"So what do we do now, boss?" Rhett said casually, trying to regain a sense of normalcy despite the pain.
Acting flippant, casual, was the only way he could deal with situations like these, so that was what he was doing now. The severed fingers had stopped bleeding for now—thankfully the attack didn't hit any major arteries—but they still throbbed with a gnawing pain that felt sharp at the center but dull at the edges.
"We wait." Henrik concluded simply. "We don't know what's on the other side of that door. We have no food, and that woman, Scar, has already decided to spare us. For now. We can get information from someone that's been living here for a while before we figure out a plan to leave."
Rhett nodded. It was already the plan he had bubbling in his mind. He just wanted external confirmation.
Still, he couldn't help but let a small smile crawl to his lips. A prostitute hiding two intruders. Where had he heard that before...
The sounds of muffled voices, creaking furniture, and harsh moans on the other side of the wall quickly wiped the smile off his face. Whatever that pigman was doing, he needed to finish quickly.
He directed his attention back to Henrik. They no longer desperately needed medical supplies for his countless wounds—one death had erased them all, and merging with his quirk had brought him back to full health. His skin tone was no longer pallid, his eyes were no longer sunken, and his dislocated shoulder now fit properly in its socket.
Still, Rhett felt something was wrong with Henrik. He was never talkative, but he just felt too motionless right now. Too distant.
"Yo, Henrik." Rhett whispered through gritted teeth. "Henrik."
Henrik, staring at a wall in the darkness, slowly focused his eyes on Rhett and turned his neck in his direction. "What."
"Uh, it's just that you've been really quiet. What's up, Comrade?" Rhett said nervously, wanting to strike up a topic, despite not knowing how or what to even talk about. "You good?"
Henrik looked at Rhett's eyes for a while, so deeply that chills started running down his spine. Then he finally spoke.
"No, Rhett, I am not fine. I died."
"Oh, yeah, so that's what it's about." Rhett forced a chuckle. Most people, even if completely aware of what transpired between them, would not reply so casually. But for Rhett, who had died thousands to even tens of thousands of times, someone who was a connoisseur of death and even more of a hardened soldier than any veteran or top hero, could not help but brush off the topic easily.
He could still see Henrik's body on the floor, blood leaking out of the gaping wound to his temple, but his quirk had handled that, so there was no need to worry.
"Yeah, well, congratulations on your first death." Rhett shrugged meekly. "I know, it's kind of scary the first time, but the novelty fades away pretty quickly."
"Huh." Was the only thing Henrik said.
Then, like a coiled spring, he shot forward with surprising speed and landed a right hook across Rhett's jaw.
The fist collided. Despite Henrik being skinny, he was still very strong for the average human. The punch knocked Rhett to the floor as stars appeared in his vision.
"Wha—?" Rhett mumbled, the shock of Henrik's attack overwhelming him before the pain even registered.
"I don't think you get it." Henrik said, settling back into sitting position, his back against the ceramic toilet, his right leg propped on the floor, and his left leg lying flat in a half-crossed position. "I died."
"Uh, yeah, I was there." Rhett chuckled weakly, the shock still overriding the pain since he didn't know what else to do. His jaw felt like it was coming loose from his skull. "Good thinking with merging with me to share my quirk. I don't think I could have even come up with—"
Henrik sprang forward again, still too quick for Rhett to react. Another punch like a sledgehammer connected to his jaw, and now he could feel the full brunt of the pain.
His brain rattled in his skull once the impact landed. It felt like a delayed explosion. His eyes started tearing up—not crying, just uncontrollable watering. Against his tongue, he felt two teeth wiggling at their roots. The punch had broken his teeth.
His cheek started to feel swollen, like it was puffing up, and above him, Henrik spoke again, settling down to his sitting position, his eyes still emotionless.
"I still don't think you get it." He spoke.
"I died."
"I fucking know!" Rhett barked, and immediately regretted it. He spared a peek through the crack of the old bathroom door. The room where Scar and Swine had gone still had the door closed, Swine still busy with the velvet-dressed woman. Still, he shouldn't test his luck.
Rhett forced his voice to go lower as he felt himself shaking in anger. "What the hell's wrong with you! I'm the reason you're still alive! My quirk saved you, you dumbass, so why the hell are you—"
"I died, Rhett." Henrik spoke again, and Rhett flinched, already bracing for another punch, but it never came. Instead, Henrik's fist settled at his side as he stared upward to the ceiling.
"I died. I've been running from death my whole life, struggling for myself ever since I was a kid in the slums.
"I saw death everywhere I went. People died from sickness, from starvation, from other people out of revenge, because they couldn't pay a debt, because they were collateral damage. Some even for fun.
"I escaped death when King gave me a quirk and forced me to be a soldier. I escaped death when I became a hero and fought against his experiments. I escaped death against the hybrid beasts, against the BeastMaster. Against Seraphine and Marina. Against Daimon, Natos and the HitDevil.
"But then, my luck ran out against Velez. I felt the bullet going into my brain. I felt my organs failing. I felt my heartbeat slow down, my lungs deflate and my brain shut down into nothingness. I felt it, Rhett. I felt my death.
"And I thought it was over. Everything they said that I thought was bullshit was true. I saw it—the light at the end of the tunnel, my life flashing before my eyes. I don't know what I was expecting at the end. Heaven? No, I deserve hell, if it existed. Reincarnation? Waking up and realizing it was all a dream? Transmigration? I didn't see any of that, Rhett. All I saw was nothing."
Henrik's hands were shaking now as he spoke. "I was nothing, for what felt like an eternity. I couldn't... didn't think. Didn't hear. Didn't speak. Didn't feel. I don't know how to explain it but... I was nothing. I no longer existed. Henrik was simply dead."
The full force of his quivering eyes met Rhett's. "And then... I wasn't. I wasn't nothing anymore. I was something. I felt, heard, smelled, and saw again. I was dead, and then I was alive. Do you even understand that? Do you even fathom that, Rhett?"
"Of course I do, I do that all the time!" Rhett spat, literally—blood flowing from his lips as a tooth hit the grimy floor. But Henrik simply shook his head.
"No, Rhett. I had lived my whole life knowing I only had one shot. One chance at this thing called life. There were never more options. I fought tooth and nail to protect my life. I had abandoned other people's lives for my own. I had done the detestable to protect me and myself alone.
"And yet, when I did lose that life, I came back. It was as easy as that. I was dead for one moment, and then I was alive. So did it all matter? Did all the sacrifices, everything that I put myself and others through, even matter if I could reverse it all in a moment?"
Yes, Rhett wanted to say. Of course it fucking matters! Why wouldn't it?
But he couldn't form any words, because he knew Henrik's words had kernels of meaning. If he could simply bring back his life over and over again without consequences, was it really valuable?
"Every human only has one shot. No matter how powerful or weak. How smart or stupid. How rich or poor." Henrik continued. "No matter how much medicine you use, how much treatment or healing. Once the grim reaper comes for you and claims your life, that's it. It's over. No human is supposed to come back.
"And yet, I did. I cheated death, despite clinging to my precious life throughout it all. I did something no human should do. And by doing that, I think I'm becoming what you are. Inhuman."
"Oh wow. WOW." Rhett scoffed, clenching his fists. His severed fingers, throbbing jaw and building rage made him want to stand up and punch Henrik, start a fight with him, even if he couldn't win. But common sense won over. "Never once have you thanked me for saving you! I saved you from that tunnel when you were at your weakest. I died like five times to save you from the HitDevil. And this is the thanks I get? Getting punched in the face and being told I'm not human? Fuck that! So what am I then, Henrik? Tell me what the fuck I am, if not human!"
"That's what I don't know." Henrik admitted, his voice never leaving its calm demeanor. "I've died only once. Far more than anybody should. And yet you—you experience the pain and feeling of death day in and day out. And you joke about it. You treat it so flippantly. How can you call that human?"
"It's just my quirk." Rhett seethed. "It's the quirk I was given! I have to use it to the best of my abilities! To get what I want! I'm just using my quirk like you—"
"Not if it breaks the boundaries of humanity." Henrik spoke. "I always wondered when I saw you die more than a thousand times in your fight with the Iron Knight. Are you just insane? A masochist that enjoys pain and suffering?
"But now I know better. After experiencing death for the first time, I think I know what you are."
Then what am I? Rhett thought. Please tell me. I'm not even sure.
"War veterans and criminals that have looked death in the eye can't even talk about it like you do, and there are only two types of immortal beings as far as I know."
Henrik's eyes narrowed to slits. "Gods, and devils. So tell me, Rhett—"
Without warning, Henrik lunged forward, not to attack Rhett, but to hold him. His thin fingers wrapped around Rhett's cheeks until they were mere centimeters apart, and Henrik stared right into Rhett's deep brown eyes.
"Which one are you?"
Rhett's lips moved wordlessly, like he was forming an answer he didn't even know. They stayed in that position for a moment, breathing each other's air in the cramped bathroom, before the other door swung open.
The sounds from the other room eventually stopped. By Rhett's estimate, their session had taken about seventeen minutes.
Footsteps echoed from the main room. Heavy, deliberate—Swine's hooves against the wooden floor. The pig-man was humming something tuneless under his breath, the sound distorted by his snout.
His temper seemed better, and he turned around and picked out some coins from his pockets, counting them—twenty-five in total—and putting them in Scar's hands.
"See you in the arena later." Swine grunted. "Hope we won't be on opposite sides. Would be a shame to kill a beauty like you."
"Would be a shame indeed." Scar replied passively as she led Swine to the door, and then the pigman slammed it shut with enough force to rattle the walls. Rhett felt his shoulders drop as tension he didn't realize he'd been carrying finally released. But Henrik didn't move from his position, still inches from Rhett's face.
At least he didn't have to answer Henrik's question anymore.
Through the crack in the door, Rhett could see Scar settling down on a futon, silhouetted against the dim orange light, her red hair disheveled, her velvet robe hastily retied.
It was then Rhett saw her face clearly, realizing she looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her skin was light orange, though her eyes had dark circles and her face looked slightly gaunt and pale.
On her hips were two knives strapped by red ribbons, which must have been what she used to cut Rhett's fingers off without even coming close enough to him. And on her left arm, something Rhett hadn't noticed before, was a bandage wrapped around her entire bicep, soaked in red.
She sat with her eyes closed and face tense, as if thinking deeply about something. Then her eyes snapped open and she called out.
"You boys do realize he's been gone for like, five minutes, right? Or have you run away, back to where you came from?"
Henrik stood up and opened the door. "We were just making sure he didn't come back. Thank you, Scar."
"It's Scarlet." Scarlet corrected as she watched Rhett's and Henrik's every move as they came closer. Her eyes tracked the fresh bruise on Rhett's jaw.
"Was that there before you guys came?" She said, raising one eyebrow.
"Uhh," Rhett mumbled, shifting his weight uncomfortably.
"I don't really care, honestly." Scarlet replied before he could finish. "But you did say you would explain. So, come on kid. Explain."
Her eyes narrowed and the velvet iris bore into their eyes like the blood moon Rhett saw in the 'Land of the Dead' dream world. "I've had a long day, so whatever you say, it better be worth my time. I'm not running a charity for lost boys."