As quick as a cobra's strike, T.K. raised his guns at Ken and opened fire. Without hesitation, Ken jumped out of harm's way and began to sprint away from T.K. The Angel of Death saw Ken sprint to his left and continued to open fire, refusing to give Ken any space to breathe. After the 20th shot, Ken leaped in the air, landed on some rubble, faced T.K. and drew out his own pair of silver 45-caliber handguns.

"You gonna die, bitch!" Ken screamed.

Ken fired away at T.K. like crazy. T.K. somersaulted away from Ken's fire and ducked for cover. T.K. felt some Ken's bullets ricocheting off of his cover, feeling the debris falling down his head. When he heard Ken cease fire, T.K. popped out of his cover and let his fingers turn triggerhappy. Ken ducked for cover from T.K.'s wrath. Ken hit the dirt in safety and let out a curse when he felt one of T.K.'s bullets whisk through his hair.

As their backs were turned to each other while hiding from each other's firepower, T.K. and Ken emptied their guns of their hollow magazines. T.K. and Ken rushed through their belts and snatched out their new magazines. The assassins felt the hearts pumping harder than before as they popped their magazines into their guns and want to see who would be first to be back in action.

"Son of a bitch. He's good, real good," T.K. muttered to himself.

T.K. felt his veins thumping by his throat as he awaited Round 2 with the King of Blades. T.K. let out a battle-cry and whipped right out of his cover. In a blink of an eye, T.K. was face to face, and gun to gun, with Ken. The guns in their right hands were pointing right between each other's eyes while their guns in their left hands were ready to end each other's heartbeat. A sweat dripped down T.K.'s head as he looked through his sunglasses right into Ken's eyes, eyes eager to see T.K. in a coffin.

"I underestimated you, upstart. You're quite better than I anticipated. Boy, how I'd like to see your older brother's face when he sees that Takeru Takaishi finally met his match. But I got some bad news for you, little man," Ken said, with a smile on his face.

T.K. let out a grunt.

"You see, I have the fastest trigger-fingers in the world. If I see even a slight twitch from any of your fingers, you die. Sorry to burst your bubble, but this duel is over even before it has begun," Ken announced.

T.K. felt fear bite down through his throat. He knew deep within himself that Ken was right. T.K. learned that Ken had more confirmed kills than any other assassin on the planet, and every victim of the King of Blades was a cold-blooded warrior who refused to go down easy.

The Angel of Death refused to let Kari fall to the hands of such a monster. T.K. knocked Ken's guns out of range with his own guns and delivered a big boot to Ken's chest. Ken let out a grunt and hit the dirt real hard. T.K. ran for a short, wooden wall nearby and leaped right over it.

Grinding his teeth, Ken got up and pointed his deadly firearms at the wooden wall T.K. was behind.

"FACE ME LIKE A MAN, YA COWARD!" Ken shouted. Ken opened fire at the wall, making the wall have as many holes as swiss cheese. T.K. rolled onto his back and returned fire as he saw the daylight break through the wall. T.K. fired again. And again. And again.

Click.

("No. Not now.")

Click.

T.K. was out of bullets, and he doesn't have enough time to reload. T.K. then heard Ken calling out T.K., followed by a dreadful laugh.

"Hey, T.K. I'm out of bullets, too. Why don't we settle this the ancient way: hand to hand! What do you say, upstart?" Ken asked.

T.K.'s brows formed a "V" shape.

"QUIT CALLING ME THAT, ASSHOLE!" T.K. shouted. After popping his guns back into his holsters, T.K. smashed right through the bombarded wall and tackled Ken to the ground. Mounting himself on top of Ken, T.K. rammed his left fist into Ken's face, followed by a right, a left, and another right. As his left fist was about to connect to Ken's face again, Ken caught T.K.'s fist with his right hand. Smiling while blood trickled down the edge of his mouth, Ken began to squeeze T.K.'s fist. T.K. winced in pain as he felt Ken's powerful grip slowly cause T.K.'s bones in his fist to crack. Ken got up and continued to squeeze T.K.'s fist, forcing T.K. to go down on one knee.

"You really disappointed me, Angel of Death," Ken said, wiping the blood off his jaw while still injecting pain into T.K.'s sqeezed fist. In a split second, Ken forced T.K.'s fist to face upward. T.K. let out a menacing scream as he felt his left arm get twisted. Holding onto T.K.'s fist, Ken rammed his left fist into T.K.'s solar plexus. Seeing T.K. lose almost all the air in his body, Ken released T.K. and delivered a menacing right cross to T.K.'s head. T.K. felt the wrath of Ken's blow knock him off his feet, spiraled in the air and hit the dirt face-first. Blood poured out of his mouth as he opened his eyes and saw a blurred vision of a man in black with purple-bluish hair standing over him.

Ken took his sheathed katana off his back and slowly drew the katana out of the scabbard. Ken relished the feeling of drawing his katana out to have it feed on human blood once more. Victory sung in Ken's ears as the sunlight made the blade shine.

"Allow me to introduce my blade, Masamune. He thirsts for blood once again, and now he yearns for yours. It's too bad you didn't get to feel the fury of the King of Blades. Your head will make a real good trophy for my wall..."



... to be continued.