Chapter Text
Jason had just finished a mission, which consisted of traveling to an isolated township and handing out rations and supplies. He was forced to see the citizens of the village on their deathbeds, or worse, just dead. This had, of course, put him in an awful mood. More people died because of him, because he wasn't faster, and he couldn't change that.
He, then, remembered his brother, his friend, his lover, all trusting him to keep them safe, and then all dying because he was too weak, too slow.
He summoned his teleport gate, obsidian glimmering in the dawn's soft glow. He walked through it, forcibly relaxing his tensed posture and putting on a care free smile.
"Guess who brought sandwiches!" He said happily, taking out a sandwich from his inventory for emphasis, "I finally found a good replacement for the mayonnaise too! The locals here really know their stuff -If you have any food related problems, Dekim is your guy-."
He santered into the room of his cloud house, putting away the sandwich at Humphrey's disapproving gaze. His team had all gathered for their training at Humphrey's insistence.
Humphrey opened his mouth to ask what mayonnaise was, but quickly shut it after he realized it was better he didn't ask if he wanted to get any training in.
Humphrey started to talk again, this time about the training. "We worked on large water type monsters yesterday, so today we will-,"
"We will do sparing for the rest of the week, six days total." Sophie interjected, bored of the constant monster killing, itching to fight real competition instead.
"What? That wasn't the-"
"Hmm? Did I hear something?" Sophie inquired, giving Humphrey a daring look that said if he didn't want to be on the metaphorical couch, he would just go along with it.
"Nothing! That was exactly the training regimen," Humphrey said hurriedly, then mumbled, "I wanted to go over the small breeds though..."
No one with normal hearing could hear him, but with everyone being silver rank, it was easy to hear his complaints, though no one said anything. Jason, Clive, and Belinda wanted to see how this played out, while Neil just wanted to go back to sleep.
They paired off, with Sophie rushing to Belinda. Humphrey then sulked over to Neil, who was behind Sophie. Jason and Clive met each other in the middle of the large room, seeing they were the only ones left.
The team was working on different fighting styles. Sophie and Belinda were fighting with hand to hand combat and no powers. Neil and Humphrey were doing endurance tests, much to Neil's disappointment. Jason and Clive, however, were at a loss.
Jason wanted more to kill something than to spar, not wanting to accidentally injure someone with his rampage. He was able to slip into a combat trance almost easily now, though he also started to completely dissociate from reality, and ruthlessly struck down anything in his path with the upmost efficiency.
Clive wasn't suited for one on one combat, as he was one of the teams ranged attackers, and Jason wasn't pushing him to do planks, so he was clueless on what to do next.
"Hey Clive, I'm going to go kill some monsters, want to join in like old times?" Jason asked, and walked off without looking back, knowing Clive would follow.
Clive did follow, and walked quickly to catch up to Jason, though it didn't take long as he was far taller than his teammate.
"Jason, that's not the direction to the jobs hall." Clive stated, confused as to why Jason wasn't going to take a contract.
"We're not going to wait in that line all day, so I'm just going to go outside the city and hunt monsters there." Jason said curtly, walking faster, needing to take out his frustration on something.
He walked until his portal ability came off cool down. He remembered a place he had visited to find somewhere to hide out, though it never worked out, as he was still the supposed savior of this world. Too many eyes judging and sizing him up.
Jason opened a portal and stepped through, Clive following shortly after him. The portal opened up to a medium sized island thick with jungle. There was no one on the entire island except them and some monsters, a little bronze, but most silver. The monster population was small, especially for a monster surge, most likely due to the size of the island.
Clive had slowly realized Jason was off, though he wasn't sure why. Nothing had happened recently -to his knowledge-to put Jason in such a sour mood. Jason was a mystery to Clive, to everyone in their group, really. Clive did like solving things, though, so he pushed.
"Why are you in such a foul mood today, Jason? Did something happen?" Clive asked, trying to get something out of him.
"No, everything is just fine. Don't know what your talking about!" Jason said through gritted teeth, trying to rein his aura in as it whirled inside him.
"It's clear something is amiss, or you wouldn't be acting like this. Are you sure something didn't happen? No, something definitely happened. Did you-" Before Clive could finish his postulations, Jason's aura snapped out, his concentration breaking, and his aura attacked Clive.
"Just shut up, Clive! I'm fine! Sure I'm the scape goat for beings so much stronger than me, and everyone keeps dying, but no, everything is just peachy!" Jason yelled, releasing his anger at the gods who expect him to safe two worlds simultaneously, at transcendent beings who think he can do what a diamond ranker can't. Some of this anger, however, was at himself. He was at fault for so many deaths, his brother's, Greg's, Asya's... He could have saved them, but he ran instead.
Clive was shaking, his very soul under attack, being unable to move, but he could still talk. He wasn't afraid of Jason, but the aura coming from Jason was overwhelmingly strong and equally furious.
"J...Jason, stop this. My aura won't hold up as yours would...!" Clive pushed out the words, straining with each syllable.
Jason didn't hear him, he was still caught up in self loathing and harsh anger.
Clive's soul was starting to bend, close to breaking under the sheer pressure of Jason's aura, but still stayed standing.
Jason's familiars tried to calm him down, but it didn't work, so Shade decided to stop Jason before he did something he regretted.
"Mister Asano, MISTER ASANO!" Shade yelled, already out of his shadow.
That did snap Jason out of his mind, however, and he looked up to see Shade infront of him and Clive tensed, eyes wide. They held not fear, but worry.
This scared Jason much more. He didn't want any of his teammates to be scared of him, but Clive had a perfectly good reason to be scared. He hurt someone who didn't hate him even though they should have.
He blanched, and held in his aura so tightly it hurt. Clive fell, as if he was supported by strings that just snapped.
Jason, horrified at what he had done, at what he was about to do, ran. He shadow jumped over and over, the tree cover providing ample shadows to use.
Shade thought he should talk to Jason later, after he cooled down. Shade was too busy with Jason to notice the silver rank monster heading towards the limp and weakened Clive...