Gio

Every city has its back alleys: Underground fighting rackets, their ghettos. Men who live in these places doesn't have time to consider the lofty ideals of principles, and laws or ponder the values and mysteries of life—they experience it themselves.

They let their fists do the talking and think back later. And usually, the only people who are able to think back later are strong people.

—Survivors.

The only thing running on their mind is their present and focused on their future, their past rarely mattered.

they were boys embraced by poverty who are growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, spending all their time chasing down their next meal or, if they're fortunate enough to have that, their next drink, bedfellow, or flophouse.

For people like them, becoming a Gangster is a risk worth taking or a way to leave the past behind.

For some, becoming a Gangster is the only way out of whatever miserable situation they've been stuck in since infancy. For others, getting lost out in the world is the only way to escape the tangled web of debt and enemies they've piled up. Whatever the reason they may have, all that Gangsters want is to make their life better for themselves.

Such is the case for Gio, being the other receiving end of this spectrum. Gio felt that it was only right to thread on this path.

But on this night, for the first time in his life, he discovered a type of fear he thought he would never come to know about.

.

.

.

...

"What was that?"

The voice seems wheezy as if it struggles to utter clear words but once the fog of smoke disperses and the charred floors, blackened by black powder are revealed, Gio slowly shows himself.

A young boy drenched in sweat slowly crawls away from a corner of a room.

He has been hiding inside a crate full of grenades during the whole commotion. It was a wonder how all this time, none of the bullets were fired at him.

"Thanked God! I thought I was a goner." Uttered the young boy Gio, in a happy tone.

After being relieved for a moment, the second he took his eyes away from his abrase wounds, shock and horror greets him like a sudden flash.

"WAAAAH! DEEEAAAD!"

He screams in terror.

—numerous dead bodies were found piling like a heap of trash.

It was his first time seeing countless dead bodies at the same time.

But upon realizing that the perpetrator might still be around, Gio quickly closes his mouth shut. He tries to visualize his tongue being cut so he wouldn't dare to open his mouth again.

But in his head, Gio is thinking...

'...Dead. They were all dead.'

His knees were trembling and a warm wet pee drips from his pants. But Gio seem to not care as his eyes were flickering in hate while hesitantly raising his head. Gio looks at the door where the man who killed his brothers had left.

Not far away, he saw Jayce running as fast as he could to the upper floors.

He brought out a knife from his pocket, it was a token given to him by their squad leader just minutes before entering the building.

One single fiery thought came to his mind as he witnessed the receding back of Jayce.

"I'll kill you!"

—Pure rage.

But a sense of wariness defeats him as he tries standing up. An invincible aura crept at him as if to strangle his very soul upon his attempt.

Gio is not sure of what he felt.

But he knew it was fear. And as his departed squad leader always taught him,

'Respect those you fear and hold on to that fear, for the day will come when you had to face that fear and grow as a man.'

Finally!

He discovered that fear!

He came to know about the blissful meaning of facing fear.

He believes that this fear would propel him closer to his goal.

Dejectedly, Gio could only back down in surrender, but his eyes were locked on that shabby, now doorless doorway.

He burns the figure of Jayce into his eyes.

And on that day, Gio swore to kill Jayce someday. Unknowingly, the Tiger gained another enemy who wants him dead.

***

*Huff, huff, Haaa~

Jayce gasping for some breather, felt a prick at his back as if some invisible pin is piercing him. He dismisses this feeling after considering that perhaps it was just an after feeling of using the Gatling Gun.

"Hmmph. Fists are after all better than guns."

Jayce loudly praised, as if all the lives he took were nothing, whilst also trying to cast away his underlying anxiety of not being able to see Fiel on all the floors he had passed through.

He has been patiently waiting, but he has yet to receive any phone call.

Will he be able to see a moving Fiel, or would he see another lifeless body tonight?