Schwarz Blitz 11
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Makoto had to pounce back onto her feet if she wanted to get a hit back on these opponents. The nasty jab to the hip was a sign of bad awareness for the beginning of a fight. She forcefully pushed the pain through her system, minimizing its feel from the inside till it was nothing. These guys all looked the same in the darkness. Everyone had a similar fashion sense unbelievably though it was hard to tell what they really looked like in the dark because they were far away from any lampposts.
The recovery bought her enough time to evade a knife strike to the head. Missing the sharp edge of the blade she then rolled to the ground, away from the four men. So much for a good start. The word 'concentrate' repeated over and over again in her thoughts. Was she nervous? She shouldn't be, should she? When it came to starting street fights Makoto always had neutral feelings and took first glances at what the opponent had to demonstrate as a combatant.
But she couldn't help feeling rather worried about this fight. It was as though something in the air was giving her a warning sign, to tell her this wasn't an average brawl she had occasionally won every night. She hardly ever got ticklish bumps travelling down her spine but tonight she seemed to be feeling it all very clearly. Ok so this wasn't a Youma like in the Sailor Senshi days though if her defensive senses spoke of the truth then she had to watch her front and back with immediate awareness. What if this was her so-called vision of the future? What if it was here that she was about to end her life?
Shit she thought she sounded like Crawford here, informing her about a vision of her death. Makoto's emerald eyes grew larger when she saw a huge fist coming at her. Reacting in time through an X block, she countered with a knee to the groin and pushed the second guy away forcibly. Four punches came at her and she defended each one with light upper blocks to her face. All four thugs teamed together and delivered numerous kicks towards her. How could Makoto defend everything in one go? This was a test of speed. She could just about fight off every single blow and counter with a few of her own jump kicks to their faces.
You'd have to have sharp eyes to follow the person's every move if they chose to attack fast like a cheetah. If her brain didn't miscount stupidly, Makoto guessed that she had given twenty fast snap kicks altogether (though it felt as though it was less). It was too fast to be caught on camera when you were kicking at sufficient speed. The four men grouped together, acting as though the kicks she had given to their faces was nothing more than a scratch.
This was like a martial arts kata. The students were in sync as they demonstrated their moves in the correct order. It was a shame she didn't have her friends to back her up. They would provide the perfect back up for an equal tag team fight. Makoto didn't want to start regretting that she went down another path to her friends. They all had happy lives and should be left as they were. She didn't want to ruin their positive side of life with her need for help. This was her fight she had to deal with. She was the one who attracted these guys' attention. They knew her name. And they must be working for Aki.
"TAKE THIS!" Makoto kicked the wooden plank in the air and watched it hit the third guy in the stomach. The fourth thug gave a surprise punch to the right cheek and smashed her head into the wall. She thought she had a broken nose though didn't get the chance to find out if that was true when two pairs of rough hands grabbed her shirt and threw her entire body into the air. Makoto yelled as she eventually found her body flying across the street and landed on a metal bench. Her jaw and palms vibrated uncontrollably when she came down. Both her top and bottom teeth grinded together and Makoto thought she had bitten off a part of her tongue, disabling a moment to curse at the two men who just threw her.
These guys had to be real army soldiers. Why else were they this rough to her? Forget Schuldig and Crawford. They were freaks in the psychic zone. The four men she was facing tonight had to be trained fighters who were probably being fed steroids to boost their strength and abilities in combat. Makoto was thankful for being a natural in fighting talent and wouldn't consider taking steroids to improve her skills. Her palms felt like they had invisible bruises developing although there were only the red rashes spreading all over the surface.
I hate handicaps…yet they give me this challenging thrill. Jeez I sound crazier than Schuldig She thought ridiculously as she forced herself off the bench, coping with the aching pain in her jaw, hands and other muscles. What if she was becoming like the German without realising it? It would have been down to his powerful mind influence, wouldn't it? Makoto must have underestimated her opponents. How could she not see they were tougher than expected from the first move they made? The hip strike had to be a sure enough sign to say 'We're not here to mess around.' Aki must have gone on a little tour to the different gangster bars or fight clubs to find the perfect opponents for Makoto. Anyone believed Aki's word. She had the power to manipulate the public.
Through the third thug's grin he had a gold tooth that showed clearly among the rest of his horribly yellow stained teeth. It was a nasty sight and Makoto wished she could close her eyes to sleep. But she couldn't, could she? Already her bones and muscles started to hurt and she shouldn't have taken things too easy from the start. She should have been more alert while preparing herself earlier tonight.
"Hey, do you think we should be this hard to her? She is a girl, you know." His head pivoted to his friends, who all frowned at each other as though the question had been asked in another language.
"I guess…" The first guy replied hesitantly, sounding more like a youth of seventeen.
"Who cares? We have to do our job," The second dude cackled hysterically. "Check it out. The girl is in pain but doesn't wanna give up. That's why Aki said she's worth a lot of money if we finish her off. Think about the money, guys." Makoto thought she was a ghost as she heard the four bullies speak amongst each other. Was that all she was to them?
They sounded more insane than her and Schuldig put together. Dammit why did his name have to keep popping up so much? Why did strangeness have to run back towards him? Perhaps these guys were his friends. She could see what they all had in common. They all suffered the same sort of madness. That sounded right. Wait till she got her hands on him for setting her up.
"Still want a piece of us, huh?" The fourth guy commented when he saw her get into a fighting stance. Makoto shouted to him to shut up Don't make the pain take over. "I don't think you know who we are…" As if performing in a show, he and his friends dashed into a circle around Makoto and all of a sudden attacked with non-stop strikes to the front and back. Everything was happening so quickly; as though this was videotape on fast forward mode. Makoto couldn't see her hands very well while they automatically defended each blow from the front and behind.
She wasn't telling her defences to do this. There was no time to give a strategy through each strike coming at her per minute. Every fighting part had a mind of its own. These guys were better in martial arts than she was. She didn't need someone to tell her that. Every man here had powerful hands and strong kicks that could put Makoto into shame as a fighter. Had she finally been beaten? This wasn't a monster she was facing. It was a human who trained longer in martial arts than she did.
The tight circle surrounding her slim body had deflected her kicks and Makoto knew sweeping each one of the thugs would only damage her feet. She found this out the hard way by a brief attempt to bring the third guy down to his knees but the muscle in his stance was so stiff like a statue. This was one of the worst handicap fights she had over the past. Her energy wasn't being sucked away by a strange monster. This was physical damage taking place tonight. And shit it was torture.
Makoto panted tiredly from defending through blocks countless times, causing a stir of cruel amusement towards the four men. Each one took it in turns to kick her at various levels of her figure. Her knees. Her hips. Her face. Each part received a strike and it made Makoto wince helplessly. They had proven she was weaker than them. The first guy's voice echoed behind her head.
"We're killers in case you hadn't realised. We're more ruthless than trash like you," He taunted. Makoto found her mouth screaming out of the blue as she felt a stab of torturous pain in her torso. The fourth guy pulled the knife quickly out of her body, forcing her to yelp, then kicked her back muscles till she flopped to the ground. Fuck, she was back down again, in more pain than ever This is bad!! Come on, Mako-chan.
"Hey look up, girlie!" The second guy ordered, lifting her face up and kicking her to the side. Blood spilled from her dried lips as she found her body staring into the dark sky and at the four grinning faces looking down at her defeated figure. From here she could see the knife the fourth guy held in his hand. The blade had HER blood on it and the red liquid was dripping onto the ground slowly. She could see him laughing at the sight of her blood. Makoto thought she would be sick when she spotted him licking her blood off his knife. The sound of slurping disturbed her eardrums and it made the feeling worse when his friends let out lots of impressed 'Oohs'.
Now she could see every face underneath the moonlight. The first guy did look very young. Much younger than her age and had an innocent façade. Someone who didn't want to take part in this charade. He seemed to be talking to someone through a walkie-talkie as he hovered in the background, away from the other three. Maybe it was Makoto's imagination of course because her eyes weren't exactly wide open due to the immense pain she was undergoing. The third guy seemed to be a definite thug all right. He had a pierced nose and long messy hair that blended with his dark leather clothes.
On the other hand, the fourth member of this killing party had one amber eye shining in the night. It wasn't merely his one amber eye that intrigued Makoto, it was his short silver hair. And his clothes. What was with the heavy bandages on his arms? And what happened to his left eye? Maybe he lost it during a fight, which was why he put an eye patch on it. Oh Makoto did not want to know all the gory details, thank you very much. She was in no condition for guessing games and using her brain. This night was too full of hell.
"Aw shit why don't we kill her now? Makes it less painful. Plus we can get the money quickly," The third guy said impatiently, checking his gun was loaded. It was loaded, yes, though he only had one bullet in it. And it was reserved for Makoto no doubt. All it took was one bullet, right to the heart or brain. He asked his teammates to check their guns and was horrified when they told him their guns were empty. "Oh fuck, I thought you all said you loaded these. Am I the only one here who's the organised one? Geez, you jerks." Guess this guy must be the bossy one. He must have persuaded Aki to hire him just so he could grab the money.
"Hey I remembered I loaded four bullets here," The second guy stated suspiciously as he observed his shotgun. "I swear I did put them in with my bare fingers, man." The third thug mumbled 'bullshit' under his breath then added, "Never mind. Guess I'll take the honour of killing the bitch. Patchy boy over there did a good job of making her lose blood. It shouldn't take long for her to die then."
Makoto guessed that when he said patchy boy he meant the guy who stabbed her through the abdomen. Why the hell was the youngest boy, i.e. the first guy, looking at her strangely? His cerulean eyes looked at her sharply as though he wanted to see her suffer for good. Makoto had a hunch that he was suffering in his own personal issue. For a minute there she had a brief pang of sympathy showing there.
Cutting off the thinking process in Makoto's mind, the third guy picked her weakened body by her ponytail and looked into her exhausted face. She knew that he and his friends had a lot of delight in watching her suffer like this. It was in their eyes, past their pupils and into their brain waves. The third thug pointed his pistol to Makoto's forehead, giving his toothy grin once again.
"I have to say you were good on the defensive side and had great moves. But now…" His finger found the trigger. "You gotta die. And we'll get our money." His friends cheered.
This reminded Makoto of the moment where Crawford was evidently about to shoot her in the chest during their sparring session a few days ago. Was this going to be like Crawford's joke? Was she going to be fooled by an empty gun? No! She saw the third guy's gun had a real live bullet. That was no fake object in his hand. This was one bloody way to travel back to heaven, wasn't it? Shutting her eyelids, Makoto waited for the pain to surge into her brain at any time now. All he had to do was shoot. Then it would be over for her –again.
"Bye, bye!" The third guy yelled gladly, laughing at the same time. The gun pressed hard on Makoto's forehead. Here it comes!!!! Her eyes closed harder as she awaited the impact. She would have expected more pressure to the forehead as predicted but couldn't understand why she felt heavier weight in her stomach, which was where her knife injury was and it was starting to hurt again because of the pressure being inflicted upon her.
There was also a gust of wind ruffling her ear and her body had a sense of horizontal levitation as she crossed through the air. Her eyes were still closed and wouldn't open so she could see what was going on. Was she hearing things imaginatively or did she just pick up the sound of someone getting a punch in the chest? Even when her eyes were shut she could tell where the person got a hit on his body just by listening to their sound.
Makoto was too pre-occupied with the pain in her lower torso to notice she wasn't supposedly flying across the street and failed to also realise her arms had clutched onto something. It was someone's jacket. The texture of the material seemed to be all too familiar. Didn't all expensive jackets have the same strong material? Damn who gave a shit about whether that was true? Makoto had a suspicion that it wasn't just the familiar feel of the person's jacket…it was the presence of this other person. It could be someone she knew, particularly with the closeness of his body.
She had to open her eyes. She HAD to see whether she was losing her mind or not. Her head ascended and pulled away from the person. Her jade irises came back to the dark night as a blurry figure began to piece together in a clearer vision. Oh shit it couldn't be…
"There you are. I thought you would never open your eyes for me," Schuldig spoke in a low tone. Both his arms had also clutched onto Makoto's tattered clothes and his long orange strands prickled her bruised cheeks. If she was in the mood, Makoto would have punched him in the face for smiling at her through a bad time like this. Then again she couldn't have been more grateful to see someone she knew (unfortunately) to help her out. So for now she thought about letting him off for smiling at an untimely moment. In fact she saw that her smile wasn't meant to be playful. It seemed like a sign of relief and concern.
"Mein Gott, I didn't think they'd do this much damage to you," The German commented in slight horror as he saw the blood stain his hands after touching her bleeding injury that went from her lower back through to her abdomen.
"How dare you…?" Makoto wasn't able to finish her sentence and decided to save the question till later. She looked over his shoulder to see the third thug on the ground, holding one knee and moaning at how painful it hurt. What happened there?
"I saved you from getting a bullet to your head," Schuldig explained after hearing the question in her mind. Oh of course. He was fast. That explained the wind Makoto had felt just then. Schuldig had grabbed her before the bullet went off and attacked the third guy. "Don't worry, Farfarello and Nagi will deal with him and the others."
"Who?" The German placed his index finger to her lips to silence her. Who the hell were Farfarello and Nagi? What kind of names were they? They sounded totally odd for names.
"Oh shit who the hell was he?" The third guy demanded furiously. "The bastard tripped me." The second thug helped him to his feet but he refused the help and tried to force himself onto his feet. He was acting like Makoto here when she was being beaten. The third thug decided to change his target and use his last bullet on someone else. "I don't know who you are but you're in the way of getting my best payment." He was stunned when he heard Schuldig snort under his breath sarcastically. Did the German know what he was doing with that kind of attitude? These guys were psychopathic soldiers who were high on drugs. They didn't mess around with their victims and being mocked was in this way was a bad idea.
"I'd take a look around if I were you," Schuldig suggested sneakily, pivoting his head to the side. "You're in for a surprise."
"What?" Both the second and third thugs exclaimed. Out of nowhere the fourth member of the killer's group lunged at them both with his knife. The knife went into the neck of the second thug, making him scream in a choking tone.
"Who the hell are you...?" The second thug was dead straightaway from the immediate stab to the neck. Oh my… Makoto couldn't believe her eyes as she watched the blood splatter like a fountain. Whoa whoever the hell the guy was, he was surely in love with his knife.
"You're dead!!!" Enraged, the third thug charged in.
"Farfarello, behind you!" The youngest boy shrieked as the third thug came behind the silver haired guy and went into a neck hold. Wait so if that was Farfarello with the knife then the boy must be Nagi. Well…that all seemed to make sense Makoto guessed. I'll take care of him Nagi's eyes closed as though he was in a concentrated trance. What was happening? Maybe he knew voodoo and wanted to prepare an incantation. However the next thing Makoto saw completely shocked her. The third thug was floating in the air as he still clung onto Farfarello's shirt. He screamed for someone to put him down, unaware of what this act meant.
"Oh…telekinesis," Makoto answered quietly.
"Sehr gut, Fraulein," Schuldig complimented. Eventually when he let his fingers off the shirt the third thug struggled further as he tried to get himself down to the ground again. Nagi opened his eyes and smashed him into the wall, creating a huge crack in each bricklayer. "Whoa, go Nagi!" The young boy nodded solemnly to the German then awaited for the next action by the other team member. Farfarello came back into action against his target and pushed his knife straight into the guy's heart, letting out a satisfied humph when he saw the blood drip from his lips and then the rest of the body slump down by itself. He had to be dead, right?
Makoto pulled herself away from Schuldig to walk over to the wide-eyed corpse. That was an instant death all right. She lifted her head to slowly turn it in the same direction as Farfarello and Nagi. She honestly couldn't believe this was all for real. This guy who licked her blood off his knife was a friend of Schuldig's. And so was the innocent young boy standing further away. Who the hell were these guys? Were they assassins? Psychic assassins sounded like a plot idea for a horror novel.
"So let me get this straight, you guys are um…" Makoto's eyes diverted from each male person standing opposite her. Was it okay to say they were on the good side? It didn't sound too right in her opinion.
"We are part of an assassination group called Schwarz," Crawford's voice said as he too arrived on the street. "Good work Prodigy. Berserker." His eyes darted to Farfarello. "Glad to see you didn't go out of control during the undercover mission. Now we can just focus on…" A gunshot echoed in the air and startled all five fighters in the street. They turned to see Aki, who had finally shown her ugly face in the night. She was next to an off licence shop and her hand held a gun that was aimed at its target at less than two yards.
"The bitch turned up at last," Makoto mumbled.
TBC
Phew that took me forever to think up. I know it sounds awfully confusing ^_^;; Well I should have one more chapter left then it's finished. I apologise for the cliffhanger.
sehr gut = very good