Jin walked through a dark frozen tunnel illuminated by the bright rays of Dia's flashlight as she walked behind him, controlling her pace to stay behind him.
"Why are you searching for survivors, Dia? If everything is so barren and lifeless, wouldn't it be better to just survive by yourself?" Jin stared back at her.
"It might be better for my physically but not for my heart. These are our people. I don't know them nor do they know me, but they are of my nation, of my upbringing. Does it not boil your blood to see your own countrymen living like rats?" Dia scowled at the thought.
Jin looked down thoughtfully. He didn't want to think of anyone else's life besides his, but he couldn't stop the trickle of guilt from invading his mind now and then, especially when he could vividly remember killing someone like Seiya who was full of life, love and joy.
"Yeah… It angers me a lot…" Jin lied with a somber look, his expression not entirely a façade.
"I'm not content just surviving, little rabbit. I want to save as many people as I can and rebuild our broken society. I don't want to die knowing the future of the land, which gave me wonderful memories and love, remains bleak."
"That's… noble…" Jin looked up at a groggy figure walking to them in the distance. Jin's eyes instantly shot open as he reached inside of his coat for his gun.
"Who's there!?" Dia pulled out her smaller handgun and ordered coldly.
A man with long, frayed dark hair and a bushy beard winced, covering his eyes from the radiant flashlight.
"I'm unarmed!" the man squinted through the glasses he wore and raised his hands up as evidence of his truth.
What he wore couldn't even be called clothes at that point, it was a bunch of decaying animals stitched together alongside pieces of rugs and towels. Jin couldn't even make sense of what he wore and just made guesses based on the visible texture and patterns.
"Show us your tongue!" Dia barked the order with authority.
"I'm not one of them!"
"Then do it!"
The man stuck out his tongue, which was a pale shade of coral, as if he didn't eat in a while.
"Now take off your pants!" Dia commanded without flinching.
"Huh!?" Jin turned to look at her with shock. Even though she did the same to him, he still couldn't wrap his head around how she could ask that so casually.
"W-Wait! I will!" the man quickly fumbled with the eldritch horror that was his clothes, trying to take it off.
Jin scowled and looked away, not out of embarrassment but a sense of fear - if his clothes looked that awful then what lurked within must've been even more terrifying.
Dia glanced at Jin then looked back at the man.
"What is it, little rabbit? Never been in a communal shower before?" despite the joke she cracked, her expression refused to do the same and remained sharp and focused.
Jin waited while looking away, only the shuffling of clothes echoed within the desolate pathway.
After a minute of silence, Dia relaxed her arms and put her gun back in its holster.
"Okay, you can put them back on."
Jin tapped his foot on the ground while the man adjusted his clothes, his eyes shifting to Dia who moved her transmitter up to whisper to it.
'How could she talk about rebuilding society while reverse flashing everyone she meets…? Why is she even doing these checks? I want to ask but that might expose me... They called them Zurians… Probably a part of the government or some other rival nation. Hmm… I assume they have tattoos on their tongue or thighs… That would make a lot of sense. But branding your own soldiers or citizens is stupid, so it must be a mark they have no choice but to get…'
"Okay, we're going to take you with us to a nearby cabin and then we'll take you to our main base," Dia smiled faintly at the dirty man.
Jin stared back at the man who scratched the side of his head while nodding.
The man then closed his eyes.
"Wait... You two… I smell the scoop of… military?"
Dia patted her bulletproof vest with a smirk.
"Astute observation, sewer man."
"And… Killers…? But... one of you… kills and eats... people…"
Jin's eyes widened as Dia's brow furrowed.
"I smell it… you came from a broken world… and before that, another broken one… and now you are in another broken one… I smell… an angel over your shoulders… yes, she's holding on to your threads..."
"Wh-What is he on about?" Jin gulped and did his best to appear unfazed but confused.
"Eh... He must've gone cuckoo with all the time spent underground, won't be the first," Dia shrugged, her eyes softening to a careless stare.
"Then should we leave him?" Jin turned towards her but her eyes were still fixated on the disheveled man.
The old man opened his eyes, which now glowed a wispy ivory.
"Jin. You're looking for four people to kill… I am one of them… You're hunting us down for our co–"
The loud explosive sound of Jin's silver gun echoed powerfully through the tunnel as a bullet pierced the man's eye instantly, splattering his blood in the air and dropping his lifeless corpse down with a wet thud.
Dia jerked from the sudden deafening bang but still pulled her own handgun out instinctively thanks to her trained reflexes.
But it was too late since Jin was already moving towards her and twisting her right arm behind her back with a practiced motion as he smashed her chest against the wall roughly enough to disarm her.
Jin didn't waste a single step or motion and painfully smashed the barrel of his gun against the side of her head as a deterrent.
"Agh! You bastard!" Dia bared her teeth and glared back at him.
"I'm sorry…" Jin grimaced regretfully.
'Dammit! Why did that bastard know all of that!? What kind of wish did he make!? It can't be reading minds since I wasn't thinking of the batteries… What a problematic situation to be in!'
"I should've put a bullet in you the second I doubted your flimsy story!" Dia shouted at him with bared fangs.
"I really don't want to kill you, so pipe down and listen!" Jin still tried to plead with her, he didn't have any reasons to kill her.
Dia's eyes softened as she relaxed her shoulders.
"You don't? Then it's alright. Let me go and I'll hear you out."
Jin stared at her quietly, a lingering doubt still in his mind about her intentions.
'That was too easy...'
Jin gulped and watched her look at him with a relaxed posture.
They both stood there in that awkward pose without an additional sound for a few minutes.
"Alright…" Jin said before he took a deep breath.
Jin swiftly moved his left arm - which held the gun against her head - around her neck, wrapping it tightly to choke her.
"Angh! Rat… bast…–"
Dia struggled in his grasp and fought to pry his arm away with her free hand before elbowing his abdomen repeatedly in desperation.
Jin winced but kept his hold tightly on her neck, gripping her as hard as he could. It didn't take long for her to stop moving.
Jin's chest heaved as he felt her motionless body against him.
'No… Not yet. It was too quick… She's probably faking it…'
Jin kept the hold going while slowly counting the time.
***
The pitter patter of some fluid dripping within the cave-like sewers echoed as Jin stood still with Dia in his grasp.
'Fifty seven… Fifty eight… Fifty nine… Five minutes…'
Jin released Dia who fell down limply on her side. He then sighed deeply and looked at the dead old man who had turned into a thick bubbly cloud surrounded by fragmented particles with a beautiful ivory iridescence to them.
'I took so long... That's a Reset… It only happens to Wishbearers who die for the first time... After hunting batteries for so long I came to find that some of them turn to strange colorful goo then come back to life somewhere else while others remain corpses...'
Jin approached the man and forced his palm through the shimmering particles and into his mushy jelly-like mass.
'It made me realize that Wishbearers have two phases… The Blessed phase, where they have their Wish abilities and their original life spans, able to age and live beyond their seventies and eighties. And the Forsaken phase, like me, always on the edge of death but never aging.'
Jin ripped out the glowing golden orb from the sticky residue of the man's dissolving body, a trail of white sticking to the shimmering orb.
'But that doesn't matter… If you remove their core, their life ends regardless of what phase they're living through. Regardless if they're Blessed or Forsaken, death devours them all the same.'
Jin sighed deeply and moved the glowing orb inside his jacket. Despite its radiance, its light was subdued within the fabric, as if it couldn't pierce through - operating on different rules than regular light.
A gentle giggling drew Jin's eyes to the side at a blood covered Seiya who stared at him with a beaming smile.
"You did it to him. Just like me..." she snickered and ran through a rusted door.
'I had no choice... I'm just another cog in the machine... That's right… I'm just the reaper's slave, collecting his toll. There's no difference between me and death. You were just unlucky.'
Jin shook his head and breathed deeply, venting out the depressing thoughts with an exhale.
"Enough of that… I have to deal with her."
Jin glanced back at the unconscious woman, then at the mound of ivory goo on the ground.
"The strange substance hardens after you remove the core... so..."
***
Jin dusted off his hands which were covered in web-like strands.
"Now that it dried up, it actually feels so uncomfortable…"
Jin looked at Dia who was placed on a steel chair, tied up with a strange white rope, or rather some form of crystalized bands wrapped around her tightly - its texture was too hard to pinpoint, fuzzy yet also smooth, but it was still too rigid for her to break apart easily.
While she was tied up in the tunnel, Jin had moved beyond the rusted doors, into the disheveled man's lair - a side room meant to hold valves that controlled many functions of the sewers which were beyond Jin. The dead man had decorated the walls of the place with news articles, documents and boards that were plastered with pictures and writings. A few steel chairs and desks lined up the wall with a patch of sewn together fur creating a makeshift bedroll.
'This guy was into information gathering? This looks like one of those war rooms in the detective serials I used to watch… Was he a police officer? No…"
Jin walked closer to a steel desk, his eyes moving to a broken frame atop it containing a photograph of an average-looking beardless man happily holding a camera next to a woman in a floral amber dress with her face obscured.
"A photographer? No… Journalist?"
Jin looked up at one of the boards above the desk - a pin board with various tacks and strings connecting photographs and news articles together.
Jin traced the center point of the strings to a picture of a smiling plump man with the word "government dog" written under him. Another had a news article about some sort of monster sighting that was debunked with the word "prank" scratched off.
More trails pointed to articles of arson, UFO sightings, articles about earthquakes with notes plastered on them saying "They hide tests through lies," as well as pictures of other smiling people in suits next to scientists with burn marks all over them. The trails didn't have any visible connections or any sequences that were easy to decipher.
After quickly skimming through the remaining articles and notes alongside the pictures, what Jin managed to form into a cohesive story was that he was in a country called Verdinska, which was a target for international criticism due to alleged government tests to create a superweapon.
The government denied all possibilities and intentions of creating the superweapon, but news agencies kept printing supposed evidence for the superweapon testing, like visible burn marks on Verdinska scientists and sudden explosions in secluded areas near mountains as well as inhuman monster sightings by residents, trying their best to capitalize on the craze.
The other neighboring nations grew restless and didn't accept the denials due to Verdinska's technological revolution happening around that time.
The rest of the articles described attacks, bombardment, casualties, and the state of war over what looked like a few years of news updates, with each one being more dire than the last.
The nation was eventually reported to be on the brink of collapse and a societal decline, with its people living in a state of fallout. Many of the following articles were asking for the war to stop and urging the neighboring nations to cease their aggression.
But the hopelessly miserable tone of the news changed with the last article on the board.
"Our great nation of Verdinska persevered thanks to your government's efforts, we now own the world. All is at peace. Rest assured the government will not abandon its faithful citizens who were wronged by the Outer Nations. Rise for your rights!"
And that was it. No other articles continued upon what happened, no follow ups or other chains of events. The final article contained a hint of some sort of victory, yet the ragtag group he was with seemed to live in fear, still burdened by lingering defeat as they searched for survivors in their torn nation.
'Pointless propaganda… and these notes are the ramblings of a madman… A war, maybe I can use that knowledge somehow…'
But then the sound of a chair shuffling drew his attention to Dia's bitter expression as she squirmed.
Jin walked closer to her, his face colder than usual with an actual hint of murder behind them, because if all else failed, he had no choice.
Dia's quickly glanced at him.
"Heh… I thought you were a little footsoldier cooking up stories to make yourself more of a man, but those moves were too quick. Special operator training, yes?"
Jin pulled her pistol out of his pocket and then showed it to her.
"I could've killed you, you know. Disappeared without a trace and let your men figure out what to do with your body, you can vouch for my skills in stealth. And you said your type devours their own, so they might even appreciate it."
"Oh, I will howl before you do, little rabbit, and the hunt will start," Dia strangled him with her glare.
"But it doesn't need to, Dia," Jin walked to her and placed her weapon on her lap.
"I don't want us killing each other pointlessly… Didn't we have enough of that… from the war?" Jin looked at her with a sympathetic look.
Dia glared at him silently.
"You heard what that... scum of a man said. I'm looking for four people that deserve to die. People who... wronged me. Hurt me. Killed my family. You might think his death was unjustified… But would you sleep soundly every night knowing the people who killed your loved ones still breathe comfortably?"
Dia's eyes softened, a hint of recognition building within.
"They call for me, Dia… The family I've lost… It's like they're still there, telling me to avenge them… You understand what I mean, don't you?" Jin gestured to his sides at nothing, his eyes looking hurt, as if hungry for her pity.
"Tsk... You poor fool… Revenge won't bring them back nor will it heal you... I've seen many of you fall the same way," Dia looked back up with a sympathetic stare.
'Looks like that worked… Now just relax your shoulders and remain on neutral terms with me…'
Jin took a deep breath.
"I hid some information from you, Dia, but I'm not your enemy. If you don't want a killer like me on your side, then we can go our separate ways, it doesn't have to end in blood. I really wanted to help your cause, but I won't let them escape me."
Dia shook her head disappointedly.
"We're all killers out here, little rabbit. You can't survive otherwise... Killers are welcome against those damned Zurians, but I think separating would be better for us. If one of the people you want to kill is back in my base, then my people would be at risk."
Jin nodded then pulled out his gun to shot the ivory bands surrounding her body.
They cracked and instantly broke down into glittering sparkles that dissipated within seconds.
Dia's brows went up in surprise as she looked down at them.
"What is this? Special operator tech?"
"Yeah… But that was the last one I had."
"Heh… I can't believe the government had these tech hidden from us… The war might've been different if they were more forthcoming."
Dia stood up and pocketed her gun before quickly pushing her sleeve away to look at her watch.
"Ah… We've been here for too long, little cub. Let's go and regroup. We're separating after that."
"Mhm… Right. I'm glad we didn't have to kill each other, especially since I've come to… like you," Jin smiled at her softly, playing it up in hopes that it earns him some points for the future.
"Don't push your luck, I'm itching to put a hole in your miserable head. That'd be better for everyone involved... but enough talking, let's go," Dia turned around to the exit.
Jin nodded bitterly and followed her out.
***
Sometime later, Jin stood at the edge of the ruined city, watching Dia and her group walking away into the misty whites of the snowy fields. He sighed deeply.
"That took annoyingly long to get her off my back, but at least she didn't kill me and I didn't antagonize her faction... Walter, I'm reporting in. I recovered one battery out of four, what's the location of the rest?"
Jin stood in silence, awaiting the calm voice of Walter to chime in.
"Master Jin, from your location head south-west. The other two batteries are in close proximity there."
"Roger," Jin looked around for the sun but it was hard to locate. The sky was concealed with a faint layer of clouds, or smoke, with the sun's light barely piercing through it.
"Based on where we were earlier, the sun went down so that's east… and north should be…" Jin turned towards the right direction and proceeded to walk in a straight line.
"Master Jin, I will be on leave for briefing but if you lack the batteries by the time I return, you will be replaced without any further second chances. So work hard."
Jin grimaced and nodded to himself while walking through the snow silently.
The long journey through the barren fields was uneventful, yet it was still irritatingly difficult. He felt lucky to be given the insulated hooded parka he wore but he still wished they gave him some sort of vehicle or equipment to make traveling easier since trudging through the snow required so much effort.
Using his burning lifespan as a makeshift watch, he counted down the hours hoping it would motivate him to push harder...
[Energy Remaining: 5 days, 22 hours]
...but it only added to his annoyance, and it didn't help that he occasionally tripped in the snow when his feet squished through a deeper layer of nature's powder.
After three hours, the weather picked up and the chilling wind viciously assaulted his exposed face with its biting kiss, doing its best to freeze him to death.
Nine more hours passed full of nonstop traveling through the unforgiving weather. Jin's hoarfrost-covered eyes were struggling to stay open against the deep numbing cold.
'Shelter... I need shelter...' Jin looked around for any structure but he couldn't see anything in the blinding snowstorm, walking around aimlessly was a mistake.
His foot suddenly got caught on something and he fell down on the soft snow with a loud crunch.
'Not enough time... Maybe I should just die and look for batteries in a different world... It's fine... four days should be enough if I do it like I used to in the past...'
Jin closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against the cold surface of the ground, his face too numb to even feel it.
The soft familiar sound of someone giggling tickled his ears as his consciousness slowly faded.
"Kid... It was beautiful, wasn't it...? That star..."
The blanket of darkness embraced Jin's thoughts as he mumbled to himself.