The Injured Gangster

SPLASH!

The impact Noir was waiting for never came. Instead, he felt himself falling into water and hitting something warm.

Noir opened his eyes and found himself looking into a familiar handsome face and a beloved pair of sharp grey eyes.

"Master…?" he whispered, his voice choked with emotion.

"How the hell did you get in here?" the man snapped, his grey eyes blazing with anger.

Noir couldn't help his tears at the sound of that well-remembered voice.

"Master…!" Noir cried tearfully. "You saved me again…!"

"I am not your master!" the man retorted.

Indeed, his Master had never looked at him with such disgust or antipathy…

It was then that Noir realised that he was in a bathtub, and he had landed on the man's lap in the middle of his bath. Which meant that the man was…

With a cry, Noir jumped out of the bathtub and covered his eyes. "I'm sorry! I didn't see anything!" he cried. His face was as red as a tomato by now!

The man in the bathtub looked at the strangely dressed man who had just landed in his bathtub out of nowhere. His eyes fell on the sword around the man's waist and his eyes narrowed. Was this yet another assassin sent by his rivals? Ambushing him in the bathroom…really, was there no limit to how they would fall to get rid of him?

He picked up his gun from the rack by the side of the tub and pointed it at the other's head. "Who sent you? How did you get here?" he demanded in a cold voice.

Noir peeked from the gap in his fingers, and realised that the man was still in the tub and hadn't bothered to cover himself at all. Instead, he now pointed a strange looking black thing at him.

"I don't know," Noir said truthfully. "I was watching the circus from the imperial viewing tower, and then I fell and somehow landed here." He frowned. "Didn't you summon me?"

The man fired the gun in warning and the mirror behind Noir's head shattered.

Noir's eyes turned as round as tennis balls and he immediately wanted to examine the gun. "How did you break the mirror? What is this device? How does it work?" he asked excitedly.

The man shot him a strange look.

Noir leaned forward in his excitement and caught a glimpse of the man again. This time, he noticed the differences between this man and his Master. Master's long hair fell past his waist, but this man wore it short. Also, this man's legs were riddled with ugly scars…while his Master's skin had always been flawless. There was also something wrong with his legs, Noir realised. When he had fallen into the man's lap, his legs hadn't moved at all. And even now, he remained where he was, only using the strange black weapon to threaten Noir.

"What's wrong with your legs?" Noir asked bluntly. "I have some healing skills, if you want, I can…"

"Is this their new ploy? Sending in someone like you to seduce me and give me hope and then kill me?" the man shouted.

Noir's face was full of confusion. "Why would I want to kill you? Even if you're not him, you still have the same face as my Master. I could never bear to harm you," he said sincerely. "I just want to help you if I can…"

"Shut up!" the man roared.

Another gunshot rang out, and the shelf next to Noir's head broke, showering him with debris.

Footsteps hurried towards them from outside the bathroom and soon enough, the door was flung open.

"Boss! What happened? We heard a gunshot!" a man dressed in a black suit rushed in with his gun drawn. Several similarly dressed men followed him, each one of them holding out their guns.

Noir quickly moved out of the way.

The men stopped short when they saw him.

"Why is there an extra man here?" one of the men asked the first guy.

The man shrugged. "Who cares? Just shoot them both."

"That'll be extra. We were only paid to off Boss Solis," another man said.

The man in the bathtub laughed bitterly. "So you were the traitor, Cain," he said, his voice dripping ice.

The first man smiled at him. "No hard feelings, Boss. I just got a better opportunity elsewhere. Also, in your current state, how long can you live anyway?" he mocked.

Boss Solis sighed tiredly. There were too many men and he didn't have enough bullets, not to mention he was hardly more than a sitting duck with his paralysed legs. It looked like he had reached the end…betrayed by one of his own subordinates. Perhaps he should have expected it. After all, how many gangsters would be willing to follow a crippled boss? The underworld respected only strength, and ran only on money. There were no other rules. And strength was something he had lost now. Perhaps it was better this way. Instead of living out the pathetic existence of a cripple, wasn't it better for him to die?

Noir looked at the man in the bathtub with complicated eyes. Even if this was not his Master, he must still be related to Master – how else could he be so similar otherwise? Besides, Noir didn't approve of traitors, and by now, he had understood that the man in the tub was the superior and the one called Cain had betrayed him and brought mercenary killers to murder him. A wave of sympathy surged through Noir. He could see the despair and self-loathing in the man's face, and he felt something throb painfully in his own chest in response.

Noir stepped forward, jolting Boss Solis out of his thoughts. "You all want to kill him?" he asked slowly, fixing his chocolate brown eyes on the men in black suits.

"None of your business," the man called Cain snapped and fired his gun at Noir.

There was a brilliant flash of silver and a tinkle of metal as the bullet was sliced in half. All the assailants stared at him in shock.

Noir stood protectively in front of the bathtub with his sword drawn.

"I won't let you kill him," Noir declared.