The lights dimmed to pitch black as the voices of everyone disappeared to the state of emptiness.

  The space between him and the sliver haired girl closed in on him as she was a few meters away from him, now.

  Julo didn't have the time to feel the metallic texture of the gun as he gripped it tightly before pointing the muzzle at her with one motion. His breathing was rough and unstable as a flash of light went off.

  The bullet spun as it went off into her direction, she kept her smile as the bullet was a few centimeters away from her. The bullet aimed straight at her head slowly dimmed before a cluster of mist replaced the bullet.

  The mist maintained the speed with the bullet nowhere in sight.

  With no time to react, his legs burst in another direction with no hesitation as the imaginary wind followed him. The enemy was simply too strong for Julo to handle.

  Running in the empty and soundless void, the surroundings' space and axis twisted as Julo's eyes widened in response to the silver hair waving at him again.

  Breathless at the sight, he shot again with swiftness as the recoil propelled him backwards. The bullet swung at the hair with little to no accuracy. It was already clear that his mind wasn't ready for another battle so soon.

  His shaken hands took aim again.

  Click Click

  She grinned.

  ClickClickClickClickClickClickClick

  Grinning even more at the sight of him repeatedly clicking to no avail, she swung her hand at the empty gun as it suffered the same fate as the bullet. Turned into thin mist.

  "I'm not going to hurt yo-" She said energetically only to pause in the middle of her sentence.

  Her body leaned towards Julo with eyes that sparked curiously. Her bright hair with her features would usually get Julo aroused, however the situation didn't quite allow that feeling to emerge.

  "No...This won't do." She mumbled.

  She stared at him, her eyes slowly became the color of nothing before her eyes started to become fuzzy.

  Looking at her staring at him, Julo's view of the surroundings darken as the lifeless eyes were the center of his attention. Noticing her body becoming dimmer, he turned away from the eyes.

  ...

  His head didn't budge.

  His eyes were fixed on the fuzziness around her eyes as his head was tightly locked in its position.

  He raised his hand in an attempt to block her sight, but it refused to listen to him.

  The intense and forced staring contest broke as the fuzziness in her eyes slowly made its way into her skin before dissipating.

  While the fuzziness melted into her skin, her colorless yet bright eyes flooded with multiple colors before fading into its original color.

  Thud

  A painful thud echoes as his knees fall on the materialless ground.

  A crushing feel emerged from the very depth of his imaginary soul as he pressed his shaking hands into the floor as if there was anything in the first place.

  The feeling was crushing his mind.

  The flow in his Versile pathways slowly spiraled into a circle before exploding into all of the major organs as it actively threw a tantrum, trying to identify the intruder.

  However, after a while of searching, the flow unnaturally calmed down as the extreme pressure of the crushing slowly settled as if Julo was hallucinating all along.

  "You'll be good now."

  Julo's sensitive body, flinched at the sudden voice.

  Quickly regaining his spread out thoughts, his hand clenched into a fist before pressing it against the ground as he barely stood up.

  Air exited his body every second as the surrounding became dizzy with the hyperventilation.

  "Wh-What did you do to me?" A tone of fear rang out from his mouth.

  "I simply helped you."

  His leg involuntarily moved one step backwards.

  Planning to run away at the slightest movement, he asked with his leg tensed up.

  "What do you want?" The unstable rhythm of the heart gradually slowed as he finished his sentence.

  "Oh yeah." She cleared her throat.

  "I've gotten an order to assist you in your matters."

  'What?'

  An assist from someone he didn't know? For all he knew, this could be a trap, planned to make him slave away in a Versile business. But seeing the ability of her, he decided to go along with it.

  "? From who?"

  "I am not allowed to tell you unfortunately." Her face was visibly displeased while replying to the question.

  "In which way are you going to assist me? If it has an-... nevermind." Quickly realizing he had to obey her without any question, he stopped.

  Instead he switched to a better approach.

  "Why?"

  She brought her fingers closer to her face as she pondered at the question.

  "I'm sorry. I can't answer that." She replied after a few seconds with an even more discouraged face.

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  Her weird actions of proclaiming that she's here to assist him wasn't that trustworthy and yet Julo couldn't help but feel she was devoid of any hostile intent towards him.

  Wanting to take advantage of the situation and wanting to make it out alive, Julo reorganized all of the questions he had to a more safe one.

  'After all if I ask any more classified questions, she might kill me and leave.'

  "In response to your first question, you can call me for any help of any kind as long as it's reasonable."

  'Then...'

  Julo took a deep breath.

  "Can you te-"

  "Don't worry. You'll become an Overlapped in no time."

  Predicting what he would say with accuracy, he was taken back.

  "For the method of communication, you can just think really hard about me. And by really I meant really really." She added.

  Wanting to follow up, she inhaled the non-existent air as she thought of multiple different ways to look cool.

  However, just as she got a solid sentence, a pulse from a distant place interfered with her Flow, signaling that time was up.

  "You'll have to become an external member to our organization though. And don't worry, this is just done to assure no one will suspect you."

  He opened his mouth before being rudely interrupted.

  "And no, you don't have to work if you don't want to."

  Receiving confirmation, he stood in front of her, seemingly trying to separate the pros and cons.

  After all, trying to separate the risks and rewards was the first time he was taught in the department.

  "I don't have all the time you know." Pressuring him to make a choice, she smiled.

  With that, he extended his hand as if agreeing to become an external member.

  Expecting a handshake, his eyes stared directly at hers. However, a wave of mist dug itself out of her body before replacing the body as soon as he agreed.

  Disappearing without giving a single comment, the surrounding materialized with the sound waves blasted into his ears all at once.

  The aroma of the air rushed into his nose as he was instantly reminded of the place he was previously at.

  The inside lights like golden stars and the sound waves hitting him, his leg under the table jumped as it hit the bottom.

  A few people watched him as he caressed his ankles.

  However, they quickly resumed eating their meals right after.

  Looking at the empty plate in front of him, his gluttony signaled him that it was still ready for a round two and yet Julo was still hesitating about the food.

  The food was the least of his worries though. The seat where the woman was previously at was completely empty with the unfinished plate still there.

  'Something's off?' He wondered to himself, trying to recall what didn't make sense.

  'Wait.'

  Realizing his clear mind and his calm attitude meeting her, he felt that his mind wasn't acting like he usually would.

  Not breaking down at the sight of her, being calm, not panicking, accepting her offer despite it being highly suspicious, and the crushing feeling he had there.

  All of that made one thing clear.

  'Fucking mind domain.'

  ***

  The boxes vibrated as the handle ticked simultaneously.

  The sound of multiple clocks ticking with no end, rang around the sealed room.

  The precision of the clocks was not even down to the millisecond, the microsecond nor the nanosecond. Every measurement of time couldn't be used to determine the precision of each and every clock.

  With no delay between each tick, the sound echoing from them was incredibly loud to the point the noise of a person hitting someone was almost drowned.

  "Where are your members?!" Shouting at the top of his lungs, he screamed with a wooden bat in his hand.

  "What members?!" The sentence took quite a while to leave his throat and through his bleeding mouth.

  Yet, he didn't know what went wrong.

  It was a peaceful day, trying to get to his sister's place with a ship. He was eating a corndog when 3 people surrounded him and took him away.

  He tried to call the security but they were dull as always.

  Alas, he forcefully got taken away and now he was getting tortured for information he didn't know.

  And yet, it has been 2 hours.

  Click

  The door clicked as a light shadow fell into the already bright room.

  "That's not the one." The man imposing with pressuring aura, stepped into the room as his voice briefly overtook the clocks.

  "Wha- wait no. I see, boss."

  Hearing the boss, his mood dropped but he kept on walking towards the man.

  "Retrieving the observed clocks was a real hassle. And now the wrong person." He remarked.

  "And don't call me boss. Call me fourth tick." Reassuring that they won't call him boss but by his official title, he looked back at the man.

  He bent down as he extended his hands near his mouth.

  He shut his eyes, expecting an intense pain to rush through his body.

  1...2...3

  A finger wiped his blood clean, he opened his eyes to see him smiling at him.

  "Sorry we got the wrong person."

  '?!' He wasn't expecting him to be nice as he was slowly getting used to the rough treatment of the people there and the unexpected apology surprised him.

  He smiled at the apology as air rushed to his lung despite the pain.

  "Can you let me go now?"

  He was finally going to be set free and the thought of escaping the pain made the current numb feeling go away.

  The face of the 'goons' behind him looked like they were a bit saddened but that was due to him getting away......right?

  "Sorry but I can't just let you go."

  It was after then that he realized that the face was made out of pity.