Hyrin woke up from the sound of someone quietly sobbing. She opened her eyes to see what could have been a beautiful night sky, had it not been for the dark smoke clouds and the scent of burning that hurt her throat.

She glanced to her right. Seren tried to suppress it even though she had been unconscious, but he seemed unable to stop himself completely from crying. He hadn’t moved, he still lay there on the same spot she had pushed him down when the humanoid had tried to attack him.

“Seren,” she said hoarsely.

He gasped and turned his head away, quickly putting his arm over his eyes.

“You don’t have to do that,” she told him with a weak smile. “I seriously want to cry too.”

He snorted shortly and wiped his sleeve over his face with a quick, jagged motion before rolling back onto his back, looking up at the sky.

“You saved me again,” he said hoarsely. “Even though that monster had decided for some reason to let you live, you risked your life again to save me. I really thought you were going to die after a-” his voice broke and he tightly pressed his lips together.

That’s why he’s crying? she thought with a twinge in her chest. For her?

“Because that’s what we do, right? You and I,” she moved closer to him, taking his hand, “we protect each other no matter what.”

He didn’t say anything, he just nodded and squeezed her hand as if his life depended on it.

“Aw, what a beautiful moment you two are having while I was fighting for my and all of our lives.”

They both snapped their heads up with a gasp to see captain Harumi stand between them, having appeared out of nowhere.

“Captain…” Hyrin whispered softly, “your arm…”

She let go of Seren’s hand and sat up, already moving towards the Captain to somehow help him bandage his shoulder. His right arm was completely gone. And the wound it had left behind was pitch black, the skin surrounding it red and blistered.

“It’s fine,” he answered, leaning away from her hands. “Just toss a coat or something over it, it’s gonna look real gross in a bit.”

“Wha- what are you even…” She mumbled, not sure how to react.

“Just trust me,” he assured her and nodded to Seren, who obediently took off his sweater and carefully tied it over the Captain’s shoulder.

“Okay,” the Captain spoke through his tightly clenched teeth, “now let’s go.”

He slapped his left hand on the top of Seren’s head while pressing his knee down on Hyrin’s leg at the same time and suddenly, they disappeared.

Hyrin really had no other word for it. One second they were sitting on that broken roof, the next they were suddenly in the street in front of that building. A wave of dizziness and nausea rolled over her, but they disappeared again before she could even try to catch her breath.

The Captain mercilessly repeated that process over and over, until they eventually appeared about fifty meters in front of a relatively small base, where he collapsed.

“Captain!” Hyrin jumped up, but then staggered a few steps and fell to her knees again. Was this how draining teleporting was even when you weren’t the one doing it? But she had seen the Captain do it plenty of times even before now as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Next to them, Seren crawled away as far as he could before throwing up for the second time that day, and Hyrin gave him a worried glance before crawling over to the Captain.

She pressed her fingers against his neck, feeling a weak, slow heartbeat. He was in horrible shape, but he was alive. She lifted his head off the street, holding it as she glanced at the base behind them over her shoulder. Why had he brought them here?

It was smaller than their own base, and painted in a blindingly bright white. Aside from that, it was pretty much just a copy. It had the same kinds of doors, fences, gates, windows. It was equally intimidating and seemed equally impenetrable.

“Is he okay?” Seren asked in a weak voice as he walked back over to them.

She nodded. “He’s alive, at least. Are you okay?”

“I’m better now,” he said with an awkward grin. “I guess he wants us to take him there?” He nodded at the base over his shoulder. “I’ll carry him.”

Even though Hyrin was sure by now that her stamina was better than his, she still helped him put the Captain on his back, so he could carry him the last fifty meters to that base.

“Any idea where we are?” He asked. “I couldn’t even keep track of how many times we appeared and disappeared, so I didn’t really catch any landmarks or something like that.”

She chuckled. “Even if I could have caught any, it still wouldn’t have meant anything. I’ve seen maybe one percent of this city since reincarnating here. Pretty much the only thing I know about it is where to get a good milkshake.”

“Right…” Seren chuckled.

“But…” she looked up at the white building. “There’s five bases in total, right? I’ve looked them up before because I was curious about their captains, but none of them are white.”

Seren’s eyes narrowed. “Then where the hell are we?”

Hyrin swallowed. “One place that comes to mind is the D.A.F.’s research facility.”

“The research facility?” Seren shuddered. “You mean the place the Vice Captain described as ‘the last place on earth you’d want to find yourself, so be careful’?”

Hyrin gave him a faint grin. “I think that’s the one.”

“Great,” Seren mumbled as they stopped in front of the heavy steel gate.

“The hell are you and what do you want?” One of the two soldiers standing on top of the wall surrounding the base pointed their weapon at the three of them, his face hidden behind a high collar and dark glasses.

“Recruits Seren and Hyrin from the training base,” Seren answered monotonously, “here with Captain Harumi who is gravely injured.”

The soldier lowered his weapon and leaned over a little to be able to see the Captain’s face hanging over Seren’s shoulder, but then nodded his head to his colleague, who disappeared behind the wall.

A second later, the gate opened and several men and women dressed in white versions of the D.A.F.’s uniform came running out. They pulled the Captain off Seren’s back without a single word, put him on a stretcher and then ran away.

“Hey, wait!” Hyrin yelled, trying to follow them. “Where are you taking him?”

“Don’t worry,” a tall man with pale pink hair held his hand up right in front of her face to stop her, “they’re taking him to get treated. He ends up like this a lot, but he always pulls through.” He swung his hand back, gesturing towards the doors to the base. “We, however, need to have a little talk.”

“Unless you somehow outrank us, neither of us will be following you into that place,” Seren haughtily let him know and Hyrin couldn’t help but give him the same kind of look as the pink-haired man did, wondering if he had forgotten that they were just recruits. Literally the lowest of the lowest rank possible.

“My name is Frerin,” the man answered nonetheless and pulled a badge attached to a lanyard out of his pocket and held it up to them, “I am currently in command of the D.A.F.’s research facility you see behind me.”

“Oh…” Seren stared at the badge, although Hyrin was pretty sure he wasn’t actually reading it. He was just coming up with the best way to apologize despite not wanting to.

“We apologize, sir,” she told him instead. “You wanted to talk?”

“Right.” He gave Seren a smile and turned around, walking ahead of them at an annoyingly slow pace as he just kind of glanced around, as if he had never been there before and saw all kinds of new, interesting things.

Hyrin followed his gaze, but didn’t share his enthusiasm. The open court between the gate and the base had pretty much been abandoned. She could tell that one or maybe a few people were trying their hardest to keep it clean and presentable, but she could see weeds growing from cracks in the concrete all over the place.

She already knew this wasn’t a training base like the one they lived in or any kind of fighting base, like the other four. The only soldiers stationed here came from other bases and they were only here to guard and protect, they didn’t go out to fight. And they clearly didn’t use this place to train much either.

Frerin opened the doors after beeping his badge against a black keypad next to it. Suddenly, it was like Hyrin got hit in the face by bright lights and sounds and people. As dead as this facility seemed on the outside, that’s how lively it was on the inside.

People dressed in white ran through the corridors, most of them discussing something with each other as they went from one room to the other, although Hyrin had no idea what exactly they could accomplish by not staying in the same place for more than a few seconds.

“Everybody is going crazy with the first appearance of a humanoid in six years,” Frerin explained without being asked. “Although this place is never really quiet.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “Smart people love to run around and meddle and argue, you see.”

Is that true? she wondered, but kept her mouth shut.

“At least the ones I hire do,” he laughed anyway and Hyrin couldn’t help but chuckle. With the way the Vice Captain had spoken to them about this place, she had expected some kind of eerie, haunted laboratory run by some creep, but so far, Frerin seemed like a nice, happy guy who just spoke and walked a little slower than most people. And the facility seemed more like a busy hospital than anything creepy.

“I’ll take you to my office,” Frerin informed them. “Do you want some coffee or anything else? We have a ton of good snacks in the cafeteria.” He turned to Seren with an extremely serious face. “I’d die without snacks.”

Seren threw Hyrin a quick glance before showing Frerin an uncomfortable smile. “I-I guess I’ll have some then.”

“Perfect!” Frerin turned course and led them to the cafeteria, where he grabbed a half empty box filled with shiny packets and filled it to the brim with snacks from a bunch of other boxes.

“Here.” He put the box in Seren’s arms. “This should do, right? I recommend these, they're sweet and salty, but they have an extremely sour core- oh no,” he sighed, “I ruined it.” He walked away, towards what Hyrin hoped would finally be his office. “Try them anyway, they’re so good and they give you a real kick when you’ve been working three nights in a row.”

“Three nights in a row?” Hyrin repeated in shock. “Do you do that a lot?”

“Only when I’ve been procrastinating until the last moment and am about to miss my deadline,” he answered with a shrug. “Which is always,” he added and let out a dry laugh that quickly turned into a cough.

Hyrin glanced at Seren. Is this guy okay, physically and mentally? she asked him without words and he shrugged as Frerin opened the door to the messiest office Hyrin had ever seen.

Every inch of that place was filled with what Hyrin could only guess had been something that had caught Frerin’s temporary attention, just to be forgotten quickly after. Plants, both alive and dead ones, stood spread randomly all over the room. Papers and books stood in bookcases and laid scattered all over the floor. His trash can was filled to the brim with empty snack wrappers, which had overflown and gathered in a pool around it. She even saw several half eaten snacks still in their packaging lying on his desk, no doubt being saved for later.

Frerin pulled two chairs from a table in the corner and placed them in front of his desk, after which he rounded it and sat on his own, much more ergonomic chair. He wiped some of the mess on his desk, among which Hyrin recognized a figurine like the ones captain Harumi collected, aside to make room for Seren to put down the box of snacks and put his hands on it, looking up at them.

For some reason, Hyrin felt like that was the first time he actually looked at them, instead of through or past them.

“Oh, someone looks like they came from the same place as Vice Captain Leyleina,” he mentioned, looking at Seren’s white hair and piercing blue eyes. “I hope that means you’re just as tight-lipped as she is, too.”

Seren had let himself relax under Frerin’s casual attitude, but suddenly, Hyrin could see his entire body tense up.

“What does that mean?” He asked in a low voice.

Frerin laughed. “No need to get so upset,” he sincerely seemed to try to reassure Seren. “I’m not good at the subtle, political stuff, so I’m just going to come out and say it.” He narrowed his eyes, lowering his voice. “I need you two to forget about everything you saw today. Including Ryusuke losing his arm and anything you saw or will see in this facility.”