"What's your name, by the way?"
The question came late, almost awkwardly slipped in after everything else had already settled, after the blood, the noise, the pretending.
I didn't answer right away.
Not because it was some guarded secret, and not because it carried any weight worth protecting.
It was just that names had a way of turning moments into connections, and I wasn't particularly interested in letting this one grow roots.
My gaze drifted past her instead, toward the street that had already erased itself, people moving again, voices returning to normal, the corner sealing shut as if nothing had ever folded inward there.
Then I exhaled.
"…It's Rael," I said, flat, almost careless, as if I were handing over something I wouldn't need again.
She blinked once out of surprsie or the simplicity, then repeated it quietly, under her breath, like she was fitting it into a place it hadn't occupied before.
After that, she straightened, scythe shifting slightly behind her as if remembering her role.
"I'm Lunera," she pursed her lips, "A bearer, from the church of rebel as you might have figured out already."
Of course I didn't bother masking the faint note of disinterest either, and just gave a small sound from my throat, only the names were exchanged afterall.
"Ah, and about your earlier suspicion, I need to clarify that I have just awakened, a few hours ago to be precise.
Rebel-archetype.
I had originally planned to arrive at the Church… that was until you appeared with your shenanigans."
The moment those words slipped out of my mouth, her face went visibly pale, and her mouth shut closed as if some unseen hand had pressed a seal over it.
She looked baffled beyond comprehension, frozen in a way that had nothing to do with the vocabulary I had just used.
This wasn't confusion.
It was recognition colliding headfirst with disbelief.
It was the look of someone who had stumbled upon something she knew existed, something she had been taught about in hushed tones and carefully chosen metaphors, yet had never been allowed to confirm.
And I knew the exact reason for that predicament.
---
Even though free practitioners were heard of, treated more like a cautionary subject, she would never in her life span heard, let alone meeting someone who had awakened initially as an Icon.
That was the part that unsettled her.
As far as I could remember, there were many people besides me, both now and in the future, who would awaken as an Alignment, or something feeble even above that threshold.
Most of them, however, were free practitioners.
Unaffiliated.
Unrecorded.
Which meant they were never truly heard of by the crowd.
Their existence slipped through registries and sermons alike, reduced to rumors that never gained enough weight to matter.
Even within the entirety of the Rebel-Church's domain across the world, there were only finger-counted figures who had awakened as such from the start.
The highest ranks, almost without exception.
The kind of people whose names were preserved deliberately, not accidentally.
Not that I'm going to meet one anytime soon, I thought to myself.
Though some secluded part of my mind disagreed, quietly, insistently, as if it already knew better.
After that, things settled into relative ease.
Lunera did not speak much.
In fact, she barely spoke at all.
She simply invited herself to follow along, moving beside us in a gloomy daze, her silence heavy with unasked questions.
Supposedly, she wanted to confirm whether what I had said held any truth, both the archetype, and the rank.
Not to mention, she insisted on guiding us through the roads and streets herself.
According to my driver, it was a public route, well-known among the locals and outsiders alike.
Which only made her insistence feel a little less casual than she wanted it to appear.
---
…
---
Clank.
A sharp sound rang out and echoed through the hall, multiplying itself as it bounced across black andestine walls and an equally dark ceiling.
The material swallowed light strangely, dulling it rather than reflecting it, though decorative lamps hung at measured intervals, their glow carefully placed, almost ceremonial.
Whatever beauty the space possessed was deliberate, restrained, and clearly never meant for everyone.
The hall was enormous.
Gargantuan, even.
And empty.
Plain, to the point where the absence of ornament felt intentional rather than neglectful.
Nothing drew the eye for long.
Nothing except the metal ragdoll standing at its center.
Or what remained of it.
Its frame was bent and twisted, joints strained past their intended limits, plating half-torn and caved in where repeated strikes had landed.
Fresh dents overlapped older ones, telling the story clearly enough.
Whatever had done this had not taken long.
"This dummy… it falls into the category of swords and daggers, doesn't it?"
The thought drifted through my mind as I wiped sweat from my face, my hand coming away damp.
It ran down my body in steady streams, a quiet reminder of how long I'd been at it, and how little rest I'd allowed myself.
Letting the sword slip from my fingers, I allowed it to fall freely, the sound of metal against stone swallowed quickly by the vastness of the hall.
I moved instead toward the lone chair placed off to the side, almost as an afterthought.
A basket rested there.
From it, I picked up a fruit and turned it slowly in my hand.
It was unlike anything I'd seen back on Earth.
Small enough to fit neatly in my palm, yet faintly warm, its surface glowing with a subdued purple hue that pulsed ever so slightly.
According to the Rebel Church, it carried enchantments meant to enhance spinal reflexes, strengthen respiration, sharpen the nervous system.
I brought it closer to my mouth, inspecting it one last time, before taking a bite.
Speaking of the Rebel Church, my entrance… well, it was received.
Just not in the way one would normally hope for.
I had insisted, quite clearly, on not letting my Alignment-rank surface.
Parasocial reasons, practical reasons, survival reasons.
Any one of them should have been enough.
Lunera, however, was stubborn in a way only church people ever were, the kind that mistook insistence for righteousness.
And so it happened.
Boom.
Disaster, neatly reinforced.