2 Bargaining Chip

Von felt the cold touch of an unsharpened blade in his throat. He tried to look at the one who threatened his life, but his attitude was in vain.

-I have a message for you. - Von reached for the dagger at his waist as the man spoke. Each word was one step further into a dark alley. In a brief slip of the pen, Von managed to grab the arms of the man who was cornering him, and twisted him backwards, pushing him against the wall. He withdrew his dagger from his waist as he slowly drove the blade into the man's neck. Blood bubbles formed as the dagger entered his skin.

-Wait, please! The man pleaded, his eyes clearly emanating desperation, the purest desperation. He knew he would die, perhaps his mission was exactly that, a message delivered, for blood spilled. A beautiful bargaining chip. - The High Command is looking for you. They want you to work for them. - The man screamed in agony as Von's dagger pierced his neck. -If you don't go, you will be killed. -

When he finished speaking, Von turned the man towards himself to look him in the eye. With his other hand, he took the sword from the Cerminian soldier's waist and slowly, with a sadistic smile on his face, Von made a horizontal cut across the poor servant's stomach. At this moment, two things were clear: the despair of the man in front of him, trying to collect his stomach that was coming out of his lifeless body, and the sadistic smile of the man who killed him.

The bloody body on the ground, without a single drop inside, was devoured by a flock of vultures who had been watching the scene from the very beginning. - Nature always cleans up our messes. - thought Von as he walked out of the alley.

Von decided to go feed himself. Coel was a simple man in his 40s or 50s years old, short in stature, with gray hair above the ear, and a striking bald spot on top of his head. Coel had not dealt well with the death of his wife, and had taken up smoking again and put on a few pounds. This man was the owner of the bar where Von always visited. Since he was 14 years old, Von had eaten and drunk there. Coel did everything for half price for the boy, because he knew that the next day he would be there again. Seemingly another ordinary day at the bar, Von watched the movement of the place, sitting in the same place as always, the most isolated chair in the dark corner of the dimly lit bar.

Without his hood covering his face, Coel could identify Von's presence. He knew the life the boy led, he knew the problems he cultivated, and he also knew the money he made from these problems. A young girl with brown hair, approximately 16 years old, was wandering around. This young girl was the daughter of the owner of the bar, Nina. After the death of his wife, Coel had his daughter help him with his work in the bar, which was now his only source of income, since before, his deceased wife had worked for the High Command. Between melancholy and veiled violence, it was a good bar to be in.

-Walter, do you still remember the debts? - A man with blond hair that Von had never seen before leaned against the counter where Coel was working, and pulled the man's shirt, bringing his face close to his.

-Father! - Von heard a shrill voice in the room. It was Coel's daughter, running toward her father. The two braids of her hair swayed as she ran disorderly. She put herself in the middle of her father and the man who was harassing him, but without success, apparently that man was not alone. There were three more men with him, all of them in extremely expensive clothing.

High Command?

-Nina, this is no business of yours. - After saying this, Coel pushed the girl, who fell sitting on the ground. Von got up, threw a few coins on the table, and walked discreetly to the exit. Nina quickly got up from the floor, fixing her hair and dusting off the dark green dress she was wearing.

-Von, wait! - Near the door, he turned toward the counter, she ran out from behind her father and, from a closet, took out a small wooden box covered with a purple cloth. -I...- She bowed her head. Von raised an eyebrow, showing his surprise at this moment. The girl tilted the object, offering it to him. - I found this dagger lying on the floor. I thought you might like to use it...- He looked at her face getting redder and redder with embarrassment. He turned his back to her, causing the smile on her lips to die.

-You thought wrong. - As he answered the girl, he put on his hood for the first time of the day and walked out into the street.

Von was wandering the streets, he had unwittingly seduced a 16-year-old girl. -That's what he thought. He loved getting physically involved with women, but he always knew that they would be just like his cigarettes in his life, they would momentarily fill a space in his life, but would soon be discarded. And soon his thoughts went back to the land he had dreamed of buying, it was a long way off, he knew. He had saved money for years, but each time that passed, the peaceful life became more distant. Still hemming and hawing, Von passed an establishment where the four men from Coel's bar were. Immediately, the men recognized Von, exchanged signals with each other and prepared an ambush. The four men surrounded Von, causing him to stop walking. Then a row of other men armed with spears and swords circled the assassin. Von was trapped, he was sure of it, so sure that each of his hands already held a dagger.

Nothing defined his life more than moments like these.

-Will you come with us? -The blond man grinned arrogantly as he rested his sword on the ground.

-Tell the High Command that unfortunately I have to decline... well... if you're still alive to talk. - Von calmly removed the hood from his head, stared into the eyes of each of the men around him, he wanted to do everything to make it clear that the threat was imminent.

A brave soldier ran towards him in a direct confrontation, Von broke the soldier's arm in exorbitant speed. When he saw another angry soldier running towards him, he kicked the previous soldier who had broken his arm, towards the oncoming man. He jumped towards the two falling men, landing with his daggers on the chest of the now downed soldiers. He immediately removed the daggers from the men's torso and turned his attention to three other soldiers heading in his direction.

The three soldiers tried to attack Von with their spears, but he dodged their attacks with somersaults to the ground, and with each brief evasive movement, he gave different cuts to the legs of the men who tried to attack him, but eventually they found themselves on the ground, unable to move. Five other men tried to wound him with spears and swords in a coordinated attack, Von disarmed one of the soldiers, taking his sword for himself, while decapitating the man with his own weapon. The other four soldiers had their upper and lower limbs cut off in a sequence of blows that seemed like a dance, so synchronized were they. Finally, four more bodies were torn apart on the ground. Von looks at the last remaining soldier, the man with blond hair. The soldier's face showed an explicit terror, he couldn't move, what he had just witnessed paralyzed all his joints, his body was already surrendering to the inevitable... death. He walked to the blond soldier who had not yet taken his sword from the ground, put his dagger to the man's neck and cut his throat quickly. Another body on the floor. Von searched the pocket of the recently deceased, removing a revolver, picked up his sword still stuck in the ground and walked to the other bodies. Some poor soldiers were still alive, without their limbs, they agonized in pain, screaming and screaming. Von, using the revolver he had just stolen, shot each of the remaining soldiers in the head, despite the sadism, he was merciful. As he looted and executed the soldiers, he looked into the face of the last one executed, and a familiar feeling came to his mind.

Walter Coel.

He was part of that ambush, even if not present, he was together with those mediocre soldiers. Von walked to the man's bar. Coel was sitting in the doorway of his establishment, he knew the consequences, and he also knew that there was no way to escape. Upon spotting him, Von shot the man three times in the chest, and after a brief moment admiring the fallen body, he shot him a fourth time in the forehead.

-DADDY! - Von heard that shrill voice again, his body contracted momentarily. He didn't want to deal with that girl. She came running in the same clothes as earlier, her eyes filled with tears could see nothing but her father's body, and as she came close to the body, she fell to her knees. - V-Von...- She squeezed her late father's hands together and turned her gaze to the murderer. His eyes showed a pain that Von had never seen before, the pain of losing someone you love. - Why...why did you do this to my father? The girl's wailing filled the streets with screams.

Von looked at his clothes covered with the blood of the men he had killed, as if looking for an answer to give the girl, but there was none. He looked at the body with one shot in his forehead and three in his chest. He had died without a fight, so pathetic. It was a shame, Von loved to pay less for food, often not at all. He looked into the blue orbs of the girl who was emitting mumbles of suffering, he picked up the gun and placed it right in the middle of Nina's forehead.

-V-Von...N-No! I love you! - Von's brown pupils dilated, that young girl didn't know what she was saying, she would spare her pain.

-You will be killed by the one you claim to love...pathetic. - Von pulled the trigger without hesitation. The sound of the body falling to the ground next to his father's body was muffled by the blood already flowing. Von returned to the place where he had killed the soldiers. Looking at the bodies, he had an idea. He spent the rest of the day hanging the bodies from poles outside the Cerminian underworld.

This was his answer.