instinct, the Ultimate Mobster turned shot at the pile, scared that he was still there, still living, still breathing.

The bullet intercepted with a long and thin object. A torn, broken, dirt-covered Nick Adachi emerged, holding a long steel staff on his right hand, holding it with a section of the staff behind his back. Half of his face was basked in blood, his white suit now red from the damage of the buildings falling over him.

A spark of recognition ignited in the remaining three fighters. The pen! The pen is a weapon! They all overlooked such a harmless object, such an ordinary thing, but it did turn out that this pen held some might, some usefulness despite the jaggedness of the fighter wielding it. It was no sword, no spear, but just a staff. A staff with no sharp ends...

Just how skilled was he with the weapon, though? The thought faintly crossed the mind of the criminals standing before the Ultimate Lawyer. They all shifted, ready, waiting, eager to prove that they deserved domination over the elite of their technique to him and everyone else inside the ring.

I survived, Nick Adachi attested, I was not meant to die to degenerates like him. Or them. Or anyone. I am not meant to die like this!

I will live on.

"Are you just going to stand there?!" Nick shouted, flames engulfing his being, "COME AND GET ME! THIS BATTLE ISN'T OVER YET!"