Erik stared at Orimo for a long second.
Erik: "Well then—do as you please."
Orimo: "Yeah. I'll be going now."
Ryuki: "Let's go."
They left the hideout. Rain hammered the street, as if the sky itself could not bear to watch.
Outside, Orimo's foot nearly slipped on wet cobblestone. He froze — a shape on the pavement, huddled and small. A black man crawled in the gutter, clothes torn, face streaked with blood and mud.
Man (weakly): "Help me… I beg you."
Orimo dropped to his knees. He tore a strip from his shirt and pressed it to the wound. The man's breath came shallow and ragged.
Orimo: "You've been shot."
Man (hoarse laugh): "Yeah… those tyrants. I can never forgive them."
Orimo: "Are you alone?"
Man: "Yes…and no. My family—my daughter Emily. They killed my children. My wife… they killed them all. I will kill every single one of them."
Orimo's fingers tightened on the cloth. The man's eyes flashed with something like a broken prayer.
Orimo: "That's unforgivable."
Man: "Are you an outsider?"
Orimo: "Yeah."
Man: "Then I'll tell you what's happening here."
{The History}
We—the Black people—were rounded up and enslaved by those with white banners.
(Visual: Black men bent under the sun, carrying heavy logs on their shoulders. Sweat cuts tracks down their faces. Their feet are cracked. The shuffle of tired feet and the creak of ropes fill the air.)
They were forced to work for decades. I don't know why they called it justice.
(Visual: A man with a gilded boot steps on a prone black man's head — the heel driven down like punishment. Laughter from the overseers floats above the camp.)
They said we were inferior—disgusting rats who deserved death. We obeyed because survival left no choice.
(Visual: A bullet punching a hole through a man's skull; a lifeless body dropped without ceremony. The thud echoed like a gavel.)
If we refused, they killed us then and there.
Some ran. Some resisted. They were burned and hunted down. Even when we fought back, we were murdered.
Orimo listened in silence, rain soaking both of them. The wounded man's words hung in the air, bitter as iron.
Orimo looked up into the man's eyes—the same eyes that had watched his family die, the same eyes that now asked for nothing but understanding.
He swallowed.