Day 28: Your Favourite Piece Of Merchandise You Own - a throwing star
Zen Koan: "The moon in the water!"
Leonardo watched Saki leave his brothers to the rest of the clan, instead coming into the shadows.
What was this place? Leonardo wondered. Humans put such strange things on their buildings. A water tank, he recognized that, air conditioning vents that rotated in lazy circles, leaning antennas...but he didn't recognize several of the steel beams and wire mesh, the iron rebar jutting out of broken concrete and pipes that went nowhere. This roof was a cage of sharp angles and steam wafting up from the hot vents.
A fitting battlefield for two warriors intent on not being seen.
He could not let this become a real fight. Saki was highly skilled, far more skilled than Leonardo, than his brothers. In close quarters, they were no match. But if he stayed quiet, out of sight...
Saki turned, and shuriken peppered the pipes and wall above him.
His eyes widening, Leonardo darted from his hiding spot and climbed up the crumbling brick wall, using the rising steam to cloak his movements. Then he was over the small roof access and scrambling behind the water tank, up its steel beams, cutting himself on a piece of wire as he reached the top of the tank.
Saki's footsteps were coming around the concrete. Leonardo took two shuriken and threw them down in among the air vents, one after the other to sound as if he was moving quickly across the roof. And then Saki's footsteps vanished completely.
Leonardo froze, held his breath. Far away, he heard his brothers fighting, the wind carrying the faint whispers of their mocking insults and shouts of triumph. Below, the sound of a single vehicle passing by. Here, on the rooftop, nothing. The wind scraped through old, sharp steel, bringing the salt taste of ocean water stinging on his wounds.
Afraid to make the slightest sound, Leonardo crept up onto the very top of the tank, making himself as small as he could. Had Saki frozen as well? Were they both straining to hear the slightest sound, having lost sight of each other? Or did Saki know exactly where he was, silently stalking him out of sight?
I can't stay here, Leonardo thought. Keep moving.
Like Karai's steel pinning his hand, Saki's blade would find him eventually. Staying still was suicide.
Gathering his feet under himself, he—
The steel beams of the water tank shuddered and bent, sending him sideways. Cursing himself for moving too slow, Leonardo leaped as hard as he could, sacrificing stealth for height and just barely avoiding the tips of Saki's outstretched claws.
Leonardo landed in a roll, and the roof passed in a blur—the watertank's beams sliced and shearing under its own weight, Saki sprinting toward him, the black clouds covering the moon, water spilling out across the roof so that hot pipes exploded and steam shot across the concrete.
"Not as hidden as you think!" Saki shouted after him.
Leonardo came up running, jumped and turned in the air to throw every single shuriken he held, landing and plunging into the blackest shadows on the roof. As he moved deeper in the pitch dark, surrounded by steel and rust, he heard Saki's yell of pain as several shuriken struck true.
He didn't stop, didn't let fear lock him down. Water rose up to his ankles, covering the roof, choking several unseen motors that coughed and sparked. A wire fence cut him off, but he was up and over it before he could worry about its soft shaking rattle. Darting around an air conditioning unit, he heard its fans still humming with power, and he ran his hand underneath it, trying to find—
Saki's scream was his only warning. Throwing himself blindly backward, Saki's claws just missed his face and screeched against steel. Leonardo struck another fence, showering himself with rust, and turned to scramble up just as Saki took another swipe. Pain burned across his left leg, but Saki had aimed too high and too soon, leaving only a shallow cut above his knee.
Now Leonardo took advantage of his lighter size, moving up onto concrete that crumbled under Saki's steel boots. He turned, clinging with one hand onto the ledge, and looked down.
Saki already had several throwing knives in one hand, reaching back to begin his throw. Leonardo wasted precious time taking his own throwing knife and took a breath, held it—focused even as Saki flung a half dozen little blades—
The knife left Leonardo's fingers in a straight arc, easily missing Saki, who chuckled without dodging.
Wincing before he felt any pain, Leonardo turned hard but still took two knives in his shoulder. He clung tight to the ledge and pulled himself over the edge, balancing on what he now realized was the rooftop access door.
Only the terrible snarl and hiss of electricity followed. Suddenly horribly tired, he watched Saki's body slump down into the water, smoldering as sparks and smoke poured from the electrical cable severed by his knife.
He watched for several seconds, sure that Saki would leap up again as if this was a terrible horror movie, the monster that doesn't die. But Saki did not move, save for the occasional twitch, and Leonardo's pain was slowly fighting back the adrenalin that made it easy to ignore.
Leonardo pulled out the two knives, hoping that they weren't poisoned, pocketing them in case they were. His mask and spare mask made a handy bandage to press and tie tight over the wound.
Moving as if he was as heavy as lead, he wearily stood, began to pick his way over concrete, avoiding steel. The sound of his brothers' voices called him back toward their fight.
