Chapter 6

A Rough Wake Up

Next day, Erin woke up in the same bed she had been resting previously and slowly got up. Her mind was a jumbled mess as she was thinking about what she had just gotten herself into. Not only was she being hunted by the police for murder, but the brunette had also joined up with assassins in order to keep herself safe. In other words, she hadn’t just committed a murder, but she was going to do so more for her own safety.

The thought of killing people made Erin feel sick and she almost wanted to throw up. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever thought about killing anyone. Even fighting was something she had never wanted to take part of, but now she was forced to do such horrible things.

The brown-haired woman could only wonder why she had gotten into this mess. Was it a punishment from heaven for the things she did to Devin and his friends? Or was she simply the victim of some freak accident that shouldn’t have had anything to do with her at all? Whatever the case might have been, all she could do was try to survive through it all.

There was a sudden knock on the door. Whoever was on the other side was obviously not in a good mood, as they banged the door loudly and violently.

“Hey, you awake there yet!?” Holly’s voice yelled. “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of your sorry ass today, so better hurry up, if you want any breakfast!”

The blonde woman didn’t even wait for an answer before walking away from the door, leaving Erin alone. The brunette began to frantically put on her clothes, knowing that Holly could very well be serious about not leaving any food for her. After all, these people killed for a living. Leaving some stray they had picked up from the street wasn’t exactly something their morals would never allow.

As soon as she had dressed herself, Erin made her way to the dining room. Despite not knowing the way the assassins’ hideout was built, it was fairly easy to find. The place wasn’t exactly big and the smell of food was rather easy to follow.

Once in the dining room, the brunette saw both Holly and Ryan sitting at the table. Ryan himself had already finished eating, as his plate was almost empty with only small traces of food left on it. Right now, he was just reading a newspaper while waiting for the others to finish eating. Holly herself was finishing up her breakfast, which seemed to consist of rice, eggs and a bit of chicken.

Having not eaten anything since yesterday, Erin’s stomach was obviously empty, which grumbled upon seeing and smelling the delicious breakfast in front of her. In the middle of the table, there were three metal kettles, which most likely contained the food. The brown-haired woman grabbed a plate that had been laid on the counter nearby, took a seat at the table and reached for one of the kettles.

Unfortunately, upon taking off the kettle’s lid, the only thing that was revealed was emptiness.

“Oh right! I forgot to tell you that we already finished eating the chicken and the eggs!” Holly said with a smirk, clearly enjoying Erin’s plight. “Sorry about that! But there should still be some rice left for you!”

Erin frowned, but didn’t voice out any complaints. After all, she was dealing with professional killers here, so angering them wasn’t exactly a good idea. Instead, the brunette just opened the kettle with the rice in it and took as much of it as she could on her plate.

The amount of rice that Erin got wasn’t large at all, just enough to keep herself from going hungry for some time. The brown-haired woman grit her teeth in anger over the treatment she was receiving, but resumed eating without any complaints.

Erin’s silence seemed to have a negative effect on Holly, who was annoyed over not getting an actual response. The blonde felt somewhat humiliated over the fact that the target of her bullying wasn’t really showing any kind of a reaction to her antics. Hoping to change that, Holly took the salt shaker and loosened the lid on it before passing it to Erin.

“Hey. Eating just rice on its own can’t be all that tasty, right?” Holly asked as she gave the salt shaker to Erin. “Why don’t you use this? It should make it a bit better.”

Erin gave a simple nod as she accepted the salt and tried to put some of it on her rice, only for the lid to fall off and the shaker’s contents spill out uncontrollably on her rice. There was now a small mountain of salt on top of her rice.

Seeing the little food she had gotten get ruined like that started to push Erin’s anger over the limit. Her body was now shaking with rage and her face was twisted in an enraged frown, as she wanted to do nothing but simply beat Holly to a bloody pulp right there.

“Oh you want to go, huh!? Bring it on then!” Holly yelled as she stood up, having noticed Erin getting angry. “Go ahead and see just how well it goes! I’ll knock your sorry ass out any day!”

“WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM!?” Erin yelled, having had enough of the blonde’s mistreatment. “Why are you so hellbent on pissing me off!? It’s not like I like this any more than you do!”

“You think you’re having it hard!? Try being in our shoes for a change!” Holly yelled back. “Here we are taking in a completely new and useless clown to be trained by us, when we can’t even trust you yet! Not only that, but we are already facing trouble with just the two of us! Do you think having a third mouth to feed is going to be any help with that!?”

“Hey I didn’t ask to be saved by you guys! That was your dad’s idea!” the brunette argued. “I never wanted to be an assassin or anything like that!”

“Think you’re somehow better than us!? Is that it!?” the blonde asked angrily. “Well let me remind you that you’re already a killer! Or did I misunderstand something about what happened between you and Harger!? And before you start making excuses about not having a choice, I’ve heard people say that crap when they’ve betrayed their families and friends, so don’t even bother trying it on me!”

Upon hearing Holly talk about betraying family and friends, Erin’s body froze. Even though the blonde assassin had no knowledge about the brunette’s past, her words managed to remind her of what she had done back in her own world. How she had betrayed Devin and his friends, who then somehow had come to this world.

With the fight taken out of her, Erin simply sat back down on her chair and ate her food without any complaints, like nothing had happened. Both Holly and Ryan could only stare in confusion over how quickly the brown-haired woman’s mood had just changed.

Once finished with her meal, Erin got up and began to leave the kitchen, only to stop at the doorway.

“So, what is the plan for today then?” the brunette asked. “You said that you were going to train me to become an assassin, so are we going to start soon?”

“Not yet, but later today,” Ryan answered. “There’s something else we need to take care of first, but it does involve you. Be ready to leave soon.”

Erin gave a simple nod and left, walking back to the room she had been resting in. Once she was inside, the brown-haired woman sat down on the bed and pulled the picture of herself and Devin’s group out of her pocket and looked at it, before she began to quietly weep.

Memories of the better days were going through Erin’s mind, as she sat on the bed crying. She also thought about how bad of a turn her life had taken so suddenly. Even if she had been pulled into this new world, the brunette could have at least taken comfort from the fact that her old friends were here and she could finally apologize to them properly after all this time. However, that comfort had been quickly destroyed, as she had been betrayed by the single person that had helped her, resulting in Erin becoming a wanted fugitive and now having blood on her hands.

Just why was all this happening to her? Why had Eba suddenly betrayed her? And why had the police been after her in the first place?

Erin was so caught in her emotional turmoil that she didn’t realize just how much time had passed. Only when the door to the room opened suddenly did she break out of her weeping.

The brunette looked up and saw Ryan standing at the door, looking at her with an expression that showed no emotion. The man had always been rather stoic, but now he was like a wall of stone.

“Mind telling me what that was about?” Ryan suddenly asked.

“What was what about?” Erin asked in return.

“That whole thing between you and Holly,” the assassin explained. “You were about to jump her and tear her throat out before suddenly losing all of your energy in a second. What the hell was that about?”

“Oh… That was nothing,” the brunette lied. “I just… realized that it was a bad idea to fight her. That’s all.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Ryan said, shocking Erin. “You weren’t thinking anything at all back there. I saw how you were and knew you were just about to throw down. However, something Holly said caused something to snap inside you and take all the energy out of you. Now tell me, what happened.”

For a moment, Erin hesitated, fearing what might happen if she were to tell the truth. Unfortunately, she didn’t really have a choice, as Ryan was most likely not willing to leave without an answer. The brunette considered lying, but was afraid of what could happen if she was caught. In the end, she decided to tell the truth to the assassin.

“It was one of the things Holly said,” Erin began her explanation. “She mentioned people that are willing to betray their own friends and families.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with you?” Ryan asked with a raised eyebrow. “Did you sell out your parents to the government or something?”

“Not exactly,” the brunette replied. “I did do something similar, though. I betrayed my friends in a way that ruined their lives for good.”

“Really now?” the assassin said as he took out a cigarette and lit it up. “Well, when you do shit like that, you can’t really take it back. All you can do is learn from what you did and try to become better.”

“Actually, I want to meet them and apologize to them properly,” Erin explained. “I recently found out where they were and I was planning to travel to them.”

“That might not be a good idea, kid,” Ryan said in a somewhat stern tone, like it was a warning. “Depending on how badly you screwed over your friends, they might not be willing to forgive you. Hell, I know from experience that there are just some things you can’t simply let go with a simple sorry.”

“I know that, but I still have to try!” the brown-haired woman argued. “I’ve been tormented by my guilt for the last few years and it has driven me almost insane! I can’t take it any more!”

“If that’s what you want, go ahead. Not my problem,” the assassin said with a shrug and was about to leave, when he suddenly stopped. “By the way, who are those friends of yours? In case we come across them, it would be good to know who they are.”

“If I simply told you who they are, you wouldn’t believe me,” Erin said as she stood up and handed the picture she had been holding to Ryan. “It will be easier to just show you instead.”

For a moment, Ryan just stared at the picture with a raised eyebrow, before his eyes went wide and the cigarette fell out of his mouth from shock. He easily recognized the people in the picture.

“Erin, do you have any idea who the people in this picture are?” the assassin asked in a shaky voice. “These are the highest authorities in this whole world! Just who are you!?”

“I knew this was going to be a shock, but you have a right to know my true identity,” Erin said as she took a deep breath and prepared herself. “I’m actually from another world, where I used to be friends with the people who are now the leaders of your world. This picture is from the time I knew them personally.”

“You goddamn right this is a shock! Never would I have even imagined shit like this to ever be real!” Ryan ranted before staring at the picture again. “No wonder the police sent someone like Harger after you! I’m actually more surprised that they didn’t send the whole force after you!”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” the brunette asked, confused over why the police would be looking so much for her. “Why would I be such a big target? Are there people that want to use me against my friends or something?”

“Hang on… You don’t know!?” the assassin asked.

“Know what!? What are you talking about!?” Erin asked in return.

Silence fell over the room, as Ryan stared at Erin with a dumbfounded look on his face. He was trying to see if she was pretending to be ignorant, but could only see honesty from her eyes. At first, the assassin couldn’t believe that someone would be so ignorant to the world around them, but then realized who he was talking to. Not only had Erin just recently come to this world in the first place, but Eba had most likely kept her sheltered and not told her much about anything. With that taken into consideration, it was no wonder that the brunette didn’t know the truth about her “friends.”

“I guess I need to tell you something very important then,” Ryan said with a heavy sigh. “Who do you think is the one who would want you to get arrested the most? In other words, who would benefit most from it?”

“How should I know!?” Erin asked in a frustrated tone. “The only person I can think of benefiting from all of this is Eba, but that’s because someone would pay her for getting me captured!”

“Well, do you have any guesses?” the assassin asked with a raised eyebrow.

“My best guess would be Gibbot, but I’m not sure why he would do it either!” the brown-haired woman answered before her eyes went wide with realization. “Unless… Do you think Gibbot was going to try and use me against my friends, like a hostage or something!?”

“Gibbot? Nah. He would have benefited from your capture, sure, but not in the way you’re thinking,” Ryan explained. “The ones who would have really been happy over you getting caught would have been his bosses. The ones he is serving.”

“Who are those?” Erin asked. “Who the hell would be after me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s those “old friends” of yours,” the assassin answered.

For a moment, all the brunette could do was stare at Ryan in disbelief. In her mind, there was no way that what he had said was true at all. She knew Devin and his friends. She had been together with them long enough to know just what kind of people they were, and they were some of the kindest, purest souls in existence. Erin knew that she had harmed them, but there was no way that they would ever do something like this.

“You’re… You’re joking, right?” Erin finally managed to ask. “There’s… There’s just no way that is true! They would never-!”

“Oh yes they would. They are capable of doing quite a lot, actually,” Ryan said with a bitter frown on his face. “For example, they are capable of ordering the deaths of numerous people, including little children. I should know, since I saw my own daughter get killed in public.”

“Okay, now I know you’re lying!” the brown-haired woman yelled accusingly. “That lie might have worked, if I hadn’t met Holly-!”

“HOLLY ISN’T MY REAL DAUGHTER, YOU IDIOT!” the assassin yelled angrily. “I picked her up from the streets years ago and raised her as my own, but she isn’t actually my own child! My daughter was killed by the order of Devinolux himself! Or should I say “your friend Devin”? I was forced to watch helplessly as she was thrown into a pit of fire, screaming for me to come save her!”

Erin’s face turned pale and she was having trouble breathing. She couldn’t believe any of this was true. Devin ordering the death of an innocent child? That seemed completely impossible to her!

“But… why?” the brunette managed to ask. “Why would Devin ever do something like that?”

“It was punishment for “rebelling” against his rule,” Ryan answered in a broken tone, which spoke volumes of the pains he had gone through under Devin’s rule. “Your old buddies appeared here about eight years ago and started a campaign of world conquest. At first, a lot of countries didn’t think much of them, only to realize the seriousness of the threat too late. I used to be a member of one of the armies that fought against them, so as punishment for my deeds, my whole family was ordered to be executed in public. Many others suffered the same fate as well.”

Erin felt like she had just been punched in the gut twice in succession. One of the punches came from hearing about what Devin and his friends had done in this world. The other one came from how they had come to this world about eight years ago. That time meant a lot to the brunette, as it was the timing of one of the worst things to have happened in her life.

It was about eight years ago that Devin’s group had disappeared.

Tears fell from Erin’s eyes as she realized the gravity of her actions back in the day. She hadn’t just ruined the lives of her friends back in their world, but had essentially caused the destruction of countless lives in this world as well. It was because of Erin that Devin’s group had been forced to escape to this world, and it was most likely because of what she had done that they had changed so much. The brown-haired woman was responsible for turning some of the purest souls in the world into ruthless monsters that were now oppressing the innocent people of another world.

“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” Ryan asked.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry for this,” Erin said almost inaudibly.

“The hell are you apologizing for?” the assassin asked, completely confused over what was happening. “It’s not like you killed my daughter or anything like that, right?”

“I may have not done it directly, but I might as well have,” the brunette explained. “You remember when I said that I did something horrible to my old friends, who have now taken over your world?”

“Yeah, but I don’t see how that-”

“It was almost eight years ago that they disappeared from my world, which was soon after what I did to them,” Erin answered before Ryan could finish his question. “Do you understand? It was my actions that drove them to come here and begin their conquest of your world. It’s because of me that your daughter, along with countless others, have died or had their lives ruined. It’s all my fault.”

“...You’re kidding me, right?” Ryan asked with wide eyes, hoping to hear a yes but only received silence. “What in the hell did you do to cause all of this? What was it that led to my child dying?”

“I… I betrayed them and humiliated them. And then my other friends made up stories of them that caused practically everybody around them to hate them. I essentially destroyed their lives,” the brown-haired woman explained as she began to choke up on tears. “I never wanted any of this to happen. I swear.”

“…Regardless whether you wanted any of this to happen, it did. It has been done and it can never be taken back anymore. Now I know that you could have never expected an entire world to be ruined because of what you did, but sometimes we make mistakes with consequences that we could never see,” Ryan said as dropped the picture he had been holding onto the floor and turned around to leave. “Your mistake just happened to be the biggest possible one a person could have ever made.”

“So what now?” Erin asked. “Now that you know I was the one responsible for the death of your daughter, are you still going to have me around?”

“My plans haven’t changed at all. Even if I were to kill you or turn you in to the police, it wouldn’t help me. The ones responsible for me losing everything are still Devinolux and his cronies, regardless of your involvement in their beginnings,” the assassin explained. “We will proceed as planned with training you to become one of us.”

“Why? Why are you so insistent on turning me into an assassin?” the brunette asked. “Especially after what I just told you.”

“...I’m doing this because you have potential to do things that no one else is willing to do,” Ryan answered. “Even if it was due to luck, you killed Harger of all people. Because of that, I thought you were a person that didn’t fear people of high authority the same way most of the residents in this dump do.”

“But I didn’t know just big of an authority figure he was! I had just come to this world!” Erin argued.

“I know that now, but it’s too late for either of us to be backing down, isn’t it?” the assassin stated. “Your hands are now covered in blood and I have let you in on our secret identities. The way I see it, the only way for both of us to survive is for us to work together.”

“Just what do you want from me?” the brunette asked. “What is that you’re expecting me to accomplish?”

“What I want is someone who is willing to fight back against the bastards that have destroyed everything we hold dear. Those people are hard to come by these days, so I was hopeful you would be one of them,” Ryan explained. “We are still going to try and see if this works out. If it doesn’t, you probably know what will happen, don’t you?”

Erin didn’t need to ask what the assassin meant. It was obvious that if she didn’t perform well enough to their satisfaction, she would be dead. Either the brown-haired woman would get killed on a mission or her trainers would do the job themselves.

“When do we start the training?” Erin asked.

“We won’t begin the actual training just yet. There is something that needs to be done first. Holly will soon come here and take you with her to the town to make some necessary preparations. Once that is done, we will start the actual training here,” Ryan answered as he was beginning to leave. “I was originally supposed to come along with you two, but I changed my mind not too long ago. You probably know why.”

Once the assassin had left, Erin picked up her photo and looked at it with tears in her eyes. She could only wait for Holly to come pick her up as her heart was being crushed by regret.