1 week after the Crucible.
Late summer morning smells wrong and warm and oddly domestic in the Fifth Command Post. Outside, Tokyo didn´t look the same anymore. Broken skyscrapers bloom with black vines that coil like veins across glass and steel. Somewhere beyond the thin walls, monsters from the underworld invaded Earth.
Rylen moves like a man who learned patience on the battlefield and impatience at the stove in the morning. His sleeves are rolled up, palms flour-dusted. Forehead sweating. Emiluna fusses at his side like a guardian angel with an apron almost two sizes too big. She was carefull and she was measuring every pinch of salt as if precision could hold the whole world together. Rylen ruffles rice into a pan with one hand and teases with the other. "Less ceremony, more tempo.
People need to eat before evening Emiluna. Hurry up please."
Emiluna glares, hands flour-dusted. Her long silver hair tied back too neat for the ruins outside. "If the porridge is burnt because you want me to hurry, you will be very sorry Rylen." Her voice is soft but steady. She strings the words like a shield.
On the dinner table: a simple, traditional spread of Japanese food. White rice steaming in a bowl, lacquer miso soup with scallion slices bobbing like little green islands, a square of tamagoyaki browned at the edges, a fillet of salted salmon flaked and fragrant, a sheet of nori folded into neat stacks. Lucien couldn´t dream of anything better.
There was also attō, the sticky beans emitting a sulfurous whisper. Jason pushed that choice through with his usual loud vote for "authenticity."
Jason sits at far left of the table. His elbows splayed, bored in that empty way soldiers get when the fight is too big for one breakfast.
He tells his typical morning jokes that land half on the table and half in Lucien's lap. "Why did the monster cross the road Lucien?" he says with a big grin on his face, waiting for the punchline like a child waiting for a coin trick. "Because it heard there was a buffet at Shinjuku." His jokes never made sense but he always laughs the loudest. Lucien also always laughed because he would otherwise feel sorry for Jason
Rylen scoops rice into bowls and slides a piece of salmon with a practiced flick. "Eat it while it's warm guys," he says.
The steam fogs his glasses for a moment but he wipes them with the back of his right hand and looks up like a captain ordering a line.
Emiluna sets a bowl of cornflakes in front of Lucien.Lucien watches them laugh and feels something warm and fragile unwind inside him. The roar of the Crucible is fading. For a moment the Vessel inside his ribs is only a memory.
They share small moments with eachother: Rylen's hand pressing the lid down to steam the rice, Emiluna passing the tamagoyaki with too-careful fingers, Jason theatrically slurping miso and pretending to be a food critic on youtube. It is quiet, ridiculous, and immeasurably human.
They eat like people who count the minutes they own. The rice is perfectly made. The salmon flakes in the mouth.
Laughter bubbles at the dinner table when Jason decides to attempts to make nattō look graceful and fails in spectacular fashion, sticky threads stretching from chopsticks to bowl.
Emiluna claps a hand to her mouth, trying not to laugh and to spit out her food, and Rylen actually snorts while trying to hold his laugh in, which makes him look uncannily like a man who still believes in very small joys.
Then the talk turns as it must. The faces soften and harden in the same breath. "Entire blocks are gone. In other countries entire cities are evaporated," Jason says, voice suddenly flat. "When i went to the shop to buy some food yesterday. I saw children hiding in a subway that was a cave of bones. Families are too scared to come outside." The grin evaporates like steam.
Rylen folds his jaw and adds, "Monsters learned sunlight. That is the worst news we could get. They now hunt whenever they want." He taps the wall-map with a chopstick, pointing to wide swathes of red.
Emiluna's eyes skim the maps they pinned to the wall. She saw ragged locations circled in red, names of neighborhoods scrawled in a rush. "Small nightguard stations are vaporized along the coast of Japan," she says, voice fraying. "Supply lines are shattered to pieces. People were evacuated to the wrong place which caused many causality . We're losing order." She breathes in and forces the rest into a plan. "We can't keep running. We have to make pockets of safe."
Lucien puts down his bowl. He is no longer the god who could press undo and rewrite reality. Those ten minutes are over. He is a man who can weigh words like ammunition.
The Vessel of Vengeance still hums under his ribs, a memory that will not command him. "We go where we can do the most good for the people in Tokyo," he says. His voice is simple and sharp. "We hold neighborhoods together. We train adult civilians to fight with basic martial arts and weapons to protect their loved ones. We take the small victories and turn them into reasons to stay."
They talk about different tactics with the easy efficiency of people who have bled together. Jason sketches a crude decoy on a napkin he just used to clean his mouth with; Rylen lists choke-points that can be fortified with scavenged steel; Emiluna volunteers to run medical kits and parent training.
Laughter slips back through the conversation like it never left. Jason makes a ridiculous face at Lucien, pretending the salmon is a monster, and they all chuckle at once. The humor is small but it stitches them tighter.
The laughter did not last long. Rylen clears his throat and his expression shifts to the color of orders. He pulls a folded letter from his jacket and spreads it on the table.
"We got a letter last night," he says. "From Prime Minister Fukita Fuijwara. You know him well i imagine Lucien. He wants to speak with the whole of Division Five. Inclusive Karu Arakizawa Division 1, Kisuke Naeme Division 4, Lisa Hijemaja Division 3, Kagetsu Division 1, Cho Division 1, and Ayumu Division 2. Says he needs all of us because we were absent for a month."
The table goes quiet enough to hear the kettle cool. "Wait what a month?" Jason says in confusion. He knows the math. One hour inside of the Crucible for them equaled a month on Earth. The weight of it presses down like a lid.
Lucien nods slowly. "We left the our world and i fought Seryx for an hour and a couple minutes and earth burned while we were gone." His voice holds no accusation, only resolve. "If the Prime Minister asks, we go. But we go prepared. I´ve met him before. He is smart." He looks at each of them. Then Rylen says. "We're back in action in a week. We train, we gather supplies, and we meet him on our terms."
Emiluna inhales, steadying. "We'll need lists. Evac points. A clear message to the civilians we can reach out too." Rylen's mouth tightens at the edges, but there is a spark there. He turned his irritation into focus. "I'll draft routes to the neighborhoods that are in need of the most help. Jason, you and Lucien take comms and scouting. Em, you run medical prep and help them prepare for war."
Jason gives a mock salute, then sobers. "Back in a week," he says. "We'll make that week count." He raises his chopsticks in a small, fierce toast. "To small victories."