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I wanted to pry away, but I couldn’t.

I wanted to scream out loud, but I didn’t.

Legs buckling, staggering, I couldn’t even feel my knees collapse from under me. Didn’t even hear the gasps of air that I was struggling for.

A dazzling white surrounded me yet everything seemed to fade to a blurring black.

Jin’s hand, motionless, cleaved away at the wrist, locked in the same outstretched position, still reaching out to me.

I started to feel dizzy again.

When did it happen, I didn’t even know. Too quick was the impulse to get away. Trying to play it all back in my head, pinpointing the exact moment was impossible, everything was a mess. Too fast were the motions that played.

Whose fault was it? Why did it happen?

It was my fault, wasn’t it? I was too slow, wasn’t I?

This could have been prevented, couldn’t it? I could have prevented it, couldn’t I?

Why didn’t I?

“I’m so sorry.”

The words were merely a whimper, a meager flutter of wind to the open air. I heard myself say it but I did not remember uttering a single word.

Nevertheless, nothing came out of it.

Nothing to alleviate the heavy burden pressing against my chest, nothing to break away the suffocating silence infesting the colorless void.

Nothing.

Then a quivering cry seeped through the fissures and cracks of the wall ahead of me.

A wobbly scramble through of unsteady feet planted itself onto the empty surface of white.

Crash went the man that suddenly emerged from the wall, slumping onto bent knees, with only a single arm steadying him upright. Deep heavy breaths of composure, wide incredulous eyes on an even more incredulous face, doused immensely with many droplets of sweat.

His face was strained, gulping away the tension, shifting himself slightly to a more comfortable position.

Eyes finally meeting my own, he exuded a sigh, then nudged his chin at me.

“Hand,” he said.

Frozen. I was sure of it… that every cell, every molecule, every microscopic atom that made up my physical/virtual structure had simply gone up and stopped responding at the sight of him.

A DDoS attack on the senses, he was, still alive, still present, in front of me. I stared and stared, enough time for him to realize something was amiss when I stopped responding to his continued calls.

Then he snapped his fingers, pointed at his other arm that was all but a severed glowing stump, and asked again, “Hand.”

For the record, I did finally return to the realm of consciousness, but only partly. As I attempted to oblige his request, his hand kinda slipped from my grasp and landed in a pathetic spongy splat in front of him.

“Close enough,” he muttered, picking up his missing limb.

I felt my lips move, “You aren’t dead?”

Surprisingly, I found my voice, yet It seems I’ve forgotten how it works for the pitch of my voice could be comparable to a chipmunk on helium.

A slight tracing of a smile, and like some kind of ruler, Jin raised his detached hand towards me, his fingers lifelessly flailing about in a mildly nauseating sight.

“Surprised?” He asked. “You’re whiter than a sheet of paper… didn’t know you cared.”

“Keep flaunting yourself and I’ll stop,” I said at once. “Answer the question.”

“It’s you, Sora. Quick thinking on your part means I get to live another day. Grabbing my hand as you went out of bounds sealed the deal.”

He began nonchalantly tossing and catching his hand like a tennis ball, “An NPC cut it off before all of me can get through with you. Nevertheless, since you never let go of my hand, I still made it through with you. I was still fine because according to the game my severed hand is still attached to me, albeit, for a short time only. So if my hand is out of bounds, then technically, I’m out of bounds. I can simply just dive in after you, no problem.”

A deep relishing breath of air, then he looked at me again, “I suppose a thank you is in order for saving me.”

I finally stood back up, feeling both strength and weight flooding back to my still wobbling knees, “Thank your shitty game for being the shitty mess it is. Wouldn’t have been able to save you otherwise.”

“So I guess… I’ll thank myself then,” He cleared his throat, “Thank you… uh, me. Your shitty coding saved the day for once.”

“Well, you’re in an awfully good mood.”

“Warranted, isn’t it? That’s twice we defied death already by my count, it’ll be even weirder if I wasn’t in a good mood about it. Plus we’re safe here, nothing can spawn outside the map. No dangers, nothing to worry about.”

“Guess that’s good news,” I said, taking a few steps deeper into the colorless void.

“SORA, WAIT!”

His voice was loud, alarming, but simply a second too late. My next step met nothing but open air and subsequently, I sunk downwards into an unavoidable plummet.

I only had time to gasp as I felt the wind storm past from under me, felt my stomach lurch impulsive at the sudden loss of footing.

I was falling.

And then I wasn’t.

The sudden stop of momentum. The sudden strain on my wrist. Suspended mid-air, looking down at the infinite chasm of white, I began gasping wildly.

Upwards, clutching as tight as possible, Jin’s hand clung on my outstretched hand, his body sprawled across the invisible platform where I last stood.

“Out of bounds, Sora! You can’t just simply walk anywhere and not expect to fall, you idiot!” He mustered out in a strained voice.

“No dangers, huh?! Last time I ever listened to you! For fuck’s sake!”

Wildy I began flailing for his hand with my other arm, gripping it with all I had.

Not being a fan of death, you could see I was madly yearning to get out of my predicament as soon as possible.

He pulled up, I did the same. Eventually, I found solid ground again, invisible solid ground that is, and found myself once more, without feeling in my legs.

“Guess I don’t owe you anymore,” said Jin, watching me recoup my composure. “How quickly the tides have turned, wouldn’t you say?”

“Don’t start,” I warned him. “Nearly had a heart attack just now.”

“Let me guess, my fault?”

“Your fault!” I shouted, glaring at him. “Cough up. Are there any other things I should know before I do anything else?”

“No that’s all. Just watch your step and you’ll be fine.”

Slowly and surely, I stood myself back up, “How are we supposed to do that when everything is just -” I gestured to the everywhere that surrounded us. “White?”

Unbeknown to me, Jin prompted open his menu screen, scavenging forth and returning with a coiled bundle of rope.

“Like this.” He simply said.

Jin uncoiled the rope, tossing the other end of it as far as he could. The rope landed on solid surface except for the end of it, which dangled loosely off an unseen edge.

Then he glanced at me again, “How’s that for a strategy?”

Clever. Simple. Intuitive. That’s what I thought about it. But I didn’t feel like dishing out compliments at the moment, instead, I nodded my head and muttered a simple, “Good enough,” which was a good enough response.

“You’ll be rope-thrower for the moment,” Tossing me the reins, he raised both… well, both ‘hands’ at me, “As you can plainly see, my hands are full.”

“Funny.”

I plucked the rope from the ground and began coiling it back up into a bundle, speculating as I did for our next course of action.

Of course, phasing outside into the out of bounds world was not merely a desperate act of salvation done in the midst of rationless panic, I had another reason for it. One that might lead us somewhere fruitful.

As we all know, Arishia seems to have a tendency for playing outside the rules, who’s to say she wasn’t here alongside us somewhere within the expansive milky white?

The map states a secluded area does exist outside the boundaries of the playable area. Isn’t there a chance she’s cooped up there along with Ayako and her lackeys?

Certainly, that might be the case. Certainly, the chances of that weren’t zero.

Somewhere far to the southeast. Sukuinote doesn’t lie. We just weren’t far enough southeast the whole time. Not even close.

I looked to the map, affirming again the wide margin of distance from here to there.

Least we have a nice change of scenery. Long, boring corridors with nothing but darkness were getting a bit tedious. No, blinding white voids with indistinguishable pitfalls of doom are what the cool kids are into nowadays. Absolutely.

I turned to Jin, “Back to business.”

“I guess so,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Where to then?”

The rope unraveled itself with a swing, gradually thinning as it rolled along on the floor, revealing a safe walk ahead of us.

Ready to repeat the tiresome routine ad nauseam, I took the first of many steps to our objective.

“Forward.”