As long as you are breathing

Where is Zahid

“Martial arts?” said Kashon with a smirk, “I fight in the streets. These punches you throw at me nothing compared to all the hits I get from metal bats.”

Then he immediately threw away his shirt to show the many scars he had on his body.

“Being stabbed isn’t anything new. I get stabbed almost every day. That’s how a gang to gang fight looks like,” he continued. Then put a hand behind his waist and added, “Speaking of stabs…”

He then drew out a knife.

“Let’s see how you guys fare with the real deal,” he said as the knife shined a glitter of light.

Meanwhile, the group kept circling and jabbing around the trio.

“Dang, we are stale,” said Khalid.

“What do we do?” continued Walid.

“I guess we only know how to receive orders,” answered Sajid.

But the group of three wasn’t going to sit around and jab forever. One of them decided, “Hey, we aren’t in the ring anymore. We can throw punches wherever we want.”

He immediately threw an uppercut in Khalid’s balls. He fell down unable to bear the pain.

Meanwhile, on Kalil’s side, it was time for Kalil to counterattack. One of them threw a jump spin hook kick. Kalil instead of retreating like earlier dashed forward, ending up too close to him to receive a hit. He used the momentum of the dash to throw a cross which left the opponent off-balanced for a couple of steps.

Kalil wanted to follow it up with a roundhouse kick but the other fighter threw one. Kalil ducked underneath it and while getting up he jumped backward to create distance, leaving his opponent unable to continue the combo.

Zahed, on the other hand, wasn’t having any hard time dealing with the knife. He parried each attack from the Kashon’s wrist which saved him from cuts. But the attacks he threw as counters still didn’t seem to faze him as much.

“As expected of the martial arts guy, knife defense is something you must have been practicing for a hell lot,” remarked Kashon.

“Well, I am impressed by your toughness too, Mister gangster,” replied Kashon.

“Umm… I did not say I was impressed,” replied Kashon confused.

“Oh, I take back my compliment too,” awkwardly answered Zahid.

While on the trios’ side, all three being fallen with uppercuts to the groin gave the boxers to mount upon them and throw all the punches they could. That is when they realized something. They can’t generate their power from the ground anymore.

But little did the boxers know, ground support is the only thing they lose in this position. Grappling! That’s the most powerful tool on the ground. Although armies aren’t master grapplers, they have their fair share of training to work off from the ground.

They bumped their hips causing the boxers to fall in front. Out of instinct, they put their palms on

the ground so that they don’t hit their face. But that was a part of the army’s strategy.

They performed their usual army strategy and put them into a reverse kimura hold.

Meanwhile, Kalil got used to dealing with two opponents at the same time. He synchronized his rhythm with their attacks. He dodged a jab from one and threw a light cross. But as the other intended to throw a front kick at him, he checked it with his knees and then returned a light leg kick.

“Are your… huff… huff… attacks… huff …huff …actually going to… huff …huff… damage us?” asked one of his opponents.

“These attacks aren’t intended for pain as much as stamina draining. Look at how heavy you are breathing,” answered Kalil with a smirk.

“Things are getting pretty on their side now,” Kashon thought as he took a moment of analysis of the battlefield. Then, he suddenly smirked as he said, “Well they don’t know the surprise waiting for them.”

“Why ya smirking tough guy?” said Zahid as he greeted Kashon with a punch to the cheek.

“Find out!” he answered as tried to stab Zahid’s throat.

As usual, Zahid dashed back and completely dodged it. Not as usual though, the knife suddenly extended to turn into a long sword and almost hit Zahid. But Zahid moved his head to the side. Yet, the knife managed to cut his left cheek.

“What the! You aren’t using a regular knife, are you?” exclaimed Zahid.

“Definitely not,” answered Kashon, “You heard about the specialized weapons in the announcement. I am using one of those. There’s no button on this knife. It extends when I want it to. And I knew it as soon as I touched it. It’s absurd I know. But this is what happened.”

Suddenly a vulture attacked Zahid. He barely managed to gain dominance over its wilderness and bring it down to the ground. But as the bleeding increased cause of the vulture’s attack, more vultures started to target Zahid and Zahid noticed it the instant they flapped their wings.

Zahid understood there is no fighting these vultures. Their number is too intense. Zahid rushed in a random direction. He tried moving in through the buildings, not expecting that the vultures would stay in the building too.

Kalil wanted to go try to save Zahid, reducing the number of vultures as much as he can. But the taekwondo practitioners took the opportunity of Kalil’s shifted focus to sneak an attack to Kalil. One threw a roundhouse to the gut and the other guy threw one to the head, throwing Kalil to the ground.

On the other hand, one of the boxers shouted to the other boxers, “This is not a grappling match. This is a real fight. Biting can make all the difference.”

But the trios bumped their hips yet again and threw them off balance on the ground. They then changed their position to perform a rear-naked choke.

“Doesn’t matter that you guys can fight without rules. Armies aren’t trained for the ring. We are trained for the battlefield where anything goes,” said Khalid.

“Yeah, your cheap tricks don’t surprise us,” said Walid.

“You guys are novices in our eyes,” said Sajid.

On Kalil’s side, Kalil was trying his best to recover while getting stomped by the two taekwondo practitioners as Kashon calmly walks towards him for execution. All he needs to do is barely make him bleed; the vultures would do the rest of the works.

But his confident steps took a sudden flinch as Khestri unexpectedly grabbed Kashon’s arm. Kashon couldn’t figure much of what happened. All he knows is that his arm was pulled fast behind his back and he felt a sudden twist in his wrist and elbow. Before he knew it, he let go of the knife.

The sound of the knife falling on the road surprised everybody. They looked towards Khestri to she was in control of Kashon holding his arm behind in a twisted manner. Is this what Aikido can do?

Khestri pulled Kashon backward and drew him to the ground. She used that opportunity to pick up the knife and immediately land as many cuts as he can on Kashon. The vultures chased him too.

Then Khestri ran towards the taekwondo practitioners. Kalil wanted to help her but his curiosity towards Khestri’s potential didn’t let him take one more step.

The taekwondo practitioners bounced standing from two angles towards Khestri while the trio watched the fight holding the boxers in their rear-naked choked, not noticing that they had long been fainted due to lack of oxygen. Khestri put the knife in her pocket and took an open palm stance. Her stance however isn’t fully an Aikido stance.

“I see. She modified the art to make it more efficient and successful,” remarked Kalil.

One of the taekwondo practitioners threw jump spin hook kick towards Khestri but she took a step towards him and placed the palm of one hand on his hip and the dorsal side of another hand on the ankle after which she rotated her body with the rotational angle of the kick to increase momentum and fall violently unbalanced. She then stabbed him several times on his back to leave the rest of the job to the vulture.

Another taekwondo dropped a sweat as he started to classify Khestri as a real threat. He took a stance ready for avenging his friend. Khestri stood face to face against him taking the same stance keeping the knife in her pocket again.

But as he analyzed the battlefield clearly, he noticed, Kashon’s gone, his ally is gone, the boxers are done for, Khestri’s still unfazed and ready to unleash her potential, Kalil is recovering fast and the three armies already recovered. There is no hope.

He turned his back and ran away. The three armies rejoiced and were ready to celebrate, dropping the boxers who died being out of death at a time they didn’t even notice.

But not Kalil and Khestri. They both started running towards the building Zahid was in. They traced the drops of blood.

“This much blood can’t be from the cut on the chin. The vultures must have caused heavy damage,” said Kalil.

“Do you think he will be alright?” asked Khestri showing concern.

“Are you kidding me?” Kalil laughed and smiled at Khestri, “There’s no way Zahid can be beaten by a bunch of vultures.”

 But he turned his face away immediately. Khestri easily understood that Kalil himself is in doubt of Zahid’s survival. That worried her even more.

They stood on the top of the building. Following Zahid’s blood led them to a dead end. Neither he nor his dead body was on the roof. They tried looking down here and there, but couldn’t find his body. It didn’t fall down the building then. Where could he be?

As Kalil tried to take a quick relaxing glance towards the horizon in the sunset light, he noticed that not all the vultures here are still. Some of them are flying back to the city from a certain direction.

That must be where Zahid is!

They climbed down the building watching the three brothers more tired and exhausted than they were after the battle.

“What happened to you guys?!” Kalil exclaimed.