บท 48: Intuition
The sun shone down onto the tall buildings of the 13th floor vacation islands.
The entirety of Winston's team sat around the connected lounge on their floor.
Endorsi and Anaak were the only ones not present, opting to sit in the connected balcony to witness the new sun rise of the floor.
The lounge was connected to an open kitchen in which Shibisu and Zarhan were standing, their bodies adorned with cooking gloves and aprons.
Winston, Amon and Laure were sitting on the sofas in front of the large television screen. Laure, as always seemed to be legarthic, however, Winston too seemed the same. Though not to the same extent.
Winston yawned, holding a cup of warm water in his hands.
"You still seem sleepy Mr. Winston." Amon quipped with a smile.
Winston turned his head slightly and shook his head, simultaneously taking a sip from the cup.
"I couldn't sleep properly last night."
"Why? Bad Dreams?"
"You could say that."
Amon nodded in enlightenment and turned to the television screen where some strange love drama between a ranker and a resident woman was unfolding. "High Ranker's Last Love" was the name of the drama.
Winston watched the scene unfold with a deadpan. His expression was of such great uninterest that the creator of the drama would find it insulting.
Without any change in his facial muscles, he picked up the remote and changed the channel, instead, switching to a news channel.
Information was power. Even more so for a beyonder, though the impact may differ based on the pathways.
As the channel switched, a mean looking man with a broad forehead came on one half of the screen. The other half was covered by the picture of another man wearing a mask that covered the lower half of his face.
"-the trafficking of suspendium and people that live in the middle tower has been uncovered by a reporter of ours. The reports tell of 2000 tons of suspendium getting transported across 17 different ships and close to 2,000,000 people getting trafficked from the middle tower connecting to floors 13 to 18. The reports even suggest the involvement of FUG and one of the slayers in the issue."
Winston raised an eyebrow at the statistics. But he knew such a number only seemed absurd to himself. The scope of the tower was much much larger than Earth ever was and each floor harbored hundreds of millions of residents. That wasn't even counting the outer tower which had billions and innumerable kingdoms that operated that those scales.
"That's something I suppose." Winston commented, drinking all the water from the cup and keeping it on the table in front.
"2000 tons of suspendium would easily amount to more than 300 million points." Laure chimed from the side. Winston turned to him, finding him wide awake at the news.
Winston looked at him for a moment before he looked towards Amon.
"What's your thoughts on this?" Winston asked. At least he wanted to ask, however, he stopped before the words could flow out of his mouth.
Amon sat there, hands clenched to the full and eyes concentrated onto the television screen. His teeth were clenched hard and his expression seemed somewhat odd.
Winston stared at him, all for but a moment.
"...Amon?" He called out softly.
Amon didn't reply.
"Amon." He called out again.
Suddenly, Amon broke out of his reverie and looked on towards him in surprise.
"Huh? What?" He said in puzzlement.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh... nothing. Nothing's wrong." Amon chuckled and shook his head.
Then, he got off the sofa and began to walk off.
"I'll just be in my room. I'm feeling a bit sleepy now. Call me for training in the afternoon." He said and went away.
Winston and Laure watched him leave without a word between them.
Winston was never too great at connecting with people or figuring out their emotions. He wasn't some protagonist of a drama novel after all. That sole fact made him not speak out at that moment and watch Amon simply leave.
He turned back towards the television, which at this point was broadcasting some other piece of news.
Time passed.
"You should talk to him." Laure spoke out suddenly.
"Yeah, I probably should." Winston said with a low chuckle. "I'll do that afterwards." He declared.
With that, he picked up the remote and switched the channel.
~~~
Bam!
A feminine figure flew out from a cloud of dust, landing into a large rock, destroying it in the process. And almost simultaneously, an annoyed voice called out.
"God Dammit! What the hell?!" Endorsi cursed, her eyes taking on a scary expression.
She looked towards her opponent, a dark haired man wearing a white coloured t shirt and pajamas. For footwear, he wore a pair of crocks.
Winston smiled at her, looking on without a word as she got up from the ground and collected herself.
"I still can't get over how strong you've gotten already!" Endorsi huffed, walking over with a defeated expression.
Winston only shrugged his shoulders.
"Cheer up. You'll get there sometimes."
"But you're too much of a freak of nature! You already have strength equivalent of a D rank regular!"
Winston raised a brow at her comment.
"And what's the basis of your statement?"
Endorsi, who was already within 10 meters of him stopped for a moment to think over the question. Then, she chuckled.
"I just said that on a rough understanding of the strength progression. As you are right now, no one can even hope to match you until the 40th floor. As I said, a freak of nature."
Winston shook his head with smirk.
"That's not very nice y'know."
Whooosh!
A piercing sound rang in the area as Winston tilted his head sideways, narrowly dodging a needle that was aimed at him.
As he did so, he immediately extended his hand and grabbed onto the weapon!
"Attacking while someone in the middle of a conversation." He said.
Endorsi only laughed, rushing straight at him with the speed of a bullet!
Without any other pleasantries to exchange between them, Winston ducked under a kick aimed at his neck, and then, punched up towards Endorsi's abdomen!
Shwoooo!
Bam!
Endorsi, without anything to protect herself was hit right in the stomach, throwing her back through the air!
Endorsi groaned a bit in pain as she landed, rushing back at Winston with increased speed! Slowly, around her skin a transparent blue aura began to appear, rippling and bubbling in intricate patterns like clouds dancing in the blue sky.
Winston only smiled as he met her. Both of them threw around a flurry of attacks, with Endorsi's meeting only empty air.
"Way to go!"
"Get that old woman!" Yelled the two spectators from the side, Anaak and Shibisu.
Hearing their words, Endorsi felt a pang of annoyance swell in her heart, however, there was nothing that she could do.
Before long, Endorsi lied on the ground, defeated.
Anaak cheered on the side clapping as she did so.
Winston shook his head and walked towards them.
"You guys train for a bit. I'm going back." He said.
They nodded and didn't ask anything else.
As he walked along the outskirts of the island, he could not help but gaze at the horizon, where the sea and the sky met. The sun was high up in the air still, casting a warm blue glow all over. Then, he looked in the opposite direction where a gigantic architectural marvel stood tall, a building that towered at a staggering 700 meters.
Without a word, he snapped his fingers. And gone was he in a blazing inferno.
~~~
Individual limitations can compensate for favourable circumstances.
It doesn't matter how much of a great situation you're in, doesn't matter how great of a present you have, doesn't matter how many people and what kind of people you've made friends with; if your own limits have marred your spirit and rendered you unable to move forward at full potential, its all for naught.
The world is a cruel place. Amon learned it the hard way really.
He never did have a great life at any point. Which made the good moments stand out all the more.
Sigh!
He sighed as he sat in the shade of the balcony, staring out into the sky. He was having fun. Truly, he was.
For a moment, he had once again found some people he wanted to believe in and stay with.
However, that also bred fear.
Fear of losing everything like he already had, two times prior. A man's greatest enemy is his own mind.
Suddenly, the glass door behind him slid open with a loud noise, prompting Amon to look back.
"Yo!" Said Winston with a relaxed smile and a lazy disposition. He walked into the balcony, sliding the door close as he did so.
"You didn't come to train." He asked, taking a seat at right beside him at a chaise chair.
"You didn't call me, Mr. Winston." Amon's reply came quickly, along with a chuckle.
"You don't usually miss any training. Is there something I should know?" Winston raised a slight brow, looking at him through the corner of his eye.
Amon stayed silent for a small moment. "I'm.. not sure if I understand what you're talking about?"
"You appeared somewhat disoriented after watching the news earlier today. Is there something you'd want to tell me?" Winston pushed for an answer.
Truthfully, he had thought of a variety of options. It could have been a family member that was trafficked from his family somewhere before, or he himself that was done so. Naturally, he thought of some other possibilities too, but the two weee the most probable.
He could use dream divination to get an instant answer from the spirit world, but he felt that hearing the answer from Amon himself would be better. If he didn't want to tell him, then only would he resort to using divination.
The main reason was that Winston had never fully trusted his divination abilities after the incident at the 2nd floor. And he wouldn't do so in the future, at least not till he reached sequence 4. That didn't mean he entirely shunned it's use. In fact, he made exte side use of it everyday. However, in terms of sensitive information like ones related to his teammates, he would only trust a divination after getting some sort of confirmation from his intuition.
His intuition had become his main source of confidence in terms of divination.
Amon looked away, staring back into the void for a moment.
Then, he smiled.
"It's pretty pathetic really. I didn't lead a great life until I came into the tower. I used to live in the resident area of the tower and was quite happy." Amon began.
"However, when I was 12, I was abducted by a group of traffickers and taken somewhere. Although I managed to escape, I forever lost contact with my family."
Winston listened on without interrupting, providing Amon a place to vent.
"After that, I wandered around the unknown area for 3 months, finding scraps to survive. Luckily, a group of thieves took me in and taught me how to steal to survive. However... before I entered the tower, they were all killed."
Amon looked over towards Winston, who, upon sensing his gaze met his eye. His eyes were somewhat dull in colour, yet they appeared deep.
"We made a heist we weren't supposed to. That day, I lost myself another family." He broke out with a warm and compassionate smile. How he smiled like that when talking about loss, Winston could somewhat understand.
He himself had also lost the old man who took him in. Although he hadn't watched him get slaughtered in front of him, loss was loss.
Amon seemingly reminisced about the good moments he had spent, fleeting vistas that remained as nothing but illusory memories in his mind.
"I met you guys and... sort of forgot? I forgot how easy it was to lose everything." He folded his legs before him and hugged his knees. "I was happy again. And then, suddenly I was reminded of it again. I don't even know how I could take my mind off of it in the first place." He laughed a bit.
The environment descended into silence.
Winston sat with Amon, not speaking a word, not even moving. It continued on for a minute, the silence persisting throughout.
Winston... Well, he didn't know what to say. Actually, he did. Sort of... but he didn't wish to do so.
Suddenly, he got up and walked over to the balcony door and slid it open.
"Get yourself together." He said, turning to Amon with a compassionate stare. "You aren't a kid anymore. You lost people dear to you. I understand that. However, you move on. Simple as that. Waiting around and dwelling on what's passed won't help it."
Walking into the room, he spoke again.
"Believe me. I know." With that, he closed the door and walked away into the kitchen.
Rummaging around the drawers for a bit, he pulled out some biscuits to eat and headed out of the kitchen.
And then...
"That didn't go too well." Winston heard Laure mutter. He looked towards the sofa where he was laying down.
"Aren't you supposed to be asleep?"
"I shouldn't have told you to talk to him. I should have told shibisu instead."
"I didn't talk to him because you said so. He's my friend now." Winston declared.
"Well you didn't do a very good job. I thought you'd offer some kind of great speech." Laure said, yawning as he did so.
"Amon isn't a kid." Winston said with conviction. "He doesn't need anyone to validate his own life. He doesn't need some glorious speech to help get over the loss of his friends and family. If he wishes to find purpose and a reason to move forward, he'll have to do that himself."
Suddenly, Laure got up from the sofa, staring right at Winston.
"Maybe he just needed some words of encouragement. A hope." He said.
Hearing his words, Winston was silent for a moment staring right at Laure. He held his chin, contemplating quietly.
"Maybe that's just you, sympathizing a bit too much with that boy." He said, and went right back to sleeping.
Winston stood alone in the hall. His eyes unconsciously travelled to the balcony, staring at the back of Amon's head.
~~~
A/N: A slightly longer chapter. 20% longer approximately.
I wanted to experiment a bit with the side characters and character development. Even though I've decided to finish the work, it still stands as an experimentation ground for me.
Throw some stones if you liked it.
Cheers~~~
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