Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Himeko

The Astral Express entered the supply area of ​​the Herta Space Station with its usual ease, fitting itself against the tracks of the railway platform in a similar way to simple plastic blocks in a licensed toy.

After the initial slight jolt of the fitting, everyone was allowed to stand up and move freely, but strangely nothing had moved around me. My oldest companion, Welt Yang , remained seated in the spot he had chosen, resting both arms on the top of his cane — or, rather, his dangerous weapon.

“Still tense?” I ask, giving him a relaxed smile to try to relieve a little of his self-imposed burden.

After the incident involving the Antimatter Legion , Welt remains on constant alert whenever we visit the Space Station as a duo or a full group. Even though months had passed since the attack, and Stelle had helped Herta and Screwllum contain all possible connection sources left by the Stellaron Hunters' hacker, my dear friend couldn't help but think of his more simple concerns.

“Sorry, Himeko,” he sighed, and then rose from his seat, wrapped in a thick air of hesitation. “The Space Station still gives me the creeps. This is where everything started to change drastically for all of us.”

“Our adventures became really dangerous after this, didn't they? Who would have thought that everything we experienced on the Space Station would be just the tip of a giant iceberg?”

We met a new Nameless, faced one of Nanook's terrifying Doomsday Beast , and endured a general panic. Many researchers were seriously injured, and thanks to the courage — and recklessness — of Stelle and the Stellaron inside her, March 7th did not become a statistic of losses.

“But don’t fear the distant past,” I say, keeping the same unwavering smile as a way to motivate him. “Stelle must have had much more trauma from this place than all of us combined. This is where she woke up without any memories, this is where her body was joined to the cancer of all worlds , in addition to a series of other crazy adventures involving other members of the Genius Society . But what does she do about all this?”

“She keeps coming to help the researchers with their complex things and to test each new update of Herta’s Simulated Universe,” Welt laughs embarrassedly, while adjusting his glasses on his face. “Thank you, Himeko. I think it’s time to follow the example of our youngest Nameless and carry a little more courage.”

Sharing the same smile, we walk together out of the Express, entering the air-conditioned environment of the Space Station.

Since the Antimatter Legion invaded, new security measures have been implemented, including the fortification of some parts of this enormous ship. Outside, floating back and forth in the silent space, heavy drones could be seen using complex tools to attach plates of a more resistant material to the Station’s fragile shell.

“Mr. Yang, Miss Himeko,” Herta’s calm, flat voice came from the distance, along with the distinctive jingle of her puppets’ joints. “Welcome back to the Herta Space Station.”

“What a surprise, Madame Herta…” Welt’s shoulders and posture straightened, becoming a more professional facet of himself. A trait so common to his personality that my friend didn’t even notice the change. “We were expecting Miss Asta to come and greet us, as usual.”

“Asta is busy taking care of the final containment measures for our shipment , so I sent one of my puppets to greet you. This is just a simple model for quick problem-solving and performing mundane tasks. Please, I ask that you two do not discuss anything important until we meet with the puppet I have assigned to the details of the current mission.”

Shipment . An overly simple word to describe the complex items we will be protecting for the next few days.

“How is the reconstruction of the Space Station going, Madame Herta?” I ask casually as our newly formed trio walks through the walkways and elevators of the place.

“Well,” the puppet starts to answer, never looking at anything other than the path it was remotely assigned to follow. “As you can see, the first thing we organized was the reconfiguration of the researchers, who can now return to work normally on their research. We are currently nearly halfway through the reconstruction phase of the environments that were destroyed during the invasion, and the fortification of our physical defenses and security protocols.”

As we descend one of the many elevators on our route, a well-coordinated group of robust drones passes in front of the transparent walls of the cabin — each equipped with high-frequency blades and very tough-looking claws.

“Also, your drones are being of great help, Miss Himeko,” Herta adds at the end of her reply. A thank you from member number eighty-three of the Genius Society is probably the rarest curio in her vast collection.

“Stelle also told us about the recent presence of other Genius Society members on the Space Station, they must be offering quite a helping hand in these difficult times,” Welt comments, his back firmly against the wall as we descend vertically almost two dozen floors at a moderate pace.

“Screwllum has really been a great testing partner for the Simulated Universe, and has helped me a lot with the little pranks left by the Stellaron Hunters punklordian,” the puppet begins her comment with the same emotionless voice as always, but after a brief pause, her tone becomes more sullen, and her arms are crossed in front of her chest. The perfect mimic of the feelings of her controller who lay somewhere remote in the universe. “As for Dr. Ratio and Ruan Mei, I can describe the consequences of their visits in many ways, but certainly none of them have delivered much help to my Station.”

My old friend and I exchanged quick glances, silently agreeing not to go into this topic any further. We don’t want a sullen Madame Herta skipping important details of a sensitive mission.

The rest of the walk lasted only a trio of minutes, until a second exact copy of the young Herta appeared around one of the curves in the corridor ahead. One puppet bowed to the other, performing a quick and imperceptible exchange of data — behavioral analyses, information about what we had discussed along the way, everything. A simple gesture shared information at an almost omniscient level of technological understanding.

“Please, accompany me to the containment room,” said the new puppet, returning to guide the way in the same cold and monotonous way as the previous Herta, leaving the copy that had brought us here with new directions.

One, two, three metal doors measuring almost four meters with state-of-the-art biometric locks were left behind as we walked.

If I remember correctly, the Stellaron previously acquired by Herta was locked in a special room along with her standard collection of curios, which makes the contents locked behind these doors something potentially dangerous on a cosmic level.

From the look on Welt's face, and the way his hand tightened around the top of his cane, he had probably thought the same thing as me, but neither of us had the courage to question Herta about what she kept stored on these floors.

“Miss Himeko, Mister Yang.”

A second voice came from the end of the hallway, next to the last door. It was Arlan, accompanied by a small, always cheerful canine friend, Peppy.

“Before you enter, I ask that you leave any and all materials that could influence the stability of the experiments contained in this room outside. I will be looking after your belongings until you finish your business inside the containment room.”

My eyes slid away from the dark-skinned boy, shifting focus to Welt's cane.

A weapon that I believe is as old as our universe, capable of opening miniature black holes and fragmenting the fabric of reality. He never told me many details about it, and he doesn't seem comfortable sharing them so soon.

A few weeks ago, we saw what Acheron's sharp blade was capable of, when it easily cut through the memoria tissue of the Penacony Dreamscape twice. Yet, even with such combined power and skill, the Self-Annihilator was still wary of a single artifact within the planet of festivities, something that the Astral Express had in the capable hands of Welt Yang.

"Right..." Welt sighs, worried, but his arm stretches the crimson cane towards Arlan without any sign of hesitation.

The boy held the artifact in his gloved hands with great care, keeping an exaggeratedly safe distance from Peppy to avoid any misfortune to the puppy.

Before we entered, I materialized and handed my briefcase to the boy — my standard combat weapon was nowhere near as dangerous as Welt's, but the high temperature cultivated inside it could generate small anomalies in any sensitive cryogenic containment method.

Herta's puppet stopped in front of the biometric scanner, which turned out to be a rather unusual device. The space below the digital screen opened, creating a narrow gap, into which the puppet inserted its arm almost completely. After a few seconds of metallic noises and uncomfortable abrupt twists, the door opened after confirming its identity.

“New security system?” Welt asked Arlan, his eyes still fixed on the scanner, as were mine.

“No, this is the only system that has remained unchanged. Madame Herta told us that it was not necessary to change it, since she is the only one who can unlock it in our entire galaxy,” Arlan replied in a common tone, his features being that of an employee who has already grown accustomed to his boss's madness.

While Arlan remained vigilant outside, we entered the containment room right behind Herta.

The place was spacious and gray, the size of four or five Express cabins joined together, with dim lighting for such a large place. Every wall was reinforced to the extreme with experimental materials whose names Welt and I didn't know. In the center, a dozen panels and computers were mounted just in front of an even larger number of thick, high-strength glass tubes, each one holding a rock or some kind of fancy-looking mineral securely.

The artifacts were not labeled with plaques or any other signage, and the computers had so much information running on their screens that it was almost impossible to understand anything just by looking out of the corner of your eye.

Behind one of the screens, Asta pressed a rapid succession of buttons, glancing at the tubes every now and then as she selected options and wrote short reports at a frightening pace.

“How is the health of our treasures, Asta?” Herta asked, walking to her employee’s side and looking at the screen the girl was working on.

“They’re all in order, I’m just conducting a second review to make sure nothing is out of order,” she replied, never losing focus on her work.

“What are all these rocks, Madame Herta?” I asked, not hiding my curiosity. Beside me, Welt was analyzing the formation of each one with great care.

“Rocks, geodes, minerals, fossils, the list is huge,” she replied, looking at her own collection, which contained a little over a hundred specimens. “In short, most of them are here because they are rare materials, generated under such specific conditions that they become almost impossible to replicate outside of an entirely simulated digital environment. The others are pieces that can no longer be found, either due to simple scarcity or the extinction of the planet where they could be extracted…”

While Herta explained more details about her precious treasures, Welt approached one of the cylinders that seemed to have caught his attention, getting close enough for his image to be reflected in the material. Inside the tube he was analyzing, there was a crystalline polygon with small cubes of a strong pink tone contained inside.

Small rays glided from one cube to the other, making it clear the high energy value that that small fragment held within itself. But, before I could ask Welt anything he seemed to know about the object, Asta informed us of her conclusion.

“All items are stable and safe for movement, Madame Herta. We can safely remove the fossils,” Asta informed, wiping the two drops of sweat that appeared on her forehead with the back of her dominant hand. The speed at which she worked was frightening, almost like a puppet of her own boss.

“Okay, end the Leviathans’ cryogenics and begin the release process, I’ll be preparing the confinement case.”

Herta set to work on one of the vacant computers, adopting a calmer rhythm in her typing, showing more humanity than her own human employee.

The cylinders were moved away, sliding in a perfect and stable movement with the help of complex mechanisms that could be described as an exaggerated conveyor belt with auxiliary hooks that had probably cost a few million credits to be manufactured and moved to the Station.

When everything that was not needed was positioned at the back of the room, only a pair of larger cylinders remained in the center, stopping at an almost infinitesimal distance from the computers that Herta and Asta were working on. With a last click from the pink-haired girl, the cylinders rose, releasing a cold and dense mist around the place, strong enough to make both researchers’ hair fly for a moment.

Freed from confinement, two stone tablets containing medium-sized fossils shone, reflecting the dim light of the place in the ice crystals formed in their small curves. The fossilized forms were strange, almost abysmal. On one of the rock tablets, a large, misshapen skull covered it completely, on the other, there were what I judged to be perfectly preserved bones of a thin thorax — if I didn't know that both skeletons in front of me came from the same type of creature, I would call Madame Herta crazy for cataloging them together.

“Miss Himeko,” Herta stood beside me, a white, high-tech handcuff in her hands, connected to a matching case by a chain. “Your wrist, please.”

I stared at my wrists for a moment, then pushed the bracelets on my left wrist up a little to make room for the handcuff to connect.

The loop was carefully closed over my arm, leaving not an inch of space to the detriment of my comfort. My skin heated up for a few moments, the sensation similar to a warm water bottle being quickly emptied, and yellow and green symbols appeared on the material of the handcuff. Herta checked the symbols, stared at the computer screen in the distance, and then asked me to hold the case for a few moments.

“This is a restraint device created by Ruan Mei,” she began to explain, analyzing the details of the chain and ensuring that everything was in order. “It’s made of a material strong enough to withstand the explosion of a small energy core, but try to avoid high temperatures… more for the safety of your arm than anything else.”

“Is there biometric recognition?” I ask, running my fingers over the warm skin of my wrist, the part that the handcuff hadn’t swallowed.

“Yes, the case will be connected to your DNA for now. Only you, me or Ruan Mei can open it,” Herta asks me to position the case horizontally across my arms, and then she presses a thumb on each of the locks, unlocking them with the touch of her puppet’s fingerprint. If it’s possible for puppets to have fingerprints. “Welt, dear, help Asta with the fossils.”

Herta opens the case completely, revealing a space colored in india ink, made of a material that resembled carbon fiber plates. The interior is divided into two retractable drawers, in which Asta and Welt carefully positioned each of the fossils. When everything seemed ready, the genie closed the case, and after a few seconds, a cold air was released along with a small cloud of steam, concluding the confinement. Even a small transport case was equipped with a small cryogenics machine, showing Ruan Mei's dedication to the safety of her inventions.

“With this, the fossils should be safe during the trip, you don't have to worry about any kind of impact hitting the case,” Herta concludes, now letting me carry the case freely. To any observer, it was as if I were an IPC investor carrying stacks of bills, or something like that.

“Well, where are we going?” Welt asks.

“Ruan Mei will be heading to Divitae , a planet in a nearby solar system,” Asta explains. “She will be attending an auction organized by the high society entities of the capital, Vectigalia . The event will take place in fifteen days.”

“Divitae? What kind of planet is that?” Welt looks at me, seeking some navigator's knowledge.

“It is a planet where the Akivili tracks have been running for a long time. According to the old Pom-Pom archives, Divitae was a world in a great civil war, until the Trailblaze granted them a mutual goal that put an end to the war. After a few hundred years, the planet joined a few dozen contracts with the IPC, and with other galactic alliances aiming at the sole monetary advancement,” I sigh, pausing in my speech to avoid unnecessary comments. “Nowadays, the planet is a very elite version of what it once was. It is impossible to live there without having a bank account with less than nine digits. A place like this makes the prices of Penacony's hotel and access to the Dreamscape seem quite accessible to the general public.”

Welt’s thin eyes widened in surprise. After the luxuries of the Golden Hour, and our visit to the dazzling Dreamscape, my friend was certainly not ready for a planet covered from end to end with wealthy families and their heirs.

“We’ll be sending a reasonable amount to the joint account of the Astral Express, you can keep your lodging while you’re there,” Asta says, keeping a smile on her jovial face.

“A reasonable amount?” Welt clears his throat, worried about the amount that would be disclosed.

“Yes, a little over fifty million credits, more than enough for a comfortable two-week stay on Vectigalia.”

Fifty million credits, just to keep a quiet stay for a few days on a planet like this. Bronya, the Supreme Guardian of Belobog, would fall off her chair if she heard such amounts being disclosed in such a futile manner.

“Well, with everything informed, you are ready to sail into space,” Herta says, a little impatiently, the demeanor she always displays in long conversations that are not of interest to her. “The Leviathan fossils should be delivered on time. Don’t worry too much about protecting them while confined, just don’t let the case out of your sight. While you’re in Vectigalia, don’t worry about keeping yourself locked up, just enjoy your stay. Ruan Mei is known for always being late for her appointments — she’ll probably only show up on the day of the auction, or she won’t even show up to participate in it at all, making you wait a little longer.”

With all the important details already discussed, and no doubts to be questioned, Herta’s puppet remained in the room to organize it properly, while Asta accompanied us outside.

“Good luck on your new journey, Trailblazers. May the stars bestow their blessings upon you,” Asta said, bowing slightly in a solicitous gesture.

Beside her, Arlan smiled, repeating the same feat. “I make Lady Asta’s words my own. Mister Yang, Miss Himeko, I hope you two have a comfortable and safe journey.”

Beside Arlan, Peppy also bowed, his tail swinging from side to side like a crazed pendulum. I was sure that if I were connected to his little brain, I would hear a phrase as fancy as the one his caretakers said, but with a few extra doses of cuteness and dog biscuits.

But I was certain that, despite all the warm words and wishes for reassurance, the universe would certainly find a way to involve me in even greater and greater craziness. And, as always, I couldn't wait for them.

“Leviathan fossils… they’re less rare than I thought they would be.”

Already inside the Express, with the carriages gliding through the silent immensity of the sea of ​​stars, Welt was musing in his seat, while observing the white suitcase next to me.

“Have you seen many?” I asked him, while testing the digital lock on the handcuffs. All I had to do was press any of my fingerprints on a pre-programmed area for the grip to advance or retreat against my arm.

“Not many, but I know there’s a vast collection of them in the universe. It’s incredible to think that these relics left behind by creatures that existed before the Aeons can be so easily found in the vast cosmos,” he sighs, removing his glasses from his face to clean their lenses.

“It all started when the Antimatter Legion demonstrated to the universe the ability to use them to create those abominations they named the Doomsday Beasts,” I leave the briefcase on my seat, while I walk to find a distant note, glued to the page of the guest book intended for visitors to Jarilo-VI. “Since then, the military use of these creations has exploded their demand, creating a vicious cycle of excavations in inhospitable areas in the most diverse systems.”

“Is there another known war creation besides the Doomsday Beasts?”

“If there is, whoever owns them has not given the universe the pleasure of revealing their destructive capabilities.”

Welt laughs, opening a smile after so many minutes of tension.

“And what was that thing that caught your attention in Herta’s collection?” I ask him, not letting him escape the question. From the look on his face, along with his frightened reaction now, it seemed to be something really important.

“What, exactly?”

“You know what I’m talking about, Welt.”

My friend raises his eyebrows, quickly giving up on playing dumb with me.

“It was an energy containment crystal. It’s used to keep a type of natural energy in a contained state, suitable for human use. The specimen Madame Herta has isn’t the purest form of this dangerous material, but it’s enough to power very specific technologies…”

“Very specific technologies?”

Even without getting a concrete answer, the vague air implied an obvious conclusion: more and more weapons.

It seems the world will always come up with different ways to self-destruct, over and over and over again.

“Well, the Conductor said we have some time until we reach our jump site to Divitae,” I push Welt’s shoulder with my body, making him lose his balance in the chair. “Want to do something?”

“A coffee, then?”

“I was thinking of having some help with the maintenance of the Express. Dan Heng told me that a cyborg space cowboy broke through some metal plates and wires while sneaking into one of the cabins,” I smile, but then stop to think for a moment. “But a delicious cup of coffee can certainly go with all that work.”

Chapter Text

Kafka

I've never managed to spend two months relaxing somewhere. Not even for one. I once tried to take a vacation on a quiet planet after finding out about a big arts and culture festival taking place there, but failed spectacularly to wait out the days when I got involved in a simple bar fight that alerted the IPC authorities to my presence.

My nature has always been like that, erratic and free, designed to never get attached to the details of life and to create as few bonds as possible.

Perhaps this behavior is the result of what I think was a difficult childhood, or just a defensive barrier created by my mind to protect me from the chaotic nature of my work as an administrator of criminal minds. But deep down, the blunt truth is that I have no idea when all this started to become something constant, intrinsic to my being.

"Kafka."

"Oh, finally..."

I allow myself to let out a sigh, relieving myself of enormous pressure as I hear Firefly's voice coming from the shadows near me. She had been following me since I left a convenience store an hour ago, where I bought a packet of mints and a six-pack of tasty alcoholic drinks.

She followed me discreetly into the park without making a sound, and stayed behind some red-leafed trees for a whole ten minutes, watching me while I drank alone on one of the many benches made available to the public. Luckily for Firefly, I don't usually get into trouble on Fridays, which put her guard at ease and spared her from putting her frail body into action.

The young woman approached in slow steps, her skin almost entirely covered by the gray fabric of her clothes. She was wearing an exaggerated overcoat, high boots and gloves that went from her fingertips to her elbows. If Firefly had any taste for masks, she would surely be wearing one by now, but her neck and face remained exposed, perhaps as a way of reminding her that, even though she had a more tragic past than most, she could still be an ordinary girl from time to time.

"If you already knew I was here, you could have said so," she said, maintaining a neutral countenance but with a clear tone of annoyance hidden in her complaint. In the end, she let out a long sigh, completely destroying her attempt to look like a tough girl.

"And what fun would that be?" I asked, cracking a smug smile on my glossy lips. "Besides, don't feel bad, you're doing better than Blade at this whole melancholy shadow-watching thing."

Firefly let out a short laugh, steeped in a debauchery that she tried to make more gentle than acidic. "Blade certainly isn't the type to act in the shadows, Kafka."

"You'd be surprised what our little Blade can do with the right dose of motivation. He gets scary, just like a vampire in the night, or a similar fantasy creature..."

I let a silly joke slip out. Blade certainly looked like a vampire once. Tall, pale, immortal and with a thirst for blood that consumes him from the inside every day. Firefly didn't need a funny analogy like that to notice the similarities for herself.

"Well, enough about other people, Firefly. Let's talk about ourselves."

Firefly remained still for a few moments, her arms moving from side to side around her body as her mind wandered off on some hidden subject. At the end of what seemed like hours of machinations and mental agony, she sat down next to me on the bench, joining my company, deciding to still keep hidden the real reason she was here watching me.

"Would you like a drink?" I asked, holding out one of the bottles to my new relaxation partner.

Firefly's multicolored eyes thoroughly analyzed the product's label, where she read aloud some of the information that, for the stability of her fragile health, is quite important.

"Lemon-flavored carbonated alcoholic mixed drink with 5.5% alcohol content," she says after finishing an extensive list of industrialized ingredients and thoroughly checking the long warnings hidden in the fine print. "Yeah, it won't hurt me to have one."

"I'm sure those bags of sweets that Silver Wolf buys for her are more harmful than a simple drink..."

We both laughed, agreeing with each other. Silver Wolf has a habit of buying the strangest sweets possible. Not the fancy weird kind, like the eighty-seventh member of the Genius Society, Ruan Mei, tends to buy, but the cheap kind with dubious flavors and textures.

Once, Firefly accepted a piece of chewing gum that Silver Wolf had bought for a small planet's Halloween party. What our hacker forgot to warn us about was that the candy had an extremely sour acid inside, which resulted in Firefly having her face twisted for a long and funny five minutes.

"Do you always do this on Fridays?" Firefly asks between sips from her bottle.

"That what?"

"Whenever I have to look for you on a Friday, you're standing somewhere, drinking alcohol and looking at the stars. Sometimes I see you smoking too."

"It's just a habit I can't get out of," I replied, every word sincere. Firefly's eyes opened a little, surprised, showing me that she expected any answer from me, but never the real one. "The residue of a past that's hard to reach again, something like that."

"A good past?"

"Well..."

I let out a laugh as I remember the various situations that adorned my adolescence. Some great, some bad, but never terrible or horrible.

"A great past. One in which I was a naive girl who enjoyed going to school, who loved drama classes more than any other subject and who spent a lot of her time trying to live an ordinary life, away from danger."

Firefly watched the movement in the square, her eyes lost in the people in the distance. I knew little about the girl next to me, a warrior genetically engineered by the Republic of Glamoth , who gave her life to fight the Swarm and, when she found herself free from the bonds of fate, found her body slowly wasting away day by day due to a pre-programmed defect in her genetic code, a disease created to prevent her from living a free life — the Entropy Loss Syndrome.

"What was your youth like, Firefly?" I ask, after much questioning of whether it was appropriate. In the end, I decided that treating her like a fragile flower would be more painful for her than anything else.

Now, totally surprised, her eyes opened wide. The pinkish hue of her irises emanated a unique glow, as if she had discovered something new, something she never thought she would find in her lifetime.

The young woman took some time to breathe, her gloved hands rubbing together nervously. Gradually, bright lines drew themselves on her neck and cheeks, gradually growing until they were visible to the average human eye — here were the signs of her illness: irreversible colored blood veins that could vary in size and intensity according to her feelings.

"It was... a mess," she begins, her voice breaking at times. "I don't remember much about my childhood, probably because I spent it almost entirely inside incubation tubes. After that, everything is a blur. I don't remember what they taught us when we were young, or what we did before we were assigned to some combat armor. The rest, you already have a concrete idea."

"Huge flames and giant insects," I add at the end of the story, my comment able to put a smile on the corner of Firefly's lips.

"Exactly. Huge flames and giant insects."

She repeated before turning the bottle over in her throat. There was still more than half the drink left, but Firefly set about swallowing it all in a single gulp.

As she struggled with the bitterness of the lemon and the alcohol, the veins on her face extended a few centimeters, glowing brighter. When she had completed the self-imposed challenge, the glow decorating her face receded to an almost ephemeral state, rewarding her courage.

"And you, Kafka, what was your youth like?" she stares at me, her body now slumped on the bench, the empty bottle still between her fingers. "You said you liked going to school, but that doesn't really suit your personality. Was there a special reason?"

Even though we'd only been together a short time, in just a few months Firefly had already gotten to know a lot about my personality. Well, at least the part that I let my coworkers see.

"Yes, there was," I say, staring at my own bottle. It had been empty for some time. "A girl."

Firefly narrowed her eyes. At this point in the conversation I didn't know if it was a reaction to the alcohol or a demonstration of her emotions.

"That's... unexpected," she says as she digests the information.

"Is it unexpected that I also like girls?"

"No, that's always been clear," Firefly retorts, making me look silly for a moment. "It's just unexpected that you fell in love. Don't get me wrong, Kafka, but you don't seem like the kind of person who can handle a long-term relationship."

"I agree," I shrug, accepting reality. "But this girl was different. She was able to rebuild my soul, fix my flaws and make me seem like an ordinary person for a few moments. With her I abandoned the Kafka who stole things and got into trouble, and became someone with a new purpose..."

I stop for a moment, closing my eyes.

"Sorry. I've said too much," I say, interrupting myself before I go too far.

"All right," she laughs softly, shaking her head. "This girl really does seem quite special. You never talk much about yourself, but today you allowed yourself a few extra words."

"It's just the effect of the alcohol."

It's not the effect of alcohol.

There are few things I like to remember, and this girl is the most important of them all.

Calm, intelligent and beautiful. A kind soul who I met during a class on some specific type of engineering that my school forced students to study.

If it hadn't been for her and her help during lessons and exams, I would never have graduated.

School was suffocating, an environment that limited my creativity, but waking up knowing that I would see her there almost every day, sitting next to me during some of my classes, made all the suffering worthwhile.

"Anyway," I took a deep breath, pushing the memories away as quickly as I could. This time I could almost see a clear vision of his red hair in my mind, which startled my heart, making it skip a few beats for just a moment. "What made you follow me today?"

"Elio," she says seriously, without taking her eyes off the landscape. "He has a new mission for us, the whole group this time."

"The adventures in Penacony were only a few weeks ago, have you had enough rest?"

"My brain still hurts a bit. Silver Wolf wasn't exaggerating when he said that the pain of entering the Dreamscape would be worse than death," she massages one of her temples, still clearly affected by the enormous weight of the memoria flux that has affected her consciousness.

"A girl who can't dream entering the dreamland. Your brain must have suffered terribly, but at least it's still intact."

"I don't know if intact is the right way to describe my case, but it's certainly working without any major sequelae."

"If you need more time to sleep and rest, let me know," I say, showing some concern. Firefly has different needs from those of an ordinary human, her body needs many more hours of sleep to replenish its energy, which also makes her recovery after missions a longer task. "Well, enough of keeping our kitten waiting."

Silver Wolf had her face almost stuck to the protective glass of a machine full of stuffed animals and cute key rings.

Her hand wrapped around the handle controlled the metal claw from side to side at an unruly pace, making it take on a pendulum motion before pressing the button in the last five seconds of the time she had to make a move.

In the air, the claw made an unusual turn, slipping with calculated precision into a narrow path between the pile of stuffed rabbits, catching on what looked like a keyring before returning to its original position and dumping the prize it had won into the collection drawer.

"That was easy," said Silver Wolf in a monotone tone. Despite the low level of challenge that a game like that offers her brain, her lips still displayed a genuine smile.

"Did you get what you wanted?"

I asked, catching the attention of Silver Wolf, who turned to welcome me and Firefly.

In a far corner, near a monochrome door, Blade was leaning against the wall next to it, silent and somber as he always is.

"Yes, here," she replies, handing us different key rings.

The keychain given to Firefly had a miniature humanoid technological armor in red with bright green details, very similar to SAM.'s design when you look at it for a moment.

Mine was something much simpler, but equally in keeping with my personality: a little purple cat with a lazy face.

"Thank you, Silver Wolf," I say, tucking the new present into my coat pocket. Firefly does the same soon after, but her thanks are a little more exaggerated than they should be for a simple gift. "I'll connect it to something when we have time."

Silver Wolf led the way, right next to Firefly. Together, they passed Blade without exchanging a word or a glance, entering the door that the melancholy guy was watching while they chatted about Firefly's brain health and the fun things the girl had done in Penacony.

"What did she give you?" I asked Blade, stopping next to him.

Without moving a muscle in her mouth, she uncrossed her arms, revealing the keychain that Silver Wolf had captured for him. On the small chain hung a fanciful sword from some technological universe with giant robots; from the design and the shiny paint, it seemed to be the weapon belonging to the protagonist of the show or something like that.

"It suits you," I say with a smile, before following the girls into the room. Without saying a word, Blade followed in my footsteps, keeping enough distance to watch our backs for unwanted visitors.

The place we're in is nothing more than a small arcade located in one of the city's central streets. Elio has a special fondness for such places — arcades, amusement parks, game stores and other such businesses, his hiding places always follow this strange pattern for some reason that must be engraved in his own script, or Silver Wolf one.

"Welcome."

A male voice, calm and polished, reverberated in my head, as well as in those of the other Stellaron Hunters.

"How are you, Elio?"

Silver Wolf dashed to the back of the dimly-lit room we were in, a nicer way of describing the stock of a little-visited arcade. With some speed, she managed to grab a slender black cat with green eyes, delivering a dose of unsolicited affection to its chin before placing it on a dusty table.

"Silver Wolf, we've already talked about this," Elio's voice said, our brains making us believe that the cat really could communicate with us freely.

"Sorry, it can't be helped," Silver Wolf scratched the back of her head, letting out a cheerful laugh as she tried to suppress the urge to grab Elio.

"Do we have a new script, Elio?" Blade asks, clearly irritated by his teammates' lack of focus.

"Yes, but only for one of you."

The whole friendly atmosphere became tense with just a single sentence.

"Kafka," the feline's green eyes lock on me, "the script has your name engraved on it. But..."

"But?" I repeated, narrowing my eyes. Elio had never shown himself to be hesitant in his actions, which made the flaw in his voice even more worrying.

"You'll need some time to digest all the information it contains."

Elio was always that person, or cat, who never showed any concern. Even when he sentenced Firefly to three deaths, his tone was calm and routine, showing confidence in the team he had assembled to accompany him in his machinations that play with the future of the universe.

"Elio," I say. "I've never seen you as worried as you are right now. What could be worse than Penacony, or even Jepella's Rebellion ?"

"You'll soon know when the pages are handed over to you. Before that, I need your attention and focus on the details of our mission."

The cat stepped on a specific spot on the table with one of its paws, causing a bluish glow to emanate from the flat surface. Now clearer, what we had previously believed to be a dusty table was actually a large panel discarded by the arcade's owners. Despite some black dots in the image generated, it was still possible to see some of the information Elio had provided.

"A heist? My favorite kind of plan!" Silver Wolf commented, already recovering from the initial shock generated by Elio's warning. Her relief at not having a script this time was clear.

"Another Stellaron stored in a jewel?" Firefly asks, her gloved hands sliding over the maps to analyze details of the dimensions of corridors and rooms.

"No, no Stellarons this time," Elio replied, as the feline licked one of his paws.

"That's unusual," the silent Blade makes one of his classic short, precise comments.

"Yes," the cat shakes his head in affirmation. "This mission has not just one target, but ten of them. The complete Diamond Collection of the Government of Vectigalia ."

"Divitae," I say, smiling. I'll finally have the chance to visit a fancy planet to enjoy some of life's luxuries.

"Right," Elio says at the same time as the cat purrs, creating a funny interaction to listen to. "Vectigalia will be hosting its twenty-second annual high society auction, it will be the perfect opportunity for us to catch up with your diamond collection."

"And what do we need them for? Are we running out of money?" Silver Wolf asks in a comical tone.

"The motives are tied to an immutable destiny," Elio explains, mysterious as always about matters of this particular kind. He never gives us any additional information, not now would be the time for this to happen. "And no, our group's collective funds are more than enough to maintain our operations for a few more years without needing a sharp correction in our savings."

"Will the diamonds be auctioned off?" Blade asks, returning to the topic, focused as ever.

"No, but the concern surrounding the auction will give us the opportunity to usurp the coffers of the Vectigalia government," Elio replies as the feline lies down, tired.

"Right," I say. "But how will we get into the city without being recognized?"

"With Princess Eadlyn , of course."

The group and I exchanged confused glances, until the lazy cat dragged his paw across the part of the screen containing some documents about an important location. The image is replaced by a fake ID document with the name Eadlyn Monteneve , Firefly's picture was printed right next to all the falsified information.

"What?!" Firefly exclaimed, startled.

"A fake princess with fake infinite resources. She's in poor health, so she's never left her distant planet to visit others, which is why she's hired a group of skilled known criminals to carry out her security during her first intergalactic trip," Elio says, proud of his own invention.

"Do you really think the IPC is going to fall for this, Elio?" Blade asks, almost laughing at the sight of the fake document.

"I'm sure. The IPC's hunting teams are busy chasing an outlaw who is part of the Galaxy Rangers. It will take them time to locate him in Xianzhou Luofu. That gives us a fairly wide window of time to work with."

"Is that all we need?" Silver Wolf asks as she shakes Firefly's shoulders to bring her back to reality.

"We need one more person."

Elio says, his feline jade eyes locked on me.

"Someone I know?" I ask, curious to know the answer.

"The safe that holds the diamonds is a unique creation," Elio explains. "A strong box that not even Silver Wolf's aether edition can shape. We'll need someone who specializes in very specific areas, with extensive knowledge in all of them. In short, a complete genius."

Chapter Text

Himeko

Repairing the damaged parts of the Express took about two system hours, leaving us about fifteen hours of travel before we reached the planet of the elites .

Divitae is located in an isolated corner of the galaxy, but this has only proved beneficial in its development over the ages. Being the only place with life in an inhospitable space, new space trade routes were designed around the planet, making travel through this part of the galaxy hundreds of times safer and less costly for the coffers of large corporations.

While Welt lost himself in his own thoughts and studies, I spent the next few hours locked in my room, studying the city of Vectigalia and preparing some equipment that might come in handy during the trip.

First, I unrolled the note I had taken from the guest book a few hours ago, a piece of paper containing a gift from the brilliant minds of Belobog — Pelageya Sergeyevna and Serval Landau.

This is an old gift that I've never given much thought to, but now it seemed useful to put a little effort into putting it to good use.

“Himeko, we'll be making the jump in a few minutes!”

I hear Pom-Pom on the other side of the door, which startles me a little.

Looking away from the complex tools and diagrams on my desk, I reach for the digital clock I've left on the bedside table — seven hours have passed since I started my preparation.

Maybe it was the caffeine from several cups of coffee, but my body was far from showing any signs of tiredness.

Stop exaggerating and rest, reality won't cease to exist overnight, Himeko .

The old phrase comes back to me like a shot from an old revolver, piercing my brain and giving me glimpses of my adolescence in small, unforgettable fragments.

I've always been that tireless person who sacrifices her own health in exchange for a slightly better result at the end of a project, which isn't always a healthy trade-off for the human body. During my teenage years, my study nights were almost endless, something that was only corrected when I met someone who made me a little more... rebellious , so to speak.

“Ah... get out of here,” I whispered to myself, shaking my head. Those memories should have faded by now.

Years have passed, but the memories of my youth are still as vivid as the most beautiful sunset. At first I thought that only the knowledge acquired at that time would remain burning in the confines of my memory, but I can remember everything about that damn girl — her purple hair, her eyes that were always calm but full of passion for art, her soft skin or the strong mint flavor her mouth had in a failed attempt to hide the sour taste of smoke that cigarettes left behind.

At least these memories serve as a good mechanism to make me tired and force a rest. It's better to sleep than spend a few minutes remembering how someone gradually discarded me.

I put away everything that could be affected by the thud of the space jump before throwing myself on my bed, settling down between the blankets. By now I was used to the discomfort of jumping, which made me an expert at ignoring the common symptoms related to it.

As the Express ventures between the stars and glides through gaps in outer space, my eyes close so that my brain can have its well-deserved rest, freeing me from the pain of reliving the past.

Hours later, fully awake, I walked over to the parlor car, where Welt and Pom-Pom seemed to be talking about something extremely important.

Without even noticing me, the conductor ran back to his cabin when he seemed to have given Welt all the details he wanted. The sight of his cute little legs moving fast managed to get a slight chuckle out of my throat.

“New look?” Welt asked, glancing in my direction as he probably heard me giggle. The watchful eyes and serious features from when he was talking to Pom-Pom now gave way to a relaxed, calm countenance.

“Vectigalia is halfway through its rainy season,” I say, justifying my sudden change of style.

Diverging from the usual dress, my choice of clothes for our stay in Divitae came down to high-waisted pants, long-sleeved shirt and boots. An ideal choice of clothing for work, along with excellent protection from the cold.

“Leaving that aside, what were you and the conductor talking about?”

“The same as in Penacony,” he says, crossing his arms in front of his body. “Vectigalia seems to have access to a huge wave of information about the Express's past, this time more than just Trailblazers.”

“Akivili,” I say, a little intrigued.

Welt nods, equally interested in what the capital has to offer us about the life of the Aeons. “Pom-Pom asked me to explore ancient places, do research, that sort of thing again. Luckily the Express isn't due to attend any festivals or anything like that, so I'll have the time and freedom to explore everything at my leisure.”

“Does that mean that the mission of looking after the fossils until Madame Ruan Mei arrives is under my care?” I narrow my eyes, looking at Welt in a tone that is more comical than threatening. For me, it wouldn't be a problem to handle the job alone.

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughs, joining in the joke. “But if there are any problems, don't hesitate to get in touch. Pom-Pom and I will join you in no time.”

“I'll remember that.”

The loudspeakers around the wagon have the ambient music overlaid by the conductor's voice, which warns of the arrival on the planet of the elites.

Welt and I almost instantly turned to the window next to us, witnessing the entire passage of the Express through Divitae's atmosphere. After a few seconds of clouds in the night sky, the city of Vectigalia finally shone in the background.

It appeared to be early evening, which made our first sight of the capital even more impressive. It also made my decision to have slept a few hours before our arrival a terrible one, as my body would be facing a long time zone conflict for the next few days.

“To be honest, I expected more...”

Next to me, Welt stared indifferently at the tall buildings and the strong urban lighting. I remembered what he used to say about his homeland, where urban centers were as common as water in an ocean. To him, a big city like Vectigalia seemed like just another one of the many he had lived in for most of his life.

For me, it was nothing impressive either. The capital was almost three times the size of Belobog, but all the architecture seemed so simple and artificial that I didn't feel like looking at it — it was as if all the houses and buildings had been taken out of a canned IPC product.

Pom-Pom stopped the Astral Express at the end of the Silver Highway, located in what appeared to be a large center for the entry and exit of spaceships. Apart from us, several people were moving around, looking after their ships and cargo.

The Express attracted some attention from other passers-by, as our space train certainly didn't look like a conventional cargo ship. Luckily for us, no one seemed to care enough to ask us questions and consume any amount of our time.

“I'll be heading straight to the hotel,” I say, checking the information sent by Asta on my smartphone. “Ms. Asta made a reservation at a hotel close to where the big event will be held. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to get reservations at the main hotel. Most of the rooms were reserved for guests and those that were left were quickly snapped up by IPC members and some other companies.”

“This auction seems to be quite important,” said Welt as he wiped the lenses of his glasses with a soft cloth.

“The auction itself is far from being really important. The people who have been invited are the main attraction,” I say, checking one last time that the high-tech handcuff around my wrist is correctly allocated. “High-ranking members of the IPC, important merchants on an intergalactic scale, famous figures in the entertainment world, all sorts of very wealthy people with great reputations.”

 “In short: a great place to create a new line of business across the known galaxy,” Welt concludes. “Sometimes I'm grateful that our network of contacts is built up naturally wherever we go.”

“I don't think taking on great antagonists and preventing evil plans from coming to fruition is a natural way to create new alliances.”

Welt shrugged, cracking a smile as he went his own way. He knew that he was, in some very strange and unusual way, right about this topic.

For now, it was impossible to say where my friend would go, although he seemed cultured and calm, his mind was as erratic as the animations about giant robots he watched from time to time.

Whenever Welt splits from the group, he disappears for a few days. Perhaps the nature of his solitary research keeps him in a hypnotic trance state worthy of an avid scholar, or perhaps he just likes to be alone for a while. That's another impossible thing to discover about my mysterious friend.

For me, solitude is more like a tool — a moment to reflect on everything around me.

Whenever I walk down the street, listening to nothing but my thoughts, I find myself thinking about my past.

Should I have changed something in my last project?

Did I forget something important before I got off the Express?

Could I have said something different?

“What?”

My body slams on the brakes between walking, the volume around me becoming a rhythmless mess. At first I thought I was sinking into my memories, reaching a traumatic corner of my memories, but something else was happening. A natural phenomenon that had nothing to do with my existence — the sudden change in the weather.

And then I finally found the answer to one of my many questions. I really had forgotten something on the Express: my umbrella.

The sound of water hitting buildings and the street gradually increased at an alarming rate. Most people were unconcerned, only getting wet for a few seconds as they opened their umbrellas to protect them. The other part of the graph, on the other hand, was made up of people like me, running to the nearest place to escape the rain and avoid taking an unplanned shower.

I ran for a few meters, placing the white suitcase above my head to protect what I could of my clothes. Luckily, or ironically, an open-air café lay at the end of the street, positioned just below a sturdy wooden structure that prevented the tables and the trailer where the coffee was brewed from being devastated by the rain.

I sat down at the nearest empty table, getting the chair and table a little wet with clumsy movements. My lungs burned a little, I had never run so much in my life, not even when being chased by some creature from the Fragmentum .

“Can I get you anything, miss?”

One of the attendants approaches me, pen and paper in hand.

“Ah... of course!”

I reply, without even reading the menu.

I'd feel awful sitting there for dozens of minutes without ordering anything, just taking the place of a potential customer.

“I'll have...”

My eyes ran over the plasticized menu, startled to notice the amounts of numbers placed in front of each of the options. Thousands of credits for a simple coffee, something unthinkable even on a planet ruled by the dictatorial monarchy of a terrible sovereign.

“Coffee... black?” I say, my voice failing me as I utter the simplest option available.

“Right. Your order will be here in a moment!” the young man says, giving me a welcoming smile before walking away.

And it really only took a moment... well, three minutes to be precise. Even with a moderate amount of customers, the orders were delivered at alarming speeds — perhaps this is the result of applying great salaries, fast and quality service.

I dried what I could of the case before placing it on my lap to create a comfortable and safe position for tasting my order. The coffee was really delicious, with perfectly balanced bitter tones in the brewing, but nothing incredible that was worth the exaggerated price charged by the establishment.

One, two, three sips. Nothing different. Maybe I just wanted to find something to fool myself into accepting that I'd spent so much on something so simple.

And then, on the fourth sip, my mouth was hit by a distinct bitterness that twisted my countenance.

It wasn't acidic or sweet, it was far from caffeine. It was more pungent, silvery, metallic. As if I had run my tongue along the metal connections of a video game cartridge.

How is something like this sold in such a rich place? It's something so contrasting that it seems unreal, modified.

Modified.

Edited.

“Hey, where are you going?!”

The attendant shouted, but I was already far away. My legs were running even faster than minutes ago, pushing through the rain and shoving occasional pedestrians with a certain aggression.

I was able to hear the beginning of what sounded like a horrible curse coupled with a threat to call the authorities to arrest me, but the person who uttered it was unable to complete the sentence.

Something shut her up.

The frightened sight of something fast and threatening.

The danger on my back seemed to be moving at an intense speed, but my feet were able to get away from the large crowds before the dangerous part burst out.

I turned as quickly as I could, raising my left arm to position Herta's briefcase in front of my body. I only caught a glimpse of the stylized projectile — a small blue spaceship made of glowing pixels — before it hit the surface of the case and was dismantled into tiny energy cubes that now decorate the asphalt beneath my feet.

“ Aether edition ,” I say, letting out an unpleasant sigh for the health of my own lungs. “Shit...”

I had little time to catch my breath, as there wasn't just a single danger to be avoided. A hooded figure appeared in front of me, his full form only forming moments before the sword in his hand drew an aggressive arc in the air.

By reflex, my body arched backwards, preventing my chest from suffering horrible bruises.

Blow after blow and step after step, a series of deflections took place before I could raise my arms, positioning the case against the blade's new trajectory. After the sparks and a horrible sound of metal clashing against metal, I could see them through our weapons — the eyes of a wanted criminal.

“Blade,” I recite his name as I press my briefcase against his shattered sword, preventing the immortal swordsman from attacking again. “ Kafka's puppy .”

As usual, he didn't utter a word or show any irritation.

Freeing his blade from direct confrontation, he retreated a few steps, leaving me with a clearer view of my current situation.

Ordinary people surrounded us on all sides, several of them with their smartphones in hand recording what was happening.

In front of me, a few meters away, two figures dressed in raincoats stared at me in deep silence.

Blade maintained his disciplined combat stance, while his companion popped a gum balloon between her lips.

“Silver Wolf,” I say.

“Himeko,” she replies, flashing a smile. “How are you after Penacony?”

“I've been better.”

“Yeah... sorry about that,” she scratches the back of her head, slightly dragging the hood of the raincoat that concealed their identities. “Nothing personal.”

“It's never personal with you guys, is it?”

We sucked the last bit of peaceful air out of our lungs before getting moving again.

Fighting them both was suicide, complete madness. I needed a way to avoid them, a way to turn an unequal fight in my favor.

When Blade advanced again, eyes glowing in sick calm, his blade sliced through nothing but air.

Quickly materializing in my free hand, my trusty briefcase unfolded into a sturdy drone, clinging to my right arm abruptly.

The small turbines spat out flames provided by the heat core, accelerating and generating a strong thrust, launching me into a dangerous flight.

A long vertical distance was created between me and the duo, making Silver Wolf's shots a more complex task to execute in the heavy rain.

Despite the complex and glamorous nature of my escape, the situation was far from being resolved. Silver Wolf used her reality-altering abilities to create countless floating purplish platforms that traced a perfect path to me.

I landed on top of the nearest building, my combat drone wasn't designed for long-distance transportation or carrying someone through the rain. Blade and Silver Wolf were right behind, jumping from platform to platform.

Forty seconds was all I had available. More time than I needed to be prepared .

“No way out,” Blade said in his usual melancholy tone as he landed on the same floor, his knees cracking from the aggressive fall.

“Come on, Himeko,” unlike her crazy companion, Silver Wolf made the platform lower so that she had a softer landing. “Hand over the suitcase.”

“Please, it's clear that you don't care about the suitcase,” I say, avoiding showing my irritation. “You could have already ripped my arm off or removed the chains with your strange abilities, what you want is standing right in front of you, am I right?”

Silver Wolf lowers the hood of her raincoat, letting the water soak her glasses and hair. “Clever as always. So, how do we do it?”

“The good way, or the bad way?” Blade asks, the tip of his sword pointed in my direction.

“Let’s fight...”

My trusty drone swooped through the air, spinning and gaining enough momentum to become an attacker that couldn't be ignored.

Silver Wolf took the lead from her partner, stretching out her arm to direct her Punklordian skills in the path of the attack — from her fingertips, pixels forged a physical shield, similar to an armor icon from some game.

With the attack avoided, Blade glided forward like a shadow, aiming to end the battle in a single blow.

“ Enemy data secured! ”

The pair are startled by the sudden, unfamiliar mechanical voice.

“Time for a good old counterattack...” I complete the activation phrase, smiling victoriously.

From one moment to the next, a debilitating sound wave covers a limited area, powerful enough to generate visual effects in the form of energy beams. Inside the sphere of action, Silver Wolf and Blade were thrown to the ground, their brains suffering profound effects of confusion and nausea.

“Belobog technology...” I say, gloating a little at the situation.

I looked up at the sky for a quick moment, the small floating robots that generate the concussive wave appeared to be working properly. At first I thought it would just be an exaggerated measure to add them to my suitcase, but it turned out that all the care and hours put into making the drone's mechanism spit them out safely had earned me an important victory.

“I need to warn Welt and the conductor as soon as possible...”

I reach for my smartphone in my pants pocket, scrolling through the list of contacts as fast as my thumb can manage. At the bottom of the list, Welt's number was waiting to be pressed.

“ Sorry ...”

I hear. Before my smartphone is snapped in half.

Quickly and precisely, the cut split the device into two perfectly symmetrical parts, taking a large chunk of my palm with it.

Hot, almost electric, the wound tingled for a few moments before the pain hit it full force.

It hurt like hell. Any movement of my palm threw me into a sea of punishment.

“Hello, Himeko.”

The cursed woman said as she sheathed the purple blade that had wounded me.

“ Hello, Kafka... ”

Chapter Text

Kafka

No matter how hard I tried to avoid the fate sealed in miraculous solutions, my presence was still demanded by Elio's script.

Above my head the rain was falling, making the whole scene a little more dramatic than it should.

Next to me, trapped in an area delimited by rays of energy of a strong blue color, Blade and Silver Wolf were trying their best to cover their ears to escape the distressing vibrations that were hitting the back of their brains.

Seeing my companions in this state brought me to a simple realization: the task of bringing Himeko over to our side is deeply destined to me and no one else. I could have given Silver Wolf exclusive IPC weapons, or released the mara connected to Blade's body to turn him into a murderous beast, yet I'm sure the erudite in front of me would have found a complex and clever way to defeat them.

“Can we talk?”

She laughed at my question, revealing a clear mixture of momentary anger and ancient hatred in every vocalization from her throat.

Himeko closed her injured hand into a fist, the slow, hesitant movement showing me how severe the wound my blade had created was. Gradually, the lines of water that the rain had created on her arm turned entirely red, revealing deep bleeding that had to be treated urgently.

“Talk?” she repeated, almost growling. At this point I didn't know if her voice reached that pitch out of anger at me or out of a common reaction to pain. Perhaps a little of both. “Tell me, Kafka, when was the last time we talked?”

“During your first visit to Luofu...”

“A real conversation,” she interrupted me before I could add any details to my answer. She kept her angry eyes fixed on a puddle of water on the concrete floor.

A real conversation.

The last time Himeko looked into my face.

“Four or five years ago,” I say.

“And do you remember everything you said when I tried to talk to you for a while?”

I let the air out of my lungs, curling my lip as the bitter memory of that day dawned on me.

It was a summer evening, when I was stuck to a script with strict rules to follow. Nothing could distract me. Any second loss could result in unpleasant consequences for our activities as Stellaron Hunters .

“You know why I told you those things...”

“No, Kafka!” for the first time in a long decade, I hear Himeko shout. “I don't know!”

Slowly, she turns towards me, revealing her wet face. Her eyes, shining like the purest amber, reflected much of what she was feeling — anguish, anger, sadness, I could see it all mixing together.

“You never trusted me with anything! Haven't you ever noticed that I've discovered everything about you entirely on my own? Your hobbies, the way you liked to study best, even your favorite food!”

Without noticing, Himeko walked towards me, each heavy step lifting waves of water from the ground.

“And when I finally find you in this infinite galaxy, after years of wondering where you were, you say the worst things a person could ever say to me in their life!”

She stopped just a few steps away, staring at me so deeply that my whole body seemed to sink into the ground.

Himeko was shivering and panting, perhaps from the cold, perhaps from the effort she had made to tell me all this. The truth was that I didn't want to try to discern.

For the moment, I couldn't afford to get into an argument. The little show earlier had certainly attracted the attention of the local agents, we had a few minutes before the Vectigalia police forces followed the obvious tracks.

“I need you to cooperate,” I say, focusing on the objective above all my feelings.

Himeko's eyes narrowed in disbelief at what she saw, telling me “are you crazy?” without having to utter a syllable.

“Come on, Himeko,” I said, loosening the grip on my sword. “I need you to come with me.”

I held out my free hand, trying to retrieve any fragment of memory that would make Himeko cooperate with us.

For a brief moment I thought she would look into my eyes, face her past for a few moments and make the decision that would benefit me. I don't think I've ever been so foolish in my entire life.

Himeko's bloodied hand rose, gathering speed and strength as her fist drew its path towards the center of my face.

In the last few moments, my body remembered the years of living with life and death battles on a daily basis, resetting my senses and reflexes, allowing me to lean a little before the bruised fist hit me.

Himeko didn't stop when she missed, she advanced in careless steps with no apparent direction, the white briefcase attached to her left wrist serving as a dangerous weapon.

“Himeko!”

I exclaimed, still keeping my voice calm. The scabbard of my sword caught Himeko's briefcase during one of her blind attacks, causing her body to abandon its raging frenzy.

“I'm asking you, Himeko,” I say, a little impatiently. We'd already wasted a lot of time in emotional discussions, a few more minutes and it would be difficult to make an escape without revealing our identities. “ Please don't make me take drastic measures...”

She continued to advance, as still as a wild predator.

Despite being one of the most brilliant minds in the world, when it comes to pure anger, Himeko becomes a reckless person. Her drone hovered in the air a little away from us, waiting for commands that were never uttered — and, luckily for me, never would be.

“That's enough...”

First, the tingling sensation hit my fingertips, warning me that there was energy available to be used. Then, the lines found the metal connected to one of my purple gloves, using it as a kind of catalyst for them to reach synchrony and become something palpable within the material world.

Fast, cold and relentless. My power was drawn aggressively against Himeko's throat, causing her to lose her balance and fall to her knees in the puddles of rainwater.

My former partner's fingers touched her own neck, her painted nails scratching the sensitive skin in desperation, searching for any loophole that would allow her to escape the shiny lines that were suffocating her.

One, two, three seconds. Little by little, the movements became slow and instinctive, until the scholar's consciousness disappeared completely, plunging her into a cruel deep sleep.

“Sorry,” I found myself saying.

“ Ah... ”

The concussive energy barrier had fallen, just as Himeko's drone dematerialized in mid-air. Perhaps it was all linked to her vital signs, a truly astonishing technology.

“What were you two discussing?” Silver Wolf asked, speaking louder than she should have. Her ears seemed a little deaf from the high exposure to Himeko's artifact.

“It's not important,” I said in a tone that Silver Wolf and the still lying Blade could hear without any problems. “For now, we should get out of here as quickly as possible.”

I stared at Himeko's unconscious body, lying on the puddles that were forming. Blade offered to carry her, but I refused. It was only fair that I carried her away, as I always did.

Our escape was a little complicated, but nothing that a few minutes of unwavering patience and Silver Wolf's skills at hacking our opponents' communications couldn't solve. Vectigalia's police forces covered a large part of the urban perimeter, but we managed to find a loophole to escape before the entire siege was completed.

While we put our feeble kidnapping plan into practice, Firefly busied herself with simpler activities.

Taking on the role of Princess Eadlyn Monteneve , Firefly attended the high-class activities preceding the auction. Next to her, Elio remained hidden inside her handbag, guiding her step by step through the role of pretending to be someone from the invented royalty of an invented planet. There's nothing better than a friendly feline telling you which cutlery to use at an intergalactic meal with an unpronounceable name.

When we had secured our return to the hotel, Blade left quietly, aiming to return to his post as the princess's personal bodyguard before anyone noticed his absence. With him was the white briefcase that Himeko had carried with her a few minutes ago, an important object from my script.

Away from the palpable danger, Silver Wolf quickly sank into her endless holographic screens and snacks, making sure that possible videos of our mess didn't appear on social networks across the cosmos.

“Good luck,” I say.

“I think you're the one who's going to need luck,” she replied, holding back her laughter. Silver Wolf, after Elio, is the person who best knows my complicated relationship with the Nameless in my arms.

Our room at the hotel was more like a complete house than a room. There was the common area that the architects had named the living room , along with a union of other rooms that included three bedrooms and a bathroom — which could also be called a bedroom, due to its exaggerated size.

Blade, Firefly and I occupied the trio of bedrooms, while Silver Wolf settled on the sofas in the living room.

My room was the smallest of the three, but it had something I really liked: a small balcony, with a clear view of green mountains where there were no golden buildings to mar the landscape.

I left Himeko on the bed, removing her soaked shoes and taking great care with the way her head rested on the mattress. The erudite's arm was covered in her own blood, the wound still exposed to the air and its impurities.

I put my coat aside, freeing my shoulders from its weight. I took out the first-aid kit from one of my many bags, crowning the first time I would use its tools and medicines on someone other than myself.

It took me a long ten minutes to treat the damage I had caused in a single second. The purplish lines of my supernatural powers traced the suture in such a way as to help the wound heal more quickly — Himeko would need both hands healthy to be able to work.

I hate to admit it, but it was impossible to relax at the moment. My hands tingled, my shoulders ached and my brain throbbed. My body was in a bad ecstasy, a state that called for immediate action, that screamed for me to be a reckless woman and visit some trouble spot looking for a pointless fight.

Luckily, a cold shower erased most of these distorted sensations and desires, suppressing the urge a little, but not silencing it entirely.

I spent the rest of the evening sitting in a chair on the balcony, watching the rain that seemed to be eternal. The noise was calm and rhythmic, like a song made for autumn theater.

“Still smoking?”

Hearing Himeko's voice from afar made me let out a chuckle, the ashes accumulated on the tip of the cigarette stuck between my fingers falling to the ground as my shoulders shook slightly.

“We've had this conversation before,” I reminded her.

Many, many times. Himeko has always been against my bad habit of smoking when I'm stressed.

The Nameless walked out onto the balcony, her eyes fixed on the bandage in her hand. The lines sewn into her skin emanated an ephemeral, almost imperceptible purple glow. From the way her fingers spasmed slightly, the wound still burn a little.

“Thank you,” she says.

“You're welcome...”

Now my cheek was burning too.

Despite the injury, the slap the Nameless landed on my face was perfect in every way. Speed, strength and execution. If that had been one of her punches, I would never have been able to beat her in a fair fight.

I stared at the ground for a few seconds, my lungs inhaling the smoke from the idle cigarette. In the end, I could only laugh, incredulous that she had made a decision so out of character.

“We're even,” she says, waving her bruised hand, trying to shake off the pain of her decision.

I cluck my tongue, opening a cheerful smile. “Aren't you going to try punching me again?”

“You're not worth the effort.”

Himeko sat down on the free chair, remaining just a few centimeters away from me. Her eyes watched the rainy sky, taking on a sad curvature as she noticed that there were no stars to be had.

“Can we talk?” I ask, stubbing out the unpalatable remains of my cigarette in the ashtray I've left on the floor next to the foot of the chair.

“That's funny. You talk as if I have a choice,” she replies, cold, her lips remaining a thin line. Her fingers instinctively touched her own neck where the purple lines had choked her into fainting.

“You do have a choice...”

She lifted her bruised hand, preventing me from completing my sentence. Her face took on features of irritation faster than I could realize.

“Right,” I sigh, stopping to look at her face. “I need your help.”

“Kidnapping. What a strange way to ask for help.”

“Be honest, Himeko,” I say, lighting a second cigarette. “Would you accept any formal request for help?”

“You talk as if this whole situation existing is somehow my fault, Kafka,” she laughs with as much mockery as my well-behaved Himeko could manage. “Maybe treating an old relationship with lies and disinterest wasn't the best of your decisions.”

“Yeah... I kind of deserve all your anger.”

I stared at the rain for a while, such a simple natural effect that exists on the most diverse planets.

“Unlike you, Himeko, I've lied many times,” I say, my lips curving into a confident smile. “I always lied when I said I'd study in the afternoon for a test, I lied when I said I'd done my homework and I also lied every time I said I wanted to quit smoking.”

“Are you going to complete your reasoning or just say random things?”

My gaze slid to Himeko's position, her face clinging to the only natural part of the landscape. Even so close, her eyes still avoided me with unwavering resistance.

“I just want to say that I lied when I said those things to you,” I added, sighing. “I don't hate you, Himeko. I just had a countdown in my head, a delicate moment that didn't allow for any margin of error. An immutable script of fate. ”

The redhead twists her lip, turning her face even further away.

“ Scripts and more scripts... ”

She stammers, irritated. The fingers of both hands closing into dangerous fists.

“Anyway,” I say, continuing the flow of my thoughts in order to avoid another empty fight. ”I want your help with something important, a heist.”

“What makes you think I'll help you steal something?” She let out another laugh laced with irony, an act so disconnected from her personality that I found it strange to witness.

“I figured you'd say that, so did the script , I guess,” I shrugged, getting up from my chair. “That's why we have your apparently precious briefcase. While we were using your fingerprints to unlock the handcuff, we also took a look at the contents. Leviathan fossils. I imagine Madame Ruan Mei is involved in your current adventure.”

I can hear a short tsk coming from the Nameless, before it falls completely silent. The simplest and oldest sound of forced subservience.

“We'll give you all the details over coffee tomorrow, so enjoy your stay in the meantime.”

“Where are you going?”

She asks, before my hand reaches for the door handle.

“To sleep somewhere else. Or would you prefer me to share a bed with you? If I remember correctly, you like it when I do...”

“Go away.”

I crack a smile, almost turning mirth into laughter.

“Have a good night, Himeko.”

Chapter Text

Himeko

The ephemeral glow of the purplish lines in the palm of my hand was intrinsically in tune with the beating of my heart.

I had seen these dangerous supernatural lines create varying degrees of destruction, but I had definitely never seen them used for anything positive until today. Along with the uncomfortable pain and persistent burning I felt from this wound, a valuable new discovery about Kafka was written on my good memory.

Kafka.

It still feels strange to see her again so often. Ever since Stelle joined the crew of the Astral Express, I knew I would have to face my ex-girlfriend many, many times, but I never thought it would all be executed so abruptly.

Of course, Kafka was never a simple person, her actions were always a little exaggerated and reckless. She spent her teenage years acting in dramatic plays and occasionally joining the school orchestra to play lush, grandiose music on her skillful violin — a woman connected from birth to drama, even though she admitted to disliking it in her life.

Inside my chest, my heart was pounding in confusion at the whole situation. Kafka is the woman I once loved , the person my young mind promised to help with much more than just semester exams. But, on the other hand, she is also the woman who destroyed my heart, who, more than once, abandoned me to follow a tortuous destiny.

Destiny.

That word gives me a headache. A concept that, for me, is impossible to predict. A concept that took Kafka off my hands, that turned her into an intergalactic criminal and that made us cultivate a bitter relationship that is only the shadow of what was once sweet.

And, to my utter misfortune, the only being I know very little about who is capable of understanding this strange concept is a half-witted writer who refuses to listen to criticism or accept outside help in his infinite concept machinations.

Elio.

I've met his talking felines a few times during my many years of cosmic exploration. Our conversations are marked by hostility and unproductivity, after all, he is responsible for taking me away from a comfortable life with someone who, for a long time, I thought was my soul mate in this finite life.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty."

Ah... that phrase.

I vividly remember every morning it was used.

Whenever Kafka woke me up after an intense night of studying, she always said this same combination of words, one day after the other without hesitation. Despite the sweet nostalgia, I no longer felt the same joy and satisfaction that I used to when I heard it just after waking up.

"You slept late, am I right?"

She sat on a vacant space on the side of the mattress, her body emanating a complex flowery scent. Kafka's hair was still wet from her shower last night, so apparently she still didn't care enough about the health of her scalp to dry it before bed.

Her body was comfortably covered in a lacy camisole and robe that shared the exact color of her hair, giving me a morning vision that, deep down, was able to speed up my heartbeat by a thin quarter of a second.

"Bad habits never die," I replied, using the back of both hands to wipe my still heavy eyes, trying to get them to work again in a slightly forced way.

"I would let you sleep a little longer to complete your rest, but Your Royal Highness's schedule is a little limited this week, which forces us to discuss the current details of our situation this morning."

"My Royal Highness?"

Bad habits really never die. Kafka smiled at my question, purposely omitting a wide range of information that seemed important to me. She stood up without saying a word, the comfortable fabric of her robes following her elegantly to the door of what was supposed to be her room in this hotel.

Kafka always did that. Once, she woke me up after a difficult exam at school the day before, saying that there was something very important to be solved in a very short time. What was this important thing and what would be the consequences of not solving it? I only found out for myself many hours later.

Before, I thought it was a joke she loved to play, a satisfying way of pestering the girl she liked. But here I am again, faced with a situation that involves much more than just tickets to some concert or the delivery of an extracurricular assignment, and Kafka continues with the same habits of omitting important information until the last second.

Perhaps this bad habit is something deeper than it appears.

"I'll make your coffee," she says, to my surprise. Kafka always refused to let me teach her how to make any cup of coffee. "Take a bath to relax and warm up your body, you look like you need it. Just don't take too long, or I'll have to get you out of the bath myself..."

I didn't need another word or empty statement, my body rose from the bed and went through the doors of the expansive hotel room at an alarming speed. I glanced into the living room, where only Silver Wolf and her video game addiction was in sight.

For the time being, the bath had helped me organize my life. During these wet ten minutes, my body felt more comfortable and relaxed, while my mind was finally able to gather and understand all the fragments of the current situation.

I could walk through the bathroom door, face Kafka and say that I wouldn't help her for an infinite number of reasons, but that wouldn't bring Ruan Mei's suitcase back. Another option would be to be a person with a bad personality, agreeing to help but not without complaining every second about my current situation — impossible, that certainly doesn't suit me. Besides, if I'm really going to help her, complaining could only lead to more problems, more doubts and more wasted time.

All of this must be resolved with the calm and proficiency that the situation requires of us, no matter how strange and chaotic the lines written by the Destiny Slave may have been.

"A cappuccino for the studious lady," when I reached the living room, Kafka had just finished preparing my drink, setting the cup and its supporting plate down on the low table in front of the long sofa, right next to a shallow dish filled with sweets. "And a lemon soda for the girl who's too busy playing online games to get up from the sofa and open the fridge."

Silver Wolf caught the can launched by Kafka in mid-air, thanking her while opening the aluminum seal. The hacker remained in her seat, playing on her portable console. Her body cultivated an uncomfortable posture that was unhealthy for her spine.

"Is that better?" Kafka asks me, at the same time as she sits down on the sofa in a way that demonstrates her profound etiquette skills, her cloudy eyes remaining in line with mine.

"Silver Wolf, can you leave us alone for a while?"

My request made the hacker's fingers freeze, and her silence was only broken when the distinctive sound of a game over came from the console's speakers. She looked at Kafka for some kind of help or command, but my ex-girlfriend was too busy keeping her eyes solely on me.

"Okay... call me when you're done, or when something explodes," the girl says, standing up a little fearfully. Although she didn't seem to like the idea, Silver Wolf walked away, entering one of the rooms. This place is really huge.

I sat next to Kafka, who followed me with her eyes at all times. It was like having a guard robot trying to recognize my face with facial identification software.

Her slender, unprotected hands were resting on the top of her lap, quiet and peaceful, far away from her sword, for the sake of my health.

"What do you want to talk about?" she asks, maintaining a friendly and surprisingly calm smile. It's as if nothing could shake her spirit.

I straightened out the soft bathrobe I had put on after my shower, and spent a few seconds straightening the wet strands of my hair while I thought of the right words to say. Talking to Kafka had always been a science, one I'd become an expert at in no time.

"I'm going to help you with this heist, whatever crazy target your pet cat has in mind," I say, and notice Kafka's smile stretch a little wider.

"There seems to be a 'but' coming..."

"But... I have some conditions to fulfill."

Kafka's face tilted with curiosity. Her lips made no sound, waiting for me to speak.

"First, no killing. I don't want to become an intergalactic criminal."

She laughs, as if the murderous nature of one of her companions wasn't something extremely worrying. In the end, she nodded, agreeing to the first part of the deal.

"And finally, I want you."

Kafka's eyes opened slightly. Even in her surprise, she was behaving like a queen from a teenage novel.

"I don't think I understand..." she said.

"The real you. Not those cloudy eyes or the supernatural powers of mind control," I stared at the hand that contained the fresh wound, sighing after a second's pause in my dissertation. "If we're going to do this, it's going to be my way. As easy as it is to control people's minds, this will only be a last resort, understand?"

Abandoning charm and etiquette, Kafka twists her lip. She rests her face in the palm of her hand, her elbow pressing into one of her knees with a force that seemed slightly painful.

"What do you say?" I ask, cutting her thinking time in half.

Kafka straightened her posture, maintaining a silence so profound that my teenage anxiety came back from the dead to haunt me for a few seconds.

I was about to hyperventilate with suspense when her face turned towards me a second time, and something different could be seen.

Red. The little red line in the pink immensity of her irises. The shape I remember from her face.

"Well..." I said in surprise, not knowing what to say in the current situation. All I could concentrate on was how deep and strong my breathing was.

"What's wrong?" she approached, giving me a short laugh. Without the mist covering her eyes, it really was much easier to read her emotions. "Did you think I'd never accept that?"

"To tell you the truth... no."

"I trust you, Himeko, perhaps more than I should," she pushed my shoulder with the weight of her body. "I know you'll come up with something super complicated and be able to solve all our problems in the blink of an eye."

There it was. The overbearing affirmation of a teenager. It's all like a trip back in time, to a moment when everything was more fun, albeit complicated and surrounded by fleeting feelings.

"All conditions accepted, Himeko," she says, making our simple but important agreement official. "Now it's time to call in your current team. We have the biggest heist of this amber era to plan."

"So you found out we were close because the taste of your coffee changed!?"

Silver Wolf was incredulous at the idea that the constructs of her Aether Edition actually had a flavor. Given her personality and what I know from our brief encounters, I expected her to have tried biting into one of her luminous cubes at one time or another — now, knowing that she's no fool at this level, assuming this idea seemed a bit harsh on my part.

"As I said a few days ago," a male voice came from a black cat in the center of the low table in front of the sofa, its dark paws playing with the handles of the handbag it was resting on. "We needed a genius."

The feline's jade eyes didn't turn in my direction, but it was clear that Elio was staring at my face from wherever he was in this infinite galaxy. For now, I would ignore the latent urge to hang him with all my might.

"You've stolen a lot of things before," I say, filling the pause in my speech with a sip of Kafka's cappuccino. It was already a little cold, but the pleasant, slightly bitter taste was perfectly retained. "Why do you need a genius this time? I'm sure the powers and abilities of Kafka and Silver Wolf would be more than enough."

Kafka laughs right next to me.

It was still strange to have her so close, but between a melancholy immortal swordsman, a hacker who can stick gum in my hair, a fragile girl in armor who can burn metal with ease and a talking cat who predicts the future, my ex-girlfriend with a difficult personality seemed the safest option.

"It's not wrong to say that Vectigalia has the safest vault in the world at its disposal," Kafka says, a confident smile dancing on her lips. She has always loved the ardor of a complex plan. "Their security may be average, but the years and money spent on this special vault make up for everything else."

"From what little the underworld knows, this vault is immune to most of the universe's reality-altering powers, this mainly includes the techniques of the Punklordians," Elio adds, the cat still tangling itself in Firefly's bag. "And of course, it has expensive technology and specially dedicated digital systems, preventing any remote connection."

"Any more details about it?"

"Not particularly," Elio sighs, and the feline looks equally serious and thoughtful. "Unlike the hotel's blueprints, the details of the safe aren't anywhere in the net. It's as if they don't even exist."

"And the files I found on the dark web are full of black marker," Silver Wolf comments sulkily.

I clicked my tongue, revealing the restless state of my mind. The coffee cup lay empty in my hands, waiting for me to drop it on the table.

But before I could do so, Kafka politely took it out of my hands and did the job for me.

"What should we do from here?" she asked, her real eyes fixed on me.

Having so little information was a terrible shock of reality. It meant that I would have to spend more time working with the Stellaron Hunters, while there is a time limit for Ruan Mei's arrival, coupled with an uncertainty about Welt's presence — at any moment my old friend might want to look for me and, as reasonable as he seems, I don't think his calm temperament would hold up in front of this whole troupe of criminals.

"Firefly, what do you know about the building?" As is customary in our lives, I answer Kafka's question with one of my own.

Firefly and Blade seemed out of place in the conversation, unusually quiet.

The girl was sitting on the floor, her back resting on the sofa as she watched the feline play with her bag, her body almost entirely covered by the fabric of her clothes — very different from the radiant and courageous figure the Express had witnessed in Penacony.

I didn't mind Blade's stillness at all. It's really better that he stays still in his corner, standing right next to the exit door. I'm sure nothing useful would come out of his mouth and twisted mind.

"They have this huge casino on the lower floors..." she says, at the same time as holding the feline and placing it on her lap. Her gloved hands are full of loose hair as she strokes the animal. "There are many private rooms, some for games, others for dinners and balls. The place is almost a castle."

Worse, it's even bigger than a castle. Vectigalia's main hotel, called the Hotel Casino Flush , is famous for being one of the largest physical constructions made by mankind. Many of the intergalactic inventions of the Society of Geniuses don't even match the magnitude of this place.

"And, according to our research, the place is also self-sufficient. Generator room, server room, connection to the sewers underground," Silver Wolf cites these and many more details about the place. "The place is a modern fortress."

"Right, I've heard enough," I say, crossing my arms and resting my shoulder blades against the sofa. Although I want to run with this whole thing, our first steps should be slow and careful. "We'll need access to the building's camera and communication system, which I imagine is done on a closed circuit. Our first step is to take a detailed look at this vault."

Silver Wolf nodded at the first statement about the cameras. That explained why they still didn't have access to something so trivial and simple for a large-scale robbery.

"Our target is a super modern vault. Created to combat the current amber era in the best possible way. So..."

I start to say something, but a slightly excited tone of voice interrupts me:

"We'll have to do it the old-fashioned way," Kafka completes my line of thought, quick as her sword. "A super-tech safe is made to prevent super-tech theft methods..."

"Then perhaps a more classical approach will take them by surprise," this time it's me who completes Kafka's sentence.

"Ladies and Blade..." Elio says, the cat purring under Firefly's fingers. "May fate be on our side in this new plan."

Chapter Text

Kafka

My belongings and body were searched four times before I was fully allowed into the casino.

After a boring fifteen minutes at the entrance, having to put up with the deep suspicion and complete caution of the entire security team, I was finally able to spend the free hour I had at a gaming table.

At first, I thought about diving into my basic comfort zone to find a poker table with some vacant space, but they all seemed to be surrounded by very drunk players and curious onlookers. It was as if a tournament or something was taking place that day.

Eavesdropping on some of the passers-by's conversations, I picked up fragmented sentences about a group of IPC employees who had paid for several extremely expensive drinks for the crowd watching them, and who were now betting exorbitant amounts among themselves to simply kill time.

As annoying as it is not to be able to play, having them present meant that the environment would be noisy and uncomfortable, two important details that attract the attention of the venue's security team, consequently weakening their watch over me.

"Hello, Stellaron Hunter."

In a casual tone, Himeko appeared at the drinks counter in calculated, calm steps, taking care as she approached, as if I were a hostile presence in the room.

Although Himeko had never acted in her life, the whirlwind of negative emotions she kept from me somehow helped us with the veracity of the situation. The way her body unconsciously moves away from me, or the way her eyes constantly avoid eye contact, all of this is of great help to the little fantasy we were trying to create, pretending to be two strangers who have just met for the first time in mundane life.

"Ah..." I say, breathing in a tone of false surprise. I let my eyes leave the bottles displayed on the wall, dropping them on the figure of my new companion. "An Nameless, that's rare."

Himeko was wearing some of my clothes: a simple combination of a gray oversized turtleneck sweater and jeans that fit her perfectly. On her face, a pair of silver-framed glasses with rounded rectangular lenses gave off the chic air that the atmosphere demanded of its patrons.

When I said 'you can wear my clothes, we've always been the same size' , I expected Himeko to choose one of my dresses, as she always had before. Maybe her style has changed radically over the years, or maybe I just wasn't worthy of seeing her slender body decorated by such a simple and easily accessible layer of fabric.

"You're not dressed for a luxurious evening," I commented, trying to get her to talk a bit about her choice of style. "Are you here on business?"

"No," she smiles, indicating that she has understood my hidden intentions. "There just wasn't a dress suitable for the situation in the luggage. They're all opulent or revealing, not suitable for a quiet evening."

"I see," it seems that the second option is correct. Himeko definitely doesn't want my eyes on her skin right now. "A shame, I'm sure your body would look beautiful in any of them."

The Nameless turned her face slightly, trying to hide the slightly rosy hue that appeared on her cheeks. She adjusted the position of her feet, spread her hands on the counter and threatened to say something before being interrupted by the arrival of another member of our group of thieves.

"Here's the order for the lady in the flamboyant dress," said Silver Wolf as she emerged holding a silver tray. She was wearing the uniform of the place: black and white dress clothes with a vest buttoned over her shirt. Simple and classic.

"Thank you, dear."

Silver Wolf disappeared as quickly as she had appeared, playing the role of the casino waitress perfectly.

Unlike me and Blade, or the shiny S.A.M. armor, our skilled hacker is a shadow in the material world. She's someone that few know her true face, which gives us the chance to let her take on the most diverse roles in our heists.

"Your drink suits you," Himeko said, trying to fake a giggle that failed again and again between the notes of her vocal cords. Despite the slight awkwardness, it was a good attempt.

Himeko's comment, although also a creative way of resuming the false conversation, is quite assertive. The purple hue of the liquid in the cup matched perfectly with the dress on my body: a long tulle party dress with a single slit.

"You're absolutely right," I say, perfectly imitating the animated way an off-duty intergalactic criminal would talk to a complete stranger. "Do you mind if I smoke while we talk?"

I knew how much Himeko wanted to say no and offend me with some of her complicated words, but she swallowed her pride and answered while faking a smile. "Of course not!"

The drink came with a small cigarette case, made of metal and purple-dyed leather. The wealthy tend to make simple things a little more complex, and that includes not using cigarette packaging and building a silly metal box to store them in. An elegant idea, but one that loses its meaning when they charge almost two thousand credits for something that an old man could do on his own without any difficulty.

Although the idea is distorted by capitalism and the harmful behavior of the wealthy population, it is a great resource for sneaking dangerous items into a well-guarded casino.

Where there was supposed to be a second block of mentholated cigarettes, there was an unattractive-looking circuit board. Technology has evolved to the point where this type of equipment has been reduced to a simple microchip made of super-expensive synthesized materials that are difficult to produce, but here was a makeshift electronic board full of poorly planned connections made in haste — even I, a layperson in complex technology, felt like a complete old woman when faced with such an item having to be used.

"Your earring is a bit loose," Himeko commented, pointing to her own ears, where a very discreet communicator was resting, waiting for me to connect. It's always rewarding to know that only my ears have to be thoroughly checked before I'm allowed in.

Right next to the circuit board, squeezed perfectly between two cigarette filters, was my own communicator — a small artifact, barely noticeable to distracted eyes.

"And the spider enters the wolf's den," as I pretend to adjust the earring in my left ear, I connect to the communicator's preset talk channel, allowing me to hear Silver Wolf's animated voice through it. "We can finally start the plan."

"What did I say about unnecessary catchphrases on the communicator?" Himeko says in a whisper, trying to limit Silver Wolf's geek creativity, even though she knows this would be an impossible task.

"Boring," the hacker sighs, clearly feigning defeat. We can hear her exchanging short sentences with a few customers before she speaks directly to us again. "I've been analyzing the perimeter for the last hour. There are a few likely targets, but most of them are guarded by one or two security guards as they walk their routes."

The casino floors of the hotel are spacious and opulent. The walls were a deep dark red, while clean white marble columns and busts created a philosophical atmosphere worthy of a member of the Genius Society. The floor tiles were a complex mosaic of black and white, with each square being manually positioned to form designs that repeated in a beautiful, slender pattern across the distance.

Among the sea of statues of historical figures, giant paintings and other decorations, our focus was on a more metallic part of the venue's design: electric panels strategically positioned to get lost in the beauty of the environment

"Do you have any plans?" I ask in a clear tone of voice, as I stare into Himeko's face. She looks at me strangely at first, twisting her tongue to find an answer. It takes her a few seconds to decide to fall silent, finally realizing what my question was really about.

"Several," Silver Wolf says, hiding something.

"Nothing radical," Himeko says, answering my question and giving Silver Wolf an obvious warning at the same time.

"Not many," said the hacker with a deep sigh. Not being able to cause a contained technological apocalypse really irritated her. "We've got a great target near the IPC rich guys' poker table."

Before Himeko could turn around to snoop around the place, I reached up and touched her face with my free hand, holding it solely in mine. To the detriment of her lungs, the cigarette in my right hand was lit, letting an uncomfortable aroma waft into her nostrils with the sudden reduction in distance between us.

"Don't look," I whispered next to her ear, trying to get some of the experience and training gained from years of robbing complex plans into the scholar's novice brain. "They're watching me every inch of the way, whether by cameras or guards. Any slightest shift in gaze without any demonstration of context will only attract unnecessary attention to both of us."

The redhead's eyes were wide open, showing an exaggerated, almost comical state of shock. She nodded slowly, showing that she understood and would be more careful.

Gradually, my fingers stiffened and had an unusual tingling sensation, as if they were asking me to do something.

My powers were stored deep inside me, which exempted them from any centimeter of guilt. Something affected me in a different way, something that made my heart beat a little stronger?

Himeko slid her face away in a surprisingly gentle way, forcing her throat immediately afterwards, snapping me out of a trance I hadn't even noticed I was in.

Before I could fully recover, the world started spinning for a few seconds. But above all the surprise, I couldn't ignore the fact that my face felt a little... hot?

"A few meters from the IPC gaming table, we have a private session that is currently in complete disuse," Silver Wolf's voice brought me back to slow reality, plunging me back into the world of action and danger. "Just behind some room dividers and some nice columns, there's an electrical panel in a blind spot of the surveillance system where we can futz around in some safety."

"Are you sure we can go there?" Himeko asked, continuing the false conversation. Her eyes tried to stare into mine for more than two seconds in a row, but they couldn't because of her hesitation.

"Access is restricted, of course," says the hacker, letting out a proud laugh, "but nothing a well-placed distraction can't solve."

"It's the perfect idea," I say, answering the fake question and sealing our draft plan in the same instant.

"Right," even from a distance, I can tell that Silver Wolf has a huge smile on her lips. "We have an order being prepared for the IPC desk right now, I'll be around in a few minutes. Just follow my signal and carry out the whole connection process quickly and we won't have any problems."

All sound from Silver Wolf's side was completely silent.

"Is there a problem?" Himeko asked, her amber eyes focused on the cup I hadn't even touched my lips to. At the base of the fancy container, there were the ashes of the idle cigarette that was already close to burning the filter line.

"Of course not," I replied, forcing a convincing smile as I had done many times in our long relationship. "I'm just not used to being disconnected from my powers for so long, that's all."

In parts, the excuse I'd made had some truth in it. Ever since I met Elio, my powers had become a complete part of my existence, like an engine for a sports car or something like that — just a few days without access to them already made my head spin, my stomach burn and my heart race in small amounts that gradually seemed to become problematic.

But something else was affecting me at the moment, something I didn't quite understand. There's this constant tightness in the center of my chest, along with the fear of doing or saying something wrong. It's like I'm a teenager again.

Perhaps my powers had given me more than supernatural abilities. Perhaps they have plunged my core into a well of insensitivity that is now gradually draining away, returning me to an ordinary, human and accessible form.

As much as it intrigued me, I don't feel it's worth going any deeper into this subject. I don't want to know what I lost or gained when I accepted my powers and learned to control them. In this world there are questions that don't need answers, and this has always seemed to be one of them.

"And the wolf walks to the prey," Silver Wolf's catchphrase hits me like a rifle shot, throwing my brain back to work so abruptly that I felt my world shake a little. "When the commotion starts, you can act. Be quick, please."

I poured all the liquid from the glass down my throat, turning the alcoholic cocktail that should have been enjoyed slowly in order to have some exuberant flavor into a simple bitter river with a strong taste of alcohol.

Himeko stared at me in startled surprise, her fingers and vocal cords entirely frozen.

Before she could recover from the shock to lecture me on alcohol and health, as she always did at school parties, I entwined our arms so that we could walk side by side through the casino like a couple newly formed by fate.

"Listen to me carefully," I say, looking only at the road in front of us. "Don't look at anyone other than me, stay focused and act naturally. Stay away from the communicator and trust Silver Wolf's plan."

"Telling me to trust a hastily put together plan doesn't make me any more confident, Kafka," she says, twisting her lip.

"Then trust me."

She threatened to say something, to create a perfect argument inside her super-intelligent brain, but her white teeth bit her lip to stop her from saying anything.

"Right," Himeko sighs. Her body moves a little closer, taking an almost intimate distance. "I'm going to trust you. Don't make me regret this fucking decision."

We walked at a slow pace, keeping up just enough to look like another couple who are in the last moments of a great date, but who at the same time don't want the date to end.

Next to us, a line of casino employees appeared in an almost rhythmic choreography. They moved from one side to the other at an alarming speed, circling the table of the IPC rich guys while handing out cocktails and glasses of champagne to the observers of the amateur game taking place just ahead.

Amid relieved sighs from some mouths that hadn't seen liquid for a few dozen minutes and the mild celebration of a group of businessmen with slightly more modest bank accounts, I was able to hear the beginning of a tunnel of chaos and despair — that was the signal.

First a simple complaint, followed by the sound of a cup breaking. The liquid flew through the air, hitting three custom-made dresses that don't react well to the appearance of stains, generating indignation and the use of a more heated move.

Ignoring the use of foul language, the moving bodies push those who have stopped because they have been startled, generating a domino effect of shards of glass and good, expensive booze being wasted.

Silver Wolf, using a classic distraction trick to break into parties and casinos, put us in the perfect situation.

"All the security guards on the perimeter have moved in," we hear the voice of our instigator of confusion on the communicator, a few chuckles crowning her sentence. "The cameras must also be busy watching the riot. Take advantage of the window of time.

Himeko and I slipped around the side of the heated group like a shadow slips under a door in a horror movie. Within a few steps we were behind a line of pillars in the private play area, sneaking as fast as our heels would allow.

"Here we are," I say, sticking my back to the wall, taking up a lookout post. Right next to it, a metal box attached to the wall had a modern electronic lock blocking our access.

"I need your smartphone," says Himeko, holding out her hand after analyzing the electronic lock for a single second.

"Why?"

"I'd use mine, but a purple-haired intergalactic criminal cut it in half with a sinister sword a few nights ago."

I sigh and smile, handing over the device. "I get it, I get it, you didn't have to be so mean about it..."

Himeko slid her fingers through a list of applications and options that I didn't even know existed. After a few long seconds, she moved the screen closer to the electronic lock, which clicked and unlocked with incredible ease.

The inside of the panel had an intricate series of cables, connectors and other various options, the exact names of which I don't know. Himeko, on the other hand, navigated the sea of wires in the same way as a navigator trained during the great voyages that discovered the continents of ancient planet Earth.

"What are we looking for?" I asked, trying to break the tension.

"The wires and connections of the building's internal surveillance system," she replied, without taking her eyes off the search. The flashlight on my smartphone helped her investigate the deeper sets.

"Then just connect the board to the correct wires and..."

"Shh!" she says, tossing the smartphone back to me and holding out her newly vacated hand while the other holds the group of connectors and target wires. "I've found what we need. Give me the board, please."

I opened the cigarette case and carefully took the board, handing it with the same affection to the Nameless soft hand.

Himeko spent almost a full minute making sure that nothing was out of place, even doing the work of organizing the wires so that the circuit board was hidden among a perfectly calculated mess.

"Silver Wolf, check," Himeko presses her communicator, releasing the microphone capture for a moment.

"Full access to all floors of the building, girls," Silver Wolf laughs, still able to hear a bit of aggressive complaining from some of the customers.

Himeko smiled as she watched me out of the corner of her eye. She had survived the first step of a complex robbery, the first of many more — it would be childish, and a bit wrong, to say that I'm proud of her, but that's definitely the feeling that best defines the smile that kept coming to the corner of my mouth.

"Ah... guys," Silver Wolf says as she walks briskly, maintaining a serious and worried tone that diverges from her personality. Danger was lurking. "The security guards have noticed your presence in the restricted area, I can't mess up the image from the cameras without aggravating suspicions about what we've done. There's a guy going to check the place out, you've got to find a way out of this fast!"

Himeko stared at me, her cheerful face quickly melting into despair.

"What are we going to do?" she exclaimed, her eyes and body trying to find the direction in which the security guard was coming from.

I kept as calm as the situation demanded, analyzing the situation in its entirety as quickly as my mind could manage. According to Silver Wolf, there was only one person coming to check on the situation, which added a few options to my list.

Attacking him was out of the question, any aggressive act that takes place in the hotel will be started by investigating the most aggressive group — and although some members serving the Aeon of Destruction are present in the hotel, I'm sure we'd be the first choice.

Away from my powers, the option of hypnotizing him is also off the table. And even if I did summon them to save us, Himeko wouldn't trust me for the rest of the plan.

Himeko.

The solution to our problem now seemed obvious in my head.

"I have a plan," I say, holding Himeko's shoulders. "But you're going to hate it."

"This is no time for games, Kafka!"

"Okay. Then don't say I didn't warn you."

My hands went from Himeko's shoulders to her waist in the blink of an eye, accompanied by a gentle push that led to the Nameless back hitting the light panel and locking it with the impact.

The distance we now maintained had gone beyond intimate, uniting us almost as one body. I couldn't help the nostalgia hitting me hard, remembering how I positioned my body over hers every night to stop her from sinking her brain into another book — to make those beautiful eyes finally have a single, sincere focus.

Having Himeko so close made my heart feel like I was watching a revisit of a legendary play. Little by little, our breaths came together, our hearts synchronized their beats and our eyes closed. The prelude was broken by the connection of our lips, launching us into a source of heat that alone fed the movement of our tongues.

In the end, it didn't matter if the security guard approached and felt uncomfortable enough to give up lecturing us about restricted access, or if he was an asshole and pointed a gun in our faces despite our intimate moment.

All that mattered was this unique combination of words that hadn't appeared in my imagination for a long time: 'I love you, Himeko.'

Chapter Text

Himeko

Despite the threatening exterior, Kafka is still the same girl she always was.

She still likes to wear the same dazzling dresses, to adorn her body with silver jewelry that imitates fragile butterflies and, above all, to scare me with her crazy ideas.

Since I became a Nameless and she a criminal with her own place on the IPC's most wanted bounty board, I've hardly met Kafka during my travels through the cosmos. And, coupled with the low number of encounters, our conversations could be described as brief and restrained, with the Stellaron Hunter always striving to evade and sidestep them as much as she could — all in order to do something that she, or Elio , considered more important at the time, even if it cost all the years and adventures we had lived together in the past.

In all these encounters, I thought Kafka had completely abandoned her old life. But here she is kissing me as if she had never lost her practice, using her hands to touch my ribs and hips at the exact points that made me sigh vividly.

"Kafka..."

I tried to reach her between the pauses granted by her lips, but her mouth kept moving uninterruptedly against my face. Cheek, chin, nothing was safe from her kisses.

"Hey, listen..."

I touched Kafka's face between the divots of her neck, aiming for an extremely specific spot that I could vaguely remember. My thumb slid across a sensitive patch of skin, bringing a wave of sensations that made the huntress recoil at the same time as her face moved towards my touch.

This was a weakness I only discovered after weeks of enduring endless kisses, which only ended when Kafka got tired of annoying me. A piece of sensitive skin that had long served to transform a cold and passionate rebel into a needy girl, now served to tame a slightly more evil version of that same rebel.

"We're fine now," I said, between quick, muffled breaths. Even though I couldn't see him when he appeared, I heard the audible embarrassment of the security guard who was supposed to check the place out and remove any unwanted intruders. "He ran out in the first three seconds, you didn't have to go that far..."

"What did you say?" she asks, her eyes narrowing as her face slides gently into the grasp of my palm.

"It's not time to play Kafka. We have to..."

My sentence met with a gasp before it was completed. A barrier generated by Kafka's warm hands finding my wrist in a slightly possessive way, restricting me from any movement other than keeping it in the position she seemed to like.

"I don't know what you two have been up to," Silver Wolf's voice boomed in our ears. The surprise of a third electronic presence brought Kafka's countenance back to reality. "But it worked surprisingly well! I'll be in our room setting up an image loop for the cameras in the corridors and getting Blade to keep an eye on the footage from the vault area. I recommend you two stay out of the hotel for a few hours, just until the dust settles... those IPC guys will be complaining for at least another two hours."

Kafka remained motionless for a few seconds, her eyes darting from side to side as she created different alternatives in her head. When her eyes closed, the thin line on her lip arched upwards, creating a determined smile before she said:

"That's a great idea, Silver Wolf."

The rain in Vectigalia seemed eternal.

The documents in the Astral Express database talk about very cold and rainy weather in the fall, but nothing like what I'm experiencing.

This rain started when I arrived on the planet and has continued until today. Firefly commented, during one of our casual conversations in the hotel room, that she had overheard some of Vectigalia's elite talking about it during one of the business dinners she attended to fulfill her role in Elio's script.

The almost eternal rains seem to have appeared only in the last decade, as if something had drastically changed Divitae's climate abruptly. It would be interesting to investigate all this in order to update the database, but unfortunately my time around here is too busy and limited for that. Perhaps Welt has had more luck than me in gathering new information about this planet.

"I imagine you hate this starless sky."

Kafka finally showed up after just over twenty minutes since she left for her walk. For a moment I thought she had left me alone again.

We were sitting at a table outside a bar — or pub, as they call it here — waiting for the hours to pass so we could get back to the hotel. The wooden roof above our heads drummed with the sound of the rain, filling the silence with something other than the muffled music coming from inside the establishment.

"You took your time," I said, ignoring her sharp comment about the lack of constellations in the night sky. For a city made for cosmic elites, Vectigalia doesn't have many natural wonders to witness.

"Did you miss me?"

The corner of Kafka's lip rises to create a seductive smile.

"No," I say suddenly, nipping her advances in the bud before she can even begin to delve deeper into these attempts. "I was just worried about having to go back to the hotel on my own."

Kafka sat down in the chair opposite me, on the opposite side of the small table that separated us.

" I would never leave you alone, " she says, as she settles back in her chair.

As beautiful as her sentence was, we both knew it was a lie. All it takes is one simple line in fate's script for her to leave everything behind.

"Well..." she whispers, trying to come up with a sentence to escape the awkward atmosphere that her flirtatious attempt had put her in. "I was trying to say that..."

"You used to be better at that."

My sentence cuts Kafka's lines of thought in half. As much as I harbored an internal anger towards my ex-girlfriend, seeing her ashamed and lost didn't give me any level of satisfaction.

"The truth is that I've never been good at flirting, Himeko," she says, resting her cheek on the palm of her hand. "Your feminine standards have always been extremely simple-minded."

I narrow my eyes, staring at the scene in front of me with giant strangeness.

"Since when do you belittle yourself, Kafka?"

"I'm not lying," she laughs, decorating her painted lips with a radiant smile. "Do you remember what I said the first time we talked?"

"Of course I remember! It was... ah..."

I certainly didn't remember.

All I could think of was a younger version of Kafka. A teenager who woke up two hours earlier than usual every day to get her hair done before going to school.

"Damn..." I cursed, crossing my arms. My standards were really quite simple. All it took was the slightest pretty girl to take my mind off my studies.

"See, you fell in love at first sight, I didn't even have to make an effort to win you over."

"Right," I sighed, "and where are you going with all this?"

Kafka paused for a moment. I could see the red in her eyes take on a strong pensive tone, plunging the air into a tension that at first seemed totally unnecessary.

"Kafka?" I call after a long minute of silence from the Stellaron Hunter.

"What's my point? Well, I think I still love you , Himeko."

If I'd had a drink in my hands, I would certainly have dropped the glass and spat any liquid into my mouth from a few dozen meters away. As much as the lack of these elements prevented an overreaction, I still found myself choking on my own surprise, coughing for a few long moments.

"T-That’s," the cough cuts off my words. "That's not funny, Kafka!"

Kafka's face remained frozen in a sweet smile, showing the purest sentimentality I've seen her display since the first time we kissed.

She wasn't lying.

How can she not be lying?

Why isn't she lying?

"Kafka, what the fuck is this?" I ask her, trying to glean any ounce of information that will satisfy my deep inner doubt.

"There's nothing more to add to that sentence, Himeko," she laughs again, probably because she finds the current state of my red face a little funny. "I still love you."

"That doesn't make any sense," I say, getting up from the chair to let myself breathe the cold air a little better. "You can't just leave me, become an intergalactic criminal and after years say you still love me after spending just a few days with me."

"Why not?"

Anger.

Anger was the only feeling covering me at the moment.

By this point I had lost control of my body to my emotions. My arms gesticulate from side to side, my vocal cords release an intense and long series of disconnected words, my eyes lose any kind of focus and my ears stop listening to anything other than the internal sounds of my heart and lungs working at an accelerated rate.

Rationality, intelligence, everything has disappeared to make way for fear and human despair.

" Take a deep breath... "

My skin didn't quite understand at first, but something had taken hold around me, enveloping me with methodical care.

Gradually everything made a little more sense again.

I could hear the rain, visualize the bright landscape devoid of any naturalness, finally feel the way my arms and chest muscles were rigid, while at the same time they seemed to have countless ants running around inside them.

"Sorry."

I could hear Kafka right behind me.

Feel it too.

She had put her coat around my shoulders. A singular piece from her collection, perfectly chosen to match a stunning dress, now adorned a lost and fragile version of myself.

Gradually, my arms began to work again, as if the blood was once again circulating through them — even though its flow had never been cut off.

"I'm lucky you don't have a briefcase in your hands," Kafka says, using a deeply caring, intimate tone. "The last time you were like this, you tried to knock me out with it."

It's true.

Perhaps my mind had erased it, or simply ignored it so that my problems became bigger and bigger. Anger completely consumed me during our reunion at the top of the building a few days ago.

But now, thinking back on it all. I could only crack a smile and let out a silly laugh.

"I could never beat you," I say, my voice still cracking a little.

Something around me became tighter, enclosing me in a tender grip. That's when I noticed that Kafka had her arms around my body all the time, holding me by the waist while her face was plunged into the curve of my neck — despite my surprise, my body didn't move to push her away even a centimeter.

"You'd be surprised," she says, moving her face a little against my skin. I could feel her lips still in place, yearning to move a little more. "In all the scripts, I'm practically invincible. My bones may break, deep wounds may open, but at the end of it all, success is guaranteed. As long as every line is followed to the letter."

She paused for a moment to take a deep breath, making me shiver as the warm air hit my shoulder.

"But this one is different," another breath of hot air. "Someone can finally break me forever: a super-smart redhead, who is also beautiful, but who doesn't like to use her beauty as a resource in her cosmic explorations. A girl who knows her own limits but unconsciously ignores them, always telling herself that it's the last time she's going to sleep late at night, even though she knows she'll spend another sleepless night the next day."

"You already have made your point, Kafka..."

"Come on," her face detaches itself from my neck, leaving me with an unexpected feeling of neediness. "I had a dozen more compliments to say."

"As much as I love you being romantic," I say, only realizing the meaning of these words when they've already been said. But honestly, it didn't seem to matter anymore. "You can stop now. I'm fine, thanks to your efforts."

I stared at the background for a while. A deserted street, with only vehicles periodically crossing the tarmac in the rain.

" I can't say I love you, Kafka, " I say, curling my lip. "You traded a life with me for a cat that sees the future. You chose your path a long time ago, a decision that hurt me deeply."

The Stellaron Hunter arms stiffened, holding me as if I were going to run away at any moment.

"But here you are... helping me control my emotions, kissing me like you've never stopped doing it, saying a collection of beautiful words that leave me lost," I sigh, finally relaxing my body against Kafka's. "Your luck, Kafka, is that I have a thing for pretty girls. "

Chapter Text

Himeko

It's been a week since we successfully hacked into the building's surveillance system. Since then, our effective team has been divided into three parts: Silver Wolf and Blade kept an eye on the hotel's security team, noting their patterns and looking for possible breaches in their protocols; Firefly and Elio continued to attend meetings of the elites, focusing solely on keeping our cover alive; and, no less important than everyone else, Kafka and I got involved in researching the vault, looking for miraculous ways to get past a hyper-technological defense created to defend against the worst opportunists in the known galaxy.

During one of the nights, Silver Wolf tried to create a complex problem in the electrical network of the place, which required almost two dozen engineers to solve it in a hurry. Among the workers assigned to the job, Blade managed to infiltrate in some macabre and skillful way that I chose not to know all the details about — I just got Kafka to make sure that the melancholy swordsman hadn't taken any lives during the process of this crazy plan.

In the end, Blade was able to bring me samples from the vault: residues of its metal alloys and other materials from its hull attached to old tools, used for possible seasonal maintenance.

"It's a huge safe for a few diamonds," I comment, still standing in the center of the mess our living room had become. The sofas were cluttered with pillows and sheets, while the coffee table and any other flat surface above the floor didn't have a centimeter of free expanse without a sheet of notes or a photo taken from a security camera covering it. "Exaggeratedly complex metal alloys, made with something more than simple science... that's not something a genius would make, but rather what a weapons craftsman would create, a master of war or something like that."

"So we're facing a weapon of war in the shape of a vault?" Firefly asked in a tired voice. The young woman was sitting on the sofa among a mountain of pillows, the dark circles under her eyes showing a little of the sleep deprivation that the nightly dances were throwing at her.

"Something like that," I sighed deeply, closing my eyes for a few precious seconds. "There seems to be magic in those metal walls. It's the only thing that would explain Silver Wolf's Aether Edition not being able to alter it."

Silver Wolf and I stared at some of the photos and notes for a few minutes, plunging the room into a deep silence. Firefly didn't say a word, but it wasn't hard to tell that she was enjoying the pause that the calm gave her.

"Magic, you say?" Silver Wolf asks, holding up a half torn sheet of paper that contained a full-scale rubik's cube drawn on it. "It's something quite susceptible to elemental reactions, isn't it?"

Elemental reactions. Weaknesses to be creatively exploited.

I sat down on a vacant space on the sofa opposite the pair of Stellaron Hunters, resting my gaze on the coffee table. The sturdy vault filled each of the photos and sketches we had drawn, along with its extravagant measurements and chemical details about how its components were possibly made.

Magic is usually a difficult area to delve into. The Paths of the Aeons are strange, powerful forces that grant superhuman abilities to those who follow them. Even with all this extravagance, there is still a certain logic behind these powers — very different from wild and inexplicable magic.

In my entire life, I have heard of few things that resemble pure magic, inexplicable events that cannot be analyzed scientifically. In all of them, Madam Herta was present, the only one capable of accomplishing a feat so complex that only her genius mind is able to fully comprehend it. A mind that loves to keep a few relics of knowledge in a deep corner of its own brain.

"We could try something like this," I say, finally letting out the air I've unconsciously trapped in my lungs. "But we have to be sure of what we're doing, we don't have enough materials to carry out many physical tests. We have to choose the right reactions, or we'll end up frozen in time waiting for a miracle."

"Relax, Himeko," Silver Wolf said, crossing her arms and standing up. "Elements and how they work are my specialty. Discovering the weakness of this vault is going to be like a..."

"Video game?" Firefly asked, her voice sleepy. "Isn't everything a video game to you?"

I let the two of them take over the rest of the conversation for themselves — Silver Wolf spent some time complaining about how we interrupted her off-key catchphrases at every turn, before getting back to talking about the details of the plan. To the misfortune of the remaining energy in the fake princess's body, Firefly was inserted into the hacker's test battery as her personal source of the fire element.

"Are they still debating?"

Kafka appeared suddenly, almost as silent as her murderous partner. She was dressed casually, in comfortable and indispensably elegant clothes that protected her from the cold weather.

"Yes, Silver Wolf is still trying to convince Firefly to help with the tests," I reply, settling my shoulder blades against the sofa that should be worth a few thousand credits. "As much as I agree that using Firefly's armor would help speed up the tests, she's been very tired these past few days. The girl hasn't even had a full night's sleep yet."

Kafka emitted one of her characteristic laughs, but this one sounded more... cheerful, without the mysterious tone that served to hide her true feelings about something.

She leaned over and slid her arms over my shoulders, inhibiting my neck into a comfortable prison. Our faces were close, almost touching, which allowed me to see how little make-up Kafka wore — even after so many years, she still made a point of getting up early to take care of her appearance.

"Relax," she says, her lips leaving a kiss on the exact center of my cheek. "Firefly is very resistant to these things. And, as much as I agree that her health always comes first, if she slept now it would take us days to wake her up."

I sighed, defeated. I know little about Firefly, but the conclusion that she is no ordinary humanoid was very obvious. If Kafka says she can endure all this, no matter how fragile the young woman appears to be, I believe her.

 " Holy shit... "

Silver Wolf's audible surprise rippled through the room, causing Kafka and I to look away from each other. Both the hacker and Firefly had their eyes turned in our direction, their bodies locked as if any movement would scare us away.

"Is there a problem?" I asked, tilting my head a little to find a new piece of comfort in Kafka's arm.

Kafka. Of course. That was the cause of the sudden surprise.

It must be a shock to see your boss kissing what should be your arch enemy.

"When did this happen again?" still reeling from the shock of the surprise, Silver Wolf stretched out her index finger to both of us.

"So that was the girl," I can hear Firefly whisper to herself, a moment before she slips into a thoughtful state.

I'm a bit frightened by the pair's sentences. Did Kafka tell anyone about her past? Or, even deeper than that, did he tell them about me ? That's really... surprising.

"Don't just stand there, girls, we've got a lot to do and not much time to talk," Kafka says, slightly lifting a part of her body without breaking my current comfort. "I promise to tell you everything when we have some free time, if that's what I need to tell you to get back to work."

The two of them got up and walked away, whispering about probably everything except what should be our current focus.

"You told both of them that we'd already been..."

"Just for Silver Wolf," Kafka interrupted my question, her body disentangling itself from mine. She sat on top of the sofa's backrest, rocking her body until she was upside down with her back resting on what should normally be her seat. "I had to tell her some time ago so that we could succeed in a mission, things from an old script that had already been resolved. As for Firefly, she didn't really know anything specific about this topic. I just told her that I had someone... important in my life in my past. She just connected the dots."

"What about Blade and Elio?"

"As you may have realized, Blade isn't much of a conversationalist. Despite that, he's a great observer, he must have understood everything from the first time he saw us together a few years ago," Kafka let out a hearty laugh, keeping a radiant smile for every fraction of a second. She was really happy with everything that had been going on around us over the last few days. "And our dear Elio is simply a cat who predicts the future, Himeko. He knows more about me than I know about myself at this point."

An eccentric hacker with reality-altering abilities, an immortal swordsman, a girl in flaming armor and a cat who sees the smallest details of our future. Kafka was never really one for making ordinary friends — of course, that includes me too.

She was never someone who clamored to have real friends. This group of misfit personalities must be the closest thing Kafka had to what we call best friends.

As much as I'm sure she considers them coworkers or something, I know she still cares deeply about the well-being of each of them — even Blade and his chaotic tendency to seek an end to his immortality.

"Anyway," Kafka finally sits down properly, aligning her spine and assuming her usual elegant posture. "What do we have planned for today?"

"Since Silver Wolf will be testing possible interactions with the materials in the vault, someone has to take her place in keeping an eye on the security team."

"Perfect," Kafka stretches out her arms to stretch. Her quick acceptance had definitely surprised me.

Over the last few days, she had been constantly complaining about how monotonous it was to analyze samples and conduct small experiments with experimental metals and their functionalities. Watching cameras and noting patterns is supposed to be even more boring than that.

"You... took it very well," I say, trying to understand the hidden reasons behind her sudden reaction.

"When you're working with chemistry and these other complexly named things that I've never understood, your attention is totally required," she explains, as she brings her face close to my neck. "Watching security footage only requires a little bit of your brain. That means we can talk more at night."

"If you wanted to talk, you could have just said so from the start," my head tilts in an unconscious reflex, causing our gazes to remain in a continuous line.

"I'd rather not risk it," Kafka's lips twitch, releasing a nostalgic laugh. "I've already burned a few fingers trying to get you to work a little less.

"You always ignored my warnings about dangerous materials and tools," I closed my eyes, also laughing at the memory. Kafka never agreed to wear safety equipment when mixing chemicals. By pure fate or luck, she never lost an eye or had a finger blown off during an adverse reaction to a chemical compound or anything unexpected of the sort.

"Security equipment is the stuff of amateurs," Kafka again straightens her posture. "But I admit I was lucky a lot of the time. Elio must have been almost going mad trying to change the future to prevent my young self from going blind or losing an arm before adulthood."

"Probably."

We both laughed for several more minutes, while timelines ran in front of us. The past was remembered, the present slightly celebrated and the future never mentioned.

"Silver Wolf sent me a message."

Kafka's smartphone was lying on the other side of her bed. It vibrated from time to time when she received notifications, but Kafka never stopped to look at them — this time was no different.

"How do you know?" I asked, curious. "You didn't even look at the screen."

The Stellaron Hunter gave me a confident smile before lying down next to me. We were both ready for bed, wearing thin, comfortable nightgowns under warm, fuzzy jackets to protect us from the cold.

She swung her legs in the air, her bare feet playing with themselves while still ignoring the device in question.

"That's what's in the script," Kafka says, staring at me with a machiavellian gleam in her eyes. "She found a way for us to reduce the structure of the vault to dust. A clever combination of electricity and fire: overload ."

I narrowed my eyes for a moment, trying to take in the rapid onslaught of information. Without saying a word, my body moved towards Kafka's smartphone, where the screen unlocked without the need for a security word.

To my surprise, all the words and details were there, including the name. Overload, a way of simply reducing the defenses of an experimental metal alloy to zero in a few minutes.

"How… that’s impossible," I say, not doubting Silver Wolf's ability to produce something creative like this in less than a day, but rather doubting Kafka's, or rather Elio's, predictions. "Is the script thorough to this degree...?"

Many scenarios ran through my head. Elio said they needed a genius, someone capable of helping them with specific intelligence as opposed to brute force. The script knew that they needed a flaming core with enough potential to achieve an almost magical elemental reaction — since Firefly has been severely worn down since her adventures in Penacony, someone in the universe with this potential would have to agree to help the Stellaron Hunters in a dangerous robbery, risking their life and career in the process.

Someone who, at the very least, would have to have a very good reason for agreeing to help them. A deeper reason than just ancient fossils of a member of the Genius Society.

"Have you finished connecting all the dots?"

Before I knew it, Kafka was sitting in front of me. Her hips rested against my legs, while one of her hands slid between the curve of my neck and shoulder, giving me a certain level of comfort.

"You're thinking too much again," Kafka says, her eyes intensely focused on mine. "I want you to be quiet and listen before you jump to conclusions."

She took my silence as a sign of agreement, her voice reaching an almost hypnotic pitch — maybe this is the way she talks to her victims before forcing them to do her bidding, or maybe I just deeply need her to comfort me, to say something that will dispel the bad thoughts that Elio's abilities were giving me.

"Elio sees the future in various ways, some better than others. Softer scripts, like the one that dictates the outcome of our rivalry as clans of the cosmos, are less perfect. Scripts like Penacony's tend to have more detail, but still with certain loopholes for interpretation," Kafka sighs, releasing the tension she surprisingly felt. "On the other hand, shorter scripts, like the one in Xianzhou, or the one we're experiencing now, are rich in certain details."

Before my shoulders could pull back and take on tension, both of Kafka's hands landed on them, offering me relaxing touches while her face was positioned ridiculously close to mine.

"When a script is written, Elio warns us and gives us a choice: to read it or not. If we choose not to face the lines of fate, it warns us what exactly we have to do and we follow its orders correctly. If we muster up the courage to read what fate has in store for us, we learn every important detail."

"Have you read this script? Our script?"

"I read as many scripts as I can, Himeko," she says, hitting me with a painful shock of reality. For a second I thought it was important somehow. "Let's just say I'd always rather see the spoiler than enjoy the moment."

She laughs at her own phrase, recoiling at the end of the animated vocalizations in her throat.

"But as I said a few days ago, this script is different, special somehow," Kafka slowly takes my hand, bringing the tip of my index finger to the center of her lips. "You're on it. And, as it turns out, fate will always have something it can't manipulate: emotions. The future can write that someone will die three times, or that two people will fight to the death in an arena, but it will never be able to control their emotions and how they feel during these events. You can fight to the death hating your opponent like an archenemy, or loving them like a soul mate, it's up to both of you to decide that for yourself."

Kafka is a playwright by nature, someone capable of delivering deep emotions to an explanation that could be profoundly complex and scientific. As rustic as my methods were, I learned to like the way she explained things better, making it easier for me to digest a blow that could have destroyed me entirely.

I wish I'd had more time to think, to say that I still doubted Kafka's intentions, or what she really felt, but I couldn't do it.

The woman in front of me is the love of my life, someone that fate keeps putting in front of me again and again, in the hope that we will hold on to each other. And as much as my brain deeply wants to feel anger or hatred, each and every sight of her beauty warms me and blankets me with comfort and the certainty that we were created to end up together at the end of the ages.

"Hey... you used to be more subtle about wanting to kiss me," Kafka laughs out loud, her body joining mine to generate a wave of warmth that chases away the cold and the sound of the rain. "Your face is almost sinking into mine at this point."

"I'd give anything to just want to kiss you now, unfortunately you make me want to do a little more every time," I say, ignoring the redness and heat of shame that rises from admitting something so lascivious.

"Really? How long has it been since we dived into something like that?"

"Years?"

"Many..."

"Do you think we've lost our practice?"

"Probably," she smiles, her fingers touching slightly more sensitive parts of my collarbone. "But relax, it can't be any noisier than the first time."

A statement of fact or a simple challenge? It was impossible to know what the last piece of information that Kafka's lips gave me really meant.

When I regained control of my body, our tongues were busy with each other, while our hands were desperately trying to remember the places where we were most sensitive, along with carrying out the arduous task of getting rid of any piece of fabric in front of us.

The rain and the cold were no longer important variables, they couldn't stop us from sweating for a few hours. Maybe we'd get sick in the process, or the conclusion would leave us too tired to get out of bed the next day — honestly, I didn't give a damn about any of these variables.

Chapter Text

Kafka

It's three days until the night of the big auction in Vectigalia. Although our time in the city was short, we managed to organize ourselves very well before the situation became too complex to work with.

As interesting as it would be, acting during the auction would be exaggeratedly more complex than usual — security during the event would be tripled around the vault and, even worse than that, we would lose much of the trust we had gained with Himeko.

But here we are again, inside the luxurious Hotel Casino Flush, perfectly positioned after going over the plan dozens of times in our group meetings.

"Relax, Firefly," Elio's voice echoes in our brains. "I'll be here to guide you through all the stages, just as I always have at the other events."

Blade and I wore dark suits, with very well-fitting ties — the classic uniform of a private security guard.

Firefly led our entourage, walking among the people while her sea-green heels clicked against the white marble floor. Hidden inside the bag that hung on her flank, a black cat capable of predicting the future and communicating only inside our heads used short words to calm her slight anxiety.

"Hello, Miss!" The attendant maintained a radiant smile. For a brief moment, her lips quirked as she noticed me and Blade a few steps behind Firefly. "You are... Princess Eadlyn Monteneve, correct?

"Yes..."

Firefly knew exactly what to say, but her vocal cords found a point of failure. Perhaps due to tiredness or the tension of the moment, the girl couldn't recall the lines she had rehearsed for so long in our preparation phases.

Elio, who seconds before had said he would be a guide, was mute.

"Sorry," she coughs, feigning a sore throat. The receptionist's countenance softened, probably because she had remembered the details of our false princess's poor health. "I'm just here to play a few rounds. I'm feeling a bit lucky."

A fragile countenance, along with a well-positioned body designed to look vulnerable, Firefly, despite her inexperience, played her part perfectly.

She and the identity of Eadlyn Monteneve had some great similarities, but Firefly never let her illnesses stop her from seeking her own destiny in this vast universe. Fragile and vulnerable are two things that the girl in front of me will never be.

"Of course," with ease, the receptionist unfolds her fingers over the keyboard of the reception computer. "You have credits with you, right?"

Carefully, Firefly held up the keychain in the shape of humanoid armor colored in vibrant red and green, opening her purse just enough for Elio to hand her the smartphone with his soft paws.

Within seconds, a bank transaction originating from an account surrounded by false and heavily encrypted information was carried out.

"That's all right. Your Highness will receive fifty chips worth a thousand credits each," says the receptionist, as she bends down to reach an acrylic holder containing exactly the amount of chips she had previously communicated. "Bets at ordinary gaming tables start at one thousand credits. During one of your games, you may receive a pass to the high-stakes lounge, where bets start at ten thousand credits."

The high-stakes lounge, our primary target.

If we're to reach the venue, Firefly will have to show a bit of thievery and cunning at the gaming tables. I hope the basic lessons in poker, blackjack and other card games she asked me to give her a few days ago have taught her enough to survive.

"Before you go in," the receptionist glares at Blade and me just after Firefly grabs the acrylic stand. "Are there any weapons that need to be stored?"

"Was that your best attempt at not seeming hostile towards us?" Blade asked, staring at the woman. The sarcastic comment had taken even me by surprise.

"What did you say?"

"No problem," Firefly interrupted the discussion at the beginning, before the situation got complicated. "Please hand over your weapons. I'm sure you're more than capable of protecting me without the aid of any weaponry, aren't you?"

Two blades appeared, materialized in mid-air. It had been a few weeks since I had touched my sword, which made the sensation of holding its scabbard a little disconnected with my current mood. Pausing to think a little more, it had also been a few weeks since I'd gotten into any kind of trouble — perhaps this short time I'd spent with Himeko had done my lifestyle a favor.

Blade's sword was delivered shortly afterwards, a fragmented blade that remained complete inside its magical sheath.

"Any other weapons?"

This time, the receptionist looked only in my direction.

Of course, even the simplest attendants were warned about the specifics of our group, including our favorite combat styles and equipment.

"No firearms or grenades for today," I reply, pulling down the sunglasses that were resting on the top of my head. "Recently I've been in a more pacifist state, so to speak."

Despite the dose of humor in the sentence, it's no lie that I'm not in possession of all my equipment. My submachine guns and grenades were left in the hotel room due to practicality issues — it's not practical or comfortable to carry around so much equipment, especially during an assault of a meticulous nature where you need to be quicker than you are lethal.

Despite the displeasure on her face, the receptionist allowed us to enter the casino.

Unlike last time, the place was extremely busy. The auction was very close, which obviously increased the number of people on the hotel premises and, consequently, in the various betting and entertainment rooms.

Our group walked in large, confident strides through the crowd — having a pair of known criminals to ward off any civilians who got too close also helped our mobility.

"We're approaching the poker tables," I tapped the communicator in my right ear discreetly, opening the communication channel as we walked without looking away. "The game can take a while, so keep your cover until we've gotten the pass to the high-stakes lounge."

There was no answer on the other end of the line, but there was no need. Himeko and Silver Wolf wore the same disguise as members of the casino's security team. Any problems with the systems and betting machines would be addressed directly to them, almost instantaneously.

Blade and Silver Wolf spent a long time observing this team's patterns through the security footage, until they were able to steal some access cards and identities that were easily edited by our hacker's skills shortly afterwards.

"Playing poker..." Firefly sighed nervously. The girl mumbled a rapid series of words to herself, which I couldn't understand, but I was sure were deeply discouraging.

"Relax, Firefly," I say in a whisper. "Our victory is guaranteed."

"You said the script doesn't specify that we win at the game we've chosen, Kafka," she replies, her knuckles turning pale as she nervously holds the acrylic box with her chips. "It could all get a bit more complicated if I don't win."

"Poker is a game that requires skill, yes," with a flick of my wrist, I fix the position of the sunglasses on my face, improving my view of my surroundings. "But our main factor is luck. We often have to rely on the fate of the cards we're dealt in order to win."

"That's why we have Elio with us this time," Blade adds in his classic monotone voice. "A cat who predicts the future at a poker table... frankly, even a god of trickery would be disgusted by what we're about to do to someone's bank account and morals."

I don't like to admit it, but I fully agree with what Blade said a few minutes ago — what we're doing here is perhaps unforgivably evil.

We are surrounded by rich people, humans and other cosmic races who simply have financial power because they were born into the right family. Taking money from them, to me, is like a favor to the world.

Or at least it would be, if the game was played in a slightly fair way.

I'm a fan of cheating, but I usually only do card tricks or techniques that take advantage of inattention to gain an advantage over my opponents. What we're doing here, now, is a whole different level of cheating.

Elio led Firefly throughout the match, making her fold great starting hands and even asking her to play with the worst hand in the game time and time again.

Since our false princess became the fifth player to enter this long green-lined table, she hasn't lost a single round that Elio has allowed her to play to the end.

To close observers, Princess Monteneve looked like a world poker champion with dozens of years of experience. Round after round, card after card, Firefly had the perfect hands every time. Playing against her seemed demotivating, unfair in every way, but people kept buying more and more chips, defeat after defeat, to try to win a single, measly round.

Our fifty thousand credits had been quintupled in the blink of an eye, but none of Firefly's rotating opponents seemed to want to give up playing against her.

"I'm all-in!"

A good-looking blond man, who appeared to have some level of influence in the import market, exclaimed from across the table. He pushed into the center the chips he had accumulated during the consecutive rounds that Firefly had given up her starting hand. There were just over a hundred thousand credits in total.

As brave as he was, it was a move of pure desperation. This man's goal was not profit, but pure, dense pride. It doesn't matter if the unbeatable princess drops out of the round, or if he wins by revealing the cards. Winning just once is all he wants to feel good about himself.

"Come on," Elio's voice echoed in our heads. "Take everything from him."

Firefly took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself to see human decay at the end of another round of a cursed game.

"I'll call the bet," she says, staring solely at the cards on the table.

There were three cards on the table: an ace of diamonds and two dark jacks. Cards that, together, offer danger to any of the players at the moment.

The dealer, a young man with dark skin and a slim build, counts the chips and announces the total value of the round before revealing the last two cards that will tell us the outcome of the game.

First a jack of diamonds, followed by a queen of diamonds.

Even without knowing the cards that Firefly held, the result that Elio had manipulated was so obvious that it made my vocal cords want to let out a high-pitched laugh.

"A four of a kind!" the blond announces euphorically, revealing his own cards as he throws them forcefully onto the table. An ace of clubs and a jack of hearts. What was once just a three of a kind is now a powerful four of a kind.

"Ah..." Firefly looked at her own cards for a moment, trying to recall the rules of the game. "That makes me win, right?"

A 10 of diamonds and, of course, the king of the same suit. The cards needed to complete the highest possible combination in this game. Watching fate being manipulated like that made my stomach turn a little.

"Royal..." even the dealer looked incredulous, his eyes almost popping out of his face and falling onto the green table cloth. "Royal Straight Flush. Princess Monteneve wins."

The whole atmosphere grew heavier as Firefly organized the new amount of chips. The crowd that had gathered around us was incredulous, using all the mental strength they could muster to try to mentally process the supposed streak of luck that had favored the princess in this latest round.

"Miss... I mean, Your Highness," the dealer unfolds some of his torso on the table. Blade and I take a few steps closer, just to maintain the veracity of our roles as personal security guards. "I'm afraid the table won't continue while the princess is here. But with this pass, you can take your game to the high-stakes lounge, if you wish."

The pass was nothing more than a thin plastic rectangle, with an exaggerated number of identifications and serial numbers on its surface that surrounded the logo of the casino hotel.

"Thank you," Firefly nods, thanking the boy with an endearing smile worthy of a real princess. Following one of my previous tips on good behavior, she separates a tower of chips, sliding them towards the dealer. "This is for you. Thanks for the cards."

Our pockets have just become twenty thousand credits lighter because of this small tip, but nothing that a few more minutes of gambling in a casino can't solve for our own coffers in the near future.

"I have to agree with Blade this time," I say with a heavy sigh, just after helping Firefly organize the chips in the extra acrylic holders we had to ask the casino staff for to hold our new mountain of winnings. "Even Elation must have been a little more melancholy about what we've just done here."

Putting the sudden tide of guilt aside for a moment, our plan was ready to go one step further.

Firefly guided our way to the entrance of the high-stakes lounge, where we were initially prevented from entering by a stationary security guard. After a quick check of the entry pass, we were allowed to roam freely around the lounge.

The place was nothing more than a separate room from the casino's common areas, with more fragile and expensive decorations such as antique marble busts and tapestries displayed on the walls. There was a bar in the west corner, where drinks appeared to be free and the lighting was all provided by strategically installed lights.

Although beautiful, the deliberate lack of windows and specific lighting is nothing more than a way of deceiving customers' perception of time, tricking them into thinking that they've only been putting their bank accounts in debt for a few hours, when in fact they've been sinking into intensive betting for almost 24 hours straight.

"We're in," Blade says, as he searches the inside pockets of his jacket. "We'll begin the infiltration phase in fifteen minutes. Be in position by then."

Fifteen long minutes.

Even thinking exactly that, I still feel strange.

My body is so still.

I've already carried out several waits during robberies under the alias of Stellaron Hunter. All of them required at least one cigarette or a generous dose of some alcoholic beverage so strong that it could be considered unfit for human consumption.

It's as if all the chaos and anxiety has been purged from my cells, washed away with the eternal rain of Vectigalia.

"Is everything all right, Kafka?" I hear Firefly's voice reverberate in my head, turning me back to the material world. "You've been looking at your own hand for a while."

As usual in any complex operation, my hands were covered in the usual burgundy gloves.

Wearing them stopped being just about style and became a necessity some time ago, when firearms and unstable grenades became part of my personal arsenal. And, of course, as a way of protecting my skin from my own strings.

"Yes," I replied, putting on a sincere smile. "It's the first time I've felt like this in a while."

"Happy?"

"Yes," I let the laugh that rose in the back of my throat see the light of day. "Very happy."

"Time to act,"

Blade's raspy voice echoes through our communicators, delivering the signal we've all been longing for for some time.

Firefly looked at me for a couple of seconds, smiling in a way that motivated both of us.

Our false princess slipped away with Blade, leaving me alone in a corner of the room. Everyone was in the necessary positions, ready to act on our calculated plan when the chaos began.

The new duo walked over to one of the walls in the east area, where slot machines glowed and produced an incessant, irritating musical jingle. These flashy, treacherous machines are so simple in construction that it only took Silver Wolf a few hours to put together a program that would alter their entire programming.

From inside his jacket, Blade pulled out a circular device designed to emit electromagnetic waves that would alter the programming of the machine it was attached to.

It only took a few centimeters for the magnets to do the rest of the work, firmly attaching themselves to the back of the machine. Ten seconds were all it took for the slot machine's screen to start acting on its own, hitting jackpot after jackpot, spitting thousands of silver coins onto the white floor.

It took the security team some time to recognize the danger of the situation, resulting in a few people being slightly trampled while competing for the free money that was being handed out. By now, more than half of the lounge's population was fighting over part of this never-ending prize pool.

While the security team tried to prevent the civilians from getting hurt and, above all, from taking the money away from the casino, an additional team was activated to deal with this emergency.

Coming from a service door near me, casino employees dressed in security jumpsuits crossed the room, taking great care not to bump into anyone in the process. But despite their caution, they still got in the way of our princess.

Firefly and Blade positioned themselves perfectly, heading straight for the team. When Firefly's frail body bumped into some guy on the team, his chips flew across the room, creating even greater concern for the entire casino staff — a machine going crazy was easily solvable with a few hours' work, unlike the rage of a member of a supposed royal family with a lot of influence and purchasing power.

"Your Highness..."

While the teams gathered around the two of them trying to apologize and create a quick solution to the problem, Blade made this task difficult, threatening and putting even more pressure on the shoulders of the simple employees.

Everything had officially become complete chaos.

A restless sea formed by inattention.

To the misfortune of our enemies, we were ready to sail smoothly through it.

When Blade paused, he used his nimble fingers and cunning aim to throw me an object of vital importance to our infiltration plan.

The projectile passed through the room with such speed and precision that no one was able to notice it. It was meters and meters across in less than two seconds, before the object was caught in its path by my gloved hands.

"Security card acquired," I said, cradling in the palm of my hand the maintenance team card that Blade had stealthily stolen during the confusion. "I'm on my way down."

I went through the same service door that the maintenance team had used before, down stairs and more stairs following a path that Himeko had made me memorize more than once.

"We're close," Silver Wolf's voice came over our line of communication for the first time.

As they descended a few more steps, Silver Wolf and Himeko emerged from one of the corridors, both wearing the same red jacket and dark pants as the casino security team.

"Did I mention that you look great in a suit?" I asked Himeko, who didn't respond to my perfect attempt at flirting but flashed me a rare happy smile.

"No time for flirting, Kafka," Silver Wolf kept walking, forcing us to follow her without pause. She had her own smartphone and a mess of cables in her hands. "Give me the card."

I tossed the security card into the hands of our hacker, who turned down a few corridors until she reached the door of the room she needed to access all the building's complex systems.

"Have a good trip, you two," Silver Wolf says, opening the door to the room. "Remember: when you blow that vault, all the security in this city will be directed to this casino. Take the diamonds and get together with Blade and Firefly as quickly as possible. I'll be offering full support, as always."

Silver Wolf walked through the door, leaving Himeko and me alone in the corridor of a restricted area.

"Ready to finish the biggest heist of this Amber Era, dear?" I asked Himeko, as my lips were raised in a confident smile.

"We're still a long way from it all being over, you know?"

"Maybe," I say, without giving away the details of the script. "But that doesn't stop us from making some plans for after here. How about a date?"

"Your meetings are always complex, Kafka," Himeko laughs, crossing her arms in front of her. "I don't think you'll be able to organize everything you want in such a short time."

Again, Himeko is right, my dates have always been deeply complex. A picnic on a distant mountain so that the city lights don't obscure the stars, a light invasion of the school theater at night to drink a bottle of wine inside the complex set they had put together for the play Peter Pan — my core was always chasing the most romantic things back then.

"Was that a challenge?" I asked, opening a smile that even revealed my teeth.

"Maybe..."

Before we could share a laugh, Silver Wolf's voice reached our ears:

"All done! The service elevator is missing the access locks, you can go down to the vault. I'll take care of a few more things before I leave."

Silver Wolf would take another few dozen minutes to create shortcuts and insert programs that would allow her to access the casino's data servers at another time, as she always does in all her virtual attacks. As much fun as it is to watch her detonate some cyber security programs, a more important location required my presence.

The service elevator was in an adjacent corridor, awaiting our arrival. Normally, it would be necessary to insert an ID card into the reader so that the credentials could be read and the panel could tell us which floors we had access to. Thanks to our exceptional plan, the vault floor was open to anyone who was simply able to press the right button.

"Where did you learn to make coffee?" Himeko asked, breaking the silence. The service elevator certainly didn't have a satisfactory speed. "You always refused when I offered to teach you."

Although profound, this question had a surprisingly silly answer.

"When we were young, if I learned how to make even one cup of coffee, I ran the risk of experiencing days when you wouldn't make coffee for me in the morning," I replied, turning my face to maintain eye contact with Himeko. "So I never wanted to learn to always make sure you did something for me every day. Unfortunately, when we split up, I had to learn how to make coffee myself through some videos."

Himeko's cheeks took on a vibrant red color, matching her hair perfectly.

"Would I get a kiss if we weren't in the middle of a super-stressful robbery?" I asked, letting myself assume a victorious tone of voice for a single moment.

"No," Himeko replied without looking me in the eye.

"Liar..."

The service elevator reached its deepest point, opening the doors with a creak so loud that it irritated my eardrums.

In front of us, built into a wide wall, the colossal vault of immutable technology awaited us. The free area of this floor was so small as to be strange, with only a few meters to walk before reaching the door made of complexly named metals.

"Yeah, seeing it up close is very different from watching it on camera," I commented, still surprised by the magnitude of this construction. The vault door was almost the size of a house.

"From the information Firefly has been able to gather, it is said that the vault has an equally impressive depth. Someone could live in there for the rest of their life if they wanted to."

"That's certainly something rich people would love to do."

While we talked, Himeko didn't stop working for a second. In the snap of a finger, her technological suitcase and my own sword were materialized in her free hands — while we were busy playing cards, Himeko and Silver Wolf were busy getting our weapons back.

"No need to thank me," Himeko says, letting out a laugh that should be my trademark.

The member of the Astral Express ran from one corner of the grand entrance to the other, connecting a series of chemically unstable materials in the most fragile parts of the metal.

"What exactly is this?" I asked, trying to make sense of the substance that looked a lot like a plastic explosive.

"A bit of everything," she says, stepping back after positioning everything she had brought. "But in short: a special type of material designed to generate an exothermic reaction capable of damaging the structure of the vault. The heat generated will be enough to weaken the structure and allow you to react with your abilities."

"Got it," I said, trying to sound a little more intelligent. "Well, let's go then."

With the complete unfolding of its case, Himeko's drone was ready to set fire to the components positioned using its own core.

We kept a safe distance from the sea of sparks generated by the exothermic reaction. In the blink of an eye, the whole environment became hotter, it was as if S.A.M. itself was present — perhaps even a little hotter than that.

By the end of the pyrotechnic show, the metal that formed the door was glowing in a vivid mixture of red and orange. Without any additional help, this scorching mixture had almost penetrated the vault's defenses on its own.

"Your turn," Himeko said, taking a few steps away from me.

I lifted the sunglasses that protected my eyes, letting me clearly see the affected parts of the vault's structure. Himeko had strategically attacked the joints and areas containing the gears made to open the vault in the mundane way, melting away any chance this structure created with billions of credits had of standing.

Drawing my sword had a nostalgic feel to it, it had been a long time since it had seen a few seconds of action.

I brought my gloved fingers close to the burgundy blade, making sure that the usual layer of energy rays was present and that it contained the destructive force necessary for our plan to succeed as hoped. Even under the protection of my gloves, one of the rays still traveled up my fingertips, attacking my nervous system.

"This won't take long..."

Swinging my sword is different every time. No matter the direction or angle of the attack, the electric lines find their way every time. Just by imagining what I want and how to do it, the energy finds a way to create art out of violence.

The lines joined the hot metal almost instantly, forging a purely magical explosion in the heat. Chemical elements, explosives, none of that mattered. The overload was magic in its purest form.

Separate explosions were created at the same time, arising from the already weakened metal itself.

The result? A large hole in the vault door, which had fragments and debris pushed into the well-lit interior.

"By the Aeons," Himeko was awestruck, impressed by her own feat. "That really worked."

"No time to be surprised, Himeko," I say, already crossing the new passage. "All the alarms in this place have been triggered at this very moment. Time to get the diamonds and get out of here."

Despite our initial concern about finding the diamond collection among hundreds of other relics, our targets were easily recognizable.

In the exact center of the vault's interior, surrounded by chests stuffed with gold and other treasures, such as enchanted weapons and centuries-old relics, nine glass cases contained diamonds so large that Blade's hands would still have trouble holding them.

Wait...

Nine boxes?

"Damn," I heard Himeko complain, as she was crouching next to one of the wreckage of the destroyed door. "One of the boxes broke. Still, the diamond looks intact."

Himeko sighed, very relieved.

"Put all the boxes in my briefcase, I'll take care of this one right aw..."

Before she could finish her sentence, Himeko touched the jewel with her bare hands.

A terrible mistake.

Her vocal cords were frozen.

The body is completely paralyzed.

And then, finally, she collapsed to the side, unconscious.

Just as the script had predicted.

"Have a sweet dream, Himeko," I whispered, not wanting to disturb her sleep.

I made sure to leave Himeko's body in a safe place, away from the entrance. Unfortunately for the Astral Express member, the diamond she touched was impregnated with a high dose of memoria.

She would spend several long hours asleep, dreaming of a better world.

As for me, awake in the world of the living, I will have to try to create a safe path through a crowd of security guards and police forces.

"She's asleep, guys," I said, tapping my communicator to free up the communication channel. "Firefly, time to warm things up a bit."

"Hey! That was my line!" Silver Wolf complains.

"Better luck next time, Wolfie," I say, not holding back my laughter.

Now, free from the bonds created by the agreement with Himeko, the Stellaron Hunters were free to do what they do best: chaos in its purest and most violent form.

Chapter Text

Himeko

The inside of the vault disappeared from my vision in a blink, giving me the streets of a city during a rainy night instead. A sight that, after days of eternal rain in Vectigalia, was no longer unusual to me.

I was standing at the edge of the sidewalk, protected from the rain by a transparent umbrella that my right hand was holding. On my body, a brown overcoat, jeans, dark boots and a yellow scarf around my neck — a very different look from the uniform of the security team at the Hotel Casino Flush .

Luckily, I've been in this exact same scenario before, causing my brain to skip the state of mental confusion that plagued me the first time. This is a sweet dream , created by a large amount of memoria .

But this dream is different in many ways. When Sunday plunged Penacony into an illusion, he arranged everything so that people wouldn't remember — or would remember little — of what had happened during the festival.

In here I can well remember everything I was doing, and how touching one of the diamonds I was supposed to steal sent me straight here.

"Congratulations, Kafka," my vocal cords were faster than my own brain, letting the words be whispered without thinking properly about the strong charge of feelings surrounding them. "You had me fooled."

My body, at this very moment, is entirely unconscious and defenseless outside. As such, I cannot witness or complain about the bloody approach that the Stellaron Hunters   will use to make their way through the specialized police forces of the City of the Elites .

It's incredible to think that Elio, and his damned script, predicted that I would make a deal with Kafka. And that this same script would take care of destroying the protection of a diamond that would incapacitate me, and allow Kafka and the others to take drastic action in order to protect me or some false excuse like that.

"Are you congratulating me on something new, darling ?"

Kafka, in the flesh. Or at least a version of her within the confines of my mind.

She emerged from what appeared to be a chic, overpriced restaurant that I was standing in front of. Kafka was wearing a black dress that revealed an exaggerated amount of soft skin on her legs and shoulders. To say that she wasn't totally ignoring the existence of the cold in the area, a long white faux-fur coat, which had an exaggerated level of fur, protected her from getting sick and facing the full consequences of her personal fashion choices.

"Hey..." her lips painted with a slight red lipstick showed a genuine sign of concern. "Why the sad face? Did the food make you sick?"

I wouldn't call my countenance sad, but that's what it must have looked like to Kafka right now. I genuinely wanted to be angry right now, to say how much I hated Elio, his script and her — but this isn't the real Kafka, she doesn't deserve to hear all this from a Himeko she thinks is her loyal ally.

"It's nothing, Kafka," I reply, trying not to stare at her for more than a few seconds. In this sweet dream , Kafka's cloudy eyes also haunt me, indicating the existence of her supernatural powers of mind control.

"You never knew how to lie very well, Himeko."

Leaving the roof of the establishment, she took a few wet steps into the protection of my umbrella. Her heels looked uncomfortable, especially with the water that was collecting in grooves in the sidewalk and threatening to invade her shoes.

"What happened?"

Kafka touched my face, caressing my cheek with her gentle thumb. At the same time as my neck tilted instinctively, she did the same, leveling our gazes in a millimetre-perfect way.

Her hair still had a few drops of water in it that hadn't been blown away by the wind, and the city served as a precious backdrop for her colorful, cloudy eyes. Watching her for too long made me see galaxies in her irises, or a rare nebula that I can only see through the most expensive observation instrument of this time.

"Headache," I said, trying to divert the subject. My heart squeezed for a moment, as if lying to this illusory version of Kafka was the same thing as lying to the real one. "Just that. There's nothing to worry about."

Her lips came together, forming a thin, thoughtful line. Although she thought about saying something, she masked the hesitant attempt with one of her little smiles — it was clear that Kafka hadn't believed me, but didn't want to pressure me into saying what I really felt at the moment.

"It's okay," the two words preceded a heavy sigh. "I know you'll tell me when you're comfortable. Until then, remember that your wife will always be here."

Wife?

What kind of sweet dream is that?

The ring finger of my left hand suddenly felt heavier, while the warmth around it suddenly increased. There was a golden ring, of undeniable beauty, set with a thin line of what looked like genuine diamonds.

In Kafka's left hand, which was still caressing my face, I could feel the cold touch of the metal against my skin.

"Wait..."

I couldn't hide my shock, my feet even lost their balance for a few moments.

As I stared at my own hand, Kafka burst into another torrent of her great-sounding laughter. She put both hands on my shoulders, keeping me still on the ground, as if I was going to collapse onto the sidewalk at any moment.

"What is it, darling?" she asked between laughs, trying to accumulate enough oxygen to form complete sentences. "Have you forgotten the most important event in your life?"

In my current position, I could see Kafka's wedding ring. Although the design was an identical copy of mine, the color of its metal was silver — a color that actually matched many of her fashion choices.

Opposites, but perfect together. Even the choice of our wedding rings had a deep meaning of this kind.

Even though I tried to suppress my feelings, seeing it made me sick. Not the bad kind, where your stomach wants to expel anything it hasn't fully digested. But the good kind, in the form of magical butterflies that increase your body heat from the inside out and make you want to do something crazy — like throw yourself into the arms of the person you like.

"Sorry, I..."

I tried to find words that would make the situation less awkward, but Kafka didn't care. For her, this was an incredible moment, regardless of anything I did or said to justify myself.

"Don't worry," she let herself have one last laugh, before placing the back of her hand against my forehead. "The cold must have frozen some of your neural synapses, or something similar and complicated that you could explain better."

Without warning, she stood on tiptoe, so that our similar heights were surpassed by her for a few moments. Using my shoulder as a perfect support, she planted a kiss on the exact center of my forehead, sending a shockwave throughout my brain and spine.

"Come on," she says, holding back a laugh. "Let's go home. You certainly need some rest."

(☆)

Even though I was in a world forged through the combination of the deep desires in my mind and an unpalatable cosmic energy, my so-called home was still capable of giving me the deep sense of comfort that any home brings to one's body.

Abrupt peace and relaxation, feelings that my physical existence had been craving for the last few minutes. It was enough to step inside this spacious modern house located in a noble neighborhood of this unknown — and perhaps fictitious — city, for many of my doubts and anxieties to be automatically washed away by the rain that was still falling outside.

The décor was very simple. Perhaps that's because I've never cared much for material possessions, and at the same time I have very little knowledge of the things that the adult version of Kafka would like to buy.

"Are you tired?" Kafka asked, standing behind the open-design kitchen counter. She stretches her feet, now free of tight shoes, to reach a pair of elegantly designed glass bowls on top of the small cabinet.

"No," I answered, trying to sum up the mixture of tiredness and adrenaline that were fighting inside me in an objective and not at all strange answer. At the same time as myself in this world just wants to lie down after a long day, myself in the real world is inside a deeply dangerous scenario, forming a restless maelstrom in the depths of my core. "I'm just thinking about too many things at once, that's all."

Kafka let out a chuckle. Something in my simple sentence seemed to amuse her.

"Tell me a single moment in your life when you weren't thinking about a lot of things at the same time," she said, between the end of her joy. Her glossy lips held a sweet smile capable of warming the sides of my heart.

"Let me see..."

Even though it was just a simple joke, I started going through my memory — maybe because I really liked the way this kind version of Kafka smiled, or maybe just to escape from my current reality.

"There was the time I accepted your crazy idea to invade the school theater," I said, remembering the memory vividly. "If I remember correctly, you were expelled from the play because your artistic ideas weren't accepted by the drama teacher."

"A cute way of saying that woman hated me."

"She didn't hate you."

Kafka narrows her eyes, letting her lip take on a smile. She knew she was entirely right.

"All right," I sighed, giving up on defending a human soul who was perhaps suffering from the problems of aging at this very moment. "She really hated you..."

Victorious, Kafka returned to her current work focus: choosing a fancy drink to match the pair of glasses she had already chosen.

It took a few seconds of silence, coupled with a fervent search through what appeared to be a drinks cabinet, before she gave up entirely on the idea of choosing some fancy wine and opened the large fridge to grab some champagne. Despite the pretty label around the green glass bottle, I was pretty sure that this was the simplest option in the whole house.

I have rarely witnessed Kafka abandon luxuries in her life. Coffees that cost the same as a full meal, centuries-old bottles of wine, overpriced sweets, all this was a fundamental part of her existence — even if she and her family never inherited a large monetary empire.

This makes every rare choice of something that I, and beings with basic financial awareness, always choose, something special for her.

Because Kafka chose this simple bottle, this sweet dream ended up turning into an adventure with deep meaning.

"Are you celebrating something?" I asked, watching the way my supposed wife almost jumped as she walked barefoot through the house.

"Correction," she shortened the distance between us, her arms circling my waist as her face advanced dangerous centimeters. "We're celebrating something, Himeko."

Kafka touched our foreheads, then the tips of our noses, creating an unhealthy distance between our lips.

For a moment, I thought about asking what we were supposedly celebrating, but those words didn't blossom in my vocal cords. The truth, pure and savage, was that I didn't want to know the damn reason, I didn't even care about whatever the real reason for all this was.

I just wanted Kafka there, frozen, teasing me for one more moment. Giving me a reason to continue with my hands on the soft skin of her arms, while the air coming out of our lungs mixed due to the tiny distance we kept from each other.

"Come with me..." she says, creating a smile inches from my paralyzed lips.

Without waiting for an answer, she slid around my body, dodging any further physical contact with a masterly dexterity. In short, dangerously calculated steps, she headed towards what appeared to be our bedroom, with all the artifacts she had collected still in hand.

I wish I could tell myself that, for a second, I stopped to consider a different solution, that I thought about resisting the palpable fantasies that my mind created all the time, but that would be one of the worst lies I would ever tell. Here, I didn't even have to think about another scenario, my body followed her without hesitation.

Bottle and glasses stood aside, quietly on the desk that held some of my more obscure notes. Not even the possibility of probing devices created in the past, of remembering machines that I once assembled but forgot over time, was able to stop me from diving into Kafka's provocations.

We lay down on the comfortable bed at a calm pace, gradually letting the warmth overcome the cold atmosphere.

I found myself lying on Kafka's shoulder, a place I had forgotten was so relaxing. There have been times when I've fallen asleep in the same position, leaving my ex-girlfriend with a serious discomfort in her arm for the whole of the following day.

"It's nice to see a smile on your face," Kafka says, keeping her voice low even though there's no one to see us. "I thought you were going to look sad for the rest of the week."

She smiled, showing the satisfaction she felt in helping her wife feel happier.

I could lie in this same position for hours, watching Kafka's white teeth emerge from between her genuine smile.

I could stand here and admire the misty eyes that, despite being chaotic and guardians of a frightening power, are so captivating.

"This is when you say you love my eyes for the hundredth time in a month," Kafka joked, holding back the chuckle that was forming in her vocal cords to look more romantic.

"Do I... say that a lot?"

"Haven't you ever noticed?" this version of Kafka's eyes narrowed for a brief second, analyzing me as if she had found an erratic anomaly in reality. "You always say that you love looking at my eyes because they resemble space nebulae, always comparing them to some complicated astronomy word that you like to use so much in your university lectures."

"I..."

I felt my cheeks heat up at an exaggerated rate, like an inactive volcano erupting from a sudden earthquake.

The information hit me harder than an attack from a Fragmentum creature.

First, I was a teacher. An old dream, from before I became the Navigator of the Astral Express , but one that still seems to exist in my most hidden desires.

And secondly, I loved Kafka's misty eyes.

Eyes that I supposedly won't be able to look into for a long time. Perhaps out of hatred for the powers that took the love of my life away from me, or perhaps because I don't want to admit that I still love her with even more intensity than before.

Even with flaws, with senseless decisions caused by a fate manipulated by a cat that predicts the future — I still loved every part of Kafka, perhaps even more than when we were young and naive about adult life.

"I hate you, Kafka," I say, as my lips curl into a smile and my body snuggles into hers.

"I know," she replies, laughing and placing a kiss on my temple. "I love you too."

Chapter Text

Himeko

My eyes opened in the early hours of the morning, gradually giving me back consciousness to my body outside the Sweet Dream.

I could still feel the addictive warmth of the fake Kafka's body around me, a powerful intoxicating charm that prevented me from moving an inch away from her. If fate allowed me to, I would stay there for a few more hours, quietly, just enjoying the nostalgic scent of the favorite moisturizer of the girl I had deeply loved when I was young.

I was sitting in front of a large dirty window, probably on the tenth floor of some building — down there, the eternal rain of Vectigalia was still wetting the streets and forcing pedestrians to protect themselves with umbrellas.

I didn't waste my time looking at the sky above, where I would see nothing but light pollution and a dark sea devoid of celestial bodies.

My first real instinct was to look at the palm of my hand, where Kafka had created a deep wound several days ago. The purplish lines had faded after the healing was complete, but I could still feel some of the electricity they were sending to the edges of my nervous system.

" Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. "

Kafka's voice was very different from the one I heard in the dream, emanating much more pain and weariness than her usual seductive tone.

As I turned around to look for her, I could see the whole room: a completely dismantled and dirty floor, the remains of what used to be a fancy office of some intergalactic corporation.

Kafka was sitting on a dusty old sofa, her body slumped and restrained as if she were suffering from severe abdominal pain. Her neck and torso were practically bathed in blood , while her face had a few crimson lines emerging from what appeared to be superficial cuts.

"Did you sleep well?" she asks, smiling even though her lungs hurt from simply trying to breathe slowly.

"It was a nice break, although strange at first," I reply, unable to stop the corner of my lip from lifting into a conspiratorial smile. "Well... are you going to give me a good excuse to justify you betraying my trust for the thousandth time, darling?"

The misty eyes of the Stellaron Hunter focused on the horizon beyond the window where my body lay, lost in a confusing tangle of pain and romance.

"You really are a great actress, Kafka. You really would have been a successful star if you had chosen to pursue your career," I say, staring at her the whole time. For some reason that I couldn't fully understand, my words weren't filled with hatred and resentment for my ex-girlfriend's bad choices and attitudes, leaving only a playful tone of voice to be used. "It's obvious that this isn't your blood."

Kafka's body falls to one side, lying down comfortably. Her purplish eyes stared up at the ceiling, while her vocal cords made an effort to stop the laughter from being too loud.

"Come on... I'm not going to gain a second of your worry?" Kafka's lips changed from a thin line that emitted false distress to a radiant white smile. The vocal cords now demonstrate genuine joy and comfort. "Not even a kiss?"

"If I'd been honest from the start, you might have won one."

Kafka clicks her tongue. " Touché... "

I stood up from where I was, brushing the dense dust from the fabric of my clothes. I was still wearing the casino uniform, an outfit that I admit I liked more than I should have — perhaps because of the vibrant colors, or just the fact that I was wearing something other than a dress for the first time in a few months.

The Stellaron Hunter was still wearing the same clothes from the robbery, with the exception of the now damaged and bloodied blazer that rested on top of the sofa. Thanks to the lights of the surrounding buildings, it was possible to see a little soot on the white fabric of her shirt, indicating a possible fiery helping of S.A.M. during the escape plan that I had no part in making.

"Where are the others?" I asked, a little curious about everyone's fate. As much as the Stellaron Hunters weren't my true allies , having them as partners for a short moment was something really enjoyable. Including Blade , as crazy as that sounds.

"Firefly took care of distracting most of the police force. She and Silver Wolf are still dealing with drones and foiling all pursuers," Kafka let the air out of her lungs, her own tiredness becoming clearer with every word. "The Casino team went after Blade, who took the diamonds. But by now, he must have gotten rid of all the guards who risked chasing him..."

I twisted my lip in disgust. The implication of multiple deaths was obvious, no matter how much Kafka tried to avoid the subject.

"What about you?" I asked her, mutually agreeing to avoid the topic of Blade taking other sentient lives. "What was your part in the plan?"

"To keep you safe, of course," Kafka laughed, as if my question had no logic or basis in her previous attitudes. "I made sure your face wasn't seen during the escape. That way, no one can chase you through the cosmos from now on."

"But it seems you've been in battles. If no one could see my face, that means..."

" Himeko, " Kafka's voice froze my body. Her tone was thick and stern, sounding like a direct command from a deity or greater hierarchical force. A far cry from her usual rogue personality. " Please don't ask questions about this topic, Himeko. You know you'll hate hearing every single answer, so I ask you to just... forget it. "

Kafka's request was sincere.

Romantic, in some parts.

This was not an order, even though the words spoken were dense and almost violent.

I know Kafka very well — a beautiful rebellious girl who doesn't know the meaning of fear .

But without her realizing it, her words reflected genuine fear. Her request was not a unilateral command, but a desperate plea. Kafka didn't want to see me leave her, as she had left me before.

"You know... while I was asleep, I had a lot of time to think about us," I sigh, pausing to find the right words. "You've deceived me once again, hiding the truth from start to finish, as if my feelings weren't important. Honestly, anyone with a sane mind would have left you at the first opportunity."

The purplish irises focus on me, reminding me how beautiful they really are — despite the fearsome supernatural power behind them.

"I'm only going to ask you one question, Kafka. And I want you to answer me truthfully," I take a deep breath, pushing away the thoughts that were telling me to get away from the woman in front of me. " Are you still bound by the ties of your current script? "

The misty eyes close, and a satisfied smile appears on Kafka's painted lips.

"No," she replies, her fingers moving nervously against each other.

"Good," I lowered my head, releasing the tense air I had unconsciously trapped inside my rested lungs. " It means you still have a chance to prove that you really love me. "

In the end, I chose to give Kafka another chance.

She abandoned me when we were young, ignored and depressed me several times during our adult lives, and now she has deceived me once again in order to fulfill her mysterious goals.

But even though it was something that many sentient minds would call a betrayal , I couldn't feel any anger.

Kafka is fated to help Elio, under the terms of an agreement that I don't dare ask her about. When I look back, remembering all the sad moments of our relationship, my ex-girlfriend had never committed any of her terrible actions with a smile on her face.

These were things that, for her, had to be done, regardless of the consequences of these actions.

Nowadays, I blame myself a little for never having tried to understand Kafka. I always judged her as a bad person, letting a broken heart sink me into a mixture of mistrust and blind hatred — when, in fact, she was just a woman, like any other, chasing a difficult personal goal.

Of course, all this doesn't forgive her words, attitudes or crimes committed. Accepting her as she is now is definitely not the healthiest option for my life.

But my day-to-day life as an Astral Express navigator is surrounded by risks every day.

Evil intergalactic factions, battles against powerful enemies, encounters with deities, a walking Stellaron inside the body of a girl with a chaotic personality — a list of risks that, when analyzed, doesn't compare to the danger of accepting the girl I love back, no matter how complicated it is to live with her.

"I hear the rain will stop in a few days."

Kafka and I were inside a spacious metal-walled elevator, where she made occasional cheerful comments about things she'd heard over the last few days on the streets of Vectigalia. Our shoulders were connected as she scanned the screen of my new smartphone, where Welt and I were chatting after days without contact.

While I was busy dealing with intergalactic criminals and robbing a technologically complex safe, Welt was fully occupied with researching the Trailblaze and its connection to this planet — luckily for me, my friend didn't mind trying to send messages during his exploration, since he spent most of his time without a network connection. Saving me from explaining my long absence.

Welt was commenting on the confirmation of the conclusion of our work. It seems that when he arrived at the hotel room originally booked for us by Asta and Madame Herta, the suitcase containing the fossils was on the bed — possibly left there by Blade the day after the diamond heist was completed.

I had to come up with an excuse to justify the fact that I had left the suitcase unattended, but everything went smoothly without the need to answer any more invasive questions. In the end, Welt delivered the items to Ruan Mei as planned.

"A shame," I say, with my eyes still focused on the chat with Welt. "I kind of liked eternal rain, no matter how scary the idea is at first."

Welt sent a few more messages, explaining about an invitation that Ruan Mei had extended to the Astral Express to visit one of her laboratories — it seems that the member of the Genius Society had something extremely important to present to us in person.

"Well, it looks like that means we don't have much more time together," Kafka comments as she views the latest messages, her voice dipped in a fake tearful tone that makes me want to pinch her cheeks. "Do you think you'll be all right without me?"

"Maybe," I press the button on the side of the device, dimming its screen before stowing it in the pocket of my red overcoat. "My life after Vectigalia will depend on today. If you told me what was at the top of this building, instead of making it a mystery, maybe I'd miss you a bit..."

Kafka showed her tongue, like any brat would.

Between a laugh and another from my throat, the elevator reaches the top of the building, emanating a sonorous electronic alert that imitates the strike of a bell.

The doors open onto a large decorated penthouse which, at a glance, I could assume was constantly rented out for the most lavish parties.

There were some covered places where benches or tables were laid out for use. Other furniture, such as tables and chairs needed for a large party, were nowhere in sight — perhaps removed and taken to a safe place, away from the harm that endless rain could do to the longevity of these objects.

"It's a really beautiful place."

I fill the silence with a comment, while Kafka opens an umbrella to protect us from the water. She takes a few steps out of the elevator, holding out her hand for me to follow without delay.

I stare at her for a single instant, just long enough for my mind to realize that her gray overcoat and white sweater give her an added charm — beyond the line of enough to win me over with any gesture or word spoken.

"I had to take a bit of a risk to find this place," Kafka says as soon as we intertwine the fingers of our hands, keeping us close within the limited protection of the umbrella. "Unfortunately, I had little time to plan a date that my ex-girlfriend would find good enough to take me back completely."

"Thank me," I put a smile on my lips, while tilting my head to the side in a comically haughty motion. "You always work better under pressure"

We took a few steps over puddles before reaching the covered area. We were just under a canopy that looked a lot like a vintage pergola, where the water couldn't reach us due to the well-planned structure.

A few meters ahead, the parapet at the end of the building could be easily reached — a cozy spot and great for observing the streets and the cityscape, if we ever worked up the courage to get a little wet.

"Wine and cheese," I say, noticing the classic combination waiting for us in a reed basket, right next to what would become our bench. "You never change, do you?"

The Stellaron Hunter brushed past me, kissing the exposed curve of my neck when she had the chance — a skill that only a vampire with a thirst for blood could replicate exactly.

"Well," she wraps her arms around my waist from behind, holding us close. The warmth of both garments to the cold gradually increases with direct contact. "Have you developed any different taste in dating over the last few years?"

" Touché... " I reply, without clicking my tongue.

As we sit down — me on the bench and Kafka on the floor, as usual — to organize the food and fill the crystal glasses with some expensive wine with a French name, a slightly uncomfortable line of thought pops into my head.

"Kafka," I call out, making the purplish nebulae stick to me long enough. "Did you rent this place for us?"

"What a silly question, Himeko," she laughs happily, as she finishes filling the second cup with the holy liquid. "Of course we trespassed. What fun would it be to follow rules?"

"Of course. I expected nothing less from you."

I accept the glass held out to me, raising it for a light toast before bringing it to my lips.

I remembered our last meetings. Beautiful and joyful events that took place many years ago.

I always liked to take our love and company to coffee shops, simple places where we could sample sweets and drinks of various kinds — a simple choice, but one that was achieved only after many calculations, made by a teenager in love spending sleepless nights thinking about how to arrive at a mutually satisfactory date.

Unlike me, Kafka never had any doubts about what she wanted to do. She always got out of bed in the middle of our night together, looked at me, said we were going on a date and dragged me off to go somewhere a few minutes later.

Adrenaline and passion.

The young Kafka knew very well how to win me over, and that doesn't seem to have changed in her adult years.

" Your head's in the clouds again, Himeko. "

Kafka sat next to me, forcing me to eat a cheese with a fancy name and a funny smell the right way. She always tried to show me these rich people things that she likes so much: dairy products that cost a fortune, super-specific coffee beans, expensive restaurants with dishes that are almost scientific in their complexity and smallness, all these things that were totally out of my world — after so many attempts, I even found myself liking some of these elements.

"Okay, okay," I said, agreeing to take unnecessarily complicated steps to drink a glass of the new bottle of wine we'd opened. "You know I'm hardly going to use this knowledge away from you, don't you?"

"I doubt it," Kafka touches the base of the cup my fingers are holding, pushing it gently against my mouth. "You're a powerful and influential woman in the cosmos. I'm sure you'll be invited to a lot of dinners, balls and other important events, where knowing these things will serve you very well."

If you think about the diplomatic argument, Kafka was entirely correct. It's not unusual for me to have dinners or meetings with members of important elites in my work as a navigator. Whether it's the classic IPC or some family that owns a small empire in credits.

"What were you thinking this time?"

For a brief moment, I watched Kafka through the glass of the cup leaning against my mouth. Her form, even slightly distorted by perspective, was a den of infinite beauty.

"Something unexpected," I smiled, turning away from the wine. "A thought that had always existed in my head, but which I had suppressed for a few years. Until, during a Sweet Dream , I fully accepted it."

"How mysterious," she approached, sliding down on the bench until we were practically glued together. "Are you going to tell me?"

Kafka leaned in, keeping her face a few centimeters below mine. Her countenance reflected an immensity of emotions within me — seduction, curiosity, passion, a mix of the things that my ex-girlfriend still causes me just by existing.

"Of course," I moistened my lips, leaning against her. Our faces were mere centimeters apart, separated only by the anxiety of the answer. " I love your eyes. "

Chapter Text

Kafka

It's very strange to have some free time to spend on simple things, like pleasurable entertainment. Normally, after large-scale operations like our last one, I would be in charge of sorting out all the additional matters that follow a successful heist.

I would help Elio find the right people: specialists capable of trading our ten newly acquired diamonds, without a trace, turning them into a huge untraceable pile of credits overnight. However, as our oracle cat had already warned us, money was never our objective within this little side script.

The unusual lack of extra work granted me an inordinate amount of free time, an event as rare as a Silver Wolf defeat in one of their competitive online games.

Originally, I would have been worried about this simple fact, since the combination of an empty mind and free time always led me into fights and unnecessary dangers to my physical health.

But not this time. Not with Himeko here.

She and I decided that we would stay hidden in Vectigalia, while we waited for the city's police forces to give up actively looking for us. After all, what better place to hide and wait for the dust to settle than right under the noses of our pursuers?

We spent every second of all our days completely glued to each other, dodging the eternal rain and visiting all sorts of places that she and I had always wanted to experience as a couple.

First, a five-star restaurant run by a halovian chef, known for making great exclusive seafood dishes. Then, a musical and comedy play about a heroine who falls in love with the demon queen, whom everyone in her magical world actively studies and trains to defeat — in the end, I lost count of how many places we visited and how many of them we kissed in. Enjoying every second as if it were our last.

Each moment was unique and passionate in its own way, reminding me all the time how much my heart still wanted to have Himeko with me forever.

And, above all, how much it would hurt to see her finally leave in a few days' time.

"So the day we've been avoiding talking about all this time, had finally come, Kafka."

In the covered outdoor area of a coffee shop catering to the city's elite, where a single cup of latte was worth four figures, I stared at the rainy horizon, observing a large center for the entry and exit of spaceships. In the distance, behind a few dozen luxurious IPC cargo ships, was one of the endless ends of the Star Rail, where the Astral Express was parked.

"It looks that way," I said, the words being partially barred by the filter of the lit cigarette between my lips.

Himeko approached very cautiously, taking a space next to me. The fingers of her hand, which I had painted bright red earlier in the week, brushed away the pungent smoke without complaint.

"Do you regret it?" I asked, without taking my eyes off the scene and moving the cigarette away from my mouth, creating a better dialog environment for both of us. "You know, that we haven't talked about this topic in the last few days..."

The redhead slid out of my field of vision, her arms encircling my waist in a comfortable rhythm. My reflexes reacted briefly, pulling back my upper body as if Himeko were a threat, but she was already ready to stop my escape, keeping the palm of her right hand firmly in the exact center of my back.

Our heights are similar, but every time Himeko chooses to take the initiative, she always seems a few centimeters taller than me — such a simple detail, but one that inevitably captivates me completely.

"I only totally regret one thing in this life, Kafka," Himeko allows herself to take a few steps, still keeping me static in her arms. From one moment to the next, our faces were face to face, and our bodies stuck together in an almost magnetic way. "Not having made you stop smoking when I had the chance."

She left me no room to laugh at her joke, taking my lips in a quiet kiss that brought warmth to my body. But surprisingly, Himeko pulled back after exactly five seconds, touching the roof of her own mouth with the same skillful tongue that had captured me to kiss her.

"Mint? Really?" she frowns, looking at me with a lot of surprise on her beautiful features. "As vintage as you are, I never thought flavored cigarettes would reach your lips and lungs."

"Do you prefer the bad taste from before? I can keep smoking that cheap crap you've hated since you were a teenager."

"It's a tempting proposition, but I'll stick with your new flavor. Both are equally smoky, but this new one is smoother and more pleasant overall."

Even with very little time together, Himeko still managed to bring out the best characteristics that had sunk deep inside me.

A long time ago, when I was left alone to follow fate, smoking stopped being a cool habit and became just an obvious tool to force my mind into a false state of calm, diverting it from the fervor of the struggles and worries from time to time.

Today, when I imagine the future, I can see myself far away from the smoke and unhealthy substances that surround it — so that the girl I love kisses me even more often.

"Well," she says, taking a single step back and opening her umbrella. "Shall we? Unfortunately, there's no stopping this difficult farewell from happening."

"Are you sure?" I say, shaping a slightly mischievous smile, opening the door for a quick joke. "I could just disappear at any moment..."

"Kafka," is all Himeko utters, along with a cold, stressed look.

Laughing, I join her under the protection of the umbrella, entwining our arms as a royal couple would when parading down a red carpet.

"Just kidding, just kidding."

The walk to the Astral Express was a little long, giving us room to start what would be our last conversation for some time.

Himeko asked about the other Stellaron Hunters, wanting to know about their current whereabouts and health.

Blade, together with Elio, began the plan to contain the stolen diamonds, taking them to some isolated corner of the known galaxy, where our cat who predicts the future must keep his favorite ball of yarn.

Silver Wolf is busy with her own antics, of course. As expected, the hacker installed various malware and backdoors throughout the Casino's network during our last invasion. With everything set up, she can blackmail the owners of the place in exchange for credits and favors, or just have a little fun while quietly prying confidential files from some trillionaires.

Firefly, the Stellaron Hunter that Himeko cares about the most (even more than me, her undisputed soul mate), is finally resting after so much action. According to our humble calculations, she will spend at least a whole week sleeping, recovering her energy to prevent the Entropy Loss Syndrome from worsening overnight.

"It's good to know everyone is all okay," Himeko comments, her eyes fixed on the rainy road ahead of us. "I hate to admit it, but it's been fun working with all of you. It's nice to break the rules once in a while."

I laugh, resting my head on the nearest shoulder Himeko has available.

"So would you agree to work with us again, should the opportunity arise?"

"Maybe. You already know my conditions."

"The eyes part too?"

She smiles and shakes her head in disagreement.

"No, I really appreciate their beauty now. We can exchange this particular condition for something simpler. How about the guarantee of a date?" she glares at me, her smile widening as her genius brain builds its train of thought. "This way, we'll always have a bit of free time together, even if Elio's script tries to play tricks on us."

The vocal cords in my throat vibrate in a genuine and powerful laugh, so simple and radiant that my back obligingly arches forward.

"Damn it, Himeko," I say, pretending to mumble something as I catch my breath. "I've already fallen in love with you, darling, you don't have to defy fate to make sure of that."

The journey to the Astral Express was a mix of emotions — on the one hand, we were both depressed, having to face the reality that we would be spending much more time away from each other than together for seasons to come. Yet, even with all this morbid weight above our heads, we couldn't stop smiling and laughing at each other's sentences.

When the sturdy wagons and the Star Rail were beside us, I heard a heavy sigh coming from my beloved, as if she had seen something she didn't like emerging from the inhospitable nothingness.

And when I let my eyes slip away from Himeko's beauty, I could see the very thing that had suddenly brought all these bad feelings: waiting for us, sitting on a bench, was a cat with fur as dark as the deepest night.

"Elio," Himeko says, trying to keep her voice and brain from going into an uncomfortable state of rage. "To what do I owe your presence? Have you come to annoy me a little?"

The feline licked one of its paws, its yellow eyes glued to the wet ground as the rain fell on its soft fur. Even though the animal wasn't looking at us, Elio's voice was projected clearly and directly, as if he were face to face with us, even though his physical body was probably on the other side of the galaxy.

"No, darling," he laughs pompously, at the same time as his cat reaches up to scratch his chin. "I've come to thank you for your help and to see you going away. Without you, Navigator of the Astral Express, there would be no beginning or conclusion to my script."

"I want you to answer me just one thing, Elio," Himeko seems to have ignored the thanks, however sincere Elio has been with them. She hands me the umbrella in one swift, decisive movement, walking under the eternal rain to crouch in front of the special feline in front of us. "When all this started, when Kafka and I were young and you were a being of infinite capabilities, did you already know what you were getting out of me? When you decided that Kafka was the perfect person to carry out your confusing plans, did you know that you were destroying not one, but two lives in the process?"

My chest tightens as I watch the tense scene in front of me, Himeko and Elio's feline staring at each other as if a war of galactic proportions could break out at the sound of any misunderstood word.

"Yes, Himeko," Elio sighs, opting for sincerity rather than a sweet lie. "Your future was different: you would become a great teacher, help birth warriors, talents and geniuses around the world. At a young age, you would marry the one you love the most, and live this way for many years before dying with a smile on your face at the end of your life."

The cat stood up, jumped off the stool and walked between my feet, where it began to protect itself from the weather.

"But if that had happened, you would never have found and repaired the Astral Express, putting the Trailblaze back on the silver rails of Akivili. Belobog, the unknown city inside a frozen planet, would never have been saved. Sunday, the prodigy of Harmony, would have managed to trap hundreds of people in a false sweet dream for centuries of existence — your life and Kafka's may have been fragile, but I agreed to choose this future for one reason only."

"And what would that be?" Himeko asks, without pausing to chew on the seer's words.

"That, like many reading and writing souls throughout the cosmos, I believe in true love. That even in the face of terrible hardships, even if both parties are separated at some point in their journey, I believe that, in the end, they end up together, happily ever after."

Himeko stares at me, our gazes locked together in a magnetic way. I realized that, for the first time in a long time, I didn't know what was going on in the head of the woman I love most.

"Nice words, Elio," Himeko let out a short laugh, letting her restrained countenance be invaded by a slight lapse of joy. "I still hate you for exposing Kafka to constant danger, for making her commit horrible crimes so that a strange future that only you can see can be saved."

"I'd expect nothing less," Elio lets out his own laugh, losing his serious, mysterious cat stance for a moment. "After all, it is written..."

"Quiet," Himeko walks over to me, getting under the umbrella. "I don't care about your stories, cat. I never will."

The Nameless forehead rested against mine, her hand wet and cold from the rain caressing my warm cheek. She stood there, joining our breaths for a few moments, while the restless feline passed between our legs in an elegant manner.

"You won't forgive yourself if you kiss me now, will you?" I said, breaking the silence.

"I'd be thinking about the taste of your mouth for months," she replies, her face flushing. "First a huge distraction, then a huge longing and finally a huge pain."

My fingers run along her raised wrist, gently pulling my face away from Himeko's icy hand.

With quick touches around my jacket, I found the folded piece of paper that was inside an inner pocket — a present I prepared with the other girls a few days ago.

"What's this?" she asks, unfolding the paper to find a sequence of numbers.

"My personal phone, of course," I reply, flashing a smile that reveals my white teeth. "I asked Silver Wolf to encrypt a secure line of communication. That way, when you miss me, you can call me without fear."

Himeko remained quiet, the paper resting lightly against her painted lips, staining the white sheet with the slight red of her lipstick.

"Thank you, Kafka," she takes a few steps, back into the rain. "Keep the umbrella. You bring rain wherever you go, it might come in handy."

Our farewell was not like the drama of romance plays and musicals. Himeko walked up to one of the Astral Express's many entrances, which opened automatically for her Navigator, just as the doors of a throne room would open for a true queen.

"Well, what's the next stop, Elio?" I asked him, when we were already a long way from the Star Rail. At the moment, any silly conversation with a cat who predicts the future would be welcome to keep the sadness off my chest. "How about a warmer, more heavenly planet?"

"As if you were a person who liked beaches and sunshine," the feline shakes his head, as his paws try to keep up with my pace. "And for now, we're off the already predicted track. The Astral Express will visit Ruan Mei, who will reveal that Tingyun survived the attack by the Antimatter Legion. An additional detour will be made to Penacony, where Sunday will surprisingly join the journey of the Nameless, in search of a new meaning to his life."

"It's going to be quite a journey for the boy..."

I stopped walking for a moment, looking at the horizon where there was no longer an Astral Express to be admired. My lungs let out a sigh, reminding me that Himeko wouldn't be the only one facing gigantic new challenges from now on.

"Good luck, my love. See you later."

I find myself saying.

I feel my smartphone vibrate in my jacket pocket. Without delay, I pick it up, waiting for Silver Wolf's or Blade's voice to come through the speakers to inform me of something important for the continuation of our lives as intergalactic fugitives.

"Is it too soon to miss you?"

On the other end, Himeko's voice is like a surprise birthday present.