Wish upon the Stars chapter 32

I woke up with a headache, which was confusing for a minute. Then I  remembered what had happened and I kind of wished I was still confused.  Stricture was the Evil Eye, he'd caught me...somehow, and then tracked  me down and knocked me out. Now I was...actually where was I? I looked  around. Well, I tried to look around, but my body wouldn't move even an  inch so I ended up mostly just scanning the room with my eyes. It  limited my field of view, but gave me enough information that I was able  to tell that I was probably going to die.

The  room around me was old looking, damp and dark and made of wood, with a  musty smell and one very dim light bulb casting light on a small circle  of floor in the middle of a space that was open except for me, standing  there frozen like an asshole. My head was killing me and I was having  trouble focusing, so I didn't hear anyone approaching until the door  opened and stricture walked inside. He closed it behind him with a frown  and glared at me. "Do you realize how much trouble you've caused me?"

I  didn't, nor did I care, but neither of those things meant shit to him,  especially since I couldn't actually open my mouth to speak. In  retrospect, the guy named Stricture having a power that could render  people immobile was stupidly obvious, and it also shed light on the tiny  slip up Attic Bat had made during his final moments. I imagined getting  hit with that during combat would trip anyone up. I tried straining to  break it, but I couldn't even tense my muscles to try to exert my  strength.

Stricture  rolled his eyes, sitting down on a chair he retrieved from a darkened  corner of the room. "Don't bother, I synergized several restraint skills  with my Minor Binding power to create my Lesser Restriction ability.  Throwing it off without an Impact advantage is nearly impossible unless  you do it right at the start. Now, we need to make this quick, because I  have to dispose of you and get back to the guild before anyone notices  my absence. That brat Calliope is probably looking for you as we speak,  which should distract her from looking for me, for a bit at least."

I  glared at him, because I couldn't do anything else, because I couldn't  fucking move. He rolled his eyes. "I'll unbind your mouth but there are  rules. I need to know what gave me away, so I can make sure someone else  doesn't figure it out before I finish my last kill and leave. However,  that doesn't do me any good if I get caught NOW, so if you scream I'll  kill you, if you refuse to answer my questions, I'll kill you, if you  try to trick me, I'll know, and I'll kill you. You may speak now, tell  me you understand."

My  mouth strained a bit as I opened it, but I worked my jaw a bit and got  it looses enough to talk. "I understand. I'll answer your questions. I  just want to know. Why?" I actually didn't care why, but this asshole  liked to hear himself talk and time he was mid monologue was time he  wasn't cutting my face off. I expected some kind of rant about his  glorious purpose or his destiny, but I was pretty disappointed by what I  got instead.

He  shrugged. "Power. I'm right on the edge of G rank right now. I was  stuck before, couldn't get any traction, and switching sides is a well  known way to gain stats. I wanted more though, I wanted a name that  would ring through this whole planet. I wanted a reputation that would  ensure I reached F rank, and then E rank after that. Once I kill Stella  I'll be reviled. Not only will I be a terrifying serial killer, I'll be a  traitor who carved a bloody path out of my own guild. The rewards will  be immeasurable."

I  blinked. That was...that was actually kind of a solid plan. Except one  small thing. "You realize even if killing her somehow boosted you to G  rank there are a dozen executives and an F ranked assassin from the main  branch in the city. You'll never get away with murdering her. They'll  kill you before you reap any benefits." Stricture was a sneaky asshole,  but he wasn't some kind of assassin god, once he killed Stella he WOULD  get caught.

He  rolled his eyes again. "Which brings us to why you're here. I need to  know what they know. I've already arranged passage out of the system  with the Black Sorrow Cult once I'm done. As for the actual killing my  knife will be more than enough for that. In fact, you'll be a huge help  there. Your murder will distract everyone involved. Stella's brat is  your mentor and little Callie is obviously sweet on you. I'll dump your  body on the other side of town and then slip in to finish her off while  they're all investigating your death. Now, how did you know it was me?"

I  opened my mouth to respond but stopped. That actually begged a better  question. "How did you know I knew? Granted I'm not a master spy or  anything, but seeing me get squirrely after your little speech wouldn't  tip you off that you were blown. So why did you chase me down?" It  seemed like such a random choice, and if he wasn't sure I knew then this  whole thing was the stupidest possible response to his suspicion. He  had to have some sort of confirmation I'd figured him out.

The  grin he gave in response to my question was smug and vicious, and  expression that seemed out of place on his normally blank face. He held  up a hand, adorned with a single black ring. "A commission from my  friends at the Black Sorrow Cult. It's called a secret band. You bind a  secret into the metal and every time someone new learns it the ring  heats up slightly. An early warning system in case of discovery. The  temperature went up a few degrees when you were staring at me, and when  you started panicking and left in a hurry I knew I was compromised. Now,  I'll ask one more time and then I'm going to start hurting you. How did  you figure out I was the killer?"

I  kind of wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but he would have  murdered me without blinking, and as my head started to clear I began to  form a semblance of a place. It would take me a bit to get my head  together enough to pull it off though, and I would only get one chance  because if it didn't work I was fucked. His Vitality could easily be  five times what mine was and still be H rank, so I couldn't afford to  miss with my first shot. Luckily I DID have a skill in my DS bag of  tricks to help with this...probably.

The  skill in question was meant for escaping physical bindings, but it did  work on stuns in game, so there was a pretty good chance it would get me  out of this. So now my only real job was to keep him distracted until  my head stopped ringing like a church bell. Which meant playing along.  "I found a scrap of fabric at the scene of Attic Bat's death. The guild  master has it now. I didn't recognize it because it was small and such a  weird pattern but then when I saw you today I recognized the design  from a tie I saw you wear the first day I met you. I wouldn't have even  noticed that if you hadn't slipped up during the fight with Attic Bat."

I'd  been hoping he would ask me what the slip up was, thus delaying longer,  but sadly he just groaned in frustration. "He was tougher than  expected. It can be difficult to estimate what someone's stats will be  based on their reputation. It's easy to miss things and people don't  always talk about their impressions. It's not an exact science. Besides,  how was I supposed to know the paranoid lunatic had the whole place  wired for surveillance. " He sounded genuinely annoyed, and I had to  fight back a smile at the minor victory.

Regardless  he seemed to have gotten the answers he wanted, because he stood up and  slipped a knife out of a sheath in his jacket, it looked weirdly  familiar for some reason, and when I got it I glared at him. "Were you  seriously using your murder weapon to slice an apple AT the guild?" I  didn't know why that pissed me off so much when he was already going to  kill me with it, but it REALLY did.

He  just grinned at me. "What can I say? I have a flare for the dramatic,  even if people don't know it. Anyway, I'd close my eyes if I were you.  Based on the expressions on my victims faces, watching your blood pour  out onto the floor makes it worse for some reason." He shrugged, then  drew back his knife, readying to end me. My head was still pounding but  not so badly I couldn't resonate my skills at this point, so I forced my  way through the pain and activated a particularly useful Rogue skill.

The  skill was called Double Trouble. It let you shake off a restraint,  usually things like grasping vines or stone shackles, but like I said it  worked on stun spells too so I was pretty sure it would free me.  Besides transporting me right behind my enemy it also left behind an  illusionary double in the position I had been in. I appeared behind  Stricture's back and reached down to grab my tonfas. I was understandbly  annoyed that I didn't HAVE the damn things, because no one was stupid  enough to leave someone sitting around with weapons.

Luckily  I did still have something, even if it was less than ideal. My suit had  been storing the damage from every blow I'd taken since I got it, an  ability I'd never actually used. I put myself in position and ruthlessly  smashed my fist into the most devastating spot I could think of, the  base of the bastards skull. I didn't have any martial arts training  really and all my gaming experience had taught me was stabbing people,  so I just hit what seemed like the most fragile spot.

As  I did so, I activated Mercy Kill even as I released the impact stored  in the suit. This was literally the worst possible idea I could think  of, but it was also the ONLY idea I could think of. This asshole was  stronger than me, and much better trained. If I gave him a chance to get  up he was going to fucking butcher me, which meant I needed to end him  like he wanted to do to me. I didn't have time to debate the ethics of  killing a serial killer or worry about my fragile psyche, I just needed  to finish him. The problem was that I was still limited to two skills  per day, and while I had both available, I had already seen what  happened when I depleted both points of Impact with my enchanting one  after the other.

As my fist hit his  neck, I felt the energy rush out of my hand, amplified by Mercy Kill  and by my own ten full points of Might. As high up as he might have been  in H rank, Stricture was still an H ranker, he had the same amount of  Impact as me, and Vitality wasn't defense as much as regeneration. My  blow smashed mercilessly into the back of his neck and I both felt and  heard his spine snap as all that force landed in the most vulnerable  spot I could find. As I blacked out again from overexertion, I could  only hope that had been enough, but let's face it, I would have been  dead either way if it wasn't.