The auction dissolved into screams.
Ryu ducked low, blade flashing just to keep distance, not to kill. A brute of a guard broke through the panicked crowd, scars twisting across his face. His strike came down like a hammer.
She caught the first blow on her dagger, the second rattled through her bones. Her breath came sharp, but she didn't falter.
The third blow broke through.
Steel tore a line across her side, shallow but brutal. Heat flooded under her tunic, blood soaking fast. Her knees buckled, and she staggered back, her dagger slipping against the slick marble.
The guard raised his sword for the finishing strike...
"BOOM"
Then fireworks screeched down from above. A burst of sparks set his cloak aflame.
Ryu seized the opening drilled into her during training, thus Ryu's dagger dripped red as she spun, catching guard across the throat.
He howled, thrashing, stumbling into the crowd.
Smoke clawed at the air, shadows cutting through the chandeliers.
Ryu pressed her palm to the wound, breath ragged. She could still move, but every step felt like knives digging deeper.
Across the hall, Echo doubled over as a guard's fist drove into his gut. He crumpled, coughing blood.
Another fist raised to crush his skull... when sparks rained down again.
The guard cursed, blinded, and Echo slashed his leg out from under him, staggering to his feet.
"Delta, MOVE!"
EEL's voice cracked through the chaos as he surged forward.
He caught Echo by the collar, hauling him upright, then hooked his arm under Ryu's shoulders, dragging her to her feet. She leaned against him, limping, teeth clenched against the pain.
But more guards were closing in, their footsteps pounding against the marble, ready to cut them down where they stood.
And then... silence, sharp as a blade's edge.
Vesper stepped out of the smoke.
Her daggers sang as they cut through the air.
In the time it took the first guard to blink, his hand fell, severed clean from the wrist.
His scream choked off as her second blade lunged.
Another lunged, and she twisted the blade, with a motion too fast to follow.
Vesper didn't slow. She didn't hesitate. Every strike was precise, merciless, and final.
By the time the last guard hit the ground, the hall was thick with blood and silence again.
She turned her head, eyes flicking to EEL, dragging Ryu and Echo.
She slightly tilted her chin and said
"Go. I'll clear the way."
And without waiting, she was gone again, slipping deeper into the smoke, her blades dripping red.
The last guard collapsed at Vesper's feet, blood pooling across the marble. Her blades dripped scarlet, her breath steady as if the slaughter had been no more than a dance.
A faint crackle above caught her attention.
Through the smoke, up in the rafters where the handlers had chained the auction lots, she spotted him... the boy with ash in his hair and fireworks in his hands.
Caelum.
He froze when her eyes met his, chest rising and falling fast, shoulders trembling from the weight of what he'd just unleashed.
"Jump," Vesper called up, her voice cutting through the roar of fire.
Caelum hesitated, clinging to the wooden beam, eyes wide at the abyss below.
"Now," she snapped, stepping forward, arms raised.
The wood above cracked from the fire's heat. Caelum squeezed his eyes shut and leapt.
Vesper caught him clean. Her arms jarred with the impact, but her grip didn't waver. She rolled, already turning the fall into momentum. Her blades cut down another straggler in their path, and the two of them disappeared into the smoke-choked corridors.
They burst out into a side alley, the night air cooler but still full of chaos. Fireworks sparked overhead like dying stars, screams carrying through the streets.
EEL appeared from the shadows, Ryu leaning against him, still clutching her side. Echo staggered at his shoulder, pale but breathing.
Vesper set Caelum on his feet, her grip firm on his shoulder. "Go home, boy. This isn't your place."
Caelum's eyes widened, and his nose flared.
He shook his head hard.
"No. I'm not going back. Not after that. You saw what they did. You saw how they used me."
His voice cracked, but his jaw stayed firm. "I ain't hiding. Not again."
For a moment, silence stretched between them, broken only by the hiss of fire in the distance.
Vesper's eyes narrowed, weighing him like a blade in her hand.
For a heartbeat, she pictured it...
One flick of her wrist, steel through his throat, the problem solved before it could begin.
But EEL stood there, watching, and authority weighed heavier than instinct.
Then she stepped aside, a subtle gesture... permission.
EEL gave her a sharp look but said nothing.
Ryu, pale and limping, glanced at Caelum. She saw herself: a child carved into something else, a cage replaced by a battlefield.
Something like pity flickered across her face.
Echo muttered, half-breathless, "Why are you refusing him, when you took me in, I was in the same condition as the kid, but this Kid's crazy…."
EEL's eyes swept over them in the fractured light... fireworks dying in smoke, bodies on the ground, shadows slipping back into the ruin.
They were all the same age. Children, really.
But fate had carved them into such different shapes.
Echo being reckless flame, striking first, thinking later.
Ryu, being scarred and precision-trained, trained to endure, her limp a reminder of how much she had already given.
Vesper was cold, unyielding, eyes that had learned too early to never look back.
And now Caelum.
Bleeding, bruises on the body, trembling, yet refusing to return to where he came from. EEL's memory stirred.
Vesper, years ago, stared him down with that same iron in her spine, that refusal to obey the path chosen for her.
Same age. Different hierarchies. Different skills.
But the same thread of defiance ran through them, binding each one in ways the world would never understand.
For a moment, EEL felt the heaviness of their emotions, their silence, the battles inside them. They weren't soldiers. They were children. Children who didn't know how to cry anymore.
Eel said, voice resonating.
"Taking you in was my decision, Echo. Don't compare yourself to him... not yet. We'll discuss the mess you made before we talk about him."
The night raged on, but for the first time, Caelum stood in the storm by choice.