Go With The Flow

April 1st, 2102

8:47

OB rolled down the surprisingly well maintained road, pulling up outside Rukia before settling with a soft hiss. Ukira and Sanguchii stepped out, locked the van, and stared up at the towering dark-blue building.

“Is… IS THIS it?”

Ukira blurted.

“I thought we’d be heading into some giant metropolis with barbed wire and armor plating, not a freakishly tall store.”

Several nearby citizens turned to stare. Not just because he was an outsider but because he was practically yelling at the sky.

“Hey, hey. Slow your roll, champ,”

Sanguchii said, slinging an arm around him.

“Don’t worry. This place’ll have everything we need.”

He nudged Ukira toward the entrance, guiding him away from his own volume. The doors beeped and slid open.

Inside, the ceiling was so impossibly high it may as well not have existed. The entrance stretched out with endless rows of checkouts, all arranged in eerily perfect lines.

Sanguchii grabbed a folded map from a plastic mall-style stand.

“Alright, kiddo. Take one of these,”

he said, handing Ukira a second map and a crumpled 5-Kazoka note.

“Head to Sections C and E. Grab us a decent carpet and an extinguisher. You mucked up my van last time, and I don’t need you setting it on fire again.”

Ukira nodded, still wide-eyed.

“You can grab yourself something to eat, too. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”

Sanguchii wandered off, staring down at his own map while scratching the back of his neck with the other hand. His steps were long, exaggerated, almost stupid looking and yet he faded into the distance fast. Within moments, his figure dissolved into the endless aisles, swallowed by the store’s impossible scale.

For the first time in days, Ukira’s world was quiet.

No roaring engines. No shouting. No explosions.

Just the faint electrical buzz of the bulbs far above him which he somehow could still hear despite how absurdly high they were.

The place smelled of fresh paint and new leather. A huge improvement from the blood and literal shit he was used to.

Ukira began wandering, aisle after aisle, looking up at towers of shelves that stretched into magic like heights. Corridor by corridor, the reality set in: this was going to take forever.

He stared down at his map, mimicking Sanguchii’s earlier posture, and headed toward the marked sections only to realize how massive they really were. Each section was arranged alphabetically by the first three letters of the item’s name… and each one was a 200-by-200-meter block.

It had already taken him forty minutes just to reach the first section. The next one felt like a full hike away.

As he rounded a corner, he spotted someone else in the distance. It wasn’t that the man stood out. It was that anyone was here at all. Even from afar, the guy carried a calm, confident aura that cut through the emptiness of the store.

Up close, his build became clearer: swimmer like, defined but not bulky, the kind of strength that looked earned rather than posed. His hair was longish, naturally dark but dyed blonde at the top, with the sides buzzed clean to reveal black roots. The rest was tied back in a loose bun.

His eyes, deep green, looked half-squinted, either from exhaustion or from a natural sharpness. On his arms, long tentacle-like tattoos curled down to his wrists.

His outfit was bizarrely functional: a buttoned shirt with a scruffy tie, suspenders looping over his shoulders, a few brown belts with attached satchels and knives of varying size, and strangely an oversized chef’s hat strapped to his harness so it wouldn’t fall.

A silver cuff wrapped one wrist, and a single stud pierced his left ear simple, yet engraved with surprising depth, like a personal insignia.

Ukira approached him, doing his absolute best to smile. A smile that, frankly, didn’t look welcoming at all, made even worse by his exhausted, soul sucked eyes.

Ukira stopped just before the man continuing to look him up and down,

The guy hadn’t even looked up yet, something about him gave off a really high amount of aura. Not like Ukira actually knew he was powerful. Just the way the man stood, his posture. The way he intently stared at the items on the shelves. He seemed strong.

Ukira cleared his throat.

“Uh- Hey, excuse me.”

The man snapped his head up instantly, not aggressively just faster than you’d expect from someone so lost in thought.

“Oh!”

He said brightly, his voice was warm but unsettling rehearsed.

“You must be lost right? Who am I kidding, everyone gets lost in this Möbius Strip of a store”

The man lets out a soft chuckle followed by a smile 

Ukira looks up at the man,

“A..What strip?”

Ukira blinked

“You know the infinite loop thing”

The man began to look a little nervous explaining it. Tapping the side of his head. 

“Never mind it doesn’t matter, but basically it’s probably a good thing you found me if you are lost, when you are. The store infinitely loops over and over again like a mirror maze until you go mad and die, then it sucks out your Stardust”

As per Ukira stares at whoever just told him the news with a stupid look. Probably because not only is he quite stupid compared to the average person, but his knowledge of the outside world of Cogtonn is seemingly very limited.

“Some Protector he is, if I got lost I would be dead, I swear I’m gonna kick his ass”

Ukira muttered under his breathe.

“Well. Anyway.”

The tall guy laughed awkwardly, clearly hearing what Ukira just said.

“My names Itabashi, Kaitos Itabashi. I work at a nearby restaurant and came here for a fire extinguisher; but I needed to pick up some smaller bits too, as our shop recently had an accident and almost burnt down, just making sure that doesn’t happen again you get me?”

Ukira nodded his head.

“Soo, how about you kid?”

Itabashi stuck his hand-

“My names Ukira Iteza”

Surprisingly Ukira actually picked up on the social queue and shook it.

“I’m also here for a fire extinguisher, how convenient.”

Itabashi clicked his fingers making a smug face.

“Let’s head together then”

The two wandered down the isles, Ukira trailing behind staring at all the things on the walls now that he doesn’t have to actually look at a map.

They soon then turned the corner at the intersections of all the isles and arrived at their shared goal- a fire extinguisher. 

Unlucky for them though there’s only one.

“So this is awkward then, rock paper scissors for it?”

Itabashi then had to explain what RPS was aswell as how it worked, multiple times.

“Best of 3, Iteza”

Ukira picked Scissors with his Extinguisher rival taking rock,

As they draw their weapons the lights above flicker and shut down.