Without much thinking, Keiji went straight to the source. He wasn't afraid if there was a criminal as he is a trained professional and very few are his match when it comes to actual fighting.
In a small alley, seven guys wearing black masks could be seen pinning a woman to the wall. Keiji doesn't know their intentions, but he is sure they're not good because each one of them has some type of sharp weapon, the good thing is that they don't look like they have guns which would be tricky to handle for him at the moment.
"HEY, what are you doing here, leave her if you don't want to have a few limbs broken." Keiji shouted at the masked men trying to scare them, but as usual, they don't care about such threats believing that the seven of them can take care of one measly guy who doesn't even have a weapon.
"Shooo, don't try to play the hero here, this is non of your business." The masked man the closest to Keiji replied.
*Smack*
"Ack, why'd you do that man? We're on the same team here."
"You said why? If this guy left like you said, he'll for sure call the cops, and we don't want to deal---" before the man could even finish his speech, a fist came flying straight for his face which knocked him down in one go.
'It'll be hard to fight them with one hand while trying to rescue Annie and keep the research safe. I need to rescue Annie first.'
"Careful, that guy looks like he has some skill, make sure to do it properly, I don't want to leave any witnesses behind." The guy who was pinning Annie down and looked like their leader ordered.
'I'll put the case down first and rescue Annie as soon as possible.' Keiji believed that with one less thing to take care of, he can fight better and finish faster. He didn't want to risk anything, but he also wants to finish this quickly as he still has to finish the research.
As soon as he put down the case, a throwing knife was thrown straight to his face, luckily he dodged and it didn't touch him.
He went straight for the guy who threw the knife as he will be troublesome to deal with if they gang up on him.
The masked man of course didn't sit still and started throwing knives like crazy, to which some of them grazed Keiji's clothes. Not wasting any more effort, Keiji went straight for the abdomen and right after a straight upper cut to knock him down.
"Five left." Keiji said with a slight smirk on his face.
"You four, don't keep going one on one with him, just go all at once. We're already late as is." The man, still pinning Annie down, ordered with a slightly panicked voice.
Heeding the order, the four guys, one with a knife, two with daggers and the last with a blade, all went for Keiji.
While Keiji was fighting them, Annie didn't stay put, the moment the masked man turns his head away is the moment she'll try to escape, and that moment came sooner than expected when Keiji taunted him.
"Hey, you over there, are you so weak that you can only order your underlings to fight while you keep threatening a weak woman." Keiji remarked.
"That won't work on-- aaaaaaahhhhhhh you little b---- ack."
Annie, not losing the opportunity, threw a straight kick with her knee to the man's neather region, not once, but twice, which allowed her to escape from his grip successfully.
"Good job Annie, I was sure you'd get the message. Now, hold that case and stand behind me."
Annie didn't waste any time thinking, she trusts Keiji completely and did exactly as she was told.
"Do you think we're so easy that you can get distracted during our fight?"
"Hmmmm, that's a good question, but yeah, I do, I don't know about your leader over there, but I know I can easily take care of you lot."
Right after saying that, Keiji went for the the guy who just spoke, the other three guys seeing that, went for Keiji's back thinking he won't be able to deal with them easily.
Contrary to their belief, he threw a kick to the one at the front, and another to the man next to him pushing them away a little and giving Keiji more time to deal with the 2 left.
"Now, do you still feel I can't get distracted?"
Keiji said so while hitting him straight in the chest, but that wasn't enough to make him fall down. The man fought back and tried to stab Keiji with is dagger. Swiftly, Keiji dodged it and broke the man's arm which allowed Keiji to easily take the dagger.
The man fell down while holding his arms and Keiji kicked him straight down till he wasn't able to get up anymore.
"Four left, heh"
With a dagger now in his hand, Keiji went for the guy nearest to him and stabbed him in the chest right next to his heart.
"Three l--"
"KEIJI, Watch out!"
Hearing that, Keiji immediately looked to where Annie pointed and saw the guy who was deprived of the right to be a man holding a gun pointing straight at him.
Annie without thinking jumped straight in front of Keiji and held the case as some form of defense.
"You id---"
*Boom*