the corner down the hall and ran at Daniels.
As this man swung his heavy sword—from above his head with both hands on the sword, like he was splitting wood—Daniels simply stepped back, and pulled the remaining blinded man close by holding onto the black belt on his gi, turning the blinded man into a human shield. The sword missed Daniels completely, and since the swordsman had thrown his weight behind the swing, he didn’t have a hope of adjusting after he had committed to it. The top three inches of the blade connected with the blinded man’s body where the neck meets the shoulder, and chopped down until it reached his heart. While the swordsman was frozen from the abject horror of what he had done to his friend, Daniels stepped around the falling body and kicked out the swordsman’s knee. As the man fell, Daniels raised his knee, and connected with the swordsman’s skull hard enough to knock the swordsman unconscious.
At the end of the hall was a staircase, which would lead up to more training rooms, sleeping quarters, and finally to Tsubasa’s chambers. Three more swordsmen ran down these stairs, blocking Daniels’ advance. Two stuck close to the stairs, while the bravest of the three came at Daniels. This man wore black fitness apparel that suggested he had been working out before Daniels rudely interrupted. His sword was another katana, with a long groove along the length of the blade—a feature that would make it easier to pull the blade out of flesh. He was a lean, wiry Asian man, his thin beard made patchy by a number of facial scars. This man had been in sword and knife fights before. He looked experienced and confident enough that he may have been a sworn member of the true clan, back in Japan.
Ninja, like Tsubasa.
“I’m looking for the man who killed Charles Nakano. Give me the name and I’ll double what your boss just offered.”
The man responded in broken English: “No good, you die.”
The ninja came at Daniels, walking quickly and swinging that sword at blinding speed. All Daniels could do was walk backward down the hallway, sometimes swinging the cleaver to deflect a thrust from the dangerous enemy. “Listen to me,” Daniels said, “I can offer you something more valuable than gold.”
“What is that?” the man asked, still swinging the sword, backing Daniels almost to the kitchen door. They were both standing in the blood of fallen housemates.
“Your life. Look around. I will kill you unless you tell me.”
The man in black stopped swinging the sword, and the look on his face suggested that he was considering it. This was merely misdirection, because the ninja had realized that the man Daniels had knocked unconscious was awake, lying on the floor at Daniels’ feet. This man grabbed one of Daniels’ ankles with both of his hands, and then the ninja came again, his masterful handling of the sword creating a horizontal blender that threatened to puree Daniels. With less than a second to live, Daniels pulled two of the throwing stars from his belt and whipped them downward. It was a wild throw, no precision. One star stabbed into the man’s cheek, and the other into the side of his neck. He screamed and let go, allowing Daniels to spin away from the ninja’s blade with only inches to spare.
Daniels turned his back on the man in black, hopped over the first of the men he killed in the hallway, and jumped through the swinging kitchen door, landing near the dead cook. He had made sure to hop over the oil-slicked floor. The man in black, seeing Daniel’s back and thinking he had spooked the invader, ran full speed through the door, slipped in the oil, and as he flailed his arms out to keep his balance, finally stopped swinging the sword.
Daniels brought the cleaver down on the man’s sword hand, slicing most of the way through the fingers. The sword came out of the ninja’s grip, and then Daniels took it. He impaled the man on his own sword, then pulled out the blade and let him fall. That little groove really did make it easier to pull the blade from the grip of flesh.
He walked slowly back into the hallway, holding the katana horizontally in front of him, staring down the two men who guarded the stairs. The man on the floor was trying to carefully pull the throwing star out of his neck. Daniels barely paused to step on it, pushing the star completely into the man’s flesh. He stared at the guards by the stairs. “Come on, boys,” he challenged, “both of you at once. If you kill me, split the reward.”
They looked at each other, and then they both charged at the same time. In the narrow space of the hallway, their numbers didn’t mean all that much. Daniels let them come close, then he flicked the blade toward the man on the right. That groove that ran the length of the blade was filled with the dead ninja’s blood, and Daniels flicked it right into the enemy’s eyes. While that man recoiled and wiped his face, Daniels struck at the other, going for a quick kill.
But this man was too good for that. He was ready for Daniels, and parried every strike, giving his friend time to recover. Soon enough, both of Tsubasa’s guards were fighting again, swinging swords that Daniels could barely fend off. He took his left hand off the hilt, a risky move since with only one hand on his weapon, the heavy blows from the enemy katana were almost strong enough to make him drop the sword. While still parrying with his right, his left hand fished another small round ball from his belt, and threw it at the face of the same man he had flicked the blood at. This time, it was a smoke bomb, and it temporarily blocked the man’s view while making him breathe noxious fumes. This guard was too good to be fazed by something as simple as a smoke bomb, but it did work to enrage him. He ran at Daniels, leaving his friend behind, and Daniels used that blind rage. He parried one swing of the sword and let the man run up to him, then grabbed at the man’s hands, finding a thumb, and breaking it.
The man screamed in pain and frustration as Daniels stole the sword right out of his hand, and now Daniels held a katana in each hand, with one enemy on either side. The katana is a relatively heavy sword, not ideal for one-handed use, and he knew he couldn’t keep this up for long. Waving the stolen sword wildly, he was able to keep the unarmed guard from coming too close, while with his left hand he had to carefully counter each of the other man’s strikes. For a short time, he held his own, until the guards decided to change the game.
The two guards exchanged a look, and then they both ran at Daniels simultaneously, hoping that he couldn’t counter them both. Daniels dropped to his knees, letting the sword swing over his head while turning to swing both of his own weapons at the unarmed man. He had been hoping to take the unarmed man in the belly, but the man had jumped, so the two blades instead impacted on the man’s thigh, slicing his leg off above the knee. He flew at his friend, screaming, and then fell to the floor. Daniels pounced from his knees, swinging both swords down at the remaining guard’s wrists. The guard jumped back, but didn’t get his sword out of the way. Daniels’ two blades crossed and cut into the steel of the other man’s weapon like scissors, snapping the blade off two inches above the handle.
Seeing that the man was essentially disarmed, Daniels ran at him, kicked him back so that he was knocked into the wall. Once the other man’s back was against the wall, Daniels raised both swords above his shoulders, and swung down with both blades, aiming at the guard’s neck.
The tips of the blades bit into the plaster of the wall, and Daniels allowed his hands to cross, creating an X with the blades, the axis between them just under the guard’s chin. The blades never touched his neck, but trapped him, pinned him to the wall.
“Talk,” Daniels ordered. “Or I cut your head off.”
“Tsubasa will avenge me,” said the guard. The man dropped his broken sword handle, braced his hands against the wall, and threw his head forward, cutting his own throat. He stared into Daniels’ eyes while he died, and Daniels stared back, watching his bastard soul leave. When the man’s eyes went lifeless, Daniels walked away.
Daniels left the two katana embedded in the wall, and reached to his belt for a small steel throwing knife. One of his own, not the one that he had found at Charlie’s. That one was reserved for someone else. He stalked up the stairs, holding the knife at eye-level, ready to kill.
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Nobody was left to oppose him. He walked past a half dozen well-lit, empty rooms, until finally reaching the only closed door on the entire upstairs floor of the mansion. Tsubasa’s room. He turned the knob and slowly eased the door open with one foot, always keeping his eyes out for a target, his throwing knife ready.
As the door opened, he saw Tsubasa standing alone, aiming a machine gun at him.
“In the time it takes you to shoot me, you’ll stand still long enough for me to throw this into your jugular.”
Tsubasa nodded. “In the time it takes you to throw, I’ll shoot your heart.”
Neither was willing to die just to kill the other. Tsubasa wanted to live, and Daniels had to live long enough to enact further revenge. They stared at each other, the standoff lingering.
The room was some sort of armory, or trophy room. Every wall was covered in weapons from floor to ceiling. Most of them were swords. It was an exquisite collection of rare, historic pieces from around the world. French rapiers, Hungarian sabres, Japanese katana and naginata, Scottish claymores. Practically every inch of wall space was covered in such pieces. In addition to the swords there were battle axes, spears, morning stars, flails. All