He was confused, but not nearly as much as he should have been.
His abode mark flickered, and a long, dark purple whip appeared in his grasp, his gaze narrowing. He looked around carefully, making sure he was truly alone.
Then he slowly inched toward the thick metal door in the distance.
PAH! PAH! PAH!
His steps echoed loudly, rebounding across the walls and through his head. Strangely, what was supposed to be a few dozen meters stretched into hundreds.
The door wasn't that far away, but he felt like he'd been walking for far longer than he should have.
'Weird.'
He kept walking, though.
And just as he expected dozens of minutes to pass, in a single step, space and distance seemed to collapse, and he was right in front of the door, barely an inch away.
The whiplash confused him even more, but the more confused he became, the less resistance his mind displayed toward the oddities of his situation.
It was almost like he was enthralled, the sharpness of his mind dulled.
'Alright, let's head out.'
He folded his whip, attached it to his hip, and rapidly began undoing all the hatches and latches of the door, gears whining and creaking as he worked.
It took a minute, but eventually it opened, swinging away from him and revealing another bunker; much, much larger than the one he'd just been in.
And it wasn't empty.
Dozens of men stood within, each veiled behind scarves folded around their faces, armed and oozing malicious intent, their aether blazing.
They stared at him.
Lirik's jaw clenched. "A trap."
He came to the conclusion almost immediately and instantly reached for his whip. The moment he did, the veiled warriors all pounced.
He sneered.
His arm and whip seemed to become one, arcing through the air, streaking forward and pulling all the atmospheric aether of the bunker inward, wrapping it around the extended cord as a thick white cluster of fog.
BANG!
He swung forward, then snapped back, whipping the air itself. A wave of compressed force surged violently ahead, slamming into the approaching warriors, throwing them off their feet and knocking the wind from their lungs.
"Amateurs."
A slaughter ensued.
Lirik didn't even seem to be using any of his spark's abilities, or even aether itself, but that was the true horror of his spark.
He could separate, assemble, and disassemble anything he came into contact with, as long as he possessed more aether than the subject.
On the surface, the base ability of his spark seemed extremely limited, with its only prospects being those of a healer or a crafter. But Lirik saw further.
When aether was factored in—
SHAH!
He whipped forward, separating the flowing currents of atmospheric aether, throwing them into chaos before forcefully assembling those chaotic currents down to their cores.
They froze, blood spilling from their lips as their cores cracked, leaving them defenseless before the speeding blade affixed to his whip's end.
He swung, forcefully severing their connection to their cores, depriving them of their spark and aether pool. Then he swung again, mismatching the connections of their cores entirely.
They were left controlling one another's cores, their sparks clashing violently as their bodies collapsed from the inside out.
Lirik tore through them with such ease that it seemed ridiculous he'd ever been worried.
Every swing was filled with contempt, mad that his enemies had even dared send such weak, incompetent assassins after him, his pride insulted in the worst possible way.
"Bastards," he harrumphed, wiping away a drop of blood that had managed to stain his otherwise spotless jade-white skin.
"…."
The thick metallic scent of blood filled the once-dusty bunker. It splattered the walls, and the ground was carpeted with sprawling bits of flesh and bone, organs and limbs strewn about, crushed and torn.
Lirik himself was unharmed, his core still relatively full, his clothes stained with only a few droplets of blood not his own.
He sighed.
There, in the distance, amidst the carnage, a final warrior remained, trembling on his knees, rocking back and forth in agony as he cradled the dead body of another.
Hearing the warrior's pained cries, Lirik shook his head.
"It's unfortunate. I don't know who your supervisor is, or why he sent you here to die, but—"
Lirik blinked.
Light bent and twisted, and suddenly it felt like he was staring into three rooms at once, his vision swimming.
He staggered back, confused, then blinked again.
The world before him warped and tore, reassembling like a child's grotesque collage.
Parts of the bunker turned gray, gaining depths and distances that didn't align with the rest of the space.
He blinked again.
The aether in the room shifted, becoming hostile, foreign.
The room continued to collapse and fracture, half bunker and half of—
'…the dimensional space.'
Lirik blinked again. And again. And again.
Each time, his vision shifted, new scenes unraveling and unfurling before him, as if his sight were finally returning.
"…"
He wasn't in a bunker.
He wasn't facing veiled warriors.
'…no, no… NO…'
He looked ahead, pupils trembling, mouth dry.
Orin was on his knees, shaking and crying, clutching a dead woman's body, her lifeless eyes frozen in shock and betrayal.
"Boss… please… I'm sorry…" Orin whimpered, his voice pathetic, his body and mind both on the verge of collapse. "…it's me…"
Lirik rushed forward, heart pounding against his ribs, breath quickening into ragged gasps.
"H-hey! It's me!"
Orin flinched, but he didn't have the strength to dodge, his core too damaged, too broken, by Lirik's earlier onslaught.
Lirik stopped before him, hands trembling as he reached out. "W-what's happening?! W-what? What's going on?"
Orin weakly reopened his eyes, and when he saw that Lirik had finally snapped out of it, a flood of tears poured forth as all the strength left his body.
He passed out, tears still warm on his cheeks.
But before he did, he faintly pointed toward a corner of the space.
"…."
The final traces of fog clouding Lirik's mind vanished, and he remembered.
Right.
He was in the middle of interrogating a patient one of his clients had paid a hefty sum for and—
"…."
Slowly, almost mechanically, as though afraid of what he'd see, he turned toward where Orin had pointed.
A young man sat there, coughing up blood, his complexion pale beyond belief.
The young man looked up and met his gaze.
He smiled faintly and raised a hand in a small wave.
"Hello."