Silent Resolve " Phantom Reaper Assassin"

Sweat, blood, and charred gunpowder hung in the air.

Renji took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders, ignoring the dull ache of his ribs. He had to keep moving.

Had to keep fighting.

He had no time to rest not yet.

Not with more of them coming.

The enforcers surrounded them like a pack of starving wolves, their eyes shining with bloodlust.

The man at the front, a scar-faced veteran wielding a jagged machete, grinned as if he had already scored victory.

Renji's knuckles cracked as he balled his fingers into a fist.

Scarface lunged first. Fast, but sloppy.

Renji burrowed out of the way, twirling as the machete sliced by his neck.

He intercepted the bastard's wrist at the apex of his swing and twisted the weapon out of his hand.

The sound of sinews ripping, the sharp crack of bone Scarface didn't even have time to register the pain before it was too late.

Renji drove the stolen machete into his gut.

Scarface gurgled, blood bubbling in his mouth, but Renji had already yanked free the blade for the next assailant.

The second man was smarter he came in low, a serrated hunting knife cutting inbound.

Renji hardly had time to move, the blade tearing at his forearm.

Pain shot within it, but he ignored that too.

He struck back in the same breath.

A vicious knee to the ribs.

A palm thrust that broke the enforcer's jaw.

The bastard collapsed, choking on his own teeth.

Renji ended it by pushing the machete into the side of his head.

Two down.

More to go.

Gunfire erupted.

Renji ducked as bullets cut through the warehouse, spitting sparks off rusted metal beams.

He ran for cover, putting a hand to his bleeding arm.

Sora and Ayame were close, but they were pinned down.

"Renji!" Sora's voice was rough, panicked.

"We need to move now!"

He wasn't wrong.

The enforcers had no intention of slowing down.

From the main entrance, more lopped in, weapons drawn, mouths cold and emotionless.

They weren't here to scare people."

They were here to kill.

The Renji growled low in his throat.

His vision dimmed for a half second as the pain caught up to him.

His body was ready to shut down, but he wouldn't let it.

He couldn't afford weakness.

Not with them here.

A vicious snarl ripped through the warehouse.

The real problem had arrived.

A shadow fell across the chaos, and then he saw him.

Kano, a pit bull for the Syndicate.

A monstrous hulk of a man, thick muscle stretching under his Gilded Age outfit.

Scars covered his shaved head, and his right arm was a cybernetic monstrosity glimmering under the low lighting.

Ayame tensed against him.

Even Sora, always ready with a sarcastic quip, was quiet.

Kano grinned.

"I was hoping I'd get to bury you myself, Kisaragi."

Renji spat blood at his feet.

"You can try."

The giant's cybernetic fist came up, metal joints whirring ominously.

"I don't try. I do."

Then he charged.

It felt like getting hit by a freight train.

Renji turned his body sharp, just enough to spare himself the full force, but the son of a bitch still clipped him.

Pain exploded in his ribs as he was hurled backward, smashing into a pile of crates.

Fuck.

He lurched as Kano's foot slammed down, shattering the wood where his head just was.

No hesitation.

Renji swung the machete at the soft spot beneath Kano's ribs.

The blade connected with flesh, but Kano hardly flinched.

Instead he seized Renji by the throat and closed his hand.

The edges of Renji's vision blackened.

Oxygen ripped from his lungs.

He scratched at the implement-like clasp to no avail as Kano hoisted him up off the ground like an empty sack.

"Oh, you think you're untouchable?" Kano growled and clenched his cybernetic fingers.

"That you can just up and leave?"

Stars danced in Renji's eyes.

His heart thudded in his ears.

Then.

A gunshot.

Kano's head jerked. Blood seeped from his temple.

Ayame was a few feet away, aiming her pistol, smoke spiraling from the barrel. "Hands off, asshole."

The wound wasn't fatal. Just enough to piss him off.

Kano bellowed, throwing Renji around like a ragdoll. He crashed onto the floor, agony searing his spine.

His eyes were wild, and Sora appeared beside him.

"Shit. Are you still breathing? "

Renji coughed, blood leaking down his chin.

"Barely."

"No time to nap," said Sora.

"We need a plan."

Plan?

The only plan was survival.

Kano was already here for them again.

His steel fist tightened, his gaze fixed on Renji like a predator closing in for the kill.

"Renji, MOVE!" Ayame screamed.

Too late.

Kano's fist came down.

Impact.

A sickening crack.

Renji barely registered the pain before darkness devoured him.

The air in the warehouse was heavy with blood and gunpowder, a bitter reminder that death was always just a step away.

Renji was the center of it all, broken and beaten but unbowed, his breath deliberate and slow.

The fallen littered the ground beneath him, their deaths a testament to his resolve.

But it wasn't over.

Not yet.

The next wave came with a rush.

The dull glow illuminated their faces, the flickering shadows creating a grim dance above them as more enforcers stalked in, deliberate and driven, their weapons shining.

Renji felt his muscles knot, pain gnawing, but he ignored it. Here there was no room for weakness.

Ayame was already moving.

She ducked behind a steel crate, twin pistols clutched in her hands, fingers dancing over the triggers.

Gunfire erupted.

The sharp staccato echoed in the space, bullets shredding flesh and nipping through concrete.

Sora, still bleeding but stubborn, had ducked behind a toppled column, his knife gripped in white-knuckled fingers.

Renji didn't wait.

The first assassin charged forward an agile foe with twin daggers. Into the darkest of lights, with blades that splattered, dancing around where the killer swept.

Renji stepped aside, narrowly missing the cut that would have opened his throat.

He gripped the attacker's wrist, twisting with bone-snapping efficiency.

Then came a sickening crack, the scream swallowed in the gunfire.

A second assassin seized the opening, a giant of a man wielding a spiked club. He swung with apocalyptic fluidity, the air humming in its murderous arc. Renji ducked, the weapon inches away from his skull.

A quick swing of his elbow struck the brute in the ribs, sending him reeling backward.

A follow-up kick to the knee sent him stumbling, just enough for Ayame to put two bullets in his chest.

"Stay with me," she yelled, reloading without slowing down.

Blood from Renji's lips spilled, his eyes sharpening. More killers closed in. There was no time for banter.

Sora clenched his teeth and pushed himself up.

He was fatigued, his head a mass of pain, but he wouldn't be a dead weight. An enforcer charged him, knife aloft.

Sora ducked the first swing, taking advantage of the man's momentum to drive his knife into the attacker's side.

The assassin gasped, a choked sound, and fell.

More gunfire. More bodies.

And then, silence.

Renji was standing in the middle of the carnage, breathing in and out in a slow, methodical rhythm.

The bodies remained unmoving, the warehouse a cemetery. But the brief respite was broken by a slow, mocking clap.

Out of the darkness came a lone figure, clad in an immaculate suit, untainted by the violence. His presence was a cold, tangible feeling on Renji's spine.

He knew this man.

"Renji Kisaragi," the stranger mused, silky smooth, sounding almost amused. "Still resisting the inevitable, I see."

Renji's jaw tightened.

"Who sent you?"

The man smiled.

"You know the answer to that already."

Ayame tensed, fingertips hovering above the grips of her pistols, but Renji lifted a hand.

This was not just some assassin.

This was something worse.

The man stepped a little closer, fearless.

They're not going to be stopped, you know.

They'll keep coming, keep sending more. Eventually, you're going to crack."

Renji's hands were curling into fists, but he forced himself to stay still.

"We'll see about that."

The stranger laughed and shook his head.

"Oh, Renji. Always so stubborn."

He looked at the carnage around them.

"But let's spice this up a little.

"Because there's someone else who wants to see you suffer."

At a signal from him, the doors to the warehouse groaned open.

Something dragged between them, the figures stepping inside.

Renji's blood ran cold.

A body had been thrown to the ground, beaten, and near unconscious.

His daughter.

Renji's breath hitched, his body seizing up.

The stranger grinned.

"Let's see how much resolve you actually have."