A Man of Honor.

Chapter 53: Semblance.

"Everybody deserves a fresh start every once in a while." ~ Bugsy Siegel.

Grigori unleashed a burst of gunfire on me. I raised my hardlight shield blocking the rounds before it fizzled and died having used up the small storage of hard light dust in it. He tried to get in my way, standing between me and Neo who was bleeding on the ground. He knocked me down with a blast of his glyph. I fell to the ground, I was unfocused, my mind was worrying only about Neo instead of on the fight.

She couldn't be dead, she just couldn't. I wouldn't allow it.

He raised the gun to me on the ground and pulled the trigger. From the loud fighting in the strip club I couldn't hear the weapon click empty but I used the split second to lunge up right for him. Confused from his empty weapon he didn't see me as I put all my strength into my thrust.

Astuzia's tip bounced off his aura but I just kept stabbing, unleashing a barrage of thrusts into him. He moved his left hand to shield him with the glyph but I knocked it away with Vendetta using the shotgun as a club. With the shield of his out of the way I leveled the gun and fired two blasts of buckshot straight into his chest before delivering another might stab with the weapon.

His aura flared up to shield him but the blade passed through finding flesh. "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" I roared as the weapon sank into him.

A gasp went through him and a look of horror was on his face as I pulled the thin blade from his body and threw him to the ground. I didn't have time to care about him, I moved over towards Neo, I dropped my weapons and picked up her body.

Her eyes were open, she was alive. She looked up at me and I could see the fear in her eyes, I had never seen fear in her eyes. Her stylish white outfit was stained red and I tried doing whatever I could to apply pressure on the wounds.

There were so many wounds. More than I could hope to cover and I found myself thinking about Sal and how scared and helpless I found myself trying to keep him from dying. She was bleeding out just like him.

Neo coughed and wheezed blood. Her usually enchanting silent demeanor was broken by feeble sounds that sent shockwaves of horror through me. "Stay with me I told her!" I told her, not sure what I could possibly do for her. I was watching the brightness of her eyes fade, she reached to my face with a bloody hand that smeared blood on my face.

"Fuck!" I heard Sky say, I hadn't even noticed him coming to my side. He apparently had a small first aid kit and was working to apply bandages to the wounds. He cut her top open to access them working as fast as possible but I could tell that it wasn't going to be enough. Her face convoluted in pain as he applied pressure to stem the bleeding.

"I don't know how much I can do, boss." Sky told me.

"No!" I told him.

"We need a hospital!" He told me.

I knew there wasn't time for that. Neo had minutes at best and here I was helpless to save her. Like with Sal. I closed my eyes as I felt tears threatening to leak out. This couldn't be happening this just fucking couldn't. This was Neo, she meant too much to me, she was the one who brought me into this life of crime.

"Don't die!" I whispered to her. "Please damnit down you fucking die! I can't handle that."

My mind was flashing with images of her. I couldn't imagine doing this without her, that hollow feeling in my chest seemed to widen at the realization that she was slipping away from me. I would never dance with her again, laugh with her again or share a meal or all the small little things I had come to enjoy with her, the things I had missed since this rift had formed between us. The thought of that rift becoming unbridgeable with death was unacceptable.