Work Text:
Chapter 1:loop 142.
The sensation of cold steel tearing through your chest vanished in a blinding flash of white static.
You sat up with a violent gasp, your hands flying to your ribs.
No blood. Your Pixel Corp uniform was perfectly dry and clean. Yet, your lungs burned with the ghost of a fatal wound, and your heart hammered frantically against your chest. (phantom pain bruuuuh)
“Loop 142.” You said. Your voice raspy and hoarse. You were losing your mind.
"Hey. Are you okay? you're hyperventilating again."
You looked up. Isagi Yoichi stood over your bunk bed, a digital clipboard in his gloved hands. His gentle blue eyes scanned your pale face with genuine concern. His features softly lit up by the glow of the digital clipboard he held.
As your squad's lead strategist, Isagi was brilliant. but he couldn't see the timeline that had just been violently erased five seconds ago. To him, the day was just beginning.
"Sorry" you choked out, wiping cold sweat from your forehead. "Just a nightmare." You look down at your hands. Not too long ago they were just bruised and bloody. sore.
"Your vitals are trending dangerously low" Isagi sighed, tapping his screen. "But Bastard Industries just dropped a Time Anchor in the lower district. Their apex weapon is leading the vanguard. We need you to intercept him."
Isagi swiped his screen, bringing up a holographic profile of a boy with sharp, teal eyes and heavy lower eyelashes.
Itoshi Rin.
Three minutes ago, in a timeline that no longer existed, Rin had pinned you to the pavement and driven a tactical knife into your lungs. Because your company's automated mainframe panics when top assets die your flatline had triggered the global rewind. Rin had killed you, forcing the universe to reset. And you were the only one who remembered.
"Understood," you whispered, pushing through the phantom ache in your bones. "I'll handle him." you said, the words leaving a bitter taste in your mouth
Isagi nods and steps out the room. His footsteps are away.
You sit up and step out of your bed, your mind still hazy, eyes still closed. Thud. a sharp pain soars through your shoulder “ouch..” you say as you let out a pathetic groan. You fell. Sheets and all, what a painful way to restart the day.
you had somehow completely forgotten that you were sleeping in a bunk bed. You sigh still not making an effort to get up. From the bottom bunk right next to you, a head of messy black hair with yellow under layers popped out from beneath a pile of messy sheets. Bachira Meguru blinked up at you from his pillow, his eyes half closed and completely glazed over with sleep.
"Did you... fall off the unicorn you were just riding?" Bachira mumbled, his voice thick and sluggish, his mind clearly still trapped in whatever bizarre dream he had been having.
You let out a low grumble, untangling your legs from the sheets and rubbing your sore shoulder. "No Bachira. I just fell off the bunk. That’s all."
Bachira blinked a few times, the gears in his head finally turning as he fully woke up. A wide, playful grin stretched across his face, and he let out a bright chuckle. "HAHAHAHA- You look like you've just fallen off the eighteenth floor of an office building!"
You pushed yourself up to a sitting position, glaring at him with exhaustion rolling off you in waves. "Yeah, sure. You're one to talk." You gestured vaguely to his chaotic nest of blankets, his limbs splayed out at an impossible angle.
Bachira gasped dramatically, pulling his blanket up to his chin as he grinned from his mattress. "Whaaat? I'm comfy!"he says as you finally get up and stumble towards the door sleepily
“bye megu, i'll see ya later” you say.
Your heart aching knowing you've experienced this exact moment play out plenty of times before “see ya around, good luck on your mission!” he says. He wasn't even awake when isagi walked in and told you your assigned mission. He has great hearing when sleeping. Again, you weren't surprised. You knew this already.
You head towards your assigned locker room, tapping your keycard across the brightly lit screen before a device above the door scans your face. A bright green checkmark appears on the screen before the door swiftly slides open.
You felt absolutely sick. You were done with all this. You just wanna live a normal life but you knew that would never be possible now that you've been permanently contracted and sold to this sick twisted company called Pixel Corps.
You slide on your matte black boots, its bottoms encased in metal that was made to absorb any impact you took when falling or jumping from high heights. You adjust your belt and click on the guns that were given out by your boss and then the swords that were displayed in the cases in front of you.
The handles of the swords had your name engraved on them, the blade shiny and sharp unlike how worn out it was moments ago. You sit down and put on your metal knee pads adjusting the straps so they aren't loose.
You slide on your holographic vest that has your corporate logo on it with your name spelled out in bold letters on the back. You click on your tracking collar and you put in your earbud.
Lastly you place on your high quality black sleek fitting gloves. The palms are lined with a micro magnetized weave. When you grip your blade or firearm, it locks perfectly into your hand.
You were ready.
————————————————————————————————————————————————
An hour later, freezing rain hammered the asphalt of a deserted, neon-lit alleyway.
The clash of titanium blades echoed off the brick walls. You swung your wasted worn out weapon, the shock of the impact vibrating violently up your battered and bloody arms as Rin blocked the strike effortlessly. His teal eyes were wide, manic, and completely suffocating. He wasn't holding back. His hyper-competitive drive made him a monster on the battlefield. His fighting style seemed desperate and feral.
"Is that all you've got?!" Rin snarled harshly as he wiped the fresh blood from his nose, getting it even more smeared, his voice cutting through the downpour as he drove his heel into your stomach, sending you crashing hard against a metal wall.
"You're lukewarm. A complete waste of my time.” Your breathing slowed down but your heart continued pounding against your chest with such intensity. You felt like as if everything zoomed out
He lunged again, his blade aiming directly for your throat. You didn't want to die again. Your body instinctively reacted, dodging the strike and throwing a smoke canister at his feet. Taking advantage of the sudden blindness, you threw your weight against a rusted, padlocked door, tumbling down a flight of concrete stairs into the pitch black darkness of an abandoned subway boiler room.
BEEP.
The red tracking lights on your collar blinked once and died. The static hum of Pixel Corp's surveillance feed in your earpiece faded into absolute silence.
Signal lost Dead Zone entered.
You collapsed against the damp concrete wall, gasping for air in the dark, clutching your bruised ribs. You thought you were safe.
You tried to get your mind off the unbearable pain by focusing on something else. 1, 2, 3. You counted the drops of water that fell from the damp concrete roof onto your discarded blade.
Then, the heavy metal door above clicked.
Footsteps descended the stairs slow, deliberate, and heavy. The silhouette of Itoshi Rin cut through the darkness. He stepped into the room, his red tracking lights also dead. The battlefield malice was gone, replaced by a cold, unsettling feeling.
He didn't attack. Instead he marched straight toward you looming over your slumped form. Before you could use your last resort aka your gun, his hand shot out, his gloved fingers clamping firmly around your jaw, forcing you to look up into his piercing teal eyes. His grip was tight enough to bruise, his hand trembling slightly.
"You changed your stance at the end" Rin whispered, his voice dangerously low, raspy, and stripped of his usual shouting "In the last loop you dodged left. This time, you went right."
Your breath hitched. You stared at him, your heart stopping for a completely different reason. "You... you remember?"
Rin’s eyes narrowed, a dark, fractured look crossing his face. He leaned in closer, his breath hot against your face, trapping you completely against the concrete wall. He didn't look at you with love.. he looked at you with a desperate, terrifying intensity.
"I remember every single time I've cut you down. I remember the smell of your blood. And I remember waking up in my bed with my hands shaking," Rin said, his face unreadable but a palpable exhaustion in his eyes, his fingers tightening on your jaw, his grip becoming painful. You wince.
"My company thinks I'm a perfect weapon. Your company thinks you're a loyal soldier. But you and I are the only ones trapped in this hell, fuck–im so done with all this”
He let go of your jaw roughly, stepping back into the shadows of the Dead Zone, though his eyes never left yours.
"Don't flatter yourself. I still want to crush you," Rin muttered, his voice shaking with the weight of a hundred lifetimes of trauma. "But you're the only thing in this distorted world that stays real. So don't you dare die permanently. If the loop breaks, I want to be the one who ends you."
Your body instinctively gets back up on itself. You were running on pure adrenaline. You get into a fighting stance “This isn't over yet.” you manage to say weakly. You NEED to fight. You were exhausted but this was for the sake of the company.
you step forward, each step carrying pain. A wound near your rib bleeds vigorously, the blood seeping through your already soaked vest. You manage to throw a punch with the little strength you had left in your exhausted body. The swing was supposed to hit his jaw. Your vision blurry and your breathing becoming slower by the second.
Rin dodges your weak attempt and grips your forearm whilst he places a hand on your waist before hoisting you up onto his shoulder with terrifying strength. You weakly protest “rin–no wait..let go of me” you manage to say out of breath.
He remained quiet. He stopped right at the entrance which you previously slammed yourself against in an attempt to get away. He stayed quiet for a bit longer before roughly throwing you outside the Dead Zone. Your tracking collar beeped and its light came back. “Initiating Time reset protocol." you heard in your right ear as your Pixel Corp earbud buzzed back to life.
Your vision was obscured by the blood that was pouring from a gaping head wound and flowing directly into your eyes. You couldn't really see Rin's reaction but from what you could make out before your vision got obscured. He stepped outside of the Dead Zone. with a very subtle frantic energy as he stared down at you with slight disgust.
Maybe he was disgusted by his forced actions or maybe at the fact that you were completely brainwashed by your company.
Chapter 2: loop 143.
You sat up in a cold sweat, your fingers instantly gripping your sheets.
"I need to talk to him.” you mumble to yourself. You weren't hyperventilating this time though. That was different, odd. Your heart was pounding fast though.
You sit up and this time you don't fall off the bunk. You climb down and run towards the door as it opens. Each step carried a newfound goal. Talk to Rin Itoshi.
You almost collide with isagi who was holding his virtual clip board.
“Shit” you hiss out before looking up, you smile sheepishly at him."Where are you off to in such a hurry?” he asked, confusion palpable in his features.”oh uhm–i just needed to use the bathroom.” you lie.
As usual he gives you the details on your assigned mission. Bachira wakes up and says his usual “See ya around! Bye bye and good luck!”
You run down the hall and hurriedly tap your card against the lit up screen. The machine then scans your face as usual and as soon as that door slid open you run inside. You get everything on.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
You pull out your blade as you get into a fighting stance as always except this time you had a new goal set in mind. Rain begins to pour heavily down on you soaking your holographic vest. You look around for once. You always somehow ended up in this abandoned hallway. A neon sign flickering above you, its light illuminating the right side of your face.
You hear heavy footsteps and the clanking of metal approaching. The sound mixing in with the sound of the heavy downpour. A tall figure stands in the middle of the hallway, Rin lunged towards you, his blade grazing your cheek as you dodge. He cut deep enough for it to bleed for a bit. You grip his vest as he turns around about to swoop you off your feet, a few strands of hair sticking to his face due to the rain.
(You try to use his pick up tactic but he’s too heavy) you grip his wrist and waist but instead of picking him up you push your weight onto him in the direction of the dead zone. The metal door slides open and both of you guys tumble down the cold hard metal stairs meeting the cold concrete hard floor. His head met the ground with a hard yet dull thud making him wince.
He tries to scramble up but you manage to pin him down with your weight. Your hands gripping his wrists and pushing his hands into the cold damp concrete. Not with an intent to hurt him but more with an intent to make him comply and listen.
BEEP!.
The sound of your collars beeping in unison signified that you guys weren't being tracked anymore
Your breathing was ragged. The rain from your soaked uniform dripped onto his face. “Get off me bastard!” he hisses as he tries to knock you off him but you were trained for this.Your grip tightens painfully. He tries twisting his wrists and kicking his legs but fails “Are you deaf?! I told you get off me I swear I'll destroy you!”
"No" you breathed out, your voice steady despite the adrenaline shaking your frame. You leaned down closer, forcing him to look at you. In the pitch black, the sharp teal of his eyes was the only thing you could see.
"Look at me, Rin. Look at your eyes."
"Shut up" he snarled, a violent jerk of his shoulders proving how desperate he was to break the contact. "I don't have time for your lukewarm psychological games. Get out of my way so we can get this over with." irritation and desperation evident in his voice.
“I know you're exhausted too! I saw it in your eyes yesterday. I know how you feel, trust me when I say this!” you say. The adrenaline coursing through your veins helps you pin him down firmly.
“For heaven's sake you aint got a clue about me! Now get off before I slit your throat open!” he says desperately. His eyes filled with panic.
The slight remnants of blood from the earlier graze of his blade roll down ur nose and slightly dilute with the water from the rain before dripping onto his chin
“I know how tired you are, I know you wanna stop fighting and I know you also wake up with trembling hands! I know because I've gone through that too.” you say with a trembling voice.
“But we can figure out a way to stop this. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it!” you say, speaking up once more in hopes of him listening. Your voice hoarse and hands trembling but maintaining their steady grip on his wrists.
“Youre a complete idiot..” Rin mumbled several octaves lower. “We cant just stop fighting cause we want to, if we just quit now then they'd find out and completely memory swipe us. None of this is ending until one of us dies. I'm not abandoning my mission because of stupid emotions, I need to prove myself to be useful for once to my brother Sae”.
“Rin! Listen to me, do you need to prove yourself to Sae? Is that what you truly desire from the depths of your heart?!” you ask desperately.
The question hangs in the air. It rips right through his chest like a knife.
The only sound being heard is the heavy downpour outside and the buzzing of a flickering neon sign that seems like it's desperately flickering to stay alive.
“Why does it matter?! We don't even know each other! Do you expect me to just give in because of feelings? Feelings are useless! They don't matter, you're just naive–naive and stupid.” Rin says, finally cutting through the heavy, pregnant silence.
Your grip loosens in shock. His words went straight to your heart.
Rin took this as an advantage, he scrambled from beneath you and tried to pull out his pocket knife from his pocket since his actual sword had been left in the hallway discarded.
The words echo in your head “Naive and stupid,” it wasn't true, it couldn't be true. You're just stating the truth, laying it out for him simply as it is.
His fingers fumbled as he tried to reach for his pocket knife."I ain't naive and stupid. If anything you're the naive and ignorant one,” you say, voice laced with irritation and hurt feelings.
You get up and get into a fighting stance. “You can't do stuff solely for others' satisfaction. You have to do stuff for yourself too, but since you still wanna fight then let's fight. I'm not begging you anymore.”
You prayed the reverse psychology would catch his pride.
It worked. Rin completely abandoned the knife in his pocket and hauled himself up, raising his fists into a matching fighting stance.
Rin completely abandons the knife in his pocket and gets in a fighting stance, “great. bring it on”
he says, a flicker of confusion and sadness crosses his features briefly before he ducks, avoiding one of your kicks that was clearly aimed towards his face.
You don't wanna actually kill him nor hurt him.
You run past him and dash up the stairs. The metal bottoms of your leather boots clank against the metal staircase.
You exit the Dead Zone causing the time loop mechanism to come back into effect.
Your collar's light glows a vivid red color signifying its return in the tracking system. You run past the hallway you guys always ended up in throughout every timeline and you wedge yourself in a small nook in between two buildings.
You pull your gun out from your belt and you hear his rushed footsteps coming towards your hiding area. The plan was cruel and simple but it was the only way to restart this timeline without fully killing him.
As he runs past your hiding spot you aim your gun and shoot him right in his chest with precision. Rin let out a choked, half-groan as his knees instantly buckled beneath him. He collapsed heavily onto the wet ground.
You stepped out from the shadows of the nook, your chest heaving. Your heart screamed at you to drag his body back inside the Dead Zone, to patch up his wounds, and to force him into a deep conversation. But the monitors were already reading his flatline.
He coughs up dark blood and looks up at you, Pain and distress palpable in his wide teal eyes.
You crouch down and look at him in the eyes before saying “this is what you wanted didn't you? In the next loop let's talk, fully talk.” you say.
his breathing growing noticeably labored, blood seeping through his vest and dripping eagerly onto a puddle that was next to him turning the water fully crimson
You gave him what he wanted didn't you? He wanted to fight so you did. You briefly brushed the wet strands of hair out of his eyes so he can fully see you as he bled out.
An action that proved your whole hearted intentions.
Chapter 3: loop 144
Rin woke up choking, his fingers frantically grasping the fabric of his uniform shirt.
Beneath his bunk a scoff was heard,
”tch–could you be any louder, you monkey.” Barou says as he sits up with a scowl on his face.
“m'sorry.” Rin says which was rare since he never tends to apologize.
His voice filled with emptiness and a hollow look in his teal eyes.
Barou caught onto his personality difference and felt a sharp ping of confusion since Rin would've usually snapped back at him calling him a weirdo
“What's wrong with you? Did you have a dream about missing a target during target practice or somethin? Its not like I could care anyways if you had a bad dream.” Barou says as he starts to tend his own bed with the same precision he used during target training.
Rin didn't answer Barou. He just kept his hand pressed firmly against his chest, right where your bullet had pierced his vest. There was no hole, no blood, and no wound but his skin still throbbed with the phantom warmth of your attack.
“In the next loop... let's talk. Fully talk.”
Your final words echoed relentlessly in his head. You had outsmarted him. You had used his own aggressive pride against him, lured him into a false sense of security, and then pulled the trigger to force the universal reset on your terms.
For the first time in 144 loops, you weren't the one reacting to his moves. You were the one directing the game.
He let out a low, frustrated breath, swinging his legs over the edge of the top bunk.
He felt utterly useless.
"Hey. I'm talking to you, monkey," Barou growled from below, folding his blanket into a perfectly sharp and calculated fold. "If you're going to be dead weight during training today then i'd just prefer if you'd stay outta my way.”
"Shut up maid" Rin muttered, his usual sharp edge finally returning to his voice, though it lacked its normal venom.
Rin touched his forehead which was previously wet due to the rain, he felt the warmth from your touch lingering, He scowled.
His chest ached, Was proving himself to Sae and the others really what he wanted? Or was it what he thought he wanted.
Before Barou could retaliate with an irritated come back Sae walks in, the metal door hissing as it slides open.
“Rin.” he said, his voice dropping into a cold, commanding register. “You have an important mission to carry out today. The head of Bastard Industries personally requested that you be the one to fulfill it.” Sae says.
“Yes brother.” Rin says on instinct, disgusted at how easily he submits to his brother's commands.
"Dont disappoint me.” Sae says coldly before retreating.
————————————————————————————————————————————————
The heavy metallic clanking of Rin's combat boots echoed through the downpour as he marched toward the alleyway where you guys always fought. Underneath his thick tactical vest, his heart was a chaotic mess, a sharp contrast to his cold, expressionless face. Your words from the previous loop were a relentless, agonizing loop of their own. spinning inside his mind with every step he took.
“Rin! Listen to me, do you need to prove yourself to Sae? Is that what you truly desire from the depths of your heart?!”
He gripped the handle of his sword, his knuckles turning white under his dark gloves. Part of him, the hurt little boy on the inside who always strived on his brother's validation screamed at him to ignore you and your stupid plea, You were the enemy. You were just a bolder in his path. He knew your fighting style like the back of his hand. He knew he could effortlessly overpower you, break your stance, and drive his blade straight through your chest to satisfy the monitors back at headquarters. It would be easy. It would be safe. simple
But then he remembered the heat of your blood diluting with the rain on his face. He remembered the fierce very evident desperation in your eyes right before you shot him. You hadn't been trying to win a corporate war. You had been trying to save his sanity alongside yours.
Rin halted in the middle of the alleyway. Through the thick curtain of rain and fog, your silhouette materialized beneath the flickering neon sign.
Bzzt.
Bzzt.
You didn't look sick or exhausted this time. You stood tall, your matte black heavy yet light weight somehow, boots firmly planted on the wet asphalt, your blade held tightly in your magnetized gloves. Your gaze locked onto his steady, waiting, and full of a quiet promise.
“In the next loop..let's talk, fully talk.”
A dark, conflicted scowl twisted Rin's features. His red tracking collar began to pulse a violent, aggressive crimson, signaling the corporate mainframes that the target was in sight.
"Don't flatter yourself" Rin muttered under his breath, his voice cutting harshly through the thunder.
He drew his titanium blade with a sharp, echoing schwing. He had made his decision. He was going to fight you with everything he had, not to destroy you, but to test if your resolve was strong enough to actually break this hell.
With an explosive burst of speed, Rin lunged forward, his blade swishing through the air moving like water. (giyuu lowk)
The clashes of titanium filling the emptiness of the cold alleyway. (or uhm hallway idk what to call it)
"Is this really what you want?!" you shouted over the thunder parrying a vicious downward slash, counterattacking all of his attacks perfectly. "Living as a puppet for Bastard industries?!"
"Shut up!" Rin snarled aggressively, his teal eyes wild and suffocatingly close as he raised his blade once more aiming to strike your head "You don't know a damn thing about me! If I don't win, I'm nothing!".
You raise your blade in defense, successfully blocking his attack though it was dangerously close to your face.
With a brutal surge of strength, Rin slammed his weight into you, successfully overpowering your guard and shoving your body hard against the brick wall. “Ugh-” you groaned on instinct.
The impact knocked the wind from your lungs.Your vision growing slightly hazy. Before you could even gasp for air, he brought his sword back, about to drive the titanium blade straight through your chest to trigger the mainframe's reset.
But you anticipated it.
The exact millisecond his blade thrust forward, you ducked. The cold steel scraped against the brick behind you, sparking in the dark. Taking advantage of his overextended momentum you dropped low and swept your leg out, knocking his ankles out from under him. As his balance shattered, you swung the hilt of your weapon forward, striking the heavy, metal bottom of your sword cleanly against the back of his head.
The dull thud dazed him instantly. Rin winced, his vision dimming as his knees buckled.
Before he could hit the wet asphalt, you dropped your blade, wrapped your arm securely around his throat, and locked him into a brutal chokehold under the pouring rain.
Rin violently thrashed in your grip, his gloved hands clawing desperately at your arm to break the hold. You could hear his struggled, ragged breaths cutting through the downpour, but you ignored his resistance, tightening your leverage. You squeezed just enough to restrict his oxygen, waiting out his frantic movements until his limbs finally grew heavy and his eyes glazed over.
Right as he was on the absolute verge of passing out, you released him.
His body went slack, completely hazy and disoriented from the lack of air. Working quickly, you grabbed the collar of his vest and dragged his heavy frame out of the alleyway ”gosh you're absolutely HEAVY” you groan, hauling him straight through the sliding metal door and down into the pithc black silence of the boiler room.
(idk if i mentioned that the "Dead Zone” was a boiler room. Im on day 4 of writing,)
BEEP.
The corporate surveillance feeds are instantly cut out. The tracking lights died.
You collapsed onto your knees,beside his slumped form, completely ignoring the pain that's throbbing eagerly in your right arm. Your own breathing ragged. You didn't waste a single second. Reaching into the hidden compartments of your tactical harness, you pulled out the stolen medical supplies you had snuck through earlier this morning.
In the dark, you cracked open a chemical light stick, casting a soft, eerie glow across the boiler room. Rin lay against the concrete, his chest heaving violently as he tried to regain his bearings. The moment you leaned in with an antiseptic wipe to clean the deep cuts on his face, he violently bared his teeth, snarling at you like a terrified, feral dog cornered in a cage.
You let out a quiet, unimpressed scoff refusing to flinch away from his glare "Stop snapping at me. I'm trying to patch you up " you say as you continue to wipe hid wounds.
"I don't need your pity" he hissed, his raspy voice trembling with a mixture of raw fury and exhaustion, his words slurred. you pressed a medical patch over a bleeding gash on his cheek. "You should have just left me out there. You should have finished it."
You finished securing the bandage, then slowly stood up and stepped back, looking down at him.
"Is this really how you truly want to live Rin?" you asked softly, the quiet of the Dead Zone making your voice echo against the old pipes "Do you honestly want to spend eternity fighting in continuous loops? Dying over and over just to prove something to a brother who views you as a broken 'lukewarm’ weapon?"
Rin went completely quiet. The venomous snarl died on his lips, replaced by a hollow, heavy silence that stretched between you. He didn't yell. He didn't threaten to destroy you. He just sat there in the dim light, looking smaller than he ever had on the battlefield.
You let out a tired sigh and slowly slid down the concrete wall opposite him, pulling your knees to your chest.
"Good." you murmured, staring at him through the shadows "Now sit down. We're finally going to talk."
Rin stared at you from across the dim, chemical glow of the light stick. The silence stretched between you, heavy and pregnant, before you finally broke it.
"Listen to me, Rin," you said, leaning forward slightly as you rested your arms on your knees. "We can't just stop. If we magically tie or go offline for too long, our companies will scrub our mainframes. We have to play their game, but we do it on our terms."
Rin's teal eyes narrowed, his chest still rising and falling in shallow, exhausted breaths. "What are you talking about?" he said.
"We fight." you explained, your voice sharp with determination. "We have to fight at least three more times to keep them from getting suspicious. But from now on, we don't fight to kill. We turn our battles into a game of cat and mouse. To Pixel Corp and Bastard Industries, it will just look like we're relentlessly chasing each other across the abandoned area, trying to get the upper hand."
A faint spark of interest flickered in Rin's gaze, his tactical brain instinctively analyzing your words.
"And while we're 'chasing' each other" you continued "we talk. We use those high speed pursuits to scout the lower districts and search for other Dead Zones. We map out every blind spot in the city until we find a permanent glitch, a place where the corporate tracking grid can never reach us again."
Rin went rigid, his fingers twitching against the concrete floor. "And once we find it? What then? The second we step inside a permanent blind spot, they'll launch a full scale search sweep."
"That's why we need a distraction" you whispered, the gravity of your plan making your heart beat faster "Once we find the sanctuary, we stage one final, huge event. We stage a battle so brutal, so lethal and dangerous, that both of us are brought to the absolute verge of dying at the exact same millisecond."
Rin's breath hitched. He instantly understood the terrifying genius of your strategy.
"If both our vitals drop to zero simultaneously, both Pixel Corp and Bastard Industries will panic" you said, looking directly into his wide eyes. "The automated time loop mechanisms from both corporations will parry each other. The mainframes will lock up, trying to decide which company gets to trigger the reset first. While the system glitches, backup squads from both teams will be deployed to the field to secure our bodies"
You took a deep, shaky breath, laying the final piece of the paradox out for him.
"In that exact moment of absolute chaos while Isagi's squad and Sae's forces are actively dropping onto the battlefield, the system will freeze. We use that split second glitch to turn off our collars, vanish into the shadows, and slip into the permanent dead zone forever. They'll think we died in the crossfire. The loop will break, and we'll finally be free."
Rin sat in absolute, stunned silence. The sheer scale of the gamble was terrifying, but for the first time in 144 lifetimes, a microscopic, genuine smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. Though a hesitant look in his eyes remained.
"You really are a complete idiot" Rin murmured, his voice low and raspy, but the feral, defensive wall he had built around himself had completely crumbled. He leaned his head back against the concrete wall, a long, tired exhale escaping his chest. "A total, reckless lunatic"
He turned his teal eyes back to yours, the hollow exhaustion finally replacing itself with complete sureness.
"Fine. Three more loops of cat and mouse" Rin whispered, extending a gloved hand toward you in the dim light, his sharp features illuminated. "Don't lag behind me out there, parasite. Let's finally break out of this loop hole."
Chapter 4: Loop 145.
An hour later, the freezing rain was hammering against the asphalt of a deserted, neon lit alleyway
The clash of your titanium blades echoed off the brick walls, sharp and deafening. But underneath the violent clanging of your weapons, your voices were low and hurried, perfectly masked by the sound of the storm. You were executing the first phase of the cat and mouse strategy. Aka, chase and be on the lookout for Dead Zones.
"Are we agreed?" you breathed out, parrying a quick slash from his sword. "You take the win this round. Make it look convincing for the monitors."
Rin’s teal eyes narrowed through the dark, his breath hitching as he blocked your counter strike. "I don't need you to give me handouts, parasite. Just run when I tell you to."
"Now!" you hissed, deliberately throwing a weak strike before turning on your heel. Your heavy matte black boots splashed violently through the puddles as you bolted down the alleyway, sprinting into the deep shadows of the lower district.
Behind you, the heavy, metallic clanking of Rin's gear pursued you instantly. To the high command monitors back at Pixel Corp and Bastard Industries, it looked like a relentless, high stakes game of cat and mouse, the apex weapon aggressively hunting down a retreating target. You turned a sharp corner, your eyes scanning the dark brick walls for any hidden entrances or potential Dead Zones.
"Keep moving!" Rin shouted from behind, his voice cutting harshly through the downpour to maintain the facade for his tracking collar.
You sprinted faster, your heart hammering against your ribs. But the asphalt was slick with oil and rain. As you attempted to leap over a pile of discarded iron crates, your foot caught a jagged piece of loose concrete.
Your balance shattered completely. You tripped, your body violently tumbling forward onto the hard, wet ground.”shit-” you hiss, the breath was knocked entirely from your lungs, your sword clattering away across the pavement.
Rin rounded the corner at full speed, his boots skidding into a sudden halt. Seeing you slumped helplessly in the mud, his posture instantly went rigid. A sharp, involuntary wince crossed his features, the unhinged battlefield mask fracturing for a fraction of a second as he looked down at your vulnerable form.
He didn't want to do this. He hated the reality of it. But your red tracking collar was violently flaring a vivid, aggressive crimson. The system was watching.
Biting back a desperate apology that threatened to rip from his throat, Rin's jaw clenched until it ached. His hand shot down to his tactical belt, his gloved fingers trembling slightly as he pulled out his firearm. He closed the distance with heavy, urgent strides, looming over you in the downpour.
He didn't let himself hesitate. He couldn't.
Rin raised the weapon, pointing the barrel point blank at your head.
BANG.
A sharp, strangled groan escaped your throat as the bullet struck, the sudden blunt force violently tearing through your consciousness. Your vision instantly blurred into a heavy, suffocating darkness, and your body collapsed entirely slack onto the freezing floor.
As the Pixel Corp earbud in your right ear crackled to life with the cold, mechanical voice initiating the time reset protocol, the last thing you felt was the heavy splash of rain, and the lingering phantom image of Rin standing over you in the dark, his hands shaking as the universe began to tear itself apart all over again.
Loop 146.
The blinding white static vanished, and you hit the floor of the barracks with a sharp thud, your limbs tangled in your sheets. You ignored Bachira’s sleepy comment about unicorns and Isagi’s routine briefing entirely. Your focus was sharp. Last round, Rin had to pull the trigger. This round, it was your turn to hunt.
An hour later, the freezing rain hammered against the asphalt of the deserted district.
This time, the cat and mouse game flipped. You utilized the lightweight, flexible armor of your holographic vest and your high speed scout training to stay light on your feet. You were incredibly agile, sprinting across the wet rooftops and diving down fire escapes, keeping a tight, aggressive pace right on Rin’s heels.
To the corporate monitors, you were a relentless predator closing in on your prey.
Rin vaulted over a rusted chain link fence, his heavy combat boots splashing hard into a deep puddle. As he sprinted down a narrow, shadowy alleyway, his tracking collar suddenly went dark. He had stumbled right into a new Dead Zone, and this one extended much further than the cramped subway boiler room. It stretched across an entire abandoned shipping courtyard.
Instead of stopping to wait for you, Rin kept his legs moving. He stepped right out of the other side of the boundary, his tracking lights flaring back to life, continuing his desperate run to keep the corporate feeds believable.
You hot on his trail, your metal knee pads scraping against the metal fence as you leaped over it without breaking your stride.
Sensing you closing the distance, Rin executed a sudden, tactical dive. He rolled across the wet asphalt, using his massive upper body strength to wedge his frame beneath a row of discarded industrial barrels, completely vanishing into the shadows.
You rounded the corner at full speed, your eyes scanning the empty alleyway. Your boots sloshed through the puddles as you ran right past his hiding spot.
The moment your back was turned, Rin crawled out from beneath the barrels, his boots scraping against the concrete.
Your instincts flared. Acting on raw reflexes, your magnetized glove slid down to your utility belt. With a fluid, blindingly fast spin, you whipped one of your tactical knives straight toward his silhouette.
SHING.
The titanium blade sliced clean through the downpour, grazing the edge of his ear before embedding itself deeply into the brick wall behind him. A thin line of crimson blood immediately welled up, mixing with the rainwater sliding down his jaw.
Rin didn't flinch. Instead, a dark, competitive spark ignited in his teal eyes. He whirled around to "face you" raising his fists as his tracking collar violently blinked crimson.
You closed the distance instantly, dropping your weapons to meet him on his terms. Your knuckles collided with his guard, initiating a fast, brutal hand to hand fist fight under the blinding neon lights. To the monitors back at Bastard Industries and Pixel Corp, it looked like a desperate, last minute fight.
But as your fists blurred in the rain, your voices were low, hurried, and intense.
"Nice throw" Rin hissed, blocking a sharp left hook from your magnetized glove, his raspy voice cutting through the thunder. "You almost took my head off.”
"You told me to make it look convincing" you breathed out, ducking under a heavy right cross and driving your elbow into his ribcage, keeping the movements fluid and fierce. "Did you find it? Did the new Dead Zone map out?"
"Yeah" Rin muttered, catching your wrist and throwing his weight into you to pin you against the damp brick wall, maintaining the illusion of a dominant hold for the surveillance feeds. His face was inches from yours, his hot breath mixing with the freezing air. "It's big. It cuts off the tracking feed for three entire blocks.”
He slightly loosened his hold on you. Using this advantage, you turned around and punched him straight in the nose. Seeing him disoriented you push him back to create space between you guys.
You were both completely blinded by raw adrenaline. Your movements were too fast, your breathing too heavy, and your minds too hyper focused on executing the perfect "cat and mouse" facade.
You were so deeply lost in the rhythm of the fist fight that neither of you realized you had completely stepped right out of the shadows of the safe zone. You had drifted past the boundary of the courtyard, crossing back over the threshold without a single warning.
Suddenly, a deafening explosion ripped through the air.
BOOM.
The violent shockwave shattered a nearby brick wall, sending a shower of burning debris and concrete shrapnel flying across the asphalt. The sheer force of the blast threw both of your bodies apart, knocking you hard onto the wet ground.
The fist fight stopped dead in its tracks.
The heavy, metallic clanking of boots and the unmistakable sound of automated firearms charging up echoed from both ends of the shipping courtyard. Your heart completely stopped. Through the rising thick smoke and pouring rain, tactical uniforms materialized from the shadows.
It was a full scale ambush. The white and neon gear of Pixel Corp slid into view from the northern alleys, while the heavy duty metal armor of Bastard Industries marched in from the south.
Your mind went completely blank. A suffocating wave of horror washed over you as you looked across the pavement at Rin. They found us. You both thought you had completely lost them. You thought you had hidden your tracks perfectly, but the corporate mainframes had outsmarted you.
Worse, you realized with sickening clarity what this meant, if the backup squads opened fire right here, both of you would die permanently, erased in the crossfire before you could ever reach the permanent glitch.
"Get down!" a familiar voice shouted through your static choked earbud. It was Isagi, his squad moving into high intensity firing formations.
Rin scrambled to his knees, his hands trembling violently as he reached for his discarded blade. But before he could even stand, his chest went entirely tight. His heart dropped into his stomach, freezing the blood in his veins.
Through a jagged, broken window of an abandoned office building overlooking the courtyard, a silhouette came into view.
Itoshi Sae stood perfectly still behind the shattered glass. He slowly raised a high caliber tactical rifle, his gloved fingers wrapping around the grip with casual, effortless precision. His sharp eyes were cold and completely flat, unbothered, and entirely devoid of any human emotion as he adjusted his aim.
He didn't look like a brother trying to save his family. He looked like an executioner ready to put down a broken asset.
Rin watched in absolute, paralyzed horror as Sae calmly pulled the trigger, aiming and shooting ruthlessly into the crowd of advancing Pixel Corp soldiers below without a single shred of hesitation. To Sae, this wasn't a rescue mission. It was a cleanup operation, and both you and Rin were caught right in his crosshairs.
The shipping courtyard violently erupted into a warzone. The neon blue plasma fire from Pixel Corp clashed against the heavy, explosive rounds of Bastard Industries, turning the freezing rain into blinding sheets of steam and smoke. The battlefield shifted rapidly, the frontlines drifting directly toward the center of the courtyard where you and Rin were exposed.
You didn't think. You acted on pure survival instinct.
You lunged forward, grabbing Rin’s heavy tactical arm. "Move!" you screamed over the deafening gunfire.
You dragged him toward a rusted, matte green metal storage shipping container that sat slightly open near the edge of the sector. As both of you sprinted for cover, a stray piece of twisted, jagged metal from a nearby explosion ripped through the air, digging deep into Rin's calf. He stumbled, a sharp gasp of agony escaping his lips, but your tight grip on his arm was the only thing keeping him stablized.
You pulled him inside the narrow, suffocatingly dark shipping container, slamming your weight against the heavy iron doors until they clicked shut, plunging you both into pitch black shadow.
The sound of the downpour hammering against the metal ceiling above was deafening. Rin’s knees buckled from the injury, and you instantly dropped to the floor with him. You crouched down low, wrapping your arms tightly around his torso and pulling his heavy, armored frame flush against your chest.
On pure instinct, he leaned back into your hold, letting out a raw, vulnerable groan of intense pain.
Before the sound could fully leave his throat, you shot your sleek, tight fitting glove up, covering his mouth firmly. Your palm pressed against his lips, damp with rainwater and sweat, cutting off his voice entirely. Your own heart was hammering so loudly against your ribs that it felt like it would break through your holographic vest.
"Shh" you breathed against his ear, your voice a microscopic whisper. "Stay still."
Then, a sound made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Your grip tightens and you pull him closer instinctively.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps were approaching your hiding spot, the metal boots splashing loudly through the deep puddles outside. In reality, the soldiers were just drifting closer to utilize the container as a tactical firing position but in the suffocating darkness of your hideout, you panicked. Your brain convinced you they were actively tracking your dead signals.
They were coming to find you. They were coming to end you.
You froze, squeezing Rin tighter against your chest as he remained paralyzed beneath your palm, his teal eyes wide and frantic in the dim shadows. You stayed absolutely still, not even daring to breathe.
The panic in your chest slowly hardened into a cold, terrifying clarity. The game of cat and mouse was officially broken. There was no more waiting for three loops. There was no more scouting. You had to trigger the final paradox right now, in this exact timeline, before a stray bullet wiped your consciousness for good.
But you couldn't do it out in the open where Sae or Isagi could see you colluding. You had to parry the time loops right here somewhere in the dark, hidden away from the world, where nobody could watch the enemy save the enemy.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
A sharp, violent electronic chirp shattered the silence inside the iron walls. The red tracking lights on your collars flared back to life, blazing a blinding, aggressive crimson that illuminated your panicked faces in the dark. The corporations were pumping massive, high intensity connection waves through the sky to pierce the blind spot. They were forcing the signal back online.
Your heart dropped straight into your stomach. If the mainframes read the locations of your collars right now, they would see your synchronized, frantic pulses. They would see you holding each other.
There was no time left.
You let go of his mouth, your hands moving on pure, desperate survival instinct. In the suffocating shadows, you both drew your firearms simultaneously. Your trembling hands brought the barrels up, but you didn't aim for the chest or the head. You aimed directly at each other's hands, your fingers resting on the triggers.
If you shattered each other's grip, the shock and blood loss would instantly crater your vitals. It would force a simultaneous crash. It would trick the mainframes into resetting.
"Ready?.." you whispered through the dark.
Rin’s jaw clenched, his teal eyes burning with a wild, terrifying resolve as he stared back at you. He nods firmly.
BANG.
The deafening roar of the simultaneous gunshots exploded inside the cramped metal container and then, everything vanished.
But there was no blinding white flash of static. There was no sudden drop onto the linoleum floor of the barracks. There was no Bachira waking up from a dream about unicorns.
Instead, the world just... froze.
The ringing in your ears vanished into absolute, suffocating silence. You blinked, looking down at your hands. The bullets were suspended in mid-air, frozen like tiny, jagged insects floating between your palms. The smoke from the barrels was locked in place, swirled into solid, unmoving gray ribbons. Outside the shipping container, the deafening roar of the battlefield had completely died. The rain hammering against the roof was gone.
Instead of parrying the timeline and snapping it backward, the mainframes had completely choked. The simultaneous flatlines from opposite sides had crashed the temporal servers entirely.
Time had completely stopped.
You slowly pushed open the heavy iron doors of the shipping container. The metal didn't shriek or creak, it moved in absolute, terrifying silence. You stepped out into the courtyard, Rin leaning heavily against your shoulder, his injured calf trailing behind him.
The scene that met your eyes was a living nightmare, captured in a horrific, permanent freeze frame.
The battlefield was completely locked in time. Fired gun shells hung suspended in the air, glowing with vibrant orange fire. Raindrops were fixed in place like millions of tiny glass needles floating between the buildings. But the worst part was the people.
As you navigated through the frozen smoke, you saw your own squad first.
Bachira Meguru was slumped against a pile of rubble, a massive, fatal wound tearing through his torso. His blood was frozen in mid-air, a bright crimson ribbon sprayed across the gray concrete. Kneeling right beside him was Isagi Yoichi, his mouth locked in a silent, agonizing scream, tears frozen solid like crystals on his cheeks as his hands desperately clutched Bachira’s uniform.
A few feet away lay Nagi Seishiro. His body was completely unrecognizable from the blast, his features obliterated, but his silver Pixel Corp identification badge was still pinned to his chest, gleaming under the frozen neon lights. Mikage Reo was on his knees right over him, his eyes entirely blank and hollowed out by grief.
Reo’s trembling hand was frozen mid-motion, the barrel of his own tactical pistol pressed hard against his own temple, paralyzed at the exact millisecond he had decided he couldn't live in a world without Nagi.
Further down the line, the chaos crossed factions. Barou Shouei was battered and bloody, his uniform shredded. He was frozen in a dominant stance, aiming his gun point blank at Otoya Eita, who had been trying to cross the firing lines to help Isagi attend to Bachira's wounds.
Then, Rin’s grip on your shoulder violently tightened.
You followed his gaze to the broken window of the office building. Itoshi Sae had stumbled out of the ongoing gunfire, now leaning heavily against a cracked concrete wall. A severe gunshot wound was frozen on his leg, blood pooling silently beneath his boot. Sae’s sharp eyes were no longer cold or calculating, instead they were entirely hollow, staring up at the gray sky in a state of absolute, paralyzed defeat.
Rin’s heart dropped straight into his stomach. The heavy, protective wall he had built around his ego completely shattered. He stared at his brother, then at the bodies of his comrades, a wave of crushing, suffocating guilt washing over him.
"I..." Rin choked out, his voice a raw, trembling whisper in the dead silence. He tried to turn back toward the courtyard, his hands shaking violently as the reality of the horror set in. "We did this. Because we glitched the system... they... I need to go back. I have to-"
He was starting to regret everything. The weight of leaving his entire world behind to rot in a frozen graveyard was breaking him.
Before he could spiral any further, you forcefully grabbed his collar, pulling him back toward you with a sudden, desperate surge of strength. You yanked his gaze away from Sae, forcing his tear blurred teal eyes to look straight into yours.
"Don't look" you ordered, your own voice cracking as hot, heavy globs of tears finally welled up in your eyes and spilled down your cheeks. Your fingers clawed into his vest, anchoring him. "You think you're the only one who feels like this? You think this doesn't kill me too?" You gestured blindly toward Bachira and Isagi behind you. "They are my family, Rin. But if we turn around now, the system resets, and we do this for eternity. We keep killing them, over and over, forever. Is that what you want?!"
Rin stared at you, a single, heavy tear finally breaking free from his lower lashes and tracking down his pale, rain soaked cheek. The raw, shared agony between you was suffocating. He didn't speak. He couldn't.
"Keep moving," you whispered fiercely, wiping your eyes with the back of your sleeve. "We have to push forward."
You gripped his waist, forcing his heavy frame forward, guiding him away from the statues of the people you loved. But you had only made it two blocks past the sector line before Rin’s strength completely gave out.
His boots dragged against the asphalt, his knees buckling violently under his weight. With a heavy, muffled thud, he collapsed onto the cold concrete, his face pale and his breathing suddenly shallow and ragged.
"Rin!"
Panic instantly seized your chest, completely replacing the grief. You dropped to your knees beside him, your hands flying to his leg. Because time had stopped, his blood wasn't actively flowing out of the wound but the jagged shard of metal was still embedded deeply into his calf, and the localized shock of the injury was shutting his body down.
"Hey, look at me. Stay awake" you pleaded, frantically ripping open the tactical med kit you had snuck through earlier.
Your hands trembled as you pulled out a pair of medical shears and a bottle of sterile saline. The freezing silence of the world pressed in on you from all sides, making every sound of your own breathing echo like thunder. You worked with meticulous, frantic care, cutting away the bloody fabric of his tactical pants to expose the torn muscle beneath.
Rin let out a weak, hoarse groan, his fingers weakly curling into the fabric of your sleeve as he watched you through heavy, half closed eyelids. The defensive, angry assassin was completely gone. In this frozen pocket of the universe, he was entirely vulnerable, trusting you with the last shred of his life.
"I've got you" you whispered, your voice shaking as you carefully began to extract the embedded debris, treating his wound with a gentle, protective undertone.
"Just hold on. I'm not letting you go."
You tie off the final sterile bandage around his calf, securing the medical tape with a firm, careful snap. Rin’s breathing gradually steadies, though his face remains dangerously pale under the dim, static glow of the frozen streetlights. You pack away the remaining wrappers from your kit and offer him a steadying hand, helping him haul his heavy, armored frame back up to his feet. He doesn't say a single word. The terrifying, arrogant ego of Bastard Industries apex weapon is completely gone, replaced by a hollow, crushing silence.
Leaning his weight against your shoulder, you slowly guide him away from the open streets and slip through the shattered glass doors of a nearby abandoned medical supply facility. Inside, the air is dead and perfectly still. Dust clouds and sparks hang suspended in mid air like tiny, unmoving stars, locked in place by the frozen timeline.
Leaving Rin to lean against a concrete pillar, you quickly scavenge through the dusty half empty shelves. Because time is completely stopped, you easily find usable rolls of gauze, advanced high grade painkillers that would normally be locked away behind security codes. You pack everything into your tactical harness, preparing for the long road ahead.
Once you have enough supplies, you decide it is finally time to rest. You can't keep pushing his body through the city without letting the shock wear off. You clear away a small space on the floor in the corner of a dark, secluded office room, guiding Rin down until he is sitting with his back against the wall, his injured leg stretched out in front of him.
You sit down right beside him. The absolute silence of the facility is suffocating.
Rin stares straight ahead, his sharp teal eyes incredibly sad and completely glazed over. He doesn't talk. He just watches the unmoving dust clouds, his fingers twitching against the fabric of his uniform. The image of Sae bleeding out by that broken window is clearly playing on a loop inside his head, tearing him apart from the inside out.
The sight of his quiet agony breaks something inside you. Pushing aside all your remaining corporate hesitation, you slide closer, wrap your arms around his broad, rigid shoulders, and pull him firmly into a tight, protective hug.
Rin instantly stiffens in your grasp, his muscles locking up on instinct. He isn't used to comfort. He isn't used to someone holding him when he's broken.
"I know" you whisper softly against his shoulder, your voice trembling as your own tears threaten to spill over again. Your hands grip the back of his tactical vest, anchoring him to you in the dark. "I know exactly how you feel, Rin. It hurts so bad it feels like dying. But you have to remember... it was either this, or watching them get slaughtered millions of times for eternity. At least this way, the loop stops. They don't have to bleed for our mistakes anymore."
For a long, agonizing moment, Rin doesn't move. He just sits there, completely rigid, suspended in his own internal hell.
Then, his defenses completely fracture.
A sharp, ragged breath hitches in his throat. His heavy arms slowly lift, wrapping fiercely around your waist as he buries his face deeply into the crook of your neck. He begins to slightly cry, his large frame trembling against your chest as quiet, stifled tears escape his eyes, soaking into the fabric of your holographic vest. He doesn't sob loudly, he just clings to you with a desperate, suffocating intensity, mourning the ghosts of the family he left behind in the courtyard.
In the middle of a frozen universe where everything else has stopped, the two of you are the only things left moving, holding onto each other just to survive the weight of your own choice.
You guys never found a way to restart the clock, and eventually, you both stopped trying.
Eventually reality set in. You guys couldn't go back.
This is how you guys are gonna live til the day you both die.
red tracking collars were still wrapped tightly around your guys throats, the glowing crimson lights now frozen in a permanent, unblinking glare.
A month slipped by in a blur.
Inside the quiet sanctuary of the medical facility, Rin’s leg was finally healing well. The high grade painkillers and clean bandages had done their job. He was sitting up more, eating the non perishable corporate survival food you scavenged, and the crushing, suffocating sorrow in his sharp teal eyes had slowly begun to lift. He looked less sad. But more guilty.
You walked out to the edge of the building's ruined rooftop, sliding down onto a concrete ledger to view the heavy, unchanging gray sky.
Because time was dead, the sun never moved. The clouds were locked in solid, smoky form.
But as you leaned your head back against the cold wall, you closed your eyes and let out a soft breath. This was enough. Having a quiet room, a bed free from the smell of fresh copper, and a companion who wasn't trying to drive a blade through your ches, it sufficed.
A soft rustle of fabric cut through the absolute silence as Rin walked out onto the ledge, slowly lowering himself down to sit beside you.
His teal eyes were completely fixed on the unmoving gray clouds, zoning out into the quiet expanse of the dead city. The sharp, aggressive assassin persona was entirely gone, leaving behind a boy who looked entirely too young for the weight of the universe he carried on his shoulders.
Seeing him lost in his own head, you reached across the concrete and gently slid your hand over his, curling your fingers around his gloved palm to ground him.
Rin violently flinched.
He pulled his hand away instantly, retreating his arm back against his chest as if your touch had burned him. A dark, fractured scowl crossed his face, his jaw clenching tightly as he turned his sharp, defensive gaze directly into yours.
"Why do you act so kind?" Rin demanded, his raspy voice cracking slightly in the dead silence of the rooftop. His fingers curled into a tight fist against his knee, a raw, toxic wave of buried insecurity suddenly bleeding through his tone. "Don't I disgust you? I'm the one who cut you down a hundred times. I'm the one who put a knife in your lungs. I'm the reason everyone we know is frozen out there in a graveyard. How can you look at me and not hate my guts?"
The cold wind of the frozen rooftop cut through the absolute silence, carrying Rin’s sharp words away into the unchanging gray sky.
You didn't look away from him. Instead, a small, tired smile pulled at the corners of your lips. You rolled up the sleeves of your Pixel Corp uniform, exposing your forearms. They were completely mapping a history of violence, railed with thick, jagged white lines and puckered burn marks from a hundred different timeline resets. You reached up, your fingers lightly tracing the fading scar cut across Rin’s own cheek, before your gaze dropped down to the other marks that vanished beneath the collar of his tactical vest.
"You didn't have a choice back then, Rin." you said softly, your voice steady despite the weight of the memories. "You were just driven by what others told you to do. You were playing the part they wrote for you."
A few heavy tears finally welled up in your eyes, blurring the sharp teal of his gaze. You let out a quiet, raspy breath.
"If you're a monster, then what does that make me? We were both involved in this. I didn't just sit there and take it." you whispered, the truth cutting through the air like a knife. "I shot you. I stabbed you. I literally tortured you in the loops when the mainframes demanded an execution. We both have blood staining our hands, but here we are anyway."
Rin stared at your scarred arms, the rigid tension in his shoulders slowly starting to bleed away. He didn't pull away this time. The realization that you carried the exact same psychological and physical ghosts as him seemed to ground him, root deep.
For a long moment, you both just sat on the ledger, staring out at the silent, frozen skyscrapers below. An intrusive, heavy thought seemed to pass between you, hanging in the suffocating quiet. You couldn't help but wonder if the two of you were simply cursed. Did you have a doomed, tragic ending waiting for you in every single universe? Or had you done something unforgivable in a past life, and this infinite corporate hell was the punishment you had earned?
You both let out a synchronized, heavy sigh, the exhaustion of a hundred lifetimes settling deep into your exhausted bones.
Slowly, Rin reached back across the cold concrete. His large, gloved hand slid over your palm, his long fingers wrapping securely around yours. He wasn't scowling anymore. The defensive, feral anger was entirely gone from his sharp features. He looked at you with a profound, unshakeable trust. It wasn't deep love yet, your heavy shared trauma was too heavy for that but it was something much deeper. It was a sacred, quiet understanding that completely surpassed any basic romantic action.
In a universe where time had died and everyone else was a statue, he trusted you with his reality. And that sufficed.
The profound silence of the rooftop lingered as your hands remained locked together. Rin’s grip was tight, a silent anchor in a world that refused to move. You both stared out at the unmoving gray sky, the unchanging clouds, and the frozen skyscrapers. There would be no sunsets, no tomorrow, and no going back.
Slowly, without a word, Rin pulled you closer.
You slid off the concrete ledger and fell into his arms, burying your face against the cold fabric of his tactical vest. He wrapped his large arms around your shoulders, holding you with a desperate, crushing intensity. It wasn't a gentle hug, sure. But it definitely was a big milestone in your guy's improving Camaraderie.
In the end, you two were finally safe and sane, but at the cost of being entirely alone.
The end.