#heartrip

 it's violent , waking up . sonya blade had stopped hiding blades under her pillow since many years ago but her undeniable mistrust towards the world stays the same , the world turns and people change and shit happens . hell she didn't even believe the married people letting someone else sleep beside them for so many years . so kano's gentle touch to bring her back from dreamlands meet with sonya's distaste ; first a frown on her sweaty face , a quiet and restrained noise and then her loose fist colliding with his chest rather clumsily . ' where am i , where is he where - ' her heart beats in her throat as she pants , grips onto kano's wrist tight enough to leave a bruise .

   ' are you a real blonde then ? ? '

 her tage is a blessing , truth to be told it was always working on her advantage when it blinded her pretty grey eyes . but today she barely ate anything and she can't deny the guy was a little too big , maybe her mistake was to tire herself too much , maybe it just wasn't possible to break a guy's neck with a dizzy head and angry yells . a few hours , and her knees start trembling , her punches become sloppy and it's getting harder and harder to force her vision to stay clear and focused .

 slightly tanned flesh of hers glisten with sweat , she blindly reaches for a metal bar behind herself to hit the man with but before any action is taken he's sticking his bald head under her stomach and lifting her up like a paper . the crowd cheers loudly when her back hits the cold ground , pulling out a small grunt from the blondie , from the corner of her eye she sees ( and hears ) a man scream . ' finish her ! get her ! ' her weak arms try to support her weight on elbows , glaring still , a low growl vibrating in her chest . the sight of a large saw being picked up , it settles horror in her barely functioning mind . she lets her head bump back against the floor , closing her eyes , panting , imagining ; has kano came to see the show ? and isn't it a little too low of him to let someone else kill her ? she hates that his voice is the last thing that echoes in her head , as blood rolls down her cheek from one nostril .

It didn’t mean that Kabal had to enjoy it. Nor did he have to simply accept it. More so, if he wanted to complain, he could. It may not have done much to fix the situation or anything at all, but it was still something that he could do.

However, in this case, it was just to make a fuss.

Kabal didn’t even care, he was just more insulted that Kano believed he could actually get away with it! There was precedence in it. There had to be, but would Kabal ever admit to such a thing? No, of course not … he wasn’t going to open is mouth when quite obviously it wasn’t worth it to say anything.

At least, not in this moment. A first … though mostly because Kabal was making a large deal out of nothing.

Low hiss escaped his as he caught the cloth. No doubt a few curses being said as a way to get out his anger. All in regards to the grander scheme of things. To play it off as if he was hurt far more than he was.

“I don’t cry.”

At least, that was what Kabal told himself.

Reality may have been drastically different, but it didn’t matter. All that did was what he told himself on a daily basis. It got him through the day and that was truly all that mattered.

“And next time, you’re getting it returned tenfold.” If he remembered. Most likely not. He didn’t think that it actually mattered in all reality.  It was just words. “Do remember that.”

“You’d think, but brooding is so … boring.”

Not that Vince could talk, he’d done equally boring things, but never of the brooding nature for long. Not to say he couldn’t be pig headed … among with fifty other things, but truly, that was besides the point entirely. 

“You’d think, but I suppose that is what happens. They think a brooding fest will assist matters. Unfortunately, it does little.”

All it really did was cause a headache. Not to mention it was boring - for which, he already mentioned before.

“I suppose,” he says, a deep sigh escaping his lips, “if we truly have to. Just as long as we get away from the . . . smell of brooding.”

Get a letter from my muse || Open

Date: 7/16/2021

Receiver: Kano

From: Frost Unit LK1200

Dear Kano (that sounds awful, no offense)

Lately, I’ve been collecting data about our enemies, however, it's easier to spy on the Lin Kuei rather than Special Forces, their network is hard to track and that’s frying my circuits... I never thought I’d say “this shit is frying my circuits”, but here we are. Anyway, I gathered some info about a mission they are about to develop in Hungary, is a small one, didn’t part of your group was located there too? I advise you to warn them as fast as you can, get them out of there or something, you know your people more than I do.

I also found an interesting collection of butterfly knives recently and I borrowed from someone who I think was a member of the White Lotus. Don’t worry, they are sleeping with the fishes now, I saw that collection and thought “I think Kano would like these, right?”. Let me know if you want them, they seem sharp and new. The bad news is that I can’t find the beer you told me about anywhere, I can’t even get close to a market or I’d call the attention instantly. It’s beautiful to be feared but I forgot how much people can get frightened from seeing me, you’re gonna have to do that yourself.

send one to get a kiss from my muse . accepting

Melissa had been hanging with people of questionable morals and even more terrible criminal records for too long to fail to realize she was currently being followed. It was a strange feeling – a light prickling at the back of her neck, some unprompted shivers and an overall alertness that she didn’t possess otherwise. She was always looking out for herself to avoid trouble, sure – but this was different. That feeling followed her from place to place, appeared at random times of her day.

One morning, while she visited the Killer Queen to retrieve some personal belongings, she felt it again – even if the place was deserted since opening hours were still very far away. She had just recently sold it to one of her own girls, a bittersweet smile taking residence on her face as she remembered it: maybe it was a tradition now. A girl behind the counter with the intel that the people needed and building herself a small safe haven.

But it was no longer her safe haven – quite the contrary. As she walked through empty hallways in search of the stuff she had left in the office, Melissa thought she had heard something. Frowning, she paused and sneaked into the kitchen, moving as quietly as she could. Retrieving a knife had been the easy part – the hard one was to focus on her sixth sense, crawling around and hoping to find nothing, but nonetheless fearing she was right.

The woman had moved to stay behind the counter – crouched at first, then silently raising her body to peek at the empty lounge where little to no sunshine got through thanks to the (mostly) closed windows. But there was a chair who had been pulled apart from the others, standing on four legs on the ground rather than upside down on the table with the rest.

And on that chair, there was Kano – sitting in the middle of the place like he had built himself a throne at her home turf and looking at her with an unreadable gaze. There was a blinking, red dot that still unnerved her, but not nearly as much as the first time. Slowly but steadily, Melissa got used to it too, as well as the scars and all his crazy stories about the people he had met, the guys he had fought… She had always thought he had been delirious and experiencing the after-effects of some hallucinogenic drug, but the tales had been too detailed for that.

“Yer leaving.”

His voice was cool and controlled – no question, just a statement. Dropping the knife on the counter, Melissa sighed before moving away and in his general direction, her eyes growing used to the lack of sunlight. It had been Kano tailing her – it all made sense now. It was strange to be relieved that she was familiar with the man who had been stalking her the last week. A lot of her friends would have told her to be careful – to stay away.

And yet, the woman moved to claim a seat on his lap, facing him directly. Her arms were over his shoulders, their heads seeing at the same level thanks to the additional height bump his legs offered as a seat. Melissa had never really told the Australian about this – apparently, he had other intel sources who saw fit to inform him.

“Yeah. I… Was going to tell you. Just didn’t know how,” she shrugged, inhaling deeply. It felt like an appropriate setting to close that chapter of her life, she felt – both of them at the very center of the place where they met for the first time and where so many memories were shared. “I really… Didn’t want to do this, you know.”

“I do,” he nodded softly, and his voice sounded just a little bit rougher – was there some sort of emotion creeping up or had she imagined it? But then Melissa remembered the following, and realized Kano had noticed she had avoided going to the bar the best she could. She had returned her apartment back to the owner, had sold the car, had auctioned some furniture she couldn’t carry and had been living at a small motel room and using cabs for the last two days. Everything pointed to her leaving – but she had been taking her time. She had struggled to say goodbye. To that place.

To him.

“But Edgar died – my father,” she added as an explanation, no emotion coloring her voice where the passing of a parent was concerned. But her features softened almost immediately as she continued, “But I can’t leave them alone now. I came here to support my sisters, I love them. They’re the most precious things that I have and…”

Melissa was speechless for a moment – she had been living apart from her family for so long, but they were family. Rose and Heather, the twins – the reasons she had moved to a big city to try and make money and offer them a chance. Now, they were desolate – alone. There was so much shit to be dealt with Edgar’s death that she needed to go back to her hometown, and honestly… Melissa didn’t know if she would ever make it back to the city.

She couldn’t taint her sisters’ lives with her intel business – she couldn’t risk it all. So, at the end of the day, she had sold it all, got rid of her connections – all to ensure they would be safe. And that… Had included Kano. The Black Dragon leader, the mercenary she had helped far more than she should – and who was making this so damn difficult.

The (former) barmaid had no words – so instead she just leaned forward, lips pressing against his in a soft touch at first, almost like a gentle caress; but it turned out to be the calm before the storm only, and before long her hands had embraced him around the neck, her mouth devouring Kano’s as if she was about to die and never taste him again – and for all purposes, it felt like dying a little. Giving up everything she had built for a good, understandable purpose, but God, it hurt. She wished she could tell him how much, to scream from the top of her lungs about everything that was left unsaid…

…But Melissa had never been too good with words – she hoped that kiss had done the trick.

“Goodbye, Kano,” she said at length while pulling away, her body moving away from his familiar and comforting presence slowly. Her eyes were now shining under the limited sunlight, the tears too fresh and too close to running down her cheeks – but she didn’t want to break down in front of him.

And when she searched his eyes for something, it stunned Melissa to realize his one good eye was misty, too. Maybe it was the light, she thought; maybe some small illusion to offer some comfort one last time as his arms slowly unwrapped around her, releasing the former bar owner into the wild.

“See ya, Mel.”

His words were nothing out of the ordinary – almost as if they were calling it a night and agreeing to meet in the next day; but his face, his body language, his voice – everything told her a different story and before she knew, a tear rolled down.