But from his perspective—
everything was different.
Slower. Sharper.
Nine units hung in the air
like suspended marionettes.
Blindy sat off to the side, soaked,
face twisted,
mouth wide open—
like a man who had just discovered internet 1.0.
Shiori, teeth clenched,
managed to fire a single plasma shot—
and that shot froze in front of her,
a slowly pulsing sphere of light.
Raindrops didn’t fall.
They hovered around him,
like glass beads
threaded on strings of halted time.
Zeros raised his hand
and slowly ran it across his face.
The air around his fingers
glowed warm orange,
like heating metal.
He took a step—
and the light around him
shifted into red,
almost plasma-bright.
He glanced at Blindy
and said, flat, without a trace of emotion:
“Why the fuck am I even dealing with you,
you piece of meat garbage?..”
He turned sharply—
and the space behind him
flared blue, then cyan.
He moved in a slow arc—
and the surrounding atoms
pushed into violet radiation,
as if physics itself
had decided to take a smoke break.
And in that colored silence,
Zeros simply…
flicked the SHIRŌ-KAGE on the head,
lightly, almost casually—
with just enough force
to avoid accidentally breaking quantum physics, space itself,
and everyone within a few thousand miles.
Flick Flick Flick Flick Flick Flick Flick Flick Flick
Each flick shattered carbon skulls
like fragile toys from a cheap souvenir shop.
He stepped back into the center of the circle,
tilted his head in quiet irritation…
…and when time slammed back into motion,
the world exploded outward.
Nine ninja-droids
twisted,
tore apart,
and scattered across the surrounding panels—
like cheap plastic dolls
that failed a crash test.
The pieces hit the wet metal
at the exact same moment—
like someone had enabled
“synchronized humiliation.”
Zeros stood in the center
of a ring of broken machines.
Lowered his arms.
And said, irritated,
like a man woken up five minutes too early:
“Goddamn… I’m sick of you all.”
And in the middle of that hell… stood Blindy.
Standing there like an idiot
whose brain had just installed Windows 98,
and the system politely displayed:
FATAL ERROR: REALITY.EXE HAS STOPPED RESPONDINGHe froze.
Completely.
Eyes narrowed.
Mouth slightly open.
Knees shaking like they were torrenting the entire universe.
Inside his skull, something screamed:
“W-w-w-w-what the f-f-f-f-fuck is haaaaaaappeeeeniiiiing—”
The sound looped.
Glitching.
Like an old U.S.R0B0TICS modem
trying to connect during a thunderstorm.
One SHIRŌ-KAGE flew over his head.
Another slammed into the floor beside him.
A third exploded into sparks against the wall.
And Blindy just stood there, vibrating—
like a budget server under a DDoS attack
about to start screaming in 8-bit agony.
Shiori threw him a glance—cold, precise, perfect:
“Buraindi-san has frozen. Again.”
And that was exactly what saved him.
The ninja-droids, built for combat analysis,
locked onto him, processed the image,
and returned:
Recommend: ignore this bugWhile Zeros tore through everything in sight
and metal screamed under plasma,
Blindy attempted a manual reboot.
FAILED
A new line appeared in his thoughts:
BRAIN ERROR: KEYBOARD NOT FOUND
PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT THE BRAINHe swayed.
Let out a small, broken squeak.
And froze even harder.
Shiori, without losing focus,
fired short bursts,
taking down the ones Zeros ignored,
while covering Blindy’s flanks—
who was now stuck somewhere
between life
and a blue screen of death.
But the swarm kept growing—
white masks flickering through shadows,
plasma blades carving the air
into cold lines of light.
Then Shiori pulled out a small disk,
flipped a switch,
and threw it forward.
The disk unfolded into a sphere—
an energy dome expanding outward,
swelling like a protective shell
inside the raging white hell.
Light ran across its surface,
reflecting through the artificial rain.
And for a moment—
the world inside became quieter.
More stable—
than Blindy had ever been.