I awake, for the first time in years, to the sound of the door being broken in downstairs. From the sounds of it, a small breaching charge was used.
My exhaustion is stronger now than ever, but the only effects it has on my body is that my facial expression involves a grin instead of a wild smirk as I get out of bed.
The benefits of living several stories up from the most obvious entry point are immediately relevant to me as I can easily hear a dozen or so people running up the apartment stairs, likely heading for the first apartment they can reach.
I take hold of the katana and fluidly open the door to my room and go out into the main area of the apartment, reaching the door quickly.
Downstairs the invaders can be heard breaking into the first apartment they reach. A moment later, an explosion sounds and most if not all of the assassins are likely dead in the resulting blast.
"Such inexperienced people." I think, beginning to open the door of my apartment. As I do, however, I hear the sound of a detonator up on the roof of the building, and dive away from the doorway as the wooden construct is blown and splintered inward.
Most of the pieces either fly over me, or are small enough that my clothes keep them from penetrating, but one piece in particular is somewhat imbedded in my leg as pieces of plaster and concrete drop from the ceiling of the hallway.
The leg wound hurts, but I ignore the pain as I get back on my feet, balanced, and I watch as men with guns hop down through the hole in the ceiling.
Quickly, I move over to the side of the doorframe and press myself against it before any of them can take notice of me.
"A few seconds." I think.
Sure enough, when I unsheathe my katana thrust it behind me, around the doorframe, I feel it penetrate someone's body and hear a squelching sound.
I don't need Bloody Eye to get just a tad bit excited.
Moving away from my spot near the door, I push the assassin into the man behind him, withdrawing the katana from him as I do so, and slash upward towards the nearest man to my right.
A deep gash open vertically across his body, and his response of a gunshot goes wide as I kick him in the man behind him and whirl around, glaring at the lone gunman by the staircase.
He fires a single shot from his handgun, grazing my shoulder and just barely causing me to wince as I thrust forward with the sheathe of my katana, striking him between the ribs.
The man drops his gun following the crunching sound and falls backwards, down the stairs as I once again turn about.
The man beneath the first one I killed manages to get his hands free and shoots at me, but I let go of the sheathe and pull my arm out of the way, knowing that they were his easiest targets from his position.
As the sheathe tumbles down the stairs, following the likely dead assassin, I stab through one dead man's body and create another.
Another shot sounds from his gun, splintering off a piece of the wood imbedded in my leg.
I withdraw the bloodied katana from their bodies by pushing off the top one with a leg, as the final "able-bodied" man frees himself and trains his gun on me.
For a moment the sights are aimed at my head.
I'm gone the next second, through the doorway and down across the wall.
Before he knows what's going on, I thrust the katana through the old wall, into his torso.
He gives a gasp of surprise as the blade punctures one or more of his vital organs, and blacks out as his body dies while I once more withdraw the blade from a corpse.
"Small wounds aside, not very interesting." I tell their bodies.
Though their rooftop breach was a bit more impressive than the amateurs down at ground level.
I start back towards my room before realizing that the sheathe for my katana fell down the stairs.
No sigh comes from me as I decide to go downstairs and get it.
"From the heavy breathing I hear coming from the bottom floor, it seems I'll be able to 'tie up loose ends' as well."
I walk down the steps, slowly, and the now-terrified assassin tries to crawl down the steps himself, trying to escape.
"Pathetic."
Blood drips from the edge of my blade, warming the cold steel to the point where my heart is colder than the previously chilled metal.
He gives unintelligible grunts and gasps as I grow closer to him, passing by the scene of carnage of the apartment closest to the first floor and the blackened husks of the room within.
The man manages to reach the cold floor below the steps, but a quick sword swipe from me forces him to dodge in the opposite direction of the doorway, slamming his body against the utility closet.
"W- wait. I can tell you who sent us!"
I reach the tile floor beneath the steps as well, my footsteps sounding louder than they might have usually seemed.
Turning towards him, I see into his weak, cowardly eyes as he slides himself up the utility closet's door.
"I- I can-"
The sword thrusts up, through his body and the door of the utility closet, cutting him short. My cold stare tells him that pity doesn't work on me as his own eyes fade and the dead man falls forward.
Once I'm sure he's dead, and I see the sheathe on the floor, I begin to withdraw my sword, but it feels like it's stuck in something else.
"Strange."
The door to the utility closet wasn't particularly thick, but maybe it was enough that it would make it harder to pull the blade free.
I place a foot on the chest of the dead man, and manage to pull the blade free, allowing his corpse to fall to the floor.
It only takes a few moments for me to swipe the sword horizontally through the air, getting any extra blood out of it, and then to sheathe it once more.
An internal sigh almost sounds in my mind as I turn around, heading back to, and then up the staircase.
"Hopefully they'll continue getting bolder; perhaps next time the fight will be worth 'waking up'." I think, heading upstairs for what feels like the millionth time.
I hadn't so much abandoned the story, as left it alone, since I thought no one liked it. Add to that my general situation of immense writer's block in recent history. But I'll try to post some more chapters for this story. I apologize for the short chapters and such.