Update: Yeah... this writing is too busy. Oh well. I need to think about it.
Matsuo felt the barrel pushing into the back of his head. He could taste the blood collecting between his lips.
“You’ve given me quite a bit of trouble, boy.” Serzen paced across the balcony.
Matsuo looked at the street and groaned. “Let them go.” He watched the gunman behind him reflecting in a puddle of grime near the curb. The man seemed caught up in his boss' gloating. Good.
Serzen laughed and placed his hands along the rail. “Interesting choice of words.” He looked up where Matsuo’s wife and daughter stood, crying and whimpering through their gags. “Well you heard the man.” He made a motion. “Let them go.”
Beast placed his boot squarely into the back of Matsuo's wife, shoving her forward. She tipped and her face whitened with terror as she lost her balance. The rope tightened around her neck as she pitched forward. She closed her eyes. This would be it.
In those short moments, Matsuo rolled forward, lowering his right shoulder into the ground, spinning to pull at the gunman, arm. He pivoted onto his back and fired his foot vertically into the man’s jaw, crushing it like a soda can. Continuing the motion, he tore the gun from his opponent, dislocating the man's finger and replacing his own into the trigger. The first two shots burst from the gun instinctively, exploding into Beast’s knee and thigh, and he tumbled to the side, tangling himself in the pile of rope that was now uncoiling. No! He could feel the scream in his head as he watched his wife launch forward from the rooftop.
But she did not fall quickly. Beast’s weight held the rope, unwittingly slowing Matsuo’s wife, and while her neck was not broken, she was twitching on the end of her rope, suffocating quickly. She reached and clawed desperately at her noose, but was unable to loosen it. Matsuo fired another round into the face of the man to his left, who had yet to respond, and pulled his would-be killer on top of himself as a shield against the first few rounds of the right man, who was quicker on the draw than his dead partner. Two bullets from Matsuo cured the problem, tumbling through the next man’s eye sockets. Matsuo reached along his legs. His blades were free.
Serzen turned to watch the gunfire, only now able to react. He waved to the men below in warning, who, absorbed with the execution, finally registered Beast’s injuries and were now casting about for his assailant. “Look out!” Screamed Serzan, trying to warn one of his employees before Matsuo’s first knife sliced the man’s jugular. Matsuo spun and launched his second knife into the throat of his next victim, and carrying forward with his momentum, tumbled behind the van that brought him here.
Matsuo’s daughter panicked and leaped towards Beast, trying desperately to push him off the roof, but he grabbed her small body and flung her easily. Had she not so securely held onto his collar, he might have prevented himself from following her. But she did hold on, and he did follow her. Matsuo's wife had used her foot to pull herself to a balcony and, while she was no longer falling, was rapt, clawing desperately to loosen her noose. She felt the rope go slack and looked up to see Beast clinging precariously to the side of the roof, her daughter hanging desperately from his collar. Good girl. She had worked her arm up underneath the caller to her elbow. Beast felt fear. He could not dislodge the little girl.
Serzen was now barking orders at the men inside the building as he disappeared through the door. One of the men searching for Matsuo was shooting blindly around the van. He didn’t see the legs reach from under the van, but when they seized him and pulled back, he did feel the pavement. He did feel the scrapes as he was pulled underneath. He did feel a large knife carve up through his genitals into his abdomen. His partner could not respond quick enough, and a bullet shattered his ankle before he too fell. The second bullet removed him from play altogether.
Two men emerged from the door above. One looked out at the dead on the ground while the other looked up to where Beast was clinging. He fired a shot at Matsuo’s wife, trying to hit her throw the gratings. He called to his partner to assist him, but his partner had already been pulled from the balcony, having been neatly lassoed by an ascending Matsuo. He lowered his weapon and watched those last moments as Matsuo plunged his knives into his eyes.
Matsuo’s wife saw that Beast was slipping, and began coiling as much of the slack rope around the bannister as possible. She saw his body travel past her, and their eyes met. She watched him submit to his fate as he watched her coil that rope furiously intent on evading hers. Beast grabbed the rope, but was unable to hold on. As the line went taught, the rope coiled around his armed burned into his skin, carving into it, but holding tight. Beasts arm was dislocated in an instant, and he was suspended only a few feet above the ground. Her daughter’s fall had been broken, but she slipped from Beast and grunted as she contacted the ground. Matsuo’s wife screamed and used her leg to push against the grate, holding tight. She saw a knife flash in front of her, and felt the dragging rope loosen as Matsuo cut her free from her noose. He threw himself over the balcony and, using the rope anchored to the railing, lowered himself quickly to his daughter’s side.
His daughter looked at him, shaken and crying. He removed her gag and cradled her.
“Is she alright?” His wife called down, loosening her own gag.
“You should take her to get check out. But, “ He could feel his daughter squeeze him. “Yes. I think she’s alright.”
“Baby?” His wife called to him.
“Yes?”
“Is it over?
“It will be.” He looked at his blades. "Soon."
