As Hiro, Rose, and Rex exit the courtyard, Rose starts to think about her situation a bit more. This time, in a more positive light. Many of her questions that were floating around in her head from her first night in the palace had begun to answer themselves. The one that was most important to her, was whether or not she could trust these people. To which she answered, 'Yes', with a gleeful smile on her face.
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"You seem to be in a good mood after that. Hard to believe you were nervous about it when I first mentioned it to you." Hiro says, patting her on her head.
"It's not that. Well… Kinda… You wouldn't understand." She says brushing his hand off of her. Afterwards, they arrive at Hiro's study and walk through the door.
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"Now that we're here, we can talk about important matters. I didn't want anyone else to hear any of this." Hiro says, taking his seat and taking off his coat. "Not even Ms. Helen?" Rose questions. As he takes off his coat, Rose notices that it has the crest of Kennis on the corners and cuffs. "Especially not her. She worries like she's my mother." Hiro answers with a slight chuckle. "Also, is that a new coat?" She asks, pointing at the crest of Kennis on the corners.
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"Yes actually. It was given to me both as a sign of friendship and an apology for the injury. It's imbued with a healing spell to help with my back, but I'm a bit dirty so I figured I should take it off for now." Hiro says, now sitting forward. "On that note, we should get to the topic at hand. As you heard earlier, I went there to ask their King, Faust Von Tyrol, if he could aid us in analyzing the Mana Beast Incident. I was well-received by him and his council initially, but I could tell that he had an ulterior motive. Throughout the conversation we had with the council, he seemed like he was intentionally saying things to agitate me." Hiro explains. "Things about me being a poor choice for a King, and insulting my family, to name a few. He never said any of these things directly, but rather insinuated these and more. Eventually I got slightly annoyed and did the same in return. This went back and forth for a while, until I decided to challenge him to a duel."
"I understand that these are serious things that anyone would want to fight about, but you, initiating a fight out of anger?" Rex interjects.
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"No, no, you misunderstand. I wasn't angry when I challenged him, rather, I wanted to see what his end goal was throughout all of this back and forth disrespect, and it seemed like a fight with me was what he wanted.” Hiro responds. “Acknowledged, he was stronger than me but I was able to hold my own against him for a while. Once he got serious, I started to get overwhelmed by the sheer power of his ability. At the end of it, there was an attack that I couldn't quite dodge, which led to my defeat, and injury. Afterwards, he apologized and allowed me to rest in the palace. He said he only said those things to test my character and see if I was the type of person who lashes out when myself and loved ones are talked down upon, or if I could stay composed and keep a level head. Apparently, I managed to impress him enough to earn his trust.”
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“So… You aren’t upset about how things went?” Rex asks.
“Correct. I’m quite content with how it turned out. We’ve gained a powerful ally through this and all it took was a minor burn? Sounds wonderful to me.” Hiro says.
“Fine. If you're not upset about it, I’ll stop worrying about it.” Rex says sighing to himself.
After a few more hours of conversation, afternoon turns to evening, and evening to night, Rose and Rex leave the study to go to bed while Hiro works on a little more paperwork. Rex falls fast asleep once he returns to his room, while Rose seems to be a bit restless in her bed. She's still awake because she feels like she's forgetting something. After about an hour of tossing and turning in her bed recalling everything she had done throughout the day, she remembers what she was supposed to do. She meant to ask Hiro a question before she left: What was her 'mission' that he spoke of before he left? Upon remembering, she gets up and goes to look for Hiro to get her question off of her mind. After exiting her room, she enters the slumbering halls of the palace, everything still, being illuminated by the moonlight shining through windows, accompanied by the slow, mechanical ticking of the clock in the foyer.
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The first place she heads towards is his bedroom, as it is next door to hers. "Mr. Hiro? Are you awake?" Rose says while knocking on the door. After a few seconds without an answer, she opens the door to see if he's in bed, and to her surprise, he isn't in the room. "Maybe he hasn't finished his work?" She thinks to herself as she begins to walk towards his study. As she walks, still being followed by the ticking of the clock, she begins to admire the palace more and more. Once she arrives at the study, she knocks on the door saying, “Mr. Hiro? It’s me, Rose.”. “Rose? Come in.” He answers back. She enters the room, closes the door behind her and takes a seat directly across from him. Hiro is still scribbling away at something, in a frustrated manner, and hadn't even looked up to greet her yet. "Um… Is now a bad time? If you're too busy, I can come back in the morning or someth-", "No, no, you are just fine. I'm simply a bit stressed. A break might be what I need." Hiro says, putting down his pen and finally looking up at her. "Oh okay." She says awkwardly. "Don't you think the clock in the foyer is a bit loud?" She says, still hearing the clock through the wall.
"Now that you mention it, it certainly is louder than most of the other clocks in the palace. I'll ask Helen to take care of it tomorrow." He says, waving the thought off casually.
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"Speaking of taking care of things, what were you working on just now?" She asks curiously. "I'm just making preparations for the future. I have a feeling we're about to enter some troubling times sooner rather than later. I'm sure we'll get through it, but you can never be too prepared. But enough idle chatter. I assume you came here for a specific reason." He says, gesturing for her to speak. "Yes, there was something I forgot to ask you during our conversation earlier. Before you left for Kennis, you said that you would tell me what my 'mission' is when you returned. So, what is my mission?"
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"Ah yes, it appears it slipped my mind as well. Your mission is to-" As he begins to explain, two individuals dressed in black from head to toe appear directly above him, falling towards him with knives pointed at Hiro' neck. Without missing a beat, Rose teleports in front of them, kicks one into the other and into the wall to her left. Immediately following Rose's attack, Hiro dashes toward the wall across the room from the intruders. Seeing this, Rose teleports over to him.
"This is your mission. I'll explain more later but you were supposed to be hunting these two down." Hiro says while examining the room.
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"I'm supposed to hunt them down?! But they're assassins, that are probably better trained than I am and have a lot more experience than me. I mean this as respectfully as possible, but are you sure you were thinking straight when this popped into your head?" Rose exclaims while entering Hyper Speed. She focuses on the bigger of the two as they recover from her attack. As she rushes him, he disappears, or rather teleports. Rose, confused as to how this was happening, panics to find him, but as soon as she turns around, she is struck from behind by the remaining man. However this attack was accompanied by a deep, and very loud sound, akin to the sound from a large bass drum. This attack struck the entirety of Rose's body at once and felt more like a force instead of a physical hit. She is sent flying across the room by this attack, but in a different direction from Hiro.
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As she looks up to find Hiro, she sees that the bigger man had teleported to Hiro and managed to back him into a corner, while locked in deadly combat with each other. "Dammit! I forgot Hiro is still injured. He can't keep this up all day. I have to help hi-" As she thinks this, she's blindsided by yet another force attack from the smaller man. "Ugh… I have to process what's going on before I rush back in.
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The bigger man seems to be better in close quarters combat than his companion, seeing as he's the only one who's engaged us head on. I think Hiro can hold his own momentarily while I handle the smaller one." She thinks to herself as she recovers and locks her gaze on the smaller one. She sees him readying what looks like a snap. As he releases, it looks like a wave of sound itself is traveling towards her and growing as it travels. She jumps to her right, Boosting in the process to dodge it successfully, thinking to herself, "Is he weaponizing… Sound?". After the wave passes her, it destroys a bookshelf with a loud crash. As the books fall to the floor, a question runs through her mind: Why hasn't anyone come to investigate any of these loud noises? Or rather why hasn't anyone heard them? Upon listening closer, she realizes that she can no longer hear the clock in the foyer. Then it hit her. "Mr. Hiro! The smaller guy can manipulate sound, and he's stopping the sound from leaving the room!" She yells to him across the study.
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After hearing this, she sees Hiro pull something out of his coat pocket and throws it at her. "Break it!" He says to her. She looks at the airborne item and sees that it's a round bottle about the size of the palm of her hand filled with what appears to be fog. As she turns and dashes toward the bottle, the bigger man turns to his companion and shouts, "Don't let it break!", then teleports to it himself. Rose responds in the same manner and teleports to it, but attempts to strike the man rather than the bottle. He dodges and reaches for the bottle instead of counter attacking. She Boosts herself in order to stop him from grabbing it, but he had anticipated another attack and teleported next to her, still reaching for the bottle, but this time, he manages to catch it. As his hand is wrapping around the bottle, Rose tries to punch him yet again, but this time, she aims directly at the hand that has the bottle. The man had expected the punch to go towards his head rather than his outstretched arm, leading to him failing to block in time. As her punch connects, the bottle shatters in the man's hand, and releases a heavy wind that spreads the bottled fog throughout the room at high speeds.
.
.
.
Once the fog spreads out, the entire room shakes violently, as if being hit by something. Everyone in the room is knocked off of their feet by a wave of energy. As Rose hits the floor, she feels as if she had gotten the wind knocked out of her. It was getting hard to breathe, and her entire body hurt all over, akin to the shockwave that hit her in the mana beast incident, but this time it felt more like a wave of ether mixed with something she had never felt before. Ears ringing and gasping for air, she looks up at Hiro and the assassins to see what the situation had turned into after the blast. Hiro is starting to recover as well as the assassins, however the fog was dispersed, presumably by the shockwave. She sees the larger man grab the smaller man, put two fingers to one of his ears and whispers, 'Fire' as they teleport away leaving herself and Hiro in the destroyed room, with books, papers, and broken furniture scattered throughout it.
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After they escape, Hiro stands there, visibly frustrated as he dusts himself off. Rose notices the look on his face and is greatly disappointed in herself. She feels like she failed at not only protecting him, but also apprehending the two assassins.
"I know you're upset, but keep your head up, and stay focused. Just because we're done fighting doesn't mean we get to beat ourselves up yet. Check the room and see if you can find anything that they might have left behind. I'll find out about the shockwave tomorrow." Hiro says as he starts to skim the room, moving around debris and other clutter.
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"Yes sir." Says Rose in a saddened tone as she helps Hiro look for evidence, powering down as she does so. While looking around, she notices a faint green glow coming from the center Hiro's back. "Hey Mr. Hiro, I think you have something on your back. I'll get it for you, don't move." As she approaches, the light starts to get increasingly brighter, to the point of looking like the morning sun on his back. "It looks like some kind of light, and it's glowing kinda bright." She says, reaching for it. As she does so, an arrow appears about an inch away from this light moving towards him. Rose sees it and instinctively pushes him to the side, but with her Hyper Speed deactivated, she couldn't move him out of the way fast enough, leading to him getting shot cleanly through his shoulder. "GAAAH!" Hiro shouts as he falls to the floor. "What was that!? Hiro exclaims. "I don't know, it just… appeared? I know it doesn't make any sense, but that's what's happened, I swear!" Rose says frantically. Immediately afterwards the door flies open, and it's Rex, standing there with worry written all over his face, looking at Hiro. "What happened in here? Were you guys attacked?"
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"Yeah but let's talk about this after we help Hiro. He got shot in the shoulder by an arrow." Rose says, pointing at Hiro's wound. "Find… Helen. She can fix… my wound." Says Hiro through heavy breaths and groans. Rex crouches down and takes a quick look at the gaping hole in Hiro's shoulder and the arrow that went through it. He closes his eyes, and pauses for a moment, then opens them, reexamining both the wound and the arrow. While he's doing this, Rose notices there's a slight glow in his eyes while he looks over it the second time. "Got it." He says as he stands up and puts Hiro on his back. He starts to walk out the door, but he stops and turns to Rose. "Rose, we are going to take down those bastards that did this to him. I will make them pay for what they did, even if it's the last thing I do!" He says, before turning back to the door to find Helen.
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