File integrity compromised.
Reconstruction derived from post-event memory saturation and residual neural echo.
Multiple subjects missing. Sequence partially reordered.
Estimated integrity: 61 percent.

When a poor soul is eaten by a Bosu, it travels back to its starting point. We could say that everybody experiences life as a Mujin for some time. Some of the more unfortunate will stay Mujin and be abused by Mother K far more than a regular human being could ever endure in centuries.

The day after the Joint got wiped out and most of the squad we knew and loved became a lost blank page, there was something in the air that did not feel right.

Nu continued to repeat for hours that he saw the path glowing, that he heard the sound of the limit. As always, the FGP effect should have vanished in the instant the path got activated and crossed the line set by the first MaxTag mark, but it did not happen. Not this time.

Apart from the failure of a pill, something that should never happen because Selka had always personally controlled the pills the brothers were going to use (one of the agreements from their first meeting, and had always confirmed their safety), a Bosu summoned straight away would have triggered an incredibly fast response from the Kaichukans and would not have been able to literally stomp on each of the Joint rooms.

Sitting on the remains of what was the health bay area, with one foot resting on an old analyser, Nu could not extract this thought from his mind. That Bosu knew what it was doing. It was literally destroying Old Merrin’s place bit by bit. Not only the spaces, the walls, the holograms. It handpicked each person connected to him, in an order that not even Colonel Deragorn, an old friend who had once clashed with Merrin, could have imagined more painful.

Selka was the first one.

On a broken piece of the holographic roof of the market, Nu saw her flying in mid air, suspended in a sort of glassy liquid. It reminded him of Old Merrin’s wife inside her pod. She was terrified, but not by the Bosu she was facing. She was terrified by the fact that Nu, Liora, Jin and the others were watching what was about to happen.

If you have never seen a Bosu sucking up memories, I wish you never will.

The procedure is so fast you could miss it. That is how Kaichukans avoid the spread of fear, as most people who experienced a Bosu summoning only thought about running and surviving.

But Nu watched it from start to finish.

He saw the pieces that composed Selka’s identity being crushed, shattered to microns and sucked up like a vacuum cleaner swallowing fine dust. Fast. Strong. In a single violent swoop. It remains, even now, one of the most terrifying and saddening things he ever experienced.

There was not much time.

The Bosu had four hands, like one of those legendary monsters they used in Express train pamphlets to scare you right after you came back, and it used them with surgical precision. While throwing Selka’s empty shell away like a smoked cigarette, two hands grabbed Dan and Sana. A third hand refined the destruction of three market stands. It looked like it was hunting for something, until Nu realized it was someone.

When the fist rose again, one of Jin’s hands was hanging from it. His body was torn apart, still moving, but unable to smile anymore.

The Bosu sipped from all three of them like someone eating three candies one after another, leaving the shells behind as soon as the inner content was exhausted. It happened in a few seconds, but Nu could swear it lasted an eternity.

As soon as Jin’s shell hit the ground, a thought pierced Nu’s paralyzed brain.

Liora was missing.

He had not seen her. The Bosu had not found her.

For Nu, Liora was the engine of their relationship. The one pushing him for the extra step. The one encouraging him to test and try new things. Even when it hurt, there was always something to learn, to grow, to expand.

This time he only wanted her to be safe.

Run and survive.

It was only the beginning.

While destroying the physical spaces of the Joint, trampling areas unknown and impossible to acknowledge, many other pieces of the clan were wiped out. Ferro tried to protect Nira and was hit first. He managed to fight back with his arm and destroy a couple of fingers, but when the Bosu used three hands to clash onto him, all that remained was the Ironclad.

Nira was turned to dust right after. Nu thought the surname Ash had never been more appropriate.

Weyra and Luth were hiding behind the remains of the health bay. The same ones Nu was now staring at. He remembered how the piece of wall he was kicking had been the magnet through which the Bosu sucked them up using the combined power of two hands.

He saw Luth pass Weyra a small device, something that looked like a podcast microphone, before fainting against the wall.

The Signal performed one of the most beautiful poems Nu ever heard in the seven seconds she had left.

“I’m me, myself, not anybody else.

I’m done, not made, not any other day.”

Then her memories vanished.

The last thing Nu remembered seeing was Korr protecting Merrin with his body while arguing with Drex. Nu always thought Drex acted like the most selfish one of the group, but it felt like a stretch to believe he was involved in the Bosu summoning.

Korr was convinced it was his fault.

When the Bosu grabbed him, Drex smiled at Nu as if resigning from life, somehow believing everything would still turn out right.

Korr, like Ferro, put up resistance, screaming at Merrin to escape. But the old captain did not move a single finger. Korr’s memories were planted deeper than the others. The Bosu had to tear his body apart to reach them.

Watching Merrin face the Bosu filled Nu with a conflicting feeling. Part of him believed Merrin could read through the Bosu and pass beyond it, as he surely had done before. Another part saw Merrin wanting to confront it, to understand what was behind such a sudden and unprovoked summoning.

From a distance, Merrin shouted at him.

“You need to survive, my boy. You need to remember us, the Joint. You need to look after us. I’m betting our future on you, Nu. Live.”

As the arm came down, Merrin pulled out a plastic grenade and blew himself up.

The explosion tore off one of the Bosu’s arms and part of its leg. At the same time, it destroyed the sigillant bridge connecting the market to the health bay, detaching them and throwing Nu hundreds of meters away from the Bosu.

When he stood up, the Joint was being devoured by hunger and destruction.

The memories of the previous day were embedded in the remnants of the crumbled walls. Nu could feel them by touching the remains. One question burned in his mind.

Where was Liora’s body?

In the morning, once the Bosu was subjugated and some memories recovered, after the interrogation with the Kaichukans, Nu spent the entire morning waiting at the Express station. Many respawns happened that day, but Liora was never there.

That was impossible.

No one could escape the Metora path back to Mother K.

But Liora was not there.

Nu waited until nightfall. Then the next day. For forty eight hours straight he waited for something that had never happened to anyone he knew. Someone did not come back.

Her parents tried to justify it. They said she might have returned as a Mujin, and that losing her was better than that.

The Kaichukans said it was impossible. They confirmed they would check the registers.

Something grew inside Nu’s mind.

She had planned to escape.

We will discover in another fragment that this was partially true. But imagining that the person who helped you become who you are now chose to vanish without explanation was something Nu never understood and never recovered from.

Some people did come back. Partially intact, or with enough memory from the last twelve years to recognize Nu. They cried until their lungs burned and sat next to him, staring at the remnants of their home.

The Joint was no more.

Or so Nu thought.

Until his pod rang.

He took the call.

That is the power of Kodakas.

“We got a lead, but we need the infrastructure to go back online. Revive the Joint Node or we NGMI (Not Gonna Make It).”

“Copy,” Nu answered. “I need some Creds and Admin access.”

“Granted from home. Proceed and report.”

“One last thing,” Nu said, his voice cold and resolute. “Permission to unleash my Fury.”

“Permission granted. You are level purple, tone black. They have no idea who they’ve provoked. Nu4nc3, find them. Find Liora.”

“I will. Comm out.”

Nu closed the call, switching off the pod and sliding it back into his pocket. He walked toward the old Joint door, lying on the floor, its glyphs still faintly glowing.

“Where are you, Sis? Dr4v3n… need to find you.”

END_OF_TRANSMISSION // LOT 1.5.20
REFERENCE: FINAL_LIBRARY INDEX

Integrity 61 percent.
Subject Liora unresolved.
Fragment unstable. Further recovery required.

All Rigths Reserved
Copyright protected by Patamu nr 278648

File integrity compromised.
Reconstruction derived from post-event memory saturation and residual neural echo.
Multiple subjects missing. Sequence partially reordered.
Estimated integrity: 61 percent.

When a poor soul is eaten by a Bosu, it travels back to its starting point. We could say that everybody experiences life as a Mujin for some time. Some of the more unfortunate will stay Mujin and be abused by Mother K far more than a regular human being could ever endure in centuries.

The day after the Joint got wiped out and most of the squad we knew and loved became a lost blank page, there was something in the air that did not feel right.

Nu continued to repeat for hours that he saw the path glowing, that he heard the sound of the limit. As always, the FGP effect should have vanished in the instant the path got activated and crossed the line set by the first MaxTag mark, but it did not happen. Not this time.

Apart from the failure of a pill, something that should never happen because Selka had always personally controlled the pills the brothers were going to use (one of the agreements from their first meeting, and had always confirmed their safety), a Bosu summoned straight away would have triggered an incredibly fast response from the Kaichukans and would not have been able to literally stomp on each of the Joint rooms.

Sitting on the remains of what was the health bay area, with one foot resting on an old analyser, Nu could not extract this thought from his mind. That Bosu knew what it was doing. It was literally destroying Old Merrin’s place bit by bit. Not only the spaces, the walls, the holograms. It handpicked each person connected to him, in an order that not even Colonel Deragorn, an old friend who had once clashed with Merrin, could have imagined more painful.

Selka was the first one.

On a broken piece of the holographic roof of the market, Nu saw her flying in mid air, suspended in a sort of glassy liquid. It reminded him of Old Merrin’s wife inside her pod. She was terrified, but not by the Bosu she was facing. She was terrified by the fact that Nu, Liora, Jin and the others were watching what was about to happen.

If you have never seen a Bosu sucking up memories, I wish you never will.

The procedure is so fast you could miss it. That is how Kaichukans avoid the spread of fear, as most people who experienced a Bosu summoning only thought about running and surviving.

But Nu watched it from start to finish.

He saw the pieces that composed Selka’s identity being crushed, shattered to microns and sucked up like a vacuum cleaner swallowing fine dust. Fast. Strong. In a single violent swoop. It remains, even now, one of the most terrifying and saddening things he ever experienced.

There was not much time.

The Bosu had four hands, like one of those legendary monsters they used in Express train pamphlets to scare you right after you came back, and it used them with surgical precision. While throwing Selka’s empty shell away like a smoked cigarette, two hands grabbed Dan and Sana. A third hand refined the destruction of three market stands. It looked like it was hunting for something, until Nu realized it was someone.

When the fist rose again, one of Jin’s hands was hanging from it. His body was torn apart, still moving, but unable to smile anymore.

The Bosu sipped from all three of them like someone eating three candies one after another, leaving the shells behind as soon as the inner content was exhausted. It happened in a few seconds, but Nu could swear it lasted an eternity.

As soon as Jin’s shell hit the ground, a thought pierced Nu’s paralyzed brain.

Liora was missing.

He had not seen her. The Bosu had not found her.

For Nu, Liora was the engine of their relationship. The one pushing him for the extra step. The one encouraging him to test and try new things. Even when it hurt, there was always something to learn, to grow, to expand.

This time he only wanted her to be safe.

Run and survive.

It was only the beginning.

While destroying the physical spaces of the Joint, trampling areas unknown and impossible to acknowledge, many other pieces of the clan were wiped out. Ferro tried to protect Nira and was hit first. He managed to fight back with his arm and destroy a couple of fingers, but when the Bosu used three hands to clash onto him, all that remained was the Ironclad.

Nira was turned to dust right after. Nu thought the surname Ash had never been more appropriate.

Weyra and Luth were hiding behind the remains of the health bay. The same ones Nu was now staring at. He remembered how the piece of wall he was kicking had been the magnet through which the Bosu sucked them up using the combined power of two hands.

He saw Luth pass Weyra a small device, something that looked like a podcast microphone, before fainting against the wall.

The Signal performed one of the most beautiful poems Nu ever heard in the seven seconds she had left.

“I’m me, myself, not anybody else.

I’m done, not made, not any other day.”

Then her memories vanished.

The last thing Nu remembered seeing was Korr protecting Merrin with his body while arguing with Drex. Nu always thought Drex acted like the most selfish one of the group, but it felt like a stretch to believe he was involved in the Bosu summoning.

Korr was convinced it was his fault.

When the Bosu grabbed him, Drex smiled at Nu as if resigning from life, somehow believing everything would still turn out right.

Korr, like Ferro, put up resistance, screaming at Merrin to escape. But the old captain did not move a single finger. Korr’s memories were planted deeper than the others. The Bosu had to tear his body apart to reach them.

Watching Merrin face the Bosu filled Nu with a conflicting feeling. Part of him believed Merrin could read through the Bosu and pass beyond it, as he surely had done before. Another part saw Merrin wanting to confront it, to understand what was behind such a sudden and unprovoked summoning.

From a distance, Merrin shouted at him.

“You need to survive, my boy. You need to remember us, the Joint. You need to look after us. I’m betting our future on you, Nu. Live.”

As the arm came down, Merrin pulled out a plastic grenade and blew himself up.

The explosion tore off one of the Bosu’s arms and part of its leg. At the same time, it destroyed the sigillant bridge connecting the market to the health bay, detaching them and throwing Nu hundreds of meters away from the Bosu.

When he stood up, the Joint was being devoured by hunger and destruction.

The memories of the previous day were embedded in the remnants of the crumbled walls. Nu could feel them by touching the remains. One question burned in his mind.

Where was Liora’s body?

In the morning, once the Bosu was subjugated and some memories recovered, after the interrogation with the Kaichukans, Nu spent the entire morning waiting at the Express station. Many respawns happened that day, but Liora was never there.

That was impossible.

No one could escape the Metora path back to Mother K.

But Liora was not there.

Nu waited until nightfall. Then the next day. For forty eight hours straight he waited for something that had never happened to anyone he knew. Someone did not come back.

Her parents tried to justify it. They said she might have returned as a Mujin, and that losing her was better than that.

The Kaichukans said it was impossible. They confirmed they would check the registers.

Something grew inside Nu’s mind.

She had planned to escape.

We will discover in another fragment that this was partially true. But imagining that the person who helped you become who you are now chose to vanish without explanation was something Nu never understood and never recovered from.

Some people did come back. Partially intact, or with enough memory from the last twelve years to recognize Nu. They cried until their lungs burned and sat next to him, staring at the remnants of their home.

The Joint was no more.

Or so Nu thought.

Until his pod rang.

He took the call.

That is the power of Kodakas.

“We got a lead, but we need the infrastructure to go back online. Revive the Joint Node or we NGMI (Not Gonna Make It).”

“Copy,” Nu answered. “I need some Creds and Admin access.”

“Granted from home. Proceed and report.”

“One last thing,” Nu said, his voice cold and resolute. “Permission to unleash my Fury.”

“Permission granted. You are level purple, tone black. They have no idea who they’ve provoked. Nu4nc3, find them. Find Liora.”

“I will. Comm out.”

Nu closed the call, switching off the pod and sliding it back into his pocket. He walked toward the old Joint door, lying on the floor, its glyphs still faintly glowing.

“Where are you, Sis? Dr4v3n… need to find you.”

END_OF_TRANSMISSION // LOT 1.5.20
REFERENCE: FINAL_LIBRARY INDEX

Integrity 61 percent.
Subject Liora unresolved.
Fragment unstable. Further recovery required.

All Rigths Reserved
Copyright protected by Patamu nr 278648