The Frail Academic
Once the exchange concluded, Alhaitham did not linger. He settled into the car arranged by the research institute and headed straight for the hotel.
Along the way, he watched the scenery slide past the window in silence — until, without warning, he turned to the driver. "This isn't the way to the hotel."
"It's a shortcut," the driver said. "Only the locals know about it."
"Oh." Alhaitham gave a small acknowledgment, as though the explanation had satisfied him.
The driver let his guard slip — and in that instant, a hand shot out from behind, seized him by the hair, and slammed his head against the window. His vision went black, and he slumped unconscious.
Alhaitham followed up without a pause, heaving the driver's body over into the passenger seat with one hand while steadying the wheel with the other, then climbed over from the back into the driver's seat.
The whole maneuver took barely fifteen seconds. After a few erratic swerves, the car smoothed back into steady motion.
He retraced the route in his memory and was just about to make a right turn when a car roared up from behind and rammed the rear bumper. Tch. I missed the turn.
Two more vehicles immediately closed in from either side, gradually boxing him in. Their windows rolled down in unison, and from each one a pistol emerged, trained on Alhaitham, fingers on triggers.
He paid them no mind and floored the accelerator. The car lunged forward, and every bullet slammed harmlessly into the rear half of the body.
Seeing that they'd failed to hit their target, the low-ranking operatives swung their muzzles toward the tires of the car ahead instead.
A sharp bang — the vehicle lurched violently, and the steering began to fight against him. Alhaitham felt no panic. He eased off the speed slightly, then wrenched the wheel and rammed the car on his right with everything he had.
The right-hand car took the impact. Its driver, caught completely off guard and then slammed by the deploying airbag, was knocked out cold.
"Two more."
Alhaitham abandoned his half-wrecked car, slipped out from behind the wheel, and — using the vehicle as cover — struck the left car's tire with a Chisel-Light Mirror, forcing it to a dead stop.
Now three cars stood stalled across the road, the lane completely blocked. The trailing vehicle had no choice but to halt as well.
The two drivers climbed out carefully, guns in hand. Alhaitham appeared suddenly behind the left car's driver and drove a side kick into him, launching the man several meters through the air. He hit the ground and didn't move again.
The driver at the rear recovered quickly and opened fire. Alhaitham twisted aside, weaving through the shots, closed the distance in a blur of speed, seized the man by the hair, and slammed him face-first into the pavement. Blood streamed from the driver's head as he collapsed, unconscious.
Alhaitham surveyed the road, paid no attention to the bodies still sprawled across it, nudged the front cars aside just enough to leave a gap, then got into the rearmost car — the one still in working order — and drove off.
A few minutes later, a black Porsche 356A pulled up to the scene.
Gin stepped out, took in the traces left behind, and let out a cold snort. "Heh. A pack of useless trash."
He walked to the front of the wreck and examined the bullet marks closely. The conclusion practically wrote itself: a group of armed men, firing at an unarmed target at point-blank range, hadn't landed a single hit. Calling them useless was flattery — they were beneath useless.
He raised his Beretta, aimed at each head in turn, and — indifferent to the terror on their faces — cleanly sent every one of them on his way.
"Aniki?" Vodka said.
"Get someone to clean up the scene."
"Got it," Vodka replied.
Gin was turning back toward his car when something at the edge of his vision caught his attention — something off.
He looked. It was a tire on one of the cars.
Crouching down, he examined it carefully. The rubber had been sliced open by something razor-sharp, yet there was no blade anywhere nearby. Judging by the direction of the cut, the tire had been severed while the car was in motion — slashed by something short and knife-like, rendering it useless.
Vodka followed Gin's gaze and squinted. All he could see was a tire with a gash in it. Nothing else.
"Aniki, what about that tire?"
The interest in Gin's eyes deepened. He didn't bother taking Vodka's dullness personally. "It was cut while the car was moving. In other words, that man hit a rolling tire with a single strike. Doing that takes exceptional eyesight and precise control of force." This is getting more and more interesting.
"Though he was soft about it. Didn't silence a single one of them."
Alhaitham, for his part, gave no thought whatsoever to what might happen after he left. He drove to the edge of the city, abandoned the car by the roadside, walked a stretch of road clear of the surveillance cameras, and hailed a taxi back to the hotel.
The next day, Alhaitham went out for a meal, then returned to his hotel room.
The moment he stepped through the door, his senses told him sharply that someone else was inside. Drawing his weapon — the Light of Foliar Incision — from its hiding place, he advanced a few slow steps, rounded the corner, and found Vodka standing there with a pistol already aimed at him. He swung his blade in a horizontal arc without a moment's hesitation.
Vodka couldn't react in time. He could only watch the sword come for his face. His throat seized — then Gin's hand clamped onto his collar and hauled him backward, while Gin's other hand came up with a silenced pistol and fired twice at Alhaitham, forcing him back and buying distance.
Alhaitham retreated several steps, dodging the bullets, gauged the gap that had opened between them — and hurled his weapon at Gin. Then, seizing the moment of distraction, he darted behind Gin, caught the evaded Light of Foliar Incision out of the air, and brought it down toward him.
In that same instant, Gin spun, his muzzle leveled at Alhaitham's head — and Alhaitham's blade stopped at Gin's throat.
Neither man's expression changed, even with death an inch away.
Gin spoke first. "Care to find out which is faster — my gun, or your blade?"
Alhaitham pressed the edge closer to Gin's neck. "I don't mind if you try."
"......"
"I'm a little curious," Alhaitham went on. "Why exactly did you come after me? I'm nothing but a frail academic. Even if I noticed the surveillance, there's nothing I could do about it."
"A frail academic?" Gin laughed as if he'd heard the punchline of a bad joke, and nodded at the weapon in Alhaitham's hand. "Frail — with a sword?"
"It's merely a necessary means of self-defense."
"......"