Taisho Shopping Mall (abandoned), Upper-Town Taisho.
"So, how are you feeling now, man?" I asked, finally breaking the heavy silence that had basked where we both sat for almost a full hour.
The mall itself was, as usual, constantly filling up with the usual cacophony of noise from all the other Mercenary-Guards that are currently hanging out in it, just like us.
Bursts of loud laughter, heated arguments, the sharp clang of metal striking metal, even occasional pained screams – this is the natural, unending soundtrack that originates from this goddamn abandoned mall, all day, all night, and every single fuckin' day I come down here.
But for almost a full hour now, Daigo and Shitsubo had just sat there together in absolute, almost unnerving silence, almost like nothing else even existed outside the small, cramped space where they were currently situated.
"Mostly just… numb, I guess…" Daigo reluctantly, slowly replied, like he barely had any energy left to even think a coherent thought, let alone speak.
He then roughly rubbed his tired face with his right hand, like a guy who had just woken up from a very bad dream.
He then added a few more words to his earlier answer, this time with a sliver more enthusiasm in his voice, "…But, hey, it's definitely better than being fuckin' dead, that's for damn sure."
"You are welcome," Shitsubo just took his somewhat mumbled response as an indirect 'Thank you' and simply replied back, his tone flat.
"I didn't actually say 'Thank you,' you know," Daigo sarcastically commented, his lips forming a small, tired smirk.
"So, you ready to go out there again?" Shitsubo then turned his head to face him directly before asking the crucial question.
Immediately those specific words flew into Daigo's ear, his mind began to visibly spiral into a chaotic, internal whirlpool, one clearly fueled by a potent cocktail of raw fear, bone-deep tiredness, lingering melancholy, and a very serious, sudden deliberation of why he is even in this particular, shitty line of work in the first place, a line of work where he could very easily die in the very next Gate he enters, without a trace.
The faces and names of various people he once knew, people long gone, flashed unbidden through his mind.
These were the same people he had once laughed with, fought alongside, occasionally stolen from, and sometimes even been badly beaten by....
Basically, any kind of good or bad relationship that one can possibly think of... such is the fleeting, brutal life of these self-proclaimed Mercenary Guards.
"Shitsubo… why the hell do we even do this shit?" Daigo then blurted out, his voice raw with emotion.
"Huh?" Shitsubo genuinely didn't expect *that* as an answer to his simple, practical question.
Daigo continued, his voice gaining a desperate edge, "Why do we just keep fuckin' throwing ourselves headfirst into these damn Gates, places where there are literally a million different ways to die horribly, without anyone out here even seein' you go?..."
Shitsubo wasn't quite sure why his 'friend' was suddenly acting so fuckin' weird all of a sudden, or what he should say exactly to try and shut him up so they could bounce outside to get some more moola.
"...We do it for the coins, Daigo... Why the hell are you yappin' on about all this nonsense now?"
"...But the coins are fuckin' shit though, aren't they?" Daigo then suddenly pulled himself up to sit ramrod straight, so he could look directly into Shitsubo's now openly confused face.
"We are all so fuckin' scared of even stepping foot into the main, policed quarters of any of the richer Districts, too damn scared to do any proper runs there, or even to try and find some kind of honest, legit work...
Every single Merc-Guard I personally know would much rather choose to jump headfirst into a Gate that's actively spitting out fire and brimstone and broken bones, than even attempt to rob a simple jewelry store over in the heavily patrolled Conquest District!"
"Well, that's obviously because if we even so much as look suspicious to any of those rich folks, as we just walkin' through their neighborhood... We get nothing less than immediately serving a mandatory 8 fuckin' years sentence, probably inside some high-level, inescapable Gate...
And that's just for lookin' suspicious, man! Talk less of what happens if they actually fuckin' catch you doin' some kinda real illegal shit over there."
"That's it! That's exactly fuckin' it!" Daigo suddenly clapped his hands together once, sharply, and then threw his right hand out, pointing repeatedly at Shitsubo's face as a clear sign of agitated agreement.
He then continued, his voice rising again, "We are all just too damn scared of actually getting caught by the authorities... So fuckin' scared that we'd all rather choose to dive headfirst into what's basically a literal gateway to some kind of hellish, inescapable prison dimension, than even dare to dream of actually, truly escaping this whole goddamn cycle!"
"Bruv, come on, there are fuckin' actual Enforcers out there, just roamin' around everywhere..." Shitsubo didn't even get to finish his words that time, when Daigo let out an annoyingly loud sigh, as if Shitsubo wasn't saying anything remotely meaningful or relevant.
"Man, we have been out here, regularly fighting all sorts of dangerous Aggressors that are easily our own size, things armed with bone-tearing claws, deadly talons, hellish fangs, and all sorts of other fuckin' nasty abilities, ever since we were both, like, 13 years old or something.
So why the hell do we still shake in our goddamn boots whenever we're in front of those damn Enforcers?" Daigo argued aloud, his voice passionate, sounding like he's mostly just arguing with himself at this point.
"...Because they are the fuckin' Enforcers, Daigo... I.. I don't really know what else I can tell you besides just that" Shitsubo responded, still somewhat oblivious to the fact that Daigo was probably talking more to himself right now, much more than he was actually talking to him directly.
"Sato… Sato got fuckin' split clean in half, right there in front of me, man...
She and I, we used to live on the exact same block, way back. I haven't seen her in fuckin' years, not 'till just yesterday...
And then she just fuckin' died... Just like that, gone. Right there, directly in front of me," Daigo said, his voice now cracking with grief.
Shitsubo finally, belatedly, caught on to Daigo's real drift here.
This isn't actually the first time Daigo has suddenly started talking all this kind of philosophical gibberish right when it's time for them to go back to work.
Each time it happens, it's a different kind of nonsensical rambling, always spoken with the air of some profound, sudden epiphany.
But the plain, simple truth is... He's just fuckin' scared shitless right now.
He's just having cold feet about having to return once again to that potential death sentence, that chaotic meat grinder that comes straight from other worlds.
It would have actually been so fuckin' funny, if it wasn't also so depressingly normal, so common among anyone in our line of work.
I don't think there is any single human being out there, not one, that won't eventually fall apart one or two times, or more, especially after constantly courting death like some sex addict on a whore.
A time will eventually come when they will just not be able to do it anymore... not be as bold, or as reckless, as one perhaps needs to be to survive in this line of work.
Shitsubo's recent, blunt suggestion to get back to work had clearly triggered this kind of intense, negative response from Daigo this time.
He realized that now, but he also knew he can't really afford to indulge it for too long.
For Shitsubo, it is either he continues to risk his own life to try and pay off his deadbeat father's crushing debts, or he eventually ends up paying up those same debts directly with his own fuckin' life.
At least the former option still held some slim, desperate possibility of him actually living through it all.
"Yeah... well, see you around later then, man. I gotta get back to it," he replied plainly to Daigo, with no immediate intention of trying to comfort him or talk him out of his current mood.
It was a reply that would likely never, ever happen if their current cards were somehow reversed, if Shitsubo was the one breaking down.
Daigo is good like that.
"I'm not fuckin' stopping ya, am I?" Daigo responded curtly, resting his head back against the hard wall even more lazily than before, and now sounding almost mad at Shitsubo's unsympathetic response.
Shitsubo immediately got up from the floor, wore his backpack properly, and then started walking away without another word.
But he then suddenly stopped, after taking just a few steps.
Without even bothering to turn his head back to look at Daigo, he then said aloud, his voice flat, "Everything in this life is a choice, Daigo. No matter how much you might think it isn't sometimes, everyone ultimately chooses the way they live their own life. It's alright for you to sit this one out, man, and just… breathe a little..."
He then immediately walked away again, right after dropping that rather weird, uncharacteristic attempt at offering more words of comfort.
Honestly, he didn't even really buy his own fuckin' words himself.
It's not like he himself is exactly swimming in a multitude of great options, is it? And yet, his own life still completely sucks balls most of the time.
But those words, he knew, weren't really meant for himself anyway.
'They were just meant to try and sweeten the ears of Daigo a little bit; pretty words like that can never actually change anythin' real or important.
In a day or two, maybe less, Daigo will have had his little existential fun, probably squandering the all of coins he currently has left on cheap booze, cheaper whores, and whatnot.
Then, he will inevitably be right back here with me again... right back where he fuckin' should be.
And I will then go back to tellin' him whatever other stupid, comforting thing he apparently wants, or needs, to hear at that particular moment,' Shitsubo's cynical inner monologue went on and on, as he then rejoined the restless, milling herd of other desperate mercs, all of them just waiting around for any new recruiters to finally show up.
A few scattered recruiters did eventually drop by, casually selecting the slightly less crappy 'cream' from the teeming crop that was already full of mostly just crap, and Shitsubo, as usual, was normally considered part of that latter, undesirable group.
He was currently deep in the middle of a dense cluster of other hopefuls – struggling, yelling, and desperately reaching out towards this one particular recruiter who was being damn too fuckin' selective for anyone's liking – when he suddenly heard the familiar, loud hissing sound of a long bus stopping nearby.
And it seems he wasn't the only one that had noticed it among that rowdy, jostling cluster either, as many others too immediately looked up, towards the direction of that distinct, unusual sound.
He soon noticed, with growing surprise, that there were actually four more of those same long buses now, all of them noisily pumping their air brakes, parked right next to each other in a neat line.
This new, unexpected development definitely captured almost everybody's immediate, undivided attention.
Shitsubo looked just as confused as many of the others did at the sudden, unexplained arrival of these odd, dull gray, long-ass buses.
A number of possible purposes for their arrival immediately flashed through his wary mind, and absolutely none of them were good.
His thoughts ranged anywhere from a sudden, large-scale mass arrest being conducted by the Enforcers, all the way to those new, heavy-handed government money collectors, the ones that had been recently, forcefully instated right after that supposed fatal Gate outbreak over in Kyoto days ago.
His whole body was now all tensed up, coiled and ready, prepared to flee instantly if things suddenly started to pop off ugly, as they so often did.
It was then that the automated doors on the buses hissed open, revealing stern-looking guys dressed in black, military-type tactical uniforms, who now stood rigidly at the front of each opened doorway.
And then, a clear, and very loud, digitally amplified message from a speaker mounted on the front of one of the lead buses suddenly resounded powerfully through the open air of the mall:
"WE ARE OFFERING 30,000 YEN PER DAY! NO VETTING OR PRIOR SELECTION REQUIRED! GET IN NOW, IF YOU WANT THE JOB!"
The speaker wasn't even fuckin' done with its second repeat of that unbelievable announcement, when absolutely everyone, the entire goddamn crowd, rushed madly towards all four of those waiting buses.
Shitsubo certainly didn't dull himself or hesitate for a second; he immediately joined the desperate, surging flood of other miscreants, all of them now running as fast as they could towards those buses.
And upon finally getting there, it seemed that, truly, no one was actually being rejected from entering at all.
The guys in the black uniforms, it turned out, were there primarily just to coordinate the sheer amount of people trying to get on board, and to maintain some semblance of order.
They only allowed one person to enter at a time, curtly telling each individual to go straight to the back of the bus and find a seat.
And when some people inevitably got too fuckin' hasty or aggressive in their attempts to get in, they either got roughly, unceremoniously pulled back by those military guys, or, if they actually then wanted to try and throw down right there with those same guys, a swift, decisive smack from the black, metallic baton that each of them held – batons which were visibly sizzling with angry, blue electric sparks – immediately had any one of those aggressors, including even some D-Grades, instantly falling hard to the ground and then shaking uncontrollably, like they were suddenly having some kind of chronic seizure or a severe epileptic fit.
It didn't take very long at all for Shitsubo to finally find himself safely inside one of the buses, quickly taking an available seat.
And soon enough, his particular bus was completely filled up with other hopeful mercs, and it then promptly got on its way, pulling out of the mall's dilapidated parking area.
It was all happening so incredibly fast from Shitsubo's somewhat dazed point of view.
After many long, frustrating hours of just getting repeatedly overlooked by all those picky, regular recruiters, he's now suddenly on his way to a new gig, one that supposedly pays a staggering 30,000 yen per fuckin' day!
It was so fuckin' unbelievable… It literally did not make any goddamn sense at all.
But that kind of coin, that amount of money, was just far too good for anyone in his position to possibly pass up, no matter how suspicious it seemed.
What can possibly go wrong...