A/N Hey guys! I know... It's been 3 and a half years. If you're coming here from Death, the story I've been writing for all that time and have been procrastinating on the next chapter of, I promise I'm just on a tiny break from it with some writer's block on the current chapter. I didn't want to stop writing even while blocked though, and I reread all of Nexus as well as another Fanfic that I abandoned in the past and decided to keep writing this past month. I had some chapters of Nexus HWR 17 ready to post, I wrote some others to connect it, and I wrote a half dozen Broken Log Pose chapters too if you want to check out that story which I'll be uploading some chapters of soon too. If you're a reader of Nexus who I left in suspense for the past three years... I'm sorry. I had an idea for a My Hero Academia fanfiction when I first started watching that show, and I didn't realize at the time that it would take my full focus away from Nexus for the next 3+ years. But it did. Sometimes that happens. As Death nears an end though, I thought about what I might write next and was planning on doing non-fanfiction and making an actual book... but then I thought about Nexus, and I had a ton of new ideas because of all the new media I've watched and read and played over the past several years. I think I've gotten better as a writer too to make this story even better than it already was. XD Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter which was half-completed for over 3 years before I came back and finished it!
Disclaimer: I still don't own any of the sources that the characters and settings from this fanfic originate from. None of them. I took every character from somewhere else! Now, on with the chapter!
Nexus HWR 16.7 Nagisa:
Three invisible shuttles flew across the sky over south-central Aebrith. There was a huge crack in the planet below them, as they had just flown over the northern ledge of the Cataclysm. The shuttles were still cloaked, as even though the area below them was disputed between a few different groups, none of those groups were friendly towards them. Nagisa stood in between the cockpit and the rest of the people on the ship, barely any light coming through the windows as it was cloudy out and nearing sunset as well. The lights on the inside of the shuttle were off too, the ship using as little power as possible to try and stay off enemy radars.
In the dimly lit shuttle, two of the people were unconscious while most of the rest were sitting in seats around the vehicle. Only Megu and Karma stood in front of Nagisa, and Megu began, "We didn't know when we'd have another opportunity like this. It was our best shot, and we had orders-"
"Since when has the safety of our friends come after anything?" Nagisa asked, and Megu closed her mouth at the angry look on the blue-haired boy's face. "Why didn't everyone have masks? Wearing hoodies?" Nagisa asked, raising his tone in disbelief.
"Printing masks isn't as easy as you make it out to be," Karma said. "And they don't work twice, so we needed a whole new set-"
"I know," Nagisa snapped. "But you had Manami piloting an escape shuttle, while people with notoriety, even bounties, went in there without cover."
"Terasaka was working the door, and no one had a problem getting in," Karma countered.
"That's not the point," Nagisa said. "And now, he's going to be notorious around there too. If you were going to have someone, anyone wear a mask, it should have been the bouncer first and foremost."
"I was supposed to be the dealer for their table, so mine had to be the best," Karma said. "That Gotoh is the only reason the plan failed-"
"Plans!" Nagisa shouted a correction at him. "All those plans failed."
"Manami has a low combat score," Karma said, narrowing his eyes at Nagisa and stepping towards him. "I didn't put her inside, because I knew the plans might fall through and we'd have to start fighting."
"They wouldn't have fallen through as easily, if Ichiji didn't notice something was up," Nagisa rose his voice higher as Karma opened his mouth again, "which he wouldn't have! Because Manami wouldn't have needed a mask or a hood! Her, or the others you could have had go in! And why did so many people need to be inside for this mission?"
"So that when things go south, and they did," Karma hissed, before regaining control over his voice and in a calm tone finishing, "we'd still have the upper hand."
"If I wasn't there, the extra numbers you brought in would have just been extra casualties," Nagisa said darkly and definitively. "You didn't have the upper hand in numbers. You never were going to have the upper hand in numbers. We're assassins. We fight in enemy territory. We NEVER have the advantage in numbers! Why would you plan ahead with that intention in mind?" Nagisa glared harshly into Karma's pale-orange eyes, and Karma back into Nagisa's light blue ones.
"You almost got everyone killed," Nagisa said.
"But I didn't," Karma replied curtly.
Nagisa's fists clenched at his sides, but instead of punching his friend in the face like he wanted to, he just said in a dark tone, "I should revoke your license to kill." Karma's eyes widened as did all the other teens around the shuttle. "But instead I'm just demoting you. Rio's second-in-command now, in charge when I'm gone." Nagisa looked behind Karma towards the blonde girl who stared at him in surprise, then nodded seriously and glared at Karma when he turned towards her with a frown. "I can trust that she at least won't do something so risky-"
"We are losing the war," Karma said, his voice low and dark as he turned back to Nagisa. "And when we do lose, can we say that we did everything we could if we do things your way?" Nagisa's eyes opened a little wider, as did the others in the shuttle around Karma. "Of course it was a risky mission. All the worthwhile ones are. You were willing to accept that for the League, but this, which could have on a large scale- and still might have, helped the Resistance." Karma narrowed his eyes more at Nagisa while regaining a smirk on his face, "No one died. We shook any trust between Prodi and Ichiji. The Resistance can focus on its flanks now without worrying about the north. I'd say, my mission might just have been the most important one we've ever had. And despite Prodi's survival, I think it's going to work."
A few of the others in the shuttle glanced around at their comrades. Rinka frowned deeply, but she nodded as Juzo Honenuki shrugged at her. Megu looked back towards Touka lying unconscious in the back, and she smiled softly at the idea that the mission was not for nothing. Nagisa started rubbing the right side of his head, then rubbing it harder so his blue hair was messing up. "Karma," he began, closing his eyes while speaking in such an annoyed way. "You just have an answer for everything huh?" Nagisa cracked a small smile as he lowered his hand, and the mood in the shuttle lifted. Everyone felt it was okay to smile again with Nagisa losing as angry an expression on his face. "But I'm still leaving Rio in charge when I'm gone," Nagisa added, while staring into Karma's eyes to see if he would challenge that decision.
Karma looked over at Rio Nakamura who smirked at him this time instead of frowning, and Karma let out a sigh but shrugged his shoulders like there was nothing he could do. Everyone was glad he did that instead of making the mood all serious and confrontational again. "So Nagisa," Rio began, leaning to her side in her seat to look around Megu and Karma. "What happened? We all thought, you were going to die."
"Huh?" Nagisa asked. The teenage boy with some feminine features looked towards Rio in surprise at that comment but noticed that the others around Rio appeared to think the same thing.
"Well," Honenuki said, scratching the back of his messy beige hair. "You said you were going to free Itona and Kayano, but some others also tried breaking out some slaves from the Capital." The mention of that other slave revolt made some in the back like Honenuki himself gain darker expressions at the thought of that group's leader, Tatsumi.
Nagisa frowned as he brought that up, and a sweatdrop rolled down the right side of his face. Karma then spoke up, "I thought you would be fine. Knew you'd make the right decision."
"I didn't," Nagisa said. Karma looked at him in surprise, then confusion as Nagisa's fists clenched hard at his sides. "I made, so many bad decisions."
"Tell us," Karma said, and Nagisa brought his gaze back up. The redhead continued, "I heard from Kirito that you broke off from their team early on. They're all alright by the way-" Karma paused, then he frowned and corrected himself, "Actually, the girl Kairi you left with, she was apparently abducted by the Organization." Nagisa's eyes grew huge, and Karma continued in a low voice, "They don't know why, or at least they didn't tell me. But Nagisa, that girl," Karma continued. "She had a Keyblade, didn't she?"
The Organization, Keyblades, Nagisa looked into Karma's eyes and felt a sense of dread at the look on his friend's face. Karma had just started grinning, in a different way than Nagisa had seen since reuniting with him. He's way into stuff like that. Stuff, I'd like to just ignore. "She did," Nagisa replied, but he kept it short and did not sound like he wanted to get into anything about that at the moment. So instead he thought back on what Karma said before talking about Kairi who he was sad to hear about. "My mission," Nagisa began.
Everyone in the shuttle looked towards their leader with interest and they quieted down if they were talking to each other. Their smiles all vanished at the dark and distant look that formed on Nagisa's face. "I'll give, my mission report now. Someone record, and I'll send it in when we get to safety, so we can get right to the next mission without wasting any time." Karma frowned that the actual leader of their group had that as an option, while he had to report directly back in to HQ several times since Nagisa had left. He looked to his left at a boy sitting there and gave him an expectant look, and the guy let out a groan before going through his things to find a recording device.
The recording started and the boy who pressed the button nodded at Nagisa to start. "When I got to Sin City with the team of nine, we saw signs that the Fire Nation was about to make a strong counterattack to the south. While Black Canary turned back to warn everyone," he continued, but frowned deeper and his fists tightened more at his sides as he brought her up, showing his friends he already knew what became of her. Nagisa paused for a second, then he continued, "I sent Gray ahead with his comrades. I decided to try and stop the Fire Nation's counter-strike, by assassinating the leaders of the invasion."
The others in the shuttle all stared at their group's leader in surprise, not as much because he made that decision- as that was something they thought he would do, but because Nagisa reached down and grabbed his right side after saying it. He grabbed his stomach and rubbed around there while continuing, "I was not prepared, for what I was going to encounter…" his gaze shifted back to Karma with a hesitant look almost like he did not want to continue with the red-haired boy standing there. "They knew I was coming…"
15 Days Ago
A blue haired teenager standing on the inside of the sixty-forth floor of a fancy hotel stared out the windows to the north as a train pulled out of the station. It drove east for a quarter of a mile before curving and leaving this side of the continent. It turned onto a wide bridge with several tracks on it and went right past a train heading south that continued to go straight past the city before curving eastward itself. He watched the northbound train get a full mile away from Sin City, then turned around in the dark room he was in. Nagisa reached down to his side and pulled out the curved dagger at his waist, sliding it slowly out of his sheath and then twirling it in front of his body. He held it sideways across the front of his chest, a silver blade with a red highlight on the back of it and two separate barbs on the sharp side. Good luck you guys, Nagisa thought.
He moved silently across the dark room he stood in. It was one bedroom of a large penthouse suite which stretched five stories tall in total. The guest bedroom was unoccupied other than Nagisa Shiota, but there were a few suitcases open on the floor. He had already gone through the belongings and found paperwork inside one of the outer pockets, and he was not surprised to see the last name- Corleone, on the travel documents. This was the Corleone Grande that he snuck into, after all. The penthouse belonged to the owner of the hotel and resident of Sin City, Vito Corleone. Nagisa gathered from the crumpled boarding passes that the bags belonged to Sonny Corleone and his wife who were visiting his father from Zeon City in the Ren Empire.
Sonny and Vito. General Bujing. Commander Zhao is also here from what I heard on my way up. He is not a part of this fleet, but his regiment previously stationed in Dressrosa are also inside of Sin City at the moment. If his superiors at this meeting force him to join them on the invasion south, it would create an even larger problem for the Resistance. I wish I knew who the other officers are, but Bujing should be priority number 1. Nagisa thought while he moved closer to the door that led into a main room of the penthouse where he could hear people talking, though it was difficult to make out their words over the classical Italian music that was playing in the background. In the corners of Nagisa's eyes, he could see the huge inflated balloons of the zeppelins covering the city he stood near the top of. The ships' combined firepower was a daunting thing to imagine. It's far more than they put into the last one. Azula's attempt to take Pon-Gatso with just those forces was likely a move on her part to prove her worth to Sozin. She isn't his heir. He had sons on this world which he would have raised into powerful warriors to succeed him, if he wasn't going to die this week. I should believe in Natsu. He pushed back Azula. He seems confident, and Gray does as well. Gray knows this continent. Believe in them. Trust that they can do this, even without you.
His thoughts got darker. Nagisa had to imagine the worst though as he tried listening in to the next room that he could not surveil properly. Even getting into this one guest room was only possible due to the thin separation between the floor of the room and the ceiling of the occupied bedroom below which had two tied-up guests inside it. He did not do as much surveillance as he would have liked, but there was no telling when the army might be launching its assault, and the meeting he heard about was going on currently which meant it could end at any moment. All he was able to check was what he could hear through the floor above, and when he first carved through the ceiling of the 63rd floor, he knew he had picked the correct position to rise to the right floor without putting himself in immediate view of his enemies. Lucky the building's construction didn't take an attack like this into account.
His barbed dagger looked deadly as he held it steadily across his chest. Survive this. Plans don't survive first contact with the enemy anyway. Don't hesitate. Nagisa convinced himself but still had to push down nerves. It did not matter how long he had been doing this. His missions always had more thorough planning than the current objective. Even the mission to take down the Fire Lord was absurdly underprepared for. But this was an impromptu decision he made, not because it made sense logistically, but because he believed it could stall the Fire Nation's advance southward until after Black Canary had given his allies more time to prepare.
Whoever is in there, I need to be prepared for harsh resistance. Move quickly. Assassinate the invasions' top officers and get out. Bujing. You know what he looks like. Focus! Kill or be killed. Go. The music rose in pitch as a different instrumental transitioned on the speakers, and a female vocal joined in with the music as boy opened up the door in front of him with his left hand, making it creak open. Nagisa took one step forward- BANG!
The Fire Nation leaders sitting on couches and recliners in the beautiful luxury suite spun in shock and most jumped up to their feet. General Bujing remained seated alone at the recliner chair closest to the windows on the west side of the penthouse's first floor. There was a staircase to his right side that led up to a balcony going around the third floor where there were more rooms and another sitting area. The main area they were in right now had a high roof that stretched several stories tall. There were windows on the north side of it to Nagisa's right, and on the western wall straight ahead of Nagisa opposite the guest bedroom and past the staircase that his bulging eyes were staring at.
Most of the Fire Nation leaders who spun around looked straight at the stairs first before spinning the other way and looking to the east side of the building and a supposedly empty guest room. Sonny Corleone was watching from a hallway above that had a railing on one side to make it out as a balcony of the third floor. He and his brother Michael stared in shock towards Sonny's room for the weekend getaway. Sonny's breath hitched in panic for a moment before he remembered that he had sent his and his brother's wives to enjoy the spa on the thirtieth floor while business went on upstairs.
Vito Corleone pushed off of the wall he had been leaning on and reached for his sidearm while glaring towards the figure on the staircase who suddenly drew a pistol and shot it. Sweat poured down the gangster's face though, as he was one of the few who actually saw where that cloaked figure had pulled a gun from. The steel flintlock had dropped out of thin air into the dark man's arm while it was still lifting up from his side. Vito spun the direction this dark figure had fired, while General Bujing announced, "I must thank our friend in the Organization…"
Nagisa had pulled his body to the left as he heard the gunshot. He saw the flash of gold come from the muzzle of his enemy's barrel right as he pushed the door open. He had not taken a full step into the room, but he was already moving quickly enough to almost be able to dodge as he had planned on rushing in and killing them before anyone saw him coming. HOW?! Nagisa knew he was undetected on his way upstairs. The leader of Class 3-E prided himself on all of his mastered assassination techniques, and yet someone in this room had a reaction time that exceeded just being alert and on-guard for potential intruders. Nagisa was biting down through the pain, but his eyes did not even dart down to his right side where a hole had ripped through his stomach and out his back. Blood was still splashing behind him into the dark room that he had emerged from.
He dodged, the cloaked enemy on the staircase thought while most Fire Nation officials were still spinning from him back to where he had fired and finally noticing the person he had just shot. The crouched figure entering the room had gotten out of his crouch a bit while leaning to the left to dodge, so the shot went lower than his chest and hit Nagisa in the stomach, as well as off-centered instead of straight in the middle of his body.
Organization! It's a Nobody. Which one?! I don't know him. Don't recognize the weapon. Hood's up. "Nnn-ah-" Nagisa held in a groan as one foot came down to finish a step to the side. It was the same second that he had been shot, and although able to hold in any noise while the glowing golden bullet flew through his stomach, the vibration from his foot up through his body on that hard stomp to the side caused a jolt of pain. It forced him to groan then gasp out his first breath from when he started holding it on the other side of the door.
"Who the Hell is that?!" Don Vito Corleone yelled. In the corner of his gaze he saw Bujing put his hands down on the armrests on his sides and push up to calmly rise to his feet. The leader of the Fire Nation invasion who he had put up in his hotel seemed to know that this was coming, pissing off the Italian mafioso who had been revived on this world as a younger man than his own son.
Michael was much older than his formerly older brother Sonny, and older than his father Vito, but he remained consigliere to his father instead of pushing to remain the Don as he was in the year they were transported to this world. He was quick on his feet though. Rather than the confusion and panic that hit Sonny first at the sight of his door opening across the main floor below, or his father's surprise and then frustration that he was not privy to details of this attempted assassination, Michael spun his head to the right and yelled towards a group of men still getting up in the sitting area on the third floor and the boys still in the kitchen. "Get your asses moving!" He yelled at them all, and they drew their weapons and stopped hesitating to run up to the balcony themselves while Michael pulled his own small gun out of his waistband. Michael pressed a button on the side of it, popping the beam rifle's stock backwards and the barrel out from the front so it was a full-sized high-tech rifle by the time he got the butt of it to his shoulder.
Bujing's voice continued loudly over the ongoing music, "…As my invasion plans did not account for a sudden attempted assassination from the Resistance. I thank you, Xoupps, and I extend this gratitude to High Lord Xemnas…" Bujing was staring towards the enemy as he started announcing what he apparently had known was coming throughout the meeting discussing their invasion plans for the south.
Commander Zhao spun angrily to Bujing and then back again towards the blue-haired boy who slouched and put a hand back to the wall behind him as if to grab on and keep from collapsing after being shot. He knew but kept it quiet from us. Damn him- but, it looks as if it succeeded- Nagisa's eyes snapped open with killing intent in them after a moment, while most of the officers in the room were just lowering their guards. Even arriving mobsters running to see what was going on just looked down into the main room to see a single teenager looking about to collapse with blood splashed on the open door next to him. His slim and small figure actually made some of the men assume incorrectly that this was a young woman they were looking at. Then Nagisa's head snapped up and his murderous eyes glared towards Bujing who stopped with the confident and planned-out speech he had for after the Nobody foiled the assassination plot.
Bujing's eyes bulged at the sight of those eyes glaring at him in a way that made a bead of sweat roll down the right side of his face. Xoupps said there was an assassin coming for me but that he would stop them. I didn't know what to think of it but- "Shoot her again!" Bujing exclaimed while spinning towards Xoupps who just made another pistol appear out of midair that his second hand snagged while he fired again with his first.
The reason Nagisa gave up on his weak appearance so quickly rather than continuing to pretend to be shot in a vital area, was because the enemy who he was most wary of had a look on his face as if he knew that his shot had missed anything important. Xoupps knew an assassin of a caliber to be willing to come up here on his own and kill leaders of an army would not be so damaged and weak after avoiding a fatal blow. So Nagisa stopped acting and moved to his next strategy quickly before Xoupps could fire again. He knew I was there but did not know I would survive, Nagisa thought as he darted to his right and dodged the second bullet fired at him. His first shot caught me unprepared, but his bullets are not too fast that I cannot dodge. His accuracy is impeccable though, Nagisa thought, while ducking his head down and avoiding a bullet that flew between the blue pigtails he wore in the same fashion his mother always forced him to wear. Wearing them now just gave him the benefit of working with his effeminate figure to trick sexist enemies into lowering their guards quicker. The lack of any protrusion from his chest did not make most who looked his way question whether he was a girl or not, rather they just questioned his age and wondered if he was even younger than his already young appearance made him out to be.
As Nagisa ducked his head, the Fire Nation Colonel who he sprinted behind was exclaiming in shock as a golden light shot under his right arm so close that it nearly connected with him. Xoupps lifted his fingers from the triggers for a moment as his enemy moved so close to the ground and with such speeds that he could only connect by firing through furniture at this point. The young man he was aiming at was moving closer to the officers as well, and Xoupps lifted his right leg and stepped onto the railing of the steps upstairs, then he jumped off into the air above the main room to give him a better bird's-eye angle down at the teen.
A barbed blade with a red highlight on it flew into the air in the path of the Nobody. Xoupps was already throwing the flintlock in his right hand forward though, and it hit the blade at the right angle that the hilt flipped around and he was able to snag it out of the air in his now empty hand. Xoupps aimed his other flintlock down at the boy who had to leap backwards after almost getting behind Zhao, who also spun in that moment and rose a fist that covered in flames.
"We'll handle it!" Michael Corleone yelled down at the firebender who he could tell was about to set the hotel aflame. Or he will, Michael thought. He still aimed his own rifle though despite the speed of their cloaked ally, and he fired to the right of the boy downstairs which forced him backwards even more than Xoupps already had.
Bang- bang bang Bang Bang-BANG BANG BANG-BANG! BANGBANGBANG! Gunfire that had started in different sections of the room suddenly grew louder and louder beyond any comprehensible reasoning. The Fire Nation officers brought their hands to their heads. Mafia guards and bosses dropped their weapons and grabbed their ears in pain. Michael squinted his own eyes while taking one hand off of his rifle to cover one ear, pressing the other ear into his rising shoulder to try and block the noise without dropping his means of fighting back.
Xoupps' ears rang like everyone else's. He continued to glare furiously down towards Nagisa though who had pulled two more knives and threw them forward at the same time as his Echoes got too loud that it distracted Xoupps. The Nobody still pulled his one flintlock back and fired towards the knife going for the higher ranking of the targeted Fire Nation officials, though a Captain who was gripping his ears tightly and yelling out in shock and pain, suddenly stopped yelling as the second blade pierced through his neck and cut through his trachea.
Nagisa's eyes darted for the elevator on the south side of the penthouse's main room. The short hallway to that elevator went below the living room on the third floor, or the sixty-sixth, and once he was in there it would be impossible for the gangsters above to keep firing on him. He also needed to get to those elevators or the stair access he saw on the left side of the hallway before he would reach the elevator doors themselves. Then his eyes snapped back to Xoupps who was coming down towards him without grabbing at his ears, and who was managing to ignore the earsplitting ringing of Nagisa's Echo-Echo Fruit.
This child, a thought of rage moved through the man's head even as his lips remained flat and he somehow appeared emotionless to the enemy he descended towards. Xoupps was not prepared for it. I only saw what abilities he used when he killed the officials and mafioso up here. That power must be one he uses for escapes. And in my prophecy, he did not need it to escape. Xoupps' power of Precognition was his special ability unique to him as a Nobody. It was an impressive power which allowed him to see this attack coming and put him at a perfect angle to shoot the would-be assassin dead the moment the boy entered the room. Precognition only showed him events as they would have occurred though, and although able to change events of that vision based on what he saw, he could not foresee how those changed events would play out once he had interfered.
We are out of the timeline now. Events are in motion that I must adapt to. He is faster than them, but I could tell in his initial successful assassination that he was not a level of speed ahead of them that it was an easy task. Slipping away as the building burned due to their counterattacks was a simple measure for him though. "I will not let you escape this time," Xoupps declared to his enemy whose own blade he slashed down at. Nagisa started pulling out even another blade, this time a short-sword from underneath his black shirt. He had to dive to his left and roll though as Xoupps fired a triple-shot from his pistol that suddenly had three barrels on it that Nagisa imagined an instant before three gold lines fired out of it different directions.
Nagisa could see and hear those attacks coming with his Observational Haki, and yet Xoupps twisted his wrist that he was swinging Nagisa's blade down with, and he flicked the weapon towards where Nagisa rolled as he predicted the boy predicting his shots and making that dodge away. Nagisa could see that follow-up attack as well, but there was only so much he could do while already in mid-roll and with other enemies he had to focus on as his Echo power had cut off when he had to concentrate solely on Xoupps for a second. That sole focus was extending longer as his enemy proved to be as skilled with Haki as he was, and as experienced in combat as well, which Nagisa was coming to understand as his own blade the enemy wielded slashed through the side of his left calf.
Nagisa could only be grateful that he did not use poison on his weapons as some of his comrades chose to do. He disliked the slower deaths they would bring. The Fire Nation leaders were his enemies as a member of the Resistance. He did not need them to die painful and slow deaths though in order to help his people and their cause. Escape. I can't just defeat him and move on. Vito's already calling backup. I was going to need to eliminate anyone pulling out communicators first before assassinating those fighting back against me. I'm going to be cutting it close. They all saw me. How did I screw this up so badly? How did he see me coming? I just made the plan. It was a spur of the moment decision, Nagisa grit his teeth and bit down hard through the pain in his lower right side as well as in his left calf now. He could feel the warm liquid spilling down his leg and past his waistband on his right side, though the wound was not as deep on his leg where his body armor had protected him better from his own weapon than it did against the mysterious flintlock of the Nobody.
We don't know anything about the Organization! They're everywhere, and they control Nobodies. We know they can control Heartless too. They ARE Nobodies, even though they don't look like- Nagisa pulled up then darted to his right as he couldn't stop moving despite what just appeared before him in five swirls of silver in the short hallway to the elevators. They don't look like that, Nagisa finished his last thought in his head.
Nagisa did not recognize the silver-plated figures ahead of him who all pointed crossbow-like weapons towards him from on top of their wrists. All of the Nobodies' wrists loaded up with silver arrows that spun around more and more like they were about to be fired towards him. Nagisa's head turned partially to the side as he darted right, and he caught a glimpse of Xoupps behind him holding up his right hand towards the hallway, glimmers of silver fading from his fingertips as he had summoned those creatures to block his enemy's escape.
Second-to-last blade, Nagisa had out the short sword that he had started drawing before realizing that his hope of beating Xoupps was misplaced. He's fast. He's right behind me. Nagisa focused his willpower on the weapon he whipped around in his right hand.
General Bujing spun from the Captain who two others were trying to save on the couch as he flailed his hands at the blade in his throat. Bujing stared towards the assassin who he had thought Xoupps successfully ambushed and stopped. His confidence in his speech after the would-be killer was shot was more for his own subordinates to be impressed by, encouraging them at the failure of their enemies rather than to thank Xoupps or respect Xemnas or taunt their enemy. Now he was more focused on the problem at hand though, as the Nobody whose foresight and speed amazed him was chasing the assassin too close to the possible exits. "Don't let them escape!" Bujing called out, not using the female pronoun this time as he started questioning his own initial assumption.
Zhao was not focused on his own injured ally. He instead noticed the sprinkler system and smoke detector in the hallway. The sprinklers were not out in the open, because of the luxury of the suite, but the distinct circular lines on the ceiling showed where they could pop out of, and the smoke detector was in a good position that it would catch his attack instantly. Commander Zhao leapt over the couch his allies were on, futilely trying to stop their comrade's bleeding, and he punched his right fist towards Nagisa's back while the boy darted closer to the right side of the hall.
Nagisa moved even closer to the hall's edge, and then he sprinted up it and put his hands onto the ceiling. He crawled in the corner of the hallway as the fireball flew below him and slightly more centered in the hall, as he had sped up even more right as Zhao punched his fist. Two Nobodies past him were hit and knocked backwards into the wall on the right side of the elevator doors. Xoupps just leaned his body to the left and allowed the fireball to go past him, his eyes darting sideways once to glare at Zhao but quickly snapping back on the shared enemy of him and the Fire Nation Commander joining in his fight.
Xoupps aimed through the flames and fired towards where Nagisa was crawling. The assassin of Class 3-E pictured the holes ripping through his back. He darted to the right even farther, squishing himself into the corner, then he dove left to avoid the following shots. Holes ripped into the ceiling right as the sprinklers were dropping down and putting out the flames on the carpet and the wall below Nagisa that Zhao had ignited. "Watch it!" Don Vito yelled towards the Fire Nation Commander who ignored him and just stomped his next foot forward, punching another fist towards the ceiling this time and closer to Nagisa's path.
Xoupps grimaced and flicked his right hand down. He lost one of the two guns he held, in order to summon three more Nobodies. One of those he created appeared in the path of Zhao's fireball. The assassin used the fire to his advantage last time. Escaping in the chaos created. Xoupps' summoned Dusk got in the way of the fireball and took the blast head-on, getting destroyed completely this time unlike the other two Nobodies that managed to survive only to be cut down by Nagisa's blade in one strike after he dropped to the floor.
"What are you doing?! You're letting him get away!" Zhao shouted towards his ally on his left and slightly ahead of him. Xoupps started sprinting forward again instead of explaining to Zhao why he prevented the man's fireball from destroying two of the sprinklers on the ceiling that were the only way of easily putting out the flames Zhao was recklessly creating right now.
Xoupps fired twice more at Nagisa's back, but even from a closer range, Nagisa was dodging the shots and slashing at silver enemies that he attempted to put in Xoupps' line of fire. Xoupps did not shoot his own summoned Nobodies though. He aimed carefully and shot the doorknob off of the stairwell exit, only breaking apart the knob on their side while the door remained locked and shut but now with no easy way to open it.
Water fell from the ceiling and mixed with the flames on the wall and on the carpet. Steam filled the air and shrouded Nagisa more on the other side of it. Nagisa understood why Xoupps intercepted one of Zhao's fireballs though, and he threw his short sword up into the sprinkler above him. Dink dink dink Dink DINK DINK… The Echo from the metal of his blade on the breaking sprinkler reverberated around the narrower hallway and made it even louder than before. Xoupps could not help it this time and skid to a stop, avoiding getting any closer to the assassin when he would be down one of his senses. The flames continued to smolder on one side of the hall farther from him though, and all of the fire was being put out slower without one of the few sprinklers there. An alarm was already going off in the room, and Vito was yelling into his communicator even louder with one hand over an ear now as he shouted to the reinforcements about the situation up here.
The Nobodies continued attacking Nagisa where they were closer to him. He darted back towards Xoupps who saw the boy approaching with his Observational Haki and leapt backwards because of it. Nagisa knew his enemy had stopped for a reason though. He saw Xoupps' caution even under the hood that shadowed over his expression. The dart towards Xoupps drew the other Nobodies farther from the elevator for a second, and then Nagisa did a sudden backflip over their heads as they shot towards his back while running after him. Xoupps realized it too late and fired at his enemy who was farther from him and now on the wrong side of his Nobody soldiers who he had meant to block the elevator with.
Xoupps sprinted back into the hall while the sprinklers above put out more of the flames with less steam in the way. Nagisa had already ripped open the elevator doors though, and he jumped into the empty shaft with the doors closing behind him. Golden flashes of light flew over the top of his body that Nagisa leaned each way to dodge while in midair, and the last shot flew right over his horizontal body as Nagisa snapped his body backwards at the final moment before the doors closed. Two more of Xoupps' shots slammed into the steel elevator doors after they had closed, but they did not bore through nor would they have hit Nagisa anyway.
I will not let you escape, Xoupps thought. His expression was darker as he sprinted down the hallway while the Nobodies that had failed to stop the slippery assassin were ripping the elevator shaft back open for him.
"You let him get away!" Zhao shouted.
"Damn it! He's dropping down the elevator shaft, which floor is it currently on…" Don Vito was yelling at his security teams.
"Fucking worthless. Go after him!" Zhao continued calling out at the man running down the hall ahead of him. "You're letting him escape, you pathetic Nobody. What were you even think-"
Xoupps' sprint slowed down. His run turned to a jog turned to a walk. He walked two more steps and stopped. Xoupps stood still in the hallway. The sprinklers that were still on continued to spray water down on top of his cloak. He stood there in a dark cloak getting soaked, and his head turned to the right. Xoupps glared back through the hallway in the direction he came from. He glared straight into Commander Zhao's eyes and made the man shut his frozen-open mouth in an instant.
Xoupps turned around while dismissing his Nobodies. He walked back through the hallway towards the Fire Nation soldiers, and his guns dismissed as well so he held nothing in his curled fists that shook at his sides. "Tell me," Xoupps began as he approached the Commander. "If I wasn't here, how many of you do you think that boy would have killed?"
Xoupps stepped straight up in front of Zhao who did not step backwards but did lean his head away a bit as Xoupps got within four feet of him. Zhao could see under the man's hood and the dark, furious eyes that glared at him above the long scar over the Nobody's face that went over his bump of a disfigured nose. Zhao tried not to stare and instead looked darkly back in the eyes glaring at him. He opened his mouth, and Xoupps stated, "All of you."
"Xoupps," General Bujing started. He frowned deeper and glared at the Nobody who continued to stare in Zhao's eyes. Bujing was more annoyed at Zhao for the moment at the Commander's disrespect towards their ally that seemed to cause Xoupps to stop giving chase, but he was frustrated at the Nobody as well. Zhao's racism isn't going to cost us this victory! "You told me that you would foil this assassination attempt. Captain Jee is dead-"
"The attempt was on your life, General," Xoupps stated without looking away from Zhao. "I foiled it. Be grateful, to me," Xoupps paused and leaned his head closer to the firebender's in front of him. "A Nobody. You call me that with such disdain. I should have let him gut you, Zhao," Xoupps declared to the man before him whose head tilted back more, another bead of sweat forming on his face now as he looked uneasily at their supposed ally.
The mafia in the room lowered their weapons as Michael gave them a stern motion to do so. This was Sin City. The Fire Nation were their guests and they had been happy to serve them here. The Fire Nation was also the greater nation that this city was located inside of. But no one wanted to fuck with the Nobodies, and it sounded like this Nobody was on the verge of starting a fight that the mob were going to stay out of. Zhao gulped then opened his mouth and started, "You're letting him escape. This is a waste-"
"I was not here to save you," Xoupps said to the man before him. He spoke down to Zhao, glaring with his eyes half closed at the Commander of the Fire Nation before him. "A comrade of mine mentioned seeing my Somebody in this city, so I came to check it out. Then I looked towards this building and foresaw the Fire Nation officials here being slaughtered by that assassin." Xoupps stated it and all of the others in the room stared at him with their eyes growing huge. "So I decided that as your ally, I should go stop it. So I did."
"I… don't know what you're talking about," Bujing began. He predicted the attack. He knew it was coming, but I could tell he didn't actually have intel that an attack was coming. He just knew. That Nobody could see a future in which we were all killed. "But, I thank you, and yet I still implore you to stop that assassin-"
"After the disrespect your man has shown me?" Xoupps wondered, cocking his head to the right while shifting his gaze for a moment onto Bujing. "A disrespect towards Nobodies in general, which could be translated as a disrespect towards my High Lord?" Xoupps wondered that and instantly Zhao's pores opened up. His eyes grew huge while Xoupps shifted his glare back onto the man he was suggesting insulted Xemnas.
"You think so little of us," Xoupps' hissed words came out seething. His expression remained calm though, even as his soulless eyes appeared like daggers into Zhao's heart. "But if your High Lord were to fall, and your Fire Nation were to crumble, and your world out in the abyss already… consumed…" Xoupps' expression grew even darker while even General Bujing dropped his jaw like the members of the Corleone family and everyone else in the room who felt their hearts leap in their chests at the words of this dark figure. "And whatever remained of a Fire Nation from your world is brought to ruin. And your world, empty and barren- collapses into the void, and with it goes your culture, and your people, and all that remains… Us Nobodies would still be here. Long before you. Long after your proud culture is gone."
The Nobody fell silent but no one else could speak a word. "I have saved your lives," Xoupps stated. A dark portal opened up on his left side that he turned to and stepped towards. "All of your lives," he specified. "That boy would have escaped from here regardless. After killing all of you, he would have slipped away in the chaos created by the flames of your battles. And only one man would see through his disguise on his way out and try to stop him. You should stop your ally before it is too late, Zhao," Xoupps warned ominously while stepping into the portal. "I don't believe LeBeau will fare any better this time around."
The portal closed behind Xoupps. Zhao's eyes were still shaking, but they suddenly bulged wide as he realized what the Nobody just told him. "The mutant?" Zhao's top lieutenant questioned from behind him where he stood next to the corpse of Captain Jee.
"Gambit!" Zhao rose his wrist and yelled into it. Could he really see the future?! That kid killed us? How- I don't believe it! I don't believe- any of it! Zhao's thoughts were along similar lines to most in the room who chose not to believe the dark figure they assumed was just trying to intimidate Zhao into fear. Some even suspected that his whole speech was solely to justify losing the assassin that Bujing had told them Xoupps offered to stop. "Gambit, come in. I know you can hear me, damn it. Answer your fucking comms- don't attack the kid! You hear me?!"
So he foresaw that I would win this fight? Nagisa wondered while looking at the man in front of him who chuckled at Zhao's concerned tone for him.
A piece of Gambit felt anxious though. Remy LeBeau knew that Commander Zhao had a distaste for him and all mutants. He smirked anyway though and swung his arms forward, and the playing cards around him shot ahead in glowing purple auras-
CLAP!
Nagisa's hands clapped together between Gambit's arms that the mutant tried swinging together to stop the ridiculously fast kid. The cards flying in from Nagisa's sides and towards his back all vibrated in mid-flight. They froze and trembled as Gambit stared down at the knife that Nagisa had dropped while sprinting at him. His eyes had been so focused on the falling knife, that the clap had shaken him as he was not at all expecting it. And then the Echo hit, and that 'clap' intensified twenty times straight into his ears. He winced. His eyes clenched shut- then they shot back open as did his mouth that had blood spurting out of it due to the knife in his lungs.
Nagisa sprinted past the falling body of his enemy whose chest he ripped the bloody blade from. Xoupps. That's what Bujing called him. He can see the future. This is important information I should not die with. Yet, I am not turning back now. I failed to stop the invasion. It will go on as scheduled. If anything, they'll speed up the timetable because they'll assume I'm going to report back and that they don't have the advantage of surprise anymore, if they imagined they had it already. Nagisa cursed under his breath, but he darted to his right and sprinted down an empty hallway twenty stories down from where he first started dropping.
The teenage boy had fallen on top of the rising elevator, causing those inside to make an emergency stop right before he dropped down through the roof of it. The doors had opened though, and one of his enemies had gotten out before he killed the other four inside. Now that he left Gambit's body behind too, he was alone on the floor that he knew none of those guards had reported back from to inform those upstairs where he was. He knew he had to move quickly though. There's no time for subtlety. If Xoupps knows what moves I'm going to make… But he didn't. He didn't predict my moves. What did he predict?
The Nobody knew I would be up there. He knew which door I would enter from. He was closest to Bujing, but Bujing is the top General and would be the priority to protect, that doesn't necessarily mean he knew that I was targeting him. Could I have beaten him had I stayed? Either way, it wouldn't have been a quick enough fight. I would have been surrounded and more guards than I could have taken at once would have been there. The whole city would have been on high alert… The whole city will be on high alert. I'm in the Corleone Grande. I have a short window of time before I'm surrounded anyway. Though, this is Sin City. A Sin City filled with Fire Nation soldiers. What does Xoupps know?!
I have to imagine that his foresight ends somewhere. He's still helping them and still knows where I am if he knew that I would fight that mutant just now. But he wasn't there to interfere! That's it. Zhao was warning him because Xoupps knew that he wasn't directly involved. Xoupps must have seen us fight before. He knew I would win. Xoupps can alter the future he saw. Would I have succeeded? Shit! So I almost managed to stall the attack. I made the right call coming here. I couldn't have predicted that someone like Xoupps would get in my way. It would have been irresponsible to plan for something like that. You can't make any plans if you're assuming your enemies are just magical and know what you're thinking before you think it.
What do I do then? Xoupps didn't inform everyone. He seemed to tell Bujing and that's all, but by the end Bujing was surprised and Xoupps was struggling to catch me. He didn't see my attacks coming. He wasn't down here to save those soldiers. Who I just mercilessly- He wasn't here! Xoupps wasn't here and they still died. If he wasn't up there, I would have succeeded. He can interfere with the future. I've escaped from him. If he felt the need to show up, then that means that the future is already different from what he saw! If I had succeeded, what would my escape route have been?
I would have destroyed the sprinklers. That's not just something I noticed when he protected them. I would have seen the utility in breaking them and keeping the fires going. Which means I would have escaped with other guests of the hotel. I would have slipped out among them, disguising myself- I still need a disguise, but go with the second best option I see. And don't try evacuating with them through the hotel… Nagisa glared down to the end of the hallway and shook his head but started picking up his pace. It's haphazard and wouldn't be my first option, which is why it HAS to be my choice right now!
Nagisa sprinted to the end of the hall and jumped towards the glass. He slashed the blade in his hand that he covered in Haki just in case the glass was bulletproof, and he smashed through it nonetheless. Forty stories. I'm below the zeppelins now. Do any of the guards on the catwalks notice- They were looking for me! Nagisa noticed people already staring towards the hotel from two of the closest zeppelins. Demons down there. A fuck-ton of them. They aren't in communication with Bujing though, at the least. Do any notice the dark events and death up here- doesn't seem like it. Makes sense. Sin City is full of murder and brutality worse than what I just did.
Sniper shots hit the glass behind Nagisa that he was learning was not bulletproof as the windows shattered one after the other as he fell past them. His legs extended out behind him, and Nagisa focused his chakra before sprinting down the building faster than gravity could take the glass shards that fell above him. A bullet hit the glass below him though before he could take his next step. The window he tried to use as a foothold collapsed and he flipped forward, glass slicing through his right shin when his foot pushed through the breaking glass to add to the other bloody injuries he already had.
Nagisa winced and squinted his eyes but forced himself to keep them open. He had just capitalized on an enemy making that mistake of closing their eyes in order to kill the mutant he had been worried might be a bigger problem if he did not catch him in that first move. Nagisa's squinted eyes darted all around him. He looked at the tops of other buildings he was falling past and through the windows of other skyscrapers that people were pulling away from as they saw shattering windows on a different skyscraper. He heard the screams in the hotel he was falling next to as people saw him outside or heard the bullets breaking through windows of their building. Nagisa's breathing was heavy but fast. The deep breaths came in and were let out ragged, uneven. He had sped up even faster than gravity was dropping him when he sprinted down the wall of the building, and now the ground was coming in way too fast…
Present
"…I did not see the Nobody again for the rest of the time I was running in Sin City," Nagisa continued his report. His classmates were all watching him and listening in closely to their leader's recount of his failed assassination attempt. "However," Nagisa continued. He seemed to hesitate for a moment and went off-track from just retelling the story as it was from his point of view.
He paused for a few seconds and imagined the man dropping down in the penthouse after grabbing his own knife. He imagined the pain in his calf when the Nobody predicted his dodge and threw his own weapon after him. Nagisa knew why he did not fill his weapon with Haki at the time and try to clash against the other man's to test which of theirs was stronger. "I do believe he stopped chasing me," Nagisa confessed. "I don't think, I gave him the slip. Rather… something happened. He was far too formidable for me to have just slipped away as easily as I did."
Karma thought about joking that maybe Nagisa had overestimated this enemy, but Nagisa was sweating just thinking back on it now. If I had not been so prepared for the worst-case scenario when I opened that door… Had I just been even a millisecond later as I pulled away, Nagisa gripped down on his right side again. "An instant after I opened the door, and I was shot. He didn't fall for anything. Couldn't trick him into thinking I was-" Nagisa stopped himself and just shook his head around to shake out the idea of this enemy.
"I fucking hate Nobodies," Rio muttered.
Honenuki shivered and nodded his head in agreement. Then he shook his head around to get the thought of those creepy bastards out of his head, and he wondered back to their leader, "So how did you escape? And- wait, we were just north of the Cataclysm. Did you-"
"As a Resistance member, of course I would flee back south, right?" Nagisa wondered with a shrug of his shoulders.
15 Days Ago
"Fuuuck," Nagisa staggered off the street and pressed his bloody right palm up against a wall of the alleyway he entered. "Ah hah, ah hah, ah hah," he was panting heavily and winced as he reached his left hand down this time and grabbed at his stomach. His legs hurt, but the wounds there were shallow enough that he knew he could handle them. As he moved his left hand away though and glanced down at his shirt that was supposed to be able to handle normal gunfire, Nagisa winced at how much blood he could see around the wound coming out on his clothes. I need to stop the bleeding. I need to get farther from the hotel.
He started limping down the alley. Both legs were hurt, but the one cut on the calf hurt more than his right leg only slashed on the shin by glass that wouldn't have broken through his clothes had he not put so much force on his step. He had tried to kick off the window before it shattered as he saw the shot coming at the last second, but he had lost his foothold and only managed to hurt himself without being able to propel towards a different building to grab onto. Wind Release barely slowed me enough to land on my hands instead of my legs, and I could hear my elbows creaking on that landing. Nagisa curled his fingers on both hands a few times to make sure he was good. His last remaining blade was back under his clothes, but he could not hide the blood trail he was leaving and knew that it would not be long before someone came to check it out and found him.
I need someone's clothes. How? Nagisa hesitated as he neared the next street down. Well, he considered while watching a pair of people walk down the sidewalk. They looked like mercenary types and had their weapons slung over their shoulders. Across that street and in another alleyway not perfectly aligned with his but pretty close, Nagisa could see a man and a woman out in that alley behind a bar. The woman's legs were wrapped around his back, and the two were thrashing quite a bit while not too hidden in those shadows. This is Sin City. I guess it wouldn't be that bad.
Nagisa walked close to the edge of the alley but used his assassination skills to remain hidden. He stayed ducked down in a shadow of a dumpster behind a different, shoddier hotel than the Corleone Grande. Too large. Too many people. Shit, that group would have been good but they're on the wrong side of the street- Ka-clunk.
Nagisa turned around and stared at a waiter in a white shirt with a black vest over it. The thin man was walking backwards and dragging two garbage bags from the restaurant kitchen in the lobby of the hotel he worked at. "Fucking, gross-ass- shit! Who pours so much liquid in garbage bags? Stupid assholes-"
Nagisa felt bad for the guy who just got garbage juice on him as one of the bags was ripped and too many people had discarded liquids into it. That feeling of sympathy did not stop him from putting the man in a sleeper's hold and then stripping him and tossing his unconscious body into the dumpster. Nagisa put the man's clothes over his own quickly. He did not take off his own protective gear, but he did cover it up while also doing some quick first-aid with whatever he could muster up in this alley.
Don't have time to clean it, Nagisa thought while snapping his head up and looking back the way he came. Three tank-like armored vehicles just sped down the road he had staggered off of a minute ago. Nagisa grimaced but did not think the next road was the way to go. The door to the kitchen was still open, and he walked back inside and closed that door behind him.
The teenage assassin walked through the kitchen and examined the chefs all in the middle of preparing ingredients or cooking food. One glanced back for a moment then looked forward at her onions again. Then the chef spun around fully and looked at Nagisa as he had already walked past. "Hey! Who are- hey!" They called out again but Nagisa already pushed on the door to head out onto the restaurant floor. He grabbed a tray off a stand next to the door and picked up two empty glasses from a table that people had recently left, as well as one that still had some water in it.
The young man looked the part of a waiter. He moved between tables while examining all the people in the restaurant around him. He turned and moved towards a booth where he spotted a chubby man and two women who sat across from him and were laughing in a fake way at whatever he said. He had some jewelry around his neck, and the women were wearing some fancy clothes and jewels of their own. Nagisa walked towards the chubby man and he leaned forward, "Could I get you some more- Oh! Oh I am so sorry-"
"What the Hell- damn," the man exclaimed at first but then just leaned back and allowed the teenager to pat him down for a second as the boy had a napkin and looked flustered at what he had done. The fat man only cut off his exclamation at first because he thought he was yelling at a cute girl, but even as he noticed this was likely a boy helping him, he still just grumbled to himself and told the kid, "Stop, stop it. You're fine. It's fine." He pushed away Nagisa's hand and scooted towards the edge of the booth. "I'll be right back, ladies."
"I'm so sorry sir, the bathroom-"
"I know where it is," the man shoved past Nagisa with an annoyed shake of his head. He marched towards the bathroom, and Nagisa followed after him while apologizing again and pretending to just be an upset waiter not wanting to get in trouble. He also saw two other waiters on the floor were looking towards him with baffled looks though at what was going on. And a chef who just poked her head out of the kitchen nodded towards one of those waiters and told him to come over to her, looking concerned and a bit anxious about this whole situation. In the corner of his eyes he saw the women in the booth behind him losing their concerned looks and getting more apathetic expressions on their faces. He took in everything around him whether it appeared important or not.
"I'm fine. I told you, I'm not looking for a free meal or anything. If you think I'm some sort of cheapskate," the man walking into the bathroom started, his lips curling up as he turned his head sideways. Nagisa started to gain an impressed look before the man could even begin bragging. "I'll have you know that I own the best-"
Nagisa slammed his right fist into the chubby man's right kidney as soon as the door closed behind them. The man collapsed onto his knees. A nervous yelp came from inside one of the stalls next to Nagisa. "Stay quiet in there," Nagisa ordered the bystander who pulled his knees up to hide his legs with his pants still around his ankles.
The assassin gripped down in pain on his right side again but then quickly snapped his left hand forward and took the black long-haired wig off of the bald rich man's head. He put that long black hair on top of his own blue hair then glanced around the bathroom for a different way out. Going to be weird, he thought, though he had to turn one-eighty and walk back into the restaurant.
Nagisa scurried his way back out of the hotel while some people in the restaurant exclaimed at him and staff tried to question what he was doing or where the real waiter had gone. He ignored them all. Nagisa rolled up the white sleeves of his uniform while taking off his black vest. He jogged across a street in his white button-down and then walked down the sidewalk as two motorcycles driven by Fire Nation soldiers in heavy armor went speeding by him. He turned with a few other spectators on the street and watched them in surprise and confusion as to their intensity and speed.
Then he scurried into a different alleyway. Nagisa glanced down at his right side and saw a bloody patch on his shirt that he had been covering up with the vest he just held in his arms in front of that blood. He lifted his shirt and ripped up the vest, pressing cloth against the front and back of the wound before tying up his leg wounds better under his new pant legs. I can't keep bleeding like this. I can't stay here though either. This city is infested with demons and Fire Nation soldiers. If the demons come to think I'm easy pickings, they'll rip me to shreds. Nagisa removed the blade from under his clothes and snapped his gaze above him in the alley.
Two shadows above his head pulled away, then they dipped out of there at the maintained glare from the assassin below. The two sped away and around a corner into a narrower alley connecting to the one he was already ducked into. Hope they're just running, and not running to go get some help for next time. I need to move. Where? I'm not retreating. Dinah will tell the Resistance about this. She didn't even know my plan. I said I'd be right behind the others. I just need to wait for the next train. They'll assume I'm out of the city by then, but trying to escape on foot or acquire myself a vehicle right now while I'm exhausted and bleeding would only lead to my capture or death. I need to lay low, then sneak onto the next train to Pyraxas. There should be a few more coming today.
Gray, everyone, I'll be there as soon as I can. And Sokka, I'm sorry I couldn't give you a little more time.
On the same day that Nagisa split up from the rest of the group heading to kill the Fire Lord, he managed to get on the next train north from Sin City. It was already mid-afternoon though by the time he got on in his disguise and with a stolen I.D. that the ticket seller had ignored when he flashed the stack of cash he was giving her.
I couldn't get any rest before the train. It's impossible. Any room I stayed in for too long would have been found. Constantly moving was the, right choice, Nagisa tried not to hesitate there, but he was questioning himself even now as he sat alone exhausted on the train to Pyraxas. There are guards on this train. I'm certain Bujing would have told them that there's a chance I'm on board. I'll have to be careful. Sleeping here… "Hahhh," Nagisa sighed and leaned back in the comfortable booth. He closed his eyes but frowned even as he did. It's just stupid. Not like I'll be able to even get into Pyraxas with this fake. Getting off the train I'm going to be screwed. I have to get off though. We weren't doing anything tonight. Gray knows to spend a night in the lower city first and prepare. That's the plan. It's not much, but I know I can get to them and join in before they make their move…
Nagisa kept his eyes closed. He told himself he was just resting them, but he was feeling so fatigued from the blood loss earlier that he was struggling to actually stay awake here.
His eyes opened. Out the west windows he could see the orange and reddish hues that only got this beautiful after the first sun had set and the big red one was on its way down. Nagisa was not upset that he had accidentally fallen asleep. He was a light enough sleeper that it did not matter that he had. His senses were going wild though. It's not someone coming to check tickets. Not a normal check either. They're coming straight for me- They know I'm awake!
Nagisa turned his head calmly and looked behind his booth. He also glanced the other way up farther through the train car at other Fire Nation soldiers he saw. His look was incredibly calm and confident. Three in front. Six behind. Keep smiling. It has them hesitating. They know now that I know that they know who I am. And yet I'm relaxed? How dangerous must I be? Nagisa slid to the edge of his booth and stood up from it. Did I get enough rest? When did they figure out who I was? Did my wig shift while I was sleeping? I'm wanted in the Fire Nation anyway. Cameras could have caught me and gotten facial recognition. I don't know.
Nagisa did not walk towards the three in front of him. Rather, he turned to the six behind who stood in two groups of three on either side of the center row of booths. They stood in each aisle blocking the exits back there. I can't walk straight through them. They look strong. Shit. They're not hesitating because I'm intimidating them. A few were pretending like that was the reason though, meaning they wanted me to believe that what I was doing was working. The strongest guards are here. 9 of them. I can assume there are others on the other side of these doors.
They're hesitating because they would rather not start this fight among their people. Civilian casualties should be kept to a minimum. That's one of my objectives too. It has to be. Even though, the fact that they're caring about that, means I could use it… No. We're not there yet. The Resistance can accept 3-E, because they know that we're not the worst. I won't be. I won't let that be what we turn into! Nagisa calmed himself down but eliminated some of the options that he saw before him for how he could handle his current predicament.
He nodded past the three soldiers ahead of him at the door behind their backs. Two of the three back behind Nagisa in this row eased backwards towards the doors they were guarding. The third started walking down the aisle far behind him, one hand down on his holster at his right side while another hand was curled into a fist at his left. Nagisa stepped towards the southern door at the end of the car on the west side where he had been sitting. A few other passengers glanced up at him, but only one noticed the Fire Nation soldiers all staring down this young man and grabbing their weapons.
"Oh shit," the forty year old man and father of two muttered. He grabbed each of his kids on his sides and yelled, "GET UNDER THE TABLE!"
As the man ducked underneath the table in the middle of his booth on the opposite side of the train as Nagisa was on, the teenage assassin sprinted forward as two of his enemies directly ahead of him shifted their gazes at the panicked shout from the other passenger.
Nagisa whipped out his blade and slashed it in front of him as he ran by. Two pulled away to the sides. Another fired his gun early before he could get his gun all the way up. The fourth who had slipped between booths to get into the western aisle snapped his left hand forward with the hand turning into some soft thin cloth that extended out and wrapped around Nagisa's right side. Before the cloth could pull tight around his body, Nagisa ducked out of the loop and allowed the man to accidentally knot up his own hand with the Sheet-Sheet Fruit.
Nagisa slammed his right shoulder into the door while spinning around and slashing behind him. He then twisted his body to the side and yanked his head away, dodging a bullet fired at him from the roof of the next train car down where a guard was aiming at the door behind his comrades just in case Nagisa Shiota were to get past them.
The teenage boy pressed his left hand onto the floor as well as the knuckles of his right fist curled around the hilt of his blade. He bent his elbows and pushed up hard, bouncing up through the gap between train cars and then kicking upwards while slashing down with his sword. He meant to cut the connection between train cars and at least cut off half of the guards from him who were running forward behind their comrade on the last train car. A Fire Nation swordsman running outside below him slashed upwards though and intercepted his flying slash of sharp air, parrying it aside so the remnants flew past the side of the train and harmlessly down into the Cataclysm.
Nagisa landed on the train car next to the shooter who spun to him and fired again. Nagisa had more enemies ahead of him farther back on the train than farther forward, so he kicked off the roof and jumped backwards to the roof of the train car he had been inside of before. Three yellow beams fired up through the roof, but Nagisa's footwork was impeccable as he landed and spun around, dodging the shots as they came up on either side of his feet. In his head flashed red though, and Nagisa turned to sprint farther forward on the train still.
More soldiers were climbing ladders all over the train heading across the Cataclysm. It was speeding over the Bridge of Azulon, and Fire Nation soldiers were running from the front and back all towards the boy who was sprinting forward to the north. He ran against the wind of a train that had all the roof windshields down as no one was allowed up at the moment and the roofs were to be cleared. Security was tighter on the Bridge of Azulon than on other train tracks around the country and all over Aebrith, so Nagisa did not find it weird that people were not going up there through the early portion of the journey.
"Stop right there!"
"You're under arrest!"
"He tried to kill the General!"
"Get him!"
Two men running straight towards Nagisa on a head-on collision path with him stopped where they were and stomped their right foot forward each. They bent their knees into a stance and swung their arms around, and fire surrounded both of their arms. They punched their fists forward, while the man charging closest at Nagisa behind him put his palms together. That man coming towards his back got ready to split the flames to protect the non-firebending comrades he had behind him, and Nagisa did a small hop in the air and flicked his blade back behind him into the firebender preparing to do that.
Nagisa's blade pierced the man's armor. He could not see the man's face through his white mask, but he swore he saw the falling soldier turning regretfully and looking through his mask in pain towards the soldiers behind him. His arms had flung out to the sides as the blade pierced through his chest and out his back, and he could not get them back in front of him in time before the jets of flames that Nagisa barely leapt over swept through that soldier and into the screaming others behind him.
"You bastard!"
Bang Bang!
BRRRRR!
Nagisa heard a chain gun revving up. He looked farther back than the flames from the two firebenders almost upon him could reach. A soldier in a red uniform that was darker maroon than the red of the Fire Nation was stepping forward. Galactic Marine. A Sith soldier. Beams rapidly fired from the chain gun of the soldier firing over the screaming and burning bodies of others behind Nagisa. The firebenders who charged at him kicked towards the boy, and others slashed and shot towards him as well while Nagisa was still landing after hopping over the initial fire attacks.
BOOM! Ch Ch Ch Ch ch ch ch ch…
BRRRRrrrrrr brrr br br…
The chain gun stopped spinning. The other soldiers lowered their weapons. A few staggered up onto their feet, and some helped up their comrades as they got up on top of the moving train. One woman looked sadly over the edge where her comrade had fallen while on fire, screaming as she plummeted into the Cataclysm. She turned back and looked into the fading explosion that was lingering in the air and pulling her direction as she was farther back on the train that started to curve a bit around one of the tallest stone pillars in the Cataclysm for the past few miles. She leaned her head to the right and tried to look down over the edge of the train, but some of the thick smoke was expanding out downwards too and she struggled to see if anything had fallen through the explosion and down into the Cataclysm.
Nothing was inside of the explosion though or landed on top of the train. The train was made to be very strong, and the strong steel of the train cars' roofs was undamaged even after all the fighting up here. "He's gone!" One of the guards called out. That man was looking up in the sky and just noticed some creature poking out of the clouds high above. He glanced back down and farther back along the train to where some remains of smoke were fading away. "Get the injured back inside. We took care of the problem."
"For Captain Jee!"
"Captain Jee!"
Underneath the train, Nagisa's left arm dangled at his side while his right was fully extended above his head. He let his left fall limp after grabbing at his stomach again where he felt the wound reopen on both his front and back after the jolt from catching the train on his way off. He swung back and forth though as he listened to the soldiers above who cheered or laughed when they looked over the edge and didn't see the boy hanging onto the train or the tracks.
It was foggy not far below the tracks at the moment though, and one would have to be looking pretty closely to see the wire dangling from the bottom of the train and into that fog. Nagisa was struggling to swing himself around. He moved back and forth as tall stone pillars suddenly appeared in front of him in the fog. I can't do this all the way to Pyraxas. I can't get back on the train though. Then, Nagisa knew there was only one option.
His eyes darted around inside the fog. Right there. Have to time it right, or this is going to be an even worse drop than the hotel- NOW! Nagisa released the hook he had fired from the hidden slot in his right sleeve. He curled his fingers and disconnected from it, dropping down onto the top of a stone pillar and rolling over it to the edge. He slammed his hands down and dug his fingers into the stone, grateful that he was strong enough to dig in. If I was any farther down, he thought in exhaustion as his fingers barely broke through the stone even this close to where the surface had once been where the rocks were not as strong…
Nagisa stopped himself before falling off the edge. He then rolled onto his back and just panted there for several minutes. He was beyond exhausted. In his head flashed the sight of the masked Fire Nation soldier looking back in pain towards those terrified soldiers behind him who had kept running forward without fearing the flame attacks reaching them as long as their friend was ahead and splitting the fire for them. Nagisa's closed eyes clenched tighter shut as he heard them screaming up there as they burned- This is war. His eyes snapped open and he closed his mouth to stop himself from panting as hard. I'm a soldier. More than most in the Resistance. They're kids. They're good guys and heroes. But this is war. WAR! Come on, Nagisa. Remember.
"KOROSENSEI!"
A dark green face appeared in his memory. He was screaming in that memory, as were those around him, but their screams did nothing to deter the monster tearing into their teacher's head. Nagisa sat up. His eyes hardened and he pushed down on the top of the pillar at his sides. "I need to get to Pyraxas," he whispered to himself. I need to help my allies. And then… I'm going to the Capital. Kayano. Itona. I will get you out of there. And I'm going to kill Meruem.
"HAAA!" Nagisa screamed. He took a few steps then leapt into the fog in the direction that the train above had just rode off in. I couldn't even kill General Bujing- Stop that, Nagisa scolded himself. It's true though. I couldn't. Why not think about it? I'd only be hiding that truth from myself. What truth? That I can't do it. I can't kill the King. I'm not Korosensei. Nowhere near as strong as he was. Our whole class together could never defeat him. It's been a long time since the Third War of the Gods. I want to avenge him. I need to. Throwing my life away though? It wouldn't be throwing-
That's what I thought it would be if that Natsu tried it. I told him not to joke about it, but who's the real joke? I failed to stop Bujing! Without the others, without my team! There isn't much I can do. Nagisa's conflicted and frustrated expression re-hardened again after losing it in his self-doubt. That's why I need to go rejoin Gray's team. They succeeded where others failed. The second they showed up, the tide of things started to change around here. Several victories in a row. It's because no troop movements have changed. Any spies in the Resistance for our enemies wouldn't have seen them coming. No one could have seen them coming. A smile returned to Nagisa's face as he remembered something Sokka had told him before they left.
As he fell towards another stone pillar he had heard his scream Echo off of, the seventeen year old boy thought, It's okay to believe in them. It's, okay to have hope.
Fourteen Days Ago
Nagisa ran through the Upper Residential Section with a battle-ready look across his face but also filled with anxiety as he darted his gaze every which direction. Is this what I was hoping for?! Nagisa spun to his right as twenty silver figures all ran onto the same road as him from other connecting streets. They all emerged at once and turned his direction, and then they all started speeding his way.
Nagisa backed up a few steps then turned and started running fast the opposite direction. A woman covered in fine jewelry and expensive-looking furs stumbled out of a condo complex with blood coming down the right side of her face. She stumble-ran right into Nagisa's path while his head was on a swivel, and he just shoved her to the side and kept running. He darted a look back as he heard her scream, and he watched as two of the Nobodies descended upon her and stabbed her with their sharpened arm-blades.
Ka-BOOM! CRRSH!
A clock tower on Nagisa's left exploded halfway up and closer on his side than the other. Too many of the supports on his side had been broken, and he picked up his speed right as some other Nobodies were catching up to him. He dove forward, and the bell tower collapsed behind him on top of his enemies chasing him. I fucking HATE Nobodies. Nagisa thought while dragging himself back to his knees then onto pained legs from the wounds of yesterday.
Didn't get here early enough to stop for potions. Why'd they have to go and start first thing in the morning?! Nagisa was thoroughly exhausted. He had not stopped moving once since getting up on top of the stone pillar he dropped on after being blasted off the train from Sin City. He sported burns on the back of his neck and all over his left arm. He was pale in the face and could hear his heart pounding in his head. I need to get to the Palace. If I don't… if I don't, Nagisa turned his head while slowing down his run.
"Oh you have to be kidding me," he muttered. I got here too late. His head tilted back and he stared up into the sky that was filling up with smoke from the city around him. The fact that Nobodies are rampaging through the city means one thing. Natsu succeeded. They're going the wrong way though, Nagisa turned his head from pointed straight up. He stopped just following them out the corners of his eyes and actually turned his head to watch the flying bison as it flapped its tail down and continued south.
Nagisa grimaced and shook his head around. So that group probably got an extraction. They had to have succeeded, right? Damn. Fucking amazing. Nagisa wanted to smile, but a cluster of ear-piercing screams rang out at that same moment and made his hands tremble at his sides. How many people live in Pyraxas? He shivered. They're our enemies-
They're the people we're trying to save by fighting back. Do I just abandon them? Now? After we caused this... chaos?
Nagisa's mission started to change on him as he began moving again. His movements flowed from the path he had been taking onto this new one. The transition was seamless. He was no longer heading to a destination. Nagisa's head remained on a swivel but looked closer at the city streets around him. I'm an assassin, but the kind of assassin Korosensei raised us to be were not the heartless kind. Those skills we trained with back home became so useful on this world that it was almost like he knew it was coming, though he always promised us he had no idea what this place was. Even as practically our whole class appeared together, and he showed up to save us on that First Day, it wasn't just us that he saved.
We aren't just fighting for the Resistance. Sozin needed to be stopped. The Fire Nation was my enemy. The Fire Nation can't stand without the Fire Lord. So this city no longer belongs to my enemies. It's just a city in danger. With civilians under attack. And I can save them!
Nagisa kept sprinting down a street, then he ran to and stacked up on the corner of a building before the next intersection he almost ran right out onto. He pulled back from the corner a bit as five fireballs flew by him and down into Nobodies that were just pushed back, destroying those creatures completely this time. He almost turned and ran the other way. Nagisa glanced past the corner and saw that the group of civilians out there had a team of Fire Nation soldiers with them who just fought off the Nobodies. If there was somewhere he was needed, it wasn't here. Or so he thought.
Something stopped him though. As he glanced out at those erratic soldiers, he only turned away for a moment before his heart clenched up at the thought of how two of those men were staring at the civilians with them. He clenched his eyes shut tight, but that did not help him as he heard a voice call out, "It's them!"
"What?!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Hey! Why are you pointing- Hey HEY!"
"AHH!"
"They're leading those things right towards us!"
"He's right! They're attracted to fear or something. These idiots are drawing the Nobodies straight to us."
"The Fire Lord is dead, the city's in ruin…"
They're turning brigand, Nagisa thought while shifting his head back towards that street. An explosion went off in the distance, and Nagisa saw the sky darken green and then vibrate with ripples coming off of something up above that he had noticed and had made his body cover in sweat as he was running around a minute ago. He lost focus on these other occurrences around him though while narrowing in on the shifting tones of the soldiers.
"You have to help us!"
"WAIT!"
Nagisa looked back around the corner towards them. Some soldiers were turning their weapons towards the civilians. Nagisa thought one or two looked to be ready to stop them, but one of the men who did not lift his rifle was just giving one of the more gorgeous women of the city a nasty look and called out with a smirk growing, "Let's not kill them all-"
Bang. Fft fft fft fft fft- Bang Bang Fft- Fft fft..
Fire Nation soldiers flew off their feet with bullet holes riddling them in the cracks of their armor. They were shot in the sides of their heads and blown backwards. Not one of the group survived, and the civilians did not care if the soldiers who had been with them seemed to be turning on them at that moment. They scattered. Screaming, the men and women of Pyraxas sprinted away from the soldiers who were getting lit up from down the street where another soldier in red armor was running their direction.
"Let's go!"
"To the train station!"
"We can't make it all the way-"
"We have to try!"
Nagisa ducked farther into hiding and did a loop around the building he had originally stacked up against. One of the civilians running by darted a look down this intersecting street but barely missed seeing Nagisa who was running around the building's corner already and then peeking down the next alley on the building's opposite side as the street he had just been on. He had a better angle towards the dead bodies from here where he was more hidden by the shadows of the buildings around him, though his eyes darted up for a moment as he saw five silver figures leaping from one building to another. None of those Nobodies seemed to notice him, but he only frowned deeper as that likely meant they had other targets they were already going after.
Nagisa focused back on the street though and the Fire Nation soldier who had just killed his comrades. Did he do it because he saw the others about to kill their people? Not all of those soldiers were going to do it though. One at least appeared like he was about to stop the others. Who is that? I didn't see him miss a single shot.
The man holding one silenced automatic pistol and another semi-auto with no silencer on it tossed aside one of his weapons while picking up a friendly's dropped rifle. He aimed the silenced one that he kept towards another fallen soldier who was crawling away, and he put two shots into the man's back before stepping towards him and reaching down. He looted the bodies of his comrades rapidly. The man picked up ammo magazines and traded weapons. The soldier then snapped his head up quickly and stopped looting the corpses at the sight above.
Nagisa glanced up in the air and saw them this time. The shinigami and Espada up above had just clashed and were pressing their weapons against each other so hard that the sky was shaking around them. The dark green color clashed with blackish-red, and the aura that pushed out from them made Nagisa grit his teeth to stop them from chattering. He glared back towards the enemy soldier who just looked down from where those two up above vanished from as well, and the man turned to run off before Nagisa could figure out what he wanted to do about him.
Before that soldier could flee or Nagisa could act, a third figure dropped out of the air directly in front of the soldier who spun to her in surprise but hesitated as her right hand was already lifted towards him. She was not holding any weapon, but that only made her more intimidating to the two men who saw her fall out of the air unarmed directly in front of a heavily-armed soldier. Her right palm was pointed towards his face. It glowed dark red and she glared past the side of it towards the man who could only see this good-looking young woman's harsh glare tinted by the red light of her magic.
"You killed your fellow soldiers," the woman said in a dark tone at the man who she had just followed from a different street where she saw him suspiciously running off away from multiple bodies. Looking at him now, the girl in a black combat skirt and a red long-sleeved sweater saw no regret in his eyes for the slaughter she could see in her peripheral vision. "Your own comrades," Lin Tohsaka said in a dark voice. "It's monsters like you who are causing this madness-"
"They aren't my comrades," the man admitted to this strong woman who he heard twice now speaking not as a member of the enemy forces. The way she called them "your" comrades suggested to him that she was not on the Fire Nation's side, which kept him from making an attempt on her life to escape quicker. He was not great at any other method, but the man continued in a low voice quickly to the confused but skeptical woman before him, "I'm not with the Fire Nation. I'm a Resistance soldier, Corporal James Ramirez."
Lin's eyebrows rose up and she kept frowning for a few seconds. Could be an excuse, she reasoned with herself while still giving him a skeptical glare. He continued to this skeptical woman, "My exfil was compromised and my team killed so I fled. I have to find another exit. These men were my enemies though, not my allies." He added that at the end as he doubted she was Resistance based on her actions here, rather she just seemed disgusted at the idea that he was betraying his comrades in this chaos.
"Corporal," a voice called out from the alley on their side. Both Lin and James spun towards that alley in surprise as neither had noticed this figure emerging from the shadows. His jog down the alley turned into a walk when they looked towards him, and the youngest of the three stepped out of the alley with the others even more surprised by the look of him. "My name is Nagisa Shiota. Do you know who I am?"
"Yes," Ramirez replied. "My team was to join up with either you or one other, and we did back at the Royal Palace before that Espada showed up." He glanced back out the corners of his eyes towards the woman at his side, and Lin darted a look back towards him before sighing and lowering her hand while dropping the magical aura around it.
"Resistance, huh…" Lin shook her head and then looked around her again at the growing flames and rising smoke all around the Upper Residential Area. Her frown remained as she looked back at the two next to her, but they tried not to focus on a woman whose powers they did not want to find out any more about. Is this what the Resistance is fighting for? One look at this, and "terrorism" really does fit the bill.
"I saw a bison flying south. Did the rest of the team-" Nagisa paused as the ground shook under their feet. All three of them snapped their gazes back up in the air, and Lin started sweating badly at the glimpse of a green-haired shinigami hurtling across the sky with shreds of his black hakama ripping off.
"That's not good," Lin whispered.
She's with the shinigami. Definitely don't want to try anything, Ramirez thought. They're also potential allies, considering that shinigami saved my life back there. "Not all of us made it on, or out," Ramirez told Nagisa in a lower tone. "The rest of my team who infiltrated the Fire Nation with me were killed by the Espada. It also killed Black Canary. Natsu Dragneel succeeded though, and the Fire Lord is dead."
I need to move. I'm not here to get in the Resistance's way. Lin glared at the men before she humphed and looked away where she was going to head off to. I'm just trying to help some of the people they screwed over here. "You two do what you want. If I see you killing civilians though-"
"You must have missed it," Nagisa interrupted with a dark glare out the corners of his eyes towards this woman who did not look all that older than him. She was speaking too condescendingly towards them in too much of a righteous attitude. "But these soldiers had just turned on the people they were supposed to protect, and Corporal Ramirez saved those civilians. Get off your high horse." Lin's eyes widened a bit while her head turned sideways so she could look back at this young man's face. Ramirez also looked at Nagisa in a new way as well as the teen stood up for him, but he tilted his head back and stared at him even more impressed as Nagisa continued to that woman. "The Fire Lord razed innocent towns and cities with his armies or by himself just to prove that he could. He institutionalized slavery and allowed the likes of Astaroth to commit heinous war crimes on prisoners of war and innocent civilians alike. If you want to play neutral and not pick a side, go for it. You're not a good person by coming here and trying to save some civilians. You're just a coward for picking and choosing which fight suits you."
"Why you-"
"We need to move, Ramirez," Nagisa said. He ignored the woman spinning fully to him to try and defend herself. "On me."
Nagisa turned and ran. James Ramirez ran after him while glancing back towards the woman whose facial expression he examined closely. He lowered the rifle he slightly rose again while questioning if he had to be worried about her trying anything after Nagisa roasted her. He looked back towards his comrade's back though as Lin seemed to just be annoyed, and flustered, by what the kid had said to her.
We don't get to choose our battles. I didn't want to be here. Images of the past two days flashed through Nagisa's head. The city around him right now and the screams of civilians inside it were as loud as ever, but he was not hesitating, and he was not slowing down. War doesn't stop for anyone. I fight because I know the cause is worth it. I know which side is right, and I don't question that. Collateral damage is an unfortunate consequence of war. But some wars need to be fought, whatever the cost.
"You're injured," Ramirez commented behind the teen whose speed was limited by a limp in his left leg. Nagisa reached down for his right side though as Ramirez mentioned it, grabbing his stomach rather that his legs so Ramirez knew there were more injuries than he thought. "Over here," Ramirez called out. Nagisa spun around and frowned, but he ran towards the man who was holding an empty storefront's door open.
The two ducked into a shop selling fancy soaps of different smells. Ramirez leapt over the counter and smashed open the register with his rifle. He grabbed some cash and shoved it into one of his pouches, then he ran towards a closet door and checked inside. He reached towards the top shelf and grabbed a small plastic case with a red cross on it in a white square background. "Here," he tossed it towards the younger man who had opened his mouth to argue about stopping, but actually looked at the flying first-aid kit in surprise.
Nagisa opened it and looked at actual medical supplies inside that he had been sorely lacking since he was first shot by Xoupps. "…Thanks," Nagisa whispered, allowing his limp on both legs to show as he staggered around a shelf and dropped down onto his butt out of view of the store's front windows to the street outside. Ramirez ducked down near the edge of the counter so he had an angle towards Nagisa but also a view back at the glass front door and the storefront's windows.
Ramirez was panting, but he started to calm down after sprinting as fast as he could away from the Royal Palace. His eyes closed and he reached up to his neck. Ramirez grabbed his dog tags and held them tight in a shaking right fist. "Your comrades," Nagisa started in a soft voice. "I'm sorry," he continued wrapping his wounds and checking on how they looked after he had not been taking care of them for over a day. Nagisa would say more but he was dizzy and feeling too tired to come up with anything better than an apology to the man he could see thinking about it.
Ramirez frowned and tucked his dog tags back into the enemy's armor that he was wearing. He glanced at the teenager and then lifted his frown a bit as he saw the way the kid looked. In his disoriented and tired state, Ramirez wondered if Nagisa would even remember this after today. If we even live past today, Ramirez told himself.
"Dunn and Foley," Ramirez started in a low voice. He leaned his back against the end of the counter and tilted his head up to stare towards the ceiling. Years of combat flashed through his mind in a few seconds. "Were two of the best soldiers I have ever known. They fought by my sides in the suburbs of Virginia, and on the streets of D.C. during the Russo-American war." Nagisa's eyes bulged and he spun his head towards this soldier who apparently lived on a much different Earth than he had in their old lifetimes. And he also seemed to know his comrades from Nexus who he just lost from long before he had come here. "They watched my back when our chopper was shot down, as we protected evacuations from the Washington Monument. And we, hah, we fought our way to the White House and took it back, from those damn…"
Ramirez shook his head and his small smile dropped back flat. "The Second War of the Gods. The Third, and all our time here, undercover as Fire Nation soldiers. All of it." He grit his teeth as he imagined the Royal Palace again. "And in one minute- in seconds! That damn Espada just, he just killed them like it was nothing to him. Damn," Ramirez closed his eyes again. We did it. We had won. So why?
"They completed their mission," Ramirez continued. His voice got colder but it was still appreciative and sounded like he was accrediting them for the success here. "We kept the majority of Fire Nation forces from consolidating around the Royal Palace. I have to believe that played a part in the Fire Lord's defeat."
"I'm sure it did," Nagisa agreed with a small but genuine smile back towards his fellow soldier.
Outside of the shop, a platoon of Fire Nation soldiers went running by while all shouting at each other. The loud voices filled the store that Nagisa and Ramirez stayed silent inside of as their enemies ran past. Ramirez had replenished his ammo, but he was hoping to avoid going back out there just yet while he was still catching his breath. This city's too large, we need… He's doing it then. Ramirez heard one of the men outside call something out about 'Prince Lu Ten's return' which had Nagisa looking confused as he had not heard that name before.
Why don't I know this player?
Ramirez waited until he peeked out the front door and saw there were not any soldiers there anymore. Then he started in a quiet voice to his comrade, "A rebellious Prince who fought alongside us for a short time today." Nagisa was surprised Ramirez had information on even this, and he looked at his older comrade in a way telling him to continue if he had more information on the state of the city right now.
Ramirez nodded as he understood the look and had more information anyway. "A great grandson of Fire Lord Sozin whose father was Iroh. He's a cousin of Zuko." Ramirez mentioned Fire Nation royalty who had passed away but were known to be allies of the Resistance or at least enemies of Sozin. "There's a chance he can rally some forces against Azula if she manages to unite the others. If they keep fighting, while the Organization has apparently decided to try and take this city, and Aizen as well," Ramirez paused for a moment. "I've seen the Sun Marines scattered all over the city too who have not heard from any of their commanders recently either. We should find a way out during this chaos. Before someone comes out victorious."
"My mission isn't finished," Nagisa responded. He looked away from Ramirez and to the storefront to check outside for enemies himself. He spoke in a low voice to the soldier who stared at him in surprise and then with much wider eyes as the teenager said, "I was going all the way north to the Capital. We were all supposed to keep going that way, but the team who took out the Fire Lord retreated south already." Nagisa's eyebrows narrowed in but he eased up as he had no idea the state of his allies to cause them to flee. It couldn't have been easy doing what they did. I'm not pulling back though.
"I am going to keep on going north," Nagisa informed his ally. "When you get back, let them know I've continued on-"
"I'll come with you," Ramirez said. Nagisa spun and stared in surprise towards the soldier who checked his new rifle and examined it closer as he prepared to leave with it as his primary weapon. He continued to stare at the rifle that he stopped turning over to just hold closely before saying to the teen, "My team is gone. And, I don't feel like retreating anymore either." He turned to the blue-haired teen whose frustration with the others' retreat and desire to keep on going was something he wholeheartedly understood.
"Do you have a license to kill?" Nagisa wondered.
"You have one?" Ramirez asked in surprise of the younger man.
Nagisa tilted his head to the side and hummed affirmatively. An undercover agent would have one for sure. The Resistance doesn't like to break conventions of war. Spies don't follow those conventions though. We can't all be idealists in this world. Some of us need to fight for those ideals in unsavory ways.
"In that case, my name is Nagisa Shiota. You can call me Nagisa. I am the leader of Class 3-E: A branch of the Resistance specializing in assassination."
"I've heard about your 'class,'" Ramirez said. He did not know that the Nagisa he was supposed to meet was part of that group, but he had heard of them before. Dunn made a joke once about how they were taking on similar missions, but for kids. He might've been exaggerating. "James Ramirez. U.S. Army Rangers. And Resistance commando. You ready for this?" Ramirez poked his head out while Nagisa put his hands down on the ground and got ready to push off and make a break for it.
Nobodies dropped out of the air and landed on the street just outside, and they turned their heads inwards towards the shop. Nagisa blew out some air and shrugged out his shoulders. Of course we'll be fighting our way out. Every step of the way. "Ready. Let's go. First move is to find ourselves some transportation…"
Present
"So you did make for the Capital?" Rio wondered softly.
"And how'd that go?" Karma lifted his right eyebrow interestedly. "Did you, make it…"
Nagisa was already shaking his head no. "We turned back early. I did manage to locate Kayano and Itona however," Nagisa added as a silver lining. "It's true, they're slaves in the Capital. Or at least they were," Nagisa countered what he just said and made his classmates all look at him with surprised expressions at the information he had gathered. Nagisa did not look happy despite that news he had discovered. "But they were sold just last week to a buyer in Terminus territory which is all I know of it."
"I cancelled my plan to assassinate the Ant King and free the slaves," Nagisa continued on in a semi-regretful tone but also an accepting one. It was in a moment of clarity that he had decided to stop his suicide attack that he knew was fated for failure. He continued slowly though, "After the King killed the Saiyans and forced them to submit. And, after I heard about how Meruem wiped out the better-planned slave revolt led by Tatsumi…"
Others in the shuttle got darker looks on their faces again. Tatsumi was well-known by most in the Resistance who had been there for a while. Karma tsked and looked out the window nearest him for a second as he imagined Tatsumi's face the last time he saw it. The moment of silence after Nagisa trailed off was deserved. A former Resistance Commander. A hero of the Second War of the Gods. So why did you have to go and throw your life away, Tatsumi? Karma Akabane thought in anger that barely masked the sadness over his loss.
Nagisa continued after a moment and made everyone refocus and get back into serious moods as they pushed aside their depressed feelings. "I don't know exactly where our comrades are, but we will find them. We will find a way to rescue them. And we will continue to find ways to bring victory to the Resistance. I hate to admit that Karma is right, but your actions have given us a chance to take advantage of our flanks. Let's get this information to the Commanders and see what they think our next move should be."
The classmate recording Nagisa ended the recording as it seemed the mission details after Pyraxas were not as important to their leader to get down right now. Nagisa watched as they put away the recorder, then he sat down and spoke in a softer voice to his friends around him, "The King has gained so much power in such a short time." His leader-y voice had shifted away and he shook his head in a more upset manner as he spoke on the general state of things. He lifted his gaze up to Karma who sat across from him and gave a half-smile back at Nagisa in a way to get him to cheer up that did not work as Nagisa just shook his head again. "Barely anyone even challenges him now outside of the Resistance, and the King is rapidly consolidating his power."
"What are we going to do about it?" Karma asked.
"There's nothing we can do at this point," Nagisa replied in a low voice, regret laced in his tone. "We could barely even infiltrate Bludhaven, and you still got discovered. Trying anything near the Capital at this point would be suicidal." Nagisa saw dark and sad looks all around him, as well as anger rising on Karma's since he knew it to be true too yet did not want to hear it. "Not now at least," Nagisa said, and all the blue-haired teen's friends looked back up at him in confusion. Nagisa kept a serious expression on his face as he continued, "But there will be a time when we can make our move. It is coming soon, but I don't know when. When that time does come however, we'll need everyone there to save Akari and Itona. So until then, these are your new orders: Don't die."
Some of Nagisa's friends started smiling at him, and Nagisa looked around to make eye contact with each of them. He scanned every member of their class in the ship with him and finished on Karma who kept frowning for a few more seconds. Then, the red-haired teen let out a sigh and said, "Well, orders are orders." He cracked a grin and Nagisa smiled back this time. Nagisa let out a relaxed sigh, slouching his shoulders and feeling safe for the first time in several weeks. Surrounded by his classmates, comrades, fellow assassins, he finally felt able to let down his guard, if only a little.
A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. This chapter we see what happened to Nagisa after he broke off from Gray's group in Sin City. I left his fate as a cliffhanger that chapter just with "Bang" before the scene ended, and now we see that Xoupps was there and shot Nagisa to foil his assassination attempt. Nagisa made it to Pyraxas a bit late to take part in anything back during that chapter, but he did run into James Ramirez who I had disappear during Ulquiorra's rampage after he appeared at the Palace. Anyway, I want to apologize once more to the loyal readers of this story who I left in suspense for years and probably thinking this story was never going to be continued again. I have a lot more chapters ready to post though and will throughout the next week or so along with some Broken Log Pose chapters. And so I apologize to the readers of Death too that I'll continue to leave you in suspense for a bit as I try to finish up the Death chapter that I'm writer's-blocked on at the moment. Can't keep apologizing though! I've been having some fun getting back into Nexus. I remember why I stopped writing it too, as the next two chapters after this have a majority My Hero Academia focus which is why I needed to watch that show, which I got really into unexpectedly and led me to writing an entirely new fanfic just on My Hero that turned into my longest story ever at 4 million + words. Anyway, look forward to those next two chapters: 16.8 and 16.9 that I finished in the past two days, before the 6-7 parts of chapter 17 that I already have finished too (just wrote 17.0 last month too actually, unlike the rest I've had written out for years). Well... time for review responses! XD
joebob323 chapter 114 . Aug 23, 2018
Well, it's been a while since I last saw this story, but I have to say, It's gone very far since I stopped! Loved the fight scene last chapter, and the surprising decline of character death since I left off! Can't wait for more! Lex and Saitama maybe? Oh, quick question since it's been a while, is Gon dead or no?
Hey joebob. Long time eh? Haha, you couldn't wait for more, huh? ... sorry about that. As for your question you asked 3 and a half years ago, I never clarified what happened to Gon after his fight with Meruem that just started to end that last chapter we saw him in. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter if you got the notification and came back to read it! Thanks for the review!
Limit-Breaking chapter 114 . Aug 23, 2018
Ok so my hero academia is in this story, finally now where is our boy deku at and im going to asume all might is dead, im pretty sure you kill him off.
Now i wonder if deku will still aim to be the number one hero in this story, or if he gave up on that idea, also he has to become a main character man it's straight up disappointing if he doesn't.
My Hero is definitely here! Got a bit sidetracked... but I'm finally back Limit. Hope you get this notification and come back to read the story. Sorry it's taken me so long! We'll find out more about the My Hero characters, where they are, and if they're alive or not, over the next couple of chapters. Hope you enjoyed this one and are looking forward to those! Thanks for reviewing!
Smlluffy67 chapter 114 . Aug 25, 2018
MVP OF THIC CHAPTER CLASS E 3 AND RAMIREZ
Glad you seemed excited by that chapter, because Nagisa and Ramirez take the focus of this chapter too to continue on from the last one! Thanks for reviewing back when you did, and hope you get the notification and come back to read this chapter!
cyber chapter 114 . Dec 4, 2018
merry christmas
happy new years
Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to you, x4! XD Sorry for the long wait. Everyone I appreciate your patience... and you would have had to be really patient if you've come back and aren't too mad at me. Hope you enjoyed the chapter though, and maybe go back and reread the whole thing as I did which got me excited to keep writing it again? Whatever you decide, if you're reading this I'm happy you came and hope you enjoyed the chapter. Been a very, very long time since I've written it, and I'm excited to do so again... 'Til next time!