I headed into the complex where I saw the firing come from, inside the air cold and stiff. I turned on my flashlight and held it in my left hand with the katana my right. Once inside I crept softly. I flashed my light around quickly: the place appeared to be some sort of ancient automobile production line. There were two floors if you included the catwalk complex above me. A pair of shiny objects flew towards me with surprising speed, but I wasn't enough to surprise me. I blocked the first one with my Katana, and tried ducking from the second. It didn't work out quite as well as I hoped: the object skimmed the top of my left shoulder. I dropped to my knees at once and pressured my wound. Thankfully the cut wasn't deep. I turned around and looked at the object that scratched me, it was a butterfly knife. Great so I had a pro knife thrower and pro sniper to worry about. I turned off my flashlight because darkness makes people clam, and losing vision can gain better hearing. I stood still and listened. Footsteps... they were faint but there were definitely footsteps above me. I searched the room for a way to get to the catwalks...Bingo. There was a one man ladder that lead upwards, I held my flashlight between my teeth, my katana in my right hand and began climbing the ladder. When I was about one step away from getting to the top, I jumped straight up did a flip and landed on both feet in a crouched position. There was no one waiting at the top, which was a little unexpected. I turned my flashlight off again, then stood still and listened. A really bad idea, it made targeting me that much easier. Again I parried the first knife but I still tasted blood. I held my blade up anyways. All of a sudden all the lights in the place turned on. I looked ahead and saw my attacker for the first time. He stood ten paces away from me, but I saw him clearly. He was over two meters tall and looked old enough to go to university. He had a bundle of fresh brown hair with a crystal blue eye and his right eye was blood red (But girls in university will still dig for a guy like him). He had a good build, the outline of his chest and abs showed beneath his t-shirt. He had a wind red coat on top of that and a pair of grey leather pants to go with it. (Not a bad taste for clothing either).

"Where's the sniper?" that was the first thing I said.

He broke into a mischievous smile. "That's probably me. But my profession is really knife throwing."

"Impressive...did you graduate from the school of ninjas?" I said as I stepped closer.

"Close, but no. Luck may let you stay alive, but defending yourself requires skill. Parrying two of my swords is definitely not luck." He grinned as he took out another butterfly knife and started toying with it.

"May I ask you what your name is?" I stepped closer.

"The name's Stainless Steel," he said, as he continued to toy with the butterfly knife.

"I wonder why they call you that." I said with a calm voice.

"Why? Tell me, I want to know too." he said with a daring voice, as he folded the knife all of a sudden.

"Knife throwing is way to past time, does it kill you to use an actual combat weapon?" I know, it was a bad taunt, but I couldn't think of any other taunts off the top of my head.

"I will cut off that bitching tongue of yours, and we will see who will have the last laugh."

"Then come and get it."

He did a backflip in midair and threw a pair of knives at me the same time, then landed steadily and got ready for throwing the next wave. I saw it coming and parried the first sidestepping the second, but unexpectedly it bounced off the rail and caught me in my left arm sticking there. I dropped my Katana from the shock but ignoring most of the pain, I managed to take out my gun from my left breast pocket and shot twice. Knocking the knife out of his left hand and the other one hit him right on the right arm. I was about to shoot again, but surprisingly he had managed to keep hold of one knife in his right hand, turn around and throw it at me. It was too late to sidestep as the knife caught me in my right shoulder, causing me to drop my gun over the railing. Both of us just stood still for a moment, hunched over and panting hard. I stood straight first and his eyes followed me.

"What are you laughing about?" he said, breathing hard in and out.

"About this!" I said as I folded my arms into a cross and gripped the handle of the knives that were stuck on either side of my shoulder. Biting down on my tongue I pulled them both out. Blood ran like waterfall from either side of me, and for a moment I lost feeling in both sides.

"Impressive. Normal people would have fainted even if they had the guts to do that."

"Thanks for the compliment, and no thanks again for sticking them in the first place." We bore our eyes into one another for a moment, looking for the slightest hint of weakness and expose it. Though I showed no weakness, he was the first one to act. He charged at me with amazing speed, what amazing about it was that when he jumped he managed to stay in air for about half a second, before he tackled me savagely, as we both flipped over the railing. Time seem to slow down as we started falling and I simply closed my eyes. About a second later there was a brute impact on my back almost knocked me out as I opened my eyes painfully. It appears both of us landed on some sort of iron crate from a three meter fall. I could barely feel my whole body now, I rolled of the thing and felt like I broke a rib bone. My vision begins to blur and noises started to fade...then I felt someone flipped me over and yanked my head hard.

"Cannyoouuuhearrrrmeee?" came the voice, it was too slurred to be defined.

I felt my cheeks burn as something struck it hard.

"Do you hear me now?" my vision and hearing became clearer. It was Stainless Steel who sat on top of me with both of my arms pinned down by his knee. Then he pressed something hard and cold against my side of neck which brought me fully awake.

"What did I promise before, that's right! It's cutting off that bitching tongue of yours!" his knife drew closer to my face, for a moment I thought I was actually going to get it, but I remained resilient. He hand shot at my neck at once, and started chocking me. both shoulders protested in agonizing pain when I raised them up, my right hand grabbing his knife hand and my left hand tried to pull his choke hand away. But it was useless, voices and lights became more distant then before, as my world became darker and quieter...I am dying... Everything went black for a moment, and I lost track of time, but the next moment I was able to breathe and see light. I sat straight up at once and saw that Stainless Steel all bloody and beaten was held down by 2 of Kenai men. One of them offered a hand and I gladly took it.

"I think this belongs to you." Said one them as he passed me my Yuki and my Revolver. He bowed as he handed both objects each in one hand.

"Thank you." I said as I put my Revolver back into my left breast pocket.

"What should we do with him?" asked another of Kenai men.

"I say, we gut him!" proposed one.

"Yeah!" cheered on the others. There are eleven of Kenai's men total in the room, which means eleven of them need to be told what to do.

"Normally I would have let him be handed over to the authorities, but I have a few questions to ask him first."

"We won't let you hand him over to the authorities!" spoke up one of his men.

"Blood for blood!" they all screamed at once.

"You can do whatever you want with me. In fact go ahead and kill me." Stainless Steel said spitting blood. The room went quiet again.

"I want you to answer a few questions."

"I would rather die, rather die."

"You answer one question then you can go."

Kenai man threw curse at me but I just ignored them.

"Deal?" I said.

"Deal." He grinned.

"First question, who hired you?"

"Giving the name of my client, is against the code of the being a mercenary."

"You won't be a mercenary for long if you don't answer." I said pointing my revolver at his forehead.

"You wouldn't dare."

"You're right, I don't." I took out 5 out of 6 bullets loaded in my gun and let them purposely drop to the ground, but with one sneaky move I took out the last bullet and hid it in my left palm.

"I took out all the bullets except for one." I spun the ammo load of the revolver.

"Every time you have 5 seconds to answer the question and I am counting. If you don't answer my question I am going to shoot. But one of them will be real, and even I don't know which one is. But you will know which was is real when you get hit." I grinned but he didn't grin back, which was a good start for a negotiation.

"Now tell me who your client is." It was more of a command then a question.

He kept silent, so I started doing the countdown and at the last second I pulled the trigger, the same thing happened for 4 more times.

"Now tell me who is your client." I asked with a cold voice, as the blood in me rises.

He remained silent.

"5...4...3...2..." every second of count felt like a minute and the last second a trickle of cold sweat ran down my cheek. Some of the Kenai men were wide eyed but didn't say anything.

"1...... my finger went to the trigger and all of a sudden Stainless steel spoke up.

"Wait..." his voice echoed across the room.

"Say it fast, I don't have much patience."

"I won't tell you the name of the client, but I can give you a hint."

"Spit it out."

"The Eagle is far up in the sky, waiting for the right moment to strike."

"That's all?"

"I am afraid you got more then you bargained." He grinned, but I didn't grin back.

"Well let me tell you, I didn't like that bargain."

"A bargain is a bargain."

"How ironic it is already for a prisoner to bargain with its jailer."

"This is not the first time."

"It will be your last." I said as I raised my gun and pretended to shoot him, but what I was really on planning was knocking him out with the butt of my gun. All of a sudden, I sensed something wrong, but it was too late. Time seems to solidify, Stainless Steel with one swift move, got the 2 man holding down in the stomach with 2 knives that came out of nowhere, and the 2 man standing beside me instantly had their heads blown into a million pieces with 2 shots that came out of nowhere. Kenai's men made a dash for the entrance, but another 2 of them were shot square in the back by 2 more shots that came from nowhere. And another 2 were caught in the back of the head by Stainless Steel knives. The ones who gone out the door, didn't return again and were most unlikely too.

"I say this is a fair bargain, how much do you think your life is worth?" he gave a mischievous grin.

I considered for a moment and said:

"That depends."

"Your life is worthless." he grinned even wider.

"Then kill me." I said with a steely tone.

His grin disappeared, instead it was replaced by a face full of sorrow.

"Dammit." the last thing I saw was an elbow strike, I didn't try to block or dodge I just stood there and let him take me.

Then everything went black...