Jin opened his eyes to the familiar interior of Nexus, his skin still cold from his recent journey through the snow. He was resting on the soft velvet couch, back in his ashen suit, while the group stared at him with mixed but mainly negative expressions.
'What happened? Did those two kill me? Or maybe I bled out...' Jin looked at the group somberly
'The cores... I need to get some...'
Jin glanced at Walter, whose calm eyes somehow burned with malice and hatred.
"I'll go back, Walter. I can still get more, give me some time..."
"No. You failed, Jin. I've given you enough chances and you still failed. I discussed it with everyone and they agreed to replace you."
"What?" Jin's eyes widened in surprise.
"Jin... Walter told us you're killing innocent people out there..." Skouter grimaced.
"He said you killed children too, you bastard..." Sadie glared at him with disdain.
Emilia's lips trembled but she couldn't mutter a single word.
"Why did you tell them...?" Jin sat up, his heart racing.
Walter's gaze grew sharper with a hateful look.
"You need them to survive but they don't need you, Jin," Walter pulled out his revolver.
"No, wait!" Jin quickly tackled him to the ground, doing his best to pull out his knife in record time.
The loud sound of the revolver pierced the air at the same Jin's blade impaled the side of the old gentleman's head.
"Oh god!" Skouter fell down on his butt and crawled away while Emilia covered her mouth and stood there frozen with fear.
"You monster!" Sadie ran to her baseball bat.
Jin winced and quickly grabbed the ornate revolver from Walter's hand then turned around to shoot her with it.
But she was already back, swinging her weapon the second he faced her and sending him tumbling back with a solid hit.
"Die, you murderer!" Sadie smashed the bat's blunt head against Jin's wounded stomach and chest repeatedly.
The sound of thwacks and thuds echoed through the room in tandem with Jin's grunts of pain, drowned out by Sadie's adrenaline-fueled yelling.
"S-Sadie, hit his head! Hit his..." Skouter spoke but then an overpowering bang caused the room to ring.
Sadie stepped back unsteadily with her eyes wide. She looked down at a profusely bleeding hole in her chest.
"J-Jin... You..." Sadie fell on her back.
Jin stood up with blood heavily leaking out of his mouth.
"I don't need them... Just you two..." Jin coughed and spat crimson, his trembling hand holding the revolver at Skouter.
"Don't you move... I don't want to kill you or Emilia! The three of us... Just the three of us can survive, so don't do anything stupid!"
Skouter nodded slowly and opened his mouth to speak but then the door to the bar swung open, kicked by a man in a black combat suit and a gas mask similar to Walter's.
Jin reflexively shot the man several times, but the man remained standing and unfazed, his bodysuit well protected.
Jin grimaced and shot until his revolver switched its chamber around pointlessly with a click.
The man pulled out a wonderfully engraved silver handgun and pressed its barrel against Skouter's head.
"Wait! Don't!" Jin shouted as the man pulled the trigger, splattering gray and pink chunks of Skouter's brain all over the ground.
But the man didn't stop there, he whipped the gun towards Emilia who was shaken to her core and shot her a few times until her corpse fell down lifelessly.
"The quota... You haven't reached the quota, Jin," the man walked closer, moving his gun towards Jin.
"You need three more cores, Jin. You're out of lives, out of chances and today... I'm going to finally kill you."
The man ripped the gas mask off his face, revealing the familiar cold gaze of his own visage, half torn to expose his menacing skull with glowing golden eyes.
"What...?" Jin didn't understand what he was looking at, but he didn't have any time to form a thought since a scorching pain spread through his stomach, a sharp one.
Jin looked down to see the smiling face of Seiya clawing through him while giggling happily.
"Where's the core? He needs it!" she laughed.
Jin cried out in pain and gripped her hands.
"Get off of me!" he pulled her arms away but the pain only grew more intense when she slipped them back into his stomach without much resistance.
"Aaagh!" Jin screamed as a biting cold washed over his exposed skin, making his hands tremble.
Jin desperately tried to pull her away, working his hands desperately hard to...
"Get your hands off me! Get away!"
...pull his own intestines out.
Jin shouted in the biting cold, surrounded by the familiar snowy tundra that were now drenched in rich crimson. He was wearing his white parka that was missing a sleeve, with an ebony full-face motorcycle helmet on his head, the glass visor heavily tinted to hide his face.
Jin looked at his bloodied hands that quivered and then he looked around at the plains around him.
"They're all gone... She's gone... She can't have them... Not my core... Not my... No, I don't want him to come and kill me! I need more cores!" Jin struggled to return the meaty chunks he ripped out of himself back in while he looked around.
Jin's eyes quickly landed on a badly battered snow vehicle half buried in the ground.
"I need to survive... If I get them enough cores they'll let me live. I need to deliver it to them."
The weather had calmed down enough for Jin to see a hazy shape barely visible in the distance.
"I need to look over there..." Jin stood up and began walking to it with uneven steps.
***
The journey to the group of structures was uneventful but Jin could swear he felt shadows creeping around him, he knew that they were looking for him, that the Shadow's Grasp came to collect. But he wasn't ready yet.
Once he got close enough, Jin realized the buildings were some sort of gigantic hanger within an airstrip. It was big enough to fit an airliner, and surrounded by a barbed fence and a watchtower positioned outside the fenced area. No matter how he viewed it, it was clearly an airport or some military airstrip.
"Ahh... An airplane would help me deliver the cores. I need to get inside."
Jin stared at the chain fence then the wooden tower nearby, which was the perfect height for him to jump into the airstrip.
"Lucky…"
Jin quickly climbed up the ladder of the watchtower and reached the top where a guard sat on a chair snoozing. The man wore a deep azure parka with a cap under his hood, the coat not too dissimilar to the white one he wore.
Jin walked up to the man and poked his shoulder, causing him to wake up with a terrified yell.
"Excuse me, can I borrow your–"
The guard pulled his rifle to the front.
"Who are you!? Speak!"
"I want your clothes and your airplane," Jin pointed behind him at the hanger.
"I won't repeat myself! Who are you!?"
"But you just repeated yourself."
"I'm going to shoot if you don't explain–"
"Shoot?"
Jin instantly kicked the man's rifle away while pulling out his own gun and swinging the barrel right in front of the man's face.
"No you won't. I have a job to do."
With a loud bang the guard jerked and fell off his chair on his blood-covered face.
"Your clothes look warmer than mine."
Jin took off his parka and moved to the corpse to take the man's coat and wear it.
After patting his concealed arm and feeling snug, Jin turned around then sprinted towards the edge of the watchtower, using the wooden fence on it to leap over the barbed wires and land on the ground with a deep dull crack, breaking both of his legs as he fell down on his stomach.
"Aagh! My bones! My bones… My airplane…" Jin crawled on his stomach towards the hanger while groaning. The insides of his legs glowed a faint gold, beginning their healing process.
A group of three guards in similar attires ran to him with curious yet wary expressions.
"Hey! What happened!? Is there an intruder?" one asked while looking at the watchtower as two of them quickly pulled him up by his arms.
'I need that airplane... Need to deliver...'
A fourth one approached them from Jin's right with a lit cigarette in his mouth. All of them were armed with automatic rifles and looked cautious; two stood on his right and two were on his left, with a few more further away.
"What's happening? Who's that, and why is he wearing a bike helmet?" the fourth man asked with a scowl then flicked his cigarette away.
Jin broke his right arm free and slipped it near his left holster, pulling out his gun and whipping it back to the right, butting the closer man's face with the bottom of his grip while simultaneously shooting the rightmost guard in the head.
Using his gun's recoil momentum, Jin swiped his arm in the opposite direction and shot a quick three-round burst, hitting the leftmost man in the chest then head while his last bullet pierced the man holding him in the face.
The cigarette fell on the ground, sinking in a thin layer of snow with a soft sizzle.
Jin fell down on his recovering knees and grunted while they all fell on their sides and backs.
Jin quickly turned behind him and finished the man with the broken nose.
"What a hassle... Just let me deliver the cores, don't make everything so damn difficult!" Jin shouted and grabbed one of the automatic rifles as the rest of the approaching men suddenly sat down and fired their weapons at him.
Jin's body jerked from the bullets that hit him, but he remained sitting while firing measured bursts that let him control the recoil of the rifle, peppering the approaching group with a higher accuracy than them.
One by one, they all fell like flies, allowing Jin a brief respite after he killed them all. But it wasn't long before a siren blared through the entire airstrip, signaling everyone of the danger.
Jin shook his head and weakly stood up. He opened the side of his coat to inspect it, noting how the bullets didn't penetrate through it.
Jin walked closer to the hanger and looked up at its mighty metal gate that concealed the airplane he wanted so badly. Luckily there was a human-sized door at the bottom of the gate, possibly to allow maintenance staff to go in and out when the hangar was closed.
The sound of successive blasts and bullets whizzing by alerted Jin of another group. He moved his head towards the guards without any sense of urgency or panic, half of his biker's helmet glistening with a crimson sheen as he watched them while their bullets connected with his shoulders and chest. One broke through the visor, cracking it as it grazed Jin's cheek and pierced his ear.
Jin clicked his tongue and ran to the door in front of him, shouldering it to bust through it.
Surprisingly, it wasn't locked but there was a bearded guard behind it aiming a handgun at Jin.
"The intruder broke in!" the guard yelled and began shooting in tandem with others surrounding the entrance.
Jin sprinted to the man without pause, running unsteadily from the barrage of bullets hitting him.
The bearded guard's eyes widened as Jin rushed in close and pulled him into a hug, instantly turning to use the man's back as a shield while pulling his own assault rifle up at the rest.
"Wait! Friendly!" the guards yelled, some stopping while others continued shooting.
"Too late to be friendly!" Jin yelled while waving his weapon around and shooting blindly.
But he found it difficult to get consistent shots, so Jin kicked his human shield away and decided to embrace the onslaught of bullets while firing in controlled bursts again.
While they got dangerously close to putting a hole in his head by shooting through his helmet, he snuffed them out before they got the chance to actually do it.
After the last man fell, Jin looked down at his own body, noting the blood oozing out of some bullet holes.
"It didn't block all of them... Block... I need to block the door..." Jin quickly walked to the door and slammed it shut. But there wasn't any latch or locking mechanism besides a keyhole with a broken key visibly sticking out of it.
Jin glanced back at the bodies of the fallen guards.
"They'll do."
Then he dragged their corpses and snuggly pressed them against the door on top of each other.
The door suddenly shook as something slammed against it, but Jin was satisfied with the blockade. He just needed a few minutes to steal the plane, so it didn't have to be closed for good.
Jin turned around and looked up while the door kept thumping behind him. He expected to find a large airplane but the hanger simply contained a series of crude wooden structures and canopies, like an oversized treehouse hotel full of humans.
Jin stared at the people looking at him from scaffolding, other platforms and even from the windows, fear and confusion visible on their trembling features. Unlike the guards, they wore different colored jackets and some didn't even wear them at all.
"Huh? Where's the airplane?"
A sudden shower of bullets pierced through the hangar's walls and the door, making Jin jump down prone to avoid them.
Jin rolled around so he was facing the entrance and aimed at it.
"We got him, men! Target down!" Jin shouted and carefully looked at the holes which leaked light through them.
The openings suddenly darkened when a man peaked inside with a squint.
Jin instantly unleashed a volley of hot lead, adding more gaps to the door with every shot until trickles of blood spurted inside.
"Let me do my job! I need to deliver the cores to them!" Jin stood up shouting and ran to the wooden complex.
"I'm here for an airplane… Where's my airplane, you worthless junk?!"
Jin vented his frustration by shooting the houses with no rhyme or reason, causing shrill screams and cries to erupt and drown one another as people began to run out and away from their homes.
"Attacking me... Taking my airplane... Making my life so insufferable... You're all so annoying… but that's why I'm here! I'm the reaper's collector and it wants everyone dead! It hates you! Hates everyone! Hates me, and especially hates–"
Jin swung his arm and shot a screaming woman who tumbled over the edge and fell all the way down, her skull smashing into pieces when her body hit the ground with a splat.
"-you!"
People scattered like insects, trying to hide or escape from Jin's outbursts.
Jin shook his head with disdain and walked towards a stairway leading up to the houses.
"Give me my airplane or more of you will die! I don't have time for this!"
Jin made it to the first floor and stared at people running away from him to another stairway on the opposite end, but then his eyes shifted down to a cowering child shivering aggressively, her eyes drowned in tears. He doubted she could even see him.
Jin walked to her, his helmet giving him an even terrifying appearance as he silently stared at her.
"Your eyes aren't shining... I hope they never shine. Don't look up at the stars or I'll come back for you, okay?" Jin leaned down, his hand outstretched to touch her head.
"Die!"
An ear-shattering blast sent Jin flying away, his back ramming against the railing with enough force to smash into it. His stomach was visibly blown apart.
"I made it in time... Once I heard the alarm blaring, I prayed so hard to make it..." a woman with long silver hair moved her shotgun down and quickly crouched next to the child to hug her. She was wearing a black parka similar to guards.
"M-Mia! Sis!" the smaller child pressed herself against Mia while bowling her eyes out.
"Are you hurt anywhere? Let me heal you," the woman's eyes glowed a soft pink as she held her sister.
"N-No, but I'm so scared-"
Jin extended his arm towards them and discharged a bunch of bullets into her head and shoulders with a loud resonating sound.
Her body quivered and shook as the array of shots ruined her pleasant features, until she fell forward against the smaller child.
The small girl's breathing intensified and she started hyperventilating while the body of her sister pressed against her.
Jin weakly stood up, blood pouring out of him in dangerous amounts, too quick for his own body to replace.
"Her eyes shine… Don't be like her, or else the reaper will come…"
Jin grabbed the nearby wooden railing and struggled to pull himself up.
"Her eyes… the core… I need it… I won't go back empty handed… Not while the reaper's still hungry…" Jin took two steps to her then fell down.
Not intending to give up yet, he crawled to the dead woman and forced himself up next to her. With how long it took him to get to her, her back had already began dissolving into a pink goo.
Jin shoved his palm in and plucked the orb out from its stringy container, pocketing it despite the slime surrounding it.
The sound of several footsteps quickly rushing up the stairs drew Jin's eyes to his side at a group of armed guards, with the familiar figure of Dia in front of them holding what looked like a modified scope-less sniper rifle.
"Dia…? Dia!" Jin reached out to her enthusiastically.
Her eyes widened painfully when she saw the corpse on the ground, then they instantly shifted to a hateful scowl ready to erupt with even more rage.
"You animal!" with several blinding muzzle flashes, her gun rattled and shook while it fired continuously.
The bullets pierced Jin one after the other, his body dancing helplessly to the rhythm of her rifle, with some bursts tearing chunks of his shoulders off, dismembering his arm completely.
But it only took one bullet piercing his helmet and skull to devour everything in darkness, erasing Dia's tearful screaming face from his vision instantly.
***
Jin opened his eyes to absolute darkness, his golden eye poking through the cracked hole in his full-faced biker helmet.
"The reaper… I need to feed the reaper… I need to go back up there for my delivery… I need to finish my job," Jin sat up quickly.
Despite the dark skies above, he could see a gray surface under him lit up as clear as day. Not only that, but his body was clearly visible even without any light sources around.
"I need to go back..."
Jin pulled out his gun and pressed the barrel against his head.
"Put that device down... inferior one," a deep voice reverberated from behind Jin, almost sending tremors through the ground from its gravely resonance.
Jin looked at its source, at a large skeletal creature with the malformed cracked skull of some sort of deer, its jaws split in multiple directions. It stared at Jin with empty eyes and wore a dark hooded veil which draped down to hide part of its upper body, while the rest of its boney body was visible as it sat squatting.
"The reaper! I found you! I have it here!" Jin crawled to the creature while laughing and emitting pathetic wails.
"A star-touched... but you reek of another… Your mental state is too fragile for the infectious system to grasp hold of you…" it spoke yet its jaws remained shut, as if the words manifested both without and within Jin's mind.
"I brought you your food, reaper! I made them pay your toll! I did as you wanted so please, free me from this curse! Let me live normally!" Jin smashed his head against the ground while bowing, cracking the visor of his helmet further.
"Please, please, please!" Jin lifted his head then smashed it down with every pleading word.
"A delusional state… Conversation will prove difficult…"
"End my suffering, reaper! Let me be free!"
"Freedom… I see..."
The creature's multi-jointed leg expanded, revealing how insanely long it was as it landed next to Jin while shaking the ground slightly. The creature moved itself towards him like a ski lift, its upper body unmoving.
Jin's status window suddenly snapped open between them.
"Huh?" Jin looked at it.
________________________
[Warning: [][][][][] Detected! - Exterminate or Escape!]
[Warning: Unknown Location!]
[Warning: Mental Hijacking Imminent!]
[Warning: Spatial Shielding Detected!]
[Warning: ...]
…
________________________
Jin couldn't look at the rest as the massive clawed fingers of the creature cracked the glowing window in its grasp. The creature's head moved next to the panel and it glared eyelessly at Jin.
"Freedom is beyond you… The stars are beyond you… You and I are both prisoners awaiting our damnation… But I can help you… I can free you from them… If you accept me…"
The creature's claws cracked the window further, as if the transparent intangible frame was made of physical glass.
Jin's eyes watered and he lifted his arms up to the terrifying monster.
"Yes! Free me! Save me, reaper! Eat me like the rest of them! Ahahaha!" Jin broke out laughing.
The creature crushed the warning-infested panel into glittering pieces and then picked Jin up as easily as a child picking up an abandoned toy.
The creature's jaws opened in several directions as long slimy tendrils of darkness emerged from the shadows within its mouth, slowly wrapping themselves around Jin's head.
Jin kept laughing through it, elated at his release from his job, from the pain of thinking.
His heart was at ease, even when the tentacles cracked the visor of his helmet in their effort to slowly crush the rest of his head, he didn't feel even a speck of fear in his disillusioned state.