Chương 30: Chapter 29: Allies Disasters
"There it is, he must be right over there."
"Sen."
"When we find him, what should I say to get it through that thick lump he calls a skull."
"Sen."
"I mean, leaving on a mission, sure. But for an entire month with NO contact—I mean, who does he think we are? Even I would start to carry a reasonable amount of worr–"
"SEN!"
Whipping his head around at unnatural speeds, the once tidy and slick man now took on a more rough appearance.
Beard stubbs popped up around his face, his eyes were shaking while turning a shade redder, and sleep bags were prominent on his porcelain skin.
"What!" He shouted angrily.
"This–"
Ken used his hands to gesture towards the old, run-down house in which they stood.
"--really. You know that the scanner says there's barely any heat inside. I also don't sense anything, and if the boss has been missing for a month, then woul–"
"HIDING! He's been hiding for the past month, a strategic retreat." He said it quickly.
The rough-looking man then started pacing around in a small circle.
"He must've encountered an enemy so powerful he had no choice but to retreat, and he's just waiting for us to find him. A perfectly logical analysis, and as for the heat detection, he's the boss; of course, he has his own methods to be undetected."
Such an answer would've been much more believable had the speaker not had a deranged look on his face.
"And YOU, Ken, shouldn't be talking. What's some 12-year-old brat who just joined a few months ago going to know? Just do your job, LISTEN to me, and we'll be fine."
With that, he started heading inside the building. Ken looked to his right, seeing Naia, who's also changed these past few days, shrug her shoulders.
As she started walking ahead, Ken pinched in between his noses while repeating mantras about how this was only temporary.
A couple of days after they were confronted by those "Cops," the reality that things weren't normal hit them.
First, Reiki hadn't returned home despite almost all of her previous missions only taking a maximum of 5 days.
The second thing was that the boss's location and status were still unknown. Seneca's tracker couldn't find him, and no other trace had been detectable.
Seneca slowly started falling into madness as he had full-on bouts of insanity. He'd lash out at you, then apologize before doing it again.
Any acts to persuade him out of his decisions would have him violently reacting.
Now Ken knew how to deal with insane people, give them minimal attention and responses, yet he also knew that alienating yourself from them.
There was also Naia, who became much more reclusive, seldomly speaking her thoughts; even when mentioning Ashnah, she gave a simple response before turning away, disinterested.
Ken had been trying to fill the hole that caused it, but handling these two turned out to be quite the task.
'It's only until we find the boss.'
Saying so, he walked into the building, and with a slight creak, the dusty door made way, allowing the three of them to come in.
Observing the walls, Ken noticed the bubbled furniture, paintings, and chandeliers all wrapped up.
"This place used to be owned by some second-generation rich man. After his parents died, the son wanted a quick, get-rich scheme, and what better way than to sell the house? He was addicted to something, so he wanted the money yesterday. We happened to be in the market, so we bought it at a cheap cost."
Dust particles floated in the air as the aqua-blue lights floated in from the windows and the cracks in the wooden walls.
"This place is officially set up as an asset held by a rich foreigner while, in reality, it's our third-string meeting spot."
Ken nodded his head, believing that conversing would take Seneca's mind off their current situation.
They were making their way up the stairs as he was telling the house's origin story when they heard a crashing sound.
Thunk
Everyone paused as their breaths hitched.
Thunk
The noise appeared again.
Seneca turned around a proud grin on his face. "SEE," he said.
Then, like a kid on Christmas, he ran up the stairs, not listening to Ken's words of caution.
Naia similarly had her eyes light up, though she had a hint of skepticism in them, no doubt unwilling to fantasize and at least partially believing in what Ken said earlier.
Ken himself was happy to know that he wasn't just crazy and that someone believed in him, yet saddened at what that meant for their current situation.
Still, not letting himself dwell on that, he picked up the pace and passed through the flight of stairs.
'I Feel Something!'
Vibrations from the room ahead were sent through the ground and were picked up by Ken's sensitive body.
He stopped his thoughts as he saw Seneca standing in the doorway. Ken peeked his head around the corner and saw what was causing the racket in the room, and just as he feared,
'The harder you jump, the harder you fall.'
Inside was neither the burly man nor the ever-changing woman, but instead, a rat nibbling on the leg of a wooden chair with a broken vase beside it.
Without wasting time, Seneca turned around immediately. He spun so fast that Ken actually couldn't catch his facial expressions. Then he speedily ran out of the room, walked down the stairs, and out of the house.
This was all completed within a few seconds, and by the time he slammed the door shut, Ken just reacted.
His heart hurt from having his hopes dashed, but he tried to knock himself out of his stupor, thinking about how much worse it must be for Seneca.
Ken turned around and made eye contact with Naia, who simply had an even more downcast expression, no doubt making her own inferences from Seneca's actions.
Still, not wanting to lose their friend, Ken left the house quickly and followed the scent to find the man who was briskly speed-walking.
"Where are you going!"
"To find the boss," he replied, not turning around.
Ken ran towards Seneca before rapidly grabbing his shoulder and forcefully spinning him around.
"WHERE! You thought he was in that building, but he's not there anymore, aren't you just wasting time–"
Pulling his hand free, the older man shouted, "THEN WHAT!"
"CALM DOWN!" Ken shouted. "You're too agitated. If you slow down and think, then maybe–"
"No...No, I can't slow down; that wastes time, which makes me lower the percentage of finding him alright. Slowing down is akin to delaying...wait, delaying...delaying...delaying."
The widening of his eyes as they settled on Ken's small figure made Ken feel uneasy about the words that were going to come out of his mouth next.
The brightening of his eyes and how they seemingly cleared up the previous confusion, despite something...wrong still lingering, didn't help.
"You're delaying me."
A twitch from Ken's cheek signaled that this was it, "That's Ridic-" He was quick to try and refute.
But Seneca's thoughts were scattered, so much so that the man was grasping at straws, trying to piece together the puzzle. So, feeling like he was onto something, he silenced Ken.
"SHUT UP! No, it all makes sense. You join the group, infiltrate, find the information you want to know, then kill the boss and Ashnah before LEAVING us weakened!" He shouted as if he had an epiphany.
Ken would be lying if he said he wasn't hurt, like a stab from someone you held close. No matter how much you expect and protect against it, it hurts all the same.
But he could chalk it up to Seneca's being mentally unstable, 'It's a trick of the mind.' He convinced himself of this.
Yet, turning his head to the right and saw the skeptical and wary gaze of Naia, someone who had "checked" him when he first joined through a series of true and false questions,.
Someone he personally felt the closest to, not only due to the Himiko situation half a year ago but also due to the fact that they periodically met during his shifts, and her accepting attitude.
Her gaze and eyes, which said "cautious," were like a gunshot at his heart.
At that moment, all he wanted to do was shout, 'WHY!'
Why did he have to suffer the suspicion from them?
Why did he have to trust them?
Why was he in this situation?
Yet he couldn't, for that metaphorical knife turned real, as when he let his guard down, a knife was plunged into his chest.
He felt his lungs get filled with blood as they were damaged, pierced by the steel content inside of him.
"Enhanced steel costs quite a bit but it's worth it. Y-You, if you die, then everything will be fine. The boss and Ashnah would come back, and stuff can return to normal."
Relying on instincts, Ken gripped Seneca's hands and twisted them, causing the man to groan in pain and drop the now bloodied knife.
After he kicked the man hard straight in the chest, he even momentarily wondered if he caved in his windpipe.
But the wheezing he saw as Seneca lay in the now-dented dumpster showed that wasn't the case.
"–en!"
Ken's senses were momentarily out of it due to what he suspected was a fast-acting poison coating the knife, and as he fell down onto one knee, he was sure he heard his name being called.
'Finally.'
She came out of her stupor, realized the pointlessness of all of this, and came to help them sort things out.
'Everything'll be fine when she gets here.'
So he braced himself for her touch, to hear her voice closer worrying about him. He waited for her to prove him right. Ken waited...and waited...and waited...and waited until he felt like he had to open his eyes.
The sight he witnessed was her worrying over Seneca. That scene, the hollowness he felt, the coldness that was unusual due to the hot blood pouring down his body, was etched onto his mind.
The next thing he knew, he was dashing down the road toward a shady part of town.
Stab
Another jab into himself as his hope of her following, hell, even acknowledging him leaving, was crushed.
He was delirious, hurt, angry, and hungry.
The open wound in his stomach, and lack of eating recently, drove his body's desire to recover rampant, and responding to the signal, it sent the only message it could to Ken's brain.
Eat.
"Hey kid, you alright?"
With his vision spinning and his head pounding, Ken recognized the face in front of him. A dealer is someone who sells and buys anything. Drugs, Gold, Antiques. This man was a portable pawn shop.
A small part of himself tried to stop his next actions.
It shouted, 'Wait, he's a good man.'
But again...it was outnumbered and crushed like a speck of dust in front of a gauging wave towering thousands of feet in the air.
Gulp
The next thing he knew, his hands were dyed the familiar scarlet, and his throat savored the currency tasted going down his throat.
'Bone.'
In his momentary bout of clearance, he recalled the source of that taste. Still, he quickly slipped back into that state of Lucidation.
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