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.

Black Cat pulled her arms out of the sleeves, providing her with movement again as her brown coat sat damaged under a blade. Without taking as long as she did to choose Japanese snacks, the woman tore an alcohol bottle from the shelf and drove it into the head of the man attacking her.

Glass and expensive-smelling alcohol ripped through the air, and the man in white crumbled to the floor. Black Cat swore she saw blood erupt from a newly-formed gash in the side of his head.

The second man, the one in green, rolled out from behind the bar to take hold of the case. He set himself up, seated against the wall, the decoy case positioned in front of him like a shield. And then the man in blood-stained white, rose from the dead again, head dripping with and drenched in deep, dark blood.

His knife glinted in the light once again as he held it high, taking it by the blade between his thumb and middle and index fingers. He drew his arm back, and launched it forwards.

In her time, Black Cat had seen many flying blades – shurikens, switchblades, meat cleavers, butter knives – all of which were flying at her, and only a few had managed to hit. But never before had she seen an act of throwing a blade end so... badly.

As the blade went somersaulting towards his face, the man in green, who'd by now lost his trench coat and bucket hat, brought the silver case up to protect his face, his whole body tensing, bracing for impact. And the knife let out a cling as it ricocheted off the case, sparks flying upon the impact of silver on silver.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the knife spun in the air, inverting its previous stream from man in white to man in green, to from man in green to man in white. Black Cat saw the cocoa bean eyes of the curly-haired man widen in the glare of the flying blade.

His whole body stumbled backwards as the knife plunged heavily into his heart. Crimson began to spill from the crevices of the wound, staining the white jacket even more. Black Cat certainly wouldn't want to be the one taking that suit to the dry cleaners. Eyebrows furrowed, the man brought a shaking hand to ghost over the handle of the knife. He knew he'd met his fate, and there was nothing left to undo what had been so brutally done.

"Mi corazón," he managed to choke out, his knees beginning to buckle beneath him. As his body went limb, swivelling as he fell back-first onto the man in green, death rattled from his diaphragm, the life draining from him as he fell with the hard click of his neck breaking upon impact with the stood-up briefcase.

Both Black Cat and the man in green let out a gasp, both frozen in astonishment. Their eyes lingered on the body in front of them, before rolling over to meet. Jaws were slack in shock, hands hovering in the air, unsure what to even do now.

The man reluctantly moved his fingers to press against the corpse's neck. He shook his head, staring wide-eyed at the body. "I— He— What the fuck..." He muttered.

A long sigh exhaled from between his lips as he leaned back against the wall, head lightly hitting the wood. "Let this be a lesson in the toxicity of anger..." He breathed, shaking his head softly.

And he looked up at The Black Car.

"What's your name, girl?" He asked, finally addressing her after the tiring ordeal.

Black Cat let out a soft, awkward laugh, crossing her arms. "It's Estela," she stated, giving out her real name as opposed to her codename. Giving out the codename breached her anonymity policy, in which she kept the name "Black Cat" fully separate from her true identity: Estela Guerrero. "And yours?"

The man shrugged, furrowing his brows as his stare trailed back down to the body between his legs. "Just call me Ladybug."

Black Cat nodded, staring just as hard at the corpse as Ladybug, blood still spilling from where the knife had hit.

She looked back down at the counter top, where her coat lay, slightly knifed-up. She was no longer interested in wearing it, but realised this mission was going to be a lot more difficult than she was once led to believe.

She reached inside the coat, into an inner pocket, and pulled out her silver Beretta 92X. It was apparent to her that the people on this train were dangerous, and extra reinforcement was going to be vital. She tucked it into the inner breast pocket of her black blazer and straightened herself out.

Ladybug studied her with narrowed eyes. "Aren't you gonna help me?" He asked expectantly.

Black Cat stared over at him, somewhat cluelessly, eyes moving between his black-framed glasses and the bleeding-out corpse.

The woman let out an airy chuckle. "That was your fight, I'm sorry," she spoke, a soft Spanish tinge to her British accent. "I didn't mean to get involved."

In reaction, Ladybug let out a heavy sigh, as if trying to guilt her into helping him, but didn't shout for her when she stepped out of the torn-up bar carriage. Condolences for whoever had to clean up.

Heart pumping, anxiety increasing, Black Cat stepped out into the compartment between carriages. Her eyes searched the space, only for no briefcase to appear or start to glow to let her know she'd found it.

Fuck.