A Close One, Helping Hand

Asher twisted to the side, ripping the knife out of his stomach.

A sickle sliced towards his neck, nicking his ear as he leaned forward instinctively, dodging it by a hair.

Mangchi let out a strangled noise from his throat as his attack missed.

"Aiko, Mangchi... You too, huh?" He caught Pete's knife in his hand, twisting it out of his grip.

The three Fixers didn't react to his voice, merely staring at him with apprehension.

"Kuhuhu~ Just when I said that I trusted you three... What's gotten into you guys?" Asher stared closely at their faces. Pete and Aiko's expression was flat, but Mangchi's lips twitched sporadically in an attempted response.

'These guys are acting strange, especially Mangchi.'

As they rushed up to him, Asher shook his thoughts away. Yun's knife rested in his kimono's breast pocket, but he didn't pull it out. He should make use of his E.G.O before resorting to that. Because he wasn't sure if they would survive if he used his blade.

His fan swished open. Asher held the wound in his stomach with one hand as he bled profusely.

The air became filled with a rotten, sweet scent.

[Cherry Grave (E.G.O) resonates with your wound! Upgrading gear... New set exclusive skill unlocked! Aesthetic passive unlocked!]

Just like with the Fairy Queen that time he died to Sayako, something inside the suit changed when he was wounded.

[Addictive Scent: For up to two minutes, release a highly hallucinogenic scent into the air. If the target breathes the affected air, their actions will become more susceptible to your will. This hypnosis will never grant the user full control of the targets' bodies. Degree of control depends on Host's Temperance and Justice compared to the target's.]

[Flowers for Flesh (Aesthetic Passive): Instead of blood, you bleed cherry petals. While bleeding, +5 Justice, +5 Temperance]

The upgrade to his E.G.O gave him two new skills. The latter one was fairly useless, but the first one-

'[Addictive Scent]!'

Asher shed cherry petals from his stomach as a pink mist diffused outward from his skin.

Aiko tried to charge at him, but the moment she entered the pink cloud, Asher felt a faint connection between them.

'Stop!'

Aiko fell to the ground, twitching as her body tried to move. The difference in Temperance was far too large, giving Asher a large amount of control over her body.

He tried to make her stand up to defend him, but he instead found the limit to his skill. Aiko only twitched some more, floundering on the ground.

Pete and Mangchi simultaneously sucked in a deep breath before sealing their mouths shut.

"...What's going on, seriously?"

They didn't respond.

Pete flung his knife at Asher.

As Asher turned to dodge, distracted, Mangchi rushed forward inside his blind spot.

Asher leapt upward, hearing a sickle whistle toward him from behind. He twirled his fan twice as he rose to the ceiling, rendering Pete unconscious.

A soft clop of wood on the tiled floor. Only the two of them were left standing.

Mangchi's chest trembled as he struggled to hold his breath. But before Asher could put him to sleep, he croaked.

"Controlled-" His eyes trembled as he hoped that Asher would understand his message. Mangchi took a deep breath, unable to withhold himself. His eyes unfocused as the pink mist invaded his mind.

"What do you mean??"

"Couldn't- Move-" The boy's voice was choppy as he answered Asher's question.

Asher wondered what Mangchi meant, but he couldn't think of any-

*CRACK*

A chair splintered as it slammed into his skull from behind. As his vision darkened, he realized what Mangchi tried to warn him about.

He had forgotten about Mei. The three Fixers had been under Elena's control for the entire fight.

...

Asher blinked.

The familiar sound of rattling of bone echoed in his ear.

"Krkrkr..." The Overseer grinned as Asher opened his eyes.

"What the- What are you doing here?!"

Asher shot up, glancing around him. Mei's bedsheets crumpled as he sat up. The Overseer had taken a seat beside him, dressed in the same white coat as always.

Pete, Aiko, Mangchi and Mei were sprawled on the carpet. The air surrounding them was distorted like shattered glass, preventing the four parasitized individuals from moving.

Mei glared at the two of them with hate, but she was too weak to break free from the shattered space surrounding her.

"Ah-!" Asher clutched his head as his vision swirled.

"A nasty head wound you got there, but I bandaged it. And for some reason, your stomach keeps spewing flowers instead of blood. You should be fine after I treated you." Asher's fingers touched the cloth wraps on his head as the Overseer chuckled.

"Why are you here?"

The Overseer shrugged.

"Who knows? But one thing's for certain: you would have died if I didn't come in time."

Asher stood up, scoffing beneath his breath.

"You should have let me die. I was careless." An empty silence filled the room as the Overseer tilted his head, staring at him.

"I expected some gratitude rather than those meaningless words." The skeleton fixed its soulless eye sockets on Asher until he finally gave into the pressure.

"T-Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome. Anyway," the Overseer gestured to the bodies on the floor, "Seems you need some help."

Asher instinctively began to shake his head, but froze as he thought about it once again. Right... even if he survived without the Overseer's help, how would he be able to sleep, or rest at all, when his skill lasted twenty minutes at most? He had almost died already by forgetting to re-trance Mei just once, so there was no way he could keep that up for the entire night.

The only way he could ever return to normal was if he removed Elena from his life. Screw his future self. He promised to never become like the man that appeared in his last punishment mission..

"Yeah. Do you know anything that could separate that monster from them without...?"

Asher waited impatiently as the Overseer tapped his skull repeatedly beside him.

Tap. Tap-tap. Tap-Tap.

Finally, the Grade 1 Fixer spoke.

"Of course."

Asher broke into a genuine grin, sighing in relief.

With ill-concealed joy, he wrapped his arms around the Overseer in thanks. A skeletal hand rose up to pat his head.

"Seems you're still a cute kid, huh? You actually resemble my little sister before she died." Asher glanced up in surprise. Right, the Overseer was a person, too. He had almost forgotten about that. This must have been the true reason why he saved him.

"What happened to her?"

"Eh... A K Corp incident led to her flesh dissolving into goop. Merged with the floor, wailing in pain and all. Still conscious 'till the moment I put her down."

Asher flinched, but the Overseer's voice was dry and emotionless, like he was only stating a cold fact.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Stuff like this happens far too often in these parts. Nests not much better either, from what I've seen. That was a few decades back, anyway, when the Wings could still do stuff like that in public."

Asher's lips trembled as the Overseer's usually mirthful demeanor disappeared in an instant. But before he could say anything else, the Fixer shifted topic.

"Krkrkr, you act like her, too. Biting more than you can chew all the time... About the cure for your friends over there. Listen up, 'cause I won't repeat them again."

Asher nodded, and the Overseer began to list his thoughts.

"The fourth floor's fourth room. A Clockwork Son in Section 17. The soul-reverberating concerto-"

Asher interrupted him with a cough.

"Hold on, are these all going to be riddles or something??"

"You don't want to hear it?"

The Overseer chuckled as Asher's fist dug into his side, forcing him to continue. How cute.

"Cubes coalesce to Chaos. An unbreakable contract." The six things the Overseer knew could solve Asher's problem. The last one, the Head, was a given. The Head knew everything, after all. But even the Overseer had never seen the mysterious leader of the City before.

Asher, meanwhile, clutched his head as he struggled to solve any of the riddles.

The fourth floor's fourth room? That didn't narrow down anything! Heck, even Mei's apartment had one of those!

A sun in Section 17? So what, the sun was everywhere!

'Don't even get me started on the other ones...'

Asher sighed. None of the riddles made the slightest of sense, but judging by the Overseer's disappointed clicks-

"Should I know these or something??"

"Dear me, you are clueless. Okay, just think about the first one for now. It should be the easiest. And, well, the most likely to get help from."

...

'The fourth floor's fourth room... The fourth floor's fourth room... So it's emphasizing that the room is the 'fourth' on the 'fourth' floor. Four...'

His head shot up.

"The Shi Association?"

Asher grinned as the Overseer nodded. Asher's childish energy seemed to surge back as he saw what seemed to be a blindingly bright hope just two steps ahead, right at the end of the tunnel.

"What are you waiting for, let's go!"

"Woah, I never said I was-"

Asher turned around, glaring at him. Something inside the Overseer softened as he saw his sister in the boy's face, just like when she was young, before she gave her permission to be experimented on.

The Overseer's hand scraped across his face, a habit his past self often did back when he had flesh.

"Fine. Besides, they might not let you in if you go by yourself. We're going to see Section 12's Death, you know. They don't let ordinary folk to visit her."

Asher cheered as the Overseer twirled his finger, sucking Pete, Aiko, Mangchi and Mei into the ground.

By sheer chance, Asher, rendered pale and feminine through his E.G.O, resembled the Overseer's late sister. And so a strange bond formed between the unlikeliest people.

"Hold on to my hand now." The Overseer extended his hand, allowing Asher to get a firm grip before he snapped his fingers.

*Snap*

The two of them popped out of existence.