Page 119 of Dragon 7

A guard stumbled backward into a crate.

Reo finished him against it.

The final man got his daggers up halfway. One twin pinned the wrist with a blade through it and the other took his throat, and the daggers clattered to the floor without firing.

Akiro’s guards were dead in seconds.

Good.

Then Akiro uncoiled the kusarigama. “Will you all be going after me or will you make it fair with just one?”

Kenji leaned his head to the side. “Make it fair?”

I laughed. “You’re more like our father than I’ve ever given you credit for.”

Akiro blinked. “Is that right?”

“You’re an absolute coward.”

“Hiro.” Akiro glared. “The funny brother.”

“And you were always just our father’s puppet.”

Fast, Akiro whipped the chain. The heavy ball cracked against a steel support beam beside my head. The sound rang through the whole space like a struck bell, and I felt it in my teeth.

I dropped under the backswing.

The sickle came next, a flat silver arc aimed at my eyes, and I gave ground and let it pass and felt the wind of it on my cheek. The chain caught a cargo strap on the recoil and Akiro snapped his wrist and tore it loose, and the ball came around again from a wall I hadn't been watching.

This was the trouble with him in a box.

In the open, a chain weapon needed room. In here, every surface gave it back from a new direction—floor, ceiling, crate, beam.

He bounced it off the metal and made the whole cabin into his hand. I couldn't trade range with that. I had to take it away from him.

“That’s enough of that.” I closed in on him.

Behind me Kenji's guns clicked.

What?

He had them out fast and aimed to the side. Fire bloomed orange at the muzzles, lighting the cabin in two-foot bursts. Thank God he didn’t use bullets.

Men I hadn't seen rose out of the darkness from behind crates, and rushed us.

Smart. You hid some, but we’re too strong, Akiro.

Kenji set them on fire.

"There’s more of them!" Reo called out.

I looked over my shoulder.

Seven rushed out of the cockpit.

Not bad planning, Akiro, but still. . .too much has happened for us to die here.

We all battled them.