บท 59: Fatal Fail

"Hey! You!" One of the men that I had been eavesdropping on suddenly shouted. He was a burly man with a mean face that screamed thug from every angle.

"I haven't seen you before…" The thug-like man muttered while rubbing his chin. He was trying to conjure up a reason for the gap in his memories. At least until the other person with whom he had been conversing with earlier interjected.

"Come on man! Did you forget already? You've got some serious problems…" The other guy said in a not joking manner.

"I- I forget nothing!" The man shouted back putting me on the spot. He was right, he hadn't seen me before. I was trying to sneak into the room and get behind them to kill one and extract information from the other.

"Tsk, the new guys, the boss got some new guys!" The man explained fed up with the forgetfulness of his friend.

After a short moment of shame, the man who had forgotten about the new members looked me up and down scrutinizing my figure.

"I won't forget next time…" He muttered before looking away and then suddenly freezing. He turned back to look at me, a look of dawning realization.

"What are you doing here? Praedo said nobody else should be here!" The man shouted with a gruff voice as his eyes scanned my figure warily. His friend also appeared both spooked and embarrassed for a second realizing he had forgotten there had indeed been such an order.

The spooked man practically shot out of his chair and grabbed a handgun which was located on a table directly in front of them.

Click

At this point there was no way back for me. He could be pointing it at me to interrogate me or he could have been pointing it at me to kill me. I was not going to take any chances though.

I took a step forward with a determined glare.

BANG!

A shot rang out. The bullet flew overhead. He wanted me dead, fortunately I had ducked at just the right time. My figure continued to dash forward whipping out the knife I had kept hidden.

"Stay still fucker!" He shouted before shooting anew.

BANG BANG

"Urgh-!" My pitiful attempt to dodge the two bullets in the confined room failed as one managed to graze my waist. A graze was still only a graze though and with my altered physique…!

BANG

The close distance ensured that the shot landed. The thug like man who had whipped out a knife at the sight of me was dumbfounded when I brought out a gun of my own. Though technically that was untrue, it was the weapon of the man I killed on the roof.

"DAMN- AAAARGH!" The burly man was not any luckier. After shooting his buddy, I shot him too.

The main issue with shooting shots was that the entire building would be alerted, that was not ideal.

The burly man having received only a single bullet but was left clutching at his bleeding wound. That was expected, these thugs were all at least grade one altered so unless I got lucky they wouldn't die in a single shot.

Though in this situation, if he died in one shot I would have actually been pretty unlucky.

I looked at the tables, chairs, and just all the furniture in the room overall and started dragging it into the hallway with some ease. I even stacked some upon the other with my strength forming a quick barricade.

My eyes also scanned the room for windows and there was naturally one present.

"Good" I said with a subtle smile before glancing at the burly man. He was bleeding out with a knife in one hand and the other clutching at his injury.

His will was commendable, how could I get what I wanted then? That was when I recalled some movie scenes and quickly put to action these intimidating practices.

"Ah!" He screamed after I suddenly rushed forward and kicked the hand at his injury with full power.

He tried to take a stab at me, but that was a mistake. I elbowed his hand causing the knife to fall as well as breaking some of his fingers.

"You- Argh!" He didn't get any time to consider his curses.

"What does your boss plan to do with all those weapons?" I spat out some words of questioning.

"F*ck you!" He plainly uttered in reply with a smug expression layered on top of his painful grimace. I frowned for a moment before decisively punching his face.

"What are you so smug about? I got in here, you think I can't get out?" I told him with evident mockery.

Perhaps hearing the thundering steps of his fellow gang members running up the stairs from the floor below gave him a little courage.

This sentence seemed to have some effectiveness as fear replaced his earlier haughtiness. So of course, I punched him again.

"Argh!" He screamed as blood started to ooze out of his nose. His Termina trademark pale face becoming ever paler.

"If you answer my question I'll let your buddies find you alive" I told him matter-of-factly. I would not kill him, that was true. Frankly, I didn't think I had to at all.

"It's, it's for an assault obviously!" He screamed out finally yapping.

"On what?" I followed up.

"On- On the library!" He shouted his teeth chattering perhaps feeling his body growing colder.

When this happened, my mind blanked for a moment. On the library? That made no sense! Was what my mind was telling me but after hearing the sound of chairs falling to the floor and tables being skid aside I knew there was no time for this.

True to my words, I didn't spare the man a glance as I ran for the window. I tried to slide it open only to be thwarted by a lock. My hands hurried over to the lock but not before I could hear the sound of footsteps in the room.

BANG!

The window slid open and I practically jumped out of it after slipping up from the shot managing to hit my forearm. This was at least a ten-story building.

My heart rate rose abruptly as I started to fall to what would be my death.

It was then that pictures of what had transgressed in the past few minutes flashed by my mind. It was telling me that I had tried too hard to die like this. I had at least 7 more floors to go.

Crack

My leg which was closer to the building wall cracked after hitting a ledge causing my entire body to almost spin out of control.

This was an opportunity, before I could fall past the third floor my hands grabbed at the ledge causing it to break into bits. At that point, I knew I was destined to die here.