[12:52]

Nami leans against the car crying, while Ace stands next to her. He’s neither comforting her nor looking the least caring. His face still has a sleepy and disinterested.

Denarrow- "So the building blew up on you and your friend died?"

His voice is stale and monotone.

Nami- "I… can't do it any… more… It's my fault… why…"

Most of the sentence is interrupted by constant sniffing and hard tears.

Denarrow- "So she died right?"

Nami- "Yes you asshole."

She then buries her face into the palms of her hands and cries harder.

Denarrow- "That's tough."

Nami cries even harder, while Ace clearly does not care to sympathize much. He then senses something strange. His sixth sense tells him that a set of eyes are watching him. He then concentrates his senses, closing his eyes and closing in his senses on the surroundings, he finds something. He turns around and notices a man barely visible, located across the street in an empty alleyway. He wears a black mask, similar to the mask Ace wore in Netherly Arenas. It's a face mask with no holes, thus hiding the entirety of the man's face. His short blonde hair flows out to the back, and his neck is the only part of his body displaying his whiter skin. The man wears a black military-style outfit and stands tall with his arms to the side and feet close together like a soldier.

Ace looks straight at the masked man, confused, unable to sense anything except for his mere presence. Not even the man's thoughts could be sensed out. In an instant, a gun appears in his right hand. The gun has seemingly come out of nowhere. Ace opens his eyes wide, instantly recongizing the man's Paradise power. Using intuition, he pushes Nami to the ground, safely behind the vehicle, and jumps onto the bed of the truck.

He then hears the sound of suppressed gunshots, as he anticipated. Already with his arms out, he catches all the fired bullets midair with his bare hands and forearms. In most cases, at least one of the bullets would have gone through his arm, but instead, they enter and sit well in his bones. He neither flinches nor reacts to the pain. He then quickly takes all six bullets out with the intention of using them as deflectors. The masked man fires six more shots in which Ace uses the six bullets in his right hand and flicks them out, hitting the fired bullets midair, stopping them. A move that not only requires perfect accuracy and aim but speed as well, All in an effort to place them in the small narrow paths of objects coming almost two thousand miles an hour.

With no break knowing his opponent ran out of ammo, Ace charges at the masked man in full sprint. The masked man turns around and runs away deeper into the alley. Ace pursues without hesitation. Nami, who's on the sidewalk's floor hiding behind the truck's tire for cover, slowly looks over to see Ace running away down the alley. She can tell he's chasing someone, but is too scared to keep on looking; thus continuing to duck her head behind the car. At first, she could barely hear the suppressed fire but was fortunately able to hear it loud enough to discern it was the firing of a firearm.

With her heart racing and adrenaline high, she notices no one, neither friend, foe, or bystander, is around to see what just happened. Fearing that she might suddenly in some way or somehow die if she moved out of cover, she hesitates to attempt so. Seconds later, motivated by the daredevil inside her, she stands up. It takes her a moment to realize she's still alive. For half a second, she was accepting death if it came to her before realizing life is still ongoing. Her next thoughts force her to move towards the leaving danger. Simultaneously knowing it was something crazy to do, she moves nonetheless.

After crossing a couple streets, Ace catches up to his opponent, who is forced to take an evasive maneuver to avoid the running kick to the head. The masked man shifts to the right and then looks to quickly counter Ace. Knowing one is vulnerable after every strike, Ace looks to counter after his miss immediately. Thus beginning hand-to-hand combat between them. Their hand-to-hand transitions is a battle of countering each other's moves until one slips up.

Ace thought his martial prowess alone would end the fight, but his opponent is no slouch. In the duration of the fight about two minutes pass, and the mystery man begins to change and mimic Ace's combat style. This forces Ace to switch up his usual style.

Denarrow- 'I'm going to end this.'

He swings his right leg up high and his foot aims at the masked man's temple. With his left leg standing by itself, the masked man kicks it, tripping and flipping Ace into the air on a short freefall. Ace swiftly traverses himself in the air to land on his right leg. His left leg stands in the air with his left heel aiming where his right foot had aimed just before. The opponent puts his arms into a defensive boxing position, ready to block the hit, as Ace expects him to. This time Ace puts a lot more force into the kick, and once it lands, it forces the masked man off balance, forcing him to the ground. Ace is somewhat surprised that it did the damage it did.

Denarrow- 'If he was stronger he wouldn't have fallen so easily.'

The masked man looks at Ace, who's standing over him. Ace pauses, getting a good look at his opponent. Suddenly a black van enters the scene, drifting around the corner and entering the alleyway. It gains both of their attention as it drives right at them. Both the passenger and driver shoot their small suppressed automatic firearms out their windows at Ace. As he's distracted, blocking the bullets with his mere body, the mysterious man takes the opportunity to swiftly maneuver himself out of the way. Just as Ace is about to get out of the way, knowing the truck is heading towards him at full acceleration, his kneecap is shot off, disabling his ability to get out of the way. The van hits him and completely rams him far out of the alleyway and into the middle of the empty road. The van then takes a right out of the alley and speeds away, with the mysterious man hanging onto the side of the vehicle.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Ace lies on the ground still in limp. The only person around is Nami. When she saw Ace's body fly out onto the street, she was scared and immediately took cover, fortunately avoiding the sight of her attacker. She pokes her head out to see Ace lying in the middle of the empty street. She makes sure her surroundings are completely safe before attempting to even stand up. After a few moments of simply still being alive, she moves towards Ace, thinking of the worst to come.

As Nami arrives closer to Ace, his body is still facing the floor, and his arms flail. She looks over his body, at his face, to see his eyes are still open. Darkness dissipates from his eyes, slowly turning back to their normal color; she doesn't see this. Nami looks away and is about to cry upon seeing her second dead body of the day. She approaches Ace, still looking away, and touches his face to close his eyes. Upon closing them, she feels them opening back up and attempts to close them again, convincing herself she did it wrong the first time.

Denarrow- "What the fuck are you doing?"

Nami- "Ahh!"

Her eyes widen in shock, and her body shivers from the jumpscare. Her heart almost flies out of her chest. She then looks down and sees Ace moving and blinking his eyes.

Nami- "You're alive?"

Denarrow- "Yeah, I'm alive. I'm just trying to rest right now."

Nami looks at him, perplexed. His body looks as if every bone is broken and lost the ability to physically function forever. Yet his voice is calm. Pain does not exist on his face or in his voice but only in his obvious body language.

Nami- "You're alive right. You're not going to die?"

Ace responds in irritation.

Denarrow- "Yes. I'm fu… I'm alive and I'm not dying."

Nami falls to the floor, happy and in tears.

Denarrow- 'Why is she so happy to see me alive, she doesn't even know me.'

Ace then gets up like he never got hurt. Nami stops crying and looks in awe at him, who doesn't struggle in the slightest to get up. She stands up and observes him.

Denarrow- "Are you ok?"

Nami- "Are you okay? You were just… You…"

She lost the words to continue.

Denarrow- "I'm fine. But I don't know about you though, that’s why I asked.”

He sits up and begins to pick out the bullets in his arms. Luckily, he was able to block all of them with his bare arms, otherwise his clothes would have a couple holes through them. Though there is one hole placed at the kneecap, a hole he's minorly irritated about. He didn't like having to pick bullets out of his torso. There are too many organs that need to be gone through, which he knows would be bothersome to repair. Ace does this action right in front of her and she's mildly engrossed and awfully confused by it.

Ace, with not a care in the world, continues to take the bullets from within himself and into his pocket. After taking them all out, he takes all of them at once and throws them into the sewer drain. From his arms, he doesn't bleed. Rather the holes that the bullets created are close to being completely healed. Nami simply stares at his doing, not knowing whether to be happy, cry, throw-up, or ask a series of questions in ambiguous order.

Denarrow- "Finished."

His sudden comment is a wake-up call for Nami.

Nami- "I just saw you get slammed by a truck and die. And and you… You just took bullets out of yo arm. What the fuck!? Who da fuck are you!?"

Denarrow- "Ahh, I should've turned away from you while doing all that. My mistake. I knew you were there too, I'm just a little distracted right now."

He scratches his head, knowing it was his mistake.

Nami "You're not normal."

Denarrow- "Clearly."

Nami- "The man from before, the one who shot at us."

Denarrow- "What about him?"

Nami- "Did you fight him? You catch him? Is he still around?"

Denarrow- "I fought him, he's not too good hand-to-hand. But he got away when the getaway driver came. Let's go though, what if mum came back to the car and is now looking for us."

Nami- "Wait, you said you're distracted. Are you okay, did you hit your head, can you see your head. Wait what the fuck, you just healed yourself. What Paradise Fruit is that?"

Denarrow- "Just forget what you saw and call it a day."

He says it in such a casual tone and delivery that Nami almost breaks down in mental discombobulation.

Denarrow- "And I'm distracted…."

She recollects herself to focus on what he's about to say.

Denarrow- "...because that felt nice." 'Why did I end it so early?'

He couldn't help but smile. On the other hand, Nami is profoundly confused.

Nami- 'Is he a masochist to pain?' "What felt nice?"

Denarrow- "The fight. I wanted some more of it."

Before Nami can say another word, she realizes her phone is vibrating in her pocket. She takes it out and sees Brooklyn has been trying to call her for the past few minutes.

Denarrow- "Oh, can you not tell mum what happened? It will just be more of a hassle to deal with right now."

Nami- "Uhh… Umm… Who's "mum'?"

[13:10]

In the car, Brooklyn drives while Ace sits in the passenger and Nami in the backseat. Ace lays his head against the window, half asleep. While Nami sits thinking too loudly. It's clear to anybody except the two in the front seat that something is clearly on her mind. Brooklyn, on the other hand, drives ignorantly, not knowing a single thing that happened in Ace's and Nami's little side adventure. Hardly her fault, as the only thing that has visibly changed about Ace is that his white sweatpants are now dirtied.

Suddenly, Nami's face enlightened to the point that a lightbulb almost appeared on top of her head.

Nami- "Can I live with you guys?"

Denarrow- 'No.'

Brooklyn- "No."