Taisho Shopping Mall (abandoned), Upper-Town Taisho.
Daigo has yet to return after over two long hours had passed, so Shitsubo eventually decided to go back outside again, rejoining the restless, milling crowd of other Mercs that constantly threw themselves at any recruiters that happened to come by.
After several more frustrating hours of wrestling and struggling for a paying spot, Shitsubo still wasn't pulled into the back of any truck.
And for the two times he was actually picked from the crowd, he was then
unceremoniously let go again, immediately after they 'felt' out that he is an E-Grade Evolve.
After almost 3 full hours of this demoralizing, fruitless struggle, a cargo truck eventually pulled up a bit close to where the main mob of Mercenary Guards still stood, with Shitsubo still stuck right there in the disheartened yet struggling mix.
This particular truck, however, isn't here to take in any new day-hitters.
Instead, it seem its purpose is to drop off the ones they had taken out earlier.... or, more accurately, what's left of them anyway.
Its ominous arrival drew only a very few, cursory glances from the crowd; Shitsubo, however, was one of those few who watched.
When about 5 or so of them slowly got down from the truck bed, the driver of the cargo truck immediately ignited the loud engine and then drove off quickly, just as usual, without a backward glance.
Shitsubo still stared intently at the small, wretched bunch as the truck dropped them off.
He clearly saw that all of them were completely covered in a thick layer of ash, black charcoal dust, and wet, glistening blood.
Their clothes were now even more ragged up, torn to shreds, than your typical, everyday hoodlum's already tattered attire.
It was incredibly hard to tell from a distance if they were bleeding from their own wounds, or if it was someone else's blood staining them... or even, perhaps, something else's blood entirely, as they all just silently walked, or rather, stumbled, into the dark maw of the mall, looking like rotten corpses of the undead.
Shitsubo soon recognized a familiar face amongst them, or at least, a small, grimy speck of one, to be perfectly honest.
Though this particular person's clothes were now tattered almost beyond any recognition, the person's distinctive gait, even if it's currently incredibly slow and very, very lazy, was a dead giveaway.
"Daigo…" Shitsubo whispered softly under his breath, as he immediately started walking towards that person, quickly increasing his pace as he did so.
Shitsubo couldn't help but feel that something was very, very fuckin' off with him.
Daigo walked with his head hanging low, his eyes looking half lost and half asleep, as his entire body moved sluggishly, like some kind of lazy, broken zombie version of his usual self.
Shitsubo then began to run, roughly pushing aside anyone that happened to be in his direct way.
He had no fuckin' thought in his head at that moment of whether the people he just forcefully shoved aside were D-Grades, or literal demons.
The only thoughts currently racing through his head were, 'What the hell is wrong with Daigo right now?', 'What the fuck actually happened to him out there?', and 'Why is fresh blood still fuckin' dripping from his damn hand?'
Daigo staggered badly as he walked, with each successive step seeming visibly weaker, more unsteady, than the previous one.
Shitsubo finally reached his side, and then hurriedly, but gently, grabbed Daigo's limp left arm, carefully putting it over his own neck and shoulders.
He then wrapped his own left arm around Daigo's shaking back, placing his hand firmly under Daigo's armpit to try and support his weight.
"It's alright now, Daigo… you are alright, man. Just take it slow, nice and easy," Shitsubo softly said as he slowly, carefully, started to carry Daigo towards their usual, secluded spot deeper within the mall.
"Shitsubo… man, you look… you look fucking awful today," Daigo commented weakly, as he slowly, painfully, turned his head just a little to his left, a small, yet incredibly weak and pathetic, smirk forming on his blood-streaked, grimy face.
"I do not look awful," Shitsubo replied, his voice flat and unamused, not recognizing, or perhaps just ignoring, the faint hint of sarcasm in Daigo's weak, trembling tone.
The sight of the fresh trail of dark blood that Daigo had already left on the dirty floor, even in the short little distance he had managed to cover on his own, caused even the usually stoic Shitsubo to slightly, inwardly, panic... Just slightly, though, as he still appeared as outwardly calm as a still, undisturbed pond on the surface.
He gently, but also very hurriedly, dragged Daigo the rest of the way to their usual, relatively safe spot in the vast, echoing mall.
Once there, he quickly dug into his own backpack and then brought out the small, remaining remainder of that potent healing potion he had luckily found just a few days back.
"What..what da fuck… is that…?" Shitsubo quickly poured the glowing, viscous potion down Daigo's throat before Daigo could even finish asking what that weird-looking, unfamiliar tube he was suddenly bringing up to his face actually was.
Daigo naturally, instinctively, tried to reject whatever strange substance Shitsubo was now forcefully feeding him.
But he simply didn't have enough strength left in him to effectively pull his head back from Shitsubo's firm, insistent grip, and so he could only just weakly swallow down the strange gassy concoction.
After Shitsubo had managed to force the whole thing down Daigo's throat, Daigo then jerked violently forward, coughing uncontrollably, almost violently, with a small, concerning amount of thick mucus and fresh, dark blood following each wracking cough.
Shitsubo knew next to nothing about properly handling any kind of serious medical emergencies, especially one like Daigo is currently, clearly experiencing right now.
So, all he could really do was just gently, awkwardly, massage Daigo's heaving back as he coughed hard and painfully, all the while silently, desperately, hoping that this stupid fuckin' healing potion was truly some kind of miracle drug, just like all the rumors always say they were.
When Daigo was finally done with his violent coughing fit, and began instead to just pant heavily, his breath ragged, Shitsubo gently made him rest his aching back against the graffiti-ridden concrete pillar that stood beside them.
They just sat there together in silence for a while after that, with Daigo's eyes now closed, and his ragged breathing gradually, thankfully, returning back to a more normal, steady rhythm as the minutes slowly passed by.
Shitsubo just sat there quietly with him, not saying anything at all, but with lots and lots of different, troubling thoughts flowing rapidly in and out of his own tired head.
"What the hell was that stuff?" Daigo finally asked softly, after several tens of minutes of simply sitting there, recovering.
The blood had, by now, long since stopped bleeding out from his various wounds, and most of the earlier, overwhelming doziness and confusion he'd been feeling was now thankfully gone.
This, naturally, made him incredibly curious as to what exactly Shitsubo had given him, and more importantly, how the hell he had managed to get his hands on something so obviously potent and effective.
"It's a healing potion… probably," Shitsubo responded, his answer characteristically somewhat short and non-committal.
"Yeah, well, my ribs still fuckin' hurt like crazy, no doubt about that. But I would be even more of a dumb motherfucker than usual if I didn't at least ask you where the hell you got that powerful shit from," Daigo said, a tiny, familiar hint of his normal nature finally returning to his voice.
"I took it from a dead guy I found," Shitsubo responded simply, as he then casually cracked his own stiff neck, feeling a bit thankful himself that Daigo didn't actually bleed out and die, or something equally permanent.
He was also inwardly pondering why his friend won't just shut the fuck up for a bit longer and properly rest.
"How many of 'em did you find there?" Daigo then asked promptly, his interest clearly piqued.
"Two."
"Wait, you mean you still have another one of those things?!" Daigo immediately asked, clear, undisguised excitation now evident in his voice.
"No. I already used the other one," Shitsubo replied just as fast as he was asked, his voice flat.
"When did you use it? Were there any other dead bodies there with him? Did you even check those other ones properly?" Daigo began asking one question after another, clearly not waiting for an answer to the first one before quickly asking the next, his mind racing with possibilities.
"Can you just… please, just try to REST for a bit, Daigo?" Shitsubo was finally forced to try and stop Daigo's sudden, excited ranting, his own voice now laced with a slightly annoyed, weary tone.
Shitsubo clearly, immediately understood exactly where Daigo's opportunistic mind was now heading with all this.
If there was indeed one dead corpse that had some valuable healing potions in his pocket, then that guy should, logically, have also had some fallen comrades nearby, ones that were probably just as richly equipped as he himself had been.
And considering that actual healing potions were basically fuckin' myths to slum rats like them, there would undoubtedly be a massive raking in of a whole lot of coins if such items could be found and then pawned off in their local black market.
"But we are already fuckin' resting, man… We are just sittin' down right here, ain't we?" Daigo replied, while simultaneously giving Shitsubo a rather weird, pointed look, as if to ask why on earth he wouldn't want to talk more about the exciting possibility of looting such potential fortunes.
Daigo wasn't particularly annoyed that Shitsubo hadn't told him about finding the healing potions earlier, or that he might even be hiding them from him now.
He just guessed that maybe Shitsubo could simply not want to go back to that particular Gate again, for his own reasons.
Yes, Shitsubo did briefly tell him before about how he had supposedly luckily survived and then managed to escape from that last dangerous Gate he'd been in.
And honestly, from what little Shitsubo had actually said, it didn't sound particularly horrific or traumatic compared to some of their other experiences.
But Daigo also understood, from his own painful experiences, that not all stories are comfortable, or even possible, to tell, especially not those stories that take place inside the confines of a Gate.
He knew it was very possible that he wasn't told the whole, or even the exact, unvarnished story by Shitsubo.
He, too, had his own dark tales from inside Gates, grim experiences that he couldn't ever find himself telling anyone about, not anytime soon, maybe not ever.
Gates, even the supposedly low-level ones that Daigo and Shitsubo had been running for almost all their young lives, are essentially just glorified chambers of unimaginable horrors.
No one ever aids in conquering one of them without also losing a small, irreplaceable piece of their own sanity with each and every single incursion.
So, Shitsubo not telling him all the details about those healing potions, that wasn't really a major issue for Daigo.
But the enticing thought of a possible, undiscovered graveyard, one perhaps littered with the richly equipped bodies of dead Guards, or something equally valuable, still felt like a reasonable enough prospect to try and trample on, or at least temporarily ignore, the undeniable fear of whatever unknown horrors might have frightened Shitsubo so badly in that particular Gate.
As long as a significant amount of money is potentially in the picture, Daigo firmly believed, there is always some kind of solution to be found, some risk worth taking.
And Shitsubo, he felt, should at least acknowledge that basic, greedy principle, at least from Daigo's own pragmatic point of view.
"Look, man, I also had a very, very shitty fuckin' day today, probably just as bad as yours. And given on how I saw you lookin' when you first got dropped off by that truck, you clearly did too… So, let's just try to take a goddamn minute here to actually breathe, alright?" Shitsubo then softly said, trying his best to convey his earnest, weary thoughts as clearly and as patiently as possible.
"But we are fuckin' breathing, Shitsubo! That's exactly why we can now discuss the exciting prospect of a potential graveyard that's just ripe for a good, thorough looting!" Daigo immediately replied, clearly not wanting to just dismiss the tantalizing topic, even if he now strongly felt that Shitsubo was deliberately trying to avoid going back to that specific Gate, for whatever reason.
"There is no fuckin' graveyard of gold down there, Daigo. There's just a lone, picked-clean pile of human bones, still dressed in a tattered uniform, that's all that's left down there now," Shitsubo finally said calmly, his voice as cold and as dead as a long-frozen fish.
"Well, next time then, please try to fuckin' lead with important info like that first, before you go makin' me daydream about finding lots and lots of easy fuckin' coins, alright?" Daigo hissed and then said, his voice now genuinely, openly annoyed, as his entire grand vision of how they could easily loot all those 'bodies' and how selling all their valuable stuffs would then make both him and Shitsubo incredibly rich, just suddenly, disappointingly, blew up right in his hopeful face.
A heavy, uncomfortable silence finally enveloped the small space where they both sat.
And neither of them had any immediate intention of trying to break it just yet.
Daigo couldn't help but think about how right Shitsubo actually is, about both of them having had a terrible day.
He himself had gotten violently rammed into by some kind of bizarre monstrosity that strongly resembled a giant, walking tree.
And though he had somehow, luckily, managed to survive that initial brutal attack, mostly because he wasn't really the walking tree's primary target at that moment – he had apparently just happened to be in the damn way and had then gotten carelessly tossed aside like a freaking rag doll.
Thinking back now at that whole fucked-up thing: the strange, almost fearful behavior of the Tower's own Guard unit within that specific Gate, the grim, worried face the supervisor had given to all of them just before they first went in, the unusually tight security parameters that had been installed around that particular Gate, even the advanced, heavy-duty weapons that all the Tower Guards had carried with them… all of it had made going into that Gate feel a bit scary, unusually ominous, right from the very start.
Daigo now began to seriously suspect that something was actually very, very wrong about that specific Gate.
And either the Tower's elite unit that had been sent into that Gate beforehand knew exactly what kind of horrors were waiting in there, and had then deliberately decided not to talk about it for some extremely fuckin' annoying, probably self-serving reason, or they themselves had also had no exact, prior clue about what they were all walking into.
He then sighed hard, consciously trying to let go of that troubling issue, as it really had nothing more to do with him now.
The mere, simple fact that he himself still drew breath at this very moment was almost entirely thanks to that strange 'healing potion' that Shitsubo had forcefully poured down his throat earlier.
If not for that, he knew, he would have probably, almost certainly, died just a few short moments after he had first arrived back here at this abandoned mall, bleeding out on the filthy floor.
He wasn't a complete stranger to near-death experiences, not by a long shot, and he knew only too well what death's cold, final touch actually felt like.
So, he just sat there quietly now, feeling genuinely, profoundly grateful for his life, instead of just whining pointlessly about all the shit that had happened.