The first thing Ogata felt was... contact. A jolt of awareness surged through him, sharp and intrusive, like a slap waking someone from a deep, suffocating sleep. He didnʼt feel the warmth of flesh or the damp weight of blood-soaked clothes he remembered. No, this was different—cool, metallic, alien. His senses stretched and snapped into place, and yet... nothing. No limbs. No heartbeat. No breath.

And then, sight—if you could call it that. It wasnʼt through his own eyes but through somewhere else, a narrow field of vision fixed on the strangerʼs hands wrapped around him. Not him, though. The rifle.

“What the hell—?” His voice was in his head, but it wasnʼt just in his head. It reverberated faintly, as if spilling out into the mind of whoever dared to touch him. A baritone purr, flat, but tinged with raw confusion. He tried to move, but there was nothing to move. No fingers to flex, no muscles to tense. Just the sensation of being held—gripped like some lifeless tool.

It hit him like a sniperʼs bullet straight through the skull: he wasnʼt human anymore.

“Youʼve gotta be kidding me.” The words dripped with venom, though they were little more than a whisper in the strangerʼs mind. He hated how exposed he felt, how utterly powerless. A ghost shackled to steel and wood, a damn relic for someone else to use.

Ogataʼs perception expanded slightly as he focused. The strangerʼs face came into view—not familiar, not immediately threatening. But that didnʼt mean much. Everyone was a potential threat in his eyes. His instincts kicked in despite his predicament as he assessed them.

“Alright. You wanna explain what youʼre doing fondling me like this?” he drawled telepathically, his tone sharpening with sarcasm to mask his unease. “Not exactly how I imagined my afterlife starting.”

The weight of his situation pressed down on him, but Ogata shoved it aside. He couldnʼt afford to wallow—not when he had no idea who this person was or what they wanted with him. Or rather, with the rifle.