章 19: Doleful Justice
Though Vincent was wearing glasses that blurred his vision, the wrong prescription was unable to fully blind him. He could still spot dark spots of freshly spilled blood on the ground. It was still bright out, but he was in an alleyway.
"I wonder where this leads." Vincent curiously followed the stains of blood that led to an abandoned building near the alleyway.
The American possessed a bit of curiosity directed at all the abandoned buildings and other abandoned stuff lying around the city, but he thought a little bit before coming to a reasonable conclusion. It makes sense that there's all these abandoned projects of building laying everywhere.
Not only do the Kengan Matches need some venues to have their fights, but with all the deals and whatnot being exchanged, all these buildings probably see destruction and creation very frequently. The way the results feed into more possible matches locations is a bit interesting to the fighter, but it's not something he needs to be concerned with.
All he needs to focus on is being one of the fighters who participate in the matches.
Whilst the American was contemplating the Kengan Matches, he stumbled across what looked to be a crime scene in progress. His eyes widened, taking in the light from the holes in the walls.
In the center of the abandoned building were two men. The more muscular man was fully armored in riot gear. He was missing a shield, but he had a baton he was using to torturously beat down on a smaller, suited businessman who whimpered from the blows.
"What's going on here?" Vincent didn't even know why he asked that question. He knew what was going on and he just gave himself away.
The almost-killer stopped his assault and turned around slowly and purposefully. Vincent wasn't smiling at this sight at all. He let out a sigh, like he couldn't be bothered to even deal with this, and then he abruptly threw off his glasses to the side.
"Ah...Ah, save me!!!"
"Who are you? Are you getting in the way of Justice?" The two fighters stared at one another. Vincent closed the distance through a casual walk. His arms were loosened and at his side, but the armored man's eyes only sharpened with ferocity.
Vincent couldn't see his face, but he couldn't bring himself to care about anything other than the potential fight ahead of him.
"If you are obstructing my path, then you will be seen as evil and dealt with appropriately."
"You won't be doing shit. Come on, I won't let you attempt murder on anyone else but me here." Vincent goaded him, prompting the man to dash from his position. His baton was raised in the air with the intention to strike Vincent on the top of his skull.
It came down with the might and force of a heavy hammer, yet Vincent caught it in his hand. He definitely felt the painful strike slap his hand, but he pushed through it, gripping the stick and preventing the murderous man from pulling it free.
At the same time, the foreigner balled up his free hand into a fist and let it fly right into the gut of the armored man. There was only a dull thump, but it had enough force to knock the man back.
"Impudent." The man was forced to let go of the baton. The armored fighter took two powerful, large steps and sent out a fist of his own straight at Vincent's chest. The weight of the attack struck the smaller man and sent his body back, his own feet digging into the dirty ground.
'My striking power isn't my forte, but it's nothing to slouch at. That body armor and his natural endurance of his makes it seem like I'm not gonna be able to do much damage to him.'
Vincent clenched both of his fists and allowed a lazy smile to raise his lips. Now that the beaten man is pulling himself up, he'll be able to escape. That means the fight now won't be including anyone else other than him and the murderer.
The determination and the motivation driving the two fighters were different, but the end result leads to a clash between those that could never get along. They were too different and too antagonistic.
The armored warrior, recognizing this, settled into a martial arts stance and prepared himself to receive another attack before counterattacking.
The American smiled.
"Alright then, let's see what you can do." Vincent charged forth again, his right fist at the ready. It slammed straight into the forearm of his opponent, which signaled the beginning of this fight.
At the same time that the two men met one another with the full intent to do battle, the businessman escaped with a bruised and bloodied body. He would've truly died in that abandoned building had Vincent not coincidentally stumbled across blood splatters and follow it to the man.
He realized his own mortality, and in that pervasive fear, he decided to flee. It was only in the midst of his terror that he realized he left the man who saved him. Guilt and fear existed in tandem and both worked together to make him shakily pull his phone from his pocket. His trembling fingers nearly dropped it, but he held himself together.
"God, god, god, please don't die!!" He barely evaded the specter of death, but he was going to call the police to save someone else from that specter. It is both the least and the most he could do.
He couldn't go back, he wouldn't go back, but the third and smaller emotion of gratitude willed himself to call for help. The police would be on their way shortly to help his savior.
The man collapsed by the side of a wall. His injuries were too prominent and too painful for him to move any more than this.
While he was collecting himself, there was an ongoing fight.
Like a large majority of Vincent's fights, he found himself on the back foot almost immediately. It was a hand-to-hand fight, Vincent gained some cockiness from his Kengan Matches, so he threw the first attack. That was very quickly corrected.
He's getting his ass handed to him as per usual with anyone who's skilled enough to be called a true martial artist.
These types of blows aren't purely backed up by the strength of a man with a larger frame. These were powerful strikes backed up by the additional hardness of armored gloves.
Not only that, but they were truly meant to kill. It's been a while since Vincent fought someone this strong and also had the full intention of murder. A month counts as a while, right? Would his desire be satisfied here?
As he took a fierce kick to the ribs and felt a crack, he concluded that what he sought wouldn't be in this street fight.
"You're a pretty tough guy, aren't you? Well..." Vincent dodged the quick cross to his head, throwing out a strike of his own. He was beginning to read his flow, so this strike would hit.
'He blocked it?' Vincent was surprised by the quick reaction of his opponent.
"...That's pretty good. Let's—" He was cut off by the merciless kick to his jaw. He briefly saw darkness before he was dragged back by a large hand gripping his throat with the intention to crush it. Vincent's leg reacted, smashing straight onto the armored man's helmet and cracking the visor.
The larger man instinctively let go of his opponent from feeling a decisively dangerous aura. He trusted his instincts above all else, so he followed them expeditiously.
'Preposterous. How has he not fallen once? Has this obstruction to Justice been lying in wait to stop my pursuit? I will mete out Justice!' He threw out a fast punch.
He immediately aborted the strike and backed his head away, barely dodging the roundhouse kick to the head. It instead grazed his jaw.
"Huh, you dodged that? It's not just a fluke then. You've got some damn good reactions." Vincent was exceedingly interested in someone who could fight this good. He's taken some damage and all, but he feels like he's still missing something here.
He has a good feeling that he hasn't seen everything his opponent has in store yet. The rhythm reading is fully complete, however, so nothing will catch him off guard.
The armored man changed his stance and slightly widened his arms, like he was about to grapple. In response, Vincent tightened his stance and closed the distance between his fists and his face.
This classical boxer's stance was all he ever needed.
"Time to execute Justice."
The American said nothing in response and awaited the assault. At the pivotal moment, the sound of something in the distance falling was the gunshot that triggered the next clash.
The larger man rushed forward. His massive hands tightly grasped onto the shoulders of his opponent with enough force to crush rock. He was going to wrest him to the ground and torture him to death with the larger frame. Before that could be done, however...
...Vincent vanished from his eyes. The armored fighter saw the man on the ground too late. His hand pushed himself up, the heel of his foot rising and striking the armored man. Vincent kicked him with full force and knocked the helmet off his face.
At the same time, the two heard police sirens in the distance, making them both alarmed for different reasons.
"This insult will be remembered. Justice will destroy the impudent evil that obstructed it today!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm evil. Sure. The person not murdering somebody in a building isn't evil at all, it's just the foreigner who's evil. Whatever, you damn xenophobe." Vincent brushed off his words and watched him escape from the police.
What a damn hypocrite, though Vincent needs to get out of here too.
He's an illegal without Japanese citizenship!
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