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Kai turned to meet him, and the man realized how very small a fact a man can be when a force decides he is not relevant.
The first blade skittered off Adaptive Armor with a sound like a bird breaking its beak on a window. The second darted for the slit at Kai's hip. Kai turned his own hip into it and let the plate meet steel with the grinding intimacy of stone and plow.
The assassin adjusted without thinking —good instincts— but Kai did not, because he did not have to. He caught both wrists, pressed the blades back into the man's chest as if handing them home, and kept pressing until the chest learned a new size. He laid him down. He did not speak. He saved words for when they could make shape, not just sound.
Two more tried to be stories right after.
