Fragment World - Round 6

Rosa followed Karem to the Chinese town and totally lost his track. It was a big surprise, she had never thought that there were other non-Chinese assassins in this messy area. "Perfect place for criminal hide-out I guess" She thought while walking back to her home behind the rubbish mountain of the town. Then she thought about the money she took, mission uncompleted, it would not be right if she kept the money but how would she find Karem and Ivy? Rosa threw the cloak on the chair and started to take off her equips. It had been a long and tired day but cleaning the needles was essential. If the needles were not clean...

"Oh... gosh..." Rosa glanced at the needles. She had been with Clark Hamserton for a whole week, no time to clean her needles, by a week, the needle might collect dust or bacteria without her knowing. "That girl... oh god, master please forgive me... That girl might get infected..." She murmured terrifyingly.

It's been a while since the incident at the Hamserton mansion with the mysterious assassin girl, but Karem couldn't just set it aside in his mind like he usually did. Not only he wanted to know about the identity of the freelance assassin, also there was something... very wrong.

Ivy's been ill.

He looked at Ivy, still sleeping unconsciously, her breath did not sound good, her body temperature kept rising and the blood bleed out of some strange spots on her body that he wouldn't figure out why. He didn't know what that Rosa girl did to Ivy and couldn't think of what to do either. In a moment, Kamen's face came up in his mind like the only way out from his messy head.

Swiftly, he hoisted the girl onto his shoulder and started running, through dark and small alleys not to be noticed. There were many ways that lead to Kamen's store, and Karem knew them all. Soon he was pounding at the man's back gate. That gate was always locked, only used for emergency, which was now the time.

*

"I can't do anything about it." Kamen admitted. "This is acupuncture of high level. A killing kind of acupuncture. I can't just do anything."

"What should we do then?" asked Karem, trying to remain calm and collected.

"You said an assassin did that to her?" Kamen placed a wet towel on Ivy's forehead. "Then you just have to find her."

"But..." Karem looked at the shop master hopelessly. "How?"

"She might be a resident of this China town. I don't know" Kamen shook his head. "The only acupuncture assassin in London that I know of died three years ago. She might be from other town... But from what you described, I'm pretty sure that they have same assassination technique. Mhmm, I know where the guy used to live. Should we take a look there?"

"China town... Yes. I'll go there."

Which was how Karem was now standing in front of a pork buns stands. London's poor street were crowded, but it was still nothing comparing to this chaos of a China town. He bit on his pork bun, glancing around. He had no idea where to start.

"Inside a small valley, behind China Town's rubbish mountain" Kamen's words echoed inside Karem's mind, supposed to guide him to Rosa but what was the last time Kamen went out of the shop? Karem shook his head, he had been looking around and small valleys with rubbish mountains were everywhere.

****

Meanwhile, behind one of those rubbish mountains that Karem was thinking of, Rosa was having a small fight in her head about whether she should look for Karem and Ivy to fix her mistake, of not cleaning the needles properly, or just wait for the target to die out and she could use the money without thinking further about the right to use it. Both were making her head tired and she decided to go out and have herself a meat bun to cool down. She grabbed her cloak and fled out before her head exploded with all those thoughts.

He was eating, and thinking of the garbage dumps made him feel sick to the stomach, but he guessed he had no other choice. Swiftly, Karem moved through the crowd and made it there.

He stood in front of a rubbish mountain, swallowed his saliva and prepared to hold his breath. How could someone possibly live here? Probably they just use some kind of magical Chinese trick on their nose. He asked and answered it himself while closed his eyes and threw himself in.

As he moved as neatly as possible through the garbage, he suddenly caught sight of a movement. "Hey!" Karem called out and chased after it.

Rosa startled, she heard someone's voice. In this world of garbage, noone would even want to enter, let alone calling out for her. She stopped. Whoever that person was, he made her curious and he would pay for it with his life if what he wanted from her was not reasonable.

Karem leapt onto the peak of a pile of garbage, slipping a little but managed not to lose balance. Exposing himself, he said with a smile, "Hey there. Fancy meeting you here. I hope you remember me?"

Rosa smiled, sarcastically, "I'm amazed, Mr... mhmm Regen something? I would never dream that I would meet you again in this world of rubbish. Oh well, welcome to my rubbish place, my dear friend." Rosa winked.

"It wasn't just hazard, I was looking for you." Karem said with a smile, "I came for what you did to my friend. I need you to fix it. And I need you to do it now."

Rosa's eyes gave Karem a horrible look for a moment. She knew it, master would have sent them to punish her for not taking care of the needle properly. It took Rosa some second to return to calm face.

"I have something to ask you first. You were hired to kill Clark Henderson or you did it on your own? If it is the former then tell me the name of the guy and I will make sure your friend is perfectly right after the treatment. If it is the latter then I will have to let her be and kill you here. Because I took the charge for that job."

"Why must someone such as yourself ask such an unecessary question? Do my friend and I look like people who have business with the nobles?" Karem shook his head. "The only thing we need to know is that we are paid for what we do. However, if you agree to fix what you've done, you have the chance to access the information about who hired us in the first place."

He turned away, but he knew Rosa was still glaring at him. "So, it is a yes or a no? We people are impatient for our friend's wellbeing."

"I am paid to do my job, too. Someone has to die, if it's not you and your friend then there must be someone else. Give me your promise. Once the girl is recovered, give me the name. That's all I need and you lose nothing from that." Rosa kept waiting to confirm that she would have the answer. She knew that the boy was just playing the patient game with her. She won't lose, for an assassin, patience is essential. Furthermore, he needed her, she didn't, if Ivy was dead, the money with be her "legally".

"I can only promise to introduce you to the person who knows the name. I don't really care about who hires me. Although I think there's no reason he won't tell."

Rosa sighed, she really thought that her master sent those people to punish her. She turned back to her house, gave Karem a sign to follow. "We need equipments still. Tell me about her current condition."

Karem followed Rosa. "Her breathing's strange, she keeps bleeding, and she has a fever. There was nothing we could do about it." He stopped for a while, before continuing, "And you keep your tools in a place like this?"

Rosa opened the door, revealed a small room with a bed, a small table set and a shelf full with many kind of bottle. "Rotten food from the rubbish mountain is the main food for medicine plants. The tools have to be cleaned with alcohol and rinsed through boiled water everyday to keep them hygienic. When I was at Clark Henderson's house, he kept me with him 24/7 so no time to do it. I think they collected dust and bacteria during the time. Have you tried to take all the needles out of her body?" She asked while her hands keep on choosing the medicine. A bottle of transparent liquid, which Karem guessed that wouldn't be just normal water, some bags of different dry herbs, a steel box that Karem didn't know what lied inside, were put carefully in Rosa's backpack.

"Well, it's natural we try to take the needles out, don't you think?" Karem said with a carefree smile, but from her asking, he could feel that it was probably not a smart thing to do. "I take it that you didn't mean to cause such a consequence. Thank you. Are you sure that you will be able to take care of this?"

"I'll do what I can" was what Rosa replied to him with.

The boy sighed - very quietly, not dropping his smile - but he didn't say anything else as he lead Rosa back to Kamen's drugstore. Not going through the front door, he came tapping at the back. Just a few seconds later, the door creaked open. The man in white looked down at them.

Rosa stared at the man for a second and bowed her head. Kamen bowed back and led them to where Ivy was.

"I'm glad you can find her. So she was really at Tian Jun's place?" He smiled at Karem then talked to Rosa. "This is the first time I know that he actually has an apprentice. What an amazing gift he left to this world before he died with all those unbelievable medical skill."

"You know my master?" Rosa looked at Kamen surprisedly. She knew that master was an assassin but she had never seen him hanged out with anyone before. "Well, compare to his technique, mine is nothing but a funny kid play." She sighed. "How's the girl now?"

"Seem to get worse, I tried to use some healing herb on her wounds, they stopped bleeding but the skin doesn't look good. Her temperature increased, too." Kamen said, his face changed from calm to worried. "Here she is"

They stopped at a small tidy room. Unlike the store, this room was filled with fresh air and medical incense. Ivy was lying on the bed unconciously, next to her was fresh cool water and clean towel, it seemed like they did their best to take care of her. Rosa stepped forward and sit next to Ivy's bed. She pulled out the equips and grabbed the bag of mixed herbs she prepared at home and gave it to Kamen.

"3 big bowl of water, boil 'till 1 bowl left and put in 5 bowls more and boiled again to get 3 last bowls." She said. "Can you please take me 1 empty bowl and 1 bowl with boiled water, too?"

As she finished telling Kamen what to do, she called out for Karem and asked to help her to pull Ivy sit up.

Kamen didn't look very happy about being ordered around in his own place. "Humph, as expected from Tian Jun's apprentice. Such attitude." He did what she told him to do still, lacking of knowledge to do something better.

At the meantime, Karem got to the bed and helped to sit Ivy up. He wondered if she was awake.

"We are both worrying about the patient, old man" Rosa talked back, for her, master was a perfect man and her attitude was perfectly right so what Kamen said irritated her a little. Rosa returned the attention to Ivy, she checked around Ivy's body, it seemed like only the spots that she had put the needles on were infected. Several ulcer spots appeared around the wounds.

Kamen appeared again at the door, brought the two bowl with him. Rosa left the bed and came toward the small desk.

"Please hold her still." Rosa told Karem and turned to Kamen, help him to put the boiled water bowl down. Rosa took out the needles and knives and threw them into the boiled water. With the other bowl, she put in some herbs and smash them with the alcohol she brought along. "It might be hurt when this touch her skin but I need you to hold her tight no matter what."