Sequence 3: Chapter 7

Meanwhile…

"Reginald Birch II. You should've left when you had the chance." Jason says as he grabs the helmet clad Master Templar by the collar and pins him to one of the penthouse's glass windows.

"You don't need to do this." The said Templar begins pleading. "I'll give you money. Drugs! Guns! Weapons! Whatever you want. Please, I'll take a plane. Leave Academy City. Never show my face again. Anywhere you want! I'll go anywhere!"

Jason thinks for a moment. He now has one of his targets in his hands, but something is off about Birch. Firstly, it's too easy as there aren't a lot of his men to guard and patrol the hotel. Secondly, the target is begging for his life which seems to be out of character for him as this is clearly not in his M.O. Why go all the trouble of having fewer guards to lure in the Assassin? Unless…

"How about you go to hell?" The Assassin darkly suggests before kicking him through the glass, shattering it as the Templar screams and falls to his death from 50 stories high.

"And if you see Vidic for me, tell him I said 'hello." He says with dark humor towards the broken window where the Templar fell to his death.

(Switches to Girls' POV)

"D-Did he just-?!" Ruiko sputters in completed shock at how brutal that kill was. "…Spartan-kicked Birch out the window?! That's crazy!"

"Right?" Uiharu agrees with her. "He does tend to go overkill from what we've seen earlier."

"Looks like Jason got what he wanted." Misaka concludes. "We should meet up with him once he's away from Anti-Skill or Birch's reinforcements."

"Right." The Level 1 nods as she then turns off her computer and the four got up and left to meet him back at School District 7.

(Switches Back to Jason's POV)

4:23 P.M.

Jason suddenly gets a call in his earpiece and learns that it's not his friends but the REAL Reginald Birch II himself.

"Well, well. I have to say, you really outdid yourself on that one." Birch sarcastically compliments the Assassin in English. "Of course, I wasn't there to experience it myself."

"So, you use your own men to act as doubles for you?" Jason scoffs in English.

"With voice modulators to mimic my voice, yes." He confirms.

"You're coward, Birch. Not even your colleagues would stoop THAT low."

"Says the boy that thinks he can just revive the Assassin Brotherhood and restart the eternal war that we, the Templars, have already won." The Templar laughs at his accusation. "You forget that we finally enforced the peace that we have been trying to achieve since Cain took the Apple from Abel. Do you not see? It is over for you and your kind, who'd rather keep conflict going on till humanity's end comes. We thought that you Assassins want the same thing."

"Once." The Assassin corrects his statement. "You want to create a better tomorrow for all of humanity, and I can I agree to that. On the other hand, however, I'm no fan of tyrants like you. And I'm going to make sure you and the Templars no longer disrupt the balance between Order and Freedom ever again."

"I like to see you try, boy." Birch dares him without fear. "Goodbye, Assassin. You and your foolish Creed ends now."

Suddenly, beeping sounds are heard as a countdown sequence appears on a series of HD Television monitors. They are counting down with the start of five seconds. Knowing that there's not enough time to get to the elevator, Jason makes a run for it and jumps out of the window just as the bombs' timers go off. The penthouse then explodes as the Assassin uses the rope launcher to zipline away from the burning parts of the western tower. Unfortunately, flying heavy debris lands on the tightrope, snapping off the Assassin insignia-shaped grappling hooks that are attached to the two opposite towers. Jason starts falling and crashes through the overview bar's circular glass ceiling window, and lands hard on the floor.

Jason grunts in pain as he begins standing up before a punch to the back of his head knocks him down. The Assassin turns his head around to see that it was none other than Daniel Cross. The Master Templar was about to kick him, but Jason counters it by stopping it with both of his hands and pushes him back while standing up again.

"Came to kill me, Cross?" Jason asks the Templar with no interest in fighting him.

"You killed the old man." Cross accuses him with anger in his voice. "And you left me to be humiliated! He was like a father to me!"

"A father who experimented on you for the Templar cause?" Jason scoffs. "Give me a break."

"I'm aware of what he did to me!" The Templar says. "He didn't want to endanger my safety in the Animus, but the higher ups wanted progress much sooner! He didn't have a choice!"

"There's always a choice!" The Assassin argues back. "What the Templar Inner Circle did was wrong. But that still doesn't justify the actions Vidic did for the other subjects. And he paid the damn price for it."

"Shut up! You don't know the old man like I do!" Cross angrily spats, not fully believing the truth. "So why don't you just fucking die already?!"

Cross takes out his silenced sidearm and opens fire at Jason who evades the bullets and hides behind a large metal crate full of wine.

"Let's not draw this out. You've got nowhere to go, and I've got a gun." Cross says as he reloads his pistol. "Speaking of which… It's the 21st century and you're still running around with only a tiny knife for protection? *chuckles* It's stupid."

"There's still a chance for you to make things right, Cross." Jason tries to persuade the brainwashed Templar. "Hannah wouldn't want you to still be their puppet that's waiting to be tossed away in the trash."

This only angered Cross even more when he heard that name.

"Don't you dare mention that name to me."

"You killed her, Cross. Both her and her friends. Hannah trusted you. She loved you more so than Vidic ever did. And you betrayed her trust and killed her in return. You and the rest of every Templar scum that would win the trust of others and betray them in such a short time."

"Fuck you! We want to help the world. To save it from itself. But you keep getting in the way. All our hard work, ruined. You're a fanatic. All your kind. Maintaining the erroneous belief that WE are evil. That the work WE do is wrong. We ENRICH lives. We SAVE and TRANSFORM them. But you… You just keep taking and taking what isn't yours!"

Before Cross could act, he starts to hear a high-pitch sound. He then holds his head with both hands and starts screaming.

"Not now… not now!" He screams in pain. "*Speaking in Russian* There's still work to be done! Get out of fucking head, damn it!"

Jason get out of his cover and stands to see Cross entering the Bleeding Effect again. He could leave him like this and escape, but Cross doesn't deserve to suffer and die like this. That leaves only one option left.

However, before Jason could do anything, an explosion rocks the overview bar knocking both individuals down on the floor. The bar then starts collapsing and begins falling from a greater height. Jason and Cross are getting knocked around by the gravity, unable to move around. Finally, the overview bar crashes through the ceiling window of the hotel lobby. And like that, everything went black to Jason.

A Few Minutes Later…

The Assassin (his hooded coat now covered in a few holes and burns) slowly wakes up from the crash. He sees that parts of the lobby are destroyed from the bar that crashed from above, along with the different parts being on fire. He tries to stand up but feels a lot of pain in him. He then looks down to see part of rebar stabbed through his right thigh. The Assassin begins to pull it out but grunts in pain.

Suddenly, he hears coughing from the still alive Templar who is now resting on a huge rubble from the already destroyed overview bar. He seems to be severely injured. Knowing that authorities or more of Birch's men would be here soon, Jason prepares for the pain and forcefully pulls the rebar out of his leg and screams loudly in agony. Blood trickles down his leg and Jason tears a part of his pants off him to temporarily stop any more blood loss.

Jason then slowly walks toward Cross, deciding to put the suffering brainwashed Templar down for good. Taking one last look at him, the Assassin crouches down and then flicks out his left hidden blade before stabbing him in the chest. As he did so, Jason's surroundings fall apart as he now enters the Black Room once again.

(Black Room)

"I'm sorry, Daniel." Jason solemnly apologizes to the dying Templar. "You didn't deserve to be their slave. But you chose to kill innocent people. I just wish there was another way to save you from this madness."

Cross didn't say anything as his life begins to slip away. However, he did utter one word.

"H-Hannah…" He says before taking in one last breath. And like that, Daniel Cross has finally died.

"Find peace in death. And may you walk amongst the living again in the next life." The Master Assassin gives his final rites in Italian and Latin as he closes the dead Templar's lifeless eyes. "Requiescat in pace."

(Real World)

After the real world returns to normal again, Jason struggles to stand up due to his injured leg. He grunts at the feel of the pain but manages to hold it in. He then starts running towards the front exit and makes it outside. He then notices a manhole on the street and since he spent a lot of time studying Academy City's sewer and underground system, the Assassin enters the manhole just as the sirens of authorities got closer to his position.

With blood dripping through the makeshift bandage, Jason makes his way around the sewers for the exit tunnel in School District 7. His boots treading through the dirty waters as he loses more blood, mixing in with the said water. It took almost an hour, but he managed to reach the exit.

School District 7

The Assassin climbs the ladder up to the street level and looks at his surroundings. Surprisingly, there a very few people around since curfew is almost here. Thunder is heard from the clouds as rain begins to pour down onto the city. Jason starts feeling a headache as he has lost a lot of blood from his right leg. He tries to stay on his feet as his hands are on the rails, but he just can't stay conscious while in his injured state. And not very long, he slips and slides down the rails and passes out from blood loss as a small pool of his blood from his leg mixes with the watery sidewalks from the rainstorm.

5:16 P.M.

"I don't like this." Ruiko says in concern as she and her friends are taking shelter at a subway station. "It's been almost an hour and Jason hasn't contacted us."

"I'm sure he made it out of there, Saten." Shirai does her best to explain why it's taking so long. "Though you do have a point since Anti-Skill and the nearest Fire Department arrived at the scene. I wonder where he is now."

"Then let's go look for him now." Misaka suggests who shares the same worried expressions from her friends. "He might be here in School District 7 by now if he's taking a long time to avoid the authorities or Birch's unit."

"His earpiece!" Uiharu exclaims with an idea on how they can locate him. Taking out her handheld hacking tool, she uses the numbered frequency she received from Jason on her cell phone and uses it to track his current location. "If I can use Jason's communication frequency number I have listed on my phone, I should be able to use my handheld to pinpoint where Jason's currently located."

"Good work, Uiharu." Ruiko praises her best friend's expertise in hacking once again.

It didn't take long but Uiharu manage to get a fix on the Assassin's location.

"Got it. He's about two miles from where we are."

"Then what are we waiting for?" The Level 0 says as she and the girls got up and make a run for his location while it's still currently raining.

A Few Minutes Later…

By the time they found him, however, it didn't take long for them to look on in horror at the injured state he's in.

"Oh my god…" Ruiko says in complete horror as her eyes are widened. "What did they do to you?"

"We need to get him medical attention. Now!" Misaka suggests.

However, Ruiko didn't respond to her along with Uiharu and Shirai.

"Saten, listen." Uiharu says with the same expression everyone has. "I know that we're in the same boat here, but we need to get him to a hospital before he dies! He's lost a lot of blood right now, so there's no time to think about what happened!"

Ruiko snaps out of her scared thoughts for now as her face turns serious. And thanks to the visions of the Assassin in white and red from her dreams, she's figured out how to help him and which hospital to take him to.

"R-Right." She nods. "We should take him to Heaven Canceller's hospital. He'll be able to treat and save Jason. Misaka, I'll need your help in carrying him."

"Why?" Misaka asks confusingly. "We could just call for an ambulance."

"I-I don't like the fact that Birch's men might be listening on our call for help. And I certainly don't want Jason to be hunted down and killed. Same for us, too."

"She's right, Sissy. We don't know who we can trust right now. And I can't just teleport with someone that's lost too much blood." Shirai agrees with the urban legend hunter. "We'll have to take to the hospital on foot."

"Alright." Misaka says before crouching down next to the unconscious Jason. "I'll carry him by his right, Saten. You take his left."

"Got it." Ruiko answers, and both she and the Railgun lift him up and start carrying him with his arms being held around the girls' shoulders.

"How far is the hospital, Uiharu?" Shirai asks the flower-headed girl.

"It's not far. It's around three minutes from where were standing." Uiharu answers while checking the GPS on her handheld.

"Thank goodness." Ruiko sighs in relief. "The sooner we're there, the better we're out of this rainstorm. And our clothes are a gonna be soaking wet if we don't leave now."

"Then let's go! There's no time to waste. Jason's life is now in our hands." Misaka says.

"Right." The Railgun's friends agreed as they make their way to Heaven Canceller's hospital.

Let's just hope that he'll be able to save him in time.

To Be Continued…