Fresh Off The Plane

A man approaches a quaint restaurant nestled between two towering buildings. His build is tall and lean, with pasty skin and wisps of messy blonde hair that lay on his head like the feathers of a duster. He's in his mid-thirties, but years of heavy drug use have aged his features a good twenty years. The clothes he wears are shabby, to say the least: a patchy jacket, a plain-white shirt that made hiding its numerous stains impossible, well-worn jeans and boots with layers of mud dried onto them. Nothing about him stood out, but the Model 13 tucked in his jacket and the nervous look in his amber eyes unmistakably marked him as trouble. For Michael Sandberg, this was the day he would turn his life around.

All he'd have to do is kill one girl.

The restaurant was a higher-end sushi place. One of the ones where the chef personally prepared everything for you as part of the experience. Its black and cinnamon wood paneled walls are decorated with calligraphy and traditional painting, but the main piece is the daishō, which suggests the restaurant's noble history. The chefs are all dressed uniformly in white, while the handful of patrons almost all wear some form of business attire. In her collared shirt and pencil skirt, Mayuri Tomone was no different. Aside from being a bit younger than expected, the only difference between herself and the other patrons was that she recently had a bounty placed on her head.

Mayuri stands and bows deeply to the itamae in the middle of preparing the next course of her meal. "Excuse me, I'll need to borrow this," she says. Confusion flashes on the old man's face, but before he can respond, he finds himself grabbed.

She twists the knife out of his hand and jerks him to the side along with herself just as a shot splits through the air. Staff and guests are sent into a state of panic and terror as more shots ring out from what they assume must be a crazed gunman. Mayuri ducks and hides behind the counter's edge, grabbing the knife and slipping her heels off as she does.

"Come on out, lady. I don't want to involve anybody else in this," Michael says. He didn't know much about Mayumi beyond her name, a loose understanding of what she could do, and how much she was worth. However, her efforts to keep the chef from taking the bullets meant for her hadn't escaped his notice. They both knew that she didn't want bystanders killed because of her, and they both knew that he was willing to do it if she didn't do anything but stand up and allow herself to be put down.

But Mayuri also knew that he'd fired six shots and would need a moment to reload. She also knew that he was an experienced marksman and was already reaching for one of several speedloaders on his belt. She had a second at best before he was shooting again, and knowing this wouldn't help her close the gap between them before there were several new holes in her gut. At least, that was what Michael thought.

She scrambles from the counter like a bat out of hell, sprinting right towards him as the fully loaded cylinder falls in. That she's trying to rush him at all is enough to give Michael some pause, but he fires twice despite the shock. One grazes her neck while the other plants itself in her left shoulder as something flies from her hand — not the knife, but one of her heels. The stiletto slams into his hand, causing him to loosen his grip on the gun but not drop it. It wasn't a bad trick, but with a good 12 feet still between them, it wouldn't be enough to tilt the scale in her favor.

He takes aim again, finger pressing down on the trigger just as the other shoe drops.

"Fucking bitch!" His shot goes wide and shatters one of the lights as the business end of Mayuri's footwear gauges out his left eye. He tries to resist the urge to panic, but the pain and anger drive him to shoot wildly in her direction. This outcome would be less than ideal for most people. After all, their proximity would normally guarantee that he'd hit something even if this was the first time he'd held a gun.

These circumstances were decidedly unusual, however. From the moment Michael approached with the intent to disturb her meal, Mayrui had read him like a book and carefully considered how to reach this moment. Everything she'd done was done to throw him off enough so that he would miss when it mattered most. Taking out his dominant eye and injuring his hand were crucial parts of the puzzle, but even more vital was the buildup. That she'd tried rushing him at all planted seeds of doubt in his mind that he wasn't even aware of. The time came for these seeds to bear fruit. With a shaky hand and half his vision gone, Michael can't escape the thought that he might miss — that she might dodge somehow. All of it made him even more predictable than he already was.

Mayuri drops into a slide as the shots leave holes in the paneling, closing the last few feet and sweeping her attacker off his. The knife finally comes into play as she positions it under his abdomen and allows his own weight to impale him. She then rolls herself on top of him and jams the long blade in further. Only now is the revolver freed from his grip and confiscated along with his spare ammo. It would come in handy if more troublesome opportunists showed their faces.

For now, she picks herself up and makes her way over to the counter, where the captive audience still looks on in shock. She knows one of the chefs mustered the courage to call the police a minute ago, but there was no use in lashing out. "My deepest apologies," she says while bowing. A suitcase that had been sitting under her chair is grabbed and opened with a few clicks, revealing a padded inside with several bars of gold tucked away. She found it a bit inconvenient, but Mayuri had long gotten used to how the people she worked with dealt. It was nice that no matter where she traveled, everyone knew the value of gold. She takes a bar out and places it on the counter as she checks her watch, suddenly running off in a panic and leaving everyone inside dumbfounded.

The threat of having to deal with law enforcement wasn't ideal. Being late for the first meeting with your new boss was even worse.