Chapter 356: Chip Slip
They all came at him at once: The railing guard from the left, the crate guard from the right - splitting wide, approaching from angles that would force Raizen to choose one and leave his back open to the other. Standard flanking procedure, executed with the coordinated efficiency of two people who’d trained together long enough that the tactic didn’t require communication.
The railing guard was bigger. Taller, broader, his baton held low in a guard that suggested he favoured upward strikes - sweeps aimed at the legs and torso, using his height to generate leverage on the rising arc. He moved with his weight forward, committed, closing the distance in long measured strides.
The crate guard was quicker. Shorter, lighter on his feet, his baton held high in a reverse grip that prioritized speed over power. He came in at a low, circling toward Raizen’s right side, looking for the blindspot that the railing guard’s approach was supposed to create.
Raizen read both of them in less than a second. The railing guard was the hammer. The crate guard was the needle. One would draw his attention with force, the other would slip through whatever gap opened.
He ran at the railing guard.
The decision was counterintuitive and immediate - charge the bigger threat, close the distance before the flanking could establish itself. The railing guard’s eyes showed surprise, the brief flash of a man whose target was supposed to be retreating and was instead accelerating toward him.
The baton came up. A rising sweep, just as Raizen had predicted - powerful, the blue-white crackling head climbing from knee height toward his chest in a diagonal arc that would have dropped him if it connected. Raizen planted his left foot and pivoted, his body rotating sideways as the baton cut past his chest close enough to raise the hairs on his arm. The static discharge tingled across his ribs without making contact, and for a half-second the railing guard was extended, his weight forward, his arm stretched to full length, the baton at the end of its arc with nowhere to go but back.
Raizen grabbed the extended arm. Both hands - one on the wrist, one on the elbow - and he pulled, using the guard’s own forward momentum to rotate him, turning the large body between himself and the incoming crate guard.
The crate guard’s thrust arrived a fraction of a second later - his baton stabbing forward in a quick, precise lunge aimed at the space where Raizen’s back had been. Instead, it found the railing guard’s shoulder. The crackling tip made contact with the uniform fabric, and the railing guard’s entire body seized - a full-body spasm, every muscle contracting simultaneously, a strangled grunt escaping his locked jaw as the voltage ripped through his nervous system.
The crate guard yanked his baton back. Horror crossed his face - the instant, visceral horror of someone who’d just tased their own partner, who was already calculating how much trouble and paperwork that would generate.
Raizen used the moment.
He released the railing guard’s arm and let the big man fall - stiff, twitching, temporarily paralyzed by his own colleague’s weapon. In the same motion, Raizen dropped low and drove forward, closing the two meters between himself and the crate guard before the man’s attention could shift from his fallen partner back to the actual threat.
The crate guard recovered fast. Credit to his training - the baton came around in a tight horizontal sweep aimed at Raizen’s head, quick and precise, the reverse grip generating a snapping arc that arrived faster than a standard swing would have. Raizen ducked under it, felt the static crawl across the top of his scalp, and came up inside the guard’s reach.
Too close for the baton. Too close for footwork. The kind of distance where fights were decided by whoever could move faster with their hands, and the crate guard’s hands were occupied by a weapon that was now more hindrance than help.
Raizen’s palm found the guard’s sternum and pushed - not hard, just enough to create a reaction. The guard shifted his weight backward, instinct taking over, his body retreating from the pressure. His heels adjusted and his back foot stepped onto something round, smooth, and unexpected.
A pickled radish chip.
The foot slipped. Just a fraction - a centimetre of lost traction, a momentary break in balance that lasted less than a heartbeat. But a heartbeat was enough. The guard’s weight shifted wrong, his centre of gravity moved past the point his stance could recover, and for one tiny window his hands went out to catch himself rather than to fight.
Raizen’s fingers found the pressure point at the side of the neck - the carotid junction, the one that controlled blood flow to the brain. He pressed hard and held. The guard’s eyes went wide, then unfocused, then closed, and he folded at the knees and sat down on the platform with the gentle precision of someone choosing to take a nap in an inconvenient location.
Three down.
Raizen turned to the railing guard, still on the ground, still twitching from the accidental tasing. The voltage was wearing off - his fingers were starting to flex, his jaw was unclenching, his eyes were regaining focus. In ten seconds he’d be functional. In twenty he’d be dangerous.
Raizen knelt beside him. Found the base-of-skull pressure point. Pressed.
The twitching stopped. The eyes closed.
All of them down.
The platform was quiet. The cargo doors still spilled their flame-red light onto the wood. The aircraft hovered at the platform’s edge, dark, smooth and silent, its loading ramp still extended from the open hold. Inside, visible through the ramp’s opening, crates and containers sat in neat rows, waiting to be lifted into the sky.
Raizen stood in the centre of the platform, surrounded by four unconscious guards, breathing hard, his hands still tingling from the pressure point strikes. His shirt-mask had slipped during the fight, the fabric bunching under his chin, and he pulled it back up over his nose with hands that weren’t entirely steady.
The aircraft was right there. Ten meters away. Ramp open. Hold exposed.
The files should be inside.
He looked back toward the tree where Saffi was still crouched on the branch.
She wasn’t there.
