The last day passed the way hard days did — in motion, without ceremony.
Lucian went out at first light and stayed out until midday. Two hours north, one hour east, working through the streets methodically. He killed everything he found. Most of it was routine by now — the movement, the angles, the specific sequence of force and follow-through that had stopped feeling like violence and started feeling like a skill set. Which was either growth or something he would think about later.
He collected orbs. Five F-rank across the morning, one E-rank Vitality that landed with that particular bone-deep warmth. No skill books. Just work.
By midday his legs were telling him things and he came back and ate and went out again in the afternoon, pushing the southern blocks this time, staying away from Casa de Esperanza. He didn't need more intelligence on the target. He needed his body to be ready.
He came back before dark.
[Lucian Morales] [Class: N/A]
[Age: 20]
[Strength: 20]
[Agility: 21]
[Mind: 16]
[Perception: 19]
[Vitality: 19]
[Skill(s): Shadow Steed (B) | Shadow Bind (F) | Sharpened Instinct (F) | Void Step (F) | Perception Pulse (F)]
Strength at 20. He felt it in his grip on the sword — denser, more settled, like the weapon had gotten lighter without changing weight.
He dismissed the panel and sat on the floor of the café kitchen and drank water and didn't move for ten minutes.
Ivan appeared in the doorway. He was holding something wrapped in cloth.
"Made you something," he said.
Lucian looked up.
Ivan unwrapped it. A sword grip — his current one, stripped down and rewrapped tightly with strips cut from a café tablecloth, the weave layered and cross-bound in a pattern that looked, frankly, too professional for someone who claimed to be an engineer and not an armorer.
"The original wrapping was sliding," Ivan said. "I noticed when you came back two days ago. Your left hand was compensating."
Lucian looked at his sword. He hadn't noticed.
"Steady Hands," Ivan said, a little smugly.
Lucian took it. Gripped it. The difference was immediate — the handle sat correctly, no slip, the weight distributed the way it should have been from the start.
"Thank you," he said.
Ivan sat down across from him and was quiet for a moment, which was unusual enough that Lucian paid attention.
"Tomorrow," Ivan said.
"Tomorrow."
"Are we ready."
Lucian considered the honest answer. His stats were higher than they'd been three days ago. He had five skills and understood all of them well enough to use them without thinking. He had cleared the first three floors of that building before and knew its layout. He had a plan for the Howler that relied on speed and the Shadow Steed and the specific combination of skills he had developed for exactly this kind of fight.
"Enough," he said.
Ivan nodded slowly. "That's the most honest thing you've said in days."
"I'm always honest."
"You're always accurate," Ivan said. "That's not the same thing." He looked at the rewrapped grip. "Just — come back. Both of you. That's the only thing I'm actually asking."
Lucian looked at him.
Ivan was smiling but it wasn't reaching his eyes, and Lucian understood — this was the version of Ivan that existed underneath the jokes, the one that had sat with him in the months after his parents died and never once pushed or prodded or tried to fix anything. Just stayed.
"We're coming back," Lucian said.
Ivan stood up. "Good. Because I've started a load calculation dispute with Dante that I intend to win, and I need witnesses."
He left. Lucian sat with the rewrapped sword for another moment.
◇ ◇ ◇
Serafina found him at the window an hour later.
She was small even by the standards of the room — the first aid kit permanently at her hip now, her uniform still the MIMB one she'd been wearing when he found her, washed once and not quite clean. She stood beside him and looked out at the same dark street he was looking at.
"Are you scared?" she asked.
Direct. No preamble.
"Yes," Lucian said.
She seemed to consider this. "Me too. All the time." She looked at the dark glass. "But I keep thinking — the people we're going to bring back here. The ones still trapped in buildings." She paused. "They're running out of time faster than we are."
Lucian looked at her.
Fifteen years old. Steady hands and a first-aid kit and a clarity of purpose that most adults spent decades trying to find.
"Get some sleep," he said. "We need you sharp while we're gone."
She nodded and went. He watched the street a moment longer.
◇ ◇ ◇
Ayesha came last.
No words at first. She stood beside him the way she always did — close enough that it wasn't solitude, far enough that it wasn't intrusion. She had been drilling with the rapier in the back room after dinner, the sounds of controlled footwork and clean strikes filtering through the walls. Her form was sharper than it had been four days ago. He had noticed.
"The Howler," she said eventually.
"I have a plan."
"I know. I've been thinking about it too." She turned to look at him. "When it calls the others — the vibration, the coordination — your Perception Pulse will read them before they arrive. You'll know direction and number."
He hadn't told her about Perception Pulse in detail. She had inferred it from watching him move the last two days.
"Yes," he said.
"And Shadow Bind on the Howler itself?"
"If I can get close enough."
"I'll get you close enough." She said it the way she said most things — simply, without performance, as a statement of what would happen. "Conquer suppresses. You bind. You finish it."
He looked at her.
"You've run this already," he said.
"Several times." A pause. "We make a good team, Lucian."
He said nothing. But he didn't look away either, which from him meant something.
She turned back to the window. The city outside was dark and ancient and full of things that wanted them dead.
"Sleep," she said. "Three hours minimum. You'll be no use to anyone running on empty."
"You first."
"I asked first."
He almost smiled. Almost.
"Three hours," he said.
They stood at the window a moment longer — two people looking at the same dark and thinking about the same morning, the particular silence of people who understood each other well enough not to fill it.
Then she went to sleep.
And eventually, so did he.