Ren sat within the sphere created by the Overdraft Pill, staring blankly at his black, leathery, suit-covered hands. He was repeatedly closing them into fists and opening them, contemplating his actions in City 05.
The deaths were clean and left no residue, which might induce trauma from taking a life for a normal human—perhaps the him before the Revival Potion. However, the change from the bloodline he had developed might be affecting how lightly he felt despite taking lives.
As for the deaths in the city, he couldn't have been further from the thought because he was almost certain to die then and didn't have time to focus on others. "Was I always this selfish? Do I not care about death or if I am killing someone? I might need therapy."
Ren continued the action of opening and closing his hands to form a fist, only now, whenever he formed a fist, the knuckle dusters appeared on them naturally, instead of him having to put them on.
"Why did I do it? Just because it seemed like it might have been Ophelia or someone with a similar voice? I didn't have to kill the girls that might have been alive. I could have tried saving them using the Roulette, maybe... just maybe I might have won the normal revival fluid, since buying it isn't an option, being priced at '1 million Origins' in the Destiny Store, he certainly couldn't buy that."
It seemed he had to explore the Destiny Store and do many other things. What better time to do it than now, since he didn't know when he would stop, and he could self-reproach when he was sure what caused the outburst.
Ren looked at his fist, which had the knuckle dusters, and lit on fire. He could feel some part of his bloodline respond to it. It seemed that the fire controlling aspect, or his bloodline associated with fire, was kind of like muddy water with too much mixed in it. He had to filter and clean it in whatever way he could.
He could feel that he was getting smoother equipping the knuckle busters, and when working in synergy with the busters, the bloodline seemed to be refining into a much purer product that was more powerful than the muddy bloodline.
Ren continued to open and close his fist, feeling it refine the fire bloodline in his Whole Blood. Yes, he liked the sound of it: fire bloodline in his Whole Blood. Feeling his Whole Blood while maintaining the action, he felt he had much to unearth from within.
He tried checking another bloodline in his Whole Blood, and suddenly his hands, or rather his actions, started to fritz. He couldn't continue the motion smoothly; small thin lines of cuts appeared all over his arms, from the fingernails to the shoulder.
Ren didn't give up, trying his best to stop his hand from twitching and keeping his thoughts away from his bleeding hands. Every time he tried exploring other parts of his Whole Blood, there was some kind of reaction.
Sometimes he felt the fire bloodline cool down; at other times, he felt electricity mixed within the fire bloodline. There were many other sensations mixed in or some with no sensation, but this didn't stop him; it only made him feel the fire bloodline more deeply and make it more pure.
When he felt he could do the action much more smoothly than before with any part of his Whole Blood, Ren felt the muddy bloodline clean up, and apart from the fist, the flame rose up more than the elbow but not up to the shoulder, stuck in between.
Not planning to give up now, Ren continued the refining exercise, feeling and seeing the flames cover the distance at a slow but visible pace and reach his shoulders, looking like his arm was set on fire one instant, and the next, nothing.
While he was focusing on this, he didn't notice how much time had passed and where he had traveled to.
Whoosh!
The sphere suddenly dissolved in mid-air, making Ren almost land on his face. If he hadn't focused on training during his time in the sphere, he would have. After training, he was able to use the fire like a thruster from his hand, though he was feeling drained after practicing the first time, so he made his way down, looked around the area, and checked where he had landed so he could explore another part of this damned planet.