Haru/Shimada POV

This is strange, I no… we can feel our body move but it feels deliberate like we both chose to move that way. Haru stands my body up looking the mercenary in the eye. Slowly swinging one arm to adjust for the body.

Our mouth almost feels like it’s moving on its own. “Huh, odd body. Not as flexible or fast as I’m use to. But this should do for now.” The mercenary gives me an odd look at this. Ribs in pain multiple bruises forming, we march forward.

“What are you giving yourself a pep talk? Did I smack the crazy into you? It’s no fun if you go nuts before I even start. Normally breaking the mind is the fun part.” His eyes glance at us bulging in their sockets as he moves closer no longer seeing us as a threat.

“Ahh shut up brat and come at us.” He seems annoyed being called brat by a kid.

“Heh I guess you really did go crazy, oh well I guess I’ll just have to see how much crazy I can kick into you.” He does the same exact charge as last time. He smiles when he sees us take the same stance. Likely thinking his bashing made us forget all about the last time. But rather than the routinely practiced throw attempt. Hes met with a well-practiced counter smash into the side of his head with my elbow.

He’s sent tumbling to the side from the blow but quickly gets himself back up, staggering slightly. He wears a look of utter disbelief as he glares at me and rubs at where I’d hit him.

“Heh maybe I knocked the sense into you rather than out of you. What gives? Where you just pretending before? Wanted to feel your ass get kicked first?” We don’t speak just grabbing a rock off the ground to throw at him… It missed. Good to know, while combined like this neither of us benefits from skills just practice and experience.

“HAHA! Was that supposed to hit me?” He looks at the rock that sailed well past his head.

“Whatever, I’ll just need to take you a little more seriously.” He shuffles towards us this time rather than rushing in. I send the memories of my storage bracelet to Haru and he acknowledges them. We shuffle forward acting as if wielding something in our hand while its empty. The mercenary seems to think it’s amusing and relaxes a bit. He moves in for a grapple likely using his large size and reach as an advantage. This time though we were prepared.

Just as he moves to wrap his hand around my wrist we pull back slightly, that’s when the taser that Himiko let us borrow moves into my hand. Perfectly moving so he grips it with his palm.

His eyes go wide, and he begins screaming. “FUUUUUUUCK” His hand convulses gripping the taser making him unable to pull away from it. He attempts to fall backwards away from me. We lean into his fall keeping the taser going. As we fall, we attempt to land into his frame with a knee to his crotch, it’s a nice cheap shot and we are rewarded with a groan of pain from him as we land on the rocks below. The battery quickly dies, somehow he still hasn’t lost consciousness but he is likely feeling a bit weak. He growls and rips the burnt out taser from our hand throwing it away as he grips into me with his off hand keeping me from moving away. We attempt to elbow him, but he has our arm locked down.

“YOU, YOU LITTLE SHIT!” He grabs us around our midsection. Easily lifting us up and getting ready to slam us into the ground. We reach our right hand around his head in the second before he does, and he bites into the meat of our arm. It’s too late with a flick and the spare knife comes out as it’s reached around his head, he slams our back on the ground. We nearly cut ourself as we draw the knife across his throat and saw into his flesh. Realization comes to his eyes that we have a blade somehow. A maniacal grin cuts across his face as blood continues to pour out. He attempts to yell in pain or sorrow maybe anger, neither of us could tell.

He keeps hitting us until his last breath.

SLAM

“furgh”

SLAM

“frgh”

Slam

“fgh”

Smack

“uuuugh”

Slap

His body collapses on top of us. With the end of the fight Haru disconnects, I immediately feel it when the two selves separate. The feeling of my injuries suddenly rushes to the forefront of my mental self and my own mind though. I don’t even have the strength to lift him off my body, let alone the attention to start asking Haru questions. If he hadn’t shown up when he did… would this asshole of killed me? I’ve been too relaxed about all of this. I-I need to train more. SHIT!

I hear the mental chime for a level up in martial arts at least so it’s not like I’m already getting better. It does bring a good question of if Haru can help earn skill experience for me or bring his experience to help it level much faster.

Oh, right I have a group with me. “Cough cough, uggh guys?” I look around me, finally taking in my surroundings a bit.

Seeing the silhouettes among the blurs as I definitely have a concussion, I call out to them. “Can…-cough- can someone get this guy off me?” One of them likely Togo drags him off and checks on my body.

“You alright kid? You’re looking a little rough.” He lifts my shirt and checks on my ribs that got a pounding. My focus is starting to come back to me. It helps to have two minds working together.

“Yeah… I just need to wrap up my wounds a bit…FUUUUCK that hurt. How…-cough- how did your fight go?” Togo looks a bit embarrassed at this. Wait shit, Himiko better not have died. He must have seen the panic in my eyes because he calms me down.

“Relax, we got to him. He was getting ready to throw a timed BIM when a homing BIM came out of nowhere and got him from behind. I assume that was the one you threw high up so we’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to help you out. You two were too close to use BIM and I feel like if we came in earlier, he would have grabbed the knife and gone for the kill instead of playing with you.” He looks at my knife.

“I thought you said you lost both of them?”

“I did… it’s my spare -cough- I didn’t want to use it unless I absolutely had to. The cameras are listening to everything we say so if I told you guys I had more they would also know I had another one.”

I start to sit up a bit, the bruises are hurting, and I feel a few things crack when I sit up. The area starts to spin so I lay back down and prop my legs up to get the blood to my head.

“Hey hey easy now, we should be safe for now. Himiko is on radar duty at the moment with Higiuchi as support. We need to get you ready to move.” I lay there for a bit slowly calming myself.

He helps me up, but I don’t move far I take the chip out of the other guy’s hand. I immediately put the point into resilience. Feeling my skin tighten and bones strengthen my legs feel a little less shaky. Ten percent is a significant increase after all. I just need to go touch the chip from the other guy to get even better.

“Alright, that’s hooo, I think I’m good for a bit.” I start searching the guy with the help of Togo. We find a second chip hidden in his sock. Togo takes his boots and trench coat since it seems resistant to damage. I take his knife and store my old one again. I keep the combat knife on a sheath belt taken from the guy though. No reason to show that I can make anything magically appear.

“Hey, how are you feeling? Are you sure you should be moving around like that Hitomi?” Higuichi has a tad bit of concern in her voice. Himiko also seems a little worried. They look like they want to come up and help but every time they do they stop just short of doing so.

“Yeah, I should be fine, can I see the bandages from you case Himiko?” She nods and carefully hands them over. I start wrapping myself up. Feeling my treatment skill kicking in already. I feel it level up as I wrap too. At +5% healing speed per level and checking my status it leveled up to 24. That means about 220% recovery speed and with some points in resilience I will recover even faster.

“Alright… I should be good in a bit of time. I may need some help moving until we find some place to stay for the night though.” Gotta get to a safe spot to use RICE* and actually properly treat my bruises, for now I can just apply pressure.

Togo comes over and helps me walk. Himiko looks like she wants to help but can’t bring herself to touch me. That’s fine it’s the thought that counts.

“You got the BIM’s and chip off the other guy, right?” I ask as we start moving away. Himiko’s eyes widen, and she runs back to go grab them.

“We were a bit distracted with your fight we didn’t have the time too…” Higiuchi starts to make an excuse but I’m having none of it.

“Haaaaa, none of you even fought! Oooooh well. Also, thanks Himiko your taser saved me. Seems like it may have gotten busted though. For now, let’s just get out of here.”

Himiko gets back quickly pulling out the BIM a chip and a few drugs that must have been on his body. “I guess these are something that guy was taking? I don’t know what it is?” She has a few pills and a syringe. I take a look at the pills and can’t recognize them.

“I don’t know what those are perhaps he was a drug addict?” I look at the small white and yellow pills. And yellow substance in a red push container with an unbroken cap. It makes me think of epinephrine for anaphylactic shock but not quite right.

“Um those are male stimulants, pain meds and either adrenaline or some form of heroin in a allergy shot.” Togo mentions from the side he could tell right away from a glance. I give him a side glance as do the girls.

“Hey! I was on the force for years. You learn how to recognize a lot of the bad crap out there. I’ll have you know I’m impotent, so I have no use for them.” This makes Higuichi slump a little. Himiko makes a scrunched face but seems to stand his presence a little better now after that.

“We don’t really need them, but I guess we might as well hold on to them. We can probably poison some food or something? I don’t know. The pain meds are probably useful though.” I’m more or less dragged along as we keep moving. Eventually we find a small shack that’s up off the ground. It’s not fancy but it’s enough to stay for the night to rest. Our supplies are dwindling though. The message of our location came this morning at 10 am so we missed the supply drop then. The next one isnt until midnight and I doubt I’ll be up and moving by then.

I’m eased onto the floor I pad up my sweater as best I can alongside the trench coat, I swiped off the mercenary it’s too big for me, but it does make for a decent blanket. It’s going to be a long uncomfortable night.