“That John Zhang must not be a random guy. A long rope and a piece of metal that sounds like a dagger. Why does he have things like that in his bag? I can’t tell the answer, but I have to be prepared…… I will… Later…” Cinkarry thought as he swept his finger on his phone to find cheaper shurikens, “Aren’t shurikens just pieces of metal? How can they sell it like it’s some kind of fucking precious metal.” He lay laterally on the floor with his left forearm propped on the ground and his hand playing his secret hidden pocket beneath his chest. Another hand using his phone. None of his other muscles presented any facial expression except his orbicularis oculi. His eyebrows were slightly frowned. Eyelids were quarter-closed. Was he in depression, or was that just a sign of tiredness? Emotions were shown by his mouth, but the rest of his body revealed the fakeness of the portrayed emotions.

He took a peek at the upper edge of the phone. “It’s the time,” he thought. He tossed his phone on the white bean bag chair at the corner of the room. He stood up from the lovely light-color wooden floor and walked across the room with a hand lightly skimmed through the emerald wallpaper. He picked up a jar from the ground. The tailgate was opened while White Basterd finished his last jam cracker. “Mrs. Zhang, you’re the best!” He jumped down and threw the plastic jar back into the van. The target this time was a bar, the one a street away from White Bastard’s van. Cinkarry put on his mask brutally with the two hands ripped the undyed snowy-white fabric from the top of his head to the bottom of his neck. There was no need for adjustment; the goggle met his nose dorsum and paralleled his brown eyes. Before he walked into the alley, a small stain of a blueberry jam was left on his mask. There was no one in the gallery, not even those high-school rogues. White Bastard made it to the bar through the alley in the daytime. Not many people saw him, and those who saw him ran away as fast as possible.

The bar wasn’t a regular bar. It looked ordinary from the outside, but what mattered was the inside. White Bastard heaved his right leg like a spartan and fired his sole like a karateka. A few meters in front of him, there was a bar counter. Some chairs were surrounded the bar counter, and some were surrounding bar tables. He walked into the bar, knowing that he didn’t have much time. A hidden switch was slid by an index finger. White Bastard looked around and walked straight toward the bar counter and the liquor cabinet. He yanked out his two katanas from the scabbards. The two matte black sheaths hanging beneath his hip swayed as katanas came out. He stamped on the counter, and the two slashes happened in a quarter second. The first one was a horizontal slash. The second one was vertical. Wines, spirits, beers all fell down from the collapsing cabinet. The song of raining valuables did attract White Bastard. He jumped down on the liquor puddle, kicked the wreckages of the cabinet away, and walked down the stair that was revealed after the cabinet was broken. There were a few light bulbs in the staircase, but none worked. Before he got a chance to get deeper down the stairs, the lights were turned on. He both heard and saw the sound of the switch and the glowing bulbs. He immediately turned around, facing the direction where he caught the sound.

A man wearing a mostly blue costume stood at the door, leaning against the door frame. He wore a cornflower blue ski mask that showed his eyes and the lower part of his face. His torso and arms were covered with a slim fit azure turtleneck. It looked like gambesons in the medieval period. Soft pads made of wool constituted the whole shirt, and the slightly lighter blue gingham pattern covered the surface of the cloth. His pair of trousers were neon blue jeans, which were very baggy and very flexible. The navy blue half knee-high sneaker boots that covered the lower part of the jeans weren’t enough to hang on the two feet, but somehow he could still walk with it.

“Looks like your goggles have night vision. Not like me, only have this boring mask without those cool functions,” the man in blue walked closed as he said. His soles stamped on the ground, making loud noises echoing in the bar. “Firm shoes,” White Bastard half squatted; faced slightly up; and laterally raised his two arms with the katanas, left one barely, right one over the shoulder. Both of the blades pointed to the spot in front of his face. “Depend on position,” the blue man turned his next three steps into three scuttled steps. Then, he jumped up into the air immediately and catapulted his right leg as he fell to the bar counter. His right leg’s attack was both a hook kick and a push kick. White Bastard caught the chance; he leaned back and twisted his wrist in a hundred and eighty degrees as he meanwhile closed up both elbows to the center. The two edges of the katanas gashed into the quarters of the boot. It was supposed to sever his leg but ended up lacerating nothing. The blades crashed onto some kind of metal and grazed through the metal. The metal light startled White Bastard. He threw away his katanas as he finished the slash with his hands upon the alternate elbows. He picked out the shurikens immediately after katanas were let go. The two shurikens ripped toward the man on the counter. They swiveled and whirled like how they cut through so many necks and lives. They were supposed to work again, but they didn’t. The two daggers in the man’s hand blocked the shurikens. Another shuriken scratched his left ankle before he said anything to tease White Bastard. This time, there was no metal obstructing the way. He fell down and lay on the ground.