Mad Dog - VII

That's all the assassin has to say after we stare at him for long enough.

Zhang looks annoyed as he takes in the comment.

“Did she get lost on the way or something?”

“I doubt that very much. She was supposed to confirm the identity of the Tearer then return to me.”

Zhang nods. “So she confirmed the Tearer’s identity, then didn't tell you because she wanted to reap all the glory of being the one taking him in, is what I'm getting.”

“Possible,” he replies. “But that's hardly a great detriment. I have a tracker on her phone I can access. So I can still find her if need be.”

“Are you going to go?” asks Yuura.

“No.” He takes a moment. “If she’s not picking up, she’s either dead or out of commission. I’m going to regroup and come back there with a few others.” The assassin goes to the door, and no one stops him. “I have your number, Zhang. I’ll keep in contact.”

He leaves the building with a last nod. A silence fills the room. A long, uninteresting silence. So uninteresting that I think of just poking Yuura in the side and seeing what happens.

“Should we have stopped him from going?” Yuura asks. “He could’ve been lying, and caught the Tearer already.”

“Could be,” says Zhang, with a voice that suggests ‘not really’. “I saw his face twitch in a awkward way though. Like he was nervous. He could’ve been faking it of course, but well, I don’t think so.”

“Do we follow him?” asks Yuura.

“No point,” I say. “If he is meeting with his associates, we might just end up captured. And if he’s meeting with the Tearer, he probably already asked his associates to come pick him up. We do not know how many of this Ejingbang there are, yes.”

“Then, we just have to bet on him not knowing where the Tearer is, right?” asks Yuura.

We stare at each other. I walk around. Imitating a bee, and going in circles while thinking. This whole before-thing to finding the Tearer is getting complicated. And now it seems we’re at a dead end.

“I’m gonna go take a smoke break,” says Zhang. Breaking the silence.

He goes to the door.

“I will take a pee break,” I say.

I go to the door.

“There’s a toilet here,” Zhang says, looking at me.

“It takes time to adapt to such conveniences.”

He leaves the building. I follow him. He enters the elevator. I step inside. The elevator goes down. We both step outside the apartment building.

I pat my hands alongside his jacket, and smile. “There’s no cigarette, Zhang. Who are you kidding?”

“I was hoping you and Yuura. But it seems I only got it half-right.”

“What was your aim? Did you plan to run away and find the Tearer yourself?”

“Yeah. I’d say that’s about right.”

“You wanted the glory for yourself?”

“That too.”

“That’s not possible,” I say. “The glory belongs to both of us.” I think about how he plans to find him, and don’t understand how. So I ask: “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere not far from here.” He reaches into his jacket and takes out a bound notebook. I didn’t see him take it. So he must’ve done it when I wasn’t looking. Sneaky Zhang. “There’s an agenda here about the Tearer’s schedule.”

“Oh?” I say, with all the interest of a lion before a great steak. “And?”

“There’s a schedule for something important in the evening. The details are a bit vague, but I imagine he’s probably reconvening with someone at that time.”

“Does it say where?”

“Yep,” he says with a chuckle. “It’s even written on the notebook.”

He raises it for me to see. The message is written in big, black letters across the entirety of the page. Zhang flips the pages. The message is written a few more times in similar sizes.

“He’s attempting to lure us there.”

“Not unusual for the Tearer. Considering their habit of uploading many images and videos online, yes?” I move a bit closer. “I didn’t say it earlier, but when I was with the assassin, a message played on the answering machine. Warning me of him.”

“Do you think he knew it was you?”

“No. But one of us, yes. I think he wants us to recognise him for some reason. Well, I understand. If I went on a battle-spree, I’d want people to know it was the ‘Mad Dog’ who did it.”

“Yeah. But why us in particular? Let’s say he thought it was Yuura, you or me, there, what about us makes him wanna keep us alive, over say, the assassin looking for him? He gets recognition either way.”

“I don’t know,” I say. Honest. “Maybe he just likes us. I have been called ‘charming’ by my grandparents.” I get silent and think. “Regardless, a battle is coming, and we must be careful. Unless we fall into his jaws and become his next meal.”

He starts to speak. Start like open mouth but let it hang.

“What is it?”

“They called the Eight-Virtue Sect. And there's already eight bodies. You think they'll break their little aesthetic and kill us anyway?”

I frown. “So he won’t fight back?”

“W-what do you want out of this?” He takes a short breath. “A duel to the death? A one-to-one with your neck on the line?”

“Preferably. But I am not opposed to doing a two-on-one either.”

He laughs. “You’re weird. But you probably know that, right?”

“Yes. I’m just that type of people. To me, fighting this Tearer is a great desire, and satisfying great desires are a very human thing to do. Very normal.”

He continues to laugh a bit more, but stops, and pats himself on the chest. Thump. Like gorilla. “Well then. Shall we go maul the Tearer?”

I nod.

We leave Yuura behind. Zhang texts her a message a few minutes in just in case one of the gang returns, but we leave her behind. The air is cold and wet, and touches my unprotected neck with a gust of wind. We continue walking.

It takes half an hour, but we manage to get to the city outskirts. The area's relatively quiet, and a lot of the buildings look like they've been punched by an Uber-Gorilla a few times. I'd heard there was an incident here a few years prior that caused people to move. Some mage or monster, and the resulting extermination that took place.

To think people left because of that.

Tsk.

Cowards. I would've enjoyed the threat of something after my life.

There’s a black building ahead, with the letters ‘FIT FILM STUDIO’ in bright white. It’s clearly abandoned, given the worn-out parking symbol-things, and the peeling paint. We get closer, and our footsteps ring against the stone tchk tchk tchk.

I’m going to fight the Tearer.

That thought excites me.

It should excite Zhang too. But he doesn’t want to fight the Tearer, I guess. He’s here for his brother. Well. To know where his brother is… by beating up the Tearer. Hm.

“Hey Zhang. I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you think the Tearer will know where your brother is? You said he got involved with the Ejīngbāng, but you didn’t say he was working under the Eight-Virtue Sect, right? So he could be anywhere else.”

He pauses to think over my amazing question. “I heard that someone had seen him in Fukouka,” Zhang says, with surprising swiftness. “Since the Eight-Virtue Sect is the biggest branch in this prefecture, I figured they’d know about him.”

“Very good answer, Zhang. I see you thought it through very thoroughly. Good.”

“Well, I would’ve gone pretty far for a guy with no good motive.” He laughs and heads for the building.

We try the doorknob, and unsurprisingly, it twists open to automatic lights. The interior’s typical of the Japanese. Concrete, and a bit delicate with its decoration.

Zhang points a finger. “Those cameras?”

I nod. Inside the building, there are cameras propped on stands. They seem to cover each and every angle of the building, while being positioned in areas no one would trample over.

There’s no saying if there are traps prepared, so I walk cautiously--like mouse after midnight oil. We head past the front desk and pass into a hallway. The lights turn on above us. I look at the door at the end of the hall. A light shines through its square glass.

Zhang says nothing. For the first time, he actually looks a bit scared and takes a moment to calm himself. Taking two seconds, he then quickly walks to the door, and pushes it open.

The light catches on a thin piece of white in the door. I grab Zhang and dive backwards. Something mechanical triggers. Orange sparks shower at the door, and ring my ear. An explosive. A grenade? I look at our bodies. There’s no shrapnel or anything of the sort. As my mind clears, and my eyes focus on the ground, I see the remains of fireworks, and wonder why it was put there.

My answer comes quick. Footsteps ring from behind us, and a man comes into focus with a monkey’s speed.

The Stillwater Fist. The pale man with a talisman on his face.

Zhang raises two hands. One with a gun, and the other with his fulu. Two bullets fire into Stillwater’s chest, forcing out spots of small blood. The paper talisman falls to the wayside, but Stillwater swats them off-angle.

I leap forward and pull at his ankle. He kicks. It hits me in the face and I fly back.

“Huogui!”

Red flame leaps from Zhang’s fulu in the shape of a ghostly arm. It doesn’t hit Stillwater. Instead shooting behind him, and blocking his path to escape.

My calves squeeze. I kick off the ground, and raise my key to his eye-level. He raises a palm to intercept me. I dodge low, changing stance halfway, and jam my key into his gut. His muscles are like iron. They grip, they strangle, they squeeze my key away from going deep.

So I push. I unhand the key and push Stillwater with all my body, sending him straight into the fire. He reaches his hand behind him and twists it chk at an unnatural angle. The fire stops at his palm, and doesn’t go through. As if it’s a polite citizen stopping at a traffic sign.

I wrap my arms around the underside of his elbow and try to wrench and break it. I forget something important as I do. His wrist turns, and his palm touches me on the back, and I start to feel the same feeling I did before when he hit me--the feeling that I can’t move that I’m not in control of my body the feeling that I’m stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck--

Zhang moves forth with his cleaver. Right as the man tries to punch me with his open palm again, he swings it down and catches him on the wrist. There is a sound like metal against metal. Hard and rough.

I watch as blood comes from his wrist even so, bleeding with sudden purpose. He flinches. He pulls back.

Zhang pulls on the neck of my jacket, and takes me out of there. I watch as the man takes a step forward, out of the fire’s way, and put a finger to his wound. Freezing it in place.