Chapter 8: Ouni

Before Ouni could finish, gunfire broke out outside.

Behind him, in the parking lot in front of the motel, the Lucchese family's hitmen advanced slowly in matching black clothes, semiautomatic submachine guns raised. Flames spat from their muzzles, sending fragments flying from the ground-floor doors, windows, and walls. Most of those rooms held members of the Genovese family, but ordinary citizens and motel staff were in there too. Whoever they were, under that almost uninterrupted barrage, even those who weren't shot dead on the spot had no chance to show their heads.

Dewitt, Sonny, and Gava sat in a car parked just across the street from the motel, calmly watching the massacre.

“Me, I'd burst through the door, leap sideways, spin around spraying bullets, hit the ground in a roll, leave my opponents spattered all over the place, then calmly blow a wisp of smoke off the muzzle,” Dewitt joked, smoking an acrid cigarette in the enclosed car.

Sonny replied scornfully, “If you need stunt doubles, go hire a few in Hollywood. But if you want people killed while losing as few of your own men as possible, these are the best gunmen in the city.”

Dewitt smiled. “However good they are, it won't help. If Frank Genovese is in there, Ouni's bound to be there too. Ordinary people can't handle him. Once he comes out, I'll deal with him myself.”

Sonny narrowed his eyes, giving Dewitt a strange look. “So… you and Ouni are those so-called ability users?”

“Obviously,” Dewitt said. “An ordinary person taking out Tony, Joe, and all their men single-handed would be something out of a movie.”

It was a typical motel, with a spacious parking lot but few rooms and only two floors. Once they had shot the ground-floor walls practically full of holes, the hitmen stopped firing. In the few dozen seconds they spent waiting for their barrels to cool, they split into two groups. One went upstairs, while the other began searching the ground floor for anyone they had missed.

The process was a lot like hunting for zombies in a horror game. You never knew what was behind a door. Someone might be in a corner, in a cupboard, under a bed, behind an overturned table, or in the bathroom. The safer approach was to send bullets in first before opening any enclosed space.

How many civilians died was immaterial. How many Genovese men died was secondary too. Today's target was Frank Genovese. They had to find him alive or find his corpse. Of course, the dozen or so gunmen heading upstairs had no idea that behind one of those doors were both Frank, the Genovese family's second-in-command, and their godfather Samuel, who happened to be there as well.

Emptying a magazine through the door before opening it was standard procedure. When they reached the third room, the gunman facing the door was just about to pull the trigger when it flew outward as though blasted off its hinges, the force tearing the room's walls apart. The gunmen outside were knocked sprawling in all directions, and several fell from the second-floor walkway onto the open ground below.

“Hmph… just as I thought…” Dewitt opened the car door, got out, straightened his collar, and turned back to the other two. “The police will probably be here soon. Buy me some time.”

“What are you going to do?” Sonny asked.

“Most of their small fry have been cleared out,” Dewitt said. “Naturally, I'll handle the tough ones. Didn't you say you wanted to keep losses to a minimum? Those losses are mounting while you waste time asking me stupid questions.” With that, he swung the car door shut.

Ouni strode out, gun in hand, shooting every gunman he could see. He wasn't a perfect shot, but his marksmanship was certainly good. Within moments, Lucchese hitmen upstairs and down were falling wounded or dead. When they fired back, any bullet that came within half a meter of Ouni seemed to strike a layer of bulletproof glass and ricochet away.

“Gentlemen, I'll handle things here,” Dewitt said. “All of you, get out. There should still be Genovese men in the surrounding area. You'll also need to hold up the police.”

Ouni stopped shooting when he saw Dewitt. The Lucchese hitmen seemed to have realized that neither man was a normal human being, so they made no attempt to linger and quickly left.

Ouni jumped straight down from the second floor, landing less than three meters in front of Dewitt. He pointed his gun at Dewitt's head. “Things were stacked against us that night at the Wishbone Hotel, so I chose to get Mr. Genovese out first.” He kept walking forward. “Personally, if I'd been on my own that night, I'd have killed every last one of you.”

“Oh? Where exactly does all this confidence come from? Don't tell me you're a Strong-rank ability user?” Dewitt asked lightly. By then, Ouni had pressed the gun barrel against his forehead.

Ouni sneered. “Can't a Normal-rank user kill you? I could ask you the same thing. Are you Strong rank? That arrogant attitude is about the only resemblance I can see.”

“Hmph… I'm Normal rank, just like you,” Dewitt said. “But you still can't kill me. Of all the ability users I've met so far, none below Strong rank has been able to stand against me.”

“Bullshit!” Ouni pulled the trigger.

A shot rang out. Ouni expected Dewitt's head to burst like a watermelon the next instant. In reality, he was unharmed. It was the gun in Ouni's hand that burst. Its barrel peeled back into a flared shape, as though torn into seven or eight strips of cloth, and Ouni's palm was badly burned. He threw away the mangled lump of iron and retreated several meters, keeping his guard up. His right hand was a bloody mess. The smell of scorched flesh drifted into his nostrils like a taunt from Dewitt.

“I should make this clear up front. A cyborg can't possibly beat me. But there's no personal grudge between us. If you're willing to leave this city and stop working against me, I can let you live.”

Naturally, Ouni wasn't about to give up that easily. “How do you know I'm…”

Dewitt cut him off. “After our last meeting, I did some analysis of your capabilities. Apart from taking protective drugs, the simplest way to withstand an attack from wm2030 without being affected is to hide inside specially made protective armor. So you must be a cyborg, a cyborg in the true sense of the word.

“Of course, there's another possibility. If you really had the physical toughness of an ability user at Strong rank or above, you could have survived it too. But I don't think you do, because people at that level simply don't join organizations like the Mafia. If they want money and status, they can join HL directly. Those with ideals or convictions join resistance organizations, and those who want freedom go it alone as unaffiliated fighters. In any case, people at Strong rank or above generally don't turn to crime to make a living.

“Heh… people like you and me, though, have to bow and scrape for our daily bread. So I'll ask you again, to save us both some time and give what little mercy I have an outlet. Would you kindly disappear from my sight?”