Chương 2: Meteor City

"Move it! This place is ours now. Everybody else, get lost!" The clash between the Nostrade and Fanobi families had made enough noise to draw scavengers from every corner of the surrounding waste. A pack of Meteor City hyenas had been waiting at the edge of the battlefield for the killing to end. Once they were sure the Fanobi men had left, they rushed in to strip the Nostrade corpses. Clothes, weapons, even bodies. In Meteor City, everything had value.

Before the hyenas could get close, a rough voice barked from behind them. The crowd froze. Everyone who worked this part of the city knew that brute all too well. One of the scavengers glanced at the feast of loot in front of him, unwilling to back down so easily. He turned toward the towering boy behind him and snapped, "Uvogin! You think you can swallow a prize this big by yourself?" Uvogin bared his teeth in a savage grin.

"Hehahahaha. Got a problem with it? Then let's fight. Anyone who has a complaint can come at me together." He lowered his stance and fixed his eyes on the speaker. Behind him, the other two shifted as well. The boy with the samurai topknot, a little shorter than Uvogin, rested one hand on the battered sword at his waist. Beside him, a girl with purplish-pink hair began winding steel thread through her fingers. Killing intent rolled off the three of them, far too cold and practiced for children their age.

The air locked tight. The hyena who had spoken first broke into a sweat. Greed had made him forget exactly what kind of trio he was facing. Now that their attention was on him, reason returned in a hurry. When he saw that nobody else planned to stand with him, his courage collapsed. He cursed under his breath and slowly backed away, keeping his eyes on Uvogin until he was clear. The others followed. With no chance to fish in troubled waters, they withdrew one by one.

"Tch. Boring." Uvogin clicked his tongue. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Still, the haul in front of them was worth at least a week's usual scavenging. He had no real interest in chasing people down when there was loot to claim.

"Forget them," the swordsman said, clapping him on the shoulder.

"This should feed the three of us for several days."

"Hahahaha. Then you can fight me later, Nobunaga." Uvogin hooked an arm around his neck.

"Fine by me. One black ration bar says I win." Nobunaga twisted free, not backing down at all. The pink-haired girl was clearly used to this. She only shook her head and walked toward the bodies to check for anything they might have missed.

"Hey, Machi! Wait for us." It did not take long for the three of them to strip the Nostrade corpses of anything useful. Mafia battles in Meteor City were not rare. Most ended the same way, unless luck left something unusual behind. Weapons. Clothes. Corpses. This time was no different. Aside from a phone and a small amount of Jenny, there was almost nothing worth taking.

"Machi, why are you staring at that body?" Uvogin asked after he and Nobunaga finished their search.

"Hurry up. We can trade that phone for meat." She stood over a white-haired boy in a bloodstained, ruined suit.

"He's alive," Machi said coolly. Uvogin blinked.

"Then he's lucky." He did not think any deeper than that, but Nobunaga's expression sharpened.

"No. Look at his clothes. He was shot a lot, but his body doesn't have a mark on it." Anyone raised in Meteor City learned the same rule: do not touch what you do not understand. The trash hid treasure, but it hid dangers too. Radioactive material. Poison. Things that could kill you before you knew what you had found. Normally, scavengers wore protective gear when they went through the piles. Today they had rushed out without any, chasing after news of a mafia battle.

Faced with something this strange, Nobunaga's instincts told him to leave at once.

"Let's go. Leave him." He had just reached for Machi when she spoke again.

"No. My sixth sense says bringing him with us will help." Uvogin and Nobunaga both stopped. Machi was only eleven, but there was a reason she could stand beside monsters like them. Her stitching was precise enough to close wounds quickly after a fight, and her sixth sense had saved them from danger again and again. At times, it felt almost supernatural. They trusted that instinct without question. After a moment of silence, Uvogin nodded first.

"If you say so, we'll take him." He hoisted the white-haired boy over one shoulder. Nobunaga opened his mouth, then closed it again without arguing....

"Ah!" Aren woke with a violent jolt. Cold sweat covered his forehead. He lifted a hand and wiped at it, still breathing hard. The flood of memories that had crashed through his mind belonged to the body's original owner. Like most of Meteor City's residents, that boy had been discarded by the world. He had grown up in the trash without knowing his parents, and even his name had been something chosen casually, more for convenience than meaning. In that forgotten place, survival had been the only law. Robbery. Theft.

Murder. Poison. If it could secure supplies, he had done it. Over time, those methods had earned him a small reputation among the local hyenas. That was why the Third Elder had noticed him and traded him to the Nostrade Family in exchange for the promise of a legal identity outside Meteor City. The memories were full of killing. Blood. Organs. The sensation of flesh tearing under his hands. Worse, they were tangled with memories of strange food, foul smells, and textures Aren's modern mind could barely process.

He still had not recovered. His breaths came harsh and uneven. At last, his stomach twisted too hard to ignore. Just as he opened his mouth to vomit, a young, cold female voice came from the side.

"If you throw up in here, I'll kick you out."