Cross Worlds

Chapter 40-1: "The Assassin's Truth"

Riku is resting in his room for the night, sleeping in bed after the long day he's had. Unfortunately, not long into his sleep, some sort of alarm wakes him up. He jolts awake and is immediately mildly annoyed. "If this is a fucking prank..." He mutters to himself with a light groan and notices the alarm is coming from his watch.

"It's three in the morning, what's going...on..?" Not only does the strangely timed alarm confuse Riku, but the holographic image being displayed by his watch makes his heart drop. Artemis, Gina, and Haruto, all seemingly passed out and tied up, with a message above it from an unknown source, "Come to these coordinates if you don't want anything bad to happen to them."

Riku doesn't even know how to find out where these coordinates are, but he figures it out pretty quick. There's a "world map" function on his watch. All he has to do is input the given coordinates and it gives him the location, as well as how to get there. Riku doesn't hesitate for a second; he throws on his robes and grabs his weapons, then simply uses his power to teleport outside and he runs straight to the location on the map.

Riku finds himself running through a thick forest, eventually breaking through the trees to find an abandoned building. The building is odd to say the least, it looks like a traditional Japanese building, made entirely of wood. There doesn't seem to be a hint of technology in sight.

"Even Fantasy's tree base had clear signs of that tech all around it... What is this..? Who would do this?" Riku clenches his fists and dashes into the building. "Artemis! Kids! Are you alright?!" Riku calls out to them but gets no response. "Dammit, where are you?!" Riku calls out to whoever the perpetrator may be. The only other place to go is up, so he quickly hops up each flight of stairs he sees until he reaches the top floor.

That's where he sees the three, all tied up together and unconscious. "Guys!" Riku tries to run over to them, but is quickly stopped by three knives embedding themselves into the ground before him. In an instant, each of the knives' hilts open up, spreading out to reveal three blood red gems inside. All of the gems begin to glow, shooting out thin beams of magical energy vertically and horizontally.

"No!" Riku manages to "teleport" his body close to the three just as the process completes. When he looks back there's a red wall of energy blocking off the path he came in. "Too bad, looks like you don't know who you're dealing with!" Riku calls out with a smirk on his face as he grabs the three. He tries to envelop them all in his magic so he can teleport all of them out of the building, but something is wrong.

"W-What the..?" It's almost as if Riku's magic is...glitching. He can't get his magic to listen to him properly.

"I think I know exactly who I'm dealing with." An all too familiar chuckle comes from the other side of the wall. "I wasn't expecting you to do that, but no worries..." Riku turns and is rather shocked to say the least. After all, he just spoke to Chiyako earlier that day. She's supposed to be an ally.

"Is this some kind of joke Chiyako..? What is this?" Riku narrows his eyes. "Are you testing me? Is this your personal challenge for me?" Riku's vast knowledge of different worlds; many years of playing rpg games and watching fantasy anime, allows him to consider many possibilities. The one he won't actively say out loud is that she isn't on their side. He doesn't believe she's an enemy.

Chiyako giggles. "All will be revealed soon, Lookalike." She says that last word with a hint of venom in her voice. "The only thing you need to know right now is that I'm going to be fighting you with the intent to kill you." Her eyes glow a faint red, and yet Riku doesn't sense any magic coming from her. "That means if you don't take me seriously, you'll die. Understand?" Chiyako wears a sweet smile, but the murderous intent in her eyes is quite clear.