Chapter 82

She would admit that she was never a big fan of classical music, it just didn't click with her, but when it was Leifang playing it she could hear the beauty of it. All around them people were watching her with interest, even Bayman, but that was most likely because the man didn't have anything else to watch at the moment.

Her eyes turned to Helena who too watched Leifang, intrigued by this new side she was witnessing from the Chinese. Standing beside Helena was Jintao, looking at his daughter intently, his face unreadable for most of the song, but as she looked closer she noticed the hint of a smile forming on his lips and Hitomi was finally getting the feeling that things might just turn out alright.

Turning her head back towards Leifang she had to blink when something dazzled her left eye. But after opening the eye once again it was gone. What the-?

She looked around but couldn't see anything, then she spotted Bayman who had stopped leaning against the column and looked around with narrowed eyes. Lifting a brow she looked around more intently and finally noticed it.

A small red dot.

Which was moving towards Helena's heart!

She wasn't the only one who noticed as she could hear Bayman's thundering footsteps approach them fast. Her eyes fell upon Jintao's, and all she could do was giving him a look that something was not right. The older man's yaw tightened and glanced down to where Hitomi guided him with her eyes.

"Helena!" Bayman shouted.

And then the shot came.

It all happened so fast then, Jintao grabbing hold of Helena's shoulder and pushing her away. Helena and Jintao tumbled to the ground and people around them started to panic. Leifang too had noticed and instantly stopped playing, turned around and noticed that her father was lying on the floor.

"Father!" she shouted and hurried over to them.

"Are you alright, Ms. Douglas." Jintao hissed while holding his bleeding left arm with his right hand. Upon seeing Hitomi's look he had moved himself in front of Helena just quick enough to throw her to the ground before catching the bullet in the arm. The German was kneeling beside Helena while Leifang's mother fretted over her husband.

"Father!" Leifang shouted once more as she knelt beside him. "Oh god, someone call an ambulance!"

"And call the police too!" Jintao shouted then gritted his teeth again as pain went through his body. "Someone just tried to assassinate Ms. Douglas!"

"Helena." Hitomi shook the French's shoulder, who had a haunted look in her eyes like she had just seen a ghost. Her face also had become paler. She shook her once more. "Helena!"

This seemed to work, as her eyes cleared up. "Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

"I-I- Yes. I'm alright. Thank you." she quickly regained her composure "Bayman!"

Bayman who had hurried to their side was, after seeing that Helena was alright, looking towards intently towards the window when his name was called. He helped her back on her feet and pulled her a bit more to the side so that she wouldn't be directly in the field of vision.

"I know this signature." he said in his deep voice. "I'm going after her. She missed this shot so she's not going to try again, but still, stay away from the window."

"Alright. Be careful."

"Hmpf." And with that the Russian hurried out of the room. Hitomi, seeing this, went over to Leifang who was talking to her father, who seemed to be in great pain but otherwise fine.

"Leifang, stay here. I'll be back soon."

Leifang snapped her head into Hitomi's direction and got onto her feet. "What!? You're not going to go after the person who did that, are you?"

Hitomi only looked at her intently.

"Hitomi, are you crazy!? Don't you remember the last time?" Leifang placed her hands on both her shoulders, holding them in a vice grip. "You nearly died!"

"I won't let it come to that this time. I gave you a promise to be careful didn't I?" Hitomi said, placing a hand on Leifang's left cheek. Tears where threatening to spill from the Chinese's eyes. "You know I can't just stand by, that's just not me. I'm gonna get whoever did that."

"I swear to god if you get hurt like last time I-" Hitomi silenced her with a deep kiss, making the dam that held her tears back finally break. Parting from the kiss she brushed the tears aside. With a sigh she said "Please just be careful and come back in one piece."

"You got it." Hitomi whispered and with one final look she was off after Bayman. Which was easier said that done in those shoes as she fell onto her knees. With a growl she kicked them off and ran barefoot after the man. It didn't take long for her to catch up to him, as he was standing in front of a set of windows.

"Bayman!" she called out before coming to a stop besides him.

"Get away from here, kid. This isn't a tournament." he said. If he was surprised that she was there then he didn't show it.

"No way. I'm going after the person that just ruined an important evening for my girlfriend."

"Hmpf, whatever. Don't say I didn't warn you though." he said and nodded ahead out of the window towards the other side of the huge U-shaped building. "The shot came from there, I'm sure of it."

"How can you be so sure?" Hitomi asked and looked over there, but didn't see a thing that might indicate that she shot came from there.

"Field of expertise. Trust me."

They jogged down the hallway.

"She couldn't have moved too quickly so she should still be inside," he told her and they stopped in front of a door which had the words 'Employees only' written on it. "This is the quickest way, otherwise we have to walk all the way down, through the poolside and up again."

As he opened the door a middle-aged man dressed in overalls.

"Out of the way." Bayman growled and pushed him to the side, but was grabbed by the arm by the janitor.

"Hey you can't enter here."

"Of course." Bayman muttered and punched the man hard in the face. Hitomi scowled at the Russian as the janitor sagged to the floor, having been knocked out instantly.

"Was that really necessary!?" Hitomi asked as they sprinted down the corridor.

"We don't have time to waste." Bayman said simply and Hitomi bit back a few not so friendly words she wanted to say to him. They really had no time to waste.

It seemed that Bayman had studied the infrastructure of the building very thoroughly as he knew exactly where they had to leave the corridor. He carefully opened the door and peered outside. "Clear." he said and walked out into the hallway, the German only two steps behind him.

"So the assassin's here?"

"Hmm." was Bayman's answer. "There, the shot must have come from that room." they jogged over to where he was pointing and the Russian didn't waste any time to kick in the door, showing an abandoned sniper rifle lying on the floor by the window. A quick search told them that the assassin had bailed.

"Figures. She had enough time to get out of here, but she still has to be around here somewhere. My guess she's already on another floor, hiding, and preparing her escape." he thought for a moment and looked at the ceiling as if it had all the answers. "Most like she's either upstairs or the floor below."

"So we'll split up then."

"Right. I'll be going to have a look upstairs, you check the floor below."

They split up at the stairs and Hitomi made her way down, all but jumping and entered the hallway. Now the problem was that she had no idea what she was looking for.

Maybe I should knock on the doors and pretend I'm the room-service? She wondered, but quickly dismissed the idea. No way would room service wear a dress, never mind that she was running around barefoot right now.
So for now she opted to check out the broom closet. But of course no assassin there.

She was startled when, all of a sudden, a gunshot echoed through the halls, coming from upstairs!

Shit! Then it dawned on her, the way he looked up at the ceiling. He most likely knew she was upstairs and send her down deliberately. "Shit!" she swore once more aloud.

Like a scalded cat she ran over to the stairs and made her way upstairs to where Bayman had went. On her way there some guests rushed down past her, obviously scared by the gunshot. Once she arrived she peered into the hallway and saw that some of the doors were open, left that way by the guests that had fled from the gunshot.

Slowly she stepped in, walking carefully as to make no sound and readying herself for a fight. A groaning sound made her jump for a second and she tried to find out where it was coming from.

There! She quickly made her way to one of the open door and peered inside. What she found made her gasp out. Lying on the ground was Bayman, blood running down from his arm onto the carpeted floor. Forgetting for a moment that she shouldn't expose herself she ran into the room, knelt down beside him and took a quick look around. No one was there. She inspected him.

He was only knocked out, but from the grimace on his face he was in great pain and the wound on his arm was bleeding a lot. Hitomi ripped a large stripe from her dress and used it as a makeshift pressure bandage. Once she treated his wound as best as she could Hitomi moved to get back on her feet when the press of cold-steel against the back of her head made her stop.

Slowly she lifted her hands into the air in surrender, then in the blink of an eye she twisted around, grabbing the pistol with both her hands and pushed up so that no one would be hit. They wrestled around for control of the gun, making the holder of the gun fire it into the ceiling until the magazine was empty, then Hitomi rammed her knee into the other person's stomach, making them let go of the gun and stumble backward.

Once she got a good look at the person Hitomi couldn't believe her eyes. "Christie?"

"My my if it isn't Hitomi." the white haired, though it was much shorter than the last time she saw her, woman said with what could be said was a half-smile half-scowl. "Been a while, hasn't it?"

It had been a while. Last she had seen her was at the 5th Dead or Alive tournament. She hadn't been one of the participants though, so she had figured she was working with the organizers at the time. She never was the most approachable person, in fact only Eliot managed to get through to her a little, and that was mostly because Christie liked to tease him.

But she never would have thought...

"Why?" Hitomi asked, shaking with anger and throwing the empty pistol to the side while not taking her eyes off the woman, resisting the urge to jump forward and rip her to shreds. "Why did you do it?"

"Nothing personal really, just a job." she shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, maybe a tiny bit personal. Helena and I got a little history together."

Placing her left hand on her hip Christie gave a cold smirk. "Now why is it that every time someone jumps in front of her?"

Hitomi narrowed her eyes at that. Sirens blared in the background, getting louder by the second. "The police's going be here soon."

"Yes, my cue to leave. Too bad, I liked my room here." As she moved to leave the room Hitomi placed herself in the way, moving into a fighting position. "Hmpf. So that's how the little kitten wants to play."

The strike came out of nowhere, aimed directly at her face and Hitomi had to dodge to the side, right into the next one, hitting her just below the ribs and pushing her back into the wall.

Damn, she had forgotten how quick Christie could be. With that in mind she managed to block her next strike, getting hold of the British woman's hand and pulling right into her waiting fist, then twisted her around and pushed her against the wall.

"Good one." Christie said before slamming her head backwards right into Hitomi's face, ducking out from under her and throwing her arm around her neck then threw her over her shoulder. The German rolled out of the way of Christie's foot as it came down upon her and got back onto her feet.

The British all the while had finally moved into her own fighting stance, poised like the snake that inspired her fighting technique, moving around and making it nearly impossible for the average opponent to know what she would do next.

But Hitomi was no average opponent. As the strike finally came Hitomi dodged to the side lifting her leg and spinning around, hitting the woman with the heel of her foot. This didn't faze Christie one bit though as she shrugged off the hit, got hold of her leg and threw the German out of balance, pushing her to the ground with Christie on top.

The other woman landed a few strikes before Hitomi managed to turn things around and pushed her off with enough force that she was stumbling out of the suite and into the hallway. Getting back on her feet she ran after her, jumping in the air and aimed a kick at her head but only hit the wall behind her as Christie rolled to the side.

A sadistic smirk on her face, Christie attacked Hitomi with a flurry of strikes which Hitomi barely managed to block. Narrowing her eyes Hitomi let herself be pushed backwards, voluntarily putting herself at a disadvantage until she spotted a weak spot in Christie's technique.

"Gotcha!" Hitomi brought her foot down hard on the older woman's, pulled her arm back and punched her hard against the torso, making her fall backwards. She lied still on the ground, making Hitomi think for a moment that she had knocked her out until Christie opened her eyes once more.

Christie laughed in between coughs and managed to slowly get back on her feet, visibly hurting from the way she winced when she put her weight on one of her feet. "So the kitten actually does have claws."

"I'll show you claws." Gritting her teeth she dashed forward aiming a feinted punch at her lower torso but quickly changed it, hitting her across the face. Blood was on her knuckles and sure enough she was blood running down the older woman's nose and a little bit from the corner of her mouth. A small voice inside her head told her she shouldn't feel so pleased about hurting her, but damn it she was furious right now for ruining this important evening and nearly killing a good friend of hers.

The white haired woman didn't move for a moment until Hitomi noticed her hand moving seconds before a metallic glint moved towards her. She barely managed to dodge backwards as Christie slashed with the knife at her abdomen, ripping the fabric a little and drawing blood. Not paying it any mind she continued to dodge the blade until Christie managed to catch her off guard with a kick. A hiss escaped her as she felt the cold steel cut into the skin on her shoulder.

As she felt the hot blood running down her shoulder Hitomi's vision became red. With a growl she grabbed the British woman's wrist as she came in for another attack with the knife and twisted her hand painfully to the side, kicking her in the side in the process and making her drop the weapon. Hitomi wasted no time, kicking the knife out of their reach, and connected her fist with Christie's face, a small crack telling her that she had just broken the other woman's nose, making her tumble against the wall. The Karateka grabbed a fistful of white hair, not giving her any chance to catch her breath, and smashed her head against the wall. Again. And Again.

She needed to pay for what she had done today!

The German was just about to slam her head against the wall one more time when she felt Christie push her elbow against her lower abdomen, making her stop as her mind raced back to that night at the edge of the Black Forest and the people that she had killed in self-defense.

What am I doing? She asked herself, letting go of other woman. She watched her slump against the wall. God, she nearly let her anger get the better of her. She was supposed to hand the over to the police, not kill her!

A small shudder went through her. She didn't want a repetition of what she had done back then.

Despite the beating she had just gotten Christie regained herself quickly enough and snaked her arm along the Karateka's to push the tips of her fingers against her neck.

Hitomi gasped as Christie's other hand pushed out hitting her right in the face, just short of her right eye, nails digging into her skin and drawing a little bit of blood. "The way things are going we'll be doing this all night, little kitten." she said even though her face was bruised and blood ran down her nose as they circled around each other, like dancing a sadistic tango.

Hitomi only gritted her teeth at those words. All of a sudden there was a movement in the corner of her eyes, distracting her as she turned her gaze to see a woman stumbling out of one of the rooms, where she must have hidden, and run towards the stairs in panic. This momentarily distraction proofed to be a mistake though, as Christie's hand moved too quickly for the German and she wrestled free of her grip. Before Hitomi could even react a solid punch connected with her face.

"Shit!" Hitomi hissed out and felt herself stumble away from the British woman, who struck her again, making her slam headfirst against the wall behind her. Her vision became blurry as the pain ran through the back of her head and she knew that she would be out cold in a few seconds. Shaking her head to keep herself awake she stared at Christie, who was smirking at her while wiping the blood off her face. Faintly, just faintly, she heard the sound of a helicopter in the distance.

"That's my ride." Christie said and slowly walked towards Hitomi, her hips swaying in that seductive manner she always displayed. She placed a hand on the German's cheek. With the little bit of strength she had left Hitomi pushed her hand away, making the other woman laugh.

"You've improved. I'm really impressed. But you still got a few ways to go." she said as Hitomi started to slip down to the floor. "It was nice seeing you again."

"Until next time." was the last thing the Karateka heard before her consciousness slipped away.

Damn it...

Hitomi woke up once again to someone shaking her roughly. With a groan she opened her eyes to find Bayman kneeling in front her of her, his face grim.

"Christie..." Hitomi looked around slowly. In a split second she was wide awake again and back on her feet. "Where is she?! I heard a helicopter an-"

"She's gotten away." he said while checking the wound on his arm. "Slipped right through our fingers. Fuck!"

Hitomi sighed and placed her hand on her forehead, only now starting to feel the splitting headache from the hit to the back of her. Brushing her fingers against the spot she felt a nasty bump and grimaced in pain.

"You should have a medic take a look at that." she said and pointed towards Bayman's wound.

"You should heed your own advice." he nodded towards the cut on her shoulder. "This is nothing."

She sighed once again. She wanted nothing more than to lie down with Leifang and get some rest. Maybe take an aspirin too "I'm going back." she muttered under her breath.

When she didn't get an answer from the man she left him where he was and headed for the elevator, ignoring the police officers coming her way.

After getting back she was all but tackled by Leifang, the Chinese gathering her in a tight embrace and telling her how worried she was. Seemed like she was passed out for nearly an hour. She remained by her side until an EMT treated the wounds that she had gotten in the fight with Christie, as well as them inspecting her for any signs of having a concussion which, luckily for her, didn't seem to be the case. But even then it had taken ten minutes to finally convince her that she was fine and that she should go to her father.

Once Leifang was away she was approached once more by the police, whom questioned her to what happened. She told them everything, right down to giving them a detailed description of what Christie looked like. She was glad when they were done asking questions.

Bayman too was questioned by the police and soon after left together with Helena, where to she didn't know, but to Hitomi it wasn't important what they were doing, Helena was fine anyway.

What was important was how Leifang's father fared so she made her way over to where Leifang had gone. Jintao and his wife were in an ambulance, with him lying and looking very disgruntled by the prospect of having to stay in a hospital now that his pain had been taken care of for now via painkillers.

"Ah, Hitomi." he greeted her. "I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

"Saving the day I suppose. And helping me say this," he turned to Leifang. "I'm sorry for what I said to you. I should have realized a long time ago that while you are my daughter you are also your own person with your own dreams and own feelings. I think along the way I forgot that."

He paused for a moment, visibly collecting his words. Leifang didn't say a word and waited patiently for him to talk again, but moved closer to Hitomi and the German didn't hesitate to circle an arm around her waist.

"When I heard you play today it brought back all these memories from when you were a little girl. I see it like it was only yesterday when you started your first piano lessons." he became wistful. "And then one day you started showing interest in the art... and from there we distanced ourselves and the more clearer it became that your path and mine were different. In my hurt pride I tried to control your future by having you stand in my footsteps when you didn't know what you wanted for your own life. And that's only the tip of the iceberg."

Leifang turned her head to the side and came face to face with Hitomi's, smiling encouragingly.

"It's not only about me you know? What about Hitomi? Our relationship?" she asked. "You said we were ruining your reputation. I can't just simply forgive and forget that."

"I understand an-"

"But," she lifted a hand to silence him. "We're still father and daughter, and it shouldn't be like this. So under the condition that you accept me and my dreams, as well as my relationship with Hitomi, I'm willing to start over."

Jintao closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating her words. "I will be honest, I'm rather old-fashioned in a lot of things. But I will accept your relationship. That's all I can promise you for now."

"Alright." Leifang breathed.

A medic approached them and talked with Jintao in Mandarin before taking a seat near him as well.

"He said that we'll head to the hospital now." he translated for Hitomi.

"Should...should I accompany you?" Leifang asked.

The older man shook his head. "No. Pardon the cliché," he gestured towards the wound on his arm. "It's just a scratch. Go back home and rest, I'll have a driver come pick you up tomorrow...so that we can talk maybe?"

Leifang smiled slightly. "I'd like that. See you tomorrow then."

After saying their goodbyes Hitomi and Leifang watched the ambulance drive off. They stood their for a while, not saying anything until the German felt Leifang taking her hand and interlacing their fingers. She turned to look at her and saw the bright smile that made everything that happened today worth it.

"Let's go home." she said and Hitomi couldn't agree more. Their hands remained interlocked as they walked past the police car and left the hotel.

When they arrived back in the Penthouse they spend the rest of the evening in bed, holding each other until the they fell asleep.

Hehehehe, I bet I got you guys GOOD here. Now I bet some of you are fuming a little, but this is ALL for the bigger picture for future stories that I plan to write in the future. Anyway, they finally resolved Leifang's family issues. More or less anyways.
Well there's still gonna be a small epilogue coming after this, so stay tuned for the final update next week.