An Assassin's Respite

Fears and Doubts

It was the day after the student council meeting and Kazuna and Kagura were in the classroom after school preparing for the training camp. Kazuna was pouring over the list of special agents that were going to be on the island.

“There appears to be a good mix of agents available.” He notes to himself as he starts to pan through the profiles he was given.

“Telepathy, good for communication especially if they mess with our other forms of communication. Animalia, being able to communicate with the animals in the forest allows for more eyes than the enemy would be expecting or would be able to deal with. Telekinesis, strong for combat and protecting students.” He notes as he continues to shuffle through the papers. He stops on a profile that took him by surprise. 

“Hm, I didn’t think there would be a mutation there.” He whispers out loud. 

“A what?” Kagura asks.

“A mutation. I'm not surprised that you don't know what they are.” He asks.

“Are they people whose powers are part of their body like Emiko?” Kagura guesses.

“That’s not entirely wrong. Their powers are part of their body, but they don’t activate them as Emiko does. If someone that’s a mutation has wings, those wings are a part of their body and are always there.” He corrects.

“So there could be someone out there walking around with angel wings.” She says mostly jokingly, but Kazuna slides a profile to her and she nearly chokes on her spit.

“He’s got angel wings!” She exclaims.

“That is a mutation. Normally, people can’t use their powers until around the age of four, but mutations are born with their powers since they’re a part of them.” He states.

“If people like him exist, then why haven’t I seen any mutations?” She asks.

“That’s because the governments of the world keep them a secret.” He answers.

“But why?” She asks.

“People would treat them as outcasts. Despite humans bragging about how civilized they are, they act quite barbarically towards people that are different.” He replies.

“I guess, but you would think that something like this would leak out at some point.” She notes.

“It will have to be revealed to the world at some point. Even now it’s becoming overly difficult to keep them secret, bigfoot, the yeti, the loch ness monster. Those are just a few examples of mutations being spotted. In any case, keep this to yourself for now.” He says.

“Understood.” She says with a nod.

“Truly,” Kazuna replies as he stares at the profile.

“Still, why did they decide to allow a mutation to take part in protecting the island? Are they trying to slowly integrate them into the world by introducing them to the youth? That’s possible, but even so, it seems odd to try something like that under our circumstances. I’ll have to keep an eye on him.” He notes to himself as he continues to sift through the special agent profiles.

Kazuna had spent the better part of the next couple of days figuring out what the best pairings for groups of students and special agents were. Kagura was still trying to pair up the final 6 people. He could help her, but he thought that it would be good to let her figure it out on her own. He had talked Ayanami into handling the pairings for class 1-B. He had a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses after their tournament during midterms, but there was still a lot he didn’t know about them.

“I wouldn't normally have trouble with something like this, but with so many unknowns I can’t create pairings half-heartedly. They have that guy that can teleport people through portals so we can’t rule out Zer showing up. Us not knowing the specifics of his power is a pain as well. There’s also the problem of who his actual men are. Steel was definitely someone he recruited as a disposable piece, but Ken was different and even then he wasn’t someone I would say was in the top brass. And the fact that there’s going to be a mutation there only makes this more complicated.” He thinks to himself.

He decided to think it over when he got home so he started getting ready to leave the classroom at the end of the school day when he’s approached by Kagura.

“Oh, sorry for keeping you waiting, I’m ready to go now.” He says, predicting that she was going to ask what was taking him so long.

“That’s not what I was going to say. I wanted to know if we could continue our training?” She asks.

“Oh, right. Well, I was beginning to wonder when you were going to be ready to continue training.” He replies.

“Sorry, the training camp threw me off a bit. I also didn’t expect the task she gave me to invoke so much thought,” She states.

“No worries. In any case, shall we head to the arena?” He asks.

Kagura nods as she leads the way to the arena. 

“So have you been keeping up with your training?” He asks.

“Of course.” She replies.

She places a hand on the hilt of her sword before rapidly slashing and sheathing her sword.

“Good, your speed has greatly increased since we last trained.” He states, drawing a proud smile from her face.

“Now don’t get too excited. We still have to see if it has any power.” He replies.

“How do we do that?” She asks her smile a little less proud.

“By having you strike me obviously.” He replies.

“Huh?” She squeaks in confusion at his statement.

“You heard me, you’re going to attack me.” He reiterates as he draws his sword.

“But that doesn’t seem safe.” She points out.

“Don’t worry it’ll be fine. Just trust me.” He assures her.

“O-Okay.” She concedes albeit reluctantly. 

She places a hand on the hilt of her sword and locks eyes with Kauzna. Her mouth begins to water so she takes a labored swallow before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She opens her eyes and quickly slashes, but Kazuna easily deflects her attack. She wasn’t able to properly sheath her sword since they hadn’t trained with the backlash from hitting objects.

“Hmm, the power wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. It also seems like we’ll have to practice this way more so that you can get used to sheathing your sword even after coming in contact with an outside force.” He notes.

“And I thought I was making good progress.” She says with a defeated tone.

“You’re making very good progress. You can’t expect to use a move effectively after only practicing it. You have to use it in a real combat situation for you to truly learn it.” He states.

“Was it the same for you?” She asks.

“Yes. The first time I used sheath s***h in a combat setting, I almost took my grandfather's arm off. So I’d say you started off better than me.” He answers.

“I always find it funny hearing you talk about your past failures.” She says with a chuckle.

“Thanks.” He replied sarcastically.

“Sorry if that sounded rude. What I meant was that it’s hard to imagine you ever messing up. You fight with such strength and move so gracefully that it’s hard to imagine you ever being even a little clumsy.” She clarifies.

“Hmm.” He mumbles, hiding his satisfaction with her response.

“Anyway, why don’t we do the same thing for training today. You already have a pretty good speed, so we can work on your power and your sheathing after colliding with something.” He states.

“Right.” She replies and they immediately get to training.

Kazuna entered his house after finishing training with Kagura. He walks into the kitchen and sees Ria sleep on a chair over the countertop. He tries to wake her up, but as per usual she was out like a light. He gently lifts her up and carries her to her room. He reenters the kitchen and starts to cook something. He knew that Ria would wake up in the middle of the night so he wanted to make sure that she had something to eat for then. 

“How was the training?” Kari asks as she walks into the kitchen.

“Good, she’s making very good progress.” He replies as he starts to boil some water.

“I see.” She says.

It was clear that she had something else on her mind.

“I'm not here just to protect you, I am also you're acting guardian. If something is bothering you, then you can tell me.” He notes in an attempt to get her to talk.

“It's okay, I'm sure it's you would think I'm being a scardey cat.” She replies.

There was a brief silence before Kazuna spoke up.

“You know, I'm always scared.” He says.

The comment caught her by surprise and drew quite the look from her.

“It’s true. Well, I’m not scared of something happening to me, but to you, Ria, or anyone from school. I’m always wondering if I can really protect everyone. I can’t just run away at this point, Zer knows that you all are a weak point for me so he’d still come after you. So, for the first time in my life, I have to face my problems head on and I don’t know if I can.” He says.

“Of course you can protect all of us because we’re going to be there to help you. You’re not alone and you don’t have to do it by yourself, you have all of us to rely on.” She replies.

“Thank you.” He says.

There was another short silence before she spoke again.

“I know that it's for only two weeks and that you'll be back, but I don't want you to leave. What if you don't come back? What if something happens there and you or bis sis Ria gets hurt? What if something happens here? What if you don't come back and abandon me? What if....” She spills but is stopped by Kazuna placing a hand on her head.

“Is that it?” He asks.

Kari looks at him with wide eyes that were beginning to tear up.

“Look, I won't lie and say that nothing will happen, because there is a chance that something will happen. But I can say that worrying about it won't accomplish anything. Have faith in me and everyone that'll be on the island to protect us. And you don't have to worry about something happening to you, I have someone in mind that will keep you safe guaranteed. And as for me abandoning you, that would never happen, even if I had to fight the world.” He says.

“But what if the guy that beat you last time shows up again?” She adds.

“I didn't have anything to fight for last time, but this time there's a lot for me to protect. So be strong and have faith in me.” He states.

Kari wipes the tears from her eyes that had begun to form and smiles.

"You promise that you'll be okay?" She asks.

"I promise." He replies.

Kari smiles and tightly hugs him.