I made this story a year ago to help practice fight scenes. It helped a lot, since I always had a problem with visualizing a fight between a swordsman and a gunman. After watching anime/reading manga such as Cowboy Bebop and Gunslinger Girl, I always wanted to have a fight like that, but it was harder than I thought. So I decided to sit down and dedicate an entire short story to combat practice.

However, I liked the main character and universe, even though I kept them vague intentionally. I've written other things in the universe, and I'm in the process of writing another story with the same protagonist.

Anyway, I came across this earlier this week and realized that, for a story I really liked, I never published it on the internet. I figured that I should fix that. ;P

I have a miniature epic poem with the same protagonist that I'll be uploading in a few minutes, so if you liked this, check it out.

Running Shadow

A man wearing a cloak of a hue of sanguine bandage ran down a clammy and dark tunnel. The moment he heard a gunshot, he stopped and spun around to meet his opponent. Behind him was a woman with small goggles and a tactical pistol. She had a wide smile which grew bigger as she spoke.

“Hey, zere. My name ez Teresa d’Arachna. I am ze azazin known az ze Spider Lady. I ‘ave been zent to keel you,” she said. She extended her arm with the gun towards the cloaked man. “I am only doing zis because I have to. Zorry, darling, please forgeeve me.”

The assassin fired her weapon. The man side-stepped it and began to run away. D’Arachna followed as quickly as she could. The cloaked man ducked into a nook in the wall to formulate a strategy. An idea popped into his head when he saw the gas tanks lying by the wall next to him.

“Ztop hiding,” said the Spider Lady. “You are going to die, her und now. I’m un of ze top mercenary azazins in zis country, and you, darling, are just a renegade ze gover’ment dozn’t like. If you azk me, you-”

She cut herself off when the man threw a tank at her and shot it with his revolver. The bullet pierced the metal and ignited the gas inside, exploding and consuming the woman in the process.

The man, protected by the wall, was completely unharmed. He ran back down the tunnel, away from the Spider Lady’s corpse.

After twenty more minutes of running, he climbed up a ladder attached to the side of the tunnel. At the top, he pushed off the manhole cover and peeked outside to find himself in an alley broken off of a crowded street.

He climbed out and took a deep breath, glad he could breathe air that was not tinted with stagnant water once more. After he replaced the manhole cover, he climbed up the fire escape of the adjacent building to the right and went onto the roof.

He ran and jumped from one roof to another, bypassing the crowded street below him. When he landed on one of the roofs though, he was intercepted by a group of men wearing all black, most of them with helmets on. Every single one had a sub-machinegun pointed in his direction.

One of the helmet-less men with an HUD visor shouted, “Fire at will!” and the entire group released a larger spray of bullets. The man hopped back between the roof and the previous building.

He gracefully landed on the ground and turned to the exit of the alley, only to see two men wearing white body armor and an HUD each. One held a large handgun and the other held a Japanese longsword.

“He fell for it, Jones,” the one with the sword said.

“He didn’t have much choice, Mach,” the gunfighter responded. “Proceed with caution. This armor won’t do much.”

“You’re always the same. No romance,” said Mach. He drew his sword and ran towards the cloaked man. “This is for Johnson!”

Mach cut upwards from his right side. The cloaked man drew his gun and bound the blade in between the trigger-guard and the fore-stock.

“Tch, you’re as fast as they say,” muttered Mach. He pulled his sword back several inches, performed a coupé over the gun, and swung at the man’s other side. However, the cloaked man successfully dodged the swing, and he was able to raise his pistol and fire it at the swordsman.

The bullet was shot out of the air by a rival bullet. The two dented shards of metal fell to the ground: one of tungsten, the other steel. The gunfighter stood behind the sword fighter with his gun parallel to the ground. “Mach, I told you to be careful.”

“But we can’t get anything done if we hold back!” Mach responded.

“Maybe so, but dying isn’t on my to-do list, and unless it is on yours, you should reserve yourself,” said Jones. “Here’s an idea. I keep him in range for you, and you cut him down. I’ll try to shoot out any bullet he fires, but I can’t protect you from everything.”

“Sounds good to me!” shouted the swordfighter, who quickly advanced and lunged at the cloaked man.

“Wait!” yelled the gunfighter.

The order was too late. Jones could not shoot the cloaked man with Mach’s obstruction, and was unable to stop the bullet that the cloaked man discharged. Mach saw the bullet and tried to evade it, but it still hit him in the arm.

Not wanting to stop so close to him, Mach continued with the lunge. The blade, swung from the lower left, ultimately only nicked the man’s right wrist.

“Mach!” shouted Jones. “Damn it, see what you’ve done?!” he ran in front of Mach and pointed his gun at the cloaked man. The cloaked man turned to the building on his left and jumped on it. When Jones fired at him, he pushed off the wall and onto the opposite wall. He continued jumping from each wall to the other until he was on the building on the left side of the alley.

“…Damn it,” muttered Jones. He turned and knelt so he could see Mach at eye level. “…You okay?”

“Yeah. A flesh wound—no bone. Once the bullet is removed, it should heal all right,” Mach answered.

“Good.” Jones slapped Mach with his left hand. “You idiot! We had him! Do you know how many feds and mercenaries he’s killed?!”

“B-but he killed Johnson…”

“That doesn’t mean anything! I was Johnson’s friend too! I knew his wife and kids just as well as you did! Don’t think for a second that I don’t understand what you’re going through! Your actions were, nonetheless, despicable!” Jones stopped yelling, out of breath. He sighed and continued, “We’re definitely going to get in trouble for this. Looks like us three, the Three Fists, are at an end. ‘The world’s greatest swordfighter’ just received a bullet in the arm, and ‘the world’s greatest gunfighter’ is yelling at his partner. And ‘the world’s greatest sniper’ is dead, of all things. I guess we weren’t supposed to be as great as we dreamed, huh?”

Jones slumped onto the wall to his left. “That man is barely human. He’s killed 137 assassins, both freelance and federal. He’s earned just as many names. ‘Crimson Nightmare’, ‘Bloody Phantom’, ‘Red Scare’, ‘Cornered Fox’, ‘Scarlet Death’, ‘Running Shadow’…and now I see that he’s earned them. I understand how he was able to kill Johnson will a pistol from 600 feet away. He moves like a combination of an acrobat and a martial artist.”

Jones pushed off the wall and walked back to Mach. “Isn’t it peculiar that we haven’t even been told why he’s being pursued? Granted, resisting capture is an offense, but there must be more.”

Mach did not respond. “Come one,” said Jones, “let’s get that injury taken care of.”

The cloaked man continued running, constantly changing his course to ensure he did not run into more enemies. He continued running and never stopped.

At least for that day.