[Chapter Header]
ARC: Back Attack Land
The group stood before the metallic elevator doors. Jin, Riko, Ronika, and Akos stared at the floor. The blood was still there, fresh and thick, a grim reminder of what had transpired.
Riko took a step back, his face pale. "Guys, I suggest we take the stairs," he said curtly, glancing at Ronika.
She arched an eyebrow. "The stairs? We have dozens of floors to cover, Riko. Why?"
"I saw this movie the other day," he replied, his voice trembling slightly. "Most of the time, the moment the elevator doors open, there are guys with guns waiting for you. It's the perfect ambush. I'm not looking to get turned into Swiss cheese."
Jin shot him a look of pure disdain, a silent "get a grip," while Akos let a calm, almost reassuring smile drift across his face, though he remained silent.
They approached the control panel. It was a chaotic mess. Almost every button was smeared with blood, making the numbers nearly illegible.
"We need to decide," Akos said, pointing at the panel. "Which floor are we hitting?"
"The 102nd, obviously," Jin replied flatly.
"And how do you know they're there?" Akos countered, the tension rising. "Look at the bloodstains. They could be on the 80th, or the 95th. If we press the wrong button, we're just giving away our position."
The two began to argue heatedly. They started throwing out ridiculous theories—suggesting the killer might have picked a floor based on the body count, or that the blood patterns formed a code for a specific level.
After several minutes of pointless bickering and over-analyzing every possible floor, Jin slammed his finger onto the 102 button.
"Enough with the theories. We're going to 102, and we're ending this."
As the elevator began its ascent, the silence was broken by Jin's heavy voice. "First time I've ever been in a lift," he blurted out.
Akos shot him a confused look. "Huh? What did you say?"
"You heard me," Jin continued, cursing under his breath. "And it's all because of Yuzana. That guy is useless. How did he let all the company buildings fall apart like this? He let 'The Holy Blood' hack the entire organization... It's a joke."
Akos let out a soft chuckle, trying to ease the tension. "Maybe he likes the action, Jin. You know, like the movies Riko was talking about."
The two began to banter about action movies, comparing their current predicament to Hollywood scripts. For a few seconds, the conversation made them forget where they were.
When the digital panel hit floor 102, a chime echoed through the small space. Outside the doors, a group of armed men stood in formation.
"Someone's here! Everyone, get ready!" their leader barked, and the mechanical click of shifting safeties filled the hallway.
The doors slid open slowly. Jin was still laughing at something Akos had said. "What you're saying is ridiculous, man..." he started, but his voice trailed off.
Akos was frozen. His eyes were locked onto the muzzles of the guns pointed directly at them. Jin slowly lifted his head, taking in the scene.
"This movie... is actually pretty good," he whispered, paralyzed by the sight.
"FIRE!" a voice screamed.
Before they could even think, Jin and Akos dove to the sides, pressing themselves into the corners of the small elevator. The building seemed to shake. Bullets began to shred the interior of the car, filling the air with sparks and flying debris.
Bullets shredded the interior of the elevator at random, clanging against the metal with a deafening roar.
"What do we do now?" Jin screamed over the noise.
"You're asking me?" Akos shouted back, pressed tight against the corner. "Just... don't die!"
"Are you kidding me? How are we supposed to 'not die' in here?"
"I have a plan!"
Jin glared at him. "What kind of plan can you possibly have in this mess?"
Suddenly, the firing ceased. The men outside had emptied their first magazines. A thick cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the elevator car.
"Cease fire!" their leader barked. "They must be dead by now. Look, the lift is filled with smoke."
One of the gunmen approached cautiously. As the smoke began to clear, he caught a glimpse of a shadow moving near the ceiling of the car. Before he could react, Jin lunged at him.
Bam!
With a lightning-fast kick, Jin sent him flying into his comrade, knocking both of them to the ground. A third man tried to raise his weapon, but Akos appeared out of nowhere and drove a powerful fist into his face, dunning him instantly.
A man with an AK-47 tried to open fire, but Jin was faster, disarming him with a spinning kick. Simultaneously, a mercenary wielding a katana charged. The blade sliced through the air, but Jin ducked at the last possible second. The man stared in shock; before he could recover, Jin buried a fist into his gut.
On the other side, Akos was a blur of motion. He charged an opponent, driving a fist into his solar plexus. Another gunman tried to take aim, but Akos dropped low instantly. The stray bullet hit his own ally!
Without wasting a beat, Akos swept the man's legs, taking him down. A final attacker with a katana tried to strike as Akos was getting up, but with an impressive leg maneuver, Akos tripped him, sending him crashing to the floor.
A man wielding a katana lunged at Jin, his voice splitting the air. "I'll kill you!" he screamed, bringing the blade down with lethal intent.
Jin ducked instantly, sliding right past the steel. The attacker's eyes filled with pure shock as he realized Jin was already within his guard. With a sharp thud, Jin drove a fist into his jaw.
Before Jin could even reset, a man behind him leveled a firearm. Without fully turning, Jin swung his right leg in a high arc, kicking the barrel of the gun. The weapon clattered to the floor. In a fluid motion, Jin's left leg followed up with a kick that slammed the man's face directly into the concrete floor.
On the other side, Akos was surrounded. Four men with katanas closed in from different angles, trapping him in the center. As the blades whistled toward him, Akos leaped into the air with supernatural agility.
The four attackers froze, staring at the empty space where their target had been a split second before. While still airborne, Akos struck two of them with his boots. The remaining two, blinded by desperation, lunged again. One aimed for Akos's neck, the other for his heart.
Akos watched them with icy detachment and leaped over their blades once more. In the absolute chaos, the two attackers lost their coordination. Their eyes bulged in horror as they realized their momentum was unstoppable. Bam! In the confusion, one accidentally decapitated his comrade, while the other plunged his sword deep into his own ally's heart. Both slumped to the floor, dead by their own hands.
Akos landed gracefully on the floor, exhaling sharply. "What kind of bastards are these?" he shouted to Jin. "These guys aren't even from Japan, Jin! They're from an unknown country—their techniques are completely foreign!"
Jin, currently snapping the arm of another opponent, glanced back. "I know!" he replied coldly, and with a swift, brutal twist, he snapped the man's neck, ending the struggle in his sector.
As someone tried to take a shot at Jin, he expertly parried the weapon and delivered a punch that sent the shooter crashing into his ally. Another attacker rushed in with a sword. In a split-second reaction, Jin kicked a discarded gun lying on the floor. The impact triggered the weapon, and a burst of fire shredded the swordsman's midsection. He collapsed instantly.
"I'll kill you, bastard!" another screamed, unleashing a powerful horizontal slash with his katana. Jin ducked, the shock of the close call visible in his eyes. Suddenly, a new threat emerged: a man with a shotgun leveled his weapon at Akos.
Jin lunged toward the shotgun wielder. The man looked back in terror, realizing Akos was closing in from one side while Jin charged from the other.
Thud! Jin and Akos delivered synchronized punches, slamming the man into the ground before he could fire a single shell.
Akos pointed a finger at Jin, a smirk playing on his lips. "Got you," he said, teasingly.
Jin raised his hand and chuckled in defeat. "I admit it... you're pretty sharp."
Jin then extended his fist toward Akos. "Duo?"
Akos grinned and bumped Jin's fist with his own, solidifying their partnership amidst the carnage.
Just as their fists met, dozens of men armed with katanas burst in, their faces twisted with rage. Their leader barked orders in a strange, guttural tongue.
"Forgot to mention," Jin said coldly, "The Holy Blood is more than just a gang. They're assassins and mercenaries recruited from all over the globe."
One of the men screamed mid-charge, "Salam Alaikum! Happy death!"
Akos's eyes widened. "Oh damn... I see Mexicans, Arabs, Chinese, and Japanese. It's a total mess of languages."
"You take the right side, I'll take the left," Jin directed.
"There's a wall between us, but it's glass. I can see exactly what you're doing!" Akos replied, pointing to the thick glass partition.
A Chinese mercenary roared, "Kill these dogs!"
Akos narrowed his eyes. "Be quiet. I'm coming to put you to sleep."
Jin raised his hands mockingly. "You caught me again!"
Akos pointed a finger, issuing a challenge. "Whoever clears their side first gets treated to a top-tier steak dinner by the loser!"
"That's not fair!" Jin protested, but Akos didn't stick around to argue. A Chinese fighter lunged with a katana, but Akos ducked and buried a fist into the man's jaw, dropping him instantly.
Akos glanced through the glass. "You haven't even started yet?" he wondered. Suddenly—Thud! The body of an enemy slammed against the glass from Jin's side, making Akos jump back.
Jin grinned through the pane. "That's one for me!" he shouted.
"I can't hear you over the sound of your losing!" Akos shot back.
"Stop whining and hit as hard as you can!" Jin yelled. "I'm going to win this. No one challenges me and walks away with the prize!"
The corridor was split in two by a series of reinforced glass panels. Jin on one side, Akos on the other. Enemies lunged simultaneously on both fronts, a wave of steel and screams.
Jin spun rapidly, dodging two katanas that crossed exactly where his neck had been a second ago. "You're slow, you useless pieces of trash!" he roared, grabbing a mercenary by the wrist and snapping it with a single twist. With his free hand, he seized the man's head and slammed it into the wall.
Across the glass, Akos was keeping pace. A brute of a man tried to corner him, but Akos slid beneath his reach. In a blur of motion, he grabbed the enemy by the hair and swung him violently toward the partition. "Look at this, Jin!" Akos yelled. Crack! The mercenary's head slammed against the glass, spiderwebbing a small fracture right in front of Jin's eyes. Akos smirked, pointing at the unconscious man. "That's how it's done, amateur!"
Jin's vision narrowed. "You're showing off to me?" He grabbed two attackers by their throats at once. Lifting them off the ground, he drove them like a battering ram into the same spot on the glass from his side. The panel groaned under the pressure. "That's three for me, Akos! Keep count!"
The battle raged at a breakneck pace. Akos was besieged from all angles. A mercenary managed a low, sweeping slash with a katana toward Akos's leg. He couldn't jump in time; the blade tore through his trousers, leaving a shallow graze. "I'll slaughter you like a pig, dog!" the enemy screamed in Chinese. "Shut up already, you're giving me a headache!" Akos shot back. With a brutal snap-kick, he broke the man's knee and sent him to the floor, finishing him with a punch that shattered his nose.
As Akos stood up, wiping a bead of blood from his brow, he glanced through the glass. Jin was already standing tall, surrounded by a mountain of bodies. He had cleared his sector seconds earlier.
Jin watched him with a mocking, overconfident grin, clearly making fun of his delay. He tapped the glass lightly with his finger, as if asking: "Still at it?"
"You've got to be kidding me..." Akos muttered, annoyed. "The steak's on me, but next time, I'm making you run for it."
Inside a dimly lit control room, a figure sat hunched over the monitors, his face swallowed by shadows. His eyes were fixed on the camera feed showing the blood-soaked corridor.
"How did those with zero technique take down all of them? Huh? Tell me!" he roared, his voice echoing off the walls.
Three men stood before him. One attempted to speak, but the figure cut him off instantly.
"I don't want words. I want action. I want them purged. Now!"
The three filed out of the room. The first, BAKA, was biting into an apple with aggressive, jagged movements, his eyes twitching with rage. The second, NANI, was casually wiping a blade, a cold smile on his face. The third was a behemoth, a seven-foot-tall titan whose footsteps shook the floor.
On the other side of the heavy doors, Akos and Jin finally pried them open. "Wait... huff... are there... more?" Akos gasped, struggling to fill his lungs.
"We won..." Jin muttered, equally spent. He placed a heavy hand on Akos's shoulder for balance. "Don't forget... that steak you owe me."
"Shut up," Akos wheezed. "We're not done yet." "We'll see," Jin whispered.
Back at the screens, the mysterious man froze as he recognized a face. "Akos Tasaku... How the hell did he get here?" He slammed his fist onto the desk.
"He hooked up with the other two," Nani said, checking the feed. "And the others? How many are there in total?" "Four of them." "Dammit! To hell with all of them!" the leader cursed.
Meanwhile, on a different floor, Riko was walking alone. Ronika had split off, taking a different route. As he moved through the silent hallway, a small black sphere rolled across the floor and stopped at his feet.
Riko stared at it, puzzled, and reached down to pick it up. Before his fingers could touch the surface, a massive explosion rocked the skyscraper from the outside. The windows shattered into a million shards, filling the air with glass and fire.