Chapter 45: Wade's Ten Million
Murakami and Nobu reached the third floor and found a charnel house.
What had once been an elegant corridor was now a wreck — shattered glass and splintered furniture scattered across the floor. The tactical squad lay in pools of their own blood, every last one of them dead.
Murakami's face betrayed nothing as he took in the scene. He glanced at Nobu, and Nobu nodded silently. The two of them exchanged a wordless understanding.
The sound of footsteps grew clearer down the corridor. Pietro and John Wick were still busy mopping up the rank-and-file. Their weapons gleamed in the dim light, every strike accompanied by a fresh scream.
"This one's worth five hundred grand. This one's not even in the ninja outfit, so just fifty K. Damn it, when am I going to get my ten million?"
Wade had stopped fighting. He'd grown bored of the cannon fodder and was now wandering the corridor taking selfies with the bodies, complaining the entire time.
Then Deadpool Dog froze and let out a series of sharp barks. Two of them up ahead. Their scent is heavier than the others.
The dog's voice echoed through the corridor in a way that raised the hair on the back of John Wick's neck.
The others stopped moving. They tightened their grips on their weapons and went on alert.
Wade lit up like a kid at Christmas.
He stuffed his phone into a pocket and moved — body blurring into a red streak as he tore down the corridor. The promise of money was apparently a more powerful performance enhancer than anything in his arsenal.
He spotted them at the end of the hall — an older man and a younger one, walking calmly toward him.
The elder was tall, his face carved with gravitas, draped in a black robe that radiated quiet authority. The younger was lean and pale, with cold eyes that held something venomous.
Both reached for their swords.
"Wait! Wait!" Wade yanked his phone back out. "Hold on, I gotta check something."
He started swiping through it, head down. Murakami and Nobu both froze, completely thrown off by whatever Wade was doing. They glanced at each other — both wearing identical expressions of confusion.
Wade kept scrolling, occasionally glancing up to compare the screen to Murakami's face. "Not this one... not this one..."
Then he held the phone up triumphantly and pointed it directly at Murakami.
"FOUND IT! You're my ten million!"
The screen showed a clear photograph of Murakami — pulled directly from the High Table bounty notice.
Murakami and Nobu didn't fully understand what Wade was babbling about, but they understood they were being mocked.
Nobu's grip on his sword tightened. Fury flared behind his eyes. He launched forward and slashed at Wade in one fluid motion.
Wade dodged with absurd ease.
"Sorry — you're not my ten million. My friends will be here in a sec, you can play with them."
He was already pivoting toward Murakami, blade raised, his face set in a mocking grin.
Nobu — being so casually dismissed by the red-suited maniac who'd just insulted his master — went incandescent with rage. "DIE!" He charged Wade's exposed back.
A gunshot cracked through the corridor.
A bullet whistled toward Nobu. He had to abort his attack and parry the round with his short blade. He spun toward the source of the shot — and there was John Wick, finally arrived with Pietro at his side.
John Wick stepped forward, leveling his pistol. "I'll be your opponent."
He'd done basically nothing the entire night — Wade and Pietro had handled every encounter. He'd finally found a real fight, and he wasn't going to waste it.
He charged Nobu.
The fight that followed was savage. Both men moved like lightning, attacks and parries flickering too fast to follow. John Wick's marksmanship was extraordinary — he kept Nobu pinned with a stream of precise shots. Nobu, drawing on years of ninja training, weaved through them with practiced grace.
John kept closing the distance, working to bring the fight into hand-to-hand range. He spotted an opening and put a round through the joint of Nobu's wrist, knocking the short blade out of his grip.
The fight became unarmed.
It went on for what felt like a long time, two silhouettes weaving and striking under the dim corridor lights. Nobu had raw strength and speed in his favor — but John Wick had decades of experience and a tactical mind that simply worked faster than his opponent's.
He shifted constantly between attack and defense, never letting Nobu predict him.
In the end, John Wick won the way he always won — by being a more precise machine than the man across from him. Every strike landed where it needed to. Every defense was perfectly timed. Nobu wore down through a series of small, accumulating defeats, until John Wick finished him with a single decisive blow.
John walked over, breathing hard, and joined Pietro at the side of the corridor to watch the main event.
Wade and Murakami had been fighting in parallel.
Murakami had opened with his refined swordsmanship, expecting to overwhelm Wade quickly. Instead, Wade's blade-work had matched him strike for strike — a chaotic, vaguely insane fighting style that somehow turned every elegant cut aside.
And Wade kept talking.
"You don't really look like ten million bucks. Maybe age is catching up with you."
"You're way too old to still be out here doing this. Shouldn't you be enjoying retirement?"
"Oh — I get it. You're broke too, aren't you? Money's a bastard, man. You always spend it faster than you earn it, am I right?"
Murakami had lived for centuries. He'd seen every variety of person the world had to offer. He had never, in all his long life, encountered anyone as insufferable as Wade Wilson. His patience cracked. The strength behind his cuts started ratcheting up.
Then Murakami launched a serious counterattack.
His blade became a string of lightning strikes, and Wade was suddenly on the defensive. But Wade — being Wade — only grinned wider.
"Whoa, that's a nice move! There's my ten million dollars right there."
At a critical moment, Wade caught one of Murakami's strikes on his sword and used the momentum against him, shoving Murakami backward. Murakami flipped through the air and landed cleanly on his feet.
Wade glanced over his shoulder during the breather. Pietro and John Wick had finished with Nobu and were now just standing there spectating like it was a movie premiere.
Wade decided it was time to actually try.
"Sorry, gotta wrap this up. I have a check to cash. Ten million dollars."
The two of them launched into a second exchange.
Wade's blade-work turned unpredictable — strikes coming from impossible angles, defenses where there shouldn't have been any. Murakami answered with raw strength and centuries of refined technique, repeatedly cracking through Wade's guard. Both fighters showed everything they had. Every clash held the corridor's breath.
Pietro and John Wick watched from the sidelines with the relaxed engagement of audience members at a particularly good fight.
Then Wade did something unexpected.
He slowed down. Visibly. Almost theatrically — like he was deliberately giving Murakami an opening.
Murakami didn't see it coming. His pride flared. His attacks became wild and committed. Just as he launched a full-power killing strike that would absolutely connect—
Wade snapped into a counter.
His blade slid in clean and found Murakami's heart in one motion.
Murakami's expression froze in pure disbelief. He couldn't process the fact of his own defeat.
Wade was already pulling out his phone. He flashed a peace sign at the camera and snapped a selfie with Murakami's body.
Murakami — one of the five Fingers of the Hand — KIA.
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