Miho the Killer
Chapter 77: Tiger Dance

Chapter 77: Tiger Dance

My heart was beating so hard I was sure that the guards at the entrance to the fourth floor could hear it. As soon as we walked up to the fourth floor - the final floor where President Ryu was to be expecting the delivery in his office at the end of the corridor -, the change is the level of tension was palpable. It was no longer casual nod and exchange of prearranged pass codes.

There were two well-built men guarding at the top of the staircase, and once they let us pass them, there were further three men who looked hard as nails at the final checkpoint.

None of them were bulky muscle beasts like the ones downstairs. They looked lean, mean, and athletic. Maybe they didn’t have the brute force of the big men at the front door of the club, but I could imagine they’d give a good fight even for Miho.

"Ladies, we will have to search you for weapons."

One of them announced standing behind a small desk, and there were two standing just behind him with their eyes firmly fixed on us too.

Now we were surrounded by two behind us and three in front of us.

"Don’t be daft. You can’t touch the courier." Miho calmly responded.

"Our house, our rules." The man behind the desk smiled.

"Your house does not respect the Convention?" Tiger spoke. Challenging.

"Bringing weapons during delivery is also against the Convention."

"We have no weapons on us. Look at the courier. She’s wearing a dress with heels. What the hell are you guys talking about?"

"Just a standard procedure. You are here to protect the courier, we are here to protect our boss. Please understand." A man spoke from behind us, a deliberate reminder that we were surrounded here.

"You can search me, but if your hand so much as brushes her, I will kill you. All of you."

That earned a round of laughter from all five men.

"ALL of us?" One of the three men in front of us chuckled.

"Yes. All of you."

"Is that a threat against us in our own house?"

I felt like I could barely stand still, but Miho was getting riled up and I knew this could go very wrong. I had to de-escalate the situation although I was completely out of my league here.

"Please, I’m just here to deliver. Do what you have to do."

Just as Miho was about to protest, one of the men raised a handheld metal detector.

"Look, we will use this. My colleague here was just messing about. Of course, we won’t touch the courier - be it a man or a woman."

That brought me such a relief I had to do my best not to let out a sigh.

"I will accept."

I conceded and Miho tsk-ed. The one with the detector then approached and gestured us to raise our arms, and ran it along our bodies. Miho growled when the security wand made a contact with my body, but I shushed her and let them do the search.

"Everything OK now?"

I asked when the search was over.

"The bag. We will check the bag."

"YOU CANNOT TOUCH THE DELIVERY BAG."

Miho shot back sharply.

"We are authorized by our boss to check that the bag indeed contains the goods." The man at the desk spoke firmly and motioned for me to put the bag on the table.

:Beep:

And here came the bigger problem.

The one with the detector ran it over my suitcase and it made the distinct alarm sound.

"Now we absolutely must check the bag. YOU broke the rules. The delivery bag must be clean."

"Oh, it must be just the handle or something."

I panicked and tried to smooth the situation.

Then everyone went quiet and looked at me as if I said the weirdest thing ever. I looked over at Miho and she made the subtlest wince.

"You are not a real courier, are you?"

A guard from behind us challenged me quietly, in a voice that was almost a whisper.

"Put the bag on the table and show them what’s inside."

Miho told me what to do and just as I was about to comply, she continued.

"We will leave the suitcase here and only bring what’s inside to President Ryu. Would that be acceptable?"

"That works. But you will have to stay behind." The one behind the desk leaned forward and demanded.

"Accepted." I turned in shock to face Miho on my side although I didn’t quite know how to ’protest’ this decision in front of these guys guys here, but she quickly stopped me anyway by placing her hand on my shoulder.

"Put the bag on the table and release it open."

This is bad -

Because just as she said ’release’ Miho subtly raised her index finger and tapped on my shoulder.

This could only mean one thing.

I gave Miho a nod of acknowledgment, placed the suitcase on the desk in front, opened it, let my hand run through its edges, pressed the little switch near the hinge, and stepped aside.

10.

"It’s got the goods, yes."

The one who received the suitcase at the desk confirmed.

9.

"Is everything OK now?" I asked.

8.

"Yes, but your bodyguard-" the man reiterated.

7.

"I get it. I will stay here." Miho complied.

6.

"Thank you for your cooperation." One said from behind.

5.

"But while we wait." Her voice suddenly turned casual.

4.

"Don’t you guys want to-"

3.

"Dance a little?"

2.

Confused looks.

1.

"With a tiger."

:Bang - Swish:

With a short sound of bang and quick swish of the gas pump mechanism, something flew out of the hinge side of the suitcase and Miho quickly grabbed them.

I instinctively followed Miho to duck and crouch to the floor, and it all happened in impossibly quick and swift motion.

After crouching, with two blades now firmly in her hands - each of them about the length of the forearm -, she spun them around for a reverse grip. As she did this, she also pivoted on her foot to do a 180 turn, facing the two men who were standing behind us. I saw them quickly reach for their own weapons too, whatever they were.

But it was too late and Miho had the momentum already.

The tigress launched herself upward from the crouching position with a loud roar and each blade precisely hit the crotches of the man on the left and the man on the right, after which she spun the knives again to switch to standard grip and plunged the blades into their guts.

As fast as she was in taking down the two men behind us though, by this point the three that were in front of us had all drawn their own weapons. One had a knife not so different from Miho’s, another had a hammer, and the last one had what seemed to be a bicycle chain.

I saw the chain get thrown toward Miho first but he - probably correctly - aimed for Miho’s knife holding hand. But now my beast was unleashed and she was on a roll - literally.

With a quick front roll, she closed the distance with the three men and slashed through the Achilles tendon of the one holding the knife, which made him scream in agony and fall to his knees.

The one in the middle with the hammer tried to crack her skull, but she planted the blades on the body of the man who had just fallen to quickly turn herself around to one side, effectively using him as a meat-shield, or more accurately, a skull-shield.

The hammer guy winced and took a step away while the other man swung his chain one more time to aim at Miho, but now the clever cat had the full control of the limp body that just got cut on the tendon, stabbed on the body, and hammered on the head, so she let him get pelted with the chain too.

Of course, Miho didn’t miss the short window of opportunity that opened up for her before the chain man could pull his weapon back and have another whip.

Instead of launching herself at him again, she rolled out toward the other end of the corridor where the hammer man was running towards, and this is where all her knife-throwing practice paid off.

One knife was thrown directly at the chain man’s throat and landed precisely on the hollow at the base of the throat. Without missing a beat, she then threw the second knife at the back of the neck of the hammer guy, which stabbed right into the sweet spot where the skull meets the spine.

Both men fell to the ground with almost synchronized thuds.

The fully awakened killer then walked over to the man near the final door first, retrieved the knife, and walked back toward me, getting the other one back from the throat of the chain man too.

She then knelt in front of me and asked in her ever-so gentle voice.

"Are you alright?"

She always asks me this when I should be the one who’s asking.