Chapter Seven
"Yuri laughs, sings and murders people a lot"
Near Bruceton Mills, West Virginia
Wednesday 30th December 1931
20:30
Yuri was running along the second-class carriage, practically skipping in time with the gunshots ringing out from the dining car ahead of him.
"It's guns!" he cheered "I love guns!" He listened carefully as the revolver shots switched to machine gun shots. "Machine guns? That's even better! This is going to be so fun!"
As he reached for the door handle, he was almost knocked over for the second time within the same ten minutes, this time by the ginger bartender, who appeared to be fleeing the dining car in a panic.
"I'm sorry boss!" she was crying "You didn't say the situation would turn out like this!"
Before Yuri could say anything, she had already fled out of sight.
"Sounds bad. Sound like danger" Yuri grinned, breaking out in singsong as he continued on his way. "Danger. Danger~. What's happening in the dining car~? Is there blood? Who's killing who? Did they get shot? I have to see~! Things are really starting to get exciting~!"
In the dining car, all chaos had broken out.
Grace had turned both her revolvers on the black suited men, shooting one in the chest and catching another in the shoulder. As one fell and the other grabbed his shoulder in pain, the final man raised his tommy gun and cut Grace down before she could get another shot off.
In the all the confusion, the young man in coveralls opened the window and slipped out of the car, clambering into the gap between the bottom of the carriage and the rail track like a trained acrobat.
At that moment, Yuri made it into the dining car. Rather than being greeted by Grace standing on top of a pile of bodies, he instead was confronted with the lifeless bodies of Grace and a man dressed in black, with two more black suited men pointing machine guns at him.
Well, he was nothing if not flexible.
"Gentleman, please do not be afraid" he told them, raising his hands up in surrender "I can assure you I am completely unarmed."
"Is that so?" the leader of the three men still seemed uneasy, as if he sensed something was very off about this guy "Who exactly are you, anyway?"
"Although we may be strangers, we are not enemies" Yuri reassured them, walking towards them with his hands still raised.
"Answer me!" the man demanded, walking forwards towards Yuri also with his gun raised.
"I can assure you, I am just a regular passenger on this train" Yuri told him "And I am completely-" once he was close enough to the man's gun, he kicked upwards, forcing the neck of the gun into the air "UNARMED!"
With the man caught off guard, Yuri reached forward and pushed the neck of the gun 180 degrees backwards, then pulling the trigger. Instantly a litany of bullets riddled the man's wounded colleague behind him, dropping him like a stone.
Yuri then kicked the stomach of the man who's gun he'd just used, forcing the man to let go of the gun and drop to the carriage floor.
"You're a dead man, pal" the man spat up at him.
"You're just like all the other mobsters out there!" Yuri laughed "They all think something special's gonna protect them."
The man leapt to his feet again, grabbing a knife from his shoe and swiping at Yuri with it. Yuri effortlessly dodge the swipe and punched the man in the stomach with an uppercut for his trouble.
"Nice try, slugger" Yuri didn't even seem fazed in the slightest.
As soon as the man was back on his feet again, Yuri followed his punch up with a serious of punches to the face.
"Come on, put your dukes up" Yuri baited him, punching him all the while "You've got no technique!" Before the man could fall over, Yuri seized him by the front of his jacket, forcing the man to remain upright. "So you're still conscious, huh pal?" The word slipped off his tongue like it disgusted him to say it. He now let go of the man's jacket and grabbed him by the hair instead. "I guess I have to work on my right hook. Are you trying to make me look bad?"
Despite the wounds to his face, the man still managed to rasp out: "A man like you will never be able to stop Shun Kurosaki. He'll come for you for this."
Yuri simply just let the man drop on his face.
"I don't give a rat's ass about whoever Mr Kurosaki is" he informed the gravely injured man "Whoever you guys are, all I know is that you're now my newest enemies." He then knelt over the man's body. "You people are all the same." Turning the man onto his back, he began his barrage of punches again, even though the man was now down. "Oh yeah! Now we're on a moving train, no one can stop us! We're invincible and unbeatable! We're so strong, but we'll still bring our own guns!" Yuri's face broke into a grin again. "You morons are my absolute favourite people to kill!"
Finally, blood splattered across the carriage, and the man breathed no more.
"What the hell is this?"
Yuri turned from his kneeling position over the fresh corpse, wiping blood from dripping into his eyes to see two of his own people had entered the dining car with shotguns.
"We heard machine gun fire and we come to find you like this?" Emma told him, Jacob checking his shotgun was working by firing a round into the ceiling "What the hell is going on?"
Yuri waved her concerns off with a laugh. He instead approached the group huddled at the bar.
"You're Senator Akaba's daughter, right?" he asked the young lady with pigtails.
Before he could say anything else, the man in army fatigues protecting her leapt to throw a punch which Yuri easily caught.
"Easy, easy" he talked the man down "We're not going to harm her. You just saw what I did to a guy much bigger than you; do you really think you stand a chance?"
The man in camouflage, whom Yuri recalled was probably Zarc Drago – husband of one Ray Drago née Akaba – just glared at Yuri with enough hate to burn right through him.
"Relax, I get it" Yuri tried to reassure him "You're protecting your wife. I get it – if some weirdo who just punched a man to death tried to talk to my sister, I'd probably try and put him down too. As it happens, you have nothing to worry about though. We're gonna finish off these guys in the black suits first, then we can go about sorting out a ransom, just in time for you and your wife to waltz off the platform at Grand Central without a hair out of place." He dropped the man's hand and wiped his bloody knuckles on a table cloth. "It's been a pleasure, Mr Drago."
He stepped over Grace's body, picking up her two revolvers on the way out.
"Time to go, crazy kids" Yuri told the other two in white, ushering them out of the dining car.
"Go? What about the rest of them?" Emma protested.
"Just leave 'em" Yuri shrugged "Where are they gonna go?"
As the trio left, Reira watched after them with a calculating stare.
'I can use these guys.'
Up in the first-class carriage, the Lemores were gathered in Allen's suite again, processing the news that had been delivered by the young lady in the purple dress sent to check on the sounds coming from the dining car.
"So, anyone here have any idea who these brunos in the white suits are working for?" Allen finally asked the question everyone was wondering about.
"No sir, ain't got a clue" one of the men, Spencer, admitted, shaking his head.
Allen sighed and turned to one Devon Knox. "In any case, call back anyone who isn't six feet deeper than the rest of us."
As Devon nodded and left to locate the remaining Lemores, Allen sighed and turned back to the group.
"Maybe we should think of this as another trial?" he suggested, but even he didn't seem sold on it.
"I don't think anyone could say what it is at this point" Spencer pointed out.
"I suppose you're right" Allen sat back in his seat, wishing he wasn't in charge of this rescue mission.
As Allen pondered where it had all started going wrong, the young woman in the black dress, who had been leaning against the wall up until now, got up and began walking towards the door.
"Hey, where are you going, Ruri?" Spencer questioned her.
She merely looked back at the man over her shoulder before heading out of the suite.
"You're just gonna let her walk out?" Spencer questioned.
"Leave her alone" Allen insisted "She'll do what needs to be done. Besides," He folded his arms behind his head, "She won't live past tomorrow."
Down in second-class, a remarkably similar conversation was taking place.
"So, Yuri" Emma got everyone in the rather cramped suite's attention "Who do you think the guys in the black suits running around out there are?"
"They are a special treat, I think" Yuri announced, wiping his bloody face with a handkerchief "We each get to kill two or three of them a piece! And the fact these guys think they're so superior with their fancy weapons is going to make it even sweeter."
Everyone began laughing or chuckling at the idea of rampant bloodshed.
"Now, back to work" Yuri choked the shotgun Jacob had handed him "It's too risky for us to stick together. So we're split up. After midnight we'll all meet up here for a celebration."
Everyone approved of this idea.
As all this carnage and bloodshed was going on, Yuzu and company had made it to the freight hold. As they scrambled to check on the package they had come for, they missed the sight of a red creature scrambling across the window, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.