Chapter 38:

At around two o clock in the morning the crimson duchess crawled to a stop at Balboa’s central railway station. A long line of soldiers dressed in red and gold lined the platform awaiting Benjamin’s arrival.

From the guard cab Okimodo watched on as they were joined by general Ivan, his frame towering above the Corone soldiers. On his left side stood his wife Sharron who was now dressed in black military attire and on his right was a tall hooded man in a black dog mask and black hooded robe.

The train had not been attacked anymore since the wave of death energy. It was likely that the class six super resonator that sent the death energy had killed most of the persuing super resonators. It was very likely that they had killed Lyon and the other two as well considering that they didn’t return. There was also a possibility that they were still fighting the class six super resonator back in Viriticily. Either way Okimodo didn’t care anymore. Benjamin had now successfully survived the journey to Corone which meant that Okimodo’s job was done. All he had to do now was get Benjamin to sign his job request and submit it somewhere in the city.

He grabbed his bow and arrow from the corner and turned to face Hiro and Shipo. “That’s my job done. You still have to escort him to the hospital though right Shipo?”

“Yes.” Shipo rubbed his eyes that had formed bags under them. The only thing that was on Shipo’s mind was sleeping. He had never stayed up to such a late hour before.

Hiro yawned as she stood up and transformed back into her disguise. She could not kill Benjamin just yet as she needed him to die in a specific place and at a specific time. Within Coronatian culture when a woman was giving birth to her child it was considered taboo for any man other than the father to witness the child’s birth. Because of this it was likely that Ivan as well as Benjamin’s entourage would be temporarily separated from him when he meets his wife. That was when Hiro would strike and hang him from the tallest building in the city. She also needed to leave a message on the corpse crediting her for his death. Due to her rather unique situation it would be completely impossible for the authorities to find her. This meant that she was free to leave as much evidence of herself as possible, in fact that’s what she wanted to do.

“Stop zoning out.” Shipo said to Hiro suddenly.

Hiro shook herself awake before saying. “It’s been good working with you two. Once Benjamin leaves the station we will be enemies again.”

Okimodo turned to face her before saying. “Technically you’re just going to be enemies with my brother. My job is already done.”

Okimodo nodded at Hiro and his brother before leaving the guard cab. He stepped up onto the roof where he made eye contact with Ivan. The general’s eyes widened in surprise before quickly becoming stoic once more. He nodded at Okimodo before his eyes were drawn back infront of him as Benjamin emerged onto the platform before greeting Ivan with an ecstatic handshake.

Benjamin’s entourage soon followed with a little girl and her parents joining them.

Ivan adjusted his own tie before speaking in a slightly robotic voice. “It’s a pleasure to meet you mister Norton, I’m quite impressed by how much you love our empire and his highness. It would be my pleasure to guard you until you reunite with your wife.”

By his side Sharron seemed to chuckle slightly before a shoulder nudge quickly stopped her.

“Actually.” Benjamin turned his head slightly to eye up Hiruru. “I’d like to visit a hotel first.”

“What?” Hiro frowned deeply. If Benjamin didn’t go straight to see his wife then the chance of him missing his child’s birth would skyrocket. Hiro would be in an extremely awkward spot if that were allowed to happen. Hiro would have to make a false assassination attempt in order to stir them up to get it moving straight to the militarised hospital.

Okimodo leapt over a dozen metres from the roof across the platform landing just ahead of Benjamin and the others.

“Let me guess.” Benjamin rubbed his chin. “You need me to sign your job request right?”

Benjamin quickly retrieved a black pen from his pocket before motioning for Okimodo to retrieve the job request.

Okimodo did so and it was quickly signed.

Benjamin then smiled politely and said. “Thanks for your service noble lord Azurai, please use your payment to indulge yourself. Your clan is one of the dying bastions of true Coronatian culture It was my honour to meet you.”

Okimodo couldn’t help but immediately lampoon in his mind. Was this guy seriously kowtowing to him so shamelessly?

Feeling slightly uncomfortable, Okimodo sprouted a pair of giant eagle wings before flying through the brightly lit station hall to the empty wide road outside. He landed on an extremely tall upper class row house that was about six stories high. From its roof he got a perfect view of the massive glowing entrance to the station building far beneath him.

The area was dead silent without a single person in sight other than a few soldiers.

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Hiro watched on as Benjamin departed the station with Shipo joining him. The time to strike was now.

She quickly exited the guard cab and jumped onto the platform before blasting forward.

Three soldiers notice her and yell to alert the others. Hiro immediately swung for one of them as she ran punching him across the station and sending him crashing into the empty ticket office before continuing to speed forward. The other two soldiers quickly drew their rifles and aimed. Hiro gracefully flipped over both of them as they fired their rifles in the air frantically. Hiro cleared them all before darting towards Benjamin’s entourage.

Two bodyguards stepped forward to intercept her only for them to be completely blindsided when she unleashed a massive cloud of death seeds that quickly dispersed throughout the station.

Benjamin yelled for Hiruru to guard him which she quickly did.

Ivan himself was in a precarious situation as he couldn’t risk injuring the other people present by accident. Being a class nine meant that it was rather difficult for him to not kill everything in the general vicinity with a single attack.

Shipo simply pretended to look startled while doing nothing.

The masked man charged at Hiro along with Sharron who drew forth a long slender sword.

Ivan himself quickly retrieved a pistol from his military uniform and all of the soldiers in sight drew forth their rifles and aimed straight for the fast Aproaching assassin.

Hiro was shredded by countless bullets before what remained of her was sliced up into pieces by the masked man and Sharron.

It may have seemed like things were over for her but Hiro was in fact smiling on the inside. One of the perks about being in the school of life and death was that a person didn’t have to worry too much about dying. Once their bodies were destroyed a resonance ability would activate automatically that allowed them to transfer the death energy to someone else. Hiro could’ve killed Benjamin right then and there if she really wanted to but that would defeat the point of his death entirely. She instead transferred the death energy to all of the Corone soldiers and Ivan causing bullet holes and sword slashes to appear on their bodies. It wasn’t enough to kill them all but a few would be severely injured. It would give them the kick up the ass they needed to go straight to the hospital.

As all of the soldiers either fell to their knees or went unconscious, Hiro’s body resurrected before she enveloped herself in an ephemeral black mist and vanished without a trace.

Ivan was largely unfazed by his new injuries and looked around to see the state of everyone else.

Outside Okimodo watched as a bird flew up towards him and landed beside him.

It was a quickly enveloped in a black mist that quickly dispersed revealing the bird to be Hiro. She looked at Okimodo curiously and asked. “Aren’t you going back home.”

Okimodo’s hair swayed with the night time wind as he looked up Hiro while he squatted. “This is turning out to be quite interesting don’t you think? Why would I go home where things are boring when I can stay here and see a massive battle.”

Hiro leaned forward placing her hands on her knees before teasing him. “If you want to spend more time with me just say so.”

Okimodo turned to face her again briefly and smiled before looking back down.

At the next moment Okimodo saw Benjamin and the rest leave the railway station before entering into three armoured automobiles that were parked around a looping tram track. Ivan as well as Benjamin and his guards entered into the central automobile along with the family. Shipo and the masked man entered into the rear automobile along with a few remaining soldiers that could still fight. The front automobile was inhabited by Sharron and a few more of the injured soldiers. Several diesel ambulances arrived to tend to the remaining soldiers as well as the numerous surviving passengers who had been held back from leaving the train until Benjamin left first.

The quietness of the city was completely destroyed as the enraged passengers flooded out from the station’s entrance. The three armoured automobiles quickly drove into the main road before turning to head up a wide road down on Okimodo’s left.

Hiro felt deeply sympathetic towards the passengers. The train was not scheduled to arrive until five minutes past six but due to the dangerous situation it was likely forced to skip all of the intermediate stops to get here faster. This meant that many of these people weren’t even supposed to be here and wouldn’t be able to leave until the railway re opened at five o clock.

*creak*

Both Okimodo and Hiro immediately turned to look behind them as they heard the sound of a creaking door.

They then both saw a small dark haired boy with crimson eyes peeking at them through a half open door leading down into the building. As soon as he saw the two super resonators staring at him he jolted in surprise before he was joined by a beautiful woman that appeared to be in her thirties. She also had dark hair that appeared to be black and crimson eyes with slit pupils.

Judging based off of these physical characteristics they were either vampires or succubus’s. They also appeared similar to the Veronica lady in Lyon’s group.

The older woman became frightened immediately at the sight of Okimodo and Hiro and slammed the door shut after yanking the boy inside.

“Wait!” Hiro ran towards the door before knocking on it.

On the other side of the door the woman whose name was Shaiaan’s heart sank. She had expressly forbidden her eldest son from playing on the roof during this time and he naturally didn’t listen. Now she had the attention of two super resonators to deal with.

She quickly gesticulated for her son to go back to their apartment before turning back around to open the door.

With a creek the door opened and she came face to face with Hiro. “Can I… help you two?”

Hiro took a deep breath before asking. “If I’m not mistaken this entire borough has been evacuated temporarily right?”

“Yes.” Shaiaan nodded. “But it’s only ordinary people that have been evacuated. Demons like me and my family as well as super resonators weren’t permitted to leave as we have bodies that can withstand what’s coming. I’m assuming you want to know about the assassins right?”

Hiro nodded. “Yes how many of them are there right now?”

“I can’t give you an exact number but there are a lot of them.” The woman admitted before her tone became more grave. “They’ve been gathering around the area for the past few hours. They threatened us demons into staying inside of our houses causing many of us to be unable to attend work and social gatherings. If I were to give an estimate of how many super resonators there were I’d go for around fifty or sixty or so.”

Hiro smiled at the woman before saying. “Thanks for the help.”

The woman slowly closed the door before her footsteps could be heard descending into the building.

Hiro turned back to face Okimodo before saying. “This is going to be quite difficult for me. I’m going to need your help.”

Okimodo stood up straight before stretching his back and yawning. “Sure why not.”

“Let’s do this together then.” Hiro smiled widely. “You’ll go down in the legends as my sidekick.”

“Legends?” Okimodo raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Hiro grinned. “Just like emperor Nikolais.”

End of chapter 38.