Chapter 68: Nice’s Quest

Julien walked the streets of Barbados just after sunrise, alone, or trying to be.

The problem, as always, was his face. Calm, collected, and innocent in a way that apparently read as lost to every passing stranger who caught a glimpse of him.

He had been dealing with it his entire life, this particular brand of unsolicited concern, and had long since made his peace with it. Annoying, yes. Surprising, no.

Scar had left the previous day and hadn’t come back. Julien had meant to find him before he went, just long enough to wish him luck against Adisa, but his own duel at the academy had kept him, and by the time it was over, Scar was already gone. Nothing to be done about that now.

Julien turned his attention to what was in front of him. Three targets from the Hearts, and a clear enough directive. He must eliminate them. No matter what.

His targets were the notorious blades of the Heart family… not the family itself, but the criminal organization they had quietly built beneath them.

The Hearts had been careful. Every death in the Vey family had been carried out at arm’s length, the organization doing the work while the Heart family maintained distance.

Purple Vey had given him his orders. The leading three of that organization needed to be eliminated.

“She made it sound so easy… as if she could actually do it herself. Tsk.”

Hmph.

Purple’s words came across as clueless, though that might have been the point. She knew Julien.

There was no guilt in him or no remorse, not even the shadow of either.

These people were going to die by his hands, and in his mind they already had. The confirmation was just a formality.

What actually moved through him when he thought about it was something closer to anticipation, the strength he’d gain from it, and the step it represented.

He had been on his own since he was eight, living and breathing toward one goal. Quagmire. Miserable obstacles had come and gone before. They would again.

Sigh.

“I don’t have time. I need to finish this quickly and reach Scar. Adisa could be more than he can handle.”

This part of northern Barbados was a dumping ground, with rusted metals and broken automobile carriages piled and forgotten, the air carrying whatever a corrupted environment carried.

Somewhere within that stretch of decay stood an abandoned warehouse made entirely of aluminum, vast enough to hold fifty carriages and completely emptied out by the state of everything around it. Which made it perfect. For thugs, at least.

Three people stood at the entrance, slugging and smoking with the kind of ease that came from either confidence or ignorance, possibly both.

They weren’t his targets. Julien could tell that much at a glance. But they were between him and the warehouse, which made them a problem that needed solving before anything else could happen.

His first thought was an ambush… quiet and efficient, done before they knew what happened. Then he took a few steps and reconsidered.

These men were dumb. Extraordinarily so.

Julien wasn’t sure if they couldn’t see him or had simply decided he wasn’t worth acknowledging. Either way, it was annoying.

He pressed forward to weigh his options. Turned out, they had seen him the whole time. They just thought it would be a good idea to invite him over.

His irritation boiled over. In one swift motion, he conjured a spear and struck all three down without breaking stride.

“Tsk. You bastards. Great… now I have to face the rest too.”

His attack was enough to stir the warehouse. The murmurs that followed were confused, agitated, and carried through the walls with enough clarity to let Julien know he had been heard. Good.

He exhaled in annoyance.

He didn’t bother with patience. He hit the gates with everything he had and they gave way entirely, breaking apart under the force.

He was already surrounded by about twenty people before he knew it, and at a distance stood four people who didn’t seem bothered by his entrance. Obviously, he knew that was where he’d find his targets.

’I can’t waste too much strength. I don’t know how strong they are… and there are three, no, four of them now. Tsk. I need to be strategic.’

The men surged forward to attack. Then something shifted. One by one, some of them dropped to their knees, sweat breaking across their faces, the air seemingly leaving a few of them without warning. The attack faltered before it had properly begun.

It was his threatening presence at work. It was a technique learned from Arthur Rover, the Sun Phoenix. In the right hands, it was devastating, not for what it did to the body but for what it did to the mind.

It was something more insidious, a weight that settled over opponents before the first blow landed, draining them of hope before the battle had any reason to end.

Some of them had the will to keep moving through the pressure of it. Admirable, in a way. But will alone could only do so much when the weight was that heavy.

Julien moved through them methodically, and before long the floor held all of them.

Even the ones already brought down by his presence alone, he made sure of personally. None of them were getting back up.

He advanced toward the four people ahead, and then something strange enough caught him, bringing him to a halt before he could close the gap.

Purple’s description had been accurate enough. The three targets were present and accounted for, exactly as expected.

What hadn’t been accounted for was the figure standing beside them. Julien recognized him immediately.

One of the Kugo clan’s Four Wings, the youngest among them. Dark-skinned, buzz cut, a face that had no business being in this warehouse. Mike.

’Strange. What’s he doing here? Wait… could Purple have been telling the truth? The Kugo clan… really out of her control?’

He wanted to believe it was a coincidence. But he couldn’t shake the thought that Purple had sent him here knowing full well Mike would be there.

“So this is the guy… the one they say trailed Purple everywhere like some lost dog. Impressive.”

One of the men rolled his shoulders and started toward Julien, talking as he came.

Three steps, that was as far as he got. Mike’s blade moved faster than the sentence could finish, and the man’s head left his shoulders before anyone in the room had time to process it.

Julien acted on instinct, reading the confusion and moving through it.

His spear found one’s heart cleanly and the kill was immediate. The last of them, realizing what was happening, turned to flee but Mike handled that without a flinch.

Julien was wary of Mike. Clearly, they were having an interesting negotiation before he arrived, but to think he’d kill them. He didn’t know what to believe, but then, his mission was complete.

He turned, moving toward the exit, but Mike’s voice caught him before he could leave.

“Where do you think you are going?”

Julien scowled. He understood what this was and understanding it only made it worse.

“You aren’t my target, Mike. I only deal with Heart family agents. My master wouldn’t be pleased if I engaged you.”

Mike giggled shyly.

“You think I’ll let you leave? You weren’t meant to see him. That alone is enough reason for you to die.”

He knew how stubborn Mike was. That was exactly why he had wanted to leave. That option was gone now. He was going to have to talk his way out of this or fight.

He turned to Mike, who had closed in the distance to a very few meters away.

“The last thing I want is to break our alliance with the Kugo clan. I’m not even allowed to. I don’t care about your ties to these men or the Heart family, and I have no intention of telling Purple either. Let’s not let this go any further.”

His words fell on deaf ears. Mike assumed his stance.

“I don’t care. You’re going to die. I bet the others will congratulate me once it’s done.”

The recklessness of a twelve or maybe thirteen-year-old was one thing, but manageable if the kid was ordinary. Mike wasn’t ordinary.

Mike was one of the Four Wings, and that title came with the strength to match a tier-5 or lower. Julien was a tier-7. That spoke volumes about his situation.

Julien had lived long enough and worked too hard toward a specific end to throw it away here because a child couldn’t be reasoned with.

There was no avoiding it, a fight with Mike was coming whether he wanted it or not. But losing wasn’t something he intended to do.

With a heavy heart, Julien activated his threatening presence and drew a spear from the pool of blood surrounding him.

“Bring it on, kid, if that’s what you want. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

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