Dive

“We need to make sure the attachment isn’t affecting you severely.” Yoko said.

“The G.O.” Hisoka corrected her.

“Anyway…” the woman continued after giving a quick glare to Hisoka, “... after the next few tests you can Dive today, but you can also choose to leave it for tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Masuyo wasn't really paying attention, he was wondering if he would find something new in his uncle’s files.

The boy's tests went by in a hurry that day. After he finished those, advised him to look out for his health: “I wouldn’t say it is one-hundred percent necessary to Dive, but being healthy helps, Masuyo-kun! You need to stop eating nothing but pizza! Why don’t you let Sute-chan cook for you?”

"Sute, cook for me...?" Masuyo murmured as he turned to the girl, who was staring at him with her vacant eyes, making him feel uneasy.

“You can eat your pizza, but you’ll also need to exercise more.” Sute remarked and turned around, muttering: "You don't seem to like my food anyway."

"Huh? What did you say?" Masuyo asked the girl but she had already left the room.

After lunch, Masuyo had to choose between doing his first Dive that afternoon or leave it for tomorrow, “I should just choose rest, this way I’ll be able to look through those files again…”

“We’re diving today.” Sute answered Hisoka's question for Masuyo, who was spacing out.

“Hmm?” Masuyo returned his attention to reality.

“Hey, you don’t have to worry man!” Hisoka assured him, “Let’s just make a quick test to see if things are working properly!”

“But…”

“C’mon Masuyo! You have to take your head off of those files for a moment, they aren’t going anywhere!” the man grinned at Masuyo.

“Hmm…” Masuyo pondered, “You may be right, but...”

"Masuyo." Sute stopped before the boy, staring at his eyes, "Let's dive today."

"Aaa... Okay?" 

“Okay!” Yoko clapped once, “So, I’ll explain everything! Just come to the classroom.”

Hisoka, Sute, and Masuyo were sitting in the little classroom where they first met, Hisoka on the side of the door, Masuyo near the opposite windows, and Sute in the middle, while Yoko was using the digital board: “As you can see, this is a map of Kitoyama, these dots indicate the people that need ‘help’...”

“Wait.” Masuyo interrupted her, “That’s the way you’re able to track people from the A.M.A.?”

“Not exactly.” Hisoka was the one to answer, making the boy turn to him, “The ID chips are always scanning people, but here we only see our possible clients. The ones with problems.”

“What about the Divers? And the rest of the A.M.A.?”

“Well, for us Divers, the G.O. already has a tracking function, but other people from the A.M.A. just receive a simple tracking attachment.” Hisoka explained, “You know, one that doesn’t let you dive.”

“Hmm… does this mean that you’re tracking me right now?”

“Of course!” Yoko replied, “It was in the contract.”

“Of course, it was in the contract.”

“Anyway, continuing." Yoko slapped the board, drawing all the attention of the room, "As Hisoka said, it ‘sees’ people with any type of disturbance on their minds…”

“But if you say ‘people with any type of disturbance on their minds’ doesn’t that mean that anyone could appear? Everybody has some type of problem” Masuyo remarked. 

“That’s a good question! But first: we filter problems like ‘I forgot to take out the trash today’ instantly, and two: we…”

“We actually can’t see everyone with problems!” Hisoka cut her.

“Huh?” Masuyo tilted his head, "You can't?" 

“Yes, we can’t!” the man continued, ignoring Yoko’s terrifying stare, “Not just because people’s minds aren’t simple, but also because there are so many problems that our system ends up 'bugging' and showing things at random.”

“Doesn’t that mean someone with huge problems might be suffering somewhere, but we can’t see it?”

“Yes, a psychopath might be lurking in Kitoyama and we just don’t know it yet!” Hisoka smiled.

“Once again you managed to say something like that…”

“But even if such a person appears, maybe another unity will be lucky enough to catch the person, so it might not be our problem anyway.”

“Hmm…”

“Now that you understood that part…” Yoko raised her voice, “...after receiving the signal from the chips, showing the situation of the people, it’s my job to find a case for us.” she explained, “I basically look for one, ask permission from my superiors to use it and then transfer the signal to the G.O.”

“And with that, we've got two ways to dive!” Hisoka got up and indicated with his fingers: “One is by using our 'special beds', and the other is an emergency dive using your card.”

“My card...?” Masuyo felt his pockets.

“You don’t have to worry about that one now.” Yoko said, “Let’s just go to the Diving Room.” she then headed to the door, waiting for the others.

The Diving room wasn’t far from the little classroom. They just had to walk a few minutes through the deserted corridors to arrive there.

“Hmm..." Masuyo observed the empty rooms, "Why is this place…” 

“So casual?” Hisoka tried to complete.

“So unprofessional?” Yoko did the same.

“Yeah…” Masuyo nodded.

“It’s because of me!”

“It’s because of Hisoka.” Yoko crossed her arms, “He insisted on having his own unity and team, this idiot wanted to do things his way.” she looked at her boyfriend.

“C’mon Yoko-san! You know that things are better this way!”

“Humpf” she cracked a small smile, “They actually are... that's the worst part.”

Grinning at the woman, Hisoka unlocked the door, revealing a room similar to an infirmary, but with several weird-looking beds.

“Are those the beds you talked about?” Masuto asked Hisoka while looking at the things: they had the shape of an avocado, with a wavy and black surface, and surrounded by what seemed like pieces of metal.

“Yep, they’re called Akozi.” Hisoka smiled as he entered the room.

“Too bad I don’t have a bed like this.” Yoko headed to a corner of the room, where a weird-looking Puff was in front of a computer.

“You just have to lie down.” Sute uttered while she passed Masuyo and followed Hisoka.

Masuyo entered the room right after Sute and chose the first “bed” in front of him, he stared at it for a moment until Hisoka shouted:

“Oh, man! I just… love this!” he had jumped on his Akozi.

“Aaaaaaaaaa.” Sute had done the same.

Masuyo tilted his head towards the two, he then glanced at Yoko on her puff, she seemed as relaxed as the others. "Hmm..." the boy stared at the weird-looking thing some more until he finally decided to copy the others and jump on it, “Wow.” the boy sank into the Akozi, it was as if he jumped into a trampoline, but it didn’t throw him back, instead, it kept pulling him in, to the coziest place on the planet. “What… is… this…?” was the only thing he could murmur.

“I can see that you enjoyed it Masuyo-kun!” Yoko said to him.

“Yeah…” his body was already craving for a good nap.

“Then I’ll send you there right now, okay?!” she started to type.

“Okay, ma’am!” Hisoka answered.

“So, you just have to relax, because you're going to dive in…” Yoko was about to begin the countdown.

“Hmm?” even with his body relaxed Masuyo started to feel butterflies in his stomach.

“5…”

The pieces of metal started to give a faint shine.

“...4…”

They started to hiss softly.

“...3…”

The Akozi started to heat.

“...2…”

Masuyo’s consciousness was already disappearing.

“...1..”

The boy couldn’t hear a thing anymore. The three Divers sank into their Akozi and were wrapped by its warmth.

Masuyo felt as if he was in free fall, the coziness of the Akozy was replaced by an intense wind that permeated through his body. Even with his eyes closed, he could, at moments, see all the colors in the world, at others, only the brightest white, or even only the darkest black. He couldn’t smell a thing, but his ears were sharper than usual, bringing brief and incomprehensible sounds from the past of a young soul. "Is this how you feel when you dive off of a helicopter?" the boy started to wonder. 

After letting those sensations pass through his body for what felt like a few minutes, Masuyo finally decided to open his eyes: “Huh?” he looked at a transparent immensity before him, it was something that resembled water. “Aaaaaaaaaaa!” the boy screamed as the impact approached.

“SPLASH!” he fell headlong.

“AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” he passed through the liquid without being stopped or getting wet, but it was as if his head was being crushed by a rain of rocks, “AAAAARGH!” Masuyo held his head while suffering from that excruciating pain.

“Masuyo!” someone called him.

“W-What?” Masuyo realized that he was kneeling on a laminated floor.

“Masuyo!” someone called him again.

“Huh?” he turned to see who was the one calling for him, his intense pain on the head being assuaged while a feeling of uneasiness surged from within his stomach.

“Masuyo!” a girl shook him, “Masuyo!”

“S-Sute?” the boy finally felt her hands and saw her face beside him.

“How are you Masuyo?” she asked while staring at him.

“I…?” he gazed at the girl, her eyes, somehow, showing traces of worry, “...my head…”

“You don’t have to worry that much, Sute-chan.” a male voice said from behind the girl, “He's going to be fine.” Hisoka walked towards Masuyo and helped him get up, “But it is time for you two to do your job.”

Masuyo was still groggy from the pain, but he managed to stand up by himself, “O-Okay, I’m… I think that I’m fine…” he murmured.

“Okay, so now we should search for the problem.” Hisoka proclaimed.

“Hmm…” Sute was still giving glances at Masuyo, “Yes... we should look for it…”

“...oooooooom, uuuuuuuuum, iiiiiiiiiiih, eeeeeeeeeen” a series of sounds echoed.

“Huh?” Masuyo, who was rubbing his face, turned around to see Sute open-mouthed, looking at the horizon.

“Yeah, this might be fun!” Hisoka said while staring at the same thing the other two were now:

On the horizon of their vision, after several hills, two immense metallic figures were fighting against each other.