An Assassin's Respite

I'm Seeing Double

There was silence as the two stared at each other before Kazuna sighed.

“So, what gave me away?” He asks.

“You called Ria by her real name and not Rimi. You covered it up when I asked you again, so I was willing to chalk that up to you being lost in your thoughts. But thanks to that little thing, my guard was up and I noticed that you had a different aura. First, why was I able to sense you coming? I have never once sensed Kazuna coming towards me unless he made himself known by speaking. Second, as you were walking, you were walking normally. I’ve never once heard Kazuna's footsteps and yet I could clearly hear yours. And finally, you asked where Ria was. If you were the real Kazuna, then you would have noticed that Ria was up on the hill.” She answers while glaring at the imposter.

The imposter sighs as he shakes his head.

“It seems he was right. That’s what I get for underestimating you all.” He says.

“He?” She questions.

“Don’t worry about that. But, since my cover’s blown, I might as well continue with the plan.” He says with a smile.

Kagura unsheathes her sword and grips it tightly.

“Who is this and what plan is he talking about?” She thought to herself. 

Before she could get far into speculation, the imposter charged towards her.

“He’s fast,” She notes as she manages to sidestep a punch.

She swings her sword upwards and is surprised to feel it clash with another sword.

“Where did that come from?” She questions in surprise. 

She jumps back, a bead of sweat falling down the side of her face. She tries to gather her thoughts, but the imposter continues to attack her relentlessly.

“He’s fast and his attacks are strong, but his swordsmanship is mediocre at best. If I could get used to his attacks, then I should be able to overcome the differences in physical ability.” She notes to herself as she dodges and blocks attack after attack.

She ducks a s***h that goes over her head only to have him throw his hand around her neck. 

“Gotcha,” he says as a shock goes through her body.

It looked as if she was going to be done for when his hand gets sliced off. Kagura falls to the ground coughing as the impostor jumps back.

“Are you alright?” She heard a girl say.

She looks up to see Ria standing over her.

“Ria? What are you doing here?” She asks.

“Saving you obviously.” She replies.

“But how did you know I was in trouble?” She asks,

“I saw you walking with this bastard that’s impersonating Kachi.” She answers.

“You knew he was an impostor?” She asks.

“Of course. No one knows Kachi better than me.” She answers.

Kagura smiles to herself as she picks herself back up.

“I guess we’ll have to make this poor excuse of an impostor pay for sullying Kazuna’s image,” Kagura states.

Ria nods as she goes invisible. The knowledge that she’ll now have Ria as backup as well as the fact that the impostor lost a hand instills her with some confidence.

The impostor looks from his hand and back towards Kagura.

“Well, this is no good,” He says dully.

Kagura’s confidence quickly dissipated as she watched him as his hand quickly regenerated seemingly out of nowhere.

“What in the world?” She mumbles.

“Much better. Now, where were we?” He says with a wry smile.

Kagura swallows nervously and her palms become sweaty.

“This isn’t looking good,” she said to herself.

Vanessa was following the directions Kazuna gave her.

“The room should be down this hallway.” She notes to herself as she peeks around the corner. At the end of the hall, she could see two people standing at the door she needed to get into.

“That’s the door I’m supposed to be heading for. Are they guarding it? I’ve never seen them before. I guess that means that things are about to get hectic. But the main issue, for now, is how I’m supposed to get past them.” She thinks to herself.

She begins to go over her options and tries to think of a way to get past them without starting a fight, but it was proving difficult.

“It’s safe to assume that there are other intruders on the island and that they’ve done something to the hotel’s security system. I don’t want to pull special agents from the students if they’re in danger. They seemed to want to keep Kazuna trapped. But why? Sure, he's strong, but there are plenty of strong agents spread across the island. In any case, I need to focus on rescuing him. I doubt I’d be able to simply open the door. Wait a minute. If I recall, their teacher isn’t watching over any specific students.” She notes. 

She focuses and can hear Ms. Saugoma is eating in the cafeteria.

“Sorry Mina, but I’ll have to interrupt your lunch break.” She says as she sprints for the cafeteria.

Vanessa calmly walks into the cafeteria and taps Ms. Saugoma on the shoulder.

“Can I talk to you in private for a moment?” She asks.

“Sure.” Ms. Saugoma replies as she swallows.

As they begin to walk down the hall, Vanessa leans close to Ms. Saugoma.

“Kazuna is trapped in a room on the ground floor. There are two men that I’ve never seen before guarding the room. It’s likely that there are more people that have infiltrated the island as well as the hotel.” She whispered.

“I see.” Ms. Saugoma replies with a straight face.

Once they made it to the corridor, Vanessa was sneaking around earlier, Ms. Saugoma peaks around the corner.

“I’m going to distract them. While I keep them busy, try and get the door open.” Ms. Saugoma instructs.

Vanessa nods as Ms. Saugoma whips around the corner. The guards turn to her and are greeted by the floor lifting them up and smacking them at the end of the hall. Vanessa hurries to the door and opens it.

“It was unlocked!” She screamed in her mind.

With the door fully opened, light floods into the room, and she can see Kazuna calmly sitting in the middle. He gets up and stretches his body.

“Glad to see you heard me.” He says with a smile.

“I almost didn’t. Thankfully, Micheal asked me to keep my ears open with you being separated from him,” Vanessa noted.

“I see.” Kazuna mumbles.

“Did he catch wind of a possible attack or did he think that I was a possible target? Either way, it’s safe to say that he’s on our side.” Kazuna thinks to himself. 

“Has anything of interest happened since I’ve been in there?” He asks.

“No, nothing except for…” Vanessa goes to answer but cuts herself off.

 “Vanessa? Are you…” Ms. Saugoma goes to ask but Vanessa holds a hand up.

“I’m listening.” She says sternly as a solitary bead of sweat falls down her cheek.

She was silent as her eyes darted around while she was listening closely.

“I don’t know if us freeing Kazuna caused this or if it was time for them to act, but it appears that there are intruders all across the island,” Vanessa stated with wide eyes.

“I see, it seems that they’ve decided to make their move.” Ms. Saugoma states.

“Are they heavily concentrated in any areas?” Kazuna asks.

“There seems to be quite a few around the hotel. Any intruders located out in the training areas aren’t very concentrated.” She replies.

“That’s good, that means they aren’t overwhelming the special agents. We just have to hope that they don’t have any monsters in their ranks. But why are they surrounding the hotel? Assuming they think that I’m still trapped, what does surrounding the hotel accomplish?” Kazuna questions.

“The hotel is supposed to serve as a point for students to retreat to in case of any emergencies since it’s easy to find, can house all of them, and is easily defensible thanks to its layout and security features. Maybe they surrounded it with that in mind.” Ms. Saugoma suggests.

“So it seems that Yuu was right about one of the higher-ups being a spy.” Kazuna thought to himself.

“Are they trying to take the students hostage?” Kazuna suggests.

“That is a possibility.” Ms. Saugoma says in agreement.

“So what’s our next move? The boat is still docked at the port, but it would take far too long to use it as a means of evacuation. With us not knowing the fighting strength of the enemy, opting to try and defeat them or gather the students could work against us.” Vanessa points out.

“Yes, truly we’re in a difficult situation. We’ll have to take the route that gives us the best chance of keeping everyone safe.” Ms. Saugoma notes.

“How about we take a guerilla warfare approach?” Kazuna suggests.

“Take advantage of the familiarity the students and agents have with the land to our advantage. Considering our options, that seems like the best choice.” Ms. Saugoma says.

“Shouldn't we try and contact the mainland?” Vanessa asks.

“You’re right.” Ms. Saugoma says while pulling out her phone.

“Or maybe not.” She says while showing them her phone screen.

Despite there being perfect service on the island yesterday, her phone now said that she had no service.

“Things keep getting more and more troublesome,” Vanessa says.

“Indeed, but for now, we have to inform everyone of our strategy and the current situation,” Kazuna says.

“Right. Vanessa, you come with me and let me know the location of the students. Kazuna, you head to Micheal and back him up. I’m giving you permission to act as you see fit.” Ms. Saugoma orders. 

“Kagura and Ria should be with Micheal as well. They’re training over in the forest on the mountain,” Vanessa informed him.

Kazuna nods as he promptly exits the hotel. Due to the hotel being surrounded, Ms. Saugoma had to travel underground to get out without being surrounded. Kazuna was able to make use of his years of assassin training to wiggle his way out.

“It’s pretty impressive that you were able to take my hand even if it was done through a sneak attack.” Kazuna’s imposter says in praise of Kagura and Ria.

“It seems I’ll have to take this a little more seriously.” He adds as another sword shoots from his hand.

“Is he not human?” Kagura questions herself as she watches that inhuman act occur.

“Sorry to tell you this, but your little sneak attack won’t work twice.” He says as he seemingly swings in the air until a ring can be heard as his sword comes in contact with Ria’s knife.

“How did you…” She begins to ask, but a kick to the gut silences her.

Kagura tries to take advantage of the opportunity Ria had given her, but he effortlessly blocks her attack.

“And here I thought that I’d at least get a warm-up.” He mocks.

“Don’t underestimate me!” Kagura exclaims as she uses her wind to sharpen her blade and increase her power, allowing her to cut through his blade and cut his chest.

Kagura smiles just before a knee comes crashing into her chin. The imposter places a hand on his scar and it slowly begins to heal. 

“I guess I still have a lot to learn,” He notes.

He drops his broken sword and throws out his hand, causing a new sword to appear. Kagura gets up and holds a hand to her chin.

“What the hell is he? At first, I thought his power allowed him to disguise himself as someone else, but then he made swords appear from out of nowhere, and now he’s regenerating at incredibly fast rates?” She thinks to herself. 

“What… What are you?” She asks.

“Hmm, that’s a good question. And to be honest, I’m not completely sure what or who I am. All I do know is that I’m a homunculus,” He says.

“A homunculus?” Kagura repeats in confusion.

“That’s right, I'm an artificially created human-made from the DNA of Kazuna Katsuchi.” He elaborates.

“W-What?” Kagura stutters in utter shock.

“You heard me, I was made from Kazuna’s DNA. My creator…” He trails off as he seems to be listening to something.

“What was that?” He says seemingly to nobody.

“You’re one to talk saying that I talk too much.” He snaps.

“Who is he talking to?” She asks herself.

She looks over and sees that Ria is signaling for her to be ready. Kagura nods as she waits for Ria to make her move. She knew that Ria was going to wait for him to finish talking so that she could get as much information as possible.

“Why not explain it? If this Kazuna guy is as smart as you say, I'm sure he’ll figure it out himself soon enough.” He retorts.

“Whoever he’s talking to seems to be well acquainted with Kazuna. That has to be Zer on the other side of that call. That means he isn’t here.” Kagura surmises.

“Fine, I’ll do it the boring way.” He says with a sigh. 

“Sorry, the boss says I have to do this quick,” He says with a shrug.

Ria lunges towards him, but is caught by the throat and is forced out of her invisibility.

“As I said, that’s not going to work again,” He says.

Kagura now speeded towards him with as much speed as she could muster, knowing this was her one chance. She stops in front of him, throws out her left foot, and angles her body for an attack.

‘Razer Whirlwind’, She shouts as she brings her sword upward.

The imposter sets his feet and goes for his own attack.

“That doesn’t sound half bad,” He says as his sword begins to hum.

‘Razer Whirlwind’ he says as winds burst from his blade.

“Huh?” Kagura squeaks as their blades clash.

The clash knocked both of them back. The imposter was able to keep his footing while Kagura fell on her back. He threw Ria into the ground with all his might before heading towards Kagura.

“That surprise you? I’m sure it did based on that look on your face and the way you squeaked.” He says as he grabs her by her hair and lifts her up.

“Before I continue, I should probably let you know that I harbor no ill feelings towards you. I don’t have any emotions like that, just following orders.” He explains as he raises his sword.

He starts to bring his sword down, but something blows him to the side. Kagura sits up on her knees with a hand on her head. She looks in the direction of where the attack came from and is surprised to see Matt standing there.

“Matt?” She mumbles in surprise.

“There’s no need to fear, the greatest, most handsome hero of all time is here. So, who’s that?” He says with a nervous smile.

“Did you not see them? Whatever, it’s probably better that you didn’t then. Don’t be fooled, that’s an impostor.” Kagura says as she

shakily gets up.

“Huh?”Matt exclaims.

But his confusion with what she said was replaced with a different form of confusion once he saw the guy he hit get up.

“What the..” Matt whimpers as he sees the fake Kazuna’s face.

“Didn’t see that one coming. Maybe he wasn’t just being annoying when he was briefing me.” The impostor says as he gets up and stretches his neck.

“What’s going on?” Matt chokes.

“It would take too long to explain and, honestly, I’m not too sure either. But for now, just know that that’s not the real Kazuna.” Kagura replies.

“You know if it were anyone else saying that, I wouldn’t believe you. But since it’s you, I don’t have any other choice. Where’s Ria?” He asks.

Kagura quickly looks around but can’t see her.

“She must have used the commotion of you bursting in to go invisible. How did you know where we were anyway?” Kagura asks.

“There were suddenly a bunch of intruders on the island. Micheal told me to head towards you two and that you had walked into the forest. I just followed the direction he pointed and managed to get here in time.” Matt answered.

“Why didn’t he come with you?” Kagura asks.

“He said he wanted to make sure Kazuna was alright since he went to the hotel. But speaking of Micheal, where’s the agent that was watching over you?” Matt replied.

“She said she had something to take care of so she had someone else watch over us, but I haven’t seen them in a while.” Kagura answers.

“Oh, you can thank me for that. I didn’t want anyone to interfere.” Fake Kazuna chimes in.

“What did you do to him!?” Kagura exclaims.

“Maybe he’s dead, maybe he isn’t, I don't really care. But for now, let’s continue our little dance.” He says with a smile.

“You bastard,” Kagura growls through gritted teeth.

Kagura charges him and attacks ferociously, but her rage made her reckless, allowing him to easily dodge her attacks. The imposter grabs her arms and knees her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her. Ria appeared behind him to try and help, but he was ready for her.

“Too slow.” He says as he ducks her attack, grabs her by the neck as she falls, and slams her into the ground.

Matt goes for an attack as well, but he easily catches it in his hand.

“You seem to be proud of your strength, but honestly, it isn’t that much.” He mocks.

He forces Matt back, punches him square in the face, then pulls his head down onto his knee. Matt tries to get back up, but he gets kicked in the gut and gets stepped on.

“Stay down you little rat.” The impostor growls as he forces Matt all the way to the ground.

With Matt down for the count, he turns his attention towards Kagura and Ria.

Kazuna was in a tree, watching some intruders run by. He quickly moves and continues towards the direction of Kagura and Ria.

“Although I don’t know their goal, it’s very likely that those that are close to me will be targeted. With Matt, Kagura, and Ria all in close proximity, there’s a high possibility that they will be in the most trouble.” Kazuna notes to himself as he silently jumps from tree to tree.

As he moved, he noticed something flying towards him. He focused on his vision and could see that it was Micheal. He stops and shoots a small bolt of lightning to grab his attention. Micheal notices this and dives towards him.

“What are you doing here? You said you were going to the hotel?” Micheal asks with a worried tone.

Kazuna quickly catches him up on all that has happened, making sure to be quick and concise. 

“I see, well, in any case, I’m glad that you’re alright,” Micheal notes.

“Thank you for your concern. Now, can you lead me to Matt and the others? I have a feeling that they’re in trouble,” Kazuna says.

Micheal nods as he turns in the direction he came and flies off with Kazuna following behind. They make it to the abandoned warehouse that everyone was at and see that it was surrounded by intruders.

“It seems as if they’re in there,” Micheal notes.

“I agree,” Kazuna replies.

“If it isn’t our lucky day. The prize target has come to us.” One noted.

“Sorry, but I don’t have time to toy with pawns.” Kazuna retorts as he places a hand on his sword.

‘Burst, Stream’ he mutters as he explodes forward.

In an instant, every intruder was defeated. Micheal could do nothing but marvel at the spectacle that he had just witnessed.

“You’re even more impressive than I imagined,” Micheal notes.

“Thank you, but we must hurry,” Kazuna says as he slices through the doors and enters the building.

Once the dust settles, he sees his friends all on the ground, but what really halted his advance was who was responsible.

“And the guest of honor has arrived,” His doppelganger says.