I opened my eyes with a dizzying headache. It took a while for my burning vision to adjust to the swallowing darkness around me. As the haze lifted, I glanced at my wrist watch, It couldn't have been long, chloform's effects last less than an hour.

  After the headache partly receded, my surroundings became clearer. My hands were tied briskly behind my back. I was seated on a cold metal chair, hair in disarray. It's not unusual for ones hair to get dishevelled in such a situation, but it was as if someone had taken care to mess it up as best as they could. The single braid dangled loosely by my shoulder.

  I was in some sort of a cellar, with some wooden boxes kept a few meters away from me. A single white light shone from the middle of the ceiling. Through its dim illumination, I could make out a stairway leading down to the cellar. My captor was nowhere to be seen. .

  The next five minutes or so were spent in me fidgeting with the rope that bound my hands. The binding was strong but crudely done. And by the things that were starting to clear within my mind, I figured such an arrangement was very typical of its perpetrator.

  Thump.., thump...heavy footsteps, along with the sound of something being dragged along, came from the stairway as my captor finally descended.

  'You're finally here.' I gushed.

  The person stopped short, then after a few apprehensive motions, strode in.

  'You're awake...' 'she' said disdainfully.

  'Azrael, am I right?' I continued, in a flowery voice.

  The 'woman' in front of me had blonde curls, except they were coming off at the sides to reveal auburn locks. The 'woman', who was really a man, still wore the satin dress, white cloth wrapped around his knuckles. His poise was crude, as was the state of the corpse whose head dangled loosely under the grip of his left hand. Despite the gory image, his appearance, accentuated by his short stature and big eyes, could easily be mistaken for a woman's.

  '.....' he didn't reply, seemingly observing my expression.

  'We finally meet, but chloroform? Really, isn't that what wannabees use?' I continued, this time in a cold voice

  'You speak too much, or is this some kind of coping mechanism in the face of imminent death?' he mocked. There was no honeyed undertone anymore, and his voice was deeper than the one he used while crossdressing.

  'Death?' I asked in an innocent voice ' weren't given permission to kill me, were you? Or why else would they send a measly middle rank assasin'

  At this, his eyes flared. He rushed forward, corpse in hand, and shoved it in my face till it was a mere three inches from my person.

  The corpse of a woman, from the looks of it, she was killed a good few hours ago, rigour mortis had set in, apparently died from blood loss considering the palour of her face.

  'The original Mrs Huang?', I asked, unfazed.

  'Yes, and this is also how you might end up. You see, I wasn't supposed to kill her either.' he sneered.

  'So you messed up and still have the face to talk so triumphantly about it,' I jeered. 'Has the standard really plummeted this badly?'.

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  Suddenly, he withdrew the corpse and threw it aside, growing composed. 'I see what you're trying to do. You want to stall,' he asserted. 'Since you know who i am, you must also be familiar with my methods'.

  He went to one of the boxes and slowly took off its lid. His angle blocked my vision, so I couldn't see its contents, but I could guess.

  He fished out a narrow metal device with a nut cracker's head, red and blue wires wrapped around the metal body. It had a brown button at its tip. He examined the device in his hand for some time, apparently decided against it, and thus put it back.

  After aeons of rummaging, he made up his mind. Turning around with a devilish grin, he walked towards me. In his hand was a screw driver? No, it can't be as simple as that.

  'My latest toy, the clawfickle, designed by Kanfer himself'

  'Whose that?' I asked flatly

  The grin on his face faltered slightly. 'And here i thought your rank wasn't too low since you knew about me, guess i'm popular even among the sewer rats(1)'

  'What is he some sort of bigshot?' I scoffed .

  'Lowly ones like you naturally wouldn't know about the master Faber Ferrarius in all of Europe' he spat, resuming his advancing pace.

  This time I figured no type of insult would stop him, given how excited he looked, the best decision was to face the torture head on.

  This was Azrael, named after the angel who separates souls from the dead. He got his name due to his torturous killing methods that often involved skinning his victims or gouging their eyes out. Before I left, he was a lower middle rank assasin, who had only his maniac tendencies and impersonation skills to offer. Even among assasins his name leaves a bad taste in their mouth, primarily due to his crude and sloppy work which left evidence in piles at the crime site. The only reason he was still in business is because the Axis's name can afford to be careless since nobody dares point their finger at it anyway.

  His weapon clutched hand reached my neck, searing pain, as if somebody spread a highly explosive liquid through my nerves, within a few seconds my left side started to feel numb as my body cringed.

  'Haaha, going up to 165 volts' he cackled.

  Every second felt like an eternity, until the pain stopped suddenly. I gasped for breath, head drooping.

  '200 volts and not a single sound' he mused 'You're a tough one'

  'Its going to take more than this to kill me' I squeezed out, barely lifting my head. 'Say what else have you got in there, my personal favourite is the iron maiden'

  His palm clutched my head as he yanked it back to lift my face 'You're actually smiling, I haven't seen a deonn like you in quite a while'

  'Scared?' I sneered

  'Oh no, this is great, this is going to be soo much fun, when i disfigure such a pretty little face' he burst into fits of deranged laughter, the mask of a graceful lady was torn off completely and the lunatic showed itself.

  But alas his laughter was short lived, the next moment, he felt a gnashing blow on his right cheek as his face was plunged to the ground.

  'Next time, remember to check your victim's person for any weapons before tieing them up' I chastised.

  He felt blows upon blows on his back as he realised how greatly he had underestimated the strength of this to-all-appearances, docile young lady.

  I snatched out the clawfuckel- or whatever its name was- from his hand. The device had a smooth body and was unmistakably shaped like a screw driver at the front, but it's rear was a completely different story. It was designed like a normal a.c motor but without any magnetic flux inducer. I wondered where the current came from but pushed such thoughts away for a more suitable time.

  'You wont figure out how to use that, its no use trying' he cackled some more, that's the only thing he could do since his mouth was the only mobile part of his body as the rest was rendered immobile as he lay face-flat on the ground under my grip.

  What he said was true though, the working of the device was tricky. Well then we'll just have to use brute force.

  Pain spread through his shoulder as he realised the metal tip was driven into his shoulder.

  'Just testing its strength' I remarked and prepared to strike more lethal spots, but before the physical trauma I decided to toy with him.

  'Poor poor azrael, they didnt even tell you who your target was before they sent you' I mused. 'I'm afraid now you've offended me, your senior'

  'What senior? A child like you?' He muttered, trying to lift his face from the cold floor.

  Ha..hah, now it was my turn to laugh

  'The lab rat, the product of the anvil experiment, do you know about ' I whispered, but I'm sure he heard it loud and clear, clearer than anything he had heard before.

  'Aagh' he cried as the metal pierced his other shoulder 'Stop it, stop speaking, I don't want to know' his pain seemed to emanate more from psychological trauma rather than physiological. 'You're lying, you're lying' his words were directed to me but we both knew those words was him trying to convince himself more than accuse me.

  'Do you really not see it, mon cheri, can a normal person evade the axis, for soo long' I said assuming the flowery voice once again.

  'Can.A.Normal.person' I continued 'enjoy the honours of having assasins from all ranks deployed just to catch them? I hope you know the city's been infiltrated already'

  He stopped struggling and his hands tarted to shake. With the amount of information I gave him, he probably understood that if his superiors knew the extent if his knowledge, he'd turn into manure for their gardens.

  I pulled out the device as blood splattered all over the white satin dress. Aiming at his skull, I took my stance. .

  *Boom*

  A gun shot sounded on the stairway. My grip momentarily slackened and taking advantage of it Azrael tackled the device out from my hands and stabbed my forearm.

  He stumbled out of my grip and dashed towards the wall, in that split second I realised what he was trying to do but it was too late. Before I could stop him, he had already pressed a pattern on the wall and it slid open. He scrambled in and slammed it shut behind him.

  Feeling enraged and dejected I glanced towards the stairway, in came a tall man with golden eyes that landed upon me. At that moment I wished I could gouge them out.