The night stretched quiet across the cobblestone street. Glimmering faintly beneath the street lamps.
Steam rose from the gutters, around the ankles of two figures walking side by side. Albert Newton and Harriet Clover.
"Did you see their faces!?" Harriet's voices bursted with energy. "Everyone thought you were done for! Boom — that last move. You folded that guy like a cheap towel. I swear, I almost stood on my seat."
Tom didn't look up. His hands were in his pockets, collar of his new waistcoat turned slightly up against the wind. "Stop overacting." he muttered, not even glancing sideways.
Harriet stumbled mid-stride. "Overacting? That was poetry in motion! The way you reversed his tactics on Piere himself? The crowd didn't even breathe for ten seconds. Ten, Albert! I counted."
Tom sighed. "You need a hobby."
"I have one." Harriet said proudly. "It's called watching you survive suicidal fights and then pretending it was strategy."
Tom gave a faint smirk that lasted only a second. The streets were narrow here, the moonlight blocked by rows of crooked iron balconies.
He looked composed, almost elegant in that new waistcoat coloured black with dull silver seams that caught the light whenever he passed a lamp. His gloves were clean again, his boots still caked with ash from the battlefield.
"You look different." Harriet said after a pause, lowering his tone. "Like you just leveled up or something. Maybe you really did."
Tom didn't reply. He walked slower, eyes half-focused on nothing. His body ached beneath the quiet. Every step reminded him of the weight of that fight and of Piere's final words.
"Anyway." Harriet said suddenly, clapping his hands together, "We should go for dinner. I'm starving. There's that new inn down in Calder Row, the one with the soup that doesn't taste like industrial grease. You're coming, right?"
Tom shook his head. "No. I'm tired. I'll head to my apartment and take a nap."
Harriet made a face. "You? Nap? After nearly blowing up half a forest, you're just going to lie down?"
"Sounds nothing wrong though...." Tom said dryly.
Harriet threw his arms in the air. "Fine. Go be mysterious. I'll eat for both of us."
He stopped at the corner of the street, where a faint red lantern flickered above a sign reading The Silver Horn Inn. "Don't vanish again." he added, his tone half serious. "You do that too much."
Tom started walking off, the sound of his footsteps fading into the night mist. "No promises."
Harriet watched him disappear into the distance, hands in his pockets, that new waistcoat gleaming under the dim lamps. The mark of a man who kept walking through calamities and still somehow looked like he'd planned every step.
"Crazy bastard." Harriet muttered fondly, before turning toward the inn's golden light.
....
Albert walked alone through the fog-drenched streets. The lamps brightened low like tired stars.
He turned a narrow corner and reached a short, crooked building. His cobbler's apartment. The paint was peeling from the door. The hinges creaked and the single bulb above the entrance flickered as though deciding whether to stay alive for the night. He unlocked it quietly and stepped inside.
The room was small and plain.
A wooden table stacked with old scraps of leather and a floor that remembered every boot he'd ever made. He didn't bother with the bed. Instead, Albert tossed a quilt on the floor, sat down and leaned his head back against the wall....
.... As he used to do back then....
He thought about the people he'd once called comrades.
The laughter, noises, promises they had made before everything fell apart. Faces flickered in his mind. A woman's smile, a man's hand on his shoulder, a world that had once felt endless. Then the memories started to fade, one by one, as if sinking under water wet and scattered.
Albert blinked, trying to hold on but the details slipped away. The quilt felt heavier over his chest.
"Not tonight." he whispered to no one.
The last of the candlelight trembled beside him. He turned on his side, staring at the wall.
In the dark, his breathing slowed. Soon, his thoughts, his memories, and his name all dissolved into the same quiet, lonely rhythm of deep slumber....
A rest, sleep, after a long journey of rebelling against reality....
....
That was the name on his passport,
"Gray Heisenberg"
But the paper lied. His real name was Jergio Greus, the last of a family that history had erased but not forgiven.
He stood still in the border line, the empire's guards glancing at his file. His eyes were pale gray, almost silver but with a stillness that made even armed men look away.
His hair was dark, falling straight, edges uneven like he had cut it with his own blade. A scar ran from his left ear down to his collarbone.
They stamped his papers and waved him through. The man nodded once, no words came out, only a half-smile that never reached his eyes.
On his back, he carried a long wrapped object. A scythe, though no one dared to ask.
In the city stall outside the checkpoint, he stopped to buy water. A small television hung in the corner, flickering news from the capital.
"Tournament nearing semifinals" Unusual energy surges detected.
Gray watched for a moment, tilting his head. "So, there you are, Cocky one." he murmured, as if he'd already lived in this scene once before.
He threw a few coins on the counter and walked away.
The subway was quiet. Of course, it was late night. He sat near the door, his reflection faint on the window glass. Two passengers nearby whispered, drunk and careless. One bumped his shoulder. Gray didn't move an inch.
The drunk man muttered something under his nose. But he was it was half a curse. The lights above flickered once. When they turned steady again, two passengers were slumped. One across the seats, other against the pole.
Gray stood, adjusting his coat sleeve and stepped off at the next stop.
No one had seen anything. Nothing happened, at least none saw what. Only the clickety-clack of the train continued through the tunnel, dragging their silence with it.
Outside, night air met him again. The empire stretched ahead. The road to Capital Nayga, its lights distant and trembling.
He breathed in slowly. The city's is smell full of iron, oil, rain. His hand brushed against the scythe's wrapped handle.
"Let's see." he whispered, "If this world still remembers what fear feels like."
Then he walked on, coat swaying in rhythm with the rails still resounding behind him. A quiet man carrying death like a shadow that had learned how to walk.