The Mask Shatters
Chapter 14
"Gluttony is a sinful paradox. One cannot be content, when they also want more..."
Author's Note
Sorry for the wait, y'all! This meant to come out earlier in October but I started a new job last month (I really love this job btw), and I work the graveyard shift so I usually get home around 3 in the morning. Still getting used to it. In addition, one of the editors got sick so that also slowed things down but they're getting better! Thank you all for your patience!
Chapter 15 will not disappoint. I promise you. :)
Without further adieu, let's get into this.
He had lost his consciousness in a bright, white spark.
In a flash, the smog was gone.
Replaced by sheer utter darkness.
Something heavy had got him from behind.
Hitting him clear at the base of his skull.
A sharp pain, followed by a total and complete loss of breath. Sight soon came after, and then hearing ended it all in a frightening finality.
When Arthur had finally come to, it was slow at first.
His breathing was short, tightened until his lungs inevitably returned to their prior rhythm.
His vision steadily pulsated back into reality.
His hearing, nothing but a static ringing that faded into obscurity.
For how long had he been out?
Not even he could say.
All he could do was stagger to his feet, stumbling as he gazed around in a vain attempt to locate anything to tell him exactly where he was.
Around the edges of his vision was a pitched abyss, that only slowly receded the longer he stood idle.
But nothing made sense.
All he could see was smog.
A vicious green that smelled of burnt paper.
His nostrils scrunched, and he couldn't help but cover himself when the stench became near deadly.
As his vision corrected itself, he soon realized he was standing idle in a small, empty street.
A dark, foreboding walkway - devoid of cars and foot traffic.
What he remembered being a quiet path, strewn with individual passersby and vacant cars was now a veritable anomaly in his own mind.
Littered with trash and discarded items that may have once served a proper use.
His eyes found nothing but the dark streetlights and vacant-looking businesses of Shibuya's Edge.
He squinted, his far-sightedness taking its toll as he took a silent step forward, unsure of exactly what was going on.
"W-where…" He huffed, approaching a disaster of a building. Its windows and entrance were boarded up, glass shards littering the concrete below as signs such as "Keep out!" and "We have nothing worth dying for! Leave!" pinned to the abandoned-looking boards with what appeared to be railroad spikes. "W-what…" Arthur, flipping his hoodie down, nervously asked aloud. He was unsure of what was going on.
All he remembered was watching Ren and his group. Makoto was with them, oddly enough. And she looked like she just went through a natural disaster. The normally prim and proper honor student of Shujin Academy with whom he had unfortunately experienced many a heated encounter with throughout his short-term stay in Tokyo bore clothes that were stained with dirt and soot, and curiously enough, torn from an apparent rough interaction. Her neat hair was a mess, mussed up by a third party and left to suffer indignity as her headband was noticeably missing as well.
And she seemed…
Frightened.
Ren and the blond known as Ryuji had practically carried her out of that seedy-looking establishment, her arms thrown over their shoulders and tears streaming down her eyes.
Arthur wasn't sure what had happened, but kept his pace as best he could. The whole situation seemed bizarre to him.
Unforeseen, impractical.
The people she seemed to have it out for, the people she suspected of being Phantom Thieves: Whisking her out of an unfavorable position, and suddenly she was bowing to them and offering thanks.
A brief discussion occurred, and then Arthur's senses were immediately muddied.
And…
"A floating bank…?" He thought, thinking back to his clearest of thoughts...
"No… No… No way… It was a dream… Nothing more…" He scratched his head, wincing as he treaded the tender spot with his fingers. "But… where does that leave me?" He further asked himself, trailing his eyes all around in a vain attempt to discern anything even remotely reassuring.
But there was nothing.
No cars.
No people.
Just an idle quiet, with wind and a distant buzz that seemed inconsequential.
Something whizzed by him, sending him stumbling back in an frightened flurry.
"Wha-!" He shouted, throwing his hands in front of him in an attempt to defend himself.
He turned his eyes to watch, perceiving what looked like a brick flying through the streets as if it had a mind of its own.
It stopped, clanging against a streetlight with a loud, echoing thump and nearly breaking the pole in half with its sheer impact before skidding off its side and shooting high into the sky above.
Almost as if it were being...guided?
Arthur gulped, his vision of the sky above suddenly obscured by an impossibility.
"H-huh…?!" He took a step back, witnessing it in its entirety...
A bank. High in the sky, upon a lonely little island and bright lights all around illuminating it for miles and miles.
Arthur blinked, his mind struggling to comprehend what he was witnessing.
All the while, anxiety began to surge from floodgates within his mind, inundating his brain with a quiet restlessness.
"What the fuck…" He murmured, squinted in a vain attempt to make whatever he was looking at go away. But the longer he looked at it, the clearer it became in his vision.
And then, like a flash in the darkness, the realization hit him.
"It's… floating… It's floating! Floating in the air!" He then shouted in surprise, as if this was the first time he bore witness to it.
"Yes. It is." Someone nearby said, jolting Arthur forward with the sudden break in the deafening silence. "So close to mock us all, but so far that we can never rest easy…" The voice said, approaching closer with each word.
Arthur sighed, realizing now that he was no longer alone. The anxiety he was feeling lessened slightly as his stiff shoulders slumped. This voice, a friendly call-out in an otherwise lonely part of the city, felt like a breath of fresh air. "Oh God, finally…" He said, shaking his head before turning to face them. Their analogy, however, confused him nonetheless, and he was curious as to what they meant - no less by what was occurring around him. "What the hell's goin-"
But as he laid his eyes upon this evidently friendly soul, he froze dead in his tracks. His voice immediately fell silent, watching at first in reticent confusion before suddenly trembling in terror.
What stood before him, quiet yet observant, was something straight out of a nightmare.
With midnight black, mannequin-esqe arms clutching tightly to what seemed like dimebags filled with a clinking mass that Arthur could not pinpoint, the figure was malformed in such a way that the human brain could not easily process its physical state. His eyes trailed upwards, and with every detail he took in, he could feel a bitter warmth rising up within himself.
He saw no eyes.
Only metal and glass.
Buttons and slots.
He saw no mouth.
No ears.
Not even a head.
But instead a red sign that said "ATM" with various services listed beneath in an orderly manner.
Its body was a dull theme, a plain aesthetic, of grey and black.
What stood before him, as if nothing was out of the ordinary, was a walking, talking ATM.
"Are you on the way to see President Kaneshiro, too?" It asked, a feminine voice emanating from seemingly nowhere. But it was clear that the ATM was speaking to him.
Arthur at first didn't respond, instead a sweat droplet formed and trailed to his cheeks slowly as he took in exactly what it was that he was seeing.
But, eventually, the xenophobia took its toll - and he couldn't help but cry out in absolute terror.
"Oh my God!" Arthur shouted, his fear overcoming him and forcing him into a frenzied flight. He turned on his heels and broke into a rapid sprint away from what he saw as nothing more than a monster. "Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ…!" He cried out.
"Why are you running…?" The ATM asked quietly, unsure exactly of what was wrong.
But Arthur didn't stop. He ran and he ran, doing his best to avoid obstacles littering the sidewalk. Overturned entry signs, toppled-over garbage bins, and even the streetlights themselves. These far off objects became danger-close, and he almost ran headfirst into a few.
He bobbed and weaved, not even daring a glance over his shoulder until eventually he came to a dark, cluttered, trash-ridden intersection.
It was as equally depressing as the street that he came from, but with an added abnormality…
All around, he could spot movement in the shadows.
Clunky, shuffling feet dragging upon cracked, neglected sidewalks. Moving across the crumbling roads, vanishing and appearing almost with no warning from turns and bends all around.
It took him a moment to make sense of it all, and then when the truth finally dawned:
It dawned with fear.
Walking ATMs, moving all around - to and fro - as if there was nothing abnormal about any of this. Not a single one acknowledged the other. Some bumped into one another, glancing up to see what it was they collided with before stepping aside and continuing on their aimless journeys.
Some occasionally stopped as if they were about to keel over, only to simply shake what Arthur could only assume to be their heads and move along - obviously crestfallen and downcast.
Arthur gulped, taking a frightened step back as he tried to make some sense of it all.
"What the hell is going on?!" The young American asked himself, sweat dripping down his face.
"What always occurs." He heard behind him. Arthur jumped, pivoting to face whoever had snuck up on him.
Another ATM.
With cash in hand.
It was a short-lived moment before the realization finally hit him like a midnight freight train.
It was the same ATM from earlier.
Standing idly before him with "her eyes" - if the creature even had a pair - staring directly into this frightened American's soul.
"It's collection time."
His steps echoed silently across the city.
Crunchy footfalls, treading upon dejected sediment and concrete.
Trash and, what Arthur only now realized, torn yen banknotes.
"Just a dream… All a dream…" Arthur told himself.
All around him, ATM's moved about. Milling towards parts unknown while Arthur stared straight ahead - nerves racked with an unsure and insecure mind. He shifted his gaze away from them, hiding his terrified eyes from the monsters all around him.
"This is all a dream…" Arthur murmured, turning his eyes to look into the muck below. "Another nightmare… Like all the others… I'm not really here right now… Nope. Not one bit…"
"If this is a dream… then please wake up… Spare us from this nightmare..." A feminine voice piped up. Arthur quickly realized it to be his unwanted companion, the ATM that had come across him in his dazed state.
The American jumped forward, glaring over his shoulder rather frightenedly.
"Just stay away from me…" Arthur demanded of the ATM. "I don't know what you are or what you want, but stay the fuck away from me!"
He had been walking for a good few minutes now, towards no goal in particular. No one bothered him - well, no one but his unwanted stalker.
A walking ATM with the voice of a young woman.
An impossibility, for certain.
But no matter how many twists and turns he made, no matter how many demands he made, the ATM would not leave his side. It followed him everywhere, cash in one dark, sickly- looking hand and dimebags in another.
"I'll wake up any minute…" Arthur added, daring another glance over his shoulder. The ATM was still there. "Back the fuck off of me!" He called out, but the ATM didn't respond. "She" simply echoed his path.
A road that led him until he reached what looked like Central Street, Shibuya.
Or, rather, a dark and twisted version of the vibrant, happy, family-friendly tourist attraction that rang true in his mind.
Instead of the open, crowded streets - there were ramshackle buildings all around. Blockaded by wooden boards, dumpsters, and junked cars. Windows were smashed out, bullet holes painted the walls, and barrels that were scorched with what once were flames, now darkened in totality by ash and soot.
There were suspicious splotches of red paint decorating the sidewalk and walkways - foreboding signs of even greater works of indescribable evil at play. ATMs stood out, looking to be counting something in their hands. Their arms were shaking, and their legs didn't seem to fare any better.
Up above was the floating bank. It was an obvious building of an obvious nature, given the shape of its stereotypical design which one would normally find in an old American mafia movie.
He couldn't help but gawk at it, with the initial shock of it all subsiding with the revelation of this being just another dream.
Arthur stood silent, standing still as he took it all in. Hands on his hips
"This almost seems real…" Arthur murmured, glancing around idly. Whistling in amazement with how similar things looked to the waking world.
The street signs, the building placement. Looking to his left, he spotted the theater and its scratched out film advertisements. He could just barely make out the names of great works of "The Ancient Scrolls". To his right, he spotted the rundown bookstore, boarded up and closed off by a"CAUTION" signs.
He sighed, crossing his arms as he continued to scan his surroundings and, indeed, even the little details like the benches and bike bollards - devoid of their main duty and rusted to hell and back - that caught his eye.
This was Shibuya, alright.
A more twisted, nightmarish version.
Devoid of life.
And replaced by a feeling of pure dread.
"This is surreal…" Arthur said, scratching his head as he cast a wary gaze skywards towards the near UFO-like building. "..kinda like that Velvet Room place…" Arthur noted.
"I don't understand why you can't accept what you see…" A familiar voice spoke to him, startling Arthur.
It was, again, the ATM who had tailed him. Coming up to his side as if she belonged there.
"You again?!" Arthur jumped forward in fright before quickly righting his posture. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"
She turned to look at him, a faceless soul, devoid of expression, gazing into his eyes. This was an ATM after all, yet he could feel something peering through the windows into his mind.
"But we're going to the same place, are we not?" She asked, pointing upwards towards the bank. Arthur followed her arm towards what looked like a metallic slide, embedded within the road further down the street, near Station Square. It led upwards, towards the bank.
From where he stood, he thought he could make out figures traveling to and fro using the rather large pathway. A result of his farsightedness finally playing on his side for once.
But Arthur, aggravated by the sudden change in the normality that was his previous reality, shook his head as he glanced back at the walking machine. "No." Arthur told her, taking an annoyed step further in an attempt to put distance between himself and her. "I don't know what this whole nightmare is supposed to mean, but I'm not gonna do anything except wait for dawn." He told her before casting another eye upwards. "...where I can return to my shitty reality."
The machine was unamused.
She didn't respond, at least not at first. She simply looked at him, slumping what broad shoulders she had at his refusal. Meanwhile he just glared back at her, indifferent. He felt nothing towards this machine, towards this product of his overactive, nightmarish battleground of a mind.
In that sense, he felt nothing of his hostility. After all, he was simply waiting for the nightmare to bring forth the demons of his mind like they had so many times before.
Eventually, she responded. Her voice suddenly broke as she fell to her knees before him. "Please go with me!" She cried out in what sounded like absolute terror.
"What the-!" Arthur gasped, jumping back as the machine grabbed onto the tails of his shorts.
"Please! You're not like me! Most here can't see that but I can! And I don't want to go alone! Please!" She begged, her voice shattering into what sounded like tears. "Please please please!"
"What the fuck?!" Arthur shouted, grabbing her by her forearms. He grunted in surprise and tried prying her off of himself, but her grip was too strong. "Fucking-What the hell… Let go of me!" He demanded.
"Please!" She further begged through her sobs. "This is the fourth collection this week! They're gonna be furious with me that I don't have the required amount! I don't want to-"
"I said GET OFF!" He demanded, shaking himself free and shoving her away. She fell back, collapsing onto her side with a loud, heavy thunk.
Afterwards, she sat still a moment, lost in a daze before catching herself and curling into a ball - as best she could manage anyways - sobbing into her black, sickly hands.
Arthur, meanwhile, dusted himself off and took an idle step back to put more distance between himself and his cognitive product. She didn't pursue. She simply laid there, sobbing uncontrollably as Arthur watched.
At first, he felt nothing. He simply stood there, watching as the ATM sobbed herself into a mire. Yen banknotes lie scattered haphazardly all around her. Dimebags sat not far off where she had dropped them, nearly forgotten in her lapse of mental clarity.
He felt no remorse for being so rough with a product of his own imagination. After all, he would wake up any minute now at home. Free for another day of welcomed normality in his exchange.
However, as he passively watched this display of continued mental insecurity, he couldn't help but suddenly feel a pang of guilt for what he had done. Sure, this machine wasn't real. There was no way it was. Even Arthur knew that a walking ATM was something straight from a child's story book at best. But he had shoved her away, a begging creature pleading for assistance.
Normally, like he did with Haru Okumura, he wanted to turn away and cast a blind eye to the scene. His own assistance would do good naught for him, and even more so within a dreamscape.
But something else demanded otherwise.
Something deep within him.
A small tingling sensation tugging at his heart, urging- no, commanding a change in decision.
And ultimately, like with Haru, this sensation won the battle.
Crossing his arms, Arthur huffed, scrunching his brows together in a deep sense of pity, allowing the guilt to swell over his mind.
"OK. Come on." Arthur sighed, stepping forward towards the machine with his arms outstretched. "Stand up, come on. Up up up." He added, grabbing her by her hands and pulling her up swiftly. He nearly recoiled by how soft they felt, but he ignored it when he reminded himself of the unrealistic state of a dreamworld. "Stand up, dammit."
"I don't wanna...I don't wanna…!" She kept on wailing, ignoring his attempts to help her to her feet.
"Come on!" He repeated himself, his voice growing louder with frustration. He huffed, pulling at her hands, trying his best to stand her up.
He pulled and he pulled, each time a strong attempt being made, and each time failing as his own breath left his lungs in its entirety. By now, he realized that he wasn't strong enough. It was as if he was trying to move a block of solid iron with only his hands. It was of no use, and after a few more failed attempts, he simply gave up and let her go.
Her arms fell limp, her sobs continuing unimpeded in her own self-dejection.
"I don't wanna be like them… I don't wanna be like them… Nonononono…."
Arthur sighed, stepping back as he caught his breath and crossed his arms, watching the pitiful display before him.
She curled back up into a fetal position, her sobs and moans becoming erratic.
"Jesus." Arthur said, arching a brow. "Reminds me of how I can get…" He scratched his head, wincing as he tread upon the tender bruise. "But, what does she mean by 'like them'?" He wondered.
But a dream was a dream, and he swiftly dismissed the thought upon reminding himself of such.
Afterwards, he idled for a moment longer - shaking his head both in pity and disappointment that such a being born from his own cognition was suffering in his stead.
"My own nightmares are tormenting others instead of me now, huh?"
Without further thought, he simply turned with his hands in his jacket pockets, and quietly walked away.
Leaving the machine to wallow and wail within her own misery.
As he walked, he couldn't help but cast a wary glance to the building above - hovering high within the sky over Shibuya. Like some kind of UFO, ignoring all semblance of physics and reality. While he kept his eyes on it, he couldn't help but wonder exactly what this all meant.
"A nightmare…?" He asked himself, confused by it all. "But what does this one mean?"
But Arthur found no answers. Not within his mind, and not by watching the lit-up anomaly above. He cast a glance over his shoulder, noting that the ATM was still in her fetal position far away. He stopped himself in front of the convenience store, glancing around idly as he tried to make sense of it all. His conclusion was a dream, but still he had no further clues as to what this one meant.
Walking ATMs?
An apocalyptic Shibuya?
Glancing up, he even took into account the floating building. Listing lazily in place with a draw-bridge like extension reaching out towards Station Square.
Even closer now, he could spot the same movement as before upon it, going up and down like the pedestrians of Tokyo in the waking world.
He crossed his arms.
So far, nothing had seemed to come for him.
No idle memories.
No visions of a haunting youth.
No abusive memoirs.
Just an ATM with the young voice of a woman, cowering in place far behind him. He glanced over his shoulder once more, noting that she was still where he had left her.
But his gaze did not linger, for the guilt he began to feel resurfaced. Instead, his gaze returned skywards, to the anomaly up above.
He huffed, curiosity getting the better of him.
"What is this all about…?" He wondered aloud, stepping forward towards Station Square. He had figured that nothing was gained when nothing was ventured, and decided that - if he was not to cower in fear like that ATM - he would at least explore his dream to burn away the time until waking.
And what better place to start than that of the high-flying anomaly?
As he departed Central Street, he didn't at all notice the still, prone bodies of the humanoid ATMs, strewn all throughout the alleyways and inside some of the dejected buildings.
Smoking and fizzing, sparking as if there was once life within the sickly looking husk.
Some even had bullet holes going through their lifeless black screens…
By the halfway point, he was already breathless.
Every step he took, it played hell on his stamina.
At first he was eager to ascend.
But after several minutes of strenuously fighting against gravity itself in order to reach the floating bank above, he had now wished he had simply stayed put on the ground below to await his eventual awakening.
However, it was too little too late to personally opt out of this path now. Arthur had spent far too much time and energy trying to reach his current objective to leisurely give up. So he decided to keep going and stay committed towards the goal. He had but only one place to go at this point, and he figured that since he had started, he might as well finish it.
Even when he would glance over his shoulder, and look out to Shibuya in full, he would shake his head in confusion, mired with a mild sense of relief.
If this was the worst his mind had to offer for the night, then so be it.
He could handle smog and pollution. While that was an inevitable eventuality for the rest of the real world itself, he imagined he would not be alive to witness it in full.
He moved along, hands in his jacket pockets, and labored breathing slipping by his lips with an increased frequency.
The height no doubt had something to do with it all.
But he knew he could keep going. After all, his fencing in his American schooling had readied him for rigorous activity.
The walk had given him ample time to think.
It was all he really did during the slow, troubling ascent.
It was easier to avoid the gazes of the walking ATMs when lost in thought - a tactic Arthur often used when traversing school itself.
Obviously, Arthur mostly thought on the ramifications of all he was seeing.
Up until recently, his chronic nightmares were of varying degrees of intensity. The likes of which he tried to not mull over for too long lest he devolved himself into a primal panic. But instead, he tried to suss out exactly what was going on.
There was no torment aimed at him.
Yet, the beings he walked alongside seemed to be taking it unto themselves - and rather willingly, he thought.
All he remembered prior to this was being in Shibuya, stalking a group of teenagers - a few members of said group he had come to know over his time. Friend and foe.
Makoto, oddly enough, countered herself within their group. Mussed and distressed, and visibly frightened when Ren's cat began meowing aloud to everyone while they listened.
An odd thing, indeed.
What concerned him mainly was that he hadn't remembered falling asleep.
He was there.
And next minute he was here.
The only conclusion he could come to was that he had exhausted himself and fell asleep the minute he returned home. It was easy to forget when your mind is muddled in a riptide of drowsiness. It wouldn't have been the first time he had lost an entire day because he either hadn't had enough sleep the night prior or had exhausted himself so heavily during the day.
Stress was always a factor, and Arthur remembered being stressed throughout the whole day. From arriving in Shibuya early to the frantic car chase by his friendly acquaintance, Kae Wakaizumi, and his newfound debt towards the extortionist.
"Wakaizumi is ever the charmer." Arthur scoffed. "I learned something new about her… I don't want to learn anything further…"
He shook his head.
The thought of such an innocent girl fooling him with a facade like that, besting him where few others had before and revealing that inside the faux persona of Kae Wakaizumi was a stone cold and unapologetic character.
Surprising, if not slightly impressive.
Eventually, he reached the top of the ramp, fatigued and heaving onto his knees. Sweat dripped down his forehead at the sudden excursion he forced himself to undertake. As he crested the top, he couldn't help but fall to one knee, exhaling a brief sigh of gleeful relief.
"Good God…" He breathed, covering his eyes as his vision blurred. "Not in a million years do I want to do this again."
He stood idle a moment, doing his best to catch his breath. Eventually it returned to him at a slow, ice-cold pace.
"Curse myself…" He stood up, wiping his brow the sleeve of his hoodie. "In a goddamn hoodie in the summer, too…"
He looked over his shoulder, slightly awed as he suddenly beheld in view.
Shibuya, from a bird's eye view.
For miles and miles he could see, his far-sightedness playing in favor to him as he looked out and spotted nothing but an open city.
However, the awe didn't stem from this view alone.
But rather the awful, desolate look plaguing everything around.
Nothing had changed.
Just a green, smog-riddled, sickly looking city - a stark contrast to the waking world's version of Shibuya.
He crossed his arms, mouth agape, concerned and amazed by all that he was witnessing.
In a sense, it reminded him of his flight into Tokyo.
As this itself felt like a foreign land to a foreign nation.
Foreign, just like himself.
"What could cause such desiccation…?" He wondered aloud, amazed that Shibuya looked so neglected and abused. But then that itself quickly stirred up another question in his mind.
"If this is a dream… why am I suddenly so…" He scratched his chin, looking down the ramp as ATMs moved up and down as if this itself was a normal road. "...Exhausted...? It feels so real…."
"Over there!" Someone shouted, startling Arthur as he turned to face whoever was speaking. "Set up a perimeter! Do not let them escape!"
Instantly, Arthur spotted figures sprinting about the Bank's courtyard, past a cast iron fence and a gate standing wide open. Sporting leaf green uniforms and black ties underneath what looked to be a bulletproof vest coupled with black slacks and flatfoot shoes, grey helmets fitted with what seemed to be gas masks replete with filters and eyeports.
Belts with all sorts of tools equipped. The word "SECURITY" emblazoned in a bright yellow on the backs of their uniform vests. Some seemed to be wielding batons in their hands, pointing and shouting every which way.
Others seemed to have handguns drawn, taking kneeling positions near some statues depicting what Arthur could only assume to be some Japanese art piece.
"Watch those doors! As soon as they open, let 'em have it!"
Arthur scrunched his eyes up, suddenly concerned as to what was going on.
"Security…?" Arthur asked himself, stepping forward in curiosity. But he stopped himself short when he realized there was something off with these men.
Their stances were hunched, their legs bent at the knees to accentuate their imposing demeanor, their arms were lanky and…. Inhuman looking. As if their very bones were just flexible cartilage. Reaching almost to their lower legs in length and, even more disturbing, their voices were similar sounding to one another.
Raspy, as if each and every one of them were chain smokers, but echoey as well - almost otherworldly.
Each and everyone looked the absolute same, the only difference being what they sported in the way of a weapon. When they spoke, Arthur wasn't able to ascertain a modicum of deviation at all between the guards.
Even from a glance, Arthur could tell something was seriously, completely off with the whole situation.
"Close the gates! Kick these beggars out!" The only one giving out the orders shouted, pointing towards a pair of security officers with his baton. They saluted, quickly pivoting and running towards Arthur, stopping just short of the gate.
"Out! Out!" One of them commanded a pair of ATMs, to which they quickly squealed in terror and ran from their presence, passing Arthur in their flight.
"The bank is closed until further notice!" The other one shouted, holstering his sidearm as he grabbed hold of his side of the gate. "Take your poor, broke asses back to Shibuya! NOW!" He demanded, slowly shutting the gate alongside his comrade.
Arthur, curious as to what was going on and against his better judgement, approached them with his hands clearly visible for the duo to see.
"Uh, what the hell's going on?" Arthur asked, stopping in place as the gate clambered shut with a loud clink. The guard looked at him, cocking his head in confusion to Arthur's presence.
The guard shook his head, grumbling in disregard as he fiddled with what Arthur could only assume was the locking mechanism. Meanwhile his partner joined him at his side, glancing at the young American with a curious gaze.
"I said get out of here!" The annoyed guard answered.
Arthur didn't budge, however. "But what's going on?!" Arthur countered him, standing firm on his question. This was a dream, after all, and so these so-called security officials posed no physical threat to him.
The other guard answered in turn, his voice very much the same as the others, but his attitude a stark contrast to his friend's.
"Hooligans have broken into the bank and have killed several of our staff." He answered, to which Arthur simply raised a brow in surprise. "We're setting up a perimeter to keep them from escaping, and evacuating both non-security personnel and the customers!" He further explained, while his partner locked the gate. "If you're wise, you'll head down to Shibuya until the all-clear is given!"
Arthur just looked at him, hands in the air as arriving ATMs huddled behind him, equally as confused as they were frightened. Arthur didn't understand, even with the explanation given to him, what was going on.
"What the hell, am I just dreaming up some Hollywood crime-thrillers now?" Arthur asked, stepping forward once again. "Just what the fuck-"
"If this is a dream, then fucking wake up and get out!" The other guard countered his logic with an angry tone, drawing his sidearm as he spoke. "We have no time to deal with idiots like you, so turn around an-"
Distantly, Arthur could've sworn he heard the sounds of a motorcycle revving, and the security officer quieted down just as his partner turned around, kneeling with his sidearm focused on the door to the bank.
He locked eyes with Arthur for a single moment, and then quickly mirrored his partner's stance, rushing to take a position at the corner-end of the gate while his more agreeable partner moved to the other side.
"What the…?" Arthur asked out loud, backing up as the motorcycle sounds grew closer and closer, until even the sounds of the tires screeching were clear as day.
The front door burst open with a loud and deafening crash, startling Arthur as splintered wood flew in every direction possible, with eerie blue flames trailing behind it.
Several cracks rang out.
Followed by the terrifying shrieks of the ATMs behind him.
Post-Chapter Author's Note
Edited by Frozen Foe and Kabuto S. Inferno.