"Again."
Continuous side kicks, bounding forward, covering my head, retreating, going for a guillotine.
But before I could transition to the second move, Damian drove a front kick into my diaphragm.
"Marcus, I'm disappointed."
He stood there, looking down at me, no longer offering his hand.
"Captain Reeves said you were the best under his command. I read your evaluation—exceptional tactical thinking, diverse skill set, and you've never lost a fight..."
"...is this how you kept your undefeated streak?"
He'd said a lot, but I'd barely managed my first breath after hitting the ground.
I'd been trying to avoid hand-to-hand combat with Damian.
In the lab, he'd been near sixty, his body declining, and I was under thirty, in my prime—even so, we'd been evenly matched.
Now it was 2007, my body was eighteen, with no military training, and my strength, speed, fighting muscle memory, and ability to take hits were terrible. Meanwhile, Damian was at the peak of his overall combat ability.
So while we could trade shots with guns—relying on brains and luck—in hand-to-hand combat, I had no chance.
"Are you thinking that in 2007, you couldn't possibly beat me?" Damian spoke again. "Marcus, if I were you, I wouldn't waste time on thoughts like that."
He unhurriedly ejected his magazine and loaded a fresh one.
Then he raised the pistol in his right hand and aimed it at Jessica in the distance.
Under the headlights, Jessica was completely exhausted. Her handcuffs hung from the window frame—she couldn't sit down, only lean sideways against the door.
The headlights from across the distance blinded her. She couldn't see Damian or me in the darkness, and in the open wilderness, sounds didn't carry far, so she had no idea a gun was aimed at her.
"What are you doing!?" I knew exactly what he was doing—threatening Jessica's life—but the threat had no logic.
"This is the original magazine, with four rounds. She's less than 40 meters away. Guess whether I can hit her."
I tried to stand several times, but my body wouldn't cooperate.
"If you want to kill someone, kill me!"
Damian sighed, as if my words were meaningless. A second later, without replying, he fired.
A spark appeared on the car door. Jessica screamed, jumped to her feet, looked around frantically, and then resumed trying to break her handcuffs.
"I'll fire once every five seconds. If I miss every shot, I'll walk over and break her neck."
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Just as I thought I could stand, he fired again, hitting the door.
When he fired, my whole body trembled.
But I let him take that shot on purpose.
I gambled that he'd miss. If I attacked before he fired, he'd turn the gun on me and kill me, which would guarantee Jessica's death.
He missed. I won the gamble.
I gathered all my strength, ready to charge the instant after his next shot.
The Type 64's rate of fire was one round every two seconds. Those two seconds would be his death...
"Over a thousand times," he said suddenly. "Over a thousand people have tried different ways to kill me."
"What?"
"They're all dead. So don't rush to attack. Think again."
"Think about what?"
"Think about whether you can really take me down in one move."
Damian was right.
I'd already tried three times. I couldn't beat him. And now my existing wounds were making themselves known—each bullet wound throbbed with pain, and I didn't know which punch would lose power or precision. Against a fighter like Damian, a hair's difference meant disaster.
But I only had one window to strike.
"Marcus, why am I always winning?"
He was about to fire again, still hitting the car door. Jessica screamed and began crying for help.
"Because you're always one step ahead of me."
Damian nodded. "Good that you understand."
He took a deep breath. "This next shot... I won't miss."
Yeah. One step ahead. One step ahead...
"Five."
How could I beat him? How could I think ahead of him?
He was experienced, ruthless, and seemed to have more information than me. Under these conditions, how could I possibly think ahead of him?
Think, Marcus. Think!
"Four."
Start with what's most direct!
Opportunity: His movements in the next three seconds are predictable—he'll fire at Jessica when the countdown ends.
Threat: Either I or Jessica will die. Maybe both.
Disadvantages: No fighting muscle memory, slow reflexes. Physically weaker because of my age. Gunshot wounds. Fatigue. Mild electrolyte imbalance. Panic.
Advantages: None.
"Three."
No—from physical abilities, I was completely outmatched. But I still had the entire night and the entire wilderness.
"Two."
Advantages: An empty magazine on the ground half a meter from him. A rock embedded in the ground half a meter behind him. His pupils dilated from aiming at Jessica for so long, making it hard to see details in the dark. After three exchanges, his subconscious expected me to use standard military combat techniques.
And most importantly—he was about to fire.
"One."
Now!
His finger moved. In the instant between his trigger pull and the discharge, any distraction would affect his aim. I hurled a lit Dupont lighter at him.
The gun went off, missing the car door entirely because he'd been distracted. I moved, and he was already turning his head to track me.
At the same time, the open flame created a visual afterimage—a streak of green in his vision, enough to interfere with his ability to lock onto my silhouette.
In the split second it took him to recover, I lunged low, dropped my shoulder, and tackled him with the most primitive move possible.
From our previous exchanges, I knew Damian was brilliant at countering techniques. But the simpler and cruder the method, the fewer standard counters existed.
He fell backward—and his back struck the rock. I couldn't control which part of him hit, but as long as it caused sharp pain, that was enough.
I needed that pain to buy me time for one final move.
After tackling him, I rolled on the ground, scooped up the empty magazine, and wedged the pen Jessica had given me inside it, the tip pointing outward. Then I slammed the base of the magazine with all my strength.
The magazine's spring snapped, and the pen shot out like a dart, piercing Damian's chest.
In the dark, a man could block a fist—but how could he stop a pen barely a centimeter in diameter?
But Damian's reflexes were too fast. Years of training had made it instinctive—he raised his left hand at the last instant and deflected the pen.
But my hand was already there. I drove the pen, along with his own palm, into his heart.
All of Damian's movements stopped.
He looked slowly at his chest, then at me, seemingly needing a moment to process what had happened.
Then he began to vomit blood. His right hand rose slowly and gripped my throat, but it had none of his former strength.
"This is your first kill. Good—once you've done it once, you won't hold back again."
---
When I freed Jessica from her handcuffs, she hugged me for a long time.
She couldn't say a word. She just kept trembling.
From quiet sobbing, to outright wailing.
She was terrified. Everything that had happened today would have broken anyone. And Jessica was only eighteen.
After a long time, she calmed down.
"Where's Damian?" she asked.
His body lay dozens of meters away. She couldn't see it, and she didn't know how close we'd come to dying.
I didn't want to tell her he was dead—she'd be even more scared.
"He ran. I've already notified my teacher. They'll handle it." I helped her into the passenger seat. "Now I'm taking you to the hospital."
The car pulled away and slowly headed toward the light.
"Where's the tracker?" Jessica asked suddenly.
"On Damian's body."
I lied without thinking.
And the moment I said it, I realized I'd already started keeping things from Jessica.
"On his body!?"
She shot back.
Then immediately went silent.
A long, heavy silence followed.
The car jolted slightly over the rough road, the engine noise buzzing like flies trapped in glass.
Jessica had figured out that Damian was dead—fine. And she hadn't called me out on the lie—also fine. But this lengthy silence was sending my mind to dark places.
A memory flashed through my head.
At the internet café, she'd said: "Then you can help me get revenge for my dad."
I hadn't understood then. I'd only noticed something strange about her eyes—something that didn't belong on a teenager's face. Only now did I realize what was strange about that look.
It wasn't anger or hatred.
It was the look of someone in complete control.
I braked hard, stopping the car in the middle of the wilderness.
"Jessica, what else do you know?"