Chapter 10 Investigative Endbringer

-Bai Wenjie POV-

After a long day of labour Bai enjoyed treks through the woods. It was something of a guilty hobby, and an increasingly difficult one to pursue. She was supposed to be returning to her camp with some produce a guard had allowed her to keep. Since the emergence of Behemoth Jinzhou had been declared off limits to all Chinese citizens, all except for dissidents of course.

The decaying form of what was once a city loomed quietly in the distance. The grey and broken skyscrapers reaching towards the sky like some gigantic skeletal hand. Travelling towards that city meant death. Radiation still permeated the very soil there.

The outskirts was transitioning into farmland. It was still certain death to be here, but only if you remained here for prolonged periods of time. The guards and supervisors wore large and bulky radiation suits, and were cycled out regularly. There was no such care given to the workers.

Day after day they swung their axes. Day after day they deforested this beautiful place, where nature had been reclaiming her rightful due from mankind. Every time they did this it felt as if she were picking away at a corpse, the splits and cracks in the bark seemed to turn into new wounds and the scars she had seen on her own mother.

So as she walked through this beautiful landscape, one that was slowly killing her, she felt at peace. Soon she wouldn’t have to keep doing this. Soon she would be too sick and feeble, the aches and vomiting she was already experiencing would exacerbate.

She wondered what would come after death. Would there be a heaven, as some claimed? Or would it be a silent nothingness that lasted forever? Either way it would be better than where she was now.

So you can imagine her shock that while she was walking through a heavily forested the ground started to shake. Slowly at first, like the hesitant rumble of a stomach. Then it began to build and soon the trees started bending under the fury of the land.

Bai was forced to hold on to a nearby tree trunk, gripping her basket close to the chest and worriedly checking for any dropped vegetables. Unlike any normal earthquake the mounting pressure on the ground did not subside, instead she watched with wide eyes as the ground in front of her heaved and then split open to reveal two rising figures.

One was a stocky man with blazing red hair. His eyes were wide and panicked as he kicked furiously in the open air. Bai’s eyes narrowed in displeasure as she spotted the distinctly Japanese style of armour the man was wearing, her grandmother had told her no end of how monstrous Japanese soldiers could be.

Yet it was not him who held her attention. Instead she was captivated by the other figure.

It was beautiful. Soft azure skin dazzled in the evening light. Six arms were held out to the world, as if seeking to embrace it. The soft and supple looking face was stretched into a grin she had only ever seen from the young. Fiery and full of purpose, unbound by expectations or grim circumstance.

Oh, and she was enormous. Well over ten feet tall. If she had to estimate Bai herself wouldn’t even come up to her knees. The woman gestured at her companion, speaking in a melodic language that she couldn’t make heads or tails of.

The silken voice reached a crescendo as she pointed at the heavens, and Bai could only stare as the creature smugly lounged in the air.

Before all of this awe and insanity she could only stand dumbfounded. Her brain felt like a broken mechanism, endlessly whirring but swiftly going nowhere.

By the time she managed to knocked herself out of that state she had been noticed. The hawklike eyes of the man was gazing at her, flickering over her form in a way that felt distinctly dangerous. Her hackles raised. She had travelled much and met many different kinds of people so she knew this was no lecherous gaze, the closest she could liken it to would be a soldiers glare.

But even they hadn’t managed to make her skin crawl like this, hadn’t managed to make her heart beat a million beats a minute. There was something unashamedly violent about that gaze, like a naked sword bared and dripping with blood.

She couldn’t help it. She screamed. Loud and long, desperately hoping for someone to come. Fuck, she’d even take the guards. Her scream seemed to echo oddly throughout the forest, but she didn’t notice. Her scream cut off as the butt of a sword crashed into her stomach.

She flew face first into a tree, dazed and confused.

Her eyes blinked languidly, her thoughts like thick syrup as she tried to understand what had just happened.

Before she could darkness took her vision.

-One hour later-

“And another------why would------what if she’s--------I’m---------disappointed in------”

Bai slowly awoke to half heard angry whispers and the noise of footsteps slowly leaving the room.

She blinked blearily, reaching for the water flask she kept near her bedding, only to grasp at nothing. She groaned, her hand grasping around only to be confused as she gripped dirt.

Her eyes opened and looked confusedly at the pile of dirt in her hand.

“Oh dear, I think she’s awake.” A velvety voice said wearily.

A glass was placed at her lips and the faint touch of water was enough to get her drinking.

She looked up at the hand that was holding the glass, and then kept looking up as the figure seemed to go on forever. Eventually she reached a face, blue crystalline eyes gazed down at her with warm concern. Ah, how long had it been since anyone was last concerned for her? In the camps everyone had to look out for themselves. A quiet paranoia gripped them as thy wondered if today another one of their number would spill another’s secrets to the overseer for greater privileges.

Suddenly her eyes widened and she snapped up, spilling water as the memories came flooding back.

She coughed, looking around frantically for that red haired monster.

“Please calm down” The giant above her said “I may have healed you, but you’ll still need to take it easy”

The voice briefly lulled her to calm, before another cold and cloying thought struck her.

“I apologise for my friend he was-“

“How long have I been unconscious?!” she urgently asked, her voice edging into a scream.

The interruption seemed to briefly stun the woman, but Bai’s pale terrified face and tone of voice must have alerted her that something was wrong as she swiftly responded.

“About an hour”

Bai screwed her eyes shut as she sobbed. They would think she had run away, and then they would punish the others. She had seen some of the punishments the guards had doled out, been a part of them even. Her back ached unpleasantly at the reminder.

Her chin was grasped delicately between a finger and a thumb and the giant gently tilted her head upwards.

“Whatever it is I can help. But you’ll need to explain.”

Shamefully she did exactly that. She cried her sorrows into the chest of that gentle presence. She explained the camps, where people worked until they couldn’t and were disposed of. She spoke of the divisions the guards had purposely caused to entice them to rat each other out. She elaborated on every exacting detail, every horrifying truth.

By the end of it she felt numb, but strangely relieved. As if she had unburdened herself of something terrible. Most of all it felt good to trust again. Perhaps this was all some trick, and she would soon find herself detained and killed. But strangely she didn’t mind the thought, if she had to die at least she would die free from the pain that had hounded her steps for so long.

“So you’re worried that they’ll punish the others if they think you have escaped” the woman above her summarised, her eyes darkened and cold but turning warm when they turned back to her.

“And if they think you’re dead?”

Bai floundered at that. What did she mean? How would they even be able to fake her death?

“RENJI!”

She was knocked out of her musings at the yell from above and the opening of the door slightly afterwards.

The crimson haired man, Renji apparently, slowly walked in. His eyes cautiously watching them both. Unlike before this gaze was not that of a hardened killer. It more reminded her of a recently scolded child cautious of earning more disapproval.

His eyes fully turned towards her, and he hesitated before bowing.

“Miss, I would like to humbly apologise for my actions. I believed I was acting in the best interests of my liege, but I was mistaken.”

The apology spilled from his mouth, and it seemed as if it would continue on, the raised hand of the woman above Bai put a stop to that however.

The floor left to her bubbled and flesh rapidly grew to form a body. Bai flinched and stared when it became apparent that the body was an exact copy of her own. Her features perfectly replicated upon a doll made of flesh and blood. The only difference between them was a grisly hole running through the chest of her clone. The wound was red and ugly, but the blood surrounding it was dry, almost as if it hadn’t been formed in the last few seconds.

“Renji, I have a task for you” The mans eyes settled unwaveringly on the woman “Somewhere above ground there will be some type of patrol. Bring this body and dump it where they will find it” the voice commanded, and for the first time since this conversation began she noticed they were underground. The darkness masking the rocky ceiling from view.

The man nodded, and hefted the body upon his shoulder as it were a mere sack of potatoes before departing.

“Well it’s a good thing I recently chose BioPunk to heal you or this would have been much harder” The woman muttered cheerfully, the nonsense word promptly being ignored by her. Anything related to this magnificent creature was likely something so far beyond the understanding of Bai as to be incomprehensible.

“What-“ she started before swallowing. Was she really going to ask something of her saviour? “What is your name?” She asked, shamefully curious.

“Huh, you know you might be the first person to actually ask. Renji mostly just refers to me as ‘my liege’ and at this point I think it might be too awkward to tell him my real name without him asking for it.”

The woman turned to her.

“If you must know my name is Alexander.”

The name was foreign to her but she tried to repeat it back to her saviour.

“Yà lì shān dà?”

The name meant vast peak or perhaps large mountain. Looking at the fearsome bosom of Yà, she admitted the name was accurate.

“Eh, close enough.”

Yà then leaned in, her face serious as she spoke next.

“I’m going to need you to explain what happened to China over the last 30 years or so, how did the C.U.I. rise to power, what is the current situation of the country and anything else you feel is worth mentioning.”

Bai nodded and began to explain.

-Alexander POV-

Well this was a shitshow.

According to Bai the appearance of parahumans had set back the industrialisation of China significantly. The repressive government of the time unable to react quickly enough to halt spread of chaos. For a short while it even looked like China might break up into warring states. Then the Yangban had appeared, seemingly overnight, and began ‘recruiting’ parahumans and dismantling rebel groups. That alone wouldn’t have been enough, but a sudden slew of assassinations of enemy leaders quickly allowed the Yangban to take control and place the Emperor on his throne.

Many people apparently assumed that the Yangban possessed an extremely powerful stranger.

I, on the other hand, was definitely blaming Contessa.

This lead to China becoming more of an agriculture focused nation, vassalizing North Korea in all but name in order for them to provide the manufacturing.

Unfortunately life for the average citizen in China hadn’t really changed. They had went from one brutal and repressive government to another.

The only bright spot to be seen in this ugly mess of a history was that North Korea was doing better than in my own world. Probably because they weren’t spending all of their money on their military and were getting more food from China.

But perhaps the most concerning part came at the end.

“Excuse me?”

Bai looked startled at that, probably because I had been mostly silent since she started.

“…I’ve heard that they’re planning an invasion of Japan, mostly from the guards. Why? What’s wrong?”

Ah, things had just gotten a lot more complicated.

AN: He’s finally found out! What is he going to do?! Find out next time! Also for my Patreon’s I’ll be sending an extra email after this to explain my current situation. It’s pretty important so please read it.