"Dawg, this bitch ain't worth it!" T-Bone knew the situation was about to get out of hand, but he had to try. "I got your back, brother, but dammit, she ain't worth it!"
Bennie J was about to lose it himself. "Aw fuck, no! Dawg, get back in the fuckin' car, man, please! I just wanna go!"
"We're not goin' anywhere," Mad Dawg snarled, and held up the butterfly knife only inches from the woman's face. "Who the fuck you think you are, bitch? You wanna fuckin' make me understand your shit?! Then you do it, ho! You just fuckin' make me!"
Fifty-four years from this night T-Bone, born Terry Wilkins, will be painlessly slipping away on his deathbed from natural causes, surrounded by the love of his closest family. In his final moments he will remember, with great clarity, the moment his life was changed.
He will remember just how damned fast the woman was.
It happened literally as a series of blurs. The nude woman's left hand shot upward and through the air in an arc, and chopped into the wrist of Mad Dawg's knife hand. The force was enough to nearly break that wrist...it easily forced him to lose the knife, which flew a dozen feet away to clatter uselessly on the pavement. As her left hand completed its arc, her right hand blurred forward, palm open. The strike hit the gangsta just below his sternum so hard he was sent flying about four yards backward to crash into the driver's door of the 300C. Of course, he made a huge dent.
T-Bone and Bennie J gaped at the woman, then looked back at Mad Dawg, semi-conscious with his ass on the pavement; he seemed to sit with his back to the dent he just made.
The other two gangstas, unfortunately, decided to follow their friend's example and got angry. The need to avenge him overrode any form of caution or common sense. T-Bone reached under the front of his jacket and pulled out a Smith & Wesson .41 Magnum from under his belt...Bennie J wanted to do the same and get his Beretta 92F from under the back of his hoodie. Unfortunately for Bennie J, born Benjamin Jefferson, when he tried to pull his nine from the waistband of his pants it snagged onto the back of his shirt.
As he fought with himself to get his gun drawn, T-Bone brought his gun up and like Mad Dawg learned the meaning of making mistakes. The woman closed the distance between them quickly. She grabbed his gun-wrist with both hands, and with a fluid motion that was as graceful as it was powerful twisted and sent T flying in a somersault. He crashed back-first on the concrete, knocked senseless. He tried to get his bearings but the woman kicked him in the face, sending his world into a red haze.
"C'mon, c'mon!" Finally, Bennie J pulled his nine out from behind him. He brought it up...only to have the woman reach out and slap it away with stunning speed. With the same hand she swung in the opposite direction and hit him so hard across the face with an open backhand he was sent spinning; he lost a considerable degree of his consciousness and all of his balance and collapsed to the sidewalk.
All three hardcore gangstas were brought low in the space of ten seconds.
What happened next took about five minutes.
As if it was because of a great, unseen hand, no one else turned onto the street. No one else was there to bear witness.
What happened next would never be spoken of by any of the homeboys. Not even to each other. When she was done, all three of them -- hardcore gangstas -- were openly crying. All held expressions of shock, of horror...of soul-wrenching sorrow.
They had seen.
"You understand now," the woman said simply. "My name is Yuki. I require you to serve me. Will you?"
All three said yes, almost desperately, and without hesitation.
With authority, Yuki said, "I need one of you to give me your clothes." She looked at Bennie J, the skinniest of the three, the only one who wore clothes that while far from being right for Yuki's lithe frame would have had to do. "Yours will be enough for now."
Bennie J stripped to his underwear and gave his clothes to her, including this prized Nikes. Without hesitation.
Yuki dressed quickly in the relatively bulky men's wear, forced to secure the belt tightly about her slender waist. The shoes were far too stiff and garish for her tastes, but she had to make do with them, as well. She asked for T-Bone's magnum, and he gave it to her. She looked at the weapon for a moment...then she looked at Bennie J's weapon, which was held lamely by the mostly-naked gangsta. She looked at Mad Dawg and said, "Let me see your weapon."