Smooth Operator.

04. The Strange Disappearance Of The Silver Briefcase

CHAPTER FOUR
THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SILVER BRIEFCASE

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GLASS PIERCED THE AIR, AND BLACK CAT'S SKIN AS SHE COLLAPSED ON THE FLOOR IN A HEAP OF BODIES. The man in white was the first to move, pushing himself onto his feet with ease, as if the whole ordeal hadn't phased him in the slightest. His expression pulled into a scowl, he raised his arm to inspect something, and that was when Black Cat laid eyes on the huge knife in his grip, and the mobile phone pierced on the blade like a shish kebab.

Using her double clothing-armoured elbows to push herself up, instead of pressing her hands against the glass-ridden floor, she looked over at the second man, still sprawled out on the floor.

Right on the breast of his green zip-up beneath the coat was a vertical slit, where she assumed he'd been stabbed, and the only thing scathed was his phone.

As he pulled himself up, Black Cat took note of the silver briefcase in his grip. Oh? So he was the one who'd taken the decoy from the baggage storage, the decoy The Fruits had wrongfully assumed was the real case. So, if he had the decoy...

Black Cat's eyes searched the bar, taking her stand with the others. But no sign of the real case. She must've dropped it at some point in all the action.

The man in white roared as he raised his knife at the man in green, only to be redirected into the screen of a television with the shield of a silver briefcase.

This wasn't Black Cat's fight; she needed to find that case and get off the train, while the men were fighting.

If you truly think about it, men always resort to fighting. It was clear there was some unresolved shit between them, which wasn't her business, but the least they could do was talk it out – you know, man to man – instead of fuck up an expensive bar on an even more expensive bullet train just to get a point across with a blade.

As the woman scoured the floor of the bar, around the shards of glass and underneath chairs, the anxiety was rising in her chest. She knew it had been long past a minute, and she would have to wait for Shin-Yokohama if she wanted to disembark the Shinkansen, which only meant her chances of a less-than-successful mission were rising as fast as her anxiety.

She made her moves to behind the actual bar. Maybe it had slid back there upon impact? In the heat of retaliation, Black Cat had no recollection of ever letting go of the briefcase. Maybe her head hitting the wall also had something to do with that.

But the only thing she found behind the bar was pain. Pain as a grown man toppled over the counter top, landing on the woman, which was probably more fun for him than it was for her; whoever he was.

With a groan, Black Cat pushed the man off of her and placed her hand on the counter to pull herself up, but as she emerged from behind the bar, a certain man in white had other ideas.

Blafe glinting in the neon lights above his head, he grabbed the woman's wrist to hold her in place, and stabbed down with all his power, probably so blinded by rage that he hadn't even realised she wasn't his true opponent.

Her survival reflexes kicked in, and she spun out of the murderous stream of the man's blade, only catching the material of her coat and pinning it to the counter. God, she liked that coat, but everything is replaceable.