Chapter 4: The Breath and the Ash
The following hours dragged on with the slowness of a death sentence. The air in the apartment didn't cool, but the small sip of ice-cold water they each took seemed to reignite a wick of resistance in their bodies. They settled into a silent, grim routine. Shinobu, with her seemingly inexhaustible stamina, took the watch near the barricade, her ear attentive to any sound from the hallway. Nezuko remained by Joey's side, a warm, comforting presence who was both his protector and his responsibility. Joey, for his part, had the simplest and perhaps most stressful task of all: watching his phone screen, waiting for any sign from the System, guarding the battery as if it were the last ember of a fire.
The heat had transformed the apartment into an alien landscape. The plastic blinds on the windows had warped, bowing into sad, distorted shapes. The smell of ozone and something burnt—maybe plastic, maybe something worse—infiltrated through the sealed cracks. The outside world had plunged into a feverish silence, the screams and crashes replaced by a low, omnipresent hum, the sound of the air itself vibrating with heat.
Joey tried not to think about what that silence meant. Tried not to think about how many of the screams he had heard had been extinguished forever. Instead, he focused on the comforting weight of Nezuko beside him and the deadly efficiency of Shinobu. For the first time in his life, he was not alone in his anxiety. He was in a boat with other people, and although the sea was on fire, the fact that there was a boat at all was a miracle.
Then, the phone screen lit up again, its white light seeming blinding in the gloom. Joey sat up straight, his heart leaping.
[Heat Wave: Level 1 - Completed.] [Total duration: 8 hours, 14 minutes.] [Calculating player performance...] [Group survival confirmed. Vital resources managed. Local threats neutralized.] [Performance classified as: Excellent.] [Granting Level 1 Calamity Survival Reward.]
"It's over," Joey whispered, his voice hoarse. "The heat wave... it's over."
Shinobu was at his side in an instant, her violet eyes reading the screen over his shoulder. "Reward?"
"Yes, it says... 'Survival Reward'," he replied, his eyes wide as a new text window appeared.
[Survival depends on the group's strength and synergy.] [Your psychic affinity has demonstrated a need for tactical intelligence and resource management.] [Summoning new Bond Echo...] [Materialization in progress.]
Icy panic shot up Joey's spine again. "Oh no. Again. It's happening again."
"What?" Shinobu's voice was sharp. "Master, explain."
"Someone else," he stammered, scrambling to his feet. "The system is... it's bringing someone else. Like you two."
Shinobu raised an eyebrow, her smile becoming a little tighter. She immediately positioned herself between Joey and the center of the room, where the air was already beginning to ripple. Nezuko stood in front of Joey, taking a defensive stance, her arms outstretched as if to shield him from an explosion.
The vortex of light was faster this time, more confident. The particles gathered with purpose, forming a tall, slender female silhouette. The light dissipated to reveal a young woman with vibrant, shoulder-length orange hair. She wore tight jeans and a top that looked like a bikini top with a cloud pattern. There was a bracelet on her wrist and, most notably, a blue, three-sectioned staff attached to a belt on her thigh. Her expression was not one of calm observation or an enigmatic smile; it was one of pure and absolute irritation.
"Alright, what kind of joke is this?" she said, her voice full of impatience as she put her hands on her hips. Her brown eyes scanned the dirty, barricaded apartment, the smiling figure of Shinobu, and the small, growling demon girl, before landing on Joey, who was hiding pathetically behind Nezuko. "Who's responsible for pulling me out of a perfectly good route calculation?"
Nami. The navigator thief. The woman who could smell money from a mile away and predict a storm just by feeling the moisture on her skin.
"Welcome," said Shinobu, her courteous smile the first greeting. "It seems you are our new ally."
Nami snorted. "Ally? I don't even know where I am. This place smells like burnt things and despair. And who are you, the smiling receptionist from hell?"
Nami's bluntness was as shocking as the heat wave. Joey saw Shinobu's eyes narrow minimally, the only sign that the remark had hit its mark.
"My name is Shinobu Kocho. This is Nezuko Kamado," she said, gesturing with her head. "And the one hiding over there is our Master, Joey. Apparently, the person responsible for your arrival."
All eyes turned to Joey. Nami sized him up, her gaze sharp and critical. "Master? He looks more like a scared rat that saw a cat."
Joey's cheeks burned with shame. The words hit him with the precision of a punch.
"Looks can be deceiving," Shinobu said softly, though there was a warning tone in her voice. "He is the reason we are all here and the only person who can interact with the 'System' that governs this world."
Nami crossed her arms, her interest suddenly piqued by the word "System." "Right, let's skip the useless introductions. Can someone give me a straight explanation? Where are we, what happened to the sky to create this disgusting heat, and what is this 'System'?"
As Shinobu began to give Nami a concise and brutally honest version of the events of the last eight hours—the calamity, the neighbor, the Survival Points—something changed. A crackling sound came from the window, followed by another. The metal and glass, superheated for hours, were beginning to cool. The air in the apartment, though still suffocating, lost its oven-like edge. Outside, the omnipresent hum of the heat began to subside, replaced by a deep, unsettling silence.
The heat wave had truly ended.
Nami listened to Shinobu's account with intense concentration, her gaze moving from Shinobu to the phone in Joey's hand. When Shinobu finished, Nami was silent for a moment, processing.
"So," she said finally, "let me get this straight. The world is ending, one disaster at a time. This... 'System' pulled us from our worlds to protect this guy"—she jutted her chin at Joey—"who's the only one who can use the system's magic to buy us water?"
"That is a functional summary," Shinobu agreed.
"And we get 'points' for surviving and... 'neutralizing threats'?" A calculating gleam appeared in Nami's eyes. "Can these points buy other things besides water?"
"A limited list of items, at the moment," Joey said, finding a shred of courage to speak.
Nami smiled, and it was the first genuine smile anyone had given in that apartment. It was sharp, predatory, and full of possibilities. "So we're not just bodyguards. We're an apocalypse venture capital firm. And our capital is Survival Points. I like that."
Her perspective was so different from Shinobu's it was almost comical. Shinobu saw duty and tactics; Nami saw economics and profit.
"Right," Nami said, clapping her hands together. "First order of business: asset assessment. We're stuck in this apartment with a weak barricade and a finite amount of water. That's bad for business. We need to know what's out there. Resources, threats, escape routes. We can't make a plan sitting in the dark."
She marched to the barricade. "Come on. We need to take a look outside."
The idea made Joey's stomach churn, but Nami's logic was as undeniable as Shinobu's. They couldn't stay here forever. With surprising strength, Nami helped Nezuko move the sofa. The broken door groaned as they pushed it open.
The hallway was dark and silent. Mr. Henderson's body was nowhere in sight, just a dark stain and the abandoned fire extinguisher. The smell was worse out here, an acrid odor of sweat, fear, and smoke.
"Hallway window," Nami said. "You said it led to the fire escape, right?"
Joey nodded, following them hesitantly. Nami found the window at the end of the hall and, with a grunt of effort, managed to open it. A breath of air came in. It wasn't fresh, but it was breathable, heavy with the smell of hot asphalt and ash.
They took turns looking out. The view was a nightmare painted in shades of gray and orange. The street below was littered with cars stopped at odd angles, some with their doors open as if their occupants had fled in a panic. Small fires still burned in dumpsters and on a shop awning across the street. A layer of dark soot covered everything. And there was no one. No movement. No sound of life. The bustling city had become a silent necropolis.
"Right," Nami whispered, her navigator's eyes scanning the landscape, not with fear, but with cold analysis. "The situation is bad, but not impossible. The power is out, communications too. The first few days will be chaos for resources. Water, food, medicine."
She turned to them, her eyes shining with a new intensity in the dim light. "Our number one priority is to establish a secure base and start accumulating Survival Points. We need to get SP-rich. Rich enough to buy our survival. And for that," she gave a sharp smile, "we need a plan."
Joey looked from Nami, the economist of the apocalypse, to Shinobu, the smiling strategist, and to Nezuko, the silent guardian. His small, pathetic apartment had become the headquarters for the strangest and most dangerous survival team in the world. And he, the boy who was afraid of his own shadow, was somehow in charge. The thought was terrifying. But, for the first time, it was also strangely thrilling.
________________________________________
Get rewarded for helping with our community goals!
🚀 Tier Reward: Help us reach 10 members for +5 chapters on all stories!
👻 Join the crew by searching patreon.com/c/ThePriceofaBond10 on (P). You know the spot! 😉