As the man in blue fell down on the floor, White Bastard jumped up the bar counter and threw another two shurikens from the hidden pocket beneath his left forearm. The two shurikens ripped straight toward the man’s neck. There was no time to dodge or duck. His pinky and thumb pressed the two ends of the dagger to pull the center of the knife against his own middle finger, which was now bent. The curved dagger got catapulted out as the middle finger reached out. The two ten inches daggers whirled and smashed with the two shurikens. The four projectiles descended around the man’s head. Before his knives attached the floor, he pinched the ends of two hilts. His arms pulled out, his wrists spun, and his fingers let the knives go. The two pairs of joints cooperated together like a machine to swing out the two daggers toward White Bastard. All these happened before White Bastard ever had a chance to shoot another shuriken. One missed, and the other one was caught by grabbing the hilt. As a talented fighter, The man on the ground didn’t waste time to see if he missed or not. He bounced up and backflipped to stand up speedily with two shurikens in his hands.

“Good job, kid,” White Bastard said as he jumped down from the counter. “Call me Oriental Blue, grandpa,” He swayed the two shurikens like a boxer swayed his fist. He grinned with confidence and pride. “I wonder if there’s Occidental Blue,” White didn’t swagger like Blue did. The mask covered his paralysis-like face. He slightly crooked his right elbow so that he could reach the dagger out faster when he needed to. “Jealous of my name? Black Bastard. It’s really a bad name. Who named you?” Blue said with tiny steps creeping backward to the door. “You are trying to escape,” White Bastard followed and revealed, which caused Oriental Blue to frown for a second. “Why?” He interrogated and asserted, “You aren’t afraid.” “You’re smart,” Blue said while flipping and scuttling at the same time. Flipping the two shurikens with his thumbs like how he flipped a coin, scuttling the same way as the last time scuttled to approach White Bastard. The two shurikens were knocked away by the dagger, but Oriental Blue still ran away. White chased to the door frame and heard the sirens. “Haaah, haaah,” White sighed and left the bar.

A white van backed out from the alley it choked. No brand and any other decoration were on the vehicle. There weren’t a lot of cars or people outside. Everything looked so natural. Like this giant van was supposed to be there. Like nothing wrong had happened. The driver was a white male wearing an exaggerated black jacket. His face, without any expression, showed no clue how he saw everything he had done. People won’t understand that Asian, too. He walked past the street with an exaggerated brown coat. He couldn’t stop laughing, but what was he laughing for?

Cinkarry sat on the driver’s seat, thinking about Oriental Blue and his technique, “He is well-trained, I can tell, but he wasn’t a step-following fighter. The daggers he hid in his boots did amaze me for a second. Although, it wasn’t the most annoying thing. I suspect that John is Oriental Blue, but I barely have any evidence right now.” Not sad, not happy, not excited, not sorry, but worried. The face showed no expression, not even a poker face, but tired.

The vehicle stopped at White Bastard’s secret base, that alley. He climbed up the backrest of his seat. He lay there and bent over on it, facing down with hands and feet on different sides. He booted one or two times and dropped on the back of his van. His head landed first, then the rest of his body got down by the spine’s stretching. His heels smashed on the ground. His arms half-extended and leaned on the wall. He lay in this small space that he couldn’t even stretch his whole body. Half of the bean bag chair was laid by him. He bent his knees and reached out, repeating again and another without a pattern. An empty plastic jar was next to his feet. A white pillow was squeezed by his waist and was grasped by the hand that wasn’t on the bean bag. White Bastard closed his tired eyes. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What should I do!?”

John Zhang went into the living room with a backpack in his hand. “Where did you go?” His grandma asked while she was weaving and listening to the television. “Just wandering…” He threw his pack over granny’s head, then he sat between his grandma and the bag. He hugged her. He hugged her hard. “Am I cool?” He wasn’t in a bad mood like White Bastard right now. “Cooooooolist ever,” grandma glanced at John, then kept weaving and laughed like a classic Asian elderly, “Hehehehehehe.” “What are you weaving?” John leaned on the couch. He was now at one of his most exciting and exhausting days. “A scarf,” grandma answered with a string of melancholy leaking out of her. John didn’t perceive it. He was still recalling that fight, which he had reviewed more than ten times already. Though John himself didn’t defeat White Bastard even by a little, and technically what happened was called running away. Still, he showed his ability to quarrel with someone like White Bastard. “For me?” He asked. “No, for your grandfather.” She answered softly, smoothly, kindly, and seriously like she already knew he was going to say that. John was stunned for a second. He needed a moment for his brain to respond to what she said. “I’m sorry,” that was the only three words that came out of his mouth. “Don’t be sorry. He’s a great hero and a great soldier. His death is honorable,” Her voice was still soft and smooth, but the strength it brought out wasn’t ignorable in any way.