Jin sat in a timeworn room with drapes covering most of the walls. He sighed then kneeled down to grab his black shoulder holsters. He thought deeply about his mission while his body moved to put everything.
'This is… nothing new. I never thought this hard about it before, so why am I pretending that I care all of a sudden? It's the reaper's toll and I'm just the collector… like always... I don't have a...'
The image of Walter's listless elegance flashed in his mind.
"You have a choice, they do not."
Jin's face darkened hatefully.
'No I don't. Never had one since the first day I opened my eyes to this damned world!'
"We can be heroes who save others, Jin. We can rebuild this fractured world into a feasible society!" Skouter's smiling spectral frame appeared next to Jin, patting his shoulder.
'That's a pipe dream... More people around means more people to keep alive, so more people to kill... It won't work.'
Emilia's ethereal form giggled itself into existence.
"He is reliable… He always helps me when I need him."
'Because you're just a damned tool for my survival... a useful teleporter and nothing else. All of you are just a means to an end... to my... to my what? Ah screw this!'
Jin cocked back the slide of his scarlet gun with a deep scowl, now fully dressed in his suit with the ivory parka on top of it.
'Why am I overthinking this!? It's something that doesn't need my brain! Just pull the trigger, grab the cores then walk out. I've done this too many times, I shouldn't forget the basics…'
The haunting sound of soft giggling reverberated from Jin's back, making him quickly turn around to see a brutally mangled piece of visceral wet meat, appearing as if it was ripped apart by beasts.
And with a blink the mass of meat changed to the beaming form of Seiya who giggled and laughed.
"Mister from the city! I want to help your friends too-" her voice trailed off as her body drifted away as if it was made from dust.
Jin grimaced painfully as his chest ached.
'No, no, no... In and out… Just like a cog following a design… I didn't build the system, I didn't suggest the battery hunts, I'm just a damned collector...'
Jin walked out through the drapes with gritted teeth and moved to the neighboring room with slow steps.
'She's no one important, no one I need to care about, no one that will be missed, no one that will make an impact. She'll die eventually, so it's fine if I kill her now.'
Jin slowly pulled the door open halfway without a sound thanks to its knob-less state. He squeezed inside since he didn't want to test how squeaky the hinges were, so even though it was an uncomfortable tight fit, it was still a silent one.
The interior of their room was the same as his, nothing to note and similar in theme to the hall outside. Inside it, Mona was lying down on a fluffy crimson mattress, wearing a violet silk nightgown while she held onto Vixie tightly as she nestled deeper into the hug, both of them sleeping soundly.
Despite the muffled snowstorm raging audibly through the walls, the sound of Jin's heartbeat was still overwhelming him as it beat faster and faster, like a horse galloping.
'In and out… Two shots... Turn off your brain and shoot… Just the reaper's collector...'
"It'sss your choiiiice, Jeehhn," a prolonged voice similar to a steam pipe brushed Jin's ears.
"Kill her Jehhhn, jussst liiike you killed meee."
"Jeehhn, did you hesitate when you shot me?"
Several ghastly figures covered in blood and bullet holes appeared around the sleeping duo. The spirits smiled happily with dark faces yet their eyes remained wide and unblinking, as if intending to watch his every action closely.
"Kill them, Jin... Kill-"
"Eat them... Jeeehhnn..."
"Aahhh...-"
"Ruin them, Jin."
"Ruihhn..."
"Jin..."
Jin slowly raised his gun at Vixie as the ghosts encouraged him, his name trailing off their disorganized orchestra of whispers.
"Take their souls, Jehhn..."
"Aahh... It's your due, Jehhn."
"Make them suffer... Hurt them... Reapahhh..."
"Take your toll, Reaperrr."
"Feast, Reaper. Eat."
"You want to help your friends, don't you?" Seiya spoke as her faceless form gripped his gun, pushing it to her none-existent mouth, her features replaced with a canvas of flesh.
Jin stared at her with wide eyes, his breathing labored and his hands trembling too hard.
"I want to help my family too, but you killed me, Mister. You didn't leave me a choice! You didn't walk away!" Seiya screamed as her jaws split her skin apart, creating a morbid mouth while a single bullet wound suddenly burst her face open, exposing her hateful aquamarine eye through the hole.
Jin's eyes couldn't stretch wider as fear and confusion stabbed his mind.
"You killed me! You killed all of us! You will kill more of me! You live to kill, and kill, and kill! Just die already! Just drop dead and die!" the maliciously grotesque corpse jumped on Jin's chest, gripping his arm painfully enough to physically hurt him.
Jin winced but before he could react the other ghosts rushed in to grab him, pushing his arm in different directions, either away from the sleeping women or at them. Their screams and shouts drowning Jin's thoughts.
"Die, Jin!"
"Feast on them, Reaper!"
"You should've killed yourself, Jin!"
"Ruin them, Reaper!"
"Kill them!"
"Die, you monster!"
"Get the hell away from me!" Jin shouted and swung his arm around, instantly erasing all of the spectral forms into smoke as if he extinguished a candle.
Vixie's eyes shot open, instantly moving her head towards Jin and seeing him holding his gun out.
Jin's eyes widened when they landed on her sharp crimson gaze. Despite his mind still reeling his body still went into autopilot and pulled the trigger with the barrel trained towards her.
With a loud bang, the bullet splattered chunks of viscera and blood across Vixie's pillow, showering the wall behind her and Mona in crimson.
Mona woke up with a panicked gasp and wide eyes that darted between the bloodied pillow, Vixie's lifeless eyes and the large bullet hole in her forehead. Her eyelids stretched even wider when she understood what she was looking at, and her chest heaved but only to her inhales since she couldn't exhale from the shock of it all - gasping endlessly for air that her lungs couldn't use.
Jin stared at her fearful expression, unwittingly engraving every detail of it in his head and comparing it to how happily she was laughing a few minutes ago. Jin closed his eyes tightly while shooting several rounds without looking, his finger squeezing the trigger tightly to seek some semblance of comfort in the cold murderous tool.
The once silent room blared with gunshots, a loud cacophony of pain that reverberated through the room until...
Click! Click! Click!
The repetitive sound of his gun pointlessly trying to shoot the ammo it lacked created a sudden diminuendo - a sharp halt to the loud ringing within the room.
Jin fell down to his knees and smashed the gun into the ground with a beastly incoherent shout.
"Why did you wake up!? I didn't want to shoot! If I really had a choice then I didn't want to shoot! I wanted to go back, look for someone else! I could've searched for someone else! It didn't have to be you, I had time!" Jin inhaled sharply as tears coalesced within his eyes.
He could've went back and tried to persuade Walter to loosen the deadline so he'd look for someone else, someone much more horrible... someone like himself.
"Master Jin, you seem distressed... Does that mean you're near your breaking point?"
"Shut the hell up! Shut up, you heartless demon! Why couldn't you have kept quiet?! Why did I have to come here gathering these damned batteries for you?! Why don't you do it yourself, you lazy hypocrite!"
"...I see."
"You see nothing! I'm the only one here suffering! I'm always the one suffering! Ever since I agreed to join you and your band of lunatics!" Jin shouted at nothing as if Walter was next to him.
"I remind you, Jin, that your performance has left much to be desired, and at your current progress we won't hesitate to kill every member of Nexus alongside you to make up for what you failed to-"
"Do it! I've had enough of being your lapdog! You threaten to kill me to make me obey, then you threaten to kill Nexus to make me complacent, but I'm done! Do whatever you want to Nexus! In fact, tell Emilia to bring me back and I'll tear her apart myself! I'll rip them all apart in front of you and then I'll throw my core into the glowing abyss, you and your quota be damned! So go for it, you old dried up mummy! I'm not afraid of you!"
Jin's body shook with every breath he took as his lungs worked overtime in response to his riled up emotions, emotions that he kept strangling.
"Very well… I'll check in on you later, make sure to have all four batteries by then. You have three days until I must leave for briefing, I'll tell Emilia to pull you back by then and you can do whatever to Nexus, but if you fail... I'll show you how creative I can truly be."
Jin inhaled deeply then looked at Mona's face. Fear was eternally etched on her corpse, alongside several bullet holes in her eye, cheek, neck, and shoulder. Her body was glowing faintly as her skin hardened to a pale yellow; the once angelic beauty now reduced to a soulless dissolving meat puppet, with its charming owner long gone from it.
Jin stared at her somberly, still hearing her laughter and words of encouragement around him almost hauntingly as he watched her fingertips and hair flaking off into brilliant glittering sparkles, she became another soul to bear.
"Ah… right… I need to do this quickly…" Jin sighed and stood up.
However, something shuffling in his peripheral vision instantly drew his gaze.
"You… You killed her…" Vixie's corpse spoke with scorn as it slowly sat up, its wound bleeding slightly.
Jin stared at her with crestfallen eyes, recalling the ghosts that assaulted him earlier. At this rate he was collecting them for his personal hell.
"You killed Mona!" but then her bright crimson eyes shot wide open vividly with burning rage, sending a chill down Jin's spine, she felt too real to be an illusion.
Jin flinched and pulled out his silver handgun to shoot her but she was quicker, turning to a dark-sapphire blur when she lunged at him.
She bit his wrist with enough jaw strength to rip half of his hand off, tearing a stringy chunk off of Jin.
Jin cried out in pain and jumped away, his eyes glaring with attentiveness as he grabbed the gun with his other hand and fully focused on her movements.
"You're… You're alive?" Jin was still surprised.
"But she isn't! You killed her, you monster!"
Vixie lunged at him again, her speed easily surpassing a human's.
Jin had to jump away ahead of time against her attacks, which wasn't an issue to him, the problem was how she quickly followed up with another attack instantly, not giving him room to breathe or counter between her strikes.
"I'll rip you to pieces! I'll tear you to bits! I'll kill you!" she screamed amidst her wild unrelenting assault.
Jin evaded her attacks back-to-back, however he couldn't keep paying attention to his positioning and ended up being clawed by her a few times. It wasn't deep enough to trouble him yet, but one wrong move and it would change everything.
'No, no, no! What am I doing!? Focus!'
Jin scowled and moved towards her arm, letting her claw pierce through his stomach.
Instead of focusing on avoiding her attack, he put his entire concentration into lining up his shot at the cost of taking a hit.
Her eyes widened when he shot through her head at point-blank range, the muzzle flare of his gun being the last thing she saw.
As she fell with a wet thud, Jin quickly covered his bleeding stomach and unloaded a couple more rounds into her skull for good measures.
"I can't believe she survived being shot in the head... Must've grazed her brain or hit a part she didn't need... This time you won't get up though… Ugh... dammit…" Jin fell down to his knee and looked at his stomach which poured blood like a river, yet his ruined hand was leaking a luminous honey-hued substance instead of blood, letting his flesh slowly heal.
It was a side effect of his Wish since part of Relocated Life was preventing his death.
Jin looked back at Vixie's body, at the vibrant glimmering blood pooling under her head.
Jin's eyes shifted back to Mona's body, noticing how it turned completely into golden mush - like some horrid holy cocoon that was a mix of solid and liquid.
"I need to grab the core before she…"
Jin stood up but his eyes drifted down to the bright pool of blood under Vixie, at its soft radiance.
"Wait... Is blood normally this strong shade of red…?"
Vixie's crimson eyes suddenly shot open with a hungry luminescence, the bullet holes in her head adding to her grim visage as her hateful eyes devoured Jin with their intensity.
Jin pulled up his silver handgun and shot Vixie multiple times, causing her body to jolt and jerk then fall down limply.
"She's also undying!? Not important, I'll rip her core out after I take Mona's co–"
"Raagh!" Vixie yelled as she flew past Jin while slashing at his chest.
Jin was able to avoid it thanks to her battlecry alerting him, but knowing that she'd retaliate instantly, he decided to shoot first and think later.
The crimson glint of her eyes left ephemeral trails as she moved her head, dodging the bullet.
'She became faster!?'
Jin quickly shot her knee successfully then switched to her head when she fell down to her leg, the bullet instantly piercing her skull and splattering bits of viscera out like a gory piñata.
'Why is she growing stronger?'
Jin ejected the empty magazine and swiftly replaced it with another one from his pocket, his legs quickly moving towards Mona.
'Tsk… I only have one mag left now… I need to get to the core before the Reset,' Jin looked at Mona's body which started breaking into sparkling particles.
But then, the familiar dark-azure blur slid in front of Mona protectively, Vixie's remaining eye burning a hole through Jin despite her gruesomely mutilated face.
"You want to eat her?! You're not satisfied with killing her, you monster! But think again! During that day, when I opened my eyes to her smiling face, I made a vow then and there! I vowed to the stars that I'd do everything to help her, no matter what it was!" Vixie growled with the same rumble and viciousness as a wolf.
'What? So is she going stronger because I want to kill Mona? So all I need to do is...'
Vixie crouched down then leaped towards him, but Jin's head-to-chest gun combo turned her lights off in seconds, letting her body fall in front of him.
Jin reached inside his coat and walked to her.
'She should still be knocked out now since my intention changed from Mona to-' Jin pulled his knife out and watched her slowly stand up.
'...or maybe not…'
Jin shot her blood-covered head again and watched as she shook her bloodied head and stood up despite it, as if she became immune to his bullets.
'Even trying to kill her makes her stronger!?'
Vixie snarled and leaped at Jin, who used his arm to shield himself from her vicious teeth.
She smashed him down using her weight and then pulled her head back while gnawing on his arm and slashing down with her claws, cutting his arm off effortlessly.
Jin cried out in pain then shot her once, the second pull only inciting a click out of his gun.
Vixie fell down on her back motionless.
'It's empty! Leave! I need to leave!'
Jin quickly pushed himself up and ran towards a window with uneven steps. In his desperation he threw his body and smashed through it, cutting himself on the shattered glass as he fell in the snow with a deep crunch.
"Whoa!"
"That's a person! I told you I heard gunshots!"
Jin panted and looked ahead at the barren land leading nowhere with two figures standing there in furred-coats, holding hunting rifles in their hands. Jin's eyes lit up when he saw some sort of snowmobile behind them.
'She won't come after me since Mona's more important… I need to create a large gap before she realizes what happens to those who Reset... I need that vehicle..."
Jin pushed himself up and tried to quickly run through the snow, his labored breath exuding misty puffs with every shallow exhale.
They both aimed their hunting rifles at him.
"Who are you!?"
"Is that blood…? Wait, his arm..."
Jin panted heavily and looked at them with wide eyes, despite his undying state he lost enough blood to go through shock, making it harder to think and process information.
"Blood…? Right… Zoo… Zurians! There are Zurians behind me! Help me!"
Both of them flinched at his sudden shout.
Jin pointed behind him, at the cubic complex leaking golden light from where he jumped.
"They're Zurians! One of them tried to kill me! Superweapons!" Jin looked at them with a desperate scared look, his lie solidified by his already panicked state.
"Hey, isn't that where that strange girl in wolf skin lives?"
"I knew something was off about her but the old man said not to worry…"
"Unless that guy's a Zurian and he's lying to save his–"
Jin stuck his tongue out while pointing at it.
"Look! It's red! I can take off my pants too!"
Jin quickly grappled with his belt while walking to them.
"Whoa!"
"Hey, easy! You don't have to go that far… But that means he's telling the truth…"
"Please move! I need to leave before she kills me!" Jin continued walking unsteadily towards them.
They instantly moved aside as their eyes shifted towards the ivory structure.
Trudging through the snow was harder now that he was exerting his muscles heavily, a far cry from when he was traveling leisurely.
Jin still made it to the snowmobile with some effort, his eyes instantly resting on a motorcycle helmet sitting on the seat. There was a small handgun slotted into a holster attached to the seat as well.
'Perfect... Just... Just what I need... I shouldn't bleed out because of my wish but I lost so much blood... It's hard to think...' Jin's breath couldn't settle as he pulled out the gun from the holster.
"We need to go back and tell- Hey! You're not taking that!"
"Buddy, there's not enough room for you on the Snowski. You're also bleeding out horribly, so there's no point taking you with us, sorry to say."
The men walked closer to Jin with wary glares.
"But I need it... I failed to grab the cores... I need it... otherwise I won't make it in time... They'll all die..."
"Hey, last warning! Move aside!"
"It's a cruel world out there, friend. You should've been more careful."
Jin stared at them momentarily then looked at the gun in his hand.
'It's not too late... Even if I die here, I have three more days to look for cores... They're relying on me... I need to keep Nexus or I'll die...'
Jin swallowed and turned his head towards them.