Chapter 32: Chapter Thirty Two

I woke up with a headache, which was confusing for a minute. Then I remembered what had happened and I kind of wished I was still confused. Stricture was the Evil Eye, he'd caught me...somehow, and then tracked me down and knocked me out. Now I was...actually where was I? I looked around. Well, I tried to look around, but my body wouldn't move even an inch so I ended up mostly just scanning the room with my eyes. It limited my field of view, but gave me enough information that I was able to tell that I was probably going to die.

The room around me was old looking, damp and dark and made of wood, with a musty smell and one very dim light bulb casting light on a small circle of floor in the middle of a space that was open except for me, standing there frozen like an asshole. My head was killing me and I was having trouble focusing, so I didn't hear anyone approaching until the door opened and Stricture walked inside. He closed it behind him with a frown and glared at me. "Do you realize how much trouble you've caused me?"

I didn't, nor did I care, but neither of those things meant shit to him, especially since I couldn't actually open my mouth to speak. In retrospect, the guy named Stricture having a power that could render people immobile was stupidly obvious, and it also shed light on the tiny slip up Attic Bat had made during his final moments. I imagined getting hit with that during combat would trip anyone up. I tried straining to break it, but I couldn't even tense my muscles to try to exert my strength.

Stricture rolled his eyes, sitting down on a chair he retrieved from a darkened corner of the room. "Don't bother, I synergized several restraint skills with my Minor Binding power to create my Lesser Restriction ability. Throwing it off without an Impact advantage is nearly impossible unless you do it right at the start. Now, we need to make this quick, because I have to dispose of you and get back to the guild before anyone notices my absence. That brat Calliope is probably looking for you as we speak, which should distract her from looking for me, for a bit at least."

I glared at him, because I couldn't do anything else, because I couldn't fucking move. He rolled his eyes. "I'll unbind your mouth but there are rules. I need to know what gave me away, so I can make sure someone else doesn't figure it out before I finish my last kill and leave. However, that doesn't do me any good if I get caught NOW, so if you scream I'll kill you, if you refuse to answer my questions, I'll kill you, if you try to trick me, I'll know, and I'll kill you. You may speak now, tell me you understand."

My mouth strained a bit as I opened it, but I worked my jaw a bit and got it looses enough to talk. "I understand. I'll answer your questions. I just want to know. Why?" I actually didn't care why, but this asshole liked to hear himself talk and time he was mid monologue was time he wasn't cutting my face off. I expected some kind of rant about his glorious purpose or his destiny, but I was pretty disappointed by what I got instead.

He shrugged. "Power. I'm right on the edge of G rank right now. I was stuck before, couldn't get any traction, and switching sides is a well known way to gain stats. I wanted more though, I wanted a name that would ring through this whole planet. I wanted a reputation that would ensure I reached F rank, and then E rank after that. Once I kill Stella I'll be reviled. Not only will I be a terrifying serial killer, I'll be a traitor who carved a bloody path out of my own guild. The rewards will be immeasurable."

I blinked. That was...that was actually kind of a solid plan. Except one small thing. "You realize even if killing her somehow boosted you to G rank there are a dozen executives and an F ranked assassin from the main branch in the city. You'll never get away with murdering her. They'll kill you before you reap any benefits." Stricture was a sneaky asshole, but he wasn't some kind of assassin god, once he killed Stella he WOULD get caught.

He rolled his eyes again. "Which brings us to why you're here. I need to know what they know. I've already arranged passage out of the system with the Black Sorrow Cult once I'm done. As for the actual killing my knife will be more than enough for that. In fact, you'll be a huge help there. Your murder will distract everyone involved. Stella's brat is your mentor and little Callie is obviously sweet on you. I'll dump your body on the other side of town and then slip in to finish her off while they're all investigating your death. Now, how did you know it was me?"

I opened my mouth to respond but stopped. That actually begged a better question. "How did you know I knew? Granted I'm not a master spy or anything, but seeing me get squirrely after your little speech wouldn't tip you off that you were blown. So why did you chase me down?" It seemed like such a random choice, and if he wasn't sure I knew then this whole thing was the stupidest possible response to his suspicion. He had to have some sort of confirmation I'd figured him out.

The grin he gave in response to my question was smug and vicious, and expression that seemed out of place on his normally blank face. He held up a hand, adorned with a single black ring. "A commission from my friends at the Black Sorrow Cult. It's called a secret band. You bind a secret into the metal and every time someone new learns it the ring heats up slightly. An early warning system in case of discovery. The temperature went up a few degrees when you were staring at me, and when you started panicking and left in a hurry I knew I was compromised. Now, I'll ask one more time and then I'm going to start hurting you. How did you figure out I was the killer?"

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I kind of wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but he would have murdered me without blinking, and as my head started to clear I began to form a semblance of a plam. It would take me a bit to get my head together enough to pull it off though, and I would only get one chance because if it didn't work I was fucked. His Vitality could easily be five times what mine was and still be H rank, so I couldn't afford to miss with my first shot. Luckily I DID have a skill in my DS bag of tricks to help with this...probably.

The skill in question was meant for escaping physical bindings, but it did work on stuns in game, so there was a pretty good chance it would get me out of this. So now my only real job was to keep him distracted until my head stopped ringing like a church bell. Which meant playing along. "I found a scrap of fabric at the scene of Attic Bat's death. The guild master has it now. I didn't recognize it because it was small and such a weird pattern but then when I saw you today I recognized the design from a tie I saw you wear the first day I met you. I wouldn't have even noticed that if you hadn't slipped up during the fight with Attic Bat."

I'd been hoping he would ask me what the slip up was, thus delaying longer, but sadly he just groaned in frustration. "He was tougher than expected. It can be difficult to estimate what someone's stats will be based on their reputation. It's easy to miss things and people don't always talk about their impressions. It's not an exact science. Besides, how was I supposed to know the paranoid lunatic had the whole place wired for surveillance. " He sounded genuinely annoyed, and I had to fight back a smile at the minor victory.

Regardless he seemed to have gotten the answers he wanted, because he stood up and slipped a knife out of a sheath in his jacket, it looked weirdly familiar for some reason, and when I got it I glared at him. "Were you seriously using your murder weapon to slice an apple AT the guild?" I didn't know why that pissed me off so much when he was already going to kill me with it, but it REALLY did.

He just grinned at me. "What can I say? I have a flare for the dramatic, even if people don't know it. Anyway, I'd close my eyes if I were you. Based on the expressions on my victims faces, watching your blood pour out onto the floor makes it worse for some reason." He shrugged, then drew back his knife, readying to end me. My head was still pounding but not so badly I couldn't resonate my skills at this point, so I forced my way through the pain and activated a particularly useful Rogue skill.

The skill was called Double Trouble. It let you shake off a restraint, usually things like grasping vines or stone shackles, but like I said it worked on stun spells too so I was pretty sure it would free me. Besides transporting me right behind my enemy it also left behind an illusionary double in the position I had been in. I appeared behind Stricture's back and reached down to grab my tonfas. I was understandbly annoyed that I didn't HAVE the damn things, because no one was stupid enough to leave someone sitting around with weapons.

Luckily I did still have something, even if it was less than ideal. My suit had been storing the damage from every blow I'd taken since I got it, an ability I'd never actually used. I put myself in position and ruthlessly smashed my fist into the most devastating spot I could think of, the base of the bastards skull. I didn't have any martial arts training really and all my gaming experience had taught me was stabbing people, so I just hit what seemed like the most fragile spot.

As I did so, I activated Mercy Kill even as I released the impact stored in the suit. This was literally the worst possible idea I could think of, but it was also the ONLY idea I could think of. This asshole was stronger than me, and much better trained. If I gave him a chance to get up he was going to fucking butcher me, which meant I needed to end him like he wanted to do to me. I didn't have time to debate the ethics of killing a serial killer or worry about my fragile psyche, I just needed to finish him. The problem was that I was still limited to two skills per day, and while I had both available, I had already seen what happened when I depleted both points of Impact with my enchanting one after the other.

As my fist hit his neck, I felt the energy rush out of my hand, amplified by Mercy Kill and by my own ten full points of Might. As high up as he might have been in H rank, Stricture was still an H ranker, he had the same amount of Impact as me, and Vitality wasn't defense as much as regeneration. My blow smashed mercilessly into the back of his neck and I both felt and heard his spine snap as all that force landed in the most vulnerable spot I could find. As I blacked out again from overexertion, I could only hope that had been enough, but let's face it, I would have been dead either way if it wasn't.

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