[A/N]: The Gacha Pull List is updated. Thanks for being patient with me
REX SPLODE'S POV
Ugh.
The flight back to Teen Team HQ was a special kind of awkward.
Robot had been decapitated.
Twice.
And my supposed girlfriend, Atom Eve, had immediately taken off after Invincible, to Fucking console him.
I mean, I get it. The new guy got his ass beat and got thrown around like a ragdoll by those green bastards. But she's my girlfriend.
I got my ass beat too. Hell, I got knocked out cold and woke up to Robot's severed head rolling around like a fucking soccer ball.
'Where the hell was my consoling?'
Whatever.
With Robot temporarily out of commission, uploading his consciousness into a backup body or whatever tech magic he does, it was just me and Kate on the hover cycle.
Honestly, thank God.
Sitting on a bike behind Robot's cold metal ass was always embarrassing anyway. The guy didn't even have the decency to install a backrest.
The city lights blurred beneath us as we cut through the night sky.
Normally, I'd be making some smartass comment about the view or cracking jokes to fill the silence.
But my nose still ached from where that Kaisen had headbutted me.
"Hey... Rex? Can we stop?"
Kate's voice broke over the wind, barely audible over the cycle's engine.
I could hear a quiet, miserable sob right behind my ear.
'Shit.'
I stopped the cycle mid-air, the anti-gravity stabilizers humming as we hovered in place.
Looking over my shoulder, I saw her face pressed against my back, shoulders trembling.
She was whimpering, and I could feel wet tears soaking through my costume.
"Wha... what's happening?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
I quickly brought the cycle down, landing heavily in a dark, empty city park.
The kickstand had barely touched grass before Kate practically tackled me off the bike.
She buried her face into my chest, arms wrapping around me so tight I felt my already broken ribs creak in protest.
She was shaking too, which was a first for me.
"I'm sorry, Rex... just let me hug you," she stuttered out between wet, heavy sobs. "It's been so hard today... getting killed again and again. In such horrible ways."
Right.
Her clones.
She feels every single one of them die.
Not just physically, but the phantom pain of dying over and over and over.
And I'd been too wrapped up in my own bullshit to even think about what she was going through.
I let out a heavy breath, wrapping my arms around her properly and gently rubbing circles on her back, trying to ground her.
"Hey, hey... it's okay. You're safe with me," I murmured into her hair, voice softer than I'd ever used. "I got you, Kate."
She just sobbed harder, clutching me like I was the only solid thing in the world.
'God, what have I gotten myself into?'
"I died thirty-seven times today," she whispered against my chest. "Thirty-seven. I felt every single one. The bullets, the lasers, the explosions. One of me got stepped on by that dragon. Another got cut in half by debris. I felt my own spine snap, Rex. I felt my lungs collapse. I felt—"
"Stop," I cut her off, pulling back just enough to look her in the eyes. "Stop. You don't have to relive it. You're here and that's what matters."
She hiccupped, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"I'm sorry. I know this is pathetic. I should be tougher than this. Robot never breaks down. Eve never—"
"Fuck Robot. Fuck Eve," I said firmly. "They didn't die thirty-seven times today. You did. You're allowed to fall apart."
She let out a wet laugh, burying her face back into my chest.
"You're such an asshole most of the time," she mumbled. "But sometimes you say exactly the right thing."
"Yeah, well, don't get used to my friendly side, it ruins my assholish charm" I muttered, but I was smiling.
We stayed like that for a while, just sitting in the middle of an empty park while the city hummed around us.
Eventually, her breathing evened out and the trembling stopped.
She pulled back, wiping her face with her sleeve.
"Okay," she said, voice still shaky but steadier. "Okay. I'm good. Let's get back before Robot sends out a search party."
I nodded, helping her back onto the cycle.
But as we took off into the night sky, I couldn't shake the feeling that something had fundamentally shifted between us, not the heated kind between Eve and me, but more like a closer and friendlier bond.
And I had no fucking clue what to do about it.
NAKIME'S POV
The soft, rhythmic strum of my biwa filled the dim wooden halls of the Infinity Castle.
Twang.
I sat quietly on the tatami mat, watching my Master sleep.
[Image here]
He was battered, his body covered in dark bruises that bloomed across his skin like grotesque flowers. Dried and sticky alien blood matted his hair and stained his clothes. His breathing was labored, each inhale a struggle.
But it had finally evened out after the sheer horrors he had faced.
The exhaustion had claimed him completely.
Looking at his exhausted face, watching his chest rise and fall with each difficult breath, a sudden, bitter memory clawed its way up my throat like bile.
My late husband.
His name had been Kaito.
He, too, had been a gambler of all trades. Cards, dice, animal fights, anything that offered the thrill of chance and the promise of fortune.
I remembered his kindness in the early days. The way he would smile at me across the dinner table. The way he would hold my hand as we walked through the market. The way he would whisper sweet promises of the future we would build together.
I remembered his love, his gentle compassion, the warmth in his eyes when he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
Before the gambling took root.
Before it became a disease that burrowed into his soul and consumed everything good about him.
The Gambling hollowed him out from the inside, leaving nothing but an empty, desperate shell that wore my husband's face but spoke with a stranger's voice.
He had driven us both into a corner, spending every coin we had on foolish bets and impossible odds. He had sold our home, our possessions, everything we owned, chasing the phantom of one more big score that would fix everything.
And when there was nothing left to sell, he had sold my performing Kimono.
That was the day something inside me broke.
The day I realized the man I loved was gone, replaced by a monster who would sacrifice anything and anyone, for the next roll of the dice.
The day I picked up that hammer from the blacksmith's shop and brought it down on his skull while he slept.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until there was nothing left but red and quiet.
A shiver ran down my spine at the memory.
I had felt nothing in that moment.
Just... emptiness.
But now, centuries later, sitting in this impossible castle watching another gambler sleep, I felt that old wound tear open again.
Seeing Master battered and blood-covered, driven to the absolute brink, by his willingness to risk everything for one more roll...
It dragged my past regrets right to the surface.
I could see Kaito in him.
I stopped playing my biwa, letting the silence fill the castle like water filling a grave.
I folded my hands in my lap and closed my single eye, praying to whatever strange deity he worshiped.
To this "RNGesus" he called upon with such fervent desperation.
'Master... I hope that god of yours gives you a chance to stop and look at those around you,' I pleaded silently, my thoughts echoing through the empty halls. 'To see what this addiction is doing to you before it consumes you completely.'
'I have already lost one person I cared for to gambling. I cannot... My heart cannot watch it happen again.'
I opened my eye, looking down at Master's sleeping face.
So young and utterly unaware of the precipice he stood upon.
I moved silently across the floorboards, knelt beside his sleeping form, reaching out to brush a strand of blood-matted hair from his forehead.
His skin was warm beneath my touch.
Not like the cold skin of my mine
I leaned over, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his bloody forehead.
"So warm..." I muttered, the words barely a whisper.
I let my head rest against the edge of the mattress, the bone-deep exhaustion of the past two days finally catching up to me.
I had spent forty-eight hours maintaining the Infinity Castle's structure against Omni-Man's relentless assault. Forty-eight hours of constant, grinding effort, rebuilding walls faster than he could destroy them, creating endless corridors and false paths to keep him lost and confused.
Forty-eight hours of protecting my Master from a monster that could shatter mountains.
I was... tired.
More tired than I had been in centuries.
My eye felt heavy, the weight of exhaustion pressing down on me like a physical thing.
I closed it, letting the darkness take me.
Just for a moment.
Just to rest.
[A/N]: Drop them Stones if you want Nakime to visit your dreams! Wait maybe not.....
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