Within the spacious interior of Nexus, Jin sat near the counter staring at his status window intently with his lips pressing against a cold shot glass, pondering its inner workings.
________________________
Name: Jin Shikabane.
Energy Remaining: 6 days, 15 hours.
Wish: Relocated Life.
Grade: –
Titles: Devourer of Stars, Undying Meatbag,
War Devil's Prodigy, Reliable Big Brother.
Skills: –
[Warning: Collections Inactive.]
[Warning: Reward System Inactive.]
________________________
'Six days left... Sadie had less than me but thanks to that stupid tax she's ten days ahead of the execution...'
Jin's eyes darted to Sadie who was chatting smugly without a care in the world, wearing a scarlet hoodie jacket with a black shirt underneath, her usual beanie resting comfortably on her head with the added sticker of a dog now stuck to it.
Emilia had reverted back to a comfortable cream-hued frilled dress with a soft lavender jacket over it, nodding enthusiastically.
Aroa was listening attentively while still wearing her sky-blue hoodie jacket, which was long enough to hide her black shorts since she put her marinade-stained pants in the washer. The black and white striped stockings she wore covered her legs but the gap between her thighs and the hoodie left some minds to wander...
But Jin had more important things to focus on.
'Sadie doesn't look the least bit concerned about it... I don't know what's more annoying... being close to expiring or worrying about someone else running out of time first...'
Jin sighed and glanced to his side at Skouter who clasped his hands together in prayer.
"Huh? What are you doing? I never took you as the religious type," Jin cocked a brow.
"I was simply lost before, brother. I was too blinded by the heavens to realize the richness of the earth..." Skouter nodded with deep wisdom.
"What...?" but that wisdom only sounded like an idiot's pointless rambling.
"Thighs, my dear Jin. Supple thighs. Sadie always wears jeans and pants while Emilia's dresses are too long to show anything to our yearning eyes... but Aroa...? She has that potential... To be the thigh-bringer... Oh sweet lord..." Skouter raised his hands to the skies with an enlightened look of joy.
"Sometimes I wish you were the undying one so I could put a bullet in you every time you said something stupid," Jin scoffed.
"What I said wasn't stupid, pants are stupid... But that aside, doesn't it make you feel warm, Jin?"
"My pants? Yeah that's the whole point of wearing one," Jin stared at Skouter with a confused look.
"No... Look at Aroa's face. Her title was called 'Master of Solitude' but doesn't she look right at home surrounded by other girls and talking about random things like... her stained pants or whatever they're talking about over there...? Jin, we just saved her from that loneliness... Honestly, with only scavengers and raiders coming to attack us, I almost forgot innocent people like her exist... But this opened my eyes. We can be heroes who save others, Jin. We can rebuild this fractured world into a feasible society," Skouter beamed proudly while looking at Jin with hopeful eyes.
"You're overreaching, Skouter. Most psychos out there are more interested in gutting you then listening to you talk. But you better not slack off on the work if you drag more people in," Jin crossed his arms while glaring at Skouter.
"Don't worry, we'll only save good people who deserve it. But that sounds so wonderful and fulfilling... Saving others, that's a good goal for our aimless group... and right now, Aroa needs saving from her pants. Someone needs to convince her that they're the enemy... Hey Aroa! Want to go out scavenging with me? It'll be a nice bonding experience! I have just the right conversation to break the ice too!" Skouter laughed innocently as he walked to them.
Jin stared at them with a sigh.
'I have no right to save anyone, but... I do hope you become that hero, Skouter. Maybe by then you'd figure out a better way for us to survive... Oh, right. It slipped my mind yesterday.'
Jin approached the group and squeezed Skouter's shoulder to stop him from talking.
"Aroa, the Quests and Collections... how did you unlock them?"
Aroa looked at Jin, her lusterless eyes peering deeply into his.
"Hmm… The welcome message told me to consume the Plant of Life. When I woke up on that lonely rooftop, I saw a strange patch on the ground and it later yielded a single silver carrot. I ate it and after that I just had the quests and everything else with it."
"Plant..." Sadie scratched her head with a cocked brow.
"...of Life..." Skouter rubbed his chin in thought.
"...where we woke up..." Jin crossed his arm and looked down, going through his memories.
Sadie's eyes lit up.
"Ahh... I remember the message when I first woke up… There was this weird plant growing in the alleyway, but I ignored it because it looked gross. I think it was a flytrap? So... sticky and disgusting..."
"I uhh… don't remember much about when I woke up…" Skouter shrugged.
"I don't remember anything either," Jin shook his head, his brain too foggy to recall his initial days besides the large meteor shooting towards him and snippets of his path to forming Nexus.
"Master Jin, a word if you may?" Walter stared at Jin with his regal proud elegance, befitting either a calm bartender or a cold ruler.
"What is it Walter?" Jin walked to Walter while the group resumed discussing plans in the background.
"I advise you to start searching for batteries soon, your performance have been leaving so much to desire. And in regards to Miss Aroa, don't put your hopes on a fickle chance when your method is a complete guarantee."
"What? I'd rather struggle for a chance to get a battery than guaranteeing it through... children and innocents."
"It's incredibly late to utter those words. but do as you please. Just remember that nothing is without consequences, especially when it comes to gathering batteries. Heed my words, you're not the only one who will suffer."
"Tsk..." Jin scowled and looked away.
"Due to your dwindling performance as of late, you need five batteries within your remaining six days to make up for your missed quota. If you fail to do so then the Shadow's Grasp will deem you a failure and Nexus will be given to a new operator while you're sent back to hunting operations," Walter spoke calmly with indifference.
"What did you say...? But Nexus is my property... They're the people you jerks wanted dead... That I spared and made my own," Jin's face darkened and his nose scrunched hatefully.
"Your emotions, Jin. Don't cause a scene," Walter glared at Jin coldly.
Jin inhaled deeply, letting his face calm down, then exhaled it all out.
Unsatisfied with his bottled up feelings and needing an outlet to vent, Jin squeezed his left outer thigh hard enough to slightly pierce through his skin, making sure it was out of everyone's sight.
"As I said before, Jin... You have a choice. Kill or die, keep Nexus or lose it, slack off or work, it's all within your full control, no matter how you spin it."
Jin glared at Walter, his irritated expression a thousand times calmer than the raging storm that roiled within him.
"However... before you perish and seek those batteries, do you mind taking care of our guests?" Walter glanced back at the map, specifically at the drawing of an island made of a fallen skyscraper, the disc-shaped lightbulb on it glowing a sharp crimson.
"What perfect timing... Got it... I'll go check it out. Skouter! I need your filthy nose for a second!"
"If you need a favor you need to learn to ask it properly, with a pretty plea-"
"Shut the hell up! That island, where is it?" Jin pointed at the skyscraper drawing.
"Whoa... Uhm... Right..." Skouter looked at the map as his eyes glowed with a beautiful emerald shine.
"It's floating west of Nexus," Skouter stared at Jin's glowering face with a concerned frown.
Jin nodded then walked out hurriedly.
"West? But... there is no west anymore... We don't have day or night, so there is no west or east..." Aroa walked to Skouter with a tilted head.
"Ah, right... But we have all these islands floating around that we need to keep track of, so we all decided that Nexus is facing south and everything else is everywhere else!" Skouter grinned.
Aroa raised a brow, looking concerned for some reason.
"Oh! I remembered!" Emilia suddenly piped up.
"There was a flower growing around where I first woke up, Jin plucked it from the ground and gave to me back then to help calm me down... Wait, I'll go grab it," Emilia quickly rushed outside.
Everyone stared at the door with tilted heads, furrowed brows and cocked eyebrows.
Emilia ran back to them holding a comically large violet lily.
Skouter burst out laughing.
"D-Don't laugh... I-It was small before, I don't know why it grew this big..."
Aroa stepped close to it and started touching it.
"What colorful petals… But here, it feels so soft and… meaty?"
"Wh-What? Are you saying the petals are the fruit?" Emilia raised her brows questionably.
"It feels like one. But it won't hurt to try and consume it, hm?" Aroa plucked a large petal out and offered it to Emilia.
"C-Consume it!? But it's a flower…"
"Eh, people eat flowers, Emi. A good friend of mine used to make tea out of hibiscus," Sadie shrugged with a faint grin.
"Eating a plant… I feel like a cow doing this…" Emilia gulped, then inched closer to the petal in Aroa's hand, slowly parting her lips.
"A cow, huh..." Skouter stared at Emilia's lips, his eyes drifting down before Sadie's palm painfully pushed his jaw back up.
Emilia bit down on the petal, which was surprisingly full of some strange magenta liquid. Her eyes widened as her cheeks turned a soft rosy hue.
"Mmm!"
She started with a reluctant bite, but after the first she ate the rest down without any hesitation, wolfing it down to its leaves and stem.
"Whoa! She actually ate it like a cow!" Skouter's eyes widened.
"Sho ghood…" Emilia closed her eyes with a pleasant look, too drowned in the heavenly pleasure that her taste buds experienced to realize the mess she made.
But then her chewing slowed down and her eyes glazed over as she suddenly collapsed on her side.
"Emilia!"
"Emi!"
Everyone shouted and ran to her besides Aroa.
"It's okay. This happened to me too. She will wake up, but I don't know how long it will take..."
Sadie grimaced and sat down to move Emilia's limbs.
"Should've told us that earlier… Let's move her somewhere comfortable then."
"I... just forgot..." Aroa frowned.
***
Outside of Nexus, Jin jumped from a floating postbox to the flat torn roof of a building then casually moved near the edge to peer into the horizon; Jin scanned the islands, looking for the specific landmark.
While the smaller objects were pushed all over the place by the strange gravity, the islands themselves seemed to only move horizontally, so even though they had sensors around, they couldn't pinpoint the island's exact location without Skouter.
And there it was, in the far horizon, a floating skyscraper. And around it were a few distant humanoid shapes jumping from island to island, wearing dark clothes and slowly making their way to a chunk of land with a rundown house on it.
'More scavengers…'
Fissure islands connected different fractured worlds together, so scavengers would occasionally show up looking for loot like Aroa, but in Jin's experience they usually were hostile so shooting first was the most logical option… Except there was always the chance they weren't hostile and were simply searching for food without any ill intent.
Killing unarmed innocents bothered Jin but he didn't care as much when it came to those who shot first or seemed battle-ready. Self-defense was not the same as cold-hearted murder; it was a two-way fight with both sides knowing the risks - that's how he justified it.
But that was the issue, whoever shot first had the advantage. The risk of asking first had the potential to tip the entire battle in the shooter's favor.
Jin sighed deeply then quickly jumped on debris and a chain of islands, making his way to the worn down house as quickly as he could.
'I'll have a better chance fighting over there… I need to make it first!'
Thanks to his experience scavenging with Skouter and the mad dog's impulsive reckless sprints, he was able to traverse the distance quicker than them, yet they were still closer to the house so they had the advantage of distance.
Island after island, television dish after mailbox, Jin eventually hopped and landed on the rich dirt ground of the house island almost at the same time as one of them.
Now that he was close, he could see the dark-haired man wearing a heavy padded jacket with a hood, it was a filthy dull green that almost bordered black. The man had a gruff face that would paint him as a thug, but Jin knew not to judge people based on appearances. The most charming smiles were the most lethal ones, after all.
The man grimaced when he saw Jin.
"A survivor, huh? Or just another loot rat?" the gruff man pulled out a submachine gun from the band of his pants but kept it pointed at the ground, using it mainly as an act of intimidation.
'Loot rat? That line's not a good start.'
Jin glanced at the open door of the ancient house to his right then glared back at the man.
"This world has no loot anymore. You're free to search it but don't go inside this house, these stashed supplies are mine," Jin pointed at the worn down house while expertly bluffing.
More of his friends jumped next to the man, wearing different dark clothes stained with dirt; four of them had landed in total, while three more stayed on the elevated island in the back, waiting patiently for something.
One of the closer ones in a deep azure padded jacket looked at Jin with glowing ivory eyes that dimmed down to a deep brown.
"Who's he?" the hazel-haired man in deep azure asked the green-hooded one while displaying his automatic rifle, making sure Jin could see it.
"Dunno, Frank. He says there ain't loot around here 'cept for this house, and we can't go in it apparently."
"That's unfortunate," the man shook his head then glared at Jin while tensing his shoulder.
'There it is. That face… They always have that same–'
Jin quickly leaped behind the house at the same second the man raised his rifle up to shoot an onslaught of bullets - a chained cacophony of miniature explosions that deafened the air.
Jin wasted no time pulling his own silver gun out while pressing his back against the rotten wood.
"You, flank him! Frank, go ahead, I'm covering!"
'These idiots should've used callsigns. I can hear them loud and clear.'
Jin quickly glanced to his side at the lower portion of the wall - it had no windows to jump through but some parts of it were extremely rotten and loose, with a small gap showing the dark interior between them.
Jin moved away from the wall then rammed the wood using his shoulder. And with a loud crack and an instant crash he busted through it with all of his weight.
Jin grunted and fell down on his back but instantly turned his body to his right while aiming his sights on the open door, where Frank was standing with wide eyes as he looked at Jin.
"He's-!"
The satisfying sound of Jin's silver handgun reverberated through the air loudly as the bullet pierced the man's head cleanly.
"He got Frank! He's inside the house, bottom floor!"
Suddenly an array of bullets whizzed through the walls, spraying the room mindlessly.
Jin grimaced and quickly tore off a brittle floorboard then hurriedly crawled towards the staircase. The second he reached the steps he tossed the rotten board up the stairs.
The man shooting stopped and after a short pause he shouted:
"He ran up! Second floor!"
But Jin was still crawling to the stairway, not even halfway up yet.
Jin quickly turned around towards the hole he previously busted through and aimed at it while his eyes danced between it and the door.
'I still have the advantage, they shouldn't try to push me yet, but just in case...'
Suddenly a man's hands peaked through the hole, holding an automatic rifle that instantly shot inaccurately behind the safety of the wall.
Jin grinned and quickly adjusted his sights to the wall, shooting through it a couple of times which made the hands jolt and fall out of view.
The scent of gunpowder and the sensation of every gunshot felt vivid and intoxicating, all of his pent up stress and anger were flowing out with every shot, replaced with a twisted sense of elation that Jin didn't acknowledge.
'He played it safe but… these are wooden walls... what are they thinking?' Jin couldn't help but grin, feeling an odd sense of superiority and pleasure.
Jin moved his iron sights towards the door.
'Five more… If they think I'm on the second floor then they'll rush in... Otherwise they won't go inside and probably use something explosive... But since I said there's loot here then they won't risk throwing anything flammable-'
"Don't go inside! Smoke him out!" a man shouted moments before a canister rolled on the floor and billowed out a dark cloud.
'This won't do anything... What are they–' Jin looked to his side and his eyes widened, there was a small crack in the wall that showed the green-clothed figure glaring up at the second floor with a bottle in hand.
Before Jin could even process what he was seeing, his body already reacted and pulled the trigger while aiming at the man, blasting a hole through the wall as the bullet whizzed right into the man's eye, turning him from a thinking man to a limp body within seconds.
"He got John! Doctor! Hey, doctor! Please, help me!"
'Doctor? Are the others non-combatants?'
Jin jumped down the stairs and moved to the door cautiously. He quickly leaned his head out of it to see the other three still standing on the elevated island while the fourth stood under them waving his hand at them.
Jin leaned even further out and shot the panicking man a couple of times since he couldn't guarantee a headshot from this range.
The man's body jolted and jerked with every shot until a bullet hit his head; crimson mist puffed out of his wound as he fell down on the ground and remained motionless.
Jin moved back, half hiding behind the door frame while analyzing the other three carefully.
A man in a cyan suit, worn over an unbuttoned white shirt, stood with a disappointed look, his bare muscular chest exposed to the world shamelessly. His long blond hair danced in the soft breeze while his sapphire-tinted glasses reflected the light when he moved his head up to look at Jin.
A woman with very short black hair sat in front of him, wearing a heavily-padded black hoodie with pink protective elbow pads and knee guards.
Next to them stood a masked man wearing a black cap and a similar heavy hoodie to the woman, a shotgun visible in his hands.
'A shotgun can't do much from that range but it'll still hurt really bad depending on where the shrapnel hits… But I still have the advantage...'
"That was remarkable on your end, and very sad on ours, wasn't it?" the blonde man raised his arms with an exaggerated shrug.
"Skip the dialogue and leave, clown! You're overstaying your welcome!" Jin shouted hatefully while still hiding.
Even if they weren't dangerously armed, they were still Wishbearers. And from his experiences with scavengers he learned that Wishes ranged from stupid ones - like the inability to smoke - all the way to destructive ones - like the lightning woman's repelling force or Aroa's stasis.
The fact the fourth man asked the "Doctor" for help showed he had something powerful enough to be relied on in desperation, so Jin had to act quickly, he had to take him down.
With a grimace he moved back out and shot the doctor in a rapid succession.
But then the woman's eyes glowed a soft salmon-pink as a veil of rosy light erected in front of her, shielding them from the array of bullets.
'A protective barrier!?' Jin gritted his teeth while ejecting his empty magazine to replace it.
"Friend! This doesn't have to end badly, just so you know. You look like an extremely capable man, and I like people who have high utility. What do you say? I can offer you powers you wouldn't even believe!"
'Offer me powers? So his Wish is to buff others then?'
"Like how you offered powers to your men? Didn't look like much to me, they're still corpses," Jin scoffed, trying to prod him for more information while looking around for anything he could use.
The blond man laughed.
"Oh, a skeptic! I love those. Your type has the best reactions when I show them my powers! If you promise your loyalty to me, I can grant you what every man craves, because I have what every doctor wishes to erase, the one thing that haunts us… The power to reverse death, to give you immortality!"
The man's eyes glowed a soft aquamarine as he snapped his fingers, summoning ribbons of cyan light which wrapped around the fallen corpses tenderly.
The men groaned painfully and groggily sat up.
Jin gritted his teeth but reacted quickly and pierced the green-hooded shotcaller's head with a deafening shot.
Jin swung his arm to his left and shoot the closer body of Frank, and then reversed the momentum to whip back to the hole in the wall, once again ending the man behind the house who barely managed to stand up with a well-aimed shot.
Jin quickly leaned out of the doorway and unloaded three more bullets into the distant fourth figure.
The doctor laughed and clapped.
"Quick reflexes! As if I didn't resurrect them at all! But your bullets are not as infinite as their lives, are they?"
And with that the doctor snapped again, and the ribbons breathed life into the dead once more.
'Unreasonable… It's like fighting myself…' Jin gritted his teeth and pulled out his scarlet handgun.
'This'll be annoying…'