Chapter 5

“It’s-It’s...It’s a ransom note!” Diran gritted his teeth in anger as he crumpled the note.

“What are we going to do?” Mack took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair in shock.

Shai was missing, and in her room, as aforementioned, was a ransom note.

“What are they asking for?” Useless piped in.

“Does it matter? Like hell we’ll pay them. Let's just bust into the joint and take her back!” Roku was somehow the maddest of all of us.

“Yeah! No one does that to our friend!” Diran agreed with Roku’s suggestion of using force.

“Okay, let me get my shoes on first.” The person who spoke that sentence was me.

Oh great, I remember now. This has happened before. I’ve lived through this before. It’s another one of those nightmares.

Ever since I fought Rojo, I’ve been living through my bad memories every other night. It’s different from a normal nightmare, it’s almost like watching a movie through my own eyes, seeing all the mistakes I made, all my shortcomings, and experiencing all that pain all over again. It must be a side effect of Rojo’s ability.

Knowing what would happen doesn’t make it any better, but you do surprisingly get used to it.

In this memory, the whole team was here, besides Shai who got kidnapped. She was taken by an organized crime organization and is being held at the end of a warehouse full of traps tailor made to try and defeat Diran.

This was when our team was at the height of our rise to fame. Diran was wiping out the criminal underground. No big-name villains stood a chance and when it came to smaller groups, Diran trampled on them like ants. Diran was truly changing the way the world operated.

Naturally, no mafia wanted that, leading to them combining into some sort of super-mafia, and hiring all the strongest mercenaries with the goal of taking Diran down.

“There’s the warehouse. No guards out front.” Mack said as he peered through the scope of his rifle.

“It’s a trap, they want us to come inside.” I yawned.

Diran thought it would be smarter to go early in the morning, before any guards were awake. He neglected to listen to me when I told him they would be operating in shifts, and he neglected to listen to me about the trap now.

Diran led the way as we all went through the main entrance, because that was the smart thing to do apparently.

“The path branches....” Diran looked onward as the hallway forked, both sides leading in opposite directions.

“I guess we’ll have to split up. Lee and I will take the left. Roku, you lead everyone else down the right path.” Diran commanded them.

I was with Diran. By all means it should’ve been the safest place to be. But that was not how things would go. I was going to take the lead, try and use this chance to prove myself. To show that I could still do it and was just as competent as him.

I would nearly die.

After this mission, I stopped being proactive. I stopped trying to prove myself, I stopped trying all together. I took my seat on the sidelines where it was comfortable. No more disappointment. No more failures. No more pain. External pain at least.

With how badly I had screwed up the Peijun mission, it seems I was going to be right back where I was. Now I just must endure this near-death encounter again.

We walked down the hallway, a door stood at the end. I would open it. I would go through. I would be painfully, brutally beaten. There was nothing I could do. In this dream state, I am merely a spectator.

My hand gripped the handle, turned it, and slowly opened the door. Waiting inside was-

“Greetings.” A woman I had never seen before.

“Huh?” The voice was mine. Not mine as in dream me, actually mine, as in current me.

“Don’t worry, I’m friendly.” Diran disappeared from beside me, and the walls began to melt away.

We were no longer standing in the mob’s warehouse. Instead, we were on the deck of a house on the beach. The air felt warm and comfy, with a slight breeze blowing, rustling the palm trees outside.

“W-What? Who are you? What is this?” I’d gotten used to being terrorized through my past experiences, but this, this was new.

“Hmmm, what should you call me?” The girl shrugged off two of my questions as she plopped down in a rocking chair.

“What you call me doesn’t matter, we can think of a name later. For now, just sit down and relax, this is a welcome change of pace from those nightly night terrors, isn’t it?” She said with a smile. I couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. Her facial expressions all seem manufactured, but don’t look explicitly fake either.

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“Yeah....I guess.” I sat down in the chair next to her.

The girl stared blankly at me. She was tall for a girl, was of an average build, and wore a simple pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. The only notable thing about her was her light blue hair and pink eyes.

“So....what is this?” I wonder if she’d brush this off like my last question?

“Hmmm...I guess it wouldn’t be fair not to tell you.” She wore the same smile as before.

“To be honest, I am here because I feel guilty.”

“.....Guilty?” I don’t think I’ve met this woman before, so if I’ve never interacted with her, what does she have to feel guilty about?

“Yes, guilty. You see, you having those nightmares is partly my fault. Partly.” Her expression changed to one of unwilling complacency. That’s a pretty specific description.

“You see, what happened was, while you were under the effect of that red guy’s ability, mine happened to activate at the same time. Since they are somewhat similar in nature, they sort of...merged. Putting you under the predicament you are in now. A freak accident.” She delivered her lines as if rehearsed, with just a hint of remorse in her voice.

“Huh, so that’s why this has been happening...” I had thought it was weird that I would still be under that guy's ability, especially since the activation requirement for it was so obvious.

“So, then what’s with this?” I asked as I motioned to the house and beach.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s better than what was waiting for me on the other side of that door. But why can’t you just...I don’t know, turn his ability off?”

“I wish that was possible.” She was carefree as she talked.

“To be completely honest, I don’t fully understand why the change happened. But the fact is, my power is a passive ability. It activates automatically, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. So, since it seems to have combined with red guy’s power, now you will experience the effects of his automatically, instead of mine.” She rocked in her chair, staring at the sun over the ocean.

She delivered these important lines as if it was just another day at the office. No disruption from her emotionless smile except the occasional frown.

“So, if you can’t stop it, then how are we...here?” She says she can’t stop it, but didn’t she just stop it?

“I cannot stop his ability from activating automatically, but I can counter it...sort of.” She shrugged and that previously inconvenienced facial expression appeared.

“I came up with a solution. I didn’t have to, but I felt guilty. From now on, whenever you come under the effects of his ability, my remixed ability will activate. That ability is...this.” She motioned around to make her point clear.

“In case you don’t understand, I’ll explain. Whenever his ability activates, mine will too, and you’ll be transported here......with me.” She turned away and gazed back at the ocean, signifying that this conversation was over.

“Wait, what? That hardly explained anything. Who are you? You said his ability combined with yours, what was yours? And why was I under its effects? How long will this last?” This conversation couldn’t be over, I still had a ton of questions.

“Uugh.........That’s too many questions. Can you not just enjoy the scenery?” She groaned as my questions bombarded her.

“One more question, I’ll shut up after that.”

“Fine, one last question.” She combed her hair back with her hands and sighed. For a moment her emotionless mask fell as she experienced genuine annoyance.

“What is your goal with this? You seem to already be bored with this, and it's just begun. But you’re talking as if this will be a regular occurrence. Since you plan on sticking around despite your obvious reluctance, you must have a better reason than just guilt.”

“Ah, observant, aren’t you? Yes, although guilt is what brought me here, I do have some other......goals in mind.” She smiled a slight smile as her pink eyes locked with mine.

“Well, that’s good...I’d rather you have an ulterior motive. If you were doing this every other night for the rest of time just because you feel bad for me, I would feel so guilty I could die!” There’s no way anyone would be that kind to me just because of guilt.

“Don’t flatter yourself, you’re already in my debt. If those nightmares had continued, I’d give you about.... Two, maybe three years before you, y’know.....squelch” She made a slicing motion across her neck, with a poorly acted sound effect to accompany it.

“Wow, you don’t give me enough credit. I’ve lasted longer doing worse.” I stretched back in the chair and enjoyed the view.

“Maybe.” She went back to the same manufactured smile and stared at the ocean.

“...”

“...”

I’d agreed I wouldn’t ask any more questions. But does she expect me to just sit here silently?

“Man, I am not looking forward to tomorrow. I messed things up, I'm not the leader anymore. I’m right back to taking orders, right back to being a side character.”

“That sucks.”

“I’d been wanting to be the ‘main character’ for so long, and I finally had it! I’d finally restarted and was accomplishing my dream...and I messed it up on our first mission.”

“Bummer.”

“Best case scenario, Ise or whoever they put in charge is worse, and they come right back to me, begging me to lead them. Worst case scenario, they nail it. Lead us to a successful mission, where nothing goes wrong, and we succeed. They remain leader, and things become exactly like they were back home.” If I just ended up playing third fiddle, stuck behind Roku and whoever they vote to be leader, then what was the point in leaving Diran?

“Yeah.”

“That’s just wishful thinking.... Things never come that easy.”

“Probably.”

“Are you planning on contributing to this conversation? I’m not sure how this arrangement is going to work, but I'd rather talk than sit here silently.” I scratched my head in annoyance.

“I didn’t know it was a conversation, it seemed more like a rant to me.”

“Hey, this whole thing is your idea. So, work with me!” This is weird enough already, talking should at least make it less awkward.

“So much for “being in my debt”.” She groaned.

“You want my advice? You want my two cents? You never quit being the side character. Just because you were the captain or leader or whatever you thought you were, doesn’t mean all your problems would go away. You were still a side character.” She sharply said. So far annoyance and anger were the only real emotions I’d seen.

“Okay......No talking is fine......”

Silently we sat, with no concept of how time was passing. It felt both long and short. Over in an instant and drawn out.

I thought this whole thing was supposed to be making me feel better. I should’ve told her to buzz off and leave me to the nightmares......That’s an exaggeration. This sucked. But experiencing almost dying was worse.

Things have only gone downhill since I’d left Diran. Should I give up and go back?

“Okay, time’s up. Dreams over.” Without even a second's delay, the dreamscape vanished.