AN: 9:03 PM, June 5th, 2018. Nothing had changed in the last 21 hours so I'll just go strait to the chapter.

January 6teenth: Russet

Well, I suppose that It's time that I go-out and try to finish off those hit-men. I have managed to maintain my ten without thought, at least for a few minutes, so I guess that's an improvement.

I get up and turn off the radio, before gathering my things. Looking at the clock, I see that it's almost two. Man it's been a long day. And I haven't even done anything yet! I open the door and leave the motel(no duh) and move towards the lower section of town, were the worst element gather. If the hit-men are anywhere, it will be down here.

I'm down to only a few minutes to reach. Thinking back to the news earlier, I remember that seven of the eight hit-men that I meet yesterday are either arrested, hospitalized, or dead. That leaves seven still active, one with taser burns. And unlike last time, I can't wait for them to find me, so I'll have to find them myself, of lure them out.

Now, as good as I've gotten at navigation underworld circles, I simply don't have the knowledge to find them in this city. I have no contacts, no informants, and no reputation. I'd make more progress sitting around a shady bar listening for info, I'm no Batman after-all.

That leaves drawing them out. Now, I have no doubt that they've already passed my picture around the city, so, simply showing my face in a relatively public are could very well lead them to me, but at the same time, that's to uncontrolled.

So what, pray tell, should I do? Should I just leave? By now the mafia's assassins should know that engaging me in CCC is a bad idea, Slen saw to that, I didn't even have to bother using leopard paw, and that's my favourite trick!

Thinking on different martial combos I could pull, my hands fell into a leopard-paw, a hand position from leopard kung-fu were one strikes with there second set of knuckles instead of the first for increased damage to the vitals. It's good for causing damage up close, were I'm at my best, and allows me to attack at unexpected angles. It's a shame I haven't gotten to use it in a while, but I guess I just haven't had to.

That is not to say I've had lessons in leopard kung-fu mind you, I simply appreciated the concept, maintaining a stable offence/defence and off balancing my opponent, and adapted it into my street fighting.

'Great, now I'm actually craving a fight!' I groan mentally, recognizing how the muscles in my arm are getting preemptively jittery. When I was young, I was quite the little brawler, I'd enjoyed nothing so much a a little fist fight. But that, parred with my raging short temper, drove my mother to home school me. Of course, I had gotten the temper under control around twelve(when my brains logic centre finished developing and I began to ask "what's the point?") but the primal love of conflice remained. Now that I've gotten into several fights, it's back to being hard to restrain.

I sighed out-loud. I should really get my thoughts under control, that could be hindering my nen development . . .

where was I? Oh yes, now the H-M knows they shouldn't get to close, so they will probably know that middle and long range combat is the best option. I should stay on the move and avoid visiting the same place twice, or prearranged meetings, so as to avoid bombs. I should also stick to areas where they cant get a clear shot as easily . . . I'm in the middle of a wide street right in the open, arn't I?

I walked down the street to the left, heading to one of the shadier parts of town, which I only new because of a combination of online reviews and street maps (never underestimate research!) and turned into one of the earlier opening bars(well, bar and grill, I want Bar-BQ). Mite as well just wing it. Who know, maybe one of them came in here, got drunk, and started blabbing.

I walked up to the bartender and threw down my hood. He looked at me, but his expression didn't change. 'Either he doesn't know me, or he has a good poker face. Hopefully this means that no-one has come here looking for me yet.' I think as i sit down in one of the bar chairs.

"Welcome the Greg's south-side bar n grill, what yah havin." the bartender asks.

Looking over the menu for a minute, I make my order. "I'll have the honey glaze ribs, and one Mug root beer."

The bar tender nods silently, before turning around and beginning to work. That's another reason I came here. The bar tender is also the chef, and the chef works in plain view of everyone here, the grill's right behind the counter. It also means that he can't just slip something into my food . . . hey, it's only paranoia is there isn't anyone out to get you!

As steam rose from the grill, I caught brief flashes of the smell of meat cooking, before my noses curse kicked in and my sense of smell vanished. 'I swear, at this rate I'll appreciate the smell of garbage simply for the fact that I could smell it . . . ' I think, ;puffing out my left cheek, my eyes never leaving the cooks hands as he masterfully prepares the ribs. Honestly, just watching this is worth the wait.

As I wait, I begin to check my weapons. Cane, with blade and taser attachment? Check. Extra small pistol? Check. Knife in boot? Check. Switchblade in pocket next to watch? Check. Shame I cant bring my vine out of the backpack, but it's to . . . inconspicuous? I think that's the word. Either way, I'm nearly armed to the teeth. But will that be enough? I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Now, how to draw them out? I have no idea were any of them are, and no idea how the will attack me. For all I know, one of them is aiming a rocket launcher at me right now. That is not to say I regret throwing out the files, but not knowing there specialties just makes it harder to find them. Should I just wing-it? I suppose.

At this point, my ribs were almost done, so I stopped thinking for the time being. I can decide what to do after I eat my ribs.

Six hour. Six hours since I ate, and I'm still no closer to finding any of the hit-men than when I started. It's annoying, hunting for someone who's hunting you, wondering whose going to find who first, like a game of tennis were neither side can hit the ball. Now I'm just wandering criss-cross across town trying to find something. And I don't like it when I can't find what I want.

Toss in the fact that my urge to fight has hardly lessened in the passed few minutes and you have a recipe for a very ticked off teenager.

I sighed. Maybe I should just leave the . . . city . . . that's it! If I make it look like I'm going to leave, they'll try to kill me in the airport! I quickly brought up a map of the air port. 'OK, what do I know? One of them is a sniper. Now, taking into account the hills around the city, and the airports position . . . yes there is only three different skyscrapers that you could snipe the airport from, assuming that I enter from the east entrance and take whatever ship is in the third area!' Meaning, if I make it look like I'm heading for that ship, There will only be three places for him to shoot me from. And from the looks of things, I will be able to watch two of them, from the one furthest back.

Now having a strategy, I pulled out my smart phone, a resent advancement, and bought a seat online using my real(for this world) name and picture, for seven AM tomorrow. Now I've set the bait, lets see what I catch.

To easy. I had slept in a janitors closet in one of the tree building, waking up early to ensure I had the optimal chance of catching my target-er of guard. And sure enough, someone came and began setting up a rifle on the building next to me at dawn. After seeing that, I had left my building and headed towards his.

I would like to say that it was anticlimactic, but that would be an understatement. In the end, I had come up the stairs, walked up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, waited for him to stand up it surprise, and shoved him over the edge. See, anticlimactic in the extreme.

Now lets see if anyone else took the bait . . .

I spent the net few hours sitting in an area where I could clearly see anyone watching the rest of the waiting room. When you have an area where you target has to be, it's much easier to wait for them. By six thirty, there were two potential hit men sitting in the room. People who were tense, always watching ect. Since I had used my name and appearance during the sign in, they wouldn't be looking for someone in a disguise, so the powder I used to change my skin colour, and the fake beard(well, goatee) I'm wearing should be enough to throw them off as long as I stay away from the line.

Of course, that hasn't helped me in confirming who the hitmen are. Oh well, I signed up for a challenge at the start when I refused to use those documents. Well. Nothing to do but take a chance. I walked forward, practically strutting, and glanced in the direction of my suspects. I met both of their eyes, then smirked pointedly. I began walking away, noting how they were now following me. Good.

The next problem was finding a good place to fight them. There weren't many places one could try and commit murder in an airport, so getting them to attack me would be rather difficult, and I couldn't know that they were the right men until after they came after me. For all I know they could be loan sharks! That was a rather random example . . .

We reached a long, open hallway after a few minutes, one that had minimal security cameras. There was a twenty foot gap were the cameras didn't cover right in the middle, in fact. This, made it more or less the perfect place for a confrontation.

I turned around and faced the two men. Both were wearing rather casual clothes, had black hair, and wore serious expressions. There clothes of one was baggy enough to hide a weapon or two, but ones were next to skin tight, showing off his muscles. The one with his muscles showing was probably a CCC specialist. I could expect either grapples of whipping blows to vital areas. The baggy one would probably pull a gun on me.

I, with a bit of a flourish, pulled off the fake beard and gave them a slight smirk. "You wouldn't happen to be looking for me, would you?" I said with a teasing tone, my grip on my cane tightening.

They both tensed, the one with the baggy clothes, slowly reaching into his clothes. This was most likely an attempt to pull out a weapon.

Showing surprising coordination, the man in tight clothes(who from this point forward will be called fist) lunged forward, going for a right strait to the head. I ducked to my right, instinct telling me to look at the baggy man(who from this point forward will be called taz), who had pulled out what appeared to be a taser gun. So that's there plan.

The man went the fire his gun, but before he had even lined up the shot, I flicked my wrist, pointing my cane (Always assume I'm carrying it) at him. The canes extended to over eight feet, and the same blade I used against the whip woman coming out. The result was a blade slamming right into his wrist, causing him to drop the gun. I was forced to focus back on Fist as he came around with a hook at my face, ducking under it, and rolling to my left, collapsing my cane in the process. The whole exchange happened in less than three seconds.

Coming back to my feet from my rolling, I took a swing at Fist's neck, which caused him to back away, before I charged at him. He took a defensive stance in the second it took me to build up momentum, but to his surprise, I fell to one knee, shoved of the ground with the other leg, and slid by him, before coming back to my feet right in front of Taz, who took an overhead swing of the blade to the spot were the shoulder meets the neck before he could react properly.

Ignoring the mans screams, as well as how alarms were now sounding, I dropped my cane and stepped back into Fists chest as he came to hit me in the back of the head. I threw my head back, slamming him in the jaw, staggering him, before darting forward and kicking the still shocked Taz between the legs, grabbed him by the head and dragged his face down into be rising knee, that seemingly being enough to knock him out.

Seeing this, Fist paused, looked conflicted, then ran away. "Hey, you!" Oh look, security. Time to leave.

I'll save you the run/chase scene, and simply tell you that it is time for trap two. I had returned to the same cheep hotel as before, and intentional chosen the room furthest away from anyone else. What was I hoping for? And arson specialist, that's what. If all goes well, they should be by to light the room on fire. If not . . . well there are a lot of reasons, so I won't bore you.

Either way, around three, I felt the area begin to get hotter, and small amounts of smoke began to come under the door. I shoot out of bed, were I had been practising ten and pretending to sleep, as the fire alarm began to blare, threw on my glasses, and shot to the door, pretending to panic. If I'm lucky, the guy is either still here, or the cameras I hid in the hall caught him. I open the doo . . .

'bang!'

'What? What was that? Why does my head hurt? Wha . . . I activated ten on instinct. Why? What?' I was standing with the door open, my head forced back by a sudden blow. The middle of my forehead hurt. I reached up an placed my hand over it. There was something sticking out of my forehead. I pulled it out. I looked at it. It was a cylinder of brass, with tapered end, which had blood on it. A bullet. A bullet had buried itself a centimetre into my head.

I looked right in front of me. The man with the pistol looked as shocked as me. Taking a moment to take it in, I came back the my senses as the mast expression shifted from shock to panic and leopard-pawed him right in the throat as he tried to shift a new bullet into the guns chamber. "Get an automatic, dumbass!" I screamed, the stress and Adrenalin from the near death experience making me more irrational.

'I was just lucky that the guy had apparently removed some powder from the bullet. If hadn't tried to make the bang quieter, I would be dead! Honestly! I keep telling myself not to get cocky, and what do I do!?'. I rant mentally as I dash down the hall. Enough cat and mouse. I'm leaving the city before I make any more mistakes like this. I must have been having a power high from having my nen unlocked, I've been acting like an overconfident fool since I got back from the exam!

I ran out the front door, heading downtown. I had left my things hidden in a public locker, just so they wouldn't be damaged if a fire got out of control. Look how that turned out, the guy used a heater and a flipping smoke machine, and I nearly got killed because of it!

I slowed in my running, I needed to calm down, the fact that there was blood dripping down into my eyes doesn't help either. I begin wiping my forehead, noting the blood on the back of my wrist. It hurts. Not the worst pain, but it will be a little hard to focus. I need to find a way out of the city that the hit-men can't track . . . maybe I should just stow away under a bus? I mean the buses around here ride rather low to the ground . . .

I reached the public lockers, pulling out a key. Opening to locker, I removed my bag. Retrieving my first aid kit, I bandaged my forehead, the end result looking more like a headband than anything else, before throwing on a red hoodie over the turtle-neck I was currently wearing. Walking down the street, I paused. Next to one of the restaurants, this one open 24-7 to cater to truck drivers. The parking lot had six semi trucks in it. I wonder if I can get away with hiding in the back of one of those?

AN: 11:21 PM June 8th, 2018. Not a lot of plot progression in this chapter, huh? I guess that's what made it hard to write. No new review either, so I guess I'll just promise more plot progression in the next chapter and leave it at that.