Dark Angel, Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“Who the hell are you?!”  The killed growled as Kiran stepped into the light before him.

Kiran was not wearing his brown trench coat like he was before he left the police station.  Now he was dressed in a black shirt with a grey hooded sweat shirt, black pants, black shoes, black fingerless gloves, and some sort of silver sash around his waist. 
         
“Isn’t it obvious?”  Kiran replied.  “I’m you.”

There was a long object tucked into the back of his sash leaning over to his right side that looked like a piece of wood.

“Don’t fuck with me!”  The killer growled as he extended his hand forwards as if to attack Kiran.
The man was well out of reach, but Kiran felt a shockwave of force hit him anyways and he slid back over a meter and into the bulkhead wall.

“I see,”  Kiran said calmly as he picked himself up and stood before the killer again.  “So you’re a TK too.”

“What?!”  The man growled, sending another wave of energy in Kiran’s direction.

Kiran slid back backwards again, but this time he did not lose his footing and stopped before he ran into anything.

“A telekinetic.”  Kiran replied, this time thrusting his own palm forward.

The wave of telekinetic Kiran sent out was at least twice that of the one the man had struck Kiran with, and it knocked the killer clear off of his feet and onto his backside several meters outside of the door he had torn open to enter the room.  The man quickly jumped to his feet and stared back at Kiran.

“Who…”  He gasped for a moment, trying to catch his breath.  “Who are you?”

“I’m the real ‘Dark Angel’.”  Kiran said coldly as he stepped passed the bulkhead and onto the cat walk.

Kiran thrust his arm out again and sent another wave of telekinetic at the man.  The killer held up both arms in the defensive position to brace himself from the wave.  It still sent him sliding back another meter, but he managed to remain on his feet, if only just barely.

“You…”  The killer stuttered.  “You… can’t be…”

“That’s right.”  Kiran continued as he advanced upon the man, placing his right on the end of the wooden staff tucked into the back of his sash.  “I’m the one you’ve been copy cating for the last two weeks.”

Another wave of energy forced the man to fall off of the catwalk and down to the warehouse floor seven below.  Kiran leaped over the railing and landed gracefully on the floor with ease.

“And it’s annoying.”  Kiran continued, advancing upon the killer again.  “It’s taken me weeks to track you down.  What a damned inconvenience.”

The man crawled to his feet and then thrust both hands forward and sent another wave of energy at Kiran, which forced him to recoil a little.
Kiran steadied himself and prepared to attack again.  Kiran pulled on the handle of the wooden stick and it gave way from the rest of the shaft, slowly extending outward to reveal a single edged, silver blade that had been made to look like an ordinary staff.  The man pulled his own sword from his back, a double edged blade somewhat reminiscent of renaissance European culture.

Kiran charged in and attacked, swinging his blade with his right hand in a horizontal arc aimed at the man’s rib cage.  The man turned his sword vertically with both hands blocked Kiran’s attack, only be to be punched square across the face by Kiran’s free left hand.  The man recoiled and maintained his footing, only be hit by another wave of telekinetic force before he had a chance to recover, sending him straight into the nearest wall of the dock warehouse.

“Bastard!”  The man screamed as he climbed to his feet and charged at Kiran.

He held his sword in both hands above his head in the high guard stance, a stance Kiran was very familiar with.  Long ago, Kiran had battled a man, another psychic, who had utilized the high guard stance with his strong swordsmanship.  The Japanese called the stance jodan no kamae.  Striking from high to low allowed gravity to assist with the attack adding speed, power, and efficiency.  Kiran, on the other hand, used a more unorthodox style.  Kiran held the blade in his dominant hand with his grip on the sword reversed, wielding it more like a long dagger.  This way he could make wide, powerful sweeping attacks using punching motions while leaving his left hand free to divert attacks and made open hand strikes while the enemy’s blade was engaged.

Too slow.

Kiran parried the attack aside easily and countered with a strike of his own, sweeping horizontally from left to right.  The man blocked again with both hands, but riposted and countered before Kiran could strike him again with his left.  He struck downwards in diagonal patterns on either side aiming for Kirin’s neck.  Kiran block several attacks, then avoided the last and swept his blade upwards in a diagonal mark aimed at the man’s thigh.  The man retreated back a step to evade Kiran’s strike, but Kiran quickly swept out the man’s forward ankle and sent him crashing down to the floor on his backside, barely able to parry away Kiran’s follow up attack, a downward thrust that would have skewered him like a shrimp.  The man kicked out at Kiran and rolled away as Kiran blocked, scrambling to his feet and attacking again by sending another wave of telekinetic energy in Kiran’s direction that was bigger than anything he had shown so far, this time using his sword as the extension from which to strike.

Being a telekinetic this killer had been more than a match for any of the bodyguards or criminals he had killed in the past, but not a trained psychic like Kiran.  Kiran held up his free left hand as if to block and easily staved away the wave of force aimed at his person.  The man stared on in disbelief at the feat and was easily caught off guard as a consequence.  Kiran had wasted no time in closing the distance so that he could make his counter attack, and his strike was aimed at the man’s legs.  He tried to dodge, but his momentary loss of composure had cost him too much time and his right ankle was cut at least half an inch in.  He limped back in pain and barely managed to block Kiran’s next attack that was aimed for his chest.  Kiran then thrust his sword directly down into the floor and pierced it nearly ten centimeters.  The attack released a shockwave of energy that radiated outwards in a circular pattern that did not affect Kiran, but sent his opponent flying off of his feet and into the air.

The man used his telekinesis to try to steady his fall and returned to the ground on his feet, but Kiran was there first and struck out at the man’s arm with his sword, severing the tendons just below his wrist.  The man cried out in pain and dropped his weapon just before Kiran used his own telekinesis to grab the man out of mid air and throw him into the adjacent bulkhead back first.  The wind was driven from the man’s lungs and he coughed up blood as he impacted onto the hard steel surface.  Kiran caught man’s blade before it hit the ground in his free left hand and darted back at his opponent before he could regain his composure, running him through with his own blade directly beneath the bridge of the rib cage.  More blood flowed from the man’s mouth as the gripped the blade of his own sword in a desperate attempt to pull it out.

“You’re...not… Dark Angel.”  The killer growled through his bloody teeth.  “You never left… a signature before.”

“Dark Angel is the name the papers gave to the signature you left at your crime scenes,”  Kiran replied.  “Crime scenes you tried to pass off as my work.”

“How?”  The man wheezed.  “How is what I did… any different… from what you are doing?”

“You kill petty criminals for cash and your own ends.”  Kiran replied.  “I bring psychics who would use their powers for evil to justice.”

Kiran twisted the blade clockwise, causing the man to wince in pain and cough up more blood.  He could already see the life fading from his eyes.

“People like you.”

“But…” 

Before the man could finish his sentence Kiran pulled the blade half and inch to his right, cutting the aorta just above his heart and killing him instantly.  Blood trickled down from the man’s back and chest, dripping from his arms and his sword and pooling in a puddle beneath him.  Kiran waved his right hand outwards and used his telekinesis to splatter the pooled blood outwards across the wall next to the former serial killing psychic.  The resulting splatter formed the perfect drawing of a single wing of an angel.

“I must admit,”  Kiran said calmly.  “I have… become attached to the name.”

He could hear the sirens approaching in the distance.  By now Vincent must have realized that Kiran had sent him to defend the wrong crime lord and was on his way over to Robert Cruz’s warehouse.  Too little, too late.  Kiran would be long gone before they arrived on the scene.  He would make his way back up the catwalk on the onto the roof and leave the way he came, using the roof tops to mask his return back to the police station, where he would be waiting when Lieutenant Vincent returned or called for him.

Kiran turned and left the man there, skewered to the wall with his own weapon with a single angel wing drawn on his left side out of his own blood. 

“From now on, that’s what they’ll call me.”  Kiran said coldly.

Dark Angel.