The Resident II

Haruki turned back, his weary, rage-filled eyes immediately locking onto the source of the metallic thump. “Now who the hell are you?!? Wait. Sorry to inform you, but this isn’t a cosplay event.”

Standing in the middle of the street was a figure that defied the dark alley's reality. It was tall, encased head-to-toe in metallic, samurai-like armor, gleaming faintly under the distant streetlights. Its eyes were hollow, dark with menacing smoke seeping out. The figure looked like it had been summoned and stepped out of an ancient war film, only powered by some unseen, heavy-duty mechanism.

The samurai didn't respond to Haruki's question. Instead, a grating, synthesized voice echoed from behind the helm. The voice started whispering something in an otherworldly language that Haruki wasn’t familiar with. The samurai pulled out his katana and took a fighting stance. The whole environment started to look and feel dull and dystopian; the ground beneath the samurai began to shatter, and the air grew vile. “Subject 425: You are past your termination window. Proceeding with immediate nullification.”

“Dude, you can talk?! I mean, are you kidding me?!” Haruki, whose Karate training told him to never back down, instinctively took a defensive stance, readying his counter-attack, even though this opponent felt entirely different from the assassin. “Your eyes are so dark and smoky, dude, what’s your beauty routine? Care to tell our readers?!”

[And this is where it all started. That day I knew I was baked, stir-fried, deep-fried—and ultimately, permanently cooked.]

Without waiting for a response, Haruki lunged. “Here comes the Side Kick!”Haruki lifted his right leg high, up to his torso, and slashed the heel of his shoe into the metal plate of the armored dude’s stomach. The metal didn't yield. “Take this axe kick too as an upfront paycheck!”

He raised his leg again and quickly struck the samurai’s helmet. A loud CLANG echoed down the street. “Ouch! Y’know that last one really did hurt. Balls Kick!”

He powerfully swung his left leg, trying to hit the crotch of that armored samurai. “Aw damnit, my gorgeous leg! You son of a gun, are your balls made of steel or what? Wait a second...”

Haruki’s left leg immediately started throbbing in blinding pain. He leaned over, groaning as he wrapped both hands tightly around his throbbing thigh. The pain was consuming, but then a realization hit him hard enough to raise his eyebrows. He glanced over his shoulder, checking the damage. “Just now, was that a JoJo’s reference?!” The samurai, took a slow, measured step forward, the smoky eyes fixed on the kill.

***

[Location: Earth 427, Tokyo, Japan]

“—Custos Messium: Devastation Rite!” he whispered which seemed like he just cast a spell, and the air in a flash started to become distorted. Seeing the incoming attack, which boasted such a huge surface area, the woman let out an aroused sigh of admiration. The next instant was so crucial to the outcome of this battle that even blinking would have been fatal. As his attack lacked any openings, much like the distorted, multiple lightning hexagons he was wielding—a truly destructive visual—the woman opted to press forward instead of trying to fall back.

With superhuman agility, she minimized the damage by dodging most of the blow and transferring herself to his back. She held a black blade in her one hand, and she flitted it toward his neck.

“Not this time,” he said with an unfazed look. He spun and kicked the woman. A blow with the force of a gale sent the beautiful woman flying back. However, she was certain that, in the exchange, her blade had reached his neck at the very least—even though he didn’t have a single scratch.

"ANATA! You CANNOT praise anyone else but me! I WON’T let you go away from me again! NEVER! EVER! NEVER!”The woman murmured in wonder as she remained crouched, one hand on the floor. It took only one look to realize that the masked guy had caught her Kusari chain with his one hand. “Do you really think it’ll work on me?” He shattered the arrested blade attached to the chain and immediately kicked the beautiful woman who had purple eyes. She took the hit and fell back, sliding across the ground.

“—Anata…”

Suddenly, a cut in the air appeared, and a guy holding a luxurious-looking satchel stepped through. The satchel had a few clocks attached to it. The guy held the strap with his left hand, gripping the satchel high and holding it hanging on his back and said “Quite the commotion here?”

“Who the f*ck are you?! You dare disturb our lovers’ quarrel, don’t you have any shame?!? I would have killed you if I wasn’t occupied with anata!” The guy with the satchel replies, “Sorry, what did I even do?!?”

“I’ll cut your head and put it on display!” she snarled while clutching her side in pain.

“Eek! She’s a violent one for sure. Guess I’ll meet you later. Enjoy your vacation until then.” The guy snapped his fingers, and the woman vanished. The guy with the satchel, let out a weary sigh, watching the space where the woman had been.

“Did something happen, Kaen?” asked the person in the mask.

“So, you remember the last time we met I told you about an SNS called Discord that I found in prime timeline, right?”

“Yeah, but is this the right time—” the person in the mask began to protest scratching his head.

“So, recently, few people stopped conversing with me on Discord.”

“I can totally understand why.” the person with the mask sighed.

Kaen clutched his head “Like you all can’t do this to me!!! Waah—” and wailed dramatically.

“There, there, professor,” he said, patting Kaen’s back reassuringly. “What were you doing just before appearing here?”

“I was just scaring kids away online” Kaen replied while wiping the glass of his stopwatch.

“Not again? What did you say to them, this time!?”

“I said I’m not joking, I’m the bomb demon! Gyahahaha!” Kaen stopped abruptly, coughing theatrically “I said that same thing again as before ‘cus I’m really not kidding, by the way, Zed, do you have any peppermint candies?” Kaen puts his left hand on Zed’s right shoulder.

“Nah, go buy it yourself. Also, don’t laugh like a maniac ever” Zed finished and wiped Kaen’s hand off from his shoulder.

“Anyways, what are you doing here?” Zed crouched and picked his fallen blade from the ground.

“We need to move, you remember what I told you the last time. Right?” Kaen put the microfiber cloth back into his pocket after wiping the glass of the stopwatch he was holding.

“Yeah, I do.” Zed stood up and put back his blade.

Kaen pulled out his stopwatch from his left pocket and pressed the tiny button on it. A fracture looking opening appeared in air infront of them, which looked completely blank and void from inside, Kaen and Zed stepped into it.

***

[Location: EARTH 803, OSAKA, JAPAN]

Both of them immediately teleported to the main street where Haruki was fighting that otherworldly Samurai. Kaen appeared behind Haruki. Haruki, acting purely on reflex, instantly said, “How’d you get here?” He tried to take off his bag to sling and hit Kaen, but the bag wasn’t even on his back anymore. “Where’s my—”

“I took it from you before I arrived to secure your bag, of course. Plus, I hate getting hit on my face. Also, please, could you move two steps to the side?”

“Why would I even listen to—” Kaen softly kicked him in the opening of his waist and pushed him to the side. The Samurai casted a spell immediately launching a red ray of blast, damaging everything in its path. Haruki was this close to getting atomized but Kaen saved him.

“Ouch! Excuse me! I thought we were a team” Haruki yelped in pain and confusion. “You should say thank you,” Kaen deadpanned.

“Ah. Nevermind. By the way, first tell me who is that guy and… yeah, that guy too.”

Kaen pointed at that otherworldly looking Samurai “That is a Time keeper, a permanent, fixed entity tied to this specific timeline, and also a Time Executioner, or Chronosapien would be more appropriate. You can call him Leger for now.”

Kaen moved his index finger pointing at the masked person “ And that person in the mask is Zed. You can refer to me as Kaen, but I already know you won’t, so nevermind.”

“Yeah, I’m listening, tell me more,” Haruki sighed. Leger took one step forward, making a clank sound. Leger started casting a spell again. “Sorry to startle you like that, but we only have 15 more minutes to finish this, or it will end horribly,” Kaen warned Haruki standing at the corner of the street with Haruki meanwhile Zed concentrated a bright blue looking energy sphere and fired at Leger’s head, the casted spell blasted at the helmet of Leger but it didn’t even scratched the metallic helmet that Leger wore.

“What?! Augh! Nevermind, let me finish this. I never needed y’all’s help in the first place, you know. I was just setting him up for my finishing move.”

“Oh, okay then. Best of luck,” Kaen replied dryly.

“I’m kidding, dude, help me! I can’t take this anymore!!! Seriously, my gorgeous leg is screaming. Get me an ambulance!”

Zed took out a small codex and started casting a spell, “Quadrans Muralis: Bloodpact.” The whole ground started to shatter beneath them.

Haruki, in confusion and fear, yelled at Zed “Dude, are you for real?! At this rate you are gonna take out all of us with you! I swear, if I survive the assassination just to be killed by structural incompetence, I’m demanding a refund on my entire existence!”

Leger lifted his right leg and tapped the ground. Suddenly, the whole shattering ground reversed and rejoined back into place.

“No way! What’s happening today?!?!?!?! I knew that the whole universe really want me to die today, but at least can’t y’all make it less theatrical and painful? Seriously, I need a nap, not a strange cage match!”

Suddenly, Leger casted a spell again and unsheathed his massive odachi, aiming the long blade straight at Haruki. The whole blade became impossibly dark, with jagged lightning strikes projecting from its edges; no light was able to pierce the terrifying blackness of the weapon.

“Holy Moly Angelina Jolie, what even is that?! Is that some kind of cosmic katana? Tell him I’m allergic to being sliced in half by the supernatural.”

Kaen pulled out the stopwatch from his pocket. “Timeout. Let’s leave,” he announced flatly, and pressed the button. All three of them vanished and teleported instantly from the street of Osaka.

***

[Location: EARTH 427, MILAN, ITALY]

They rematerialized in what appeared to be a bustling, sunny street corner. The world was loud and colorful after the drab darkness of Osaka. A cheerful, rhythmic music was coming from a thrift store nearby—it sounded distinctly like "Una mattina mi sono alzato... O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao."

Haruki stumbled to his feet, still clutching his throbbing leg, surveying the unfamiliar scene of foreign architecture and loud, defiant music. “Aw! Oh, this sounds like bad news!”