Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to SIU. Except for my OCs.

This is long overdue sorry :p.

Chapter 7

There was a loud noise that rang throughout the air. It was short and sharp.

A gunshot, I recognized. Soon after, the exact sound appeared again.

2 gunshots.

"-un. Shun."

I slowly opened my eyes to a bright light. I half expected to be on top of a bed but found myself laying on something wooden instead. I tried to lift myself up but was forced back from the sharp pain running through my body. It was expected at least, doing a new form of body reinforcement on the whim, but it still surprised me how much strain it had put on me. It felt like my insides were doing their best to tear me apart.

"How are you feeling?" Hwaryun asked me. I turned my head to where she had spoken. At least my neck didn't have much trouble moving. She sat to my side on another bench, watching team B take their test on the big screen at the front.

"Like shit." I replied, my voice sounding a little coarse. "How did the rest of our test do?"

"We lost. But you knew that we would lose, didn't you?"

"Well sort of, but no harm in checking. How is team B doing?"

"Not well." She opened a cracker pack and held it up. "Here, eat this. It'll help your shinsu heal your body faster."

I tried to reach for it but couldn't find the strength to move my arm. "I can't really move anything right now. Give me a hand?"

Hwaryun gave out a sigh and dropped the cracker onto my face. Really? After a moment to think about how I would ruin her meal later, I maneuvered the cracker to the side so I could bite into it. It tasted strange, soft and chewy, unlike the normal salt crackers that the mess hall usually had. It felt warm going down to my stomach.

"I felt like you would want to watch this." Hwaryun motioned to the screen.

Hoh had taken Rachel with a knife resting on her neck, speaking to Quant with only the safety zone separating them. Part of the screen shifted to show that the spear bearers on team B had tied up a few other team members. As Quant began to make his move, Bam showed up.

Hoh opened his mouth and began swinging his body aggressively, yelling things we couldn't hear. A cold feeling sunk down to my stomach when I saw Rachel get stabbed with the knife by Hoh. I knew what she would do to Bam, and all the people in the story she would hurt as she climbed up the tower. Yet I knew the feelings I had felt were unjustified. There was no reason for me to feel this way towards Rachel. Especially since this Rachel wasn't the one who had committed all those acts. Not yet at the very least.

Anguish appeared on Bam's face as he turned to face the ranker. I managed to lift myself up as the pain began to ease away, sitting myself beside Hwaryun to watch the rest of the test.

"I…I would've been able to have done something for their team." I began speaking my thoughts out loud. "But I didn't want to risk it. Still, looking at them now, I probably should've done something right?"

Hwaryun glanced at me before looking back to the screen. Quant and Bam had just split up to take care of the spear bearers and Hoh, respectively. "Who knows? Maybe you could've changed something. Maybe you wouldn't be able to. But you would never really know until you make the decision."

I hung my head and didn't reply, instead looking toward the table that Khun was sitting at. He was beside Laure with his face buried into his arms that were resting on the desk. Guilt ran down my spine as I looked back toward the screen. Whispers were going around the room about how crazy the regulars on the other team were.

My upper body lurched forward as someone hit my back. Slightly winded, I took a moment before pushing myself back to glare at the person who hit me.

"How are you doing Shun? You put up one hell of a fight against my teacher." Shibisu said.

"I'm still hurting Shibisu. Did not appreciate that." I managed to say.

He gave an apologetic look and sat down beside me. "Sorry about that. But seriously though, I still can't believe you managed to match him even if he did have a few handicaps. But it's too bad that we couldn't pull off the win. Rankers really are a different breed."

I grinned a bit. "Yeah, the test was unfair in the first place." But Khun's plan still went through. We sat in a comfortable silence, watching Team B fall apart even more. Bam had successfully got Rachel back, and was simply talking to Hoh from what we could see.

"Pretty shitty isn't it, what's happening with their team." I commented, looking at Shibisu from the corner of my eye.

Shibisu grimaced. "Yeah. I… I didn't know Hoh was the kind of person to do this."

I nodded along, feeling slightly ashamed. Part of me felt like I knew these people after talking and eating with them for weeks now, but I knew that another part of me still considered them partly as characters. I sat on my thoughts for a bit, before watching Hoh pick up his own knife and stab it into himself.

"What the hell?" Shibisu exclaimed, his mouth wide open. The other regulars seemed to agree with him.

Bam ran straight toward him and knelt down, shoulder slumped inward. Barely visible tears showed up as Bam presumably cried out. I locked my eyes onto the screen, not allowing myself the luxury of looking away. I knew this would happen, and now I'll never know if I would've been able to change it.

"What an odd boy." Hwaryun spoke up. Both Shibisu and I turned our heads toward her. "To have tears over the enemy who was just about to kill someone precious to him. Isn't it cruel to have such a person climb up this tower?"

Neither of us looked to answer the question.

Team B's test ended with a big fight between Endorsi and Bam versus the ranker. The ignition blade Endorsi got from one of the other fishermen managed to hold up against Quant's advances, flashing a bright blue whenever she swung it. Bam was bleeding from the head but held his own part of the fight, enacting reverse flow control whenever he saw the chance.

Once Endorsi grabbed the badge from Quant, a loud buzzer rang out, and medical personnel began to escort some of the regulars from the testing floor. Bam had a pained look on his face as Rachel and Hoh were put onto stretchers, while the spear bearers began to celebrate.

"The tests are now over!" The announcer voice of Lero Ro came out. "Team A failed, while team B passed! All regulars please gather together in the boardroom!"

Team A gathered themselves and started to make their way toward the designated place where the test administrators would be debriefing us.

"Can you stand?" Hwaryun asked me.

I picked my legs up from the bench and stood myself up. Pain and aches ran throughout as I used the slightest muscle movement. I winced as I tested a single step.

"I should be fine." I answered through my teeth. I barely believed myself.

Shibisu rolled his eyes. "Here, I'll help you out." He wrapped my right arm around his neck and supported my side with his left arm. "I couldn't really do anything when you faced that ranker, but hopefully I'll be able to repay it sometime in the future. Honestly, I think Khun was right. I don't know if we would've made it as far as we did without you."

I gave a small chuckle. "That's a lie, you guys would've definitely done as well as we did without me." I could feel Hwaryun's gaze bore into me as I said that, but I resisted turning my head.

"Hey," Khun walked towards us. "How are you doing Shun?"

I raised an eyebrow. "About as well as I could be doing. Looks like your plan worked for the most part."

"It's too bad we didn't get the win though." Shibisu added in. "We did all we could."

"I bet we did."

Khun eyed me for a bit, slowing his walking pace a bit. He held his hands on the back of his head. "Ah, you knew?"

"Well, I had a gut feeling. I doubt I would've changed much if you didn't have me face the ranker, right?" I responded with a smirk.

"It worked out still." He began to stare off into space. "It really was close though, if only… never mind."

Shibisu had kept turning his head to Khun and then back to me with a confused look on his face. It looked like he was about to say something before Hwaryun interjected, wrapping my left arm around her neck.

"Shibisu, I can take him from now." Hwaryun nodded towards him. I narrowed my eyes towards Hwaryun wondering why she sounded just a bit alarmed.

"Oh, alright." Shibisu said slowly, still confused. He lifted my other arm off his neck and Hwaryun quickened the pace so that they were out of hearing distance. She was practically lifting me up.

"What's going on?" I whispered a little aggressively, with her grip on my side tightening ever so slightly.

She stared at me intently. "You remember that I haven't been able to see the paths that you could go on, right? Well… it's shown up."

I gave her an incredulous look. "What the hell does that mean? How does it just show up?"

"I can't explain it all to you right now, but how most paths are formed are by instances which the tower foresees. Alternatively, paths can also be created by other people intercepting or creating new instances in which more paths are formed. My kind aren't able to see these paths as well as the silver dwarves, but we are able to see a sort of outcome or fate as a result of these paths." Many of the regulars from both Team A and B had started to gather at the boardroom. She drifted us to the side so that she could keep explaining.

Hwaryun continued. "With you, no path nor fate showed up at all, your existence wasn't acknowledged by the tower. I assumed that there would simply be nothing for me to see but a blurred fate began to show up a few days ago and I didn't know why." She looked towards the ground, slowing down her pace. "Soon after the test ended for team B, the blurs became solid, and I started to link things together."

Hwaryun let out a heavy sigh. "Someone's here Shun. They're here because of the ranker that you hold."

Large shinheuh littered the ground with multiple white needles sticking into them. Some were long and silky, spreading across the floor, while others were covered in dense armor. Their blood seeped out of the wounds they held and onto the barren ground, while various rankers sat on their corpses. A few of the shinheuh with large plumb bodies had begun to release shinsu into the atmosphere. Soft clicks of a handheld device echoed throughout the space.

"There were a lot more than just white steel eels here. A lot of shinhueh have been gathering recently, haven't they?" A man with a pink shirt decorated with a blue handkerchief asked. His eyes didn't move from the device he held as he spoke.

The dwarf with silver hair nodded. "It's not entirely uncommon, but there's usually a source that brings them together. We haven't seen anything like that so it could just be a coincidence. It was strange though, that white steel eels, great broad lions, and barred crabs gathered in one spot without killing each other.

"Hey, Evan." A woman with a white suit and a distinct red hairband called out to the guide. "When are we going to be able to get to the next floor? I know we're taking the long way to avoid Evankhell, but are we going to be able to get there before the tests end?"

"We'll get there. Very soon. If you wanted to hurry, why did you send out Kinjin? I thought you wanted to get going as soon as we could." Evan spoke into his scarf.

Yuri threw a rock at him that bounced off his head. "Don't imply that I'm the one making us late! I just needed him to make a call for me."

"That I've done." A tall man with a silver suit and red undershirt spoke out with a soft voice as he returned to the group. He had wavy black hair that shined from the minimal light of the shinsu within the cave. "He said that he still hasn't been able to find her, miss Yuri."

Yuri made a disappointed sneer. "Really? That bastard better not be slacking off. Well, let's get moving people." She jumped off the eel she had been standing on and started to make her way further into the cave. All the other rankers followed while Evan quickly jogged Yuri's side to make sure she wouldn't get lost.

"Well, that's a little sad." The man with the device began walking beside Kinjin and they followed behind the group."

Kinjin shrugged. "Hey Blueberry. It is an issue, but nothing we can really do about it now."

"You don't look too bothered. You guys were part of the same group when you were climbing the tower, weren't you?"

"Yeah," He nodded. "But if I know her at all, she has her own reasons for being alone right now. I doubt that she would lend Miss Yuri her help if we ever found her."

Blueberry smiled. "That's not good to hear. I guess we should be glad that you've found some of your own reasons to stick around. Though, you've still haven't found what you're looking for, right?"

Kinjin let his eyes drift off into space as he slowly shook his head. "It has been a while since I've joined, but I don't plan on leaving anytime soon. Allies are a hard find these days. I believe I'll find it, just that it'll take a little bit more time. We have a lot of that at least, assuming I'm not hunted down by Jahad's army."

"Even if you were, I doubt they would give you a hard time." Blueberry chuckled. "I don't know if I've asked you this yet, but what is it that you're looking for?"

"Just something from my past." Kinjin mused.

A/N

So a month went by quickly. Really sorry about that. I don't really have an excuse other than school stuff and getting sucked into AOT. This is a really short chapter so I hope to have the next out soon.

Review responses:

Eins minus zwei: Not sure what you mean by 'god gives wishes' story sorry. If it's anything I think it is, I plan to shape it a bit differently. I haven't heard of web . Maybe I should go check it out thanks!

NazgulBelserion: I took a look at the story you mentioned, I guess we're just writing different stories. It's too bad if this doesn't appeal to your tastes but it happens.

Kaliedo: Thanks! I'll try to look into it. Feedback is usually pretty nice.

JPhoenix6474: Thanks a lot! I feel really bad not updating for a while haha, I'll work toward actually having a decent writing schedule.

Thanks for the follows from Carrenho96, Pain4077, JikaHs, Srikar-a, WTKingTW, DragKnight, hoctou, Lokiss89, XenonDark, wakfu321, Nez99, Doubleblade2127, and Kingu no Shinpu! Many thanks!

Any comments or suggestions are really appreciated!

Edit: 07/19/2021

Once more, thanks for reading!