Soul Traveler: Venator.

More memories flooded his mind, all about the situation regarding this woman, the original Horatio and the afore mentioned child.

"What the hell is wrong with your voice?" Asanda inquired with a raised brow.

"His throat was sliced clean through. We have no idea how he managed to survive and make it to the hospital."

"So, he can't talk? Doesn't really matter, he barely said anything in the first place, and everything he did say was bullshit anyway." Asanda said with a dismissive shrug.

"Where… is. Her. Room?" Rex gurgled out with a fair bit of difficulty.

"Oh? So now you want to see her? If I hadn't—"

"Where?" Rex rumbled, blood actually escaping from his mouth as he asked.

The sight of the blood, as well as the gravitas behind his voice stunned Asanda to silence for a second, as she watched him wipe the blood from his mouth with his uninjured arm. She then took a moment to look him over, and saw just how bandaged up he was. He had always been a Venator, so she was used to him being injured in one way or another – which had led to her being desensitised as far as him being hurt was concerned, but these injuries were far more severe than anything she had seen on him before. Asanda took a moment to compose herself, before turning around and walking off. Without a word being spoken, Rex followed after her, all the while processing and the new information. The entire trip was done in silence, including lift rides and the like, until they reached the room.

"It's funny isn't it… you've been sending money to help cover her hospital bills, but not once have you come to visit her. How could you not even know the room your daughter has been in for almost a year? You absolute piece of shit."

Horatio looked at Asanda in silence, before simply opening the door and walking in to find a girl, not older than sixteen, laid up in a hospital bed with all manner of monitoring contraption hooked up to her. He strode towards the bed without a lick of hesitation and stood right next to it. As much as the child looked more like her mother, she equally looked exactly like Horatio, and looking upon her face made Rex sigh deeply, and look at the ceiling. As if on que, the girl opened her eyes and looked directly into her father's single exposed eye.

"D-Daddy?" She stammered. "I-I mean Dad?"

Before either Rex or Asanda could say anything, Horatio – or rather, in this instance – Kumkani reached down and gently cupped the left cheek of the bewildered girl.

"Zusakhe." He gurgled gently, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

Zusakhe didn't know what to do or say, and she just looked up at her father with the kind of confusion that clearly indicated that something like this had never happened before. Rex's hand lingered on her cheek, before sliding down to her shoulder, and giving it what was intended to be a reassuring squeeze, but whether or not that came across was another matter entirely. It felt like it lasted for an age to the girl, yet it ended quickly as the heavily bandaged man removed his hand and nodded, before turning around and walking towards the door. He stopped when he was standing next to the gob smacked Asanda, and looked at her before nodding his farewell and walking off again.

"Why are you…" Asanda bit her lip, stopping short of saying something that her daughter, who was also in shock, could hear and be hurt by. "I don't know why you're trying to be cool when your head is bandaged like that. Your clothes don't fit, your afro looks ridiculous, and you're bleeding from your mouth!" She snapped, pettiness the overriding emotion she was feeling.

Rex just walked until he eventually left the hospital. As he was an unfortunately frequent patient, memories of the cheapest methods to get back to his apartment. He then made his way over towards the bus stop, muscle memory leading him to a kiosk, at which he pulled out his Venator licence, scanned it to open his personal profile, as well as a list of his frequently used routes and stops.

'What a cretinous bastard Horatio Rex was.' He thought to himself whilst waiting for the bus. 'We struggle to sire offspring in all the Dimensions we exist in – to the point where I can count on ONE hand how many children we've had, yet this idiot really treated his daughter like this?'

Horatio, or rather, Kumkani, found himself having to work relatively hard to maintain his composure, as seemingly, the existence of Zusakhe and the subsequent treatment she had received from Horatio bothered him quite a bit.

'The fact that this body didn't even feel anything when it touched her cheek, yet was filled with all manner of emotion when it heard Asanda's voice. You were scum, Horatio. With your embarrassing name.'

Just then, the bus arrived and pulled Kumkani from his thoughts. He boarded the bus, which was a little over half full, and took a seat. Majority of the bus ride was uneventful, as it went around dropping people off and collecting new passengers. Kumkani took this as a chance to absorb and process more memories, as he wasn't keen on getting surprised by something important again. He was forced to stop once the bus left the city center behind, and moved towards the outskirts. Suddenly, the quality of the buildings and flora dropped at an alarming rate, and all of the cleaning services and personnel that he had seen around disappeared entirely. They were clearly moving towards less affluent areas, and after a few more stops, they reached a checkpoint, with a tall wall that served as a border, and heavily armed soldiers standing in front of a boom gate. They quickly verified that the bus was legit, and waved it through. The gate rose and it drove through, revealing just how different things were on the other side of the border. The buildings, which were simply scruffy and dirty on the other side of the wall, were actually damaged, or clearly sporting crude repairs. The road surface left a lot to be desired, there were far more people on the streets, however most of them weren't doing anything or going anywhere. Fires were crackling in makeshift braziers, despite it not being all that cold, or late in the day. They had clearly entered a slum, and the fact that it was sectioned off from the other parts of the city was extremely telling of how things were in this place.

The bus arrived at the bus stop, and instinctively, Rex knew it was his stop. He got off the bus, and was immediately hit by the smell and quality of the air. It smelled like everything he had taken note of since entering the slum, and more. Rex's body was so accustomed to it however, that it did absolutely nothing to him, and he just followed his instincts as he made his way back to his abode. The walk itself was surprisingly long, and the deeper Horatio went into the slum, the worse it became until he was basically hopping around and over stagnant water, unconscious people, and piled up garbage. Eventually, he arrived at a surprisingly tall apartment building, which again, instinct was telling him was the correct place. Rex's body, which was three days removed from major injuries and surgery, was struggling by this point, and he was breathing as heavily as he was sweating profusely. He took a minute to collect himself before walking through the open gate into the parking lot and towards the front door. A group of men and women in clothes that were clearly too good for the slum were hanging around some cars in the parking lot, and once they saw Rex now hobbling ever so slightly, one of them burst into hysterical laughter.

"Yo, Venator Horatio Rex! Did you just come back from the Zone, man? You left like a week ago! And you're banged up, too!" He snorted, something that was echoed by the rest.

Rex stopped and looked over at the obnoxious group. He only eyed them silently, before sighing and looking away, making his way in the building while a few called out to him as they chortled. He paid them no further mind and just kept walking, reaching the lift that had out of order spray painted across it.

'Of course.' Rex thought to himself with a roll of the eyes, before going towards the stairwell and climbing them.

Luckily for him, he didn't live right at the top, so the climb didn't last all that long, and a few minutes later, he was standing before an apartment door that he just knew was his. Having placed his door keys in his wallet before leaving the hospital earlier, Horatio pulled the out and just as he inserted them, the door to the apartment next door opened tentatively as a small head peaked out, looking to see who was at the door. Once it was confirmed that it was Rex, the little head shot back in and the door closed far quicker than it opened. Rex just shrugged and opened his apartment door, before walking in.