Today was the big day; someone wanted to sit down and have a word with us, and we weren’t quite sure who it was. Today we’re going to find out. Well, either that or we just end up getting ambushed.

Demonstrating due caution, Sigmund sends 5 recruits with me, plus Lenny.

We arrive outside of Il Pagliaccio Bocca Felice, an Italian-style restaurant with two floors. What most might not know about it, though, is that it was actually under the protection of the Haracrein, defying the fact that it was a very prosperous place. Usually, restaurants that do well are quick to be preyed upon by street gangs for protection money—and plenty have faltered under the pressure as a result.

“So, this is the place?” While I’m not entirely sure, the incredibly long Italian name gave me a high degree of confidence that this was the particular restaurant that we would be going to for our meeting.

“Indeed.”Lenny slips a hand into his pocket. “Let’s head inside.”

The building has a pleasant yellow set of walls against reddish-brown mahogany furniture spread throughout the establishment. One wall is lined with booth seats, and another boasts a counter with a few pizzas on display and a register, with a well-dressed cashier manning it. This is an odd arrangement, for sure, as normally you’d want the seating personnel right at the front of the house, but I had a feeling this place did a little bit of mixing and matching between being casual and formal.

I stride over to the booth seats around the back, near where the stairs were and opposite the door, and realized that my katana wouldn’t fit in the booth seat. I pull it out of my belt, and let the cashier hold it for me—I wouldn’t want to appear too threatening to a potential envoy, after all. Out the corner of my eye, I see Lenny go up the stairs.

I take my seat at the booth, sliding in whilst readjusting my wakizashi to properly fit instead of bumping into the back of the booth seat. Five minutes pass, and I take in the relatively subdued atmosphere of the place—it wasn’t particularly packed, but this could doubtlessly be explained by the time of day, as it was only 1 PM. This, of course, gave plenty of room for my guard team to fan out, taking seats at several tables while awkwardly repositioning their katanas to accommodate their new seats.

I almost let my mind wander as I notice the handle of the door turning conspicuously, but the door not moving at all. Seeing this, I quickly think to pull out my tessen in my left hand, opening it, studying the door carefully. It’s then opened with violent speed as someone in a dark coat steps in, hurling something at me. I catch the projectile as a sheer blur with my eyes, flinching away and interposing my tessen, raw intuition alone guiding my hand as I feel something hard bounce off.

I barely have time to realize that he threw a knife at me before he advances further in, flanked by several more men hot on his heels. My tail stands straight up in my coat as I slide out of the booth seat immobilizing me, warding yet another knife aimed at my chest with my tessen in my left hand, drawing my wakizashi in my right hand.

It was only at this point that my guards had begun to get involved, several standing and drawing their swords, including one which charged at the pointman, almost dropping him right then and there with a downward stroke, keeping him preoccupied. My eyes spot a few of the guards quickly getting cut down before they’ve even fully readied their weapons before I notice another enemy running for me with a machete drawn. He swings sideways as I step back, the wall behind me interrupting my retreat as I feel a blade cut into my stomach.

For once I felt truly threatened, and I let elegance fly out the window as I swipe my now-closed tessen into his machete, deflecting the thrust towards my guts which he had naturally flowed into. At the same time I step forward with violent force at the behest of my basest instincts, plunging my wakizashi deep into the aggressor’s throat, stepping through the motion to the point where I was practically ramming his throat with my tsuba. I barely registered the sheer shock and panic in his eyes as I send him toppling over, his blood making a mess of the hardwood floor as he drops his weapon.

I look over to see my katana on the shelf behind the counter; the cashier is now nowhere to be seen. It’s about 30 feet away, but as I see another enemy break off from the fighting to go for me, I realize it’s as good as a mile for the time being. Slipping my tessen into my pocket, I steel myself.

Not entirely used to shortsword fighting, I move off of intuition as I deflect his strokes, sticking to warding as I acclimate myself to his movements, searching for tells as I am once again slowly driven towards the back wall. I pick up the pace, finding a read and catching an overhead dead-on with the strong of my sword as I seize his wrist with my other hand. I waste no time, yanking him off-balance and slicing across his stomach, rotating my wrist around to slash his arm with full force and finishing by stabbing him right in the ribcage, letting visceral instinct alone guide my strikes. I ignore his cries of pain as I shove him to the floor, turning to see the pointman heading towards me again—the guard that had stepped forward to oppose him is now sitting up against a nearby booth seat, bleeding from his forearm.

Something within me freezes over, my heart stilling slightly as I stand straight, flicking the blood from my blade as I advance towards him—now that I have a chance to look closer at him, he appears to have bronze skin and dark hair. He opens with a diagonal slash and I block it dead-on, wheeling my wrist around into a downward counterattack towards his forearm which he barely blocks in time, backpedaling in turn. He steps forward, holding his sword high and then sweeping from his left side with a cut. Narrowly recognizing the feint in time, I step back to compensate for where my sword wasn’t, feeling a small breeze near my cheek and a spark of alarm. He continues by making another horizontal cut as I meet his blade with my own, feeling the tension of his steel against mine and sensing in that exact moment that he intended to power into a thrust. I disengage my blade, ducking as his machete’s point sails towards where my face previously was, and I stab into his stomach, ripping the blade along his guts and stepping leftwards, sword ready for an afterblow that never came. He groans, dropping his weapon and clutching his stomach in agony.

Looking around, I see a mess littered with bodies and entire pools of blood, like a horrid, spotty carpet of crimson. I wipe my wakizashi off with a blood rag, seeing it into its scabbard while also spotting a darker pool of red spreading across my shirt, over my stomach. I quickly snatch up a napkin from one of the tables and stuff it under my shirt, keeping a hand on it as I turn towards the stairwell. A man in a tan trenchcoat steps out of the stairwell, holding something shiny in his hand, keeping it low but pointed in my general direction. He stares at the scene in front of him in horror for a second before I see Lenny appear behind him, seizing his wrist and ramming him into the wall nearest the stairs before disarming him and bringing him into the floor, a knee on his back. Sliding across the floor and then coming to a stop, the shiny object was now clearly a gun of some sort.

“Lenny, where the fuck were you?” I practically blurted the sentence out, but given the extended bloodbath that just transpired, it felt like a painfully obvious question to ask, and something of a necessary one.

“Oh, me? I had to stay on top of this son of a bitch right here.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” The man grunts from beneath Lenny, clearly not pleased with the situation, but composed enough to not completely flail wildly and beg for his life miserably.

“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes, disappointed that Lenny didn’t help me, but I realize now that Lenny made a good play no matter which way I sliced it.

“Besides, I had some real faith in you, and you’re not dead, so it looks like it wasn’t exactly misplaced.” Lenny tilted his head, offering up a small half-smile.

“Speak for yourself, man.” I turn to the scene, noticing that 2 are already standing, apparently uninjured among the others currently incapacitated. “Just look at my boys-OUR boys!”

“Yeah, you should make sure nobody bleeds to death.”

Taking his advice to heart, I didn’t waste time with a response, moving to the door to the kitchen and thrusting it open to find a group of cooks and waiters, all armed with knives and pans, recoiling as soon as I opened the door. “They’ve been dealt with. Now where’s your medical supplies!?”

“Right this way...” One of the cooks drops his pan on the counter, opening a nearby cabinet and pulling out a red plastic box with a handle. He walks over to me, his conduct suddenly chipper and cordial. “Here you go! Hope this helps.”

“Thanks,” I sigh, grabbing the box out of his hands with my free hand, stepping back out with haste as I almost slam the box onto the counter. “Tend to your own, boys!” I see the two standing almost scramble over to the box to help their allies, while getting a glimpse of the bronze-skinned pointman, clearly trying to hold his intestines in while propped up against the counter.

I walk back over to Lenny, still pressing into the cut on my stomach. “So, what’s the story with this guy?”

Lenny only briefly looks up to me before keeping his eyes back on the man on the floor. “Well, I have no idea, but he had a gun, so that means he’s either serious business in the criminal underworld, or someone licensed by the city to have a firearm, and those licenses don’t get handed out to just anyone. Somehow, I don’t think this guy’s just some rich city official that just so happens to go to this exact Italian restaurant.”

“Well, this place is actually way better than I expected...” The man in the trenchcoat grunted.

“Sounds interesting. We’ll take him with us for… questioning.” I slip in a dramatic pause, not because I needed to think, but because I felt like a little bit of suspense was fitting for the moment, just to unsettle him.

“Very well,” Lenny draws his flip phone. “I’ll call in our support team.”

Looking back over, I find the recruits now more thoroughly tending to one of their own that had a slash across their forehead, another that was bleeding out of their side far more than I was, and the recruit that had stepped forth to oppose the bronze-skinned pointman. I walk over, overhearing a conversation between him and one of the others.

“It’s a lot of blood, but it looks like you’re gonna make it, Bill. Why were you so eager to jump on that hot-shot, anyway?”

“Well, I figured there’d be pizza at least this good in heaven, right?” Bill smiles. Looking closer, he has messy, but relatively short brown hair and doesn’t look older than 17, maybe 18 at the most.

I let out a short chuckle. Maybe I let what he did back there tilt my opinion of him, but I decide to do something nice for the recruits. “You did good, lad. You’ll get your pizza before that time comes, I assure you.”

I watch him and the person tending to him both look over at me in a subtle sort of awe as I walk back towards the kitchen, grabbing my katana and slipping it back into my belt, somewhat awkwardly, with one hand. I then step into the kitchen. “Hey, how quickly can you get six pepperoni pizzas to go ready?”

“Mmmh, 15 minutes, give or take a little.” One of the chefs spoke up.

“Alright, get on it.” I step out of the kitchen, walking over to my table, picking up the gun off the floor. It’s a snub-nosed revolver with a subdued chrome finish. Elegant, but not too flashy. Ensuring the hammer wasn’t primed, I slip it into my pocket. It hangs there with a compelling weight. I then move on to an unusual knife resting at my table, picking it up. It’s a double-edged blade with a skeletonized grip, texturing on the edges of said grip. It’s also balanced reasonably well for throwing, most likely a model made for such a thing, though I don’t think I’ve seen this specific model in a catalog before. I slip it into one of my other pockets, hoping it might end up being a lead somehow—and if it isn’t a lead, I’d be taking it as a symbol, a trophy of surviving my first attempted assassination.

15 minutes later, our vehicle arrived and we all went back to the safehouse, with 6 pizzas accompanying us. The stranger was first dumped off at the interrogation house—with guards—before we went back to the dormitory for some recovery and a brief ‘celebration’. Of course, that’s the word most people would use, but I see it as a consolation prize for what the recruits had to do today. The pizza’s amazing, but I don’t stick around for very long before I get back to doing my job.