Tony's gamble

“You are too reckless; he doesn’t pay us enough for something like this.”

Fire wrath Johnson was a fearsome man whose reputation precedent almost everyone in the Beretta family, unapproachable and kin to fighting with everyone, but his younger sister like many times before was seeing the result of his reckless and violent nature.

The fiery man was now bedded in the closes thing to a hospital the Beretta´s current hideout had. He had yet to wake up after almost passing away from air depravation; the man had drowned from the smoke of his own flame and now he paid for it, the heavy breathing machine well placed again on his sleeping face, the only thing that that stopped his own power from robbing him of the air around him.

“You should have retire and let Bella give you a hand, this only happened because you never accept defeat, seriously brother. Things have changed we no longer need to fight to the death or end up disposed of, we are no longer expendable, and we have our own family now, brother.” The woman who had earned the nickname of “Ice cold Cindy” Tended to him from a distance to his bed, they looked nothing alike, but they were certainly brothers, even if those ties were forced into them by others.

“We are no longer seasonal children we don´t… need to prove our own existence to anyone, Tony won´t show it, but I´m sure he never wished for this either. We are the capos of the Beretta family; he´ll grew sad if our dinner table loses anyone more, after all Tony can´t bear to ever lose anything he can never buy again, you know how childish he can get.” Cindy remained standing at a distance while looking at her own shoes, else she may want to at least hold his hand, but that was impossible, their bodies were weapons after all.

“I don´t know if you still think you are doing it for me, but please stop if I need anything from you Johnson, is that you keep on living, if you can promise me that, I will promise you too that I will never die. So rest for now I will make sure that no one will hurt Tony it’s the best we can do to the man that crushed the seasonal child program, and gave us the money we needed to finally and truly be human.” Cindy shed her tears each of them freezing as they fell to the ground, her breathing cold enough to be visible.

“Rest well brother and know that I will protect our family.”

Cindy let out a long cold breath as she walked away from his room leaving traces of ice on every single step she took, the nurses in the clinic took their distance not wishing to be anywhere near her, she wasn´t bothered by this as she was right now, but to simply touch her could be fatal, but there was no calming her feelings so all she could do is to unleash them upon a battlefield of her own choosing. Cindy arranged her black tie as she looked at a mirror that began to froze, making one last effort to clean up her appearance.

She composed her hair and make sure to clean any trace of tears, her expression severe as always, she was someone that valued appearances highly as one of the qualification needed to be treated as human so the impeccable woman was once more pristine clean as the coldness around her began to vanish, her white suit in perfect place as did her blond medium hair.

She left the mirror behind and continued on her way, the ambient was a turbulent one, the sound of guns constantly ringing outside accompany by loud explosion and the screams of men dying, she paid this no mind as she walked through the alleys of an old motel they had taken as their headquarters a shady place with their windows blocked not permitting even the dim light of the gray streets to reach them now that their headquarters was currently surrounded.

“Shit, there is only so much we can do, its best we start planning a retreat ma´am.” One of the men in white suits told her what he could of the situation. “I suppose their spy was as good as we feared, they have us pinned pretty well.” They were like men in trenches barely showing their faces through the blocked windows when the gun fire stopped, all well-armed, but not one of them dared to fire back.

“¡There is also some weird archer outside I don´t know how they do it, but every one of those stupid arrows always kill someone, always!” Cindy listened quietly to the man´s frightful concern as alarming as it was, there was no way to transfer her brother from here, so retiring wasn´t an option for her, Tony much likely wouldn’t want to risk himself by moving out either, especially if there is indeed a spy among them. “¿What about Joann is she gonna bother coming back to keep her man from dying or what?” Cindy asked him with a mild annoyance slipping into her voice. “She was fighting deeper into their territory; she said she´ll come when she comes.” Cindy crossed her arms staying quiet for a moment.

“We can´t simply wait, we must begin to push back otherwise their forces will also unite and become stronger, not to mention their boss, if he arrives we are all death, at the very least we have to finish off their commander here and now.” She spoke quietly as she would do for any other common assignment, the man´s fearful face quickly turned red with anger. “¡No way, we are not being paid enough for any of this shit!” Cindy closed her eyes as the man spit at her with his screaming. “¿So just to be clear you are saying you would rather quit than fight?” The taller man leaned forward his anger dropping a little as his eyes clearly shock in fear. “Yes, I can´t do this anymore.” Cindy opened her eyes and extended her open hand to him. “Thank you very much for the work you have done, unfortunately you won´t receiving your final payment.” The man tried to keep himself from saying anything more as he reached to shake her hand.

“Sorry, but only the family will get to leave this place behind.” Cindy spoke with a cold tone her blue eye staring at his with neither anger nor any other care.

“¡Aagg!” The man´s hand began to freeze solid, as ice crawl from the tips of his fingers and into the rest of his body, the cold was so intense he felt on fire till his limb ceased to feel anything at all. “Sorry this is nothing personal; it’s just a matter of team morale.”

He tried to curse her as the ice finally reached his head, leaving him as nothing more than a frozen echo of a person that soon enough shattered completely, a simple sculpture of ice that unraveled. Everyone else who bear witness to his murder remained in position without saying a word, some of them even shrugged unsurprised.

“We all share the same fate here so unfortunately there is no retreating for any of us you can all speak to us for a raise of salary and yes, we will certainly pay for all medical expenses, but all that will be discussed when we leave this place alive. Cindy´s hand was still releasing a cold steam as it slowly unfroze.

“I will take charge and give you all an opening to strike back, you simply have to follow my orders from here on out and I will also handle their commander herself.” Cindy walked away; the men follow her with their guns held tight ignoring to their best the dismembered remains of their old coworker. “Though luck.” A man muttered as he pressed the aim of his riffle through the window to the chaos outside.

The main door of the abandoned hotel opened widely with a violent push and the Yakuza that surrounded it reacted, the members of the Scorching sun took cover in anything they could find as they aimed their guns at the entrance, but it was the lingering corpses of men in white suits that clearly showed the biggest treat of all as they all had being pierced by arrows from high above, executed where they stood by the judge of the gray skies. As the door opened coldness creped outwards, the asphalt froze as a current of ice grew forward and finally raised above the ground. Tall spikes of ice emerged from the ground and raised tall, the cold ice unleashed a constant mist that now surrounded the barricade of ice.

Cindy stepped outside the ground, her feet freezing her every step, her hands surrounded by a thick ice that carried its own steam, the machineguns and pistols rang as a whole battalion of men in white came out from the hotel, rushing to take cover behind the walls of solid ice, their movements concealed by the mist that expanded through the streets. Both sides became more aggressive as their enemies where finally in the reach of their eyes, but there was only one concern in Cindy´s mind. In the middle of that terrible chaos she remained immutable fixed on the entrance, breathing carefully in the cold air, her body turning paler.

An explosion made her react, one of the tall walls of ice exploded in its center, shattering all around it and Cindy reacted by raising a long spike of ice just in front of her, from the hole in the center wall multiple arrows came flying almost reaching her, had she not blocked them at the last moment leaving the arrows incrusted into the thick ice wall where they exploded shattering the wall as well.

“There.”

Cindy crouched raising an ice shield in front of her while her other hand froze the ground underneath till it rose a pillar of ice that elevated her with in a diagonal trajectory towards the hole in the barricade of ice. Her hands had merged with the ice locking her completely in her place, as the long spike she was holding herself to, pierced thought the wall an carried her forward into the air. Arrows where send flying again and were all deflected by the curved ice shield she made in front of herself, her path wasn´t stopped and soon the tall ice column she clanged to reached the roof of the building in front.

They finally saw each other, a woman of long black her with a military vest wielding bow and arrow. She aimed at the woman in the white suit, who stood with an impossible ice cover that surrounded her tenderly. Aoi Adachi let out an arrow into the space above where the other woman had broken free from her ice column; She in turn shoot long spikes of ice from her hands and both arrow and ice crashed down in midair as she finally landed above the rooftop.

“Sorry, but this assault of yours is now over, if you would be so kind to...” An arrow cut Cindys words short as it landed against an ice wall that she had raised at that very moment in front of her feet. Cindy breathed cold air as thick ice spread from beneath her shoes straight in the direction of her prey. Aoi jumped out of the way landing at the very border of the rooftop and quickly shoot another arrow forward, Cindy raised another ice wall in turn, but the arrow flew just above it and almost reached her face, Cindy blinked very unsure if that had being a calculation of her enemy or not.

“Oh, I better end this fast.” She muttered calmly as the ice on the rooftop rose into spike towards Aoi, who quickly jumped and hooked herself into a cable with her bow to glide down into the rooftop of the next building. Cindy followed her to the border and made a long lance of ice form from her palm which she quickly threw to the woman below. Aoi dodged the first one with a hop to the side and then using her heavy bow she blocked the other one with easy as if wielded a blade. As soon as her defending ending she moved on straight to the attack releasing three arrows at once against Cindy, she merely raised her arm to make a wall of ice grew at the border of the rooftop an shield her.

“You lost the high ground and so this fight has been won.”

Cindy released a cold steam as her hands were completely covered in ice and touched the ice wall in front of her and from its surface dozens of long ice spikes began to emerge, ready to explode outwards in a violent rain, but another explosion occurred first, at the wall of the building were Cindy stood a third arrow had pierce itself into place and exploded breaking the ice wall to pieces and throwing Cindy to the ground upon her back.

There was the sound of arrows being released as they rose upwards into the skies to fall down again straight into her. Cindy tried to build a shield of ice above her, but she didn´t manage to cover completely and an arrow pierced her shoulder. She screamed hurrying to take it out while bearing all the pain as her hand freeze the arrow till it broke into pieces. Red tainted her white suit, but the woman simply made a torrent of ice to impulse her through the frozen rooftop and away from the ice cover, as she had thought the arrow on top of it exploded caving in the rooftop.

“That couldn´t be… how she did…” Her breathing grew colder and a thick cover of ice began to spread thought her white suit as if wishing to shield while thick white steam flew from her almost as if her very body was boiling.

Cindy ran towards the broken border of the rooftop and immediately threw an ice pike below it, but there was no longer any trace of her target. Cindy turned back and saw Aoi´s black long hair waving on the air as she climbed to the rooftop behind her, Cindy threw a stake of ice forward and Aoi launched an arrow of her own. Both projectiles cruised the distance missing each other by an inch; the ice spike piercing Aoi´s chest only surviving it by the bullet vest, but the sheer blunt strike threw her back against the fence on the rooftop. None the less she never let go of her bow and the arrow she launched landed true as well; the arrow pierced Cindy´s chest only stopping from reaching her heart by the thick coat of ice that covered it, but it remained a terrible wound that left her again with frozen blood upon her suit.

“¡No, this is ridiculous stop it! It hurts… it hurts!” Cindy froze the arrow solid and broke it apart leaving only the tip inside of her chest; she coughed violently a cold dense air was released from her mouth. “You´ll never make it out of here alive, the boss will have your head…” Cindy´s bitter word had barely any strength to them; her opponent simply smiled preparing her bow again. “Ah…Sorry, but your boss’s head is already ours.” Cindy rushed forward propelled rapidly by the icy floor as an arrow was shoot straight to her head, she repelled it by making ice around her arms and blocking against it whit then, she had no more time and so she had to end it at this precise moment.

Another arrow was release and she didn´t try to dodge and instead blocked it with her left arm, letting it pierce her, Cindy groaned from the pain while her other hand reached forward and grabbed Aoi´s hand.

“It’s nothing personal.” With a cold voice reaching her ear Aoi kicked her back, but her hand had been frozen to the bones and as she kicked the woman back her fingers broke apart like glass. “¡Noooo!” There was no telling just how much went through Aoi´s head at that very moment, as she let go of her bow for the first time in years throwing it towards her enemy, but she merely swiped it away with her frozen hand, Aoi backed away till she crashed on the fence of the roof. “See…you are all done for I would not allow any of you to hurt us anymore.” Cindy walked forward towards her fallen foe, her skin completely pale, she looked terrible sick her body constantly shaking, Cindy had long ago stopped trying to keep her body temperature stable and Aoi could tell her body was at its very limits, but Aoi Adachi had lost her one and only way of fighting now.

“I can´t say I understand that well, why we are fighting here… This truly was nothing personal, but regardless the reason I simply won´t allow you to hurt them.” Cindy´s shaking hand tried to unwrap her tie that but it broke apart at her touch, Aoi was sobbing as she held her hand, she had lost three of her fingers in a single moment and the rest of her palm was completely numb. “You bastards came here first, but it won´t matter now your family is done for I already give him the time he needed.” Cindy walked closer an ice spike slowly forming on her palm. “If you mean your assassin It won´t do, maybe Tony can´t compare to Kojiro Adachi, but the man has the devil´s luck, so he might even cheat the very devil if he has too, I´m sure he will be fine, he will always out last them all.” Aoi slumped down against the fence, her brown eyes staring firmly towards Cindy, her face red with tears, but with no fear, just clear cut anger upon her expression. “But you won’t.” Aoi said.

“Enough with…” Cindy stopped herself from creating ice on her palm and looked backwards.

The abandoned bow remained on the floor with a single arrow on it an arrow that Aoi never manage to release, but her arrows were special and as soon as she saw that, Cindy understood the confident look of her cornered prey and only one thought came to her mind, she didn’t want to die. Cindy dropped the ice spike and braced herself by creating the thickest coldest ice she could around her as the single arrow exploded just in front of her legs.

The explosion raged crashing against the ice that expanded, Aoi being shielded as well by the huge mountain of ice that had emerged around the other woman. The devastating explosion broke the ceiling of the rooftop and the huge pile of ice fell down with the woman within it, a woman that held her own body in utter fear and now remained there, frozen solid upon the center of an ice column. The woman had no consciousness anymore, but remained alive within the ice.

“You failed to take my head to save yourself; sorry but now your beloved family has lost.” Aoi got on her feet still holding her hand frozen hand as she look at the woman below, trapped in that ghostly image a mere few second before her death forever more just to escape that faith.

“Man, she isn´t answering anymore. Now that is really creepy.”

Tony Beretta turned off his phone while passing his hand through his black combed hair, he was looking quite distressed, but still tried to keep a weak smile upon his lips.

“¿She wouldn´t have done anything too reckless? I mean Cindy is the only one here with any common sense, she should be the last person to go out on a wild hunt right now ¿Right you guys?” Two men in white suits were following Tony through an empty hallway with elegant red carpets that had sadly already rotted away with time.

“Well Sir, the situation can only get worse if Kojiro arrives, it’s for the best if we take you to the shelter right now.” One of the men answered his hand nervously above the holster of his gun. “¿Do we have to? But that’s no fun; this Is my war so I want to see it.” Tony whined with a fake childish voice that made both men recoil from the embarrassment of hearing him. “Sorry, but Ms. Cindy told us to take you to the shelter if we were unable to contact her.” The other man spoke and Tony´s face twisted as his right eye opened wider than the other. “But I’m the boss I´m supposed to give the orders here.” He whined. Both of men looked really uncomfortable in that moment and waited for him to finish his piece.

Tony looked to the side with both hands on his pocket and spoke again. “Fine, she must be working pretty hard right now, that woman always does, As her boss that makes me happy, but honestly the two of them are always so desperate, like the ground is just going to fell under their feet if they slack off for a single second, its rather sad what’s the point of being a mobster if you won´t even indulge a little? Fine I´ll go I sure debt her that much.” The other two men relaxed.

“And honestly I debt you guys too for having to bear with me this much. You both are getting a pretty big bonus.” Tony clapped as he moved his hand under his white suit jacket, slowly walking backwards with glee. “Thank you very much sir.” One of the men said as he stretched his hand forward to shake Tony´s while the other men remained in silence. “Yes and don´t worry I´m paying all the expenses too.”

“¿Expenses, sir?” Tony smiled embarrassedly. “Yeah, for the hospital of course, thank you for everything you guys.” Tony Beretta pulled a gun from his jacket and shot the man in front of him in the shoulder, he screamed as Tony aimed again towards his other guard with his handsome face ruined from his uncontrollable grin.

The gun ringed again but the other man dodged the shot at the last minute.

“¡Hahahaha!” Tony laughed as he kept shooting making the other guard retreat with an incredible skill till one of his bullets finally hit him on his chest, throwing him back to the ground. “No way you are one my men, they all suck too much to have those kind of moves, haha.” The man who fell began to be enveloped by a large mass of black threats, his face melting away to show a white mask underneath it.

“Ok, if you can still move pull out your gun, since it’s time to earn your keep.” Tony said as he kicked lightly his downed guard. “Aggg.” The man moaned but reached to take his gun out even if he barely understood a thing, but before he could shoot the masked figure threw one of his long nails like a bullet to his throat, but Tony´s gun rang in his place and landed a shot straight to the left side of the white mask, this broke the mask apart near the left eye, but failed to hit him on the face, merely scratching him.

“Mr. Noh, there you were.” Tony smiled wider as he continued to shoot once more.

The assassin got up on four limbs on the floor like a beast and dodge one shot and then another by moving rapidly through the floor, his black hair falling from his back revealing a bare torso adorned in countless tattoos. “Hahahahaha” Tony laughed while running without stopping his shooting till his bullets were all gone. Noh evade all of the shots, but before he could pursue him, he fell to his knees grabbing his chest were the bullet had reached him, he was in genuine pain even if his muscles had hardened enough to stop the bullet from reaching his hearth, he was already past the point where his body could heal itself so easily, every one of his cells were now at their limit, but the Noh run forward in pursuit of the enemies head as promised, the head of the family´s godfather Tony Beretta.

The laughing mad man had run off from his sight, but the man known as the Noh ran fast reaching for the corner to see his prey jumping through the window and to the emergency stairs of the neighboring apartment building. Noh rushed even faster reaching the small window and with his inhuman fitness he simple dived thought it to reaching the fence on the stairs outside and using them to propel himself forward with a flip, almost like flying he dived through the window on the other building, entering with his feet first and landing with a small roll inside it, he looked forward to find an empty hall with no traces of the mobster.

“¡Listen here you freak!”

Noh turned around to see Tony crouching underneath the window he had had passed through, Tony had merely stayed down there in wait with a machinegun he now pointed at him, his right eye opening wide like a plate as his smile grew wider on that side of his face. Noh ran away from him as the machinegun rang off and he was shoot on his back by at least three bullet before he managed to jump out of the way an into an abandoned room on the hallway. “Bet ya never thought I wouldn´t die in a single second, come on out!” Tony laughed letting the machine gun run till it ended running out of bullets again.

“Oopsie.”

Tony let go off his weapon and ran away while holding his hat, from the apartment the figure of a monster came out like a whirling, completely surrounded by black hair that fell down his back and into the floor and whose fingertips were long and dangerous claws. The beast charged forward in search of the man and finally saw it at the end of a hallway inside an elevator; he raised his hand and waved casually at the beast. Noh ran and ran like a shadow through the ground, but his claws only reached and already closed steel door, in desperation he began to scratch the elevator door furiously till he eventually fell again to his knees from the pain of the shoots he had forgotten.

“¿Hello, can you hear me? One, two, three, ok that should be enough.” Tony´s voice sounded loudly thought the hallway, it wascoming from a speaker above the elevator; Noh remained on his knees unconcerned. “Sorry but no dice, you gonna have to try harder, although it may not be all your fault, good old Johnson and sweet Bella must have left you in a pretty rough shape, maybe badly hurt enough for even a weakling like me to kill you.”

Noh slumped down, his arms limping in front of his as his nails broke and fell on their own, the hair that covered his entire body began collapsing as well, but his back seemed to be inflating, like tumors growing rapidly on his skin finally they exploded releasing the bullets from his back along with dripping red blood to the floor. “Come down now, I won´t run, otherwise you´ll banish too and that will be a nuisance I rather not deal with. ¡You want to complete your mission, no? Then come on down just you and me, kill or be kill, the good stuff.” Noh slowly got up his appearance finally that of a human again, his damaged mask the only trace of the bullets he had received. “No one else is in here so if I see another face I shoot so no playing dress up, just get to the point. I can´t just leave all of the hard work to those ladies to do, it isn’t some macho bullshit I just want to ease their burden a little, so I will end you myself, Sorry but I can´t just die or they both will be pissed at me, so come on down to the lowest floor of all.” Noh walked away from the elevator and towards the emergency staircase.

“Mr. Noh the biggest mystery in the Scorching sun, I would really like to get to know you for real, so come on down, come on down to the ground.” Noh looked down at the docent floors below him, there was no question this would lead him to a trap, but there was no retreating for the two of them now time was crucial. The Noh climbed above the fence of the staircase and threw himself in the middle evading the rectangular stairs cases down and falling freely in the center and as fast as he could through the building in search of the depths within and the prey that lurked within them.