"Shit!" she ran out the window and looked down, but there was no body. Ryuji waved from the veranda of the second floor.
"Tadah! Don't look down if you're scared."
Saeko felt her nostrils flare in anger and annoyance at his antics, reminding her of young pranksters that her friends were laughing their heads off on social media websites. Holding onto the rails, she swung her legs up and onto the other side, her toe ends of her sneakers keeping her steady. She slowly lowered herself and felt a pair of gloved hands wrap around her legs. She felt herself being pulled in as she let go. Repeating the same process once again, they were on the ground.
"You're probably thinking, 'how are we going to take them out?' Just so you know, Vladimir isn't just our resident sniper, but a former member of the KGB, with more knowledge of electronics than anyone I've ever met." As he spoke, he unslung the pack and emptied out the contents: a recurve bow, a quiver full of arrows, his boots and a specially made chest rig holding dozens of knives. He strung the bow quickly and pulled the bowstring back. "The amount of damage he can do with a single iPhone is like watching a VR M.C. Escher artwork being drawn in front of you."
"So….he's going to hack a car?"
"ETA is one minute, get ready." Vladimir warned them before she got an answer.
"Copy that. Saeko, scale the left wall. Keep your knife hidden and walk towards the cars. Slowly. Vladimir will give you directions. Follow them to the letter."
"Understood." Clambering over the wall, Saeko drew the knife she was given, holding it so it remained hidden in the inside of her arm. The cars came into view as she walked along the wall.
"Trainee can you hear me? I will stop the cars soon."
"Yes sir." She murmured.
"In five, four, three, two….stop." The lead vehicle suddenly halted, causing the other two to slam down hard on the brakes just in time. In a matter of a few seconds, the men started squabbling. "Head towards the car. Act surprised. Maybe even a little scared."
"I've….never done theater before."
"Not a discussion. Do it. Convincingly."
"The fuck is your problem, man?! Why'd you stop?!"
"I didn't do shit! This piece of crap stopped on its own! I told you we shoulda grabbed that Mustang!" The driver kicked the car tire in anger and opened up the hood to look for the problem, with two others huddling next to him."
"Hey." One of them pointed towards Saeko who came into their view. A beautiful, young girl in her teens with the mature charms of an adult. It was more than enough to grab their attention.
"If they get close, use the knife." As she learned through sparring, a knife had a limited range, even with a long arm, posing a higher risk of getting oneself injured.
"It's alright little lady. We're not bad people." One of them, most likely their leader, closed the gap between them with large strides, but with a slow gait, as if he were enjoying her reaction. He was but only three paces away.
The sweat almost made Saeko drop the knife. She had never let anyone get this close to her in a real fight. One slash, one stab to the right spot, and this man in front of her will die; become a sack of flesh and blood. If not him, then it would be her. This situation where the stakes were high, higher than she had ever experienced, made her lower abdomen tingle with heat.
One step away. As soon as his other foot came out and hit the ground, Saeko swung the knife. The man's throat was sliced open like an envelope, with blood gushing out like water from a fire hydrant. He fell to the ground, unable to register what exactly the girl did to him.
A split second later, two arrows were fired into the others, and a plume of smoke rose. "Hide behind the telephone pole and put the gas mask on." It spread quickly, completely covering the leading car. Sporadic grunts rose from time to time. As the wind carried the smoke away, the men around the cars were covered in multiple stab wounds and lacerations, with knives, arrows and crossbow bolts protruding from them. Others were foaming at the mouth with the whites of their eyes showing, tongue lolling out.
"Bandits down. Take anything worth keeping and have our trainee bring them back. Stuff the bodies in the car, and I'll deal with them."
"Give us a hand over here."
Saeko nearly tripped and fell as she showed herself. "Um…I…I…Ry-ah…" drenched in blood from head to toe, she was hyperventilating in her attempt to utter words.
"Shhh, shhhh, it's okay. It's done now." Ryuji shushed her softly as he held her close. "You did a good job, really good job. The patience, the straight smooth cut, everything." He gave her a kiss and a light nip on her collar bone.
"Did…I?" She gasped, her breathing patterns reverting to normality.
"Oh yeah. Keep the mask on though. Those arrows had ampules on the tip filled with nerve gas made by the KGB and modified by Hector. Breathe in even a fraction and you die. Painfully." Hearing this, Saeko's eyes flew wide open seeing Ryuji without a mask.
"Don't worry. It doesn't work on him." They collected the arrows and knives and raided the trunks of their car filled with various supplies. Hector tossed a duffel bag from the other side of the wall in which they stuffed them all in and Saeko brought them back.
"Are you sure you're alright? Let us know if you have a headache, nausea, if you see spots, anything."
"I'm fine, mom, Jeez." Ryuji laughed. "You're treating me like a china doll after all these years. I'm still breathing, aren't I?"
"Now then, to important matters: how did they find this place?" Karena broke the silence with a question as everyone sat around the dinner table. Her eyes were thinned, almost into slits.
"Um….That may or may not be my fault." Ryuji raised his hand slowly while scratching his head with the other. "Sorry. When we were heading to the Takagi's place, we ran into some gangsters. Those were probably what's left of them. We mowed them down and jacked their car for efficiency. That car may have been a rental."
"Makes sense, considering gas and electricity is still functional. Rental cars have GPS, it's not that hard to find their location if you know what you're doing. They probably came this way when they saw the other two cars' activity. If you'll excuse me, I still need to move the cars further away." Carrying a smartphone and a tablet under his arm, Vladimir lightly jogged up the stairs.
"Considering how she made the ambush successful, I will overlook your mistake. But in the future, no amateur mistakes like that ever again. Ever. Is that understood?"
"Yes, ma'am." Ryuji murmured, his eyes cast down.
"Keep up with her training as well."
"D'accord."
"That's all for now. Post up on the roof. Leave the bow here." Unstringing the bow, he left the quiver full of the retrieved arrows and unstrung the bow, hurrying up the stairs. Saeko followed him, but was stopped by Karena, who pointed at the couch. "You I need to talk to a bit. Sit."
Slowly taking a seat on the couch, Saeko eyed Karena cautiously, who sat down in the easy chair across from her. "What is this about?"
"This is only my personal opinion. You show promise. Some, at least with a knife. With what you saw outside, I'm sure you can deduct by now that Ryuji is…well, different from normal human beings. He is immune to most kinds of bacteria, viruses and venom that we know of so far, so he doesn't get so much as a case of influenza. Anything he's exposed to, he builds antibodies. Also, his healing speed is beyond that of a human being, so unless he is vaporized, he will not die. The only problem is the high immunity makes it hard to anesthetize him, but otherwise his weakness is the same as every other human being, and he feels pain." Seemingly out of nowhere, she produced a tomahawk, a favorite weapon of hers that has saved her and her teammates' lives on many occasions. "Ryuji is my son. We are his fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters. If you hurt him, you die. If you are the cause of his pain, you die. Betray us, you die. Slow us down, you die; in ways that you didn't think were possible until it happens, and we will throw you to the infected."
"Should it come to that, then so be it. I consider myself to be his already." Saeko showed the bite mark that he left on her neck, keeping her eyes on Karena. Karena returned the unblinking gaze as well, searching in the depths of her eyes for even an inkling of deceit, duplicity of some kind. But there was none.
"Very well. Then as a ritualistic vow of sorts, drink this. In one go." She set a shot glass down in front of Saeko and poured a liquid with a pale green tint to it all the way to the brim.
Saeko had little to no knowledge about liquor brands, but the number she caught a glimpse of was enough to tell her that this was something with a high concentration of alcohol. In order to not taste it as much as possible, she downed the entire glass and keeping the liquid away from her tongue. The second she put it to her lips, the burn spread through her mouth, down her throat and into her stomach as if she took a large bite out of a ghost pepper. She fought the coughing fit to steady her breath for several minutes, which Karena stared at for several minutes with an amused look on her face before fetching a glass of water. "What…was that…?" She asked through sips.
"Absinthe. I'm surprised you're still conscious after that. This one is seventy two percent alcohol, so it usually would make a lightweight such as yourself keel over within an hour." Saeko groaned at the persisting burning sensation inside her, now coupled with a skull-shattering headache, vertigo and nausea. Unable to walk properly, she resorted to advancing up the stairs on all fours, clinging to the railings every now and then in a futile attempt to get back up on her feet. "Vector, I know you're there. Eavesdropping is bad manners."
Vector emerged from the kitchen with a bottle of green tea in hand. "You knew because I let you, you know that right?"
"Of course."
He took a swig before continuing, "She did well for her first try."
"Now she needs to be a better shot, according to the bar you set?"
"Even then she's only half way. And I must say, you've gotten….softer."
"Come again?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, I mean you're more….willing to accept having other people's presence."
"You do not approve?"
"Just an observation. It's not something you would have done in the past, at least not readily. Newness and change is important to accept. Just be careful. We are as strong as our weakest link. Ryuji." He took another swig before continuing slowly, "I don't doubt his skills, considering everything we taught him, but even we can't beat the passage of time, especially you. You're fifty already. If anything would happen to you, Ryuji will lose himself, and vice versa. Either way, it's only a matter of time until whoever's left of us collapses and dies after either one of you. Just don't forget that."