The wind whistled across the desolate plateau, carrying the metallic tang of blood and the acrid scent of ozone from Shirou's rifle. Shinji stood facing the Money Hunter, Tamago's body a grim monument nearby, the stolen Galories gleaming mockingly in Shirou's pouches. Cold fury warred with the unnerving cellular warmth flooding Shinji's veins.
Shirou moved first. His rifle snapped up, not with the heavy thump of before, but with a rapid, staccato CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! Hypersonic slugs screamed through the air. Shinji reacted. Voidheart-enhanced reflexes propelled him sideways in a blur, the first three rounds tearing through the space where his chest had been. He twisted, ducked, the fourth and fifth rounds parting his hair, the sixth grazing his shoulder with searing heat. *He's faster! Adjusting!*
CRACK! A seventh round slammed into Shinji's thigh, punching through muscle and bone. Agony lanced up his leg. CRACK! An eighth tore through his bicep, spinning him. CRACK! The ninth hit home; dead center in his chest. Shinji gasped, the breath driven from his lungs. CRACK! The tenth struck his temple.
Darkness threatened. Pain exploded in multiple vectors; the searing hole in his chest, the shattered thigh, the pulped arm, the fractured skull. He stumbled, vision swimming. Then, the familiar, terrifying warmth surged. It wasn't gentle; it was a furious, cellular rebellion. He felt bone shards snap back into place in his leg, muscle fibers weaving shut in his arm, the hole in his chest closing with an audible snick, the dizziness clearing as his skull reformed. He straightened, breathing heavily, the wounds steaming as they vanished within seconds, leaving only bloodstains and a deeper, gnawing fatigue beneath the surge. "That hurts, damn it!" he snarled, locking eyes with Shirou.
The Money Hunter didn't flinch, but a flicker of calculation replaced his earlier cool confidence. *Damn it,* Shirou thought, his fiery white hair seeming to bristle with frustration. *He's a damn cockroach. A regenerating tank. Every second I waste, the Acrosian cavalry gets closer. Can't outlast him. Can't kill him. Need to stun, grab the loot, and vanish. Speed is my only edge now.* His finger tightened on the trigger.
"Fine. Let's see you block this!" Shirou barked. The rifle spat another relentless volley; not aimed for center mass, but a precise pattern: knee, shoulder, elbow, hip, forcing Shinji into a desperate, weaving defense.
Shinji gritted his teeth. Dodging was becoming impossible; the sheer volume and precision were overwhelming. 'Believe...' Merus's voice echoed faintly in his mind. 'Believe in the surge.' He planted his feet, ignoring the instinct to flee. He brought his forearms up, not to block, but to deflect. Voidheart-enhanced speed and strength flowed through him. His arms became blurs. CLANG! A slug ricocheted off his vambrace. SPANG! Another skittered off a knuckle. THUD! A third deflected off his reinforced shoulder. For a fraction of a second, it worked. He was parrying bullets.
Then CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Three shots found their mark in rapid succession: one through his forearm, shattering bone; one through his calf; the final, sickeningly precise, through his left eye. Shinji roared, staggering back, clutching his ruined face. Blood streamed down his cheek from the empty socket. The warmth surged again, agonizingly intense this time, rebuilding optic nerve and ocular tissue, knitting bone and muscle, the pain a white-hot counterpoint to the healing. Faster. Always faster.
Shirou saw the moment of vulnerability, the hand clutching the face. A cold, predatory smile touched his lips. "If that's the case...!" He raised the rifle slightly, a faint, emerald glow coalescing around the muzzle. "EMERALD BULLET!"
The sound wasn't a crack. It was a deep, resonant BOOM that shook the plateau. A bolt of condensed, viridian energy, crackling with contained destruction, lanced across the distance. It struck Shinji square in the chest. There was no penetration this time. There was an explosion.
Shinji's torso erupted outwards in a shower of gore, vaporized flesh, and shattered bone. His heart wasn't pierced; it was annihilated. The concussive force lifted him off his feet and slammed him down twenty feet away, a broken, smoldering ruin. He lay still, a gaping, cauterized crater where his chest had been. Only ragged, wet gasps escaped his lips. "Y-you... wasted... a strong attack... just... for that..." he choked out, blood bubbling. "I'll... regenerate... fast enough..." His vision swam, the edges darkening. The warmth was there, frantic, furious, but the damage was catastrophic. Ribs regrew like pale coral, muscle fibers snaked across the void, but the heart... the heart was taking time. He felt the terrifying sluggishness of his systems struggling without a central pump. Consciousness flickered. *Too much... this time...* He collapsed, eyes rolling back.
Shirou lowered the smoking rifle, panting slightly from the energy expenditure. He watched the horrifying spectacle; the steaming crater slowly filling with writhing, reforming tissue. "You were getting injured," he stated, his voice clinical, devoid of triumph, only cold analysis. "Holes in the heart, the head, limbs... inconvenient, but you shrugged them off. But losing it completely? That's different. That core organ... even your freakish biology needs a minute, maybe more, to rebuild something that complex from scratch." He strode past the regenerating, unconscious Shinji without a second glance, scooping up the case of Galories he'd dropped during the Emerald Bullet blast. "Alright," he muttered, securing the case, "Time to get to the Galactic Station before the real trouble shows up." He turned to leave.
A gurgling gasp sounded behind him.
Shirou froze, then whirled, eyes wide with genuine disbelief. Shinji was pushing himself up onto his elbows. The chest cavity was still a horrifying, half-formed mess of raw, pulsing tissue and nascent bone. His new heart was visibly twitching, barely formed, struggling to beat. Blood frothed at his lips. His skin was deathly pale, his movements jerky, puppet-like. Yet, his deep blue eyes, clouded with pain but burning with an almost feral determination, were locked onto Shirou.
"N-no... way!" Shirou breathed, taking an involuntary step back. "Your heart... it's barely there! How are you even conscious?!"
Shinji tried to speak. Only a wet, rasping sound emerged, followed by a cough that sprayed dark blood. "I... d-don't..." he managed, each word a gargling agony, "...know... P-probably... sh-sheer... det...ermina...tion..."
Shirou stared, a flicker of something almost like respect warring with profound unease in his sharp eyes. "If you're that injured, stop talking! I understood nothing!" He raised his rifle again, not with anger, but with the swift, decisive motion of a professional eliminating an unforeseen variable. The muzzle glowed white-hot. "Snipe. LASER MODE."
A searing beam of pure, coherent energy, thin as a needle and brighter than the twin suns, lanced out. It pierced Shinji's forehead with a sickening hiss, exiting the back of his skull in a plume of vaporized bone and brain matter. The fierce light in Shinji's eyes instantly extinguished. He slumped back to the ground, truly still this time, a small, smoking hole marking the laser's entry.
Shirou held the beam for a second longer, ensuring the job was done. He lowered the rifle, the barrel glowing cherry red. He looked down at Shinji's still form, then at the case of Galories. "Persistent little monster," he muttered, a strange mix of irritation and something akin to awe in his voice. He scanned the horizon, then turned and vanished into the labyrinthine rock formations at a speed that blurred his white-and-fire hair into a streak, leaving only dust, blood, and silence.
One Hour Later
Consciousness returned like surfacing from a tar pit. Shinji gasped, bolting upright, his hands flying to his head. Intact. Smooth skin met his fingertips. He touched his chest. Whole. The horrific crater, the half-formed heart, the agony; gone. Only the deep, bone-weary fatigue remained, a familiar anchor after regeneration. The blood on his clothes was cold and stiff.
He was lying on a soft pallet inside a structure carved from the same rose-quartz as the cliffs, illuminated by softly glowing crystals embedded in the walls. The air smelled of herbs and cool stone.
"Ah. You return to us."
The voice was unlike any Shinji had heard. It was ancient, calm as a deep ocean trench, yet resonant with an undercurrent of immense power. It seemed to vibrate in Shinji's bones rather than just his ears.
Shinji turned. A figure stood near the arched entrance. He was small, barely four feet tall, yet his presence filled the chamber. His skin was a luminous, pale blue, like moonlight on glacial ice, smooth and seemingly radiating a faint inner light. He was completely bald, his scalp adding to the impression of serene, ageless wisdom. He wore simple, weathered leather garments that looked centuries old but impeccably maintained. His eyes, large and dark as polished obsidian, held depths that seemed to swallow the light, observing Shinji with unnerving stillness.
"Where... am I?" Shinji rasped, his throat raw.
"Our scouts found you near the border of our sector," the being said, his voice a low hum. "Among others. We brought you here." He took a slow, deliberate step forward. The air seemed to thicken slightly around him. "I must offer condolences. The others... Tamago of the East, his guards... their journeys ended on that plateau. You were the only spark of life remaining."
*Tamago.* The name hit Shinji like a physical blow. The image of the East Head collapsing, the dark blood spreading... the utter failure. He looked down at his hands, clenched into fists. "I see," he whispered, the word heavy with grief and shame.
The small being inclined his luminous head. "Pardon my lack of introduction earlier. My focus was your stability. I am Yamato. The North Head."
Shinji's head snapped up. *Yamato.* The name Tamago had spoken with such respect. The master instructor. He looked nothing like Shinji had imagined; not a towering warrior, but this ancient, compact wellspring of power. "You... you're Yamato? The one Tamago spoke of? He was taking me to you... for training."
Yamato's obsidian eyes held Shinji's gaze, unblinking. "He carried that intention. His final act was one of guidance, it seems." He paused, the silence profound. "The valuables he escorted... they were not found near him. Or you."
The reminder was a fresh wound. Shinji flinched. "Stolen," he spat, the word tasting bitter. "By the sniper. Shirou. The Money Hunter." He recounted the fight in terse, brutal sentences: the impossible shots, the regenerations, the Emerald Bullet, the Laser, Shirou's escape. He described Shirou's white-and-fire hair, his lethal precision, his chilling professionalism. "...He got away. With everything. I failed. I failed Tamago. I failed his guards. I failed the delivery." The weight of it pressed down on him, heavier than Suchumus's gravity. The Voidheart Surge felt like a cruel joke; power gained only through repeated failure and death.
Yamato listened without interruption, his expression inscrutable. When Shinji finished, the silence stretched. Yamato took another step closer. Shinji felt the sheer density of his presence, a contained power that dwarfed even Tamago's. "You faced him. You endured his toll. Tell me, Shinji Kazuhiko, what did that toll feel like?"
The question wasn't about the physical pain. Shinji understood that. Yamato was asking about the cost. Shinji closed his eyes, recalling not just the agony, but the helplessness, the frustration, the sheer waste of it all. "It felt... pointless," he admitted, his voice rough. "Like being chipped away at by a glacier. Every shot, every death... it just proved I couldn't stop him. I could only... endure. While he took what he wanted. While Tamago..." He trailed off, unable to say it.
"Endurance," Yamato echoed softly. "A powerful shield. But against a force like that, mere endurance becomes a slow defeat. He pays his toll in stolen lives and shattered purpose, coin by coin, shot by shot." The obsidian eyes seemed to pierce Shinji's soul. "He left you breathing, but did he leave you whole? Or did he carve away pieces of your spirit along with your flesh?"
The question struck deep. Shinji remembered the moment Shirou turned his back after the Laser, the casual dismissal. The feeling of being less than an obstacle. "He... he didn't care," Shinji said, a spark of the old fury reigniting amidst the shame. "I was just... a delay. A nuisance to be bypassed. My pain, my deaths... they meant nothing to him. Only the Galories mattered."
Yamato nodded slowly, a gesture of profound understanding as his gaze intensified. "You carry the wounds of that encounter; not just the healed flesh, but the weight of failure, the sting of insignificance. That is the toll that sniper left behind."
Shinji met Yamato's ancient eyes. The North Head saw too much. "I couldn't protect them. I couldn't stop him."
"Not yet," Yamato stated, the words final, absolute. "But the path from endurance to defiance begins here. You sought training. Tamago's final wish brought you to my threshold." A faint, almost imperceptible shift occurred in Yamato's posture. The air in the chamber seemed to grow heavier, charged with latent power. "Understand this, Shinji. Training under me will not be difficult. It will be hell. It will demand everything you are and everything you fear becoming. It will make Shirou's bullets feel like kindness. It will forge you, or it will break you utterly. Are you prepared to pay that toll? Are you prepared to move beyond merely enduring the world's cruelty, and learn to shatter it?"
The challenge hung in the air, thick and heavy. The memory of Shirou's contemptuous escape warred with the image of Tamago's fallen form. The Voidheart energy, subdued but present, hummed in response to Yamato's intensity. Shinji pushed himself fully upright, ignoring the lingering fatigue. He met Yamato's obsidian gaze, the spark of fury hardening into cold resolve within his deep blue eyes.
"I'm ready," Shinji said, his voice no longer raw, but firm, carrying the weight of his failures and the desperate, burning need to transcend them. "Make it hell. I'll walk through it."