MULTIVERSE | ATEEZ & XIKERS

The Disposal Site. | Chapter 9

The scenery at the square has changed considerably from when ateez and xikers performed just a few months ago. Sense Offender graffiti symbolizing 'Wake Up' and 'Be Free' decorates the streets, covered withconcealment screens installed by the forces trying to supress them. The world is divided into the systemized and those outside the system, with each group fighting  more intensely to win and stop the other. Unable to identify the faces of all the individual criminals, but having detained the men in the black fedoras, the government has moved beyond simply denouncing the Black Pirates as  a terrorist group and encouraging people to turn them in plastered across the city are wanted posters of ateez with the members' face and government announcements declaring that

[Those who attempt to induce emotion will be deemed associated of the Black Pirates and, for the people's safety, executed immediately without being sent to the Disposal Site.]

A car moved across the dilapidated square and stopped in the center. The Guardians that filed out of the car moved in perfect order. With practiced skill, they set up something on the display that had been built in the middle of the square. A rope was lowered, tied, and pulled. Brushing off their hands and taking a step back from the siapl, the Guardians looked up at what they had installed. Content with their work, they got back into their car. As the guardians' car disappeared, silence fell overthe square. The small sound of footsteps began to break through the silence. Several Sense Offenders that had been hiding in the alley slowly walked out. Some slumped down in their spots, unable to reach the display before bursting into tears. Under the square frame of the display, feet swayed in the air. Sense Offenders that had been someone's family , someone'slover, someone's friend. Following the government's announcement, now, when Sense Offenders arecaught drawing graffiti or distributing Breakers they are no longer sent to the Disposal Site, Instead, they are swiftly executed, then hung up in the square for everyone to see. It is an exemplary caution and declaration aimed at the ever-growing Sense Offenders who tirelessly try to change the world: If you continue to resist, this could be you.

Rather than fall to silence, the square fille with sobs of sadness and anger. Clinging to those people who had once shone so brightly, all they can do is pledge that they will not let those sacrifices go to waste. "We can no longr live in a world like this. We've already lost our loved ones, we cannot afford to lose any more. No longer can we let our children live in a world like this. With the same heart and mind the people cried, determination burning through their red eyes. We must let the Black Pirates and ateez know.
We are here."

The raid on prestige Academy has created a small but significant fissure in this world. That one performance, while strictly censored and kept under tight control, spread by word of mouth and through the Sense Offenders. It gradually split the world into two. And, the story returns back to right after the Prestige Academy raid when the Black Pirates returned to the bunker.

Despite the mission being a success, the members gathered in the Black Pirates bunker with an air of desolation. The boy's brother was asleep in the corner, tired from crying.

"Seonghwa wasn't taken away by force. I'm sure I saw it, he walked away on his own. But why...?" Yeosang answered San's mumbling as if he was wondering himself: "Seonghwa looked surprised the moment he first saw her in the school restroom. His expression was almost... taken aback? And his face when he grabbed her hand and walked off in the quad, it was like he found someone he missed. That look was so odd I kept thinking about it. It's the same look Seonghwa gets when he talked about the girl with the 'Be Free' bracelet he waslooking for back in our dimension." Dumbfounded, the members shouted at Yeosang that that didn't make any sense. Yeosang was about to say something before suddenly looking at the CCTV outside the bunker and pointing. "Oh? It's Seonghwa!"