Ekobean: Hah! I updated! So yeah, this is probably the second or third-to-last chapter. Yes this is going to be a really short fanfic, but it's my ode to Sly Cooper. Blah blah blah, enjoy.

Midnight Flight chapter 5

The fight took every bit of training Rioichi had ever put himself through. He was young still, not shy of 22. His body was agile and flexible able to act in any way that his mind commanded. And that was lucky.

The golden canes in his hands were nothing more than flashing streaks as he threw back attack after attack. A contortionist would have dropped her jaw in awe in seeing the positions that Rioichi's black-cloaked form took.

Despite all the bashings, all the hits that the guards took from Rioichi's canes, they kept coming. Blows that should have left them staring into the abyss knocked them down for maybe a five seconds before they rose back up.

Rioichi was slowly tiring. It would not be long before one of them landed a lucky blow.

The guard swung his katana straight at Rioichi's head. The raccoon gasped and bent backward, hurling himself into the air. He flipped once, kicking the guard twice in the jaw. The guard grunted and fell onto his back.

Another guard tried to smash Rioichi in the ribs with the end of his katana handle. Rioichi leapt up and landed skillfully on the hilt of the sword (just like in all those stupid kung-fu movies you see...and that I don't watch). The guard stared bedazzled at Rioichi before he was knocked out cold by a double-blow to his forehead. "That's one," Rioichi thought desperately.

One guard's fist came out of nowhere. Rioichi had been careless for just one second, and this was the price. The guard railed him in the face. Rioichi was thrown backward several feet and lay sprawled on his back, momentarily stunned. The guards surrounded him in a flash.

Every one of them had a look of pure hatred on their faces, their bloodshot eyes burned with a victorious fire. Each of them raised their silver blades, slowly, almost as if hoping that the slow coming of his death would torment the thief in his mind. Rioichi's nest reaction was a gut reaction. The guard nearest to him was right in front of him, just inside the reach of his legs. Rioichi drew back his legs and fired them forward, delivering a nearly bone-splitting blow to his shins.

The guard howled and squatted, his previous intentions forgotten. This was his only chance. Rioichi sprang to his feet and vaulted over the crouched form of the incapacitated guard. Rioichi was invisible the moment he hit the ground, rolling on his side till he nearly rolled off the side and into the bones. He stood up triumphantly, his eyes glittering as he relished his cunning escape. All the guards were surrounding their fallen comrade. Rioichi could not catch what they were saying, but the odds were from the looks on their faces that it wasn't comforting.

The guards began turning their heads, looking for the mysteriously disappeared raccoon. "Good luck," Rioichi thought cockily. But then, all of a sudden, all the eyes slowly stopped at the ground and began working upward, and finally to his exact location. Rioichi looked down and gasped in shock. There was a light trail of blood from where he had landed and rolled.

The blood was from the wound on his shoulder.

Rioichi looked back up to see that the guards were all pointing arrows, all slotted into flexible bows, at his direction. The arrows fired as one, the polished tips whistling through the still air. Rioichi employed the slow-mo technique immediately. Again he forced his body to bend in nearly impossible positions. He flexed forward and backward, spinning in midair to avoid the deadly tips. He leaped into the air and arched to the side to avoid an arrow that had been shot at a downward angle, but it pierced his shoulder.

The activated slow mo made it look nearly as terrible as it felt. He clearly saw the tip pierce the soft sinews of his shoulder, watched even as he fell as the shaft sunk deeper and deeper, nearly to the red-feathered tip. Rioichi was pushed backward by the impact with the arrow, and he fell backward into the bones.

The firing of arrows did not cease. He pressed himself as far against the platform that he could to avoid the deadly rain. The arrows punctured every skull, backbone and hand that was there around him. Rioichi looked down at the deep sunken arrow at his shoulder. He knew he had to get it out, but the pain would be intense. Rioichi reached his good arm around his shoulder until he felt the bloody tip. He gingerly worked his fingers down the shaft until he had gotten as close as he could to the puncture wound. With one swift jerk he broke the tip off and cringed, his teeth clenched tight.

Not hesitating at all, he wrapped his hand around the feathered end and pulled, fighting against the urge to stop as the pain increased tenfold. It was all he could do to resist screaming. "Every one of those guards is going to encounter an early grave," he thought as the blood flowed freely from the wound and soaked into is black cloak. The arrow-fire was stopping, and he took this chance to grab about five unbroken arrows.

Blue auras danced lazily about the edge of the platform. Crouching as low as possible, Rioichi edged cautiously around the square platform. He chose his footing carefully. He couldn't afford to step on a skull or puncture his foot on a rib. He could hear the guards' voices now. They were speaking to each other. "Do you think we got him?" asked one.

"Why don't you go check." Suggested another.

"'Ey, I don't wanna lose my face to one o' them damned canes o' his," yet another growled.

"They're afraid," Rioichi thought, "good." At last he was just behind them. He put the arrows on the platform first, and then slowly hoisted himself up along with them. The guards were staring unblinking at the spot where they had launched nearly sixty arrows. With five arrows in his hands, one clutched like a dagger in his free one, he stalked up behind them. When he was about two feet behind the group he leaped upward and plunged two into the tops of the two nearest ones' heads.

He jumped on top of them just before they fell and threw two more, taking out the other two. Now just one was left. The guard had fled to the opposite side of the platform and had his bow drawn and ready. Rioichi could not throw a whole arrow, but he could throw a dagger. Rioichi had pocketed the four-inch-long tip that he had broken from his back. He drew it from his side pocket and threw it like a small knife.

The arrow tip was quick and did its job well. It pierced the guard's esophagus. The guard's eyes widened and he dropped his bow, clutching at his neck, hacking. There was another rumbling at the door above.

It was not the sound of footsteps, but the sound of something heavy being slid across the stone floor. A large stone block emerged from the doorway and dropped to the floor with a crash. Wasting no time, Rioichi sprinted to the block and jumped up onto it, and then off of it and up to the wooden platform in front of the door. "This is it," he thought to himself.

He did not look back at the slaughter he had caused. Four bodies lied scattered about the platform, lying in their own blood that trickled from their wounds.

The last guard, with his last bit of strength, drew his katana and cut himself across the belly, spilling his intestines onto the bloody platform. Sepuku, the ancient samurai tradition of killing one's self after failure, was the only way to regain his honor. And this he did.

Ekobean: I know, kinda sloppy. But I really enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.