Grit Isn’t Gifted, It’s Earned

As the glistening steel knife hit the floor of the roof, sunshine glistened off it, partially obscuring the view of the two while giving itself a red and yellow glint.

The hooded figure promptly turned right, back to Rambone, then to the knife, and southbound as they began running off once more, jumping over across yet another alleyway to another building rooftop.

All in a fritz, Rambone took a deep breath, got up from the fall he took from the hard blow to his upper left arm, took his right hand off of the reddest spot of the blow, and blitzed over to the knife.

It was a risky move, especially since he knew he could take them on completely unarmed. Each time a step is taken was not in the direction of them, He'd fall just one more step behind. Right now at this moment, he was already about 120 steps behind and losing more.

"Come back here, you bastard!" He screamed out.

They turned back for a second and tilted their neck and head forward just a little as to reveal their face, but only up to their mouth. Flashing a smirk, the figure stopped for a moment. They laughed but without letting out even the slightest noise that was audible to a soul nearby as to conceal their identity. Their skin was lightskin.

"Are they some kind of psychopath? Why would you stop now to fuel your already high adrenaline and joy?" Rambone thought to himself, gritting his teeth as he picked up the knife off the ground and put it in his right hand. He winced a little as he moved it from left hand to right, clearly still in pain. Sure, the adrenaline helped numb his pain, but it wasn't nearly enough to fully numb it.

135 steps now, Rambone guessed. It wasn't an exact guess; if anything it was more like a very rough one at that. His time at the school of self-defense had taught how to eyeball how far away you are from a pursuer to give you the best idea of what to do to escape safely. This was just flipping that idea on its head.

But in this case, both of them were of them seemed like pursuers. The hooded figure, ever-so-mysterious, was the one pursuing away from Rambone while pursuing getting away from law enforcement and pursuing the chance to continue to play mankind's most dangerous game. He's just pursuing them and pursuing a chance to share a moment of solace and grief with Luca.

The whole strange thought of this, in turn, made eyeballing the distance between the two a strange but enraging feeling and a sort of progress bar to finally get the chance to justice and grief.

In a matter of probably 50 seconds, he was only 60 steps behind.

Then 50.

Then 40.

Then 30.

Then 20.

Then 10.

And then 2.

Right behind their back and the cape, he gripped the knife as hard as he could and struck it into their back, ripping through the fabric and cloth in the process. He quickly managed to rip it out as they jerked back and threw a kick in an attempt to sweep him off his feet. This time, he was prepared for something like this and jumped back about two feet.

The knife stab affected them already, as they began to bleed and the knife had blood on it, about halfway up the blade. He was hoping to have pierced their spine, but their quick reflexes had forced the blade away and the blow landed just away a bit off the mark of his bull's eye.

Either way, he was now feeling more adrenaline and ready to defend himself. Probably same goes for them, too, he figured.

Then they threw a hard punch at his left arm, which he adapted to, moving his arm to position his hand to block the punch and then kicking their stomach to get them on the ground. "They really got cocky before, didn't they?" He thought to himself.

With the sunlight revealing what's under their hood, he finally got the chance for a quick look. Unfortunately, they're wearing a ski mask that covers up all but their eyes and it looked like up top they were struggling to keep their hair all inside of it. Dark brown eyes, but it still barely looked like it, as most people would typically guess that they're black.

Getting on top of them, he position themselves on top of their belly and put his legs over their lower arms. With the upper hand now firmly in Rambone's hands, Rambone finally got a chance to give them hell. One stab to a region near the left side of their upper chest. A shift up from them in an attempt to resist while recoiling in pain. The second stab came down more lightly than the previous two times and the same area. This got much more of a jerk and resistance from them this time. Blood spurted out accordingly, as even more blood stained the floor from their back.

And suddenly, a shockwave went through his head and he got up and off them. He realized that if he was going to kill them right now, he would get arrested and charged with murder. If that happened, then well... he didn't want to think what would happen next.

Rambone moved a hand to rip up and or take off their mask. But to his surprise, at a speed much faster than he thought, they grabbed their arm to stop it and used it as a way to buy time to let them get up.

Getting up, the figure threw a punch at him, this time directly at his right hand. Proceeding to block it (with the knife to help lessen the blowback) accordingly, Rambone correctly predicted a kick to the left side of his ribcage. But due to their higher speed, he couldn't block it in time. He grazed the upper part of their lower leg just they landed the blow.

This made him cough up some blood and stumble back a bit, but he still managed to stay on his feet.

"What's with this speed? If I can't keep up or even adapt to it, I'm going to be dead!" Thinking to himself.

Tilting his head back up and regaining his footing, the figure had begun running away once again. They were going at a slower pace at this time around, appearing as if they were trying to conserve their energy in case Rambone got close for the third time and trying to minimize blood loss. They were clutching their stab wounds with their left hand, as he could tell from a small glimpse.

"I'll keep catching up to you, no matter how hard you try to keep me down." He said, mumbling to himself. "I made you bleed this round."