The masked man stood perfectly still, utilizing the massive, bleeding body of the gut-shot male disciple as a physical barricade. He aggressively dug his left thumb directly into the wounded assassin's eye socket, ignoring the wet, agonizing screams, forcefully wrenching the man's head back to expose his throat.
The heavy, serrated blade of the Ka-Bar rested flawlessly against the disciple's carotid artery.
Throughout the entire brutal maneuver, the masked man never once looked down at his hostage. His cold, dead eyes remained exclusively locked onto Zero, who was standing exactly ten meters away.
But the remaining two Shinobi disciples—the wiry male lead and the uninjured female—did not halt their assault simply because their brother had been taken hostage. They abandoned him instantly and exploded forward, weapons drawn.
Beneath the black balaclava, Anthony's brain seamlessly transitioned into a high-speed, localized killing machine.
Compensatory Perception instantly unfolded across his consciousness like an invisible, highly sensitive spiderweb. It perfectly mapped the ambient airflow, the specific trajectory of every single raindrop bleeding through the shattered window, and the microscopic, kinetic tremors of every enemy muscle fiber preparing to burst.
Rapid Calculation booted up simultaneously. A massive, freezing stream of tactical data actively washed over his mind.
Target One: Female disciple. Charging vector: Flanking assault. Distance: 7.2 meters. Impact time: 0.8 seconds. Threat level: High.
Target Two: Lead male disciple. Charging vector: Frontal stealth assault. Distance: 3.5 meters. Impact time: 0.2 seconds. Threat level: Lethal.
Anthony was intimately aware of the short, wiry male disciple's localized capabilities. In the original timeline, this specific assassin possessed combat skills nearly on par with Zero himself. He had even successfully ambushed and repeatedly knocked down John Wick.
But Anthony was absolutely not John Wick.
He didn't possess John's legendary, mythic endurance or raw, unstoppable physical durability. But Anthony possessed youth. He possessed a flawless, cybernetic combat computer actively processing reality in milliseconds.
And his Close Quarters Combat proficiency had recently broken into LV9.
BANG! BANG!
Anthony rapidly snapped his Glock 34 toward the wiry male disciple, firing two highly precise suppressive shots. The disciple was violently forced to abort his sprint and execute a dive to survive, temporarily removing him from the kinetic equation.
Anthony instantly abandoned the gut-shot hostage and violently charged the incoming female disciple.
Calculated evasion: 0.3-meter lateral slide neutralizes 87% of incoming blade trajectory.
Counterattack window: 0.5 seconds.
Primary target: Left axillary nerve plexus.
Anthony's physical biology moved in flawless, terrifying synchronization with his internal processor.
He executed a blindingly fast, low lateral slide. The female disciple's long-handled blade violently cleaved the empty air exactly where his head had been a microsecond prior, the razor edge grazing the fabric of his hood.
Utilizing the massive forward momentum of his slide, Anthony violently drove the Ka-Bar—held in a reverse grip in his left hand—upward with absolute, unparalleled precision directly into the female disciple's left armpit.
SHLUCK.
The heavy military blade sheared through her Kevlar weave and localized tendons with zero resistance, burying itself deep into her axillary nerve plexus.
The female disciple's entire body instantly went rigid. The agonizing, paralyzing pain caused her to let out a feral, guttural shriek. Her outstretched right arm instantly went entirely limp, dropping her weapon to the floor.
Without a microscopic fraction of hesitation, Anthony used his planted right foot as an axis, violently spinning his torso like a heavy top. He channeled the entire kinetic weight of his body into his left elbow, bringing it crashing down onto the exposed back of the paralyzed disciple's neck.
CRACK!
The sharp, deafening sound of her cervical vertebrae shattering echoed clearly over the pouring rain.
The fierce, bloodthirsty light entirely vanished from the female disciple's eyes. Her petite body collapsed heavily into a pool of oily, rusted water.
Eliminated in exactly 0.8 seconds.
A sharp, piercing hiss violently tore through the air from behind him.
The wiry male disciple had recovered from the suppressive fire. Moving like a striking viper, he lunged forward silently, violently thrusting his short-sword directly toward Anthony's right shoulder joint—the arm actively gripping the Glock.
There was absolutely no time to calculate an evasion vector.
Anthony forcefully yanked his right shoulder inward, actively leaning into the strike while simultaneously dropping his center of gravity.
CLACK.
The tip of the high-carbon short-sword tore cleanly through Anthony's black tactical jacket, but was instantly met with a harsh, metallic impact.
"Hard-shell ballistics!" the wiry disciple blurted out, his eyes widening in shock as the blade violently deflected off the concealed armor plate.
Seizing the microsecond of the assassin's kinetic imbalance, Anthony violently swung his left arm backward in a wide, sweeping arc. The heavy Ka-Bar forced the disciple to rapidly leap backward to avoid being gutted.
Anthony immediately brought the Glock around and fired three rapid shots.
The wiry disciple twisted his body mid-air, but the third bullet violently grazed his outer thigh, tearing through the muscle and drawing a heavy burst of arterial blood.
Ten meters away, Zero finally broke his perfectly stoic facade.
He watched three of his elite, hand-picked disciples be systematically slaughtered and crippled within a span of ten seconds. His face didn't register anger. It registered profound, absolute solemnity.
"Who exactly are you?" Zero asked, his tone entirely stripped of its previous arrogance.
"The Tarasov syndicate could fundamentally never possess an operator of your caliber."
Zero's mind raced, rapidly evaluating Gramont's localized enemies. A microscopic flicker of hesitation crossed his dark eyes.
"Are you... Anthony Tarasov?"
Zero analyzed the masked man's height, shoulder width, and localized build. They matched perfectly.
Then, Zero chuckled softly, answering his own question. "No. You are not Anthony."
In Zero's elitist worldview, mob bosses were simply administrative trash. Anthony Tarasov might possess the political audacity to beat Gramont in a penthouse, but he could absolutely never survive three seconds in a kinetic engagement against Shinobi masters.
The masked man standing before him possessed raw combat proficiency equal to his top disciple, but combined it with a terrifying, mathematically perfect cunning.
Anthony did not offer a single word in response.
He simply flicked the pooling blood from the blade of his Ka-Bar and slowly dropped into a highly disciplined combat stance.
It was a perfectly structured Russian Systema stance, but the localized mechanics were heavily modified. His center of gravity was kept dangerously low, and the angles of his forearms were highly unorthodox. It looked like a militarized killing art stripped entirely of its theory and optimized purely for slaughter.
The bleeding wiry disciple attempted to step forward, but Zero raised a single hand, ordering him to stand down.
Zero violently exploded forward.
His short-sword slashed upward in a blinding, silver arc, aiming directly to disembowel the masked man. The strike was horrifyingly swift, the angle absolutely lethal.
Anthony neither blocked nor retreated.
He violently charged forward, aggressively dropping his left forearm to intentionally intercept the blade.
CLACK!
Zero's sword violently struck the concealed carbon-fiber armor plating strapped to Anthony's forearm. Brilliant orange sparks showered into the darkness.
Simultaneously, Anthony clenched his right fist around the grip of his Glock and threw a devastating, bone-crushing punch directly at Zero's face.
Zero fluidly snapped his head backward, the heavy polymer grip grazing his chin.
The two men violently passed each other, instantly pivoting on their heels to face off again.
Zero charged again, this time unleashing an absolute torrential downpour of kinetic strikes. The silver blade moved so fast it literally wove a localized net of light, aggressively enveloping the masked man's entire body.
Anthony remained terrifyingly calm. He actively utilized the reinforced carbon-fiber plates hidden beneath his jacket to intentionally absorb the majority of the lethal slashes, simultaneously utilizing Compensatory Perception to hunt for a microscopic counterattack window.
The sound of the high-carbon steel repeatedly striking the composite armor echoed like a heavy, industrial machine gun.
But carbon-fiber was explicitly designed to catch blunt ballistic impacts, not to withstand the sustained, localized slicing of a Shinobi master.
After a dozen blinding strikes, the armor matrix began to groan and physically crack.
A flawless slash finally bypassed the weakened plate on Anthony's left shoulder, cleanly slicing through the tactical fabric and drawing a deep, burning line of blood across his skin.
A second violent cut bypassed his rib plating, inflicting the exact same localized trauma.
Anthony was bleeding, but the wounds were superficial.
He had successfully bought the exact window he was waiting for.
As Zero violently chambered his blade to execute a lethal, horizontal decapitation strike, Anthony entirely abandoned his defensive posture. He actively leaned forward, intentionally letting the blade bite into his shoulder, while simultaneously lunging with both hands to violently grab Zero's shoulders.
It was an absolutely suicidal combat maneuver.
Zero was genuinely caught off guard. Forced to abandon the decapitation, he attempted to rapidly retract his blade and backstep.
He was too slow. Anthony's ten fingers locked onto Zero's trapezius muscles like heavy steel meat-hooks, digging brutally into the flesh.
Zero let out a sharp grunt and aggressively drove his short-sword directly into Anthony's side.
Anthony violently twisted his hips. The blade sheared through his jacket and cleanly sliced open the flesh of his lower abdomen, but missed the vital organs.
Ignoring the burning agony, Anthony unleashed his entire kinetic chain. He physically lifted the Shinobi master entirely off the floor and violently slammed him back-first into a massive, reinforced concrete pillar.
Zero instantly adapted. He adjusted his localized posture mid-air, firmly planting both combat boots against the concrete, and utilized the heavy wall as a springboard to violently launch himself forward in a devastating counter-assault.
The absolute, freezing aura of death instantly enveloped Anthony's biology.
His Compensatory Perception red-lined, frantically tracking the lethal, unavoidable trajectory of Zero's blade aiming dead-center for his throat.
Anthony violently brought the Glock 34 up, shoving the dark muzzle directly into Zero's flight path.
If Zero committed to slicing Anthony's neck, the 9mm hollow-point would inevitably core out the assassin's brain stem.
Zero was a fanatic, but he absolutely refused to trade his life for a nameless mercenary.
Zero executed a flawless, microscopic mid-air contortion to evade the barrel of the gun. The razor tip of his sword was forced to shift its trajectory by a fraction of an inch.
That single, microscopic deviation was all Anthony needed.
Anthony violently snapped his head backward. The freezing steel of Zero's blade violently grazed the skin of his throat, missing his jugular vein by millimeters and leaving a thin, burning line of crimson across his neck.
Anthony's backward evasion caused him to lose his footing, sending him collapsing heavily to the concrete floor.
He landed directly at the feet of the bleeding, wiry male disciple.
A flash of genuine surprise crossed the disciple's eyes, but his elite training took over. He immediately raised his blade and violently thrust downward, aiming to pin Anthony's chest to the floor.
This was precisely what Anthony had calculated.
The exact microsecond Anthony's shoulders touched the concrete, his left leg violently lashed upward like a striking scorpion.
His heavy tactical boot, carrying the entire kinetic force of his falling body, violently slammed directly into the disciple's already-wounded shinbone.
CRUNCH!
The sickening sound of the tibia completely snapping was crisp enough to make teeth ache.
The wiry disciple let out a strangled cry and violently staggered sideways, the intense agony completely destroying his kinetic balance and sending his blade thrust wide.
Moving with the fluid agility of a stalking leopard, Anthony violently rolled across the filthy, blood-soaked floor.
SHHNK!
Zero landed and immediately slashed downward. His blade cleanly severed the back of Anthony's jacket, slicing deeply into the rear ballistic plate. If the hard-shell armor hadn't caught the steel, the strike would have completely severed Anthony's spine.
Anthony utilized the momentum of the roll to spring back to his feet, rapidly widening the gap between himself and the two assassins.
"You possess exactly one round left in that magazine," Zero noted coldly, tracking the weapon. "Do you honestly believe you can kill me with it?"
Anthony simply stared at him. He aggressively threw the blood-soaked Ka-Bar onto the concrete, reached behind his back, and flawlessly drew a secondary Glock 19.
Anthony unleashed a rapid-fire, overwhelming barrage of hollow-point ammunition, completely saturating the kill zone.
While his Compensatory Perception could mathematically predict the exact evasion vectors the assassins would take, the sheer, superhuman speed of the Shinobi meant the bullets failed to land center-mass, sparking violently against the concrete and grazing tactical fabric.
Zero and the crippled disciple were forced to execute a series of frantic, highly disheveled evasive maneuvers to survive the hailstorm of lead, violently diving behind the heavy textile machinery.
When the deafening echoes of the gunfire finally faded and Zero stepped back out of cover... the factory floor was entirely empty.
The masked man, along with Viktor and Pavel, had completely vanished into the rainy night.
"Master," the wiry disciple asked, leaning heavily against a pillar and panting through the agonizing pain of his shattered leg. "Was that a top-tier operator hired directly by Tarasov? I... I am unsure if I could have defeated him in a one-on-one engagement."
Zero frowned deeply, his mind meticulously scanning the vast archives of the High Table's global underworld.
He fundamentally did not believe a localized fighter of that terrifying caliber existed within the borders of New York City. He was entirely unsure if the masked man was a multi-million-dollar asset secretly employed by the Tarasovs, or an elite, third-party ghost who simply wished to cripple Gramont's operation.
Zero slowly turned his head, his cold eyes sweeping over the mutilated corpses of his three fallen disciples.
His face betrayed absolutely zero sadness, regret, or mourning. They had failed the mathematics of combat. Therefore, they were obsolete.
Zero smoothly wiped his blade clean, sheathed it, and walked silently into the darkness.
The surviving disciple briefly glanced at his dead brothers and sisters, offered a single, shallow sigh, and limped into the shadows behind his master.
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