This schedule became routine. Wake up, train, explore, sleep, repeat. It was simple but effective. I was getting used to the layout of the place while Isamu got stronger.

The third day, he killed his first man. Someone thought we would make a good target at night. Isamu was the one guarding while I slept, so he acted. When I woke up to the ruckus, I found him next to the body, a knife in the throat of the thug.

As I hoped, he didn't break down, he was simply quiet and a bit distant for a while. Just to be sure I elected to take the day off and stay at the shack. He needed the time to digest what he did.

The day after, he killed another one. It went smoothly.

After a week, I finally felt hunger. I hadn't noticed it's absence until then. I guessed some basic things, like my lack of glasses, could easily go unnoticed. Thankfully, I didn't need much, a few fruits sufficed to satiate me for days.

I guessed it made some sense for bodily needs to be a bit pointless without a physical body, which wasn't even true as hunger was still a thing. Same for sleep. We needed it but not as much as when we were alive. Four hours at most. That made sleeping in shifts with only two of us actually viable.

Still, despite Isamu being apparently able to take care of himself, I wasn't able to sleep soundly. The ambient danger was always in the back of my mind and it was quite hard to fully relax in these circumstances.

That's why when the door of the shack opened and heavy footsteps followed I awoke. Alert, I silently got up and picked one of the better weapons we had found, a well maintained and fairly long knife.

Where was Isamu? He should have been in the shack with me. Was he already dead?

The footsteps were approaching, I had hidden myself in the blind spot Isamu had taken advantage of the first time we met. The similarity between these two moments wasn't lost on me. In a few seconds someone was going to pass the entrance of the room, and I was going to jump them before they jumped me.

A foot landed on the threshold, half of it visible. Just one more. Time was stretching as my focus was entirely on the timing of my strike.

The figure shambled into view.

I ran at them, pure instinct guiding my feet, but in the second I took to get to them I recognized one of the faces. I couldn't cancel my momentum so I bowled them over as I attempted to direct my knife away from everyone's flesh. Once I managed to disentangle myself from the mess of limbs we found ourselves in I put myself in a fighting position.

"Wo cam don mi Tayor!" Isamu cried out in a nearly unintelligible manner. It was hard to focus on details on a night as dark as this one, but he looked somewhat haggard and his face was bloody as well as swollen. The one who accompanied him looked fine in comparison, she would be sporting a black eye in the morning, but she didn't look like she had been run over by a steamroller. She was rather plain looking, but the unmaintained hair and probably never washed clothes certainly didn't help.

"Shut up. I'll deal with you later." I responded harshly. He would be explaining himself, but the intruder got priority. "And who are you exactly?"

"I'm Naoko, no last name, just Naoko. Look, I don't want any trouble, I just came to bring back this moron, nothing more." Moron?

"What the hell did you do Isamu?" I had a feeling I wasn't going to like his explications.

"Wel you kno, I wa gaïn ze houfe wen I ear homeone houtin. Ho I peeh ouside an I see he gedin assaued. I ouln't ust eave er aone!" Despite the fact his words were near incomprehensible I got the gist of it.

That was insanely reckless, even for his usual inexperienced self. He could have easily woken me up to deal with the issue, despite my ruthless streak I wasn't the type to just watch as someone was getting assaulted and he knew it. It wouldn't have been the first time. Something must have pushed him to act alone. I didn't know what, I wasn't a psychologist, but this needed to never happen again.

"You fucking idiot! Don't you remember where we are? This could have easily been a trap. Did you even consider that possibility before jumping in? You were even lucky Naoko here didn't just run away!" I said as sternly as possible. My eyes were boring into him while his were desperately trying to avoid so much as glancing as me. "Next time wake me up. Going into this without backup was nothing more than suicidal."

"Bu… washn a rap in ze en, I bea thos guys." He replied meekly.

"No, I beat those guys, you were a good distraction though." This time it was Naoko who spoke. Isamu looked like someone crushed in front of his eyes every single one of is hopes and dreams, although I had to admit it was hard to tell with how swollen his features were getting.

I snorted. Our guest was slightly startled and Isamu was looking at me as if I had grown a second head. Why did they act so surprised?

I sat down, relishing in the fall of the tension.

"I'm Taylor Hebert and this idiot over there is Isamu Kodama. You can stay for a bit if you want, that's the least we can do after you brought him back." The question of course remained over whether I could trust her long term or not. Perhaps she was a serial killer who preyed on the less aggressive residents, earning their trust before stabbing them in the back. Wouldn't be that much of a stretch around here considering there was a guy crucifying people after making them eat their own spleen running around. In any case, despite my suspicions, I wasn't going to act on them alone. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt, at least for tonight.

"So, how long have you been here?" Wow, great attempt at small talk Taylor. You could feel the inhumane social skills a mile away. Luckily, she didn't care.

"I've been in Zaraki since I was 3 years old. And I'm 16, so yeah around 13 years. And you, you're souls from the living world, three weeks at most or you would have had to change clothes." Something in what she said made my mind click.

"You specified that we were souls from the living world, does that mean that there are some who are not?"

"What? Of course! I was born here after all. Well, not here here, surviving in Zaraki as a baby is completely impossible, I was born in the 60th district Shironeko." That meant that there were indeed some populations dynamics despite people being spread randomly around the place. I had briefly fostered the idea that the repartition wasn't as random as they said and that it worked on some kind of karma system, I would certainly deserve to be in this hell, but Isamu threw a wrench into it. Still a part of what she said worried me.

"If your parents had to flee to here, I really don't want to find out how bad Shironeko is."

"You kidding?" She scoffed. "Shironeko is a paradise compared to Zaraki. My family didn't flee, they were kicked out again and again until they hit the furthest edge of Rukongai. The fact they managed to be banned out of 20 districts in a few years says quite a lot on the kind of persons they were. I tried sneaking back of course, but the only gate towards district 79 is constantly guarded. No one wants the trash in their neighborhood, as shitty as it is." That answered a lot of questions. Namely why this place had such a high concentration of maniacs.

The problem was that I didn't want to stay here, and although I didn't find the gate she spoke of, the fact that it was guarded spoke of some manner of organization. Depending on how good the guard was, we could be chased even after getting past the gate. I couldn't really know until I checked it for myself, we would have to cross that bridge once we got to it.

"Wait a minute. I didn't recognize you before, but that dress, those features, the way you carry yourself…are you that Red Lady everyone is talking about?!" Great, don't tell me I had gotten famous somehow, as if I needed a target on my back in this situation.

"A ed ady?" Helpfully asked Isamu.

"Yeah the Red Lady. Everyone's talking about that bitch with strange features who always struts around in plain daylight like she owns the place. Some guys tried to put her in her place, they only served to color her white robes red. They say she always make sure to put a new coat of fresh blood everyday on her clothes, just to make sure everyone knows who she is." God damn it.

"God damn it."

"YES! I was right! You ARE the Red Lady!" Way too loud!

"Please calm down, we don't need you attracting the attention of everyone." She shut her mouth with her hands. "I don't know about these rumors I'm not a bloodthirsty maniac, I'm not searching for a fight, in fact I'm trying to avoid them." I protested. Naoko stared at me.

"Are you serious? You're trying to intimidate them, so they'll leave you alone? But something's weird, you don't feel strong. Why do you restrain yourself?"

"Restrain myself?"

"Wait, you don't mean that you are actually that weak? You're trying to intimidate everyone to submission while you are…like that? No wonder everyone thinks they can take you when you meet them!" I was getting confused at what she was getting at.

"Wait a minute, what do you mean when you say that I feel weak?"

"I mean, like you can feel how strong someone is. Don't look at me like that, I meant that it feels like they have a heavier presence…or something. You…uh…do it by concentrating on them I guess? I never really bothered to think about it before."

Her explanations weren't much but I tried it anyway, even if I thought it was probably a dumb prank. I was wrong. If I concentrated enough I could feel something rolling off of her. Me and Isamu had the same thing happening to us but far more subdued. So that was what she meant. It indeed felt like raw power or something of the sort.

"Are you the norm?" I asked.

"Nah, not really. I've been here longer than most people, so I'm a bit stronger. Of course, there are some outliers who are really powerful, but they are pretty rare. You're not the bottom of the barrel, some people you can't even see their power, but honestly when it comes to the ones that aren't afraid to show their face you're rather on the low end. Honestly, it's kinda impressive in its own way. People like you usually don't last long before bleeding out with a shank in the guts."

So I've been punching above my supposed weight class since I arrived here. Nothing new. I had only one question left for her.

"So, how do I get stronger." If I looked like a paper tiger to everyone around me, I just had to become a proper tiger.

"I dunno. It just happens over time I guess. It happens faster for some people though." Not really helpful, but at least I had the assurance that with the passage of time people would start treating me seriously.

"Alright, now that I answered all your questions it's my turn." She said "I never had the opportunity to talk to someone from the living world before. I only know that we call it the living world because when people die there they get here. So, how did it happen?" She said with a glint in her eyes.

"I'm not sure I want to talk about it." I responded. Those memories were going to stay locked up for a while.

"Laaaaaaaame. And you kid?"

"I-I'm ot a hid! And you onwy to yea oder tan me anyay!" Isamu sputtered indignantly.

"Oh, sure you are. Isn't he adorable?" She said while patting him like one might a dog.

"Please wait on asking him until he gets better, alright? I can barely understand what he's saying and it's getting annoying. No offense of course Isamu."

"Is arite."

"Fine alright, be like that then, but I need to have something you know. So…" She adjusted her position. "How did you two meet?"

I sighed


A.N.

I tried making a bigger chapter this time. I failed. In the end I had to slice it in two to make it work. I admit I'm a bit salty about that.

Still, next chapter should come in about 3 days, the time for me to finish it and clean it up.