**Shitsubo
The constant, low revving of some kind of vehicle's engine woke Shitsubo from his deep, exhausted slumber, forcing him to slowly open his eyes.
'What the hell is this soft surface I'm on?' Shitsubo could not help but ask himself immediately, since he has never, ever laid on something this unexpectedly soft before in his entire life.
It was a very strange, almost unsettling feeling for him.
He gingerly pushed himself to sit up and then looked around the unfamiliar, strange room he was currently in.
"Where the fuck am I?" he couldn't help but ask himself again, his voice a rough whisper, looking around to find himself lying on a freaking actual bed, with a medical drip inserted clinically into his right wrist, and his entire right arm, from elbow to wrist, covered in a thick, white cast.
Seeing the bulky cast on his arm made him instantly remember what had happened just before he'd blacked out: 'I completely fuckin' broke my arm after punching that damn Rock-Hobgoblin, then I passed out… again.'
His head ached quite a bit, a dull throbbing, as he looked around the space again, only to notice that he seemed to be inside some kind of temporary tent.
Just then, a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties and wearing a clean, white medical garment, walked briskly into the tent.
"Oh, you are awake then?" she asked, somewhat rhetorically, as she walked purposefully towards him, carrying a small, well-organized first aid box in her hand.
"Where the hell am I…? And who the fuck are you?" he asked softly, his voice still hoarse, as he instinctively grabbed his head because of the persistent headache, which now seemed to suddenly become much more intense, almost unbearable.
The woman calmly brought out a syringe and a small glass tube from her first aid box, expertly extracting the clear liquid from the tube with the syringe while saying, "You are quite alright, just try to relax and…."
But she was cut short when Shitsubo, reacting purely on instinct and ingrained suspicion, suddenly grabbed her right wrist fiercely, his grip surprisingly strong despite his condition.
He then asked again, his voice now a much more threatening, guttural tone, "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!"
"Easy there, easy… she is the one that actually saved your life, son," a new, deep voice said calmly, seemingly out of nowhere.
This prompted both Shitsubo and the startled lady to quickly look towards the direction the voice had come from.
The leader of that contractor team, the one from the subway, stood a bit close to the entrance flap of the tent, watching them.
His head was shaved low, military-style, and he looked like he was probably somewhere in his mid-thirties.
He still wore all his tactical gears, except for his helmet, as he now walked slowly towards them from the entrance of the tent.
"See? I told you I didn't want to do this! You practically begged me to, and now he wants to rip my damn hand off!" the lady complained loudly to the approaching contractor, her voice sharp with irritation, as Shitsubo still held her wrist in a viselike, tight grip, even as his own head banged relentlessly, like someone was vigorously beating it like a drum from the inside.
"Please, son, can you just let go of her hand now? You might seriously hurt her if you don't," the man calmly, but firmly, asked Shitsubo.
Shitsubo did not really want to release his grip, not yet, but his body, perhaps instinctively, or maybe just from sheer exhaustion, released its hold.
He then immediately went back to grabbing his forehead as the pounding headache intensified yet again.
"He is burning up with fever…" the lady quickly, expertly, injected the contents of the syringe into the drip bag hanging beside the bed, immediately after she noticed Shitsubo suddenly sweating like crazy, beads of perspiration popping out all over his face as he clutched his head in agony.
Within a matter of seconds after the lady had injected the drip, Shitsubo's intense headache began to noticeably subside.
The man then walked closer to the lady and asked her quietly, "What happened back there with him?"
"Well, for starters, he completely shattered his arm, and he also lost a very significant lot of blood. He should be profoundly thankful that all he's currently having is just some mild discomfort, especially for him to even still be alive at all," the lady answered with a considerable amount of sass in her tone.
"Hmm, I thought you professional 'healers' could usually work around minor issues like that pretty easily?" the man then asked, a hint of skepticism in his voice.
"Did you even hear the part where I clearly said he'd lost a very large lot of his blood, Captain?" she asked back, her voice sharp with annoyance after letting out an exaggerated, audible sigh.
"Yes… I heard you," the man answered simply, as he walked up a bit closer to Shitsubo's bedside to check on him.
Shitsubo was now catching his breath in ragged gasps, like he had just run a long, grueling marathon.
"I had to use both powerful form of my powers and medicine at the exact same time just to make sure he even survives this.
There is bound to be some kind of repercussion, some side effects, to doing rash, intensive things like that, you know," she then commented matter-of-factly as she prepared and then injected another syringe into the drip bag.
"But don't you guys use both your magic and medicine all the damn time on us soldiers when we get injured?" the contractor asked, a look of genuine confusion on his face as he turned to her.
"Not quite like this… and definitely not with the specific, high-grade stuff that I am currently using on him here," she said, her voice now tinged with a bit of unexpected seriousness.
"Can any fucking one of you please just tell me where the fuck I actually am right now? And please, can you also stop all your fucking yapping… my head is still fuckin' banging like a drum!" Shitsubo finally managed to say, his voice hoarse and filled with raw annoyance.
"Wow, it seems even their young ones have incredibly foul mouths these days," the lady commented dryly, raising an eyebrow.
"Just ignore her for now. You really should try to stay still and avoid moving around unnecessarily… you are still technically right here," the man responded patiently, as he moved a bit closer to Shitsubo's bedside.
"Where the fuck is 'here' supposed to be?!" Shitsubo asked again, his voice thick with growing vexation, because the vague answer he'd just been given was far too fuckin' confusing for his current state.
"You are above the Aiyoko-Taisho Metro Subway station, the one we were just in," he answered, more clearly this time.
"Where the hell is that?" Shitsubo commented, still confused, since he did not really know any specific locations in this part of Taisho Upper-Town, except for that abandoned shopping mall where Mercs hang in.
"You are still at the same train station where you passed out earlier. We're just above ground now, in a temporary setup," the man simplified his explanation further, after apparently recalling that Shitsubo isn't originally from this upscale Conquest district.
"So, what exactly is happening here, then?" Shitsubo asked next, gesturing with his good hand towards his heavily casted arm, silently asking them for an explanation as to why he is currently like this.
"Your ulna and your carpal bones simply could not handle the immense collision force that was exerted upon them when you struck that Aggressor," the lady responded quickly, her tone now more clinical.
"The fuck?" Shitsubo said, mostly under his breath, still lost in confusion.
"You completely broke your arm and your hand when you punched that Golem, son," the contractor simplified it again, after giving the lady a slight, disapproving look for her technical jargon.
"I still wonder how you could have even managed to generate so much raw punch force, especially if your own body obviously could not handle the backlash from it," the lady then commented, more to herself than to them.
"What exactly do you mean by that?" Shitsubo asked, as he was only getting more and more confused as this strange conversation progressed.
"All living things that possess a complex and rigid body structure inherently create a striking force that their own bodies can generally, safely handle; it is just a basic law of nature, of biomechanics. But you, somehow, literally created enough focused strike force with that one punch that it actually snapped your own bones like a dry twig," the lady explained patiently, as she began to return her various medical equipment back into her first aid box.
"If your body truly couldn't handle that immense amount of force, then it really shouldn't have been able to generate it in the first place…" the lady continued, starting to give another one of her semi-lectures.
But the man then interrupted her by saying, "Perhaps it could have been due to severe malnutrition, or maybe something else internal unexpectedly broke under the strain."
"His punch shouldn't have been nearly that powerful, powerful enough to shatter bone like that, if he merely had some kind of simple nutritional deficiency. And besides, does he honestly look particularly sick or frail to you, Captain?" the lady rhetorically asked, then confidently continued, "…and I can also boldly, definitively, tell you that nothing else accidentally broke it. The distinct pattern of his cracked and shattered bones clearly shows that the primary damage unequivocally started from his knuckles and radiated upwards from there."
She then turned to face Shitsubo directly and said, her expression serious, "Thankfully for you, you didn't actually deliver a perfectly straight, textbook punch, or most of your ulna bone would now be seriously, irrevocably shattered into countless tiny pieces, far worse than it currently is. And you would have then undoubtedly needed immediate, complex emergency surgery just to try and replace all that damaged bone. But, let's not even kid ourselves here, in reality, you would most likely have just had your entire arm amputated right on the spot, that is, if you somehow managed not to bleed out and die first from massive blood loss."
"You are very fuckin' lucky, for a complete dick," she then ended her rather blunt statement with a small, almost imperceptible smirk.
The single word 'amputated' gave Shitsubo sudden, intense chills, making him just glare silently at the two strangers now standing by his bedside, without uttering a single further word.
He was, admittedly, incredibly thankful that he hadn't actually given that Golem a perfectly straight punch now.
But the lady had also clearly, miraculously, healed his badly damaged arm to a significant extent.
He couldn't help but wonder how things would have actually played out if they hadn't bothered to save him at all, or if he had completely shattered his arm beyond repair, without their timely intervention.
This whole gesture, their actions, were clearly, undeniably 'kind' by any normal standard.
And that's precisely what makes it all so goddamn fuckin' downright fishy, and suspicious as hell, to him.
"Who the fuck are you guys, really? And what the hell do you actually want from me?" he finally asked again, his voice now deliberately, aggressively rude.
These two are clearly complete strangers to him.
And saving his life, then giving him top-tier medical care, apparently just out of the pure, unadulterated goodness of their hearts, is definitely not the kind of normal, expected response that their 'type' – people from the nicer districts, people with resources – usually give to street scum like him.
"Ah, good to see you are finally feeling a bit better now. Your charmingly arrogant and delightfully rude personality certainly seems to be back, and in robust, healthy working order. Well, regardless, I really have to go now. Most of us here have ACTUAL, important things that we need to be doing," the lady said pointedly, addressing both Shitsubo and the contractor, and then promptly headed towards the exit flap of the tent.
"I definitely owe you one for this, Shuki-san," the contractor said gratefully to her as she was leaving.
"Oh, you certainly owe me plenty, Captain, and believe me, I will collect on all of them, one of these fine days. Also, you should probably tell your little charity case there," she said, jerking a thumb back towards Shitsubo, "that he really should take in all of the remaining content in that IV drip if he ever wants to properly use that damaged hand to fight effectively again."
And with that, she finally walked out of the tent, leaving Shitsubo alone in there with just the contractor.
"So, you were the one that actually saved my fuckin' ass back there, ehh?" Shitsubo asked, his tone still deliberately displeased and decidedly arrogant, testing the man.
"You people from the ghetto really are consistently, remarkably vulgar and rude, aren't you?" the contractor said, not unkindly, but with a small, knowing smirk playing on his lips.
"'You people'?" Shitsubo immediately asked, his voice laced with even more annoyance now because of that damn condescending smirk the contractor currently had on his face.
"Look, I might have been the one who physically pulled your unconscious body out of that subway station, but it was really Shuki-san there that actually saved your life with her skills," the contractor swiftly, smoothly changed the topic.
"So why the fuck did you even bother to do it in the first place?" Shitsubo asked again, his voice hard, demanding some real, believable answers this time.
"It is quite simple, really… I did it because you saved me," the contractor said plainly, his expression earnest.
"Because I saved you?" Shitsubo responded, his voice filled with total, utter disbelief at what the contractor had just calmly said.
"You might have just been paid to simply aid us in that fight, that's true. But YOU, son, you personally stood up when things got desperate, and you killed all those things, effectively saving all of our remaining lives in the process," the contractor said, his voice now filled with genuine, unmistakable gratitude.
His words left Shitsubo completely speechless, and very, very confused about what the hell was actually happening here in front of him.
"I personally watched you, kid, as you bravely took each one of those damn things down, even as you very nearly killed yourself in the process of taking down that massive Golem at the end. And I just couldn't stand by and idly watch you die so painfully afterwards, bleeding out alone in a goddamn pool of your own blood," the contractor continued, then casually grabbed a nearby folding chair and sat down on it, facing Shitsubo.
"This, all of this," the contractor said, gesturing vaguely to Shitsubo's casted arm and the medical setup, "this is truly the very least I could possibly do for the young kid that saved my life, and the lives of my men."
"And you actually expect me to just fuckin' believe all that bullshit?" Shitsubo finally asked, his voice incredulous, because he simply couldn't believe, much less readily accept, that a total stranger, especially one from the Conquest district, would ever do something like that for such a seemingly silly, almost unreal, altruistic reason.
The contractor just laughed, a short, genuine laugh, in response to Shitsubo's skeptical question.
But Shitsubo did not find it in any way fuckin' funny.
His mind immediately started racing, desperately trying to think of some other angle, some hidden motive, that this man might be playing at.
'Is he secretly planning on somehow selling me out, or exploiting me, now that he's seen what I can potentially do in a fight? …No, probably not. If that was his plan, I would have surely been properly restrained by now, to stop me from escapin' or fightin' back.'
'Is he maybe an undercover cop then, or some kind of fuckin' government lackey, who now wants to try and get close to me, just to get some dirt on someone else, or maybe on some local gang, or somethin' else entirely that he mistakenly thinks I know about, or have some secret ties with…? Nah, even that doesn't make any goddamn sense. How could he have possibly planned this whole elaborate, unlikely event in advance?'
'So, what the hell does this guy really fuckin' want from me then?!'
Shitsubo couldn't help but be completely flooded with so many conflicting, suspicious thoughts and unanswered questions.
"I know it is probably very hard for you to believe, son, but it really is just as you see it. No tricks, no hidden agenda," the contractor then said to Shitsubo, his gaze steady and sincere.
"You know, when my other men who also survived that godawful assault first saw me carrying your unconscious body back up here, they all had that exact same puzzling, disbelieving look on their faces that you have on yours right now. So, I think I know exactly what is currently going through your head – 'What the heck is really fuckin' going on here?'" the contractor said, another small, understanding smirk appearing on his face.
"…But please, just believe me when I say that I simply wanted to show you my sincere gratitude, that's all. I even tried to talk to my own boss about the company officially hiring you full-time after this, but unfortunately, that idea didn't quite fall through like I had hoped it would," he continued, a note of regret in his voice.
"So, wait a minute. You not only saved my goddamn life and got my arm completely fixed up by a freakin' healer, but you also then tried to get me a permanent fuckin' job too…? And all of this just because you think I somehow managed to save your life back there?" Shitsubo asked, needing to clarify the unbelievable words he thought he'd just heard coming out of the contractor's mouth.
"Like I said to you earlier, son, you were indeed initially employed just to help us exterminate those goblins, that's true.
But you ended up doing so much more than that. Whether it was entirely by your own conscious will or not, in the heat of the moment, that ultimately doesn't change the undeniable fact of what you actually did down there… Well, regardless, I too have to get going now. Shuki-san specifically said that you should make absolutely sure that all of the remaining content in that IV drip properly enters your bloodstream, so please, try to rest up and let it do its work," the contractor said, as he finally stood up from the chair.
"Also, since I unfortunately failed in my attempt to get you a permanent spot in the company I currently work for, and since I'm not personally in charge of hiring any new Mercenary Guards for these kinds of missions, I thought that I should at least try to give this to you instead," the contractor then said, taking a small, surprisingly heavy purse out from his pocket and casually tossing it over to Shitsubo on the bed.
"What the hell is this?" Shitsubo asked, as he picked up the unexpected purse from his lap.
"Even if I was the one who brought you up here, and even though Shuki-san was the one who ultimately saved your life, all the medical resources she used to treat you technically belong to the company I work for.
So, my boss, understandably, refused to bend the rules too much and outright give you any official form of wage or payment for this last mission. Taking your earned wages as a partial fee for all the expensive medical treatment you received, no matter how small that wage might have been, was the one, non-negotiable condition he gave me for allowing Shuki to treat you at all. Since the company definitely wouldn't officially acknowledge that you were actually the one who personally brought down all those new, powerful Aggressors, and since they will undoubtedly now take all the valuable spoils from those kills for themselves, and also since they completely refuse to give you any form of extra compensation or additional payment for your extraordinary actions, I still managed to secure that amount for you, as a little personal token, just to show my OWN sincere appreciation for what you did for us down there today. And believe me, son, you truly deserve much, much more than just this," he said, his voice firm.
Then, he simply turned and left the tent, for Shitsubo to rest and recover.
Shitsubo remained completely speechless, just staring at the closed tent flap, for a long time after the contractor had finally left.