OBS Chapter 278: Assets and Outcasts
Chapter 278: Assets and Outcasts
A few streets away from the arena, Nash stood with his back against a wall in an empty alley, his hands buried deep in his pockets like he had nowhere else to be.A few steps away, Victoria stared at her phone screen, her fingers tapping impatiently against the side of the device.
"How long ago did you say she was supposed to meet you?" Victoria asked, still not looking up. "She’s taking way too long."
Nash didn’t seem worried.
"She’ll come," he said. "Monique is probably wrecking them right now. That kind of thing doesn’t just end quickly."
Then—clang! A sharp sound of metal hitting the ground echoed from the far end of the street. Both Nash and Victoria turned their heads toward the noise, an empty can rolling away, and then to the entrance of the alley, Rei.
She was standing there, breathing hard, her whole body shaking. Steam rose from her mouth into the cold night air, like a dragon ready to burn everything down.
Victoria tilted her head slightly, raising one eyebrow.
"Well," she said, "looks like they indeed did get wrecked."
Rei didn’t hesitate. The second she saw Nash, she charged at him like a wild animal. All the hate she had ever felt for men, all the betrayal she had swallowed, it all boiled over at once. She had actually started to believe in him, and now she was sure he had ruined everything for her. Her fist flew toward his face, fast and furious.
Wham!
Nash managed to block it with his palm, taking a half a step back to put some distance between them.
"Hey... wait! Rei, stop—!"
But she wasn’t listening. She swung again, and again, each punch wilder than the last. Nash dodged or blocked every one.
Victoria sighed, rubbing her temple like she had seen this coming.
"This," she muttered, "is exactly why I said we should’ve waited until tomorrow."
Rei, realizing she couldn’t land a single hit, let out a frustrated scream. Instead of swinging again, she grabbed Nash’s collar with both hands, yanking him forward so hard the fabric tore. Her face was red, streaked with tears of rage.
"You son of a bitch!" Rei screamed, her voice breaking from how desperate she sounded. Like she couldn’t hold it in anymore. "You did this! You went behind our backs and told Monique we were useless! You told them to get rid of us! You bastard! We trusted you!" Her hands were shaking.
"Rei, just calm down for a second," Nash said.
"Shut up! Don’t tell me to calm down!" she shrieked, hitting his chest again. This time her fist actually landed, but it was like punching stone. He didn’t even flinch.
"Monique is going to sell us! It’s over! She said we’re getting sent to the parlors, you asshole! This was your plan! You traitor! Coward, you—!" Her voice cracked, and she swung again.
This time, Nash didn’t move. Her fist slammed into his cheek, but his head barely turned. He just looked at her, calm, unbothered, while her knuckles stayed pressed against his skin. She looked a little surprised, like she didn’t expect him to just take it. But then her teeth clenched, anger rushing back in.
She was breathing too fast, like she couldn’t get enough air, shaking from how angry and scared she was. Nash reached down, his hands wrapping around her wrists, stopping her from hitting him again.
"I know," Nash said calmly, almost gentle. "I know exactly what Monique told you. Yes, I said those things. But you need to listen to—"
"Let me go!" Rei spat, twisting in his grip. "There’s nothing to listen to! You admit it?! Bastard!!!"
Victoria let out a big, bored sigh as she stared at her phone screen. Her fingers tapped impatiently against the side of it.
"How dramatic," she muttered. "This is exactly why I don’t deal with people who talk too much."
Rei’s head whipped around.
"Shut your damn mouth!!!" she yelled, her voice cracking with anger.
Big mistake. Victoria’s whole attitude changed in a heartbeat. That bored look vanished like it was never there. One second she was sitting a few steps away, the next, Rei didn’t even see her move, she was right in front of her and Nash, so close Rei could feel her breath. Victoria pushed her glasses down slowly with one finger, letting them rest low on her nose. Her icy blue eyes locked onto Rei’s face.
"A dead rat doesn’t tell words," Victoria whispered, her voice so quiet it was somehow worse than shouting. "Unless it’s not dead enough." The air in the alley suddenly felt colder, like it was hard to breathe.
"Don’t test my patience, brat. I’ve shut down people way quieter than you."
Rei’s mouth closed instantly. She flinched like she’d been hit, her whole body locking up under Victoria’s stare. For the first time, she looked scared.
This attitude, this aura... It reminded her so much of Monique’s, but then times worse.
Nash sighed and finally let go of Rei’s wrists, rubbing his own face like he was tired.
"Rei, listen to me," he said. "Look at what’s actually happening here. Yes, I did diss you in front of Monique, but there was a reason. If I let Monique keep thinking you were somehow useful for them, Apex would’ve kept your contracts locked. No matter who came asking, they could’ve treated you like some expensive product and held onto your contracts forever. There’s a number to your debt, but what if they refuse to pay? Can you assume they would just get rid of you for 3 millions credits? A whole empire? It would be too good to be true... But after tonight? After I spent hours telling them you’re a money pit and they need to rebuild a team around me instead? Your value just dropped to zero. What you’re saying is great, Rei. If it’s true, then it means we finally have a chance. They’re desperate to sell your debt to anyone who’ll take it."
Rei blinked, her mind spinning as she tried to follow his logic.
"You... you made us lose on purpose?"
"... No. ’I’... Did nothing," Nash explained, trying not to rub salt in an open wound. "You lost because the Colossus are stronger than anything I’ve seen before and your team was weaker. But we can use that defeat to break your chains. My plan is simple: I told Apex I want to align my entire career and the benefits that will come with it with their brand, but I refuse to work with a useless roster like the Baby-Boom... Not that you’re useless, of course. I needed them to see you as useless. So, they need to clear the space for me."
Rei stood there, completely confused, her head shaking.
"I don’t... I don’t understand."
Victoria snapped her glasses back up, stepping back until her back touched the wall.
"I was just as confused as you are initially, but for some reasons, this guy has an exceptional power of manipulation. Your loss that sealed your doom is actually your ticket toward freedom... under another form of dictatorship, of course."
Nash rolled his eyes slightly.
"Come on, Victoria..."
"But how does that actually save us?" Rei mumbled, the anger in her voice completely gone now, replaced by confusion, frustration, and a little bit of fear because of Victoria. Her fingers tightened around the edge of her sleeve as she spoke.
"Monique already has all the relocation papers ready. It could happen tomorrow, or the day after. How do you even convince them to stop?!"
Nash leaned back, one hand rubbing his chin like he was thinking hard about something.
"We just make the offer, that’s all there is to it," he said slowly. "I’ll call Hector tonight and tell him again that I don’t want anything to do with you after seeing this match, I’ll even push him to take Seth instead. Instead of making it about you, we’ll make it look like there’s some kind of rivalry between me and Seth. They’ll focus on that instead. And then, once you’re officially on the market..." He paused, flashing a quick smirk at Victoria, who rolled her eyes. "Someone will show up. A guy who owns a bar, some small-time family business he inherited, and he needs hostesses. And since he heard from someone from the Upperworld that the Baby-Boom girls are being sold, he’ll come straight to Apex with an offer to buy you all instead." Nash’s grin widened. "And guess what? He’s bringing ten million credits instead of three. All cash."
Rei just stared at him, her mouth slightly open. Her hands dropped to her sides, fingers twitching like she wasn’t sure what to do with them. A bar owner? A fake buyer? Her eyebrows knit together in confusion.
"What... what are you even saying?" she whispered. "I think I’m starting to understand, but... if you knew this whole plan was bad from the beginning, why did you propose it to begin with?" She shook her head, her voice getting louder. "And this fake buyer thing... it’s stupid! If Apex checks his ID for even one second, the whole thing falls apart. We’ll be dragged into those parlors by tomorrow morning!" She crossed her arms tight, nails digging into her sleeves. "I can’t trust something this risky. Especially when you keep changing your plans as you please."
Victoria’s fingers tapped faster against her elbow.
"As far as I’m concerned," she said slowly, "your little group is already buried. So either you listen to him, or you keep pretending you have options and see what happens." She leaned in just a little. "If there’s one thing I really hate? It’s repeating myself to my employees."
Rei’s breath caught in her throat. Who even was this woman? She was scarier than Monique, and that was saying something. Rei glanced at Nash.
"And who is this buyer supposed to be?" she asked quietly. "Because Monique won’t believe it unless it looks real."
Nash let out a small, grim smile.
"Don’t worry about that," Nash said, scratching his chin like he was thinking hard. "We’re using someone from our Blacklist team to pretend to be the buyer. The guy looks ugly, like ugly as hell. Monique will take one look at his face, then at the money, and she’ll sign the papers without asking any questions." He chuckled. "She’ll think she’s selling her broken toys to a monster who will abuse you day and night. Then one day, big announcement: Baby-Boom have joined Blacklist, and they won’t have anything to get you ever again."
Rei breathed out slowly, her whole body shaking a little as she finally understood the plan. Her shoulders dropped, like a heavy weight had been lifted. There was a way out after all.
Just ten minutes ago, she had felt like she was in hell. She saw her friends crying, breaking down like she had never seen before. One moment there was hope, the next it was gone, like falling into the worst place imaginable. And now, at the very bottom... hope was back? The door was already open?
Part of her didn’t want to believe it. She was scared to feel happy too soon, scared it might disappear again. But Victoria’s cold stare kept her from saying anything.
Head down, Rei mumbled.
"The transfer starts in two days. She wants us gone before the weekend checks."
"Then we move the buyer in tonight," Nash said. "Go back to the room, act like you’re broken, and wait for the papers to be signed."
He gave her a tired smile, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache.
"And don’t tell the girls the truth. You’re almost free... don’t let Apex doubt anything. You have to look like you’ve given up. But... give them a little hope, okay? Say you have a plan and tell them to wait. Better that than someone doing something stupid because she’s desperate."
Rei listened, her hands clenched into fists. She didn’t know if she could trust Nash again, not after everything. But right now, she didn’t have a choice.
Head still down, she nodded slowly.
"I’m sorry," she whispered. "For hitting you."
Then, before she could stop herself, she grabbed Nash’s arm, gripping it tight like she was afraid he would disappear.
"If you get us out of this..." Her voice cracked. "I swear, I’ll owe you forever."
Nash just smiled.
"You really love being in debt, don’t you?"
While Nash, Rei, and Victoria were still talking in that dark alley, the mess they’d started was already spreading somewhere else, miles away.
Down in the lower part of another sector, the air was heavy, filled with smoke from factories and the flickering glow of old neon signs. Jinzo walked alone under a broken streetlight, his mind racing like crazy. His boots hit the ground hard, fast, uneven, like he was trying to stomp his thoughts into the pavement.
Everything made sense now. All those weird things over the past few weeks, why Nash suddenly showed up at their practices with Aiko, why Jaz kept talking about Miko, it clicked together like a puzzle he didn’t want to finish.
"He’s going to take them," Jinzo whispered to himself. Nash wasn’t just trying to win the game. He was wiping everyone out. Quietly.
The anger wasn’t just about business. It was personal. Ugly. Nash wanted to benefit from the Baby-Boom’s collapse to buy their contracts for nothing, and drag them into Blacklist.
And with Victoria in charge, using her cold, scary authority, the message was obvious: Jinzo, Mac, anyone who had stood against Nash before, they’d be thrown away like trash. While Nash sat there like a king, surrounded by his harem.
"No," Jinzo muttered, almost choking on the word. He stopped walking suddenly, right in front of a closed electronics shop. The purple light from a dead screen inside made his reflection look sickly in the dirty glass. His face was pale, sweaty even though it was cold, his eyes wide and red like he hadn’t slept in days.
Looking at himself, shaky and pathetic, a memory hit him like a slap, the locker room weeks ago. He remembered the suffocating scene of Nash’s and Jaz. Beautiful, arrogant Jaz, completely turned into a savage beast, fucking Nash like an animal while Jinzo stood there, forced to watch, cumming in his pant.
And the girls, those girls that laughed at him, absolutely all of them would be now in this boat.
And Jinzo was just supposed to stand there again? Knowing what would happen? Knowing they humiliated him and would get their happy ending?
Nah, hell nah. Not in this life.
His hands shook so bad his knuckles cracked. His whole body trembled with anger, his breath coming too fast. Nash thought he was smart. But Nash didn’t know Jinzo was watching from the shadows.
"You think you won?" Jinzo hissed at his own reflection, his lips twisting into something that wasn’t a smile. "You think you get to take everything?"
He yanked his phone from his jacket, fingers stiff as he stabbed at the screen. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Then...
"Saya," Jinzo growled. "It’s me. I know exactly what Nash is doing."