Location: British Airlines Flight 404
Altitude: 35,000 feet
Status: Hostile Engagement
Agent 47 moved with the silence of a shadow detaching itself from a wall.
He unbuckled his seatbelt, the click lost beneath the drone of the engines. He stood in the aisle of the first-class cabin, the ornate dagger still gripped in his left hand, his own briefcase held in his right like a shield.
Facing him, standing near the cockpit curtain, was the assailant.
He was clad in a tactical modification of traditional robes—layers of blue and black fabric that concealed armor plating. His face was hidden behind a mask, a painted visage of a Beijing Opera character. The Death Dealer.
47's eyes narrowed, scanning the opponent.
Subject: Male. Height: 5'11". Weight: 170lbs. Stance: Wushu-based, low center of gravity. Weaponry: Throwing daggers, concealed blades. Threat Assessment: High.
The man didn't speak. He didn't posture. He simply raised a hand, and three more daggers appeared between his knuckles like steel claws.
47 dropped the briefcase. It was dead weight now.
The Death Dealer flicked his wrist. The daggers flew.
47 didn't dodge; the aisle was too narrow. He deflected. He raised the dagger he had pulled from his briefcase, using the flat of the blade to bat two of the projectiles aside. The third grazed the shoulder of his suit jacket, shredding the expensive wool but missing the flesh.
The sound of metal striking metal was sharp, but quiet.
The Death Dealer charged.
He moved like liquid smoke, closing the ten meters between them in a burst of acrobatic speed. He leaped, using the headrest of an empty seat as a springboard, launching a spinning heel kick aimed at 47's temple.
47 didn't retreat. He stepped into the arc.
He caught the Dealer's ankle with his left hand, absorbing the kinetic force with his enhanced skeletal structure. With his right, he drove a palm strike into the man's thigh.
The Dealer twisted in mid-air, defying gravity, and slashed at 47's wrist with a hidden blade in his gauntlet.
47 released the leg instantly, leaning back. The blade hissed past his throat, cutting a single thread from his tie.
They separated, resetting in the narrow aisle.
The passengers slept on, oblivious. The ambient noise of the Boeing 787 masked the scuffle, and the divider curtains contained the violence.
47 analyzed the fighting style. It was flashy, acrobatic, and reliant on misdirection and speed. It was a style designed to overwhelm and confuse.
Counter-strategy: Nullification.
47 shifted his stance. He abandoned the rigid, military efficiency of Krav Maga. He adopted a fluid, grounded posture—a hybrid of Judo and Aikido. He would not strike; he would intercept.
The Dealer attacked again, a flurry of hand strikes and blade swipes.
47 caught a wrist. Twisted. Redirected the force into a bulkhead.
He parried a dagger thrust. Stepped inside the guard. Checked the elbow.
The fight became a blur of hands and cloth. It was silent, brutal, and terrifyingly fast. They moved down the aisle, a deadly dance where one mistake meant death.
The Dealer tried to use a curtain cord to garrote 47. 47 caught the cord, wrapped it around his own forearm, and yanked the Dealer forward into a headbutt.
Thud.
The mask didn't crack, but the head snapped back.
They crashed through the curtain separating First Class from the galley.
The Flight Attendant who had served 47 milk earlier lay on the floor. She wasn't dead. A small, feathered dart protruded from her neck. Her chest rose and fell in a deep, chemically induced rhythm.
Non-lethal. Specific.
The Dealer used the extra space of the galley to unleash a spinning tornado kick. 47 ducked, sweeping the Dealer's standing leg.
The Dealer hit the floor but kipped up instantly, drawing two short swords from his back. He tilted his head, a silent acknowledgement of the threat before him.
"You are theatrical," 47 noted.
The Dealer lunged. The swords were a problem. They extended his reach.
47 grabbed a stainless steel coffee pot from the warmer. It was boiling hot.
He threw the liquid, not at the Dealer, but at the floor between them.
The Dealer hesitated, his footing compromised by the slick, hot liquid.
In that microsecond of hesitation, 47 attacked.
He disarmed the Dealer of the right sword with a wrist lock that would have shattered a normal man's radius. He took the weapon.
Now it was a sword fight.
Clang. Spark. Clang.
47 fought with cold precision. He didn't swing; he thrust. He parried the Death Dealer's strikes with minimal movement, conserving energy while the Dealer burned his on flips and spins.
They slammed against the cockpit door. The lock gave way under their combined weight.
They tumbled into the flight deck.
The cockpit was bathed in the soft glow of the instrument panels. The autopilot was engaged.
The pilot and co-pilot were slumped over their yokes. Like the attendant, they were breathing, neutralized by tranquilizer darts embedded in their necks.
The Death Dealer kicked 47 away, creating distance. He stood by the emergency escape hatch on the ceiling of the cockpit.
He was panting. Blood seeped from a wound in his side where 47 had tagged him. His left arm hung uselessly, the shoulder dislocated by 47's earlier throw.
47 stood by the unconscious pilot. He held the stolen short sword. He wasn't breathing hard. He had barely broken a sweat.
"Surrender," 47 said. "There is nowhere to go."
The Death Dealer looked at the instrument panel, then at 47. The painted mask stared back, mute and unyielding.
He didn't offer a word. He didn't offer a plea.
He reached up with his good arm and yanked the emergency release lever of the overhead hatch.
KA-CHUNK. HISS.
The cabin pressure equalization failed instantly.
The hatch blew outward.
The roar of the wind at 35,000 feet was deafening. A hurricane erupted inside the cockpit. Loose papers, charts, and the flight manuals were sucked out into the night. The temperature plummeted to forty degrees below zero.
The plane lurched violently, the autopilot fighting the sudden drag.
The Death Dealer jumped.
He didn't hesitate. He launched himself upward, grabbing the rim of the hatch and hauling himself out into the void.
47 dropped the sword and lunged.
He grabbed the edge of the hatch frame, fighting the G-force that tried to tear him apart. He pulled himself up, his head breaking the seal of the fuselage.
The wind tore at his face, rippling his skin. He looked down.
The Death Dealer was falling. He was a small, tumbling shape in the darkness. He had no parachute. It was suicide.
But he wasn't flailing. He was falling in a controlled dive.
47's enhanced eyes tracked him.
Below the commercial airliner, matching its speed perfectly, was a shadow.
It was a jet, but not a military interceptor. It was sleek, matte black, with forward-swept wings and no visible exhaust plume. It was utilizing active camouflage, shimmering like a mirage against the night sky.
On the dorsal fuselage, a hatch slid open.
The Death Dealer adjusted his angle. He dropped straight into the opening.
The hatch sealed.
As the stealth jet banked away, peeling off into the clouds, 47 saw the insignia painted on the tail in dark gray.
Ten interlocking circles.
47 memorized the symbol. He didn't know it, but he filed it away in his eidetic memory.
He pulled himself back into the cockpit.
He grabbed the handle of the emergency hatch and slammed it shut with great difficulty, engaging the manual locks.
The howling wind died instantly, replaced by the screaming of the altitude alarms.
The plane was listing. The autopilot had disengaged due to the structural stress.
47 moved to the pilot's seat. He pulled the unconscious captain back, securing him in the harness.
He sat on the edge of the seat. He grabbed the yoke.
The artificial horizon was tilted twenty degrees. Altitude was stable but shaking.
47 scanned the controls. It was a Boeing 787. He knew the layout.
He corrected the trim. He leveled the wings.
Once the horizon was flat, he reached for the Flight Management Computer. He re-engaged the autopilot.
The plane smoothed out, returning to its pre-programmed vector toward London.
47 stood up.
He removed the dart from the pilot's neck. Then the co-pilot's.
He walked back into the galley. He removed the dart from the Flight Attendant's neck and pocketed it.
He knelt beside her. He tapped her cheek lightly, then shook her shoulder.
"Miss?" 47 said, pitching his voice to sound concerned, bordering on urgent. "Miss, wake up."
The attendant groaned, her eyes fluttering open. She looked dazed.
"Wh... what happened?"
"Turbulence," 47 said, helping her sit up. "Severe clear-air turbulence. You hit your head. I believe the pilots may have been affected as well. The plane felt... unguided for a moment."
The attendant's eyes went wide. "The pilots!"
She scrambled to her feet, swaying slightly, and rushed toward the cockpit.
"Captain?" she called out, pushing through the door.
47 didn't wait. He smoothed his jacket, ensuring the stolen hard drive was secure in his inner pocket.
He walked back into the First Class cabin with his briefcase in his hand, which he had retrieved from the ground.
It was still dark. The passengers were stirring, grumbling about the sudden shaking, but none had woken fully.
47 slid into Seat 2A. He buckled his seatbelt.
He picked up his glass of water. It had spilled slightly during the dive, droplets staining the tray table.
He wiped them away with a napkin.
He leaned back and closed his eyes.
To the world, he was just a passenger who had slept through a rough patch of air.
To the Ten Rings, he was a ghost who had seen their face.
He processed the fight. The symbol. The stealth technology. The skill of the assassin.
47 breathed in slow, rhythmic cycles.
He waited for the landing.
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