Chapter 48: BOOM
The train surged forward, its heavy wheels finding their rhythm on the tracks as it pulled away from the Gerebo station, accelerating into a blur.
Kai sat in his private cabin, the steady thrum of the engine vibrating through the floor. He watched the coastal landscape, already streaking past the window in a wash of green and brown. He carefully zipped open his backpack just a crack, tossed in a small handful of birdseed, and whispered to the darkness within, "Eat. And be quiet."
Across from him, Shizuku sat in perfect, placid silence, her head bowed, her attention completely absorbed by the old, worn book in her lap.
A moment later, a small, feathered head—Rock Sparrow—poked out of the zipper, its bright, beaded eyes blinking in the cabin light.
"Don't you start," Kai warned, gently but firmly pushing the bird's head back into the bag. "Stay quiet, and you can come out."
The bird, apparently understanding the terms of its parole, immediately ceased its struggles. It squeezed its way out of the narrow opening, hopped onto the small cabin table, and then, with a triumphant flap, launched itself into the air. It darted out the open cabin door, a gray blur zipping down the corridor toward the next car. A moment later, a surprised-looking train attendant hurried past their door, clearly in pursuit.
"Are you not worried it will get lost?" Shizuku asked, her voice flat, not even looking up from her book.
"It's fine," Kai replied, unconcerned. "It knows who feeds it. It'll be back when it's hungry."
He leaned forward, resting his chin on his folded arms as he studied his new 'subordinate'. "You really like reading, don't you?"
"Mm," she confirmed, her eyes still tracing the text. "I do. I found a lot of books when I was young."
Kai's mind immediately went to the images of Meteor City, the world's largest, most lawless junkyard. Picking books out of a literal mountain of garbage, he thought. You can't eat them... so, of course, you learn to read them. It makes a sick, twisted kind of sense. Can't argue with that logic...
"What else do you like? Besides books."
Shizuku thought for a second, her page-turning never pausing. "Jewelry," she said, her voice a simple statement of fact. "And accessories. Because I never, ever found those."
"Also makes sense," Kai said.
"What about you?" she asked, her curiosity finally winning. She looked up, her violet eyes clear and unblinking. "What do you like, Boss?"
Kai felt a sharp, sudden pang of... something. A ghost of a memory, a feeling from a life that wasn't his, yet was. "I liked... League of Legends..."
Shizuku just tilted her head, the name clearly meaning nothing to her.
"Video games," Kai clarified with a small, sad smile.
"Oh."
"And webnovels. Manga." He leaned back against the seat, his gaze returning to the window, watching the unfamiliar, alien world fly by at incredible speed. "Ah... it's all just 'gone with the wind' now, isn't it?"
Shizuku didn't understand the sudden, profound melancholy in his voice, the deep, ancient sadness of a man mourning a world she couldn't even comprehend. She just... watched him.
The rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the train on the rails filled the silence. After a long moment, Kai physically shook himself, as if waking from a dream. "This is way too boring," he announced, his voice bright again. "Let's go train."
"Okay," Shizuku replied. She immediately, without question, closed her book and stood, following him to the adjoining compartment they shared.
This was no luxury cruise. The room was a simple, cramped sleeper car with two bunks, one on the left wall and one on the right, and a tiny, closet-sized washroom in the back. As Kai slid the door shut, locking it, Shizuku raised her hand. With a soft, familiar pop, Blinky materialized, and her book was unceremoniously vacuumed up and stored away.
"Hey, you're getting good at that," Kai noted, impressed. "Can you suck things up and retrieve them at will now?"
Shizuku stuck the tip of her tongue out, a rare, almost imperceptible sign of embarrassment. "Only... if it's something important... that I can remember..."
Kai grinned. "Give it a few days. I'll let you try my new toy."
"A new ability?" Shizuku's curiosity was piqued.
"Not exactly 'new'," Kai mused. "It's... well, it's kind of like a phone, honestly..." He shook his head, a look of annoyance on his face. "Why does saying it out loud make my Hatsu sound so cheap and boring?" He kicked off his shoes and sat cross-legged on his bunk. "Alright, let's start."
"Mm." Shizuku, though intensely curious, didn't press. She mirrored him on her own bunk.
In perfect, silent sync, they both closed their eyes, took a deep breath, and flared their Aura, enveloping their bodies in a dense, shimmering shroud of Ten.
After all, Kai thought, no one ever said you had to practice Ken standing up.
'This pressure...'
In a nearby cabin, Sloe was fast asleep, but Kanzai's eyes snapped open. He'd been dozing, but he instantly sat up, his animalistic senses on high alert. He stared at the vibrating metal wall. He wasn't using En, but the two Aura signatures that had just flared to life were close, and they were strong.
'It's Kai and Shizuku. Their power is decent. Impressive,' he thought. 'Training even while traveling. The Old Man would have loved that kind of grit.'
He flopped back onto his own bunk, lacing his fingers behind his spiky head. 'Still... they're nowhere near the Zodiac average. Not even close to being mid-level fighters... Am I... overthinking this? Yeah, probably. They're just kids.'
In another nearby cabin, Dako and his team were not so calm. The sudden, immense pressure had blasted them out of their bunks, as if a physical weight had slammed into the room.
"What was that?!"
"Are we under attack?!"
"That's not Ren... it's too... controlled... it's not leaking..."
'Idiots. That's Ken,' Dako thought, his heart hammering in his chest. 'A Ken so well-controlled it's barely leaking any pressure... They're even stronger than I thought.' He was floored that the quiet, "dazed" girl with the glasses had that kind of raw power.
And then he remembered that this same, powerful girl was now willingly, almost eagerly, following that little kid... Dako wiped a bead of cold sweat from his forehead. This world is nuts. You just can't compare people.
The journey was, as Kai had predicted, painfully boring. The train stopped at a dusty, sun-baked waystation in the middle of the afternoon. Kai and Shizuku took a break, bought more birdseed from a local vendor, and fed Rock Sparrow, who had spent the last several hours happily playing a game of "catch me if you can" with the train attendants, who were all completely and utterly charmed by the "lost bird."
Night fell. The train, tireless, sped on through the darkness. The cabin lights were bright. Some cars were packed with sleeping bodies, others were quiet and empty. Some passengers slept on their bags, and some... continued to quietly train.
The train does not get tired. But people do.
And the small, rough-looking crew of men who had boarded at the last station had been waiting for exactly this moment.
They had rested all night, their eyes closed, feigning sleep. Now, in the dark, pre-dawn hours, the 'dead hour' when the passengers' and crew's alertness was at its absolute lowest, they made their move.
They split into three teams. One moved to seal off the other cars. One blocked the front and rear exits of the main passenger car. The third, armed with small, snub-nosed pistols and long, sharp knives, began to move down the aisle, waking the groggy, terrified passengers with hissed threats.
"Don't move! Don't make a sound! Wallets, valuables! Put them in the bag! Now!"
"You want to see the sunrise? Then give me your money!"
High above, nestled unseen in the dark luggage rack, Rock Sparrow tilted its head, watching the strange, violent, and suddenly very interesting human play unfold below.
"Ptoo!"
Kai spat the minty toothpaste foam into the tiny sink and moved aside, letting Shizuku take his place. He splashed freezing water on his face, the cold shock making him instantly and completely awake. "So," he said, toweling off, "there's a train robbery in progress a few cars down. I'm thinking of going to... 'requisition' their stolen goods. You in?"
"Okay," Shizuku mumbled, her mouth already full of toothpaste.
"Hurry up!" Kai urged, already at the door. "Dako's team is on the move. I heard them. If we're not quick, they'll have all the fun."
Shizuku's brushing speed immediately doubled.
Thump-thump-thump! Kai pounded on Kanzai's door. "Hey, Zodiac! Train robbery! Real-world action! You coming or what?"
Sloe's sleepy, muffled voice came through the door. "Robbers...? Just... robbers? I thought it was serious... yaaaawn... you're Hunters, you handle it..."
A second voice, Kanzai's, grumbled, "If he's not going, I'm not. It's just a few small-fry. Just... try not to kill them, kid."
I wouldn't kill them even if you paid me, Kai thought, a familiar, cold ache pulsing in his chest. I've got enough problems with 'Death Aura' as it is. Come on, Shizuku.
He and Shizuku arrived at the sealed door of the passenger car. The terrified train guards were being held back by Dako's team, who looked... honestly, they just looked annoyed. When Dako saw Kai and Shizuku arrive, he visibly relaxed.
"You take point?" Dako asked, gesturing to the door.
"Our abilities..." Kai said, his voice just loud enough for the Hunters to hear, "...aren't subtle. You'll want to stand back."
"Right," Dako said, immediately understanding. He and his team physically pulled the protesting guards back down the corridor. "Don't worry," Dako told them, "all five of us combined probably couldn't beat those two."
At the door, Kai raised his hand, his index finger pointed at the lock, a tiny, dense ball of Aura—a Divine Flick—already spinning. Beside him, Shizuku had Blinky out, its switch flipped to 'ON'.
"Blinky," she commanded, her voice a low, clinical whisper, "the moment that door opens, inhale all guns and all knives."
BAM!
The lock mechanism on the door vaporized. The door slid open.
The scene inside dissolved into pure chaos. Before a single robber could even react, their weapons—every gun, every knife—were violently ripped from their hands by an invisible force and vanished into Blinky's roaring, cartoonish maw.
They stared at their empty, tingling hands, their brains completely unable to process what had just happened.
In that split-second of mass confusion, two blurs—one small, one tall—moved among them.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
In less than three seconds, the entire team of "tough" hijackers was unconscious on the floor.
They were just Muggles. They hadn't just been disarmed; they hadn't even been able to see their attackers.
The train, unbothered by the brief, one-sided conflict, continued to speed through the sunrise. In the distance, the vast, modern skyline of the metropolis of Kosumo was now visible, the rising sun glinting off its tall, glass towers.
At the Kosumo station, the bruised, weeping, and utterly bewildered robbers were handed over to a very confused local police force. Kai's group, led by the completely unfazed Sloe, disembarked onto the platform. Sloe, it seemed, was so jaded that a simple train robbery barely registered as an inconvenience.
The station was... packed. The streets outside were even worse. It was a solid, unmoving sea of people.
Sloe's arranged transport was, predictably, late. Kai and Shizuku were in the middle of saying their goodbyes, as this was where they would part ways with the Ochima team. "What is all this?" Kai asked, looking at the massive crowd.
Sloe's aide checked his watch, his face pinching in annoyance. "It's the Gatford Marathon... damn it, who planned the route? Why would they run it directly past the central train station?! Our car will never get through this."
"What's wrong?" Kai asked, not to the aide, but to Kanzai.
The Zodiac, who had been lazily stretching from the long train ride, had suddenly gone rigid.
"Something," Kanzai said, his voice a low growl, "is wrong." He moved instantly, shoving Sloe behind his own body, his eyes scanning the crowd.
"WOOOHOO!" The crowd roared as a group of runners sprinted past.
And at that exact moment, a man in a non-descript baseball cap, who had been lost in the crowd, pushed his way to the front. He looked directly at Sloe's group.
He smiled.
And from the worn, canvas backpack he was wearing, an intense, white-hot light began to pulse.
BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!
The world dissolved into fire, sound, and pain. The explosion was deafening, a physical, soul-crushing thing that threw the entire crowd into a panicked, screaming mass.
In that split-second of silent, white-hot pressure, Kai saw it all: Sloe's face, a mask of pure, uncomprehending shock; Kanzai roaring, his features contorting, fangs appearing as his animalistic nature took over; Dako and his team, too slow, too weak, being caught in the full, concussive force and simply... blown away.
He was already moving, his voice "silently" shouting Shizuku's name as their Ken flared to life in a desperate, last-second, protective shield.
(End of Chapter)