I walked through the main doors of the Dynasty. This was it, all or nothing. I took a deep breath as I adjusted my bag over my shoulder. As I released my breath, I started to relax. I reminded myself this was a case. Not an actual induction into the professional fighting world. Too bad. It would have been a great opportunity to become a professional fighter. Then again I would miss being a gumshoe too much. I walked farther inside as I glanced around my surroundings.

Sekhmet was going a few rounds with Rowen in the ring. I stopped and watched them for a while. I smirked a bit seeing Rowen was faster than his opponent. Rowen already blocked and dodged. He made his way behind him even before Sekhmet had a chance to go all the way through with his blow. I almost forgot Rowen was the fastest out of the five of us when it came to fighting. I caught Rowen's smirk when Sekhmet whirled around and scowled at him. I could see he was enjoying himself a bit. But he would never admit it himself of course.

I was so into their tangle I almost didn't notice Cale coming up from behind. I stepped off to the side a bit as I threw up a block. My eyes narrowed at him as he scoffed at me.

He stepped back with a smirk, "Not bad. I see your reflexes are still decent. But you still need training."

"I still beat you last time we tangled in the ring. So I know I'm good, but you might be the one who needs more training."

Cale growled at me as he narrowed his eyes. He didn't care for my attitude towards him. I didn't care much for his face, nor how he acted towards Kaye the last time either.

"So, your dame let you join our fight club I see."

"Hey, I go where I want to go, do what I want. Right now, I'm here to train, so unless you want to make something out of it, then you don't mention Kaye when I'm here." I stood face to face with Cale as I stared him down. This guy was getting on my last nerve.

"Enough you two, break it up," Anubis said as he and Kayura approached us.

Cale moved farther back from me as Kayura came closer. Cale knew better than to get on the wrong side of Anubis. He studied me a bit longer and then walked away towards the locker room.

"Anubis said he offered you a position as one of my fighters. So you decided to take up his offer? Have you given up on trying to find out what happened to Dais? If so, then I'd like my money back."

I shook my head, "I haven't given up. I'll figure out what happened to your fighter. I'm getting close to closing the case. So I thought. Since the case is almost closed, I could start training here so I could have something to do between cases."

Anubis raised a brow at me. "The offer was to be a full-time fighter, not a part-time or something to take on the side because you're between cases. So, either you're serious, or you can turn around and leave."

I studied Kayura and Anubis as I slid my hand into my pocket. "I figured either you told your boys I'm looking into Dais' death or they figured it out on their own. So they're not giving me too much grief about it. Which tells me, you told them the real reason why I'm here. Plus you told them to be on their best behavior while I'm around so I wouldn't suspect anything." I raised a brow at them, "How close am I?"

"You're behind the eight ball, gumshoe. So I would suggest you be careful, otherwise, you might get into something you can't get out of." Kayura warned.

I smirked, "I'm not too worried about being here. I know what I'm doing. I can handle myself fine. But thanks the same. So, if you excuse me, I will like to get changed so I can get some training in sometime today."

"Of course, I'll have Anubis show you to the locker room. But before you go, remember, things don't happen inside the ring, things could happen outside of it too. Enjoy your training." Kayura proclaimed as she walked towards her office.

This dame got under my skin. If I didn't know any better she sent me a threat to make sure I would be on my best behavior while I'm here as well. I could understand now why Kaye was so irritated with Kayura when she came to us when she hired us for this case. Kayura played us well. Damn, well, there was nothing much else I could do about it now. I walked right into their hands without thinking. The entire thing was a trap from the start, and I brought Kaye right into the deep of it right along with me. This proved to me there was way more going on than either of us knew. What were they up to? What were they hiding? Plus, did they know about Rowen being undercover? If they did, then he could be in trouble too. But I shouldn't have to worry about Rowen, he can take care of himself if he needed to. In any case, we have one another to back each other up if things get out of hand here.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts. I didn't hear Anubis calling out to me. The next thing I knew I felt a fist making contact with my shoulder. I looked up and saw Anubis glaring at me. I worked my shoulder, "What was that for?"

"You're wasting time standing around, now are you coming or what?"

"Yeah, I'm coming. Sheesh, keep your shirt on." I replied as I started to follow him to the locker room.

I passed the ring Rowen was fighting and glanced towards him. I could see he heard us talking because he gave a slight nod as he continued his tangle. We would have to figure out a time and place to talk later. That in itself might be a little tricky. But nothing I can do about it at the moment. It didn't take long for Anubis to point out the locker room. I saw him starting to leave. "Hey, where are you off to?"

Anubis stopped but didn't turn around, "None of your business. I have things to do, but you don't have time to waste. So you get changed and start your training." He didn't wait for me to reply and walked out the door. I turned around and looked out the window as I saw him leaving the Dynasty on his own. I didn't like the feeling I started to have in the pit of my stomach. It was nothing, then again it could be something. I'm going to have to make a call later to find out for sure. I needed to focus, so I changed and went out and joined Cale in his training session.

When I was training, I noticed Rowen finished and was exiting the ring. I could see Kayura wasn't too impressed with Sekhmet's tangle. I chuckled when I saw her telling him off big time. I could see for myself this dame held her own as the owner of this fight club. I could tell he didn't like it when a dame was telling him how he needed to improve his fighting skills. If he's ever going to be a decent fighter since he can't hold his own against a newbie. Ouch, talk about hitting below the belt.

"I'm starting to think your skirt should have come with you. Then you'll keep your attention on your drills. instead of not having your focus on your training. You won't be any good to the Dynasty if you can't keep your focus on what you're doing." Cale stated in annoyance.

What he said ignited my anger once again. I pulled back my fist and let it slam right towards his face. "I warned you to not mention her," He blocked and then returned a punch of his own. I blocked and then sent another punch followed by a reverse. I threw in a few more combinations as a couple of them landed on Cale, but he blocked the rest and returned a few of his own. Before either of us knew it, we were in a free-for-all. Blows were being thrown, blood was flying everywhere. Yelling in the background, and then Cale and I have pulled apart.

"What's with you?" Rowen asked as he was trying his best to hold me back from landing any more blows on Cale.

I came back to my senses when I heard Rowen trying to calm me down. I glanced around and I saw blood splatter all over the place. Where did this blood come from? I glanced at Cale and saw his nose bleeding. Then I felt pain in my already wounded hand. I glanced down and saw it soaked with blood as well. It seemed my stitches came out during our tangle. Well, what do you expect we were going at it barehanded?

I heard Kayura storming over towards us, man was she ever steamed. "What do you think you were doing?! I don't condone fighting unless it's in the ring! Especially when it's in my fight club!"

"I was trying to get the newbie to focus on his training. He has an issue with keeping his attention where it needs to be. Plus, he has anger issues." Cale explained with slight amusement in his tone.

Anger issues?! I'll give this ass anger issues! I closed my eyes and sighed, "I warned him earlier, but I guess he didn't want to heed my warning."

"It doesn't matter, Cale, go and get cleaned up. Kento, you can stay and clean the blood." Kayura said as she turned and started to walk away.

I blinked in surprise, "What?! Now look..."

I saw her turn around and glare at me, "No, you look, you're the newbie. You're the one who drew first blood so you're the one to clean it."

"I'll help him if you don't mind." Rowen offered as he glanced between the two of us.

"I don't care. get it cleaned up and then change and get out of my club." Kayura replied as she walked back to her office with Cale and Sekhmet going to the locker room.

I studied my bandaged hand and frowned. I waited for Rowen to return with what he found to use for cleaning the blood splatter.

"Did you need me to look at your hand?"

I looked up at Rowen and shook my head, "No, but thanks anyway. I'll take care of it. You didn't have to stick around to help me clean, it's my mess."

I saw him shrug, "It's fine. This gives us a chance to talk with no one else around." Rowen replied as I did a quick wrap of my hand with some bandages that were close by. Then started to clean. "What happened that got you so riled Kento?"

I sighed a bit, "I warned Cale not to mention Kaye when I'm here training."

"Let me guess. He did and you lost it." Rowen replied as he saw me give a slight nod. He sighed, "Kento, you have it bad my friend. You use to keep more of a level head when she would have mentioned it in the past. But recently, ever since the night we met up at the Torrent, you've been different. You need to figure out how to deal with whatever is going on, otherwise, both of you are going to get hurt one way or another."

I closed my eyes and sighed, "I know. I'm not sure how." I opened my eyes and looked over towards him.

"The longer you put it off, the worse it's going to get. I know talking about things like this is not your deal, but it has to before it's too late." Rowen pointed out. "It's affecting you more than you realize, even I can tell when I look at you. I hate to admit it, but Cale is right about your focus. It isn't where it's supposed to be."

I looked over at him, "Alright, would you stop already? It's hard enough for me to deal with. I don't need you harping on me about it."

I heard Rowen chuckle, chuckled enough, I'll stop. But, what are you thinking about doing with your position here? They all set you two up pretty well."

"I know, I'm not exactly thrilled about it. But this confirms there is more going on here than we thought. I guess this is their way of keeping on an eye on me so I won't get too close on what their real agenda could be."

"Sounds reasonable. I'm not sure if I'm made or not. But I do know if I pull out now, they'll figure out I'm not who they might think I claimed to be." Rowen answered as we finished cleaning the blood splatter.

We walked to the janitor's closet and put the supplies away. I glanced up towards Kayura's office for a moment and then back to Rowen. "Ever since you've started here, have you been in Kayura's office?"

"No, Anubis doesn't even let any newbies upstairs. So there's no way to access Kayura's office when any of them are here. I have no idea what the layout of her office would be. So I wouldn't know if we'd be able to access it from outside or not."

I glanced towards Kayura's office and could see Cale and Sekhmet were now talking with Kayura. Then I looked at Rowen with a smirk. "What do you say we come back after hours and see if we can find anything when they're not here? Or would you bust me on breaking and entering?"

Noir Terms

Behind the eight ball means In a dangerous or disadvantageous position