Takeshi sat alone at a scarred wooden table outside, close to the Rust Room.
The pistol from Marcus was all made of sharp edges and expensive materials, a compact predator resting in his palm. Inside the thing lived faint electric hum, like an annoying mosquito.
He thumbed the magazine release, checked the empty feed, pressed the mag back in until it clicked. For the fifth time.
For some reason known only to him, he held the gun tightly, like he was fearing that it would disappear from his hands.
He breathed through his nose. In. Out. In. The air smelled like citrus, dust and metal. It pulled him back to nights that... Only existed in his memory now.
Three small bowls on a wooden floor. Laughter. His daughter stealing pickled plums and swearing it was the cat. His wife's hands, stained with tea, and a huge smile across her face. A kitchen lantern bathing everything in warm light.
But that very lantern had gone out that same night and never come back.
Footsteps approached, not hiding themselves. Takeshi did not look up.
Raizen stopped a respectful distance away. The boy had grown taller, and broader across the shoulders from the weeks in the Underworks. The Rust Room did that.
It fed you more than your own limits and asked if you wanted seconds. Raizen had said yes more often than he should have. His dirty blond hair grew over time, now tied at the back of his head.
He cleared his throat. Waited. When Takeshi didn't offer an opening, he spoke.
"I thought Marcus's bodyguard kept that pistol locked" Raizen said. No accusation.
"He liked to think he does... But this gun was never meant to be safe" Takeshi answered, still not raising his gaze.
Raizen shifted his weight from one leg to another. "You planning to do something I should know about?"
Takeshi set the rag down, turned the pistol sideways, and checked the safety again.
"Sharp eyes, huh... As usual." Takeshi answered. He glanced past the boy into the hallway, at something only he knew.
The sounds from outside stitched into a steady murmur through the silence.
"People are whispering" Raizen finally opened his mouth after a few moments of silence. "About the Moirai."
"People whisper when they are bored or afraid. Sometimes both."
"You believe they exist."
Takeshi rotated the pistol, pressed the slide, listened to the sound it made.
"No. I know they exist. I saw all of them. With both my eyes, at the time."
He set the pistol down carefully. When he spoke, the words came out calm. The dangerous kind of calm.
"I think that those men with masks came through a door that shouldn't have opened in the first place" he said. "They took lives just to show they could. They came to silence the voices that wanted freedom"
"...So you fought them." He said, more like a question.
"I bled" Takeshi answered. His thumb hovered above the place where the metal of his arm met skin. "I bled a lot. They took my eye and my left arm."
"Eye and left arm..." Raizen echoed.
"A reminder never heals you. It simply teaches you not to forget."
Raizen stepped closer to the edge of the table.
His eyes flicked to the gun and back. "If they are what the whispers say, if they are untouchable, you cannot go alone."
Takeshi's mouth curved, a line that did not reach his eyes. "You should tell the sea not to be wet while you are at it."
"I am serious. If you've been searching for them all this time-"
"So am I." Takeshi finally looked up.
Silence fell over the place again.
But Raizen didn't give up. Instead, he tried another angle. "Granny Louissa says the Moirai are just a story people use to explain what terrifies them. Maybe they are a just mask for a dozen groups! Maybe they are just rumors, they don't exist."
"Maybe" Takeshi agreed. "But maybe I'll put my blade in the smoke and find a hand holding it up."
"You want me to ask you to let me come" Raizen affirmed. "You want me to force it, so you can refuse and make it simple."
Takeshi met his eyes for the first time. The boy saw more than most.
...That was going to be a problem for him later. Or it would save him. It was hard to tell which.
"This is my mission" Takeshi said. "My blood, my fight. The debt is written in my handwriting. I cannot ask you, or anybody else to be a part of it."
Raizen's fingers curled. "Alright then. Have it your way."
Then he leaned closer, and whispered in Takeshi's ear.
"But I won't forgive you if you die"
After some more moments of complete silence, Takeshi got up and started walking towards Louissa's. Raizen's ears did not catch it, but he whispered, to himself.
"I wish... I wish I could say that I don't need your forgiveness…"
They silently arrived at Louissa's small abode. Obi and Hikari were gone to the market to buy whatever Granny sent them after.
"Boy" she said to Raizen, not taking her gaze from Takeshi. "Fetch me the kettle, will you? And the strong leaves."
Raizen hesitated, but she did not repeat herself. Her tone was different than usual.
When Raizen was gone, Louisa pulled the stool closer and sat. The old wood creaked slightly.
"Takeshi... Look. I am not your conscience" she said, trying to find the right approach. "Even if I were, you wouldn't listen anyway."
"True" Takeshi nodded.
"I remember you before the patch" she started. "A fast one. Dangerous, too. Way too proud to be careful. Good at leaving without saying goodbye."
Takeshi did not answer.
"I have also seen boys who took on battles that were not theirs" she went on. "Their legends got older. They never did.
He almost smiled. "You're making letting me decide I am wrong without saying it."
"I am letting you hear your own selfish reasons out loud" Louisa raised her tone slightly. "Sometimes the echo tells you something the voice never did. Learn to listen."
Raizen returned with a battered kettle and three cups that didn't match. The smell of the strong leaves filled the room.
Louisa poured for Takeshi first. He took the cup without drinking.
Raizen remained standing. "If you go" he said "and you do not come back, no one will even know which door to knock on. They will simply say the Moirai took another rumor. That is not a better ending than the one you are trying to write."
Takeshi watched the steam rise. In the reflection, the kitchen lantern seemed to return for a second. His daughter's finger pressed to her lips, making a funny face, daring him to laugh. His wife's hand pushing hair from his eyes.
The memory was vivid. Too vivid, as if it didn't happen a long time ago.
"I am not writing an ending" Takeshi said. "I am simply cutting out a cursed sentence that shouldn't have been there in the first place."
Louisa sipped her tea. "Imprecise cuts bleed longer." was the only thing she said.
Raizen put his cup down, untouched. "If that's what you want, I will not ask anyone to come. But I will not pretend to be careless, like everyone else."
Takeshi stood up. The chair legs screeched against the stone floor. He slid the pistol deeper under his coat. He looked at Raizen and found the boy's stubborn look almost funny.
"I have been many things" he said. "Good at very few of them. Now, I can only be good at this one."
Louisa shook her head as if he had told her the market was out of rice. "What can I even say? My old bones don't chase. They wait and listen. If you come back, I will still be here to hear the parts you want to say."
"And if I do not come back?" Takeshi wanted to say, but the thought was stuck in his throat. He turned toward the corridor.
Raizen followed him to the doorway.
He took two steps into the corridor. Takeshi could remember the map of the tunnels under his feet, the way a blind man feels the shape of a room simply from memory. The tunnels and streets he spent months, years searching.
He paused for a moment, as if he were hesitant to step forward.
It was a small thing, but Raizen saw it. Louisa did too, though she pretended not to.
Takeshi lifted his collar and walked outside, into the silence. Raizen stood in the doorway until the sound of footsteps vanished.
Takeshi kept walking.
At the end of the street, he paused. For the first time that night, he glanced back.
His cloak hid his mouth, but his eyes betrayed him - carrying a weight heavier than steel, older than any scar.
This was his fight.
And he was going to finally get his revenge.
The man who stepped into Neoshima's dark wasn't Takeshi anymore.
It was everything the Moirai failed to kill.