The plaza woke loud. Banners, bells, and the hiss of new chalk on stone. Folding risers clicked into place while the Arc pillar scrolled names and times like rain. Stalls slid aside to make room for pop-up arenas. A betting board flowered on a rope line—odds painted fast, wiped faster.
Aiden moved along the edge, measuring lines, counting anchors. The ground here was clean and almost too flat—good for crowds, bad for honesty.
Big day. Watch the elbows. Watch the ropes. Don't get drafted.
Silver Fang took the north corner with a "clean technique" ring—measured cuts, crisp guards, instructors with wooden batons tapping mistakes back into shape. Crimson Edge rolled out a glossy obstacle lane: ropes, roundstones, a pivoting beam that wanted ankles. Obsidian Claw set up a tactics board on painted squares; a caller moved live players like pieces, pausing the field to talk through outcomes.
Kael, Sora, Lynet, and Faron clustered near a pillar base, bright-eyed and out of coins.
"Which one first?" Kael asked.
"Watch all three," Aiden said. "Let them teach you what they think matters."
They slid with the crowd's turn. At Silver Fang's ring, a novice's guard sagged at reset. Tap. Tap. "Up," the instructor said. Aiden nodded once, satisfied. On Crimson's lane, a recruit tried to outrun the push bar, stumbled, and skinned both knees. The crowd groaned as one. Obsidian's caller drew a rectangle in the air. "Tempo control," she said, and her pieces obeyed.
Aiden watched the caller a little longer than the others. Her voice never lifted; the pieces moved anyway.
The Arc pillar flashed a city banner—EXHIBITION DAY—then flicked down to a live list of micro-events. A street crier took the rhythm and rode it.
"Short course at third bell!""Technique bout at the half!""Tactics board rotates on the hour!"
Aiden stood behind two rows of shoulders at the Crimson lane and watched the push bar creep, the rope sag, the rounds reset.
"Your swing is on a two-count," he said, not looking away. "Step on one-and-a-half."
Sora whispered it to herself, testing the feel. Lynet marked the sag in her head. Kael bounced once and steadied.
They drifted. The day stacked itself in loud slices. The air tasted of oil and chalk and roast meat. People cheered for stumbles more than successes.
Silver Fang's ring quieted for a demonstration bout—no stakes, just a senior showing a reset drill. The senior's cadence was clean until the last strike, when he overcommitted the hip by a breath. The instructor's baton tapped it back.
"Fair," Aiden said under his breath. "They fix what they cause."
Sora smirked. "That's rare."
They were passing the obstacle lane when a glint on the axle of a demo wheel snagged Aiden's eye—a small, wrong shine inside an otherwise tidy hub. He was still looking when the operator pulled the brake lever. The wheel screamed. Brake caught, failed. A heavy practice blade in the rig swung low and then wide toward a novice stepping into position.
Nobody moved. Then Aiden did.
Switch.
Step. Brace. Redirect.Torque into the wrist. Take the blade off its line.Let the wood spend itself on air.
The blade missed the novice by a handspan and chewed a fist-sized bite out of the post instead. The crowd's sound broke, not a cheer, just a held breath dumped at once. The novice sat down hard, alive and confused.
Aiden eased the blade into stillness, then touched the axle with two fingers—one tap on the hub, one under the brake shoe. He did not look at the operator.
"Your brake spacing is uneven," he said. "If that was a stunt, it's bad. If it wasn't—"
He pointed to a faint scratch under the hub, shallow and fast, just enough to bite the pad. Triangle with a slit eye carved inside.
"—you've got a saboteur."
The Crimson handler's face tightened. "We maintain our own rigs."
"Then maintain that one," Aiden said.
A woman from Obsidian Claw was already there, quiet as a thought. She wore no rank marks, only a small book on a cord at her belt. The tote by her foot said she'd been collecting notes since dawn.
"Cerys," the handler said stiffly.
Cerys crouched without waiting for permission. She examined the scratch and the brake shoe with a thin lens, then the operator's hands. "You didn't do this," she said to the operator. "You don't move like someone who cuts for noise. Thank you for not pretending."
She looked up at Aiden. Her eyes were the kind that learned even when insulted. "You saw it before the failure?"
"The shine was wrong," he said. "And the rope sagged in a way that says your left pusher loads late."
One side of her mouth moved. "And yet here we are."
Aiden stepped back. People were looking at him instead of the novice who almost got hurt. He didn't like that shape.
Kael elbowed Sora, grinning. "He did the thing."
Sora kept her voice low. "He did the minimum. That's the point."
Something blinked at the edge of Aiden's sight and tucked itself away.
[Skill Up] Observation I → Observation II(After 3s study, the next enemy motion flashes for a blink.)
He closed that window without thinking about it. Useful. Don't chase it.
"Reset the lane," Cerys said to Crimson's crew. "Two marshals only. No crowd. No bets."
The handler hesitated, then nodded, jaw clenched. The crew moved.
Aiden drifted away. The day pressed on. At Silver Fang's ring, a clean-footwork drill made three novices laugh with relief when their bodies finally did what the words asked. At the tactics board, a flanking puzzle failed twice, then clicked when the caller changed nothing but how she paused her breath. Aiden watched that, too.
He slid under a rope someone dropped to cut a lane. His feet found the seam where chalk met clean stone. The crowd let out a long exhale—a collective "ah" more than applause.
[New Skill] Transit Flow I(Small movement boost for 3s after vaulting/stepping an obstacle; slight evasion bonus.)
Don't get greedy with it. It's seasoning, not the meal.
Cerys found him near the tactics squares while the caller reset the board. She didn't preface.
"When the map lies," she said, "how do you keep your rhythm?"
"You give it fewer chances to speak," Aiden said. "Cut the questions you don't need."
Cerys nodded once. "We're running a silent lane at dusk. Not a test. A calibration. Watch if you want. Bring no banners."
"I don't carry banners," Aiden said.
"I noticed," she said, and melted back into her corner without a pitch.
A minor scuffle popped near the betting board—two recruits arguing over odds like they owned outcomes. Aiden watched the first shove, saw the hip, shook his head once, and kept walking. Hands lie. Hips don't.
He and the others took a slow loop of the grounds. Kael tried the short "balance run," grin glued on; Sora finished with clean feet and no fanfare; Lynet tripped once, laughed, then didn't trip again; Faron breathed carefully through a half-ache in his wrist and still landed the pivot without leaking his guard.
"Count out loud," Aiden said. "Quietly enough that you hear it. Loud enough that you obey it."
They nodded like people who would try. That was enough.
At midafternoon the tactics board called for volunteers to "move like pieces." Aiden stepped up only to the balcony—shaded stone with a good view of wrong decisions. The caller ran a losing rectangle twice, then pinched her lips. Aiden leaned on the rail.
"Don't trade center," he said down to her. "Trade time."
She paused. She looked up. She did exactly that. The losing rectangle became a slow smear. The other side lost shape. The crowd murmured—pleasure, not surprise.
The caller found him with her eyes and tipped two fingers from her brow like a toast she didn't owe.
The Arc pillar chimed a broadcast:
[City Exhibition — Precision Sprint: 30 seconds to post][Reward: token, name on board, pride if you can hold it]
Kael looked at him. "You'll run it?"
"I'll run it once," Aiden said.
The sprint was short: vault, rope, three turns, a rollback, a final straight with two lazy pushers who were meant to be dramatic more than dangerous. Aiden did not break speed records. He did not tumble, flip, or smile. He ran exactly the line he imagined on the first breath, feet where the chalk kissed stone, hands at railings only where rails believed in hands.
He finished middle of the board. People made a sound that wasn't a cheer—something quieter, interest tipping into respect because the time was ordinary but the rating that flashed after was ridiculous.
[Efficiency Rating: 100% — zero wasted steps]
"Is that… a thing?" Kael asked, baffled and thrilled.
"It is now," Sora said, watching people point at the number and talk about how he didn't look fast until they realized speed wasn't the game.
A thin hum in the HUD. Another quiet unlock slotted itself beside his other habits.
[Crowd Sense I](Slight prediction bonus against flanks/backline shoves while inside dense crowds.)
Fine. Today is grease and bearings. Save the engine for later.
Cerys watched from the tactics corner, expression unchanged. She wasn't the only one. A Silver Fang envoy pretended he wasn't impressed. A Crimson captain pretended the brake shoe wasn't still in his pocket.
Afternoon fell toward gold. The plaza thinned and then thickened again as taverns opened their doors and someone started a drum near the south lane. Aiden let the noise pass through him. He stood by a post and watched how people moved when they thought they were only watching each other.
An operator from the demo lane threaded the crowd and stopped a careful distance away. "Thanks," he said to the air beside Aiden. "For… earlier."
Aiden glanced at him. "Don't let them run the rig for show until you've checked every anchor. You'll save yourself a day of apologies."
The operator exhaled. "Yes, sir." He caught himself. "Aiden. Sorry."
"Names are fine," Aiden said. "Titles are heavy."
Evening pressed purple into the corners. The Arc pillar cycled a last bunch of standings before clearing to idle. Aiden started toward the north wall. The plaza's edge had a way of holding secrets.
Something blinked on his HUD—one word, one shape.
[Private Notice]Midnight course. No banners. Bring no one.Triangle-eye.
He lifted his gaze to the shadow under a string of banners. Someone else lifted theirs at the same time from the tactics corner—Cerys, not surprised, just… aligned.
Kael jogged up, flushed with the day. "So," he panted, "tomorrow—do we copy your steps or your breathing?"
"Neither," Aiden said, and his mouth tipped again. "Copy your own. Just stop wasting it."
Sora shook her head, smiling. "That's a yes to both."
Aiden looked once more at the rope lines, the brake shoes, the wheels that spun because someone believed they would. He rolled his wrist. No drag. Good.
Midnight. No banners. If they're loud, walk away. If they're quiet, listen first.
He let the crowd fold around him and moved with it until the noise became pattern and the pattern became small. Then he slipped out of it the way water leaves a bucket—cleanly, without argument.
The city breathed. He matched it. The day cut itself. He left the edge sharp.
Rooftop Lines
The south roofs of Eboncrest ran like low waves. Jin Ho moved across them in quiet steps, counting the city's breath. Below, Exhibition Day unraveled into side bets and shortcuts. He didn't correct anyone. He didn't speak. He traced patterns with a knuckle against a chimney's warm brick and watched them repeat in the crowd.
He took three pebbles from his pocket and set them on a parapet: center, flank, delay. A breeze shouldered the flank stone half an inch. He left it there—truth sometimes improved a plan. When the Arc pillar flared with a timing change, he noted it the way sailors note cloud edges: briefly, precisely.
He drew a compact grid in chalk and flipped a coin through four squares. Heads meant pressure, tails meant slack. By the last flip he'd built a route he wouldn't share and a contingency he wouldn't need to explain.
A folded slip lay under his palm when he lifted it from the stone, as if the paper had always been waiting for skin.
Midnight. No banners. Bring no one.Triangle-eye.
He read it twice and put it away without ceremony. The city clicked to a new rhythm in his head. He shifted one pebble a fraction and left the roofline as if he had never been there.
The Bad Street
The east warrens baked in their own breath. Steam bled from cracked vents. Bottles lay like teeth in the gutter. A fence bent toward the street as if it had tried to run and been pulled back.
Raek walked in—easy shoulders, eyes bored. A corner crew—cheap leather, cheaper laughs—decided he was the day's entertainment. One whistled. One smiled. One didn't blink at all. The street held its breath because it loved trouble, especially when it started slow.
"Wrong corner," the whistler said.
Raek looked past him at a metal door with a dent the size of a man's head. "Looks right to me."
The smile widened. "You paying a toll or bleeding one?"
Raek sighed like a man asked to carry someone else's furniture. "Neither."
He moved first, but it looked like he didn't. A wrist met a brick wall with a flat thud and let go of its knife as if the idea had grown old. Raek stepped through the space that created and put a shoulder into a chest hard enough to ring the door's dent again—metal shivered, breath left, conversation ended. A chain swung from a pipe; he caught it by reflex, wrapped it once around his forearm, and turned a wild hook into a hard stop. Elbow. Knee. Floor. The fighter tried to stand; Raek nailed him back down with gravity and a boot that chose ribs over face because ribs bruise quietly.
A bottle broke somewhere behind him. He didn't check. He dragged a table into a runner's path with one hand and let the boy make friends with the wood. Someone tried a bear hug from behind; Raek dropped his weight and lifted hard, folding the man over his hip like a bad page, then introduced him to the pavement, spine first. A knife nicked his coat; he gave the blade a second to admire itself in a puddle before stepping on the wrist attached to it.
When it was over, nobody said "over." The street simply started breathing again.
Raek looked at his knuckles. A thin red line ran across one. He blew on it like you'd cool soup.
"You keep the corner," he told the crew that remained, their voices suddenly absent. "Or sell it. Just stop doing both at once."
He turned—and then saw it: a triangle cut into a rusted service hatch, slit eye in the middle. Fresh. The metal's scrape still had a voice.
He crouched, thumbed the mark, and listened to the bite in the steel. New hands. Or nervous ones. A bun seller watched him like watching might make him braver.
"You see who put that there?" Raek asked, not unkind.
The boy shook his head too fast.
"If it hisses," Raek said, tapping the hatch, "walk away."
He straightened. A vibration in his pocket—the kind that meant a message and a choice.
Midnight. No banners. Bring no one.Triangle-eye.
He smiled at last, not nice at all. "Good," he said, and the street believed him.
The Null Garden
Past the west wall, a garden decided not to move. Raked sand. Flat stones. A ribbon of water. Kairen entered like a knife into a sheath—no noise, no complaint.
He stood in the sand and drew steel. The blade neither sang nor sulked; it existed, which was enough. He set his left foot a grain deeper, his right foot a grain lighter, and let the breath fall through him until the garden agreed.
First cut: plain. The sand accepted it without comment.
Second: plainer, slower. The sand corrected his heel by a hair. He made the hair smaller.
He did not count. He let time forget him the way fog forgets fences. When his shoulders would have liked a rest, he gave them none, and nothing changed. The garden approved by refusing applause.
He sheathed the blade and listened to the water not change course. The quiet tasted like iron filings and rain.
At the gate, a courier waited politely without curiosity. "For you," the courier said, tone neutral.
Kairen took the slip and read it.
Midnight. No banners. Bring no one.Triangle-eye.
He turned the paper once between forefinger and thumb, made sure it had edges, and put it away. The sand on his shoes clung like a thought that didn't want to end. He didn't brush it off.
He left the garden without looking back. The city met him with noise. He let the noise pass through as if it were weather.