There is a silence before awakening — a breath held between night and day.
The world seemed to exhale as dawn broke across the city, its light filtering through cracks of forgotten stone and whispering against the tired streets.
Lacolone's eyes opened slowly.
At last… the weight begins to lift, he thought. The heaviness that once crushed his chest now drifted like smoke, faint but not gone.
From the kitchen, the sound of sizzling broke the morning stillness.
The Trainer stood by the stove, his back straight, posture unbent by age. The scent of charred herbs and oil filled the small space.
"Strength lives not just in muscle, but in heritage," the old man said without turning. "The fire of Rome passed down through blood and bone."
Lacolone watched the flame curl around the pan — alive, restless, familiar. He stepped outside, letting the dawn's chill touch his face.
The past whispers, the voice of memory murmured, urging him forward into the unknown.
---
He jogged through empty streets. Each step echoed like a heartbeat reborn — fragile, yet fierce. Breath misted before him, rhythmic and sure, until the fog ahead stirred.
A silhouette waited there.
"Maya?" he called softly, hope tightening his throat.
But the woman who turned toward him was not the friend he once knew. Her gaze was sharp, cold — horns faintly glowing beneath her hair.
He froze. Is this a ghost… or a shadow of myself?
"I bear no name but my own," she said. Her voice cut through the morning air like steel drawn from its sheath.
And the world around them seemed to shatter, truth splintering like glass.
Truth is a mirror cracked — fragments sharp enough to cut.
---
"Your horns… why now?" Lacolone asked.
"Questions betray your ignorance," Maya replied. Her words came like thunder's prelude.
Then she moved — too fast to follow. A flash, a whisper of steel — Shing!
He barely dodged. The wind of her strike grazed his face.
The past lashes out, he thought.
"You are a pawn," she hissed, her voice like fire licking through ice. "A shadow of those in control."
Blades locked. Sparks leapt between them.
In this dance of blades, the air itself seemed to whisper, freedom and fate entwine.
"Then teach me," Lacolone growled, feet digging into the earth, "to break my chains."
---
"Why violence without understanding?" he demanded, panting.
Maya's eyes narrowed, twin embers beneath shadow. "Because answers are born in the crucible of conflict."
Her horns pulsed — radiant, defiant. "Only those with soul's clarity can see beyond the veil. This is your trial."
The world slowed.
Time itself hesitated.
Tick… tock…
---
Cards spun from her hands — silver-edged, glowing. Whoosh! Shing!
Each one sliced through the air with surgical precision.
Reality warped — cars shuddered, then lunged forward like beasts commanded by invisible strings. Rumble… Crash!
"Come forth," Lacolone roared, summoning his power, "and face me!"
The ground fractured beneath him. His aura ignited crimson.
He bends time and space, the world whispered, his will a tempest shaping the storm.
---
Breathing heavy, Lacolone lowered his blades. "Why this rebellion? Speak plainly."
Maya's eyes softened. "Race Unity," she said, voice steady. "Born from ashes of a broken world."
Her gaze burned. "We fight the deep-rooted shadows — not for power, but for souls."
Lacolone stood in silence, the echoes of her words reverberating through his chest.
Every fight… an echo of the heart's cry for freedom.
A fragile flame rekindled amid encroaching darkness.
---
Americano's voice rose from memory:
"Beware the puppeteers behind the curtain — they twist fate like clay."
Maya extended her hand. "Join us… or be consumed."
Lacolone stared at it — at her — and at the horizon that no longer felt his own.
This path chooses me as much as I choose it, he realized.
Vows forged in the crucible of choice.
---
He smirked faintly. "And what of food and coin? Do revolutionaries starve?"
Maya's sly smile curved like moonlight. "A warrior's hunger feeds more than the belly."
Their hands met — firm, unwavering.
"Then may the strongest will prevail."
The first step in a long dance begins.
A faint glow pulsed from his clenched fist, aura swirling — alive, crimson and gold.
---
The storm gathered.
Valgor and Jessica Mary emerged from the shadows, their power shaking the earth. The clash was swift — blades, smoke, thunder.
Each strike wrote history.
Each breath birthed legend.
Through chaos, Lacolone's spirit burned brighter — a defiant blaze refusing extinction.
In the embers of war, his spirit burns most fiercely.
---
Elsewhere, unseen figures watched.
The Scarlet King's eyes gleamed from the dark — hungry, patient.
"Let the feast begin," his whisper curled through the void.
And as Lacolone rested in uneasy peace, unaware of what stirred beyond the veil, the world itself seemed to tremble.
The feast has begun… but the darkest hunger is yet to come.