As I approached Johann, it dawned on me that I fucked up. I had allowed myself to lose control of my emotions and I lashed out at someone who wasn’t exactly guilty of anything, but thinking about the well being of the collective. I repressed the welling up of shame that I felt. It wouldn’t do to face the group with my tail between my legs. I wasn’t comfortable enough around these people to allow them to publicly shame me, even if I deserved it. I would have to find a different way to go about this.

“How are you doing, Leo? Calmed yourself now?” Johann was quick to break the ice as I got close enough.

“I have.”

“Good. We can both agree that things got a tad out of hand, can’t we?” I nodded, not contributing much to his rhetoric. I wanted to see where he was going with this.

“I don’t need to tell you that you went overboard, I can see in your face that you also realize that. But I am glad you didn’t just outright leave. Can I understand you are willing to make amends?”

“I might… I am, but I am not sure how can I possibly make amends after I gave John such a nasty injury.” Johann stopped for a while and glanced at the people inside the building before turning to me.

“Something tells me John will be fine. You have felt it, right? We are not the same anymore. I know the man has been investing heavily in his Vitality. Chen has been giving us loads of advice, although John was the only one who had leveled up before this wave.”

“Did you level up?” I wasn’t exactly baffled, but I was surprised to know that John and I had been the only one before now.

“Certainly. Most of us did after this wave. I already spent my points in Vitality, and it feels amazing. I can only imagine what level you must be after all this killing.” He paused for a moment, but realized I wasn’t going to answer and continued. “I get it, it's personal. I am guilty of being exceedingly curious, I will give you that.”

“It’s fine, I understand the curiosity.”

Johann took a step towards me and spoke closer than I was comfortable with.

“Do you mind if we take a walk? I think it's better if we give some of the more hot headed members of the group some time before you go back.” I assented, a walk wasn’t such a bad idea. It would also help me process everything that had transpired.

We exited the general area of the base as the blue tendrils of smoke started thickening the air around us. Soon this place would be under a brief mist. I still wondered exactly what it was, but I had other things to worry about. Johann started speaking as soon as we left through the eastern barricade.

“The battle this time was hard. It’s getting harder every time, but somehow we managed to not lose anyone.” He glanced at me as we walked through the empty streets. “I think it's mostly thanks to you.”

“I don’t think I understand how. Surely you and John are the most important members.”

“From an organizational point of view, you are right. But when the fight started, does it matter when we can’t hold the line? Both John and I failed to hold the line, but you didn’t. You even took off the pressure from the main entrance after being isolated. I don’t know how you did it, since we were too busy struggling to keep them at bay, but people saw you thinning their numbers and fighting them off.” He gestured at my wounds. “Even though you were hurt, I can see you are mostly fine. That is not something that me or John can do.” I realized he didn’t know that I had almost died and had been saved by Ani and Sarah.

“Still, John was right. I could have been more useful if I had heeded the retreat order and positioned myself with the defenders. If the defensive line fell, what did it matter that I was outside killing some of them?”

“Don’t discount us so easily, Leo. John and I are not that incompetent.” His dismissive tone raised some flags. Where was he getting at?

“Are you trying to make me feel good about this whole situation?”

“What if I am?” His direct tone surprised me. I was expecting some roundabout explanation, but not this.

“Then don’t. I did what I did, no amount of sugar coating will change that.” Johann sighed at my assertive tone.

“I am going to level with you. Yes, you screwed up. You went as far as hurting one of our best fighters and that will cost us, but after putting John in the infirmary for who knows how long we need you more than ever. Some people in there are fuming with what you did, but most are afraid that you will leave. Without you and with John out of commission, our chances of coming out of this unscathed are very slim.” Johann took a deep breath and put a hand on my arm so we stopped walking. “So, if I have to sugarcoat what you did to make you feel better and stay with us, I will do it. Can you blame me?”

I couldn’t argue with his logic. If I was feeling ashamed before, I was now feeling guilty. Was I behaving like a teenager with a tantrum? A jerk with a chip on his shoulder because of a spear and a few stat points? It must have shown in my face because Johann put his hand on my shoulder and tried to console me.

“This situation is driving all of us nuts. We weren’t built to handle this. I can’t in good conscience point my finger and blame you without doing the same for myself first. No one died. No irreversible damage has been done, let’s leave it at that, alright?”

With a long deep breath, I tried to push the negative feelings away and believe in Johann’s words.

“What about John? I doubt he will see it the same way.”

“Let me worry about John, alright? I am sure he can understand what is best for the group.”

“I am… sorry about all this, Johann. Things have been hard to handle, emotionally.”

“For all of us, bud. For all of us…”

We made our way around the block and kept talking about other things. I asked him about John’s absence yesterday, and he told me that Chen found out we could increase our stats through training. Some people had already increased theirs, but thought of it as coincidence. John took a few of his group for training and confirmed it later that day. They had decided to create a group of people focused only on training while dividing the rest between scavenging and taking care of the base. They were planning to allocate the people later today.

Johann made a point to remind me to attend their meetings, since I had missed one yesterday. I told him I had found out the same thing and was planning to tell the group today after the wave, but I am not sure he bought it. He didn’t complain though. He asked if I was planning on joining the group for training and I said I would think about it, but if John was leading it, it was probably better for me not to. Finally, he asked me about something I was expecting for a long while. Sarah and Ani. 

I avoided the details, but I just told him I met them on the battlefield. He commented people had seen them around the base during the first and second wave, but when he had tried to approach them they refused to join the group. Someone had even tried to flirt with them, but almost left with a black eye. He seemed interested in them, but didn’t dig any further. I also didn’t say I was meeting them later, I already had too much on my plate. Last thing I needed were people questioning me about those two.

Things looked less chaotic when we arrived at the base. Some people were moving about, shoving the spread out pieces of the barricade back in the pile. I got a few dirty looks, but I ignored them. Johann said he was going to see John and get things sorted, somehow. I wanted to check on Noah and Mrs Aya. I still had time before my meeting with Sarah and Ani, my questions would have to wait a while longer.

“Look who it is. The crouching tiger, sleeping dragon himself!” Noah jabbed at me. I turned to look at him as the tall dude approached me with a smirk on his face.

“How is the leg?”

“Just fine. I got a level up and after spending my points in vitality. It feels much better.”

“You got a level up as well?” I was mildly shocked, but I shouldn’t have been.

“Yeah, after I retreated, I had a chance to kill a lot of those dickheads. Plenty more chances when I am not around you.” I didn’t know if I should apologize for that one.

“You are welcome?”

“I am messing with you, mate. Now, tell me. The fuck was that between you and the pig?”

We were in a corner of the ground floor, but I still glanced around to see if people heard Noah. I can’t imagine John would like to be called a pig.

“Don’t worry, mate. He has bigger problems to care about than ol’ me.” He smirked. “And people know we are mates, so I guess his crew don’t like me already. If they ever did.”

“You clearly don’t like the man.”

“Nope. Neither him or your new buddy, Johann. Both of them with their push and pull to see who has the last word. Some people can’t live if they aren’t in control.”

“We are not buddies.” I frowned at the remark. “I didn’t know there was so much politics involved in the group.”

“Oh, you have no idea, mate. This place is becoming a fucking cesspool. Unfortunately, we got no better place to go.” I wondered how much of it was his own clear aversion to the dynamic.

“If it’s so bad, how come I caught none of it? I like to think I wouldn’t be so inept to miss such obvious things. I know there is something going on between Johann and John, but didn’t seem that bad to me.”

“Something is one way to put it. But it's more like a cold war type of thing.” Noah paused at that, seemingly satisfied with his analysis.

“Care to elaborate?”

“I am not really into the details of it, I just know that Johann and John are fighting over control of the group. John is the better fighter and Johann the better speaker. With Johann’s recent failures during the wave, things were starting to tip towards John, but since what you did earlier… who knows?” 

My mind started spinning as fast as it could as some things suddenly made sense. Although Johann’s logic earlier made sense, there was more to it. How could I have missed this? It was inevitably that there would be issues between two leaders who barely knew each other in a newly formed group.

“By the way, as much as I dislike the dickhead, breaking his arm was a tad bit too much. We do need him if we want to survive.”

I felt my early shame surging up again and I couldn’t help but look to the floor.

“I… overdid it. I shouldn’t have allowed my emotions to take over the way they did. I also shouldn’t have applied such a technique on him. I trained to be better than this.”

“What’s done is done, mate. I know it's a cliche, but it's true. You gotta think how you can come around this.” He paused and gave me a light punch in the shoulder. “But you didn’t fuck it up so bad. Gabs spoke with Ciara, it seems John has some super recovery given by the system. Who knows? Maybe he will come tomorrow to knock your brains out, fully healed.”

Sounds like he chose the same deviation I did. But unlike me, I doubt he would be the sort of man to do what Noah speculated. He was probably better than me in that regard.

“Johann had said something like that.” Shocked with a sudden realization, I said, wide eyed. “Well, fuck. I think I just joined Johann’s side of the dispute.”

“What? Why would you do that, mate?”

I told Noah about my conversation with Johann and how things went down. He understood and agreed that I was probably going to be tagged as part of Johann’s side.

“I hate this sort of bullshit, but maybe this can work out for you.”

“You think I can leverage Johann?”

“Sure. The guy needs you. Better to have leverage than not to. But I think we need to survive first before all this bullshit even matters. Johann is just a dude, we have way bigger shit to deal with.” I agreed with Noah. There was no point to even worry about such politics if we didn’t survive in the first place. Some people just liked to put their energies in all the wrong things.

“What is it that you needed my help with?” Noah asked with sudden interest. I had already forgotten it with all that happened. “I am a curious bloke. I have been thinking about it since last night.” I chuckled at his reaction. He suddenly looked like a teenager.

“I found out yesterday that we can raise our stats by training, but it seems that this is not news for the group. John also had some training of his own yesterday.”

“Right, that boy Chen figured it out. Smart kid.” He relaxed in a chair close to us. “So, you wanted me to train with you?”

“You and Chen. I thought we could help each other. But I think he might be busy with John and his guys.”

“Yeah, I doubt they would let the boy alone. Those knuckleheads know jack shit about the system, and the kid is figuring things out faster than they can understand.”

“Just the two of us then? If you are up to it.”

“Sure, when do we leave?” I expected him to come up with some jab at me or something, but was pleasantly surprised by his straightforwardness.

“Just give me a few minutes, I need to check on someone and then we can go.”

“Alright, I will be waiting here. Take your time, mate.”

I was eager to get out of the base, but I had to check on Mrs Aya first. I also wanted to see if she was eating well. I was planning on buying some food for her with my points if they were underfeeding the non combatants. I am sure Mrs Aya was very low on the priority list of someone like Johann or John.

I found her helping with some of the injured. Bandaging and mostly being friendly to them. She caught me out of the corner of her eye and smiled. I waited until she was done with who she was treating before approaching. Mrs Aya told me she was fine, but I could tell she was losing weight. I wasn’t sure if it was stress or lack of food, maybe both. I made a mental note to bring her more food after the training. She was in a rush, finding herself busy with the injured, so I didn’t want to take most of her time. I left with a promise we would chat more later at night.

I met Chen on the way, but he was talking with a few guys I had seen on John’s unit. Even if I hadn’t recognized them, the dirty looks they gave me would have given them away. Chen looked away from me, but I am sure the peer pressure was mostly the reason why. Maybe. I would have to catch him alone later to find out if we had a problem.

I met Noah at the entrance and we set to my training spot from yesterday. I still had some time to kill before my meeting with Ani and Sarah. I checked the sky clock as we passed through one of the barricades being rebuilt.

22:47:11

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