AJ cursed.

  How dare these fucking abominations do this to the people of Atlus? Worse, AJ could tell that underneath all of that suffering, all of that pain, these people - and he was using that term loosely now - still understood and recognized their former allies. But whatever sentience and humanity that remained didn’t do anything to cover the reality of the situation now. These former Aspirants were not here to be rescued.

  AJ heard someone throw up beside him while others barely composed themselves. It wasn’t a surprise, given the sight before them. There, in the hundreds, stood an army of old Aspirants. Each of them wore the same grimy, beige-white patient uniform, but aside from that, nothing else was the same. The doctors and nurses had been busy with their “cures”.

  All of the Aspirants had undergone gruesome surgeries, with entire limbs and other body parts replaced with crude, rusted bionics. Sawblades and corroded pieces of metal were grafted into the bodies at seemingly random places, made to inflict pain and agony more than anything else; infection and disease were already starting to set into the gaping wounds. Poor men and women would constantly scratch and scrape the recent surgical scars, their nails falling off from the constant contact. Yet despite the wounds inflicted, the Aspirants shambled along, edging ever closer to AJ’s group, grasping at something unseen.

  “H-how?” April muttered, “How could… how could anyone do this?”

  “What do we do, boss?” Someone else whispered, moving closer to AJ. Everyone was unsure about the current situation.

  AJ thought about it for a second, but made his decision after he saw the raw suffering on the faces of his past comrades. He might not have been the most beloved leader, nor perhaps even the most well-liked, but he still cared about the people under his charge. These Aspirants wouldn't make it through the ordeal, and unlike the other Trials, where injuries would be healed once they came back, Siege missions meant that any wounds and scars would remain regardless of the Trial's completion. He had to make the hard decision now. He wasn’t willing to overlook the sheer atrocity happening before his eyes.

  “Put them out of their misery,” AJ whispered. “We can’t leave them here, not like this.”

  “But the plan…”

  “Forget the plan!” AJ said with a scowl, “I am a lot of things, but I will not leave my people to suffer in this fucking hellhole when we can do something about it. We put them out of their misery. Understood?”

  AJ saw that some people wanted to argue, mainly those who didn’t have particularly close ties with anyone else in Atlus, but the vast majority of the Aspirants gathered understood AJ’s reasoning. These people might have vastly surpassed human limits through the various hellish trials they had undergone, but despite their superhuman capabilities and all of the sacrifices they’ve made to acquire that power, they still retained the core values that defined the human species. They still had sympathy toward their peers and friends, and when faced with so much raw, unfiltered suffering, anyone with even a modicum of common decency or morals would choose to do something about this situation.

  And so the Aspirants of Atlus began the inglorious task of fighting people they once called friends and family. It was a solemn, tiring affair. Whatever horrors inflicted upon the victims had made them supernaturally durable, but that was the extent of their abilities. The “patients” as these sick fucks called them, still retained enough of their humanity to allow their comrades to do what was necessary. They barely fought back, at most simply struggling in pain as their augmented bodies succumbed to the combined assaults of the others.

  The only thing that AJ and the others could be thankful for was that no one, not even those sick fucking monsters masqueraded as staff, came to disrupt their work. He couldn't imagine what kind of harm those things could inflict while the morale of his people was so low. AJ wasn't sure if it was some strange rule that prevented this, or another one of the twisted Vice Director's games, but he didn't have the luxury to ponder the implications. His hands moved rhythmically, taking down one former friend and colleague at a time. He tried his best to make it painless and fast. It was the least he could do.

  The work was sickening, and it took altogether much too long. By the time the last of their former comrades were freed, AJ estimated that at least 6-8 hours had passed. Whatever the creatures in the hospital had done made the patients deceptively hard to kill. His past allies could regenerate from seemingly everything; nothing short of the complete disintegration of their whole bodies would keep them down. With few Aspirants able to unleash that kind of destruction, AJ’s team could only slowly damage their suffering foes until the last of their mana had run out, an arduous task that strained the mentality.

  So much suffering… AJ shook his head. At least it was over now. At least his people could finally find peace in death.

  He had expected them to be ambushed by the hospital staff during that time, but nothing had happened. It was as if the staff were simply incapable of entering this building; was this another obscure rule enforced by that sick vice director? It must be, AJ couldn’t imagine that the man would be well-liked among his staff, it was most likely a rule set in place to ensure that piece of shit’s own safety. He had seen human leaders similarly paranoid at their own underlings in the past, just as he had seen them fall due to their hubris.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But this was a good sign for AJ, perhaps the first good sign since arriving at this hellhole. This strange lack of other staff also meant that AJ could, just maybe, take his time and not rush as he originally planned. The Aspirants under him - superhuman abilities or not - were thoroughly exhausted. Most of them could still fight, as their bodies allowed them to continue onwards without rest for days at this point, but their minds were burdened by the sights and actions they were forced to endure. No army could fight when they were so mentally strained.

  AJ gestured for these people to follow - they had lost not a single soul in that confrontation - and once they were thoroughly away from the carnage, he raised a hand to halt the advance. They paused on command, and AJ strained his senses. The hallways were empty and quiet, with seemingly nothing around them.

  “Recon team, do you detect any movement or threats?”

  “N-no, sir,” A woman answered, the trauma from their earlier actions still affecting her, “There’s… there’s nothing here, at least not on this floor.”

  AJ nodded. “Then we rest.”

  “But-”

  “We rest,” AJ repeated, “That’s an order. Take the next hour and a half to reorganize and recharge. I-” he sighed and shook his head. “I know what you all had to do was tough. If the recon teams say that there are no immediate threats, then I believe them. We rest.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Set up a skeleton crew for sentry duty,” AJ added, “Only the least fatigued.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Aspirants needed the break, they all knew that, and with the final foe close by, it wasn’t as if there wasn’t enough time left to complete this siege Trial, yet despite these facts, AJ couldn’t help but feel hesitant. It was like he was missing something important, and his gut was telling him that something was terribly wrong. He shook his head. Even if there was something he had overlooked, it would be too late to change his plans now. The only thing left to do was to rest and confront the vice director. He can only hope that he is making the right decision.

  * * *

  The rest period passed by agonizingly slowly; there was no ability to properly rest in the oppressive atmosphere of the cursed hospital. The Aspirants, with their enhanced senses, could tell that they were being watched, that something was just around the corner, stalking them. But while the gathered humans might not have rested their minds, their strength and mana was a different matter. Those recovered, and the group would be able to fight again. In fact, they were almost giddy to move on again after the ninety minutes were up.

  AJ led his fatigued group of Aspirants onward. He had not spent the rest period doing nothing like his peers, he had tasked the recon team to find and pinpoint the location of that bastard vice director. Now that they were within the building where that monster resided, finding it wasn’t a problem. It had chosen to reside on the first floor, in the heart of the building, and AJ couldn’t help but curse at his decision to enter through the roof. Still, without anything to hinder his group, making his way down a few stories hardly mattered.

  Wasting no more time - for they only had less than 28 hours left until the end of the trial period - the group of Aspirants rushed over through the quiet hallways and empty corridors, down the flights of stairs, and finally reached the lair of the thing that had plagued the Aspirants of Atlus.

  “Are you sure that this is where the vice director is?” AJ muttered, staring at the plain office door that separated him and the mysterious creature known as the vice director.

  “Yes, sir,” the recon team leader confirmed. “The only sign of life is behind that door, but…”

  “But?”

  The woman wiped a nervous trickle of sweat off her forehead. “But I sense three souls behind the door, and… and they’re strong. Stronger than anything we’ve faced so far.”

  AJ nodded, expecting nothing else. “Anything else you can tell before we fight?”

  “No, sir. Just that two of the signals are off the charts, but the last one is weird. I know it's there, and its presence is intense, but it’s like a veil is preventing me from getting any concrete information from them. It’s strange.”

  “That unknown presence should be the vice director,” AJ grunted, then addressed his men. “And the other two are most likely his personal guards. That aligns with our hypothesis; it’s most likely that the director’s weak in combat and he’ll rely on his guards to keep him safe. It goes without saying that we should focus all of our abilities on damaging it.”

  “Understood, sir.” one of the leaders said, “What’s the plan?”

  “Tanks should distract the two guards while everyone else focuses their attention on the vice director. We go in with overwhelming force,” AJ paused and frowned. “Unless…”

  “Sir?”

  AJ shook his head. “Unless there’s something unexpected on the other side. This hospital has strange rules that we had to play by, and I can’t guarantee that it won’t be the case on the other side. If there’s something strange, be on guard and do not act until I give the signal, understood?”

  “Understood, sir!”

  “Good, and is everyone ready?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  AJ nodded one last time and placed his hands on the door, giving it a gentle push. It opened without difficulty as if the entity behind were waiting for their arrival. Good, let the bastard think it had the upper hand. AJ couldn’t wait to wipe the smile off the vice director’s smug face; he couldn’t wait to grind its bones to dust and avenge all the souls lost to its senseless cruelty.

  “We go in. Be prepared for anything.”

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