"Collapse!"
Without thinking, without questioning, without even fully processing what the word meant, Kira's body obeyed. Her survival instincts had been rewired over the past few hours to respond to that cold, commanding voice that had kept her alive all these while.
She dropped straight down, pulling Vexis with her since their hands were still linked. The moment felt surreal - here she was, dropping to avoid a hail of bullets like some action movie hero.
Their bodies formed a perfect V-shape with their legs touching each other as they descended, and Kira could feel it at that moment - the wind displacement as all the bullets traversed the air, avoiding them by merely inches.
"Are you two Dancing to mock us?" One of the assassin barked out, his face reddening in rage.
"More like Dancing with Death," another chimed in as they began reloading their weapons.
The assassins finished reloading almost simultaneously, their movements synchronized. They raised their weapons for round two - a more disorganized wave of bullet this time.
"Second movement," Vexis muttered under his breath, pulling Kira forward.
They both took a normal vertical stance, but something had changed. They were so close that their faces were nearly touching, close enough that Kira could see tiny flecks of gold in Vexis's dark eyes, close enough to smell the faint of something that wasn't perfume- probably blood from his earlier encounters.
Despite the absolute insanity of their situation - surrounded by armed killers in an abandoned amusement park that looked like a scene from a horror movie - Kira couldn't help as her face burned red.
Her heart was already pounding from terror and adrenaline, but now it was racing for an entirely different reason.
'Really, Kira?' she chastised herself. 'NOW you're having romantic thoughts? You're literally about to die!'
Bang! Bang! Bang!
She felt the wind displacement as three bullets missed her after the assassins had completed their reload.
This felt so impossible - how were they dodging all the bullets? Bullets traveled faster than sound, faster than human reflexes could possibly react to. Yet here they were, dancing between death.
Vexis was showcasing some sort of superhuman ability, but as Kira observed more closely, she realized it wasn't superhuman speed exactly.
It was more calculated than that, more... intelligent. He was predicting everything that was going to happen before it happened, reading the assassins like they were open books.
"Tango position," he commanded, pulling her body again and leaning her on his left arm in an inclined manner while he remained standing, holding her firmly.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
It was almost like a ballet performance as they felt another wave of bullets cleave through the air, missing them by an hair breadth.
"Spin!" Vexis commanded.
Kira found herself being whirled around like a dance partner, her body moving almost on its own accord, guided by Vexis's. The spin was so fluid, so perfectly timed, that for a moment she forgot they were in danger.
The spin was magical in its precision. For every 360-degree rotation she made, her eyes never failed to steal glances at the assassins around them, reloading their guns and aiming again with increasingly desperation.
Their faces showed a mixture of professional frustration and growing fear - they were beginning to realize they might be outclassed.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Duck!" Vexis's voice commanded sharply.
While Kira squatted, he executed a backflip, creating distance between them and their attackers.
"Forward jump!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Both of them closed the distance between each other again, intertwining fingers as they moved.
Their eyes locked, staring unmoving as they subconsciously circled around each other. While Kira's face was getting increasingly reddened and lost in Vexis's mesmerizing gaze, she noticed something unsettling - Vexis was staring back at her, but it was almost as if he couldn't actually see her.
It was as if he was looking through her, seeing something else entirely. There was something almost mechanical about his focus, as if he was a robot.
'What kind of life turns someone into this?' she wondered, even as part of her was grateful he was as he is.
"Forward roll!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Slide left!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Now right!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Each command came with split-second timing, and each movement flowed into the next like water. Kira was beginning to understand the rhythm now, her body adapting to this deadly dance in ways that surprised her.
"Jump!"
"Roll right, then spring up!"
The commands were becoming more complex, requiring greater trust and coordination.
Kira found herself moving before she'd consciously processed the instructions, her body learning to respond to Vexis's voice with the same automatic obedience she'd developed over the past few hours.
"What the hell!" One of the assassins slammed his pistol to the ground in frustration, the metal making a sharp clang against the concrete. "All our shots are missing him somehow!"
The other also realize and lowered the guns, eventually, tossing it aside to the ground.
"It's not natural," another assassin panted, wiping sweat from his brow despite the sun not being bright today. "No one moves like that. No one predicts like that."
"Maybe he's not human," a third suggested, only half-joking.
"Don't be ridiculous," the one who had taken the role of their new leader snapped, though his voice carried less conviction than it had minutes earlier. "He's just... very well trained."
"Let's settle this once and for all, with our fists!" He declared, trying to inject confidence into all his comrade. "Twenty against two!"
Let's settle this once and for all, with our fist! Twenty against two.
Vexis tilted his head slightly, a gesture that somehow managed to be both casual and deeply menacing as he corrected. "Twenty against one amateur and one assassin,"
"You think we care!" the leader replied, his voice cracking slightly as he tried to maintain his authority. He rushed towards Vexis on the elevated podium, the others quickly joining him.
"Haaaaaaaaaaaa!" they screamed as they closed the distance, their war cry echoing off the abandoned rides and empty snack stands.
Looking into Kira's eyes again - truly looking at her this time with a human gaze, as if seeing her as a person rather than a pawn - Vexis gave his command alongside a dagger he passed to her right hand.
"Protect yourself if the situation goes south," he said, and for the first time since this nightmare began, his voice carried a hint of something that might have been concern.
Kira stared at the dagger, its blade gleaming and reflecting he face back to her. She'd never held a weapon before... Well excluding kitchen knives, but the intent this kind of weapon carried was different.
'How exactly does one 'protect oneself' with a pointy piece of metal?' she wondered frantically as her mind raced. 'Do I wave it around? Do I stab? Do I apologize to people before stabbing them because that seems polite?'
"Haaaa!" The first assassin to approach came directly at Vexis with a clumsy but determined swing.
Slash!
The movement was so fast that it seemed surreal. One moment the assassin was charging forward with murderous intent, the next moment he was collapsing to the ground, his neck split open so clean that he probably didn't even realize he had died even after death.
Vexis hadn't even seemed to exert effort, he was just too calm an casual.
Unfortunately, while Vexis was dealing with the frontal assault, another assassin had circled around behind Kira with the sneakily.
He lunged at her with a punch aimed at her head, his face twisted with the kind of rage that comes from humiliation.
With swiftness, Vexis grabbed Kira by the wrist and spun her, exchanging places with her just as the attack was about to connect.
'How did he even see that coming?' Kira wondered as she found herself suddenly safe while Vexis faced the incoming threat. 'Does he have eyes in the back of his head or what?'
The assassin's fist was already committed to its trajectory, already about to collide with what he thought was going to be Kira's skull with no doubt. Instead, he found himself face-to-face with Vexis's death stare.
Slash!
In an instant, a detached arm could be seen flying through the air, spinning end over end. Blood sprayed in a perfect arc across the faded paint of a nearby carousel horse.
The assassin stared in shock at his suddenly shortened limb, his brain taking precious seconds to process what had just happened to him. In those seconds, Vexis moved again.
Slash!
The assassin's neck was following the same path as his severed limb, parting ways with his shoulders in a spray of blood.
All the remaining assassins who had been approaching like a confident horde quickly stopped in their tracks, their momentum broken by the sudden realization of exactly what they were dealing with.
They had come here expecting to overwhelm their target through numbers and superior firepower. Instead, they were watching their colleagues get murdered.
The riflemen, their leader, even the fellow comrade. They were all being put down.
The initial mission was to bring back the solo assassin alive to the elite assassin organization. But they were beginning to understand that they couldn't even bring him back dead.
Their guns were useless, their numbers meant nothing, and their might seemed inadequate against whatever Vexis was.
"You're not planning to back down now, are you?" Vexis spoke as he flicked his daggers, spraying blood from the blade in a arc that splattered against the ground. "I'm sorry, but I cannot accept to watch you leave alive."
"Not after you've all tried to kill me once," he continued, and now there was something darker in his voice.
They were trained killers, but they were also human beings with survival instincts, and those instincts were screaming at them to run as far and as fast as they could. Running however, was too late for them now.
Swoosh!
Vexis lunged towards the assassins, with speed of top athlete— am athlete that should be the best in world-class.
Slash.
One swing, one life ended. The precision was exact, the brutality was terrifying, and the speed made it almost impossible to follow with the naked eye.
Slash
A second assassin fell, his expression frozen in surprise as he realized his time had run out.
Slash
A third collapsed, joining his colleagues in the growing collection of bodies on the floor.
Slash
Unlike the first few victims who had received the dubious privilege of seeing death coming, all the others were dying from single strikes from Vexis's blade.
There was no dramatic fighting, no prolonged struggle, no movie-style combat or all of those.
They were dropping dead rapidly, not even getting a chance to react as the blade of Vexis dagger delivered lethal strikes and in no time, the entire field was cleared out.
The silence that followed was deafening. No more gunshots, no more shouted commands, no more desperate war cries. Just the sound of wind through the abandoned rides.
Huff!
Vexis exhaled heavily, his breath visible in the cooling air like white smoke. He turned his head sideways to glance at Kira properly, his face splashed with drops of blood.
For a moment, he looked almost human again. Tired, perhaps even troubled by what he'd been forced to do. But then his expression shifted back to that cold, emotionless mask she'd come to recognize as his default state.
"I apologize for getting you entangled in my affairs," Vexis began, his voice returning to that monotone that somehow made everything sound like a business discussion. "But I guess this is the last time our paths will cross."
"Toss my dagger and Shadowbud to me now and go home," he continued, signaling to her with a gesture that was dismissive. "You should do that before the police or pro assassins show up and assume you to be my ally."
"You wouldn't stand a chance like you did with all these amateurs," Vexis added, confirming her worst fears.
Kira tossed both items without questioning - the dagger felt warm from her grip, the Shadowbud pretty light for something that had controlled so much of her life over the past few hours.
Then she gave a quick, respectful bow, unsure why she felt the need to show such deference to someone who had threatened her with her family and used her as bait.
Maybe it was gratitude for keeping her alive. Maybe it was recognition of the warrior he'd proven himself to be. Maybe... Just maybe.
As much she wouldn't like to admit, she felt a pang of pain for having to leave Vexis forever, because no matter how she may try to deny it, Vexis was truly a good person.
However, Kira was not dumb to resist and waste any more time because of the little emotion she felt during their battle. This man is good but still a killer, and he kills without hesitation.
She had one final question.
"Are you still going to hurt my family?" she asked, the question bursting out of her before she could stop it. It was the one thing that mattered more than her own life, at least to her.
"No," Vexis responded simply, walking towards his motorcycle with casual steps. "I was never going to hurt them. All I did was threaten you for all this to go as planned."
The admission hit her like a physical blow. All of this had been based on a lie. He'd never intended to hurt her family. He'd just needed her fear to make her compliant, her love for them to make her useful.
'I should be angry,' she realized. 'I should be furious that he manipulated me, that he made me dance to his tune through false threats. But mostly I just feel... empty.'
"Thank you," she spoke gloomily. "I hope we shall never cross paths again."
Brrooooonnn! Brrooooonnn!
Vexis twisted the throttle of his bike, the engine roaring to life. He nodded towards Kira - not quite friendly, but not dismissive either. It was acknowledgment, perhaps even respect.
Then he was riding off with speed that far exceeded the speed limit placed by legal authorities, his bike disappearing into the distance.
"So I survived after all," Kira spoke aloud, tears streaming down her face as the rational reality of her situation finally hit her. She was alive. Her family was safe. The nightmare was over.
Don't get it wrong, She wasn't doing all this inner monologue in one spot. Even as her mind raced, her feet were carrying her hastily through the amusement park, past the rides that would never look innocent to her again.
Police sirens could already be heard from a distance as she moved, growing louder with each passing second. Soon this place would be swarming with investigators and people asking questions she wasn't sure she could answer.
For her own sake, she would have to avoid such. It was all over after all... Or so she thought.