Ka'thar breathed beneath their feet. Every step sent vibrations along cracked streets and jagged walls, like the heartbeat of something ancient trying to remember its own name. Shards embedded in stone pulsed, veins of light flowing like trapped blood. Dust and a faint metallic tang clung to the air.
Law led the Five in silence, scarf fluttering. His golden eyes swept rooftops, corners, shattered windows. The city's pulse thrummed beneath him, watching, testing, learning.
Then his own heartbeat skipped, caught the rhythm, and for three impossible seconds he couldn't tell whose heart was whose.
Zero melted into shadow, knives low, leaving dim trails of light.
"It's awake again," he muttered.
Nysera's ears flicked, tail low, muscles coiled.
"It's listening."
Liora brushed silver threads across a shard-lined wall.
"The lattice… it's learning our rhythm."
Laura's pendant pulsed once, perfectly in time with the stone.
"Not just learning," she whispered. "It's waiting."
The alley narrowed. Debris scattered the cobblestones. A low vibration rolled through the shards, and the voice came, soft, intimate, threaded through the city itself:
"Viktor said you'd walk this street one day, little echo.
He lied about everything else… but not about you."
Law froze. The others snapped into position.
Nysera growled.
Liora's threads trembled.
Laura's eyes narrowed, already counting heartbeats that hadn't happened yet.
The hum deepened. Shards flared crimson and green. Three corrupted Beastkin lurched from the rubble, veins glowing, moving in perfect sync with the city's pulse.
Zero vanished.
Nysera struck low.
Liora wove a net of silver light.
Laura split, one body analyzing, the other intercepting a blade mid-swing.
The city interfered.
Shards flared brighter, reflections stuttered half a heartbeat late, and the Beastkin faltered, disoriented by their own mirrored movements. Two collapsed, clutching their heads. The third staggered away on shattered legs, dragging a broken shard-sword that scraped the stones in dying rhythm, each scrape a quiet thank-you and a promise of return.
Law lowered his staff.
"Let them go," he said. "Restraint is part of the lesson."
Silence fell. The shards dimmed. The city exhaled.
Then the cobblestones trembled once more, pushing the words up through Law's boots and into his bones:
"Mercy is a shard's softest edge.
Remember, little echo… even mercy cuts, when the time comes."
Laura stared at the empty alley, something cold and calculating settling behind her eyes.
"…It wasn't a fight," she whispered. "It was a move on a board I haven't seen yet."
Ka'thar slept again.
But only for now.