Elara didn't move at first. The scream had the cadence of madness, but the plaza was too quiet for theatrics.
"I told you! I told all of you—they're all dead!! They're zombies!"
The plaza was walled off by curved structures on all 4 sides, ramps and stairs led on a slight decline on each side. It required tunneling to walk out of the area, beautiful as it was. A low fountain burbled near the center, its basin carved from translucent stone. The water moved in tight spirals. Decorative. Useless.
Elara paused just before stepping into view. Her body tensed by instinct, one foot forward, one hand drifting toward her sleeve. The voice continued.
"The people you want to be—the job you all want so bad!! You have to die for it. One of us can be next, they can take one of us next!"
She crept closer to the corner, careful not to draw eyes. A small crowd had gathered under a vendor tarp stretched between buildings. Most of them weren't listening—just lingering out of boredom or some morbid curiosity.
The first pang hit her in the chest—Something like vertigo. She didn't belong here. Every surface reminded her. Every clean corner. Every scentless breeze. The Inner Circle wasn't just richer. It was untouchable.
The man at the center looked like he'd been standing there for hours. Rail-thin, mid-thirties, wearing a long overcoat that had been patched so many times it looked quilted. A black crescent had been stitched onto his left cheek—fabric, not tattoo. Nothing about the man was standard. A mark of his own making.
His hands moved constantly, flailing, pointing, pacing. Each word spat like it hurt him.
"They took my cousin's cousin, okay? Last week. Gone. Just gone. Told he got a scholarship. A scholarship! He couldn't read past a receipt!"
That drew a laugh from someone in the back.
The man spun immediately. "You laugh now—yeah, go ahead! But when your name shows up next, don't come crying to me, you baboons!"
He turned again, saw Elara—and froze.
"You."
She didn't flinch. But she stopped.
"You're new. I can tell."
He pointed straight at her. Not like he was accusing her of something. Like he'd been waiting.
"And you're not afraid of me," he added, quieter this time. "That's a terrible mistake, honestly."
Elara's first instinct was to walk away. But her legs didn't move.
He took a step forward.
"You've got the stink of the outer ring. And desperation. My second favorite kind of visitor."
The crowd shifted, stepping back in lazy, awkward choreography. No one defended her. No one interfered.
Elara tilted her head, studying him. She hid the fear and shock behind a mask of confusion. Then she took a slow step back. She made her expression look bored. Pretended to pity him. And finally, she turned and walked away.
But he followed.
"Hey—hey, don't be like that!" he called. "I'm not letting you get away from me that easy."
His voice carried, it didn't chase her, but it followed. His words were lingering at her back as she moved on. The streets narrowed around her, stone sloping gently beneath her steps. Foot traffic thinned. Her boots tapped softly against the tile as she slipped into a near-empty tavern.
The man followed her in without pause. And to Elara's surprise, no one was overly concerned.
Is this normal? No one cares that a crazy man is chasing a helpless girl? I guess this isnttoo different then the outer sectors either then.
The tavern was dim and narrow. Tables pushed against walls, one cracked window pulsing faint blue from an ad outside. The bartender barely looked up. One customer nursed something dark in the corner.
Elara didn't move far from the door. Let it swing shut behind her. Let the silence settle.
The man who'd been screaming walked in like he'd forgotten anyone else existed. Just pointed to a table near the back, metal legs uneven against the floor.
"Sit."
Elara didn't. Just looked at him.
He raised an eyebrow. "It's not dangerous."
"Didn't assume it was."
"Then why're you standing like I'm about to lunge?"
"I don't like being followed."
He shrugged. "You didn't tell me to stop."
Elara didn't answer. Didn't approach. Her fingers stayed loose, but ready.
The crazed man sat down anyway. Made a show of settling in, then leaned forward with his arms across the table like he was stretching.
"Sit," he said. "Your making a scene."
Elara stayed where she was.
"I'm not looking for help," she said flatly.
"Oh, well that's boring." He leaned back, like he had all the time in the world. "You sure? You've got that twitchy look. Like someone carrying something sharp and dangerous in their back pocket, I smell a lie."
"You don't even know my name."
"Names are clumsy. You can call me Truth."
She narrowed her eyes.
"That's not your real name."
"No," he agreed. "My real name's disgusting. And 'Truth' suits me better. I say things people don't like."
He leaned forward, one elbow on the table, his voice dropping. Truth had an odd way of speaking—his words weren't formal, but they were well enunciated, clear. He spoke in a strange rhythm, almost like triplets, and above all, he spoke fast. Elara had to work to keep up.
"I knew you'd show up. Been seeing signs since this morning. Knew from the moment the birds flew west. Happens every time something dangerous enters the Circle."
Elara's hand twitched near her coat again. She didn't sit. But she didn't leave either.
Still no response. Her weight shifted enough to keep her aligned with the doorway.
"Alright. You don't talk. Fine." He raised both hands, exaggerated. "Just thought you might want information."
Her stare held.
He added, "Not advice. I don't give advice. I just… notice things."
"Like what?"
"Well, your dress is nice—real nice—but it's almost three years out, which means clearance rack. And that badge you used?" Truth pointed to the pocket in Elara's overcoat, "Only issued for two-day work permits. So unless our guards suddenly got real interested in streetwear, well, slumwear—"
"I'm not here to talk about the dress." Elara tucked the badge that'd been hanging slightly out of her pocket.
How did I miss that? Annoying as he is, it's good I saw him this soon.
"Fair."
Silence returned. Truth tapped a finger to the table, slow and uneven.
Elara finally moved. Sat down opposite him, but kept her arms tight across her chest.
"I'm not paying you."
"Didn't ask you to."
"Then what do you want?"
Truth considered the question a little too long. "I don't know yet. Maybe nothing. Depends what you do next."
"I don't like riddles."
"I'm not good at giving straight answers to strangers."
That, finally, pulled a small twitch at her mouth. Not a smile. Closer to irritation.
He tilted his head, studying her.
"But you—YOU need something."
"I need to find a building," she said. "Where Celaris is based. Their headquarters."
That cut the rhythm entirely.
Truth blinked. Twice, grinning uncontrollably.
"You sure about that?"
"Do I look unsure?"
"No," he said. "You look like someone who just said something stupid out loud."
Elara's face tightened visibly.
Truth shook his head. "Alright. Capital Hall. I'll show you. But for me, that's more a wall than a building."
"What?"
"It means I won't be getting past the glass."
He pushed himself up abruptly, coat scraping wood, already in motion. Laughing now, out loud.
"But if that's all you want, you better be sure," he added. "Cause once you see it—whatever you thought about this place? You won't be able to unthink it."
Elara rolled her eyes.
Truth grinned wider, like that was the reaction he wanted.
"Circling back, I don't work for free," he said.
"So what do you want?"
He raised his eyebrows, mock offended. "What I want? Nothing so transactional."
He turned slightly, already walking.
"Let's just say—I don't care what Celaris does to the rest of you. Really, I just like watching the cracks form. Even that show outside.. it was just a show, to scare a few apes."
He looked over his shoulder.
"But you? You've seen enough that I doubt I could just scare you. So with whatever you intend to do, entertain me. That's the price."
Elara didn't answer right away. Her eyes narrowed, studying him—not the offer, but the man behind it. He was too comfortable. Too deliberate in his weirdness. She didn't much like people who worked that hard to be noticed.
Still, he hadn't lied.
"Right," she muttered, sarcastically. "entertain you."
Truth gave a pleased little hum and slipped through the tavern door like it had all been prearranged.
Outside, the city hadn't dulled. If anything, it shimmered louder—like stepping into a display window. The lights felt warmer. The edges softer.
The air struck her again. Lighter. Cleaner. A faint citrus tang that felt unnatural on her tongue. Every breath carried that same sterile sweetness, the kind that didn't quite fill her lungs.
They crossed a plaza roughly the size of the Foundation's entire training yard. The scale hit her slowly—first in the sweep of space, then in the waste of it. She appreciated the polished stone and lamp halos glowing gold.
Lanterns hung from arched fixtures, and their light hit the tiles at exact angles. She noticed there was no flicker and no gaps. Everything bounced in clean, deliberate ribbons. Even the shadows looked composed.
Broad steps rose to housing blocks that leaned out over the street, suspended on braces so thin they looked temporary—like set pieces waiting to collapse after the curtain fell. But they didn't. Of course they didn't.
Glass walls gave glimpses into lives that didn't know fear. Inside, rooms yawned wide with open ceilings and color-coded decor. One apartment displayed a shelf of polished helmets. Another, an indoor koi stream.
Behind one window, a woman laughed. Head tilted back, glass in hand, heels kicked up onto the couch like she owned gravity.
Elara kept walking, but her eyes drifted.
Garden boxes floated overhead, suspended by cables that swayed gently in a breeze she couldn't feel. Thin waterfalls trickled from tower corners, vanishing into engraved drains cut like veins into the walkways.
Even the gutters were decorative.
She'd meant to hate it. Told herself she would. But her disgust kept folding into something harder to admit. Not awe. Not envy. Something colder. But part of her did.
Didn't even know homes could do that.
Somewhere along the last few blocks, she realized Truth hadn't stopped talking. Not once. His voice had become part of the background—drifting in and out with the same ease as the wind. She tuned back just in time to catch him glancing over his shoulder.
"Good view, huh?"
She said nothing.
He turned onto a footbridge without waiting. The surface dipped slightly at the center, just enough to feel it in the knees. Below, a wide river shimmered like oil under starlight, silent and deep.
That connects to the one from Sector 3, she thought. Would explain the dam. Looks like the right direction.
Truth glanced sideways. "You're doing that thing. Cataloguing."
"Do you ever shut up."
He grinned, then dropped it. "Fair."
The bridge emptied onto a narrower road. This one was darker—paved in matte tile, soundless underfoot. The walls curled inward slightly, forming an arch overhead that narrowed the sky. Even here, the air didn't change. It was like walking through a preserved breath.
At the midpoint of the street, a fountain stood centered in its own recessed platform—five marble discs, each thinner than the last, spinning silently inside one another. At their core, a single orb of water floated, perfectly balanced, never spilling.
Elara slowed watching it until Truth nudged her shoulder.
***
Everything was burning.
Or—no.
It had been.
The heat clung to him like it didn't know the fight was over. In his chest, behind his eyes, between the joints of his fingers—residue. The world wasn't on fire, but his body still believed it was.
He didn't move at first.
Something about the silence felt wrong. Not calm—but emptied. Like the sound had been scraped out.
Where…
He opened his eyes. Light flickered above—white, clinical. It wasn't the flame he initially took it for. But the illusion held. His skin remembered where he'd just been.
He remembered fire everywhere.
Light took over that room.
And then, the following shadows stretched past their edges, climbing walls that shouldn't hold them. The ground had buckled with his understanding of physics.
He remembered that. The way the room went black, hollow. He remembered feeling like he was in another dimension.
Did I die?
He blinked again. Slower.
Ceiling tiles. Steel braces.
Buzzing light.
It smelled—sanitized, sour. Like rubbing alcohol and static. Not smoke.
No.
Not dead.
But wrong. Something in him wasn't settled. Like he'd been gutted and stuffed back together with something extra. He could feel it, faint and low—like a second heartbeat tucked inside the first. And even more so, there were… thoughts, behind his, beyond his own consciousness.
He tried to sit up. Pain exploded across his ribs. Muscle caught the signal late. He winced, stopped. But the pain wasn't the worst part, it seemed like the past diluted his experience of the present.
A figure moved in the periphery.
Not a threat. But still—he watched.
The figure stepped into light. Their coat was familiar, frayed at the hem.
"You're awake," the voice said.
His mouth was dry. "Who are you?"
A pause.
Then the voice softened. "Damn. That bad?"
No name yet. No confirmation. His mind catalogued everything instead: The tiles beneath him. The lighting. The stillness of the air.
This wasn't the Foundation.
His head turned. Slowly. "Who—"
"Fūre," the figure said, quietly. "It's me."
There it was.
More memory stirred. The Fox. Yeah, he almost did die. Fighting the fox, at the foundation..
Kamo's thoughts continued to connect, feverishly. Back to the fire.
The moment everything went dark. He wasn't unconscious. Not yet. Kamo remembered he felt a sharp pain that woke him.
Then it put him right back under, and the world folded inward and forgot what rules it was following.
Kamo didn't answer. Just looked past him, to the wall behind. It was clean. No scorching. No void absorbing it.
That… isn't right.
"You're in the lab," Fūre said, like that explained something. "You've been out for a while."
Kamo let out a low breath. It felt like it scraped something loose on the way out. "... I won?"
Fūre didn't reply.
Not immediately.
"Technically," he said at last. "But that's not why you're here."
Kamo's eyes sharpened. "Explain."
Fūre's lips pressed into a line. "Nagitsu thought you were dying. He used the fail-safe."
Kamo froze.
"The one I warned you about," Fūre continued. "Last resort. Only if you had no other options. But Nagitsu didn't know you were still stable."
"...So what happened?"
Fūre looked down. "If I had to guess—And this is just what was reported—Your Tenshi acted. Just for a moment. It—"
He stopped. Reconsidered.
"It made a decision for you."
Kamo's body tensed. That cold, weightless pressure behind his chest—the second rhythm. The quiet pulse.
"This presence, in my head." he said slowly, "Do you know what it is?"
Fūre nodded once. "I'm pretty sure you didn't leave the battlefield alone."
Kamo turned. Stared down at the floor.
The shadow at his side felt different. Like it'd been inhabiting something. Someone.
Kamo's eyes lingered on the shadow again. The more he stared, the more wrong it looked. It wasn't his, not exclusively.
"I don't get it," he said. "You're telling me he's inside me?"
Fūre didn't answer immediately. His hand braced the edge of a steel counter, gaze distant.
"I—I've seen something like it before."
Kamo's eyes narrowed. "From who?"
"The man I used to work under," Fūre said. "Osei. He was the only kynenn alive who used necromancy."
Silence.
"He could trap a soul inside a corpse. Sometimes even while it was still fresh. I watched it happen a small few times. But it was deliberate. Ritualized. Controlled."
"You're saying I did that?" Kamo asked. "I don't even know how."
"You didn't, probably can't." Fūre's tone was flat. "But your Tenshi could've."
That made Kamo sit back slightly. Not in disbelief. Just processing.
"I gave Nagitsu a failsafe," Fūre continued. "A drug. It was supposed to trigger Heaven's Projection. Just in case."
Kamo looked up sharply. "Right"
"If you were dying. And Nagitsu thought you were. So he injected you."
Kamo was quiet for a long beat.
"And?"
"And I assume it worked," Fūre said. "For less than a minute. Your Tenshi took control. And it completed the only goal you were still holding onto."
"Recruit the boy," Kamo said. Voice low.
Fūre nodded. "But he was already dead. So the Tenshi did what made the most sense, based on what it had access to."
The air in the lab suddenly felt heavier. Or maybe that was just Kamo noticing how his breath didn't feel like it was fully his.
"You're saying the Tenshi bound his soul. Into my shadow."
"I'm saying that's the only explanation that fits what I know and what I've seen. You're the only other person I've ever met with a power even close to his, if you asked me I'd call it 'darkness'. And if his Tenshi is the same as yours, and he has the ability.."
"Talk to me plain, Fūre. Ain't tryin' to press you." Kamo asked.
Fūre met his eyes.
"Call it a glitch," he said. "A freak outcome no one designed. You were the medium. The drug gave the spark and I guess the tenshi made the call."
"You said the drug worked," he muttered. "So why it feel like I almost ain't come back?"
Fūre didn't answer immediately. He reached over to the console, pulled open a drawer, and took out a vial—empty, black glass. He set it down beside the cot with a dull clink.
"That's what's left of it," he said. "The projection compound. Last-resort only. You weren't supposed to survive it and the fight."
Kamo glanced at the vial, then back to Fūre. "What is it?"
"A tailored surge." Fūre's voice was clinical now. "It forces a direct override of your nerves and hormones—pulls the Tenshi through you for less than a minute, with full branch access."
"And then what?"
"Then the body shuts down. Everything. Myaku, heartbeat, parasympathetic nerve response. I had to restart you more times than I could count, you couldn't properly digest the drug once it's run its course.
Kamo's breath hitched—barely—but it was there.
"You were alive," Fūre said. "Technically. But your myaku flatlined. And it's not like I could use a second dose."
He picked up the vial, turned it once in his fingers, then tossed it into the bin.
"Don't ask me for it again," he said. "If Nagitsu had waited thirty more seconds, you might've walked out of there on your own."
Kamo's throat went dry.
"So I wasn't dying," he said.
"You were close," Fūre replied. "But the drug made it worse. It saved your internal mission. Not you."
The silence that followed was heavier than before. Kamo leaned back into the cot. The ache in his chest had depth now.
"I don't think that thing is safe for use," he said.
Fūre didn't argue.
"It was an experiment, I'm right with you on that"