Ken walked down the long, open corridor that led toward the transport gates, hands shoved deep into his pockets, jacket collar raised against the breeze. His footsteps echoed softly on the metal flooring. He wasn't in any hurry. His back felt sore. His head felt light. His mind, though, wasn't tired at all — it kept drifting back to the same place.
Sarah.
He didn't want to smile, but he did anyway — a stupid small grin he tried to suppress every two seconds.
"Man," he muttered under his breath, rubbing the side of his nose. "Why am I like this?"
He could argue with Ash all day about it, pretend like he didn't care, joke around like he always did — but walking alone, with only the cold wind around him, the truth hit differently. Sarah was one of the War Gods. The kind of person people wrote headlines about. The kind of person who didn't even know he existed.
And he?
He was just Ken.
Not weak, sure. Not irrelevant. But definitely not her.
He sighed and kept walking, shifting his thoughts elsewhere before he embarrassed himself in his own head. The dock's main hallway was mostly empty, only a few workers heading off-shift, tired faces illuminated by the passing glow of IGVs drifting overhead. A couple of delivery drones zipped past him, buzzing like angry metallic insects.
The world was calm. Still. Predictable.
And then it wasn't.
Ken felt something behind him, a small shift in the air. His instincts flared, but he didn't turn around.
He simply moved.
His arm shot up, blocking the incoming hit that came out of nowhere. A forearm smashed against his, hard enough to jolt his shoulder. The impact echoed through the hallway like metal hitting metal.
Ken stepped back, eyes narrowing, heart waking up instantly.
The attacker stood in front of him, rough-looking, maybe late teens, maybe early twenties, dressed in torn clothes that smelled faintly of smoke. His hair was unkempt, sticking out in odd directions, and his skin looked pale under the dock lights, almost sickly. But the thing that hit Ken hardest were the eyes.
Black. Burnt-out. Empty in an unnatural way
The kid wasn't holding any weapon. Not even a knife. His fists were clenched, knuckles cracked and fresh bruises scattered across his arms.
He kid rushed at Ken again.
This time Ken shifted to the side, letting the punch slice past his jaw with barely an inch to spare. The attacker's footsteps skidded across the floor, but he didn't stop — he twisted back instantly, swinging again, faster, sharper.
Ken dodged that too.
Another one — he stepped back.
Another — he tilted his head just enough to feel the air brush his cheek.
Another — he blocked with his elbow.
The kid had a weird fighting style, it was focused entirely on offense leaving no room for defense. It was beastial
The fifth punch finally connected.
A straight hit, right to Ken's ribs, strong enough to lift him off his feet for a moment. Pain shot through his side as he slid back across the metal ground, shoes scraping.
He sucked in a breath, hand pressed to his ribs, teeth clenched.
The kid smiled. But then his grin faltered for a second.
Ken looked up… and smiled right back.
He stood slowly, cracking his neck to the left, then right. His posture changed, more grounded, more focused.
Before he could even take a step forward, the kid lunged again. But this time… he didn't reach him.
Two crimson serpents materialized out of nowhere, one striking from the left like a whip, the other coiling up from the ground like an instinct made of light and muscle. They wrapped around the attacker's legs, binding tight, the scales shimmering with a red glow that reflected across the dock walls.
The kid stopped mid-step, stumbling, then crashing to his knees as the serpents constricted. He grit his teeth, trying to break free, but the more he struggled, the tighter they coiled.
He twisted back with wide eyes, breath sharp, chest heaving — completely shocked by the sudden force holding him down.
And that one second of confusion was all Ken needed. He stepped forward, raised his fist, and struck him across the face.
***
Ash moved through the emptiness of space. He had told Ken he was going home. That was a lie.
He didn't even know why he said it — maybe because it was easier, maybe because he didn't want to talk, or maybe because Ken would've insisted on tagging along, and Ash wasn't in the mood for company. Not tonight. Not when his mind kept drifting back to the things he didn't want to think about.
The nearest celestial body grew closer, 'Planet Eylore.' A quiet world.
Ash visited it for one reason only. The statue. "Hands Ascended to Heaven."
He spotted it long before he entered the atmosphere — two enormous stone arms reaching toward the sky, carved with such ancient precision that the cracks looked like veins on a sleeping titan. Where the head should have been, there was nothing but broken stone and a hollow silhouette. Historians argued about it, poets romanticized it, the public forgot about it.
Ash never did.
He slowed down as he approached, letting gravity wrap around him gently. The air here was thin, cool, carrying that faint mineral scent of untouched land. The ground was mostly flat plains stretching miles in every direction, dotted with strange violet grass that swayed even without wind. Eylore always felt like a place abandoned by time but held up by memory.
The statue towered over the landscape —
nine hundred meters of stone rising out of solitude.
Its hands were enormous, palms cupped upward like they were waiting to hold something that never arrived. Or something that had already been lost.
Ash landed on the right palm with a soft thud, dust shifting under his boots. From here, the world looked impossibly small. The plains stretched endlessly. The sky was a deep, cold blue. And above him hung three moons — one pale white, one rust red, one soft gray — aligned in a way that made them look like three eyes quietly watching him.
He let out a long breath, the kind that carried weeks of exhaustion.
Slowly, he sat down. Then lowered himself further until his back touched the cold stone.
He stretched his arms out beside him like he was trying to dissolve into the ancient monument.
The sky felt bigger from up here. Too big. But somehow… gentle.
He didn't close his eyes, not immediately. He just stared upward, watching the moons shift, watching specks of stars flicker, trying to forget the noise of crowded mourning walls and accusing eyes. Trying to forget the higher-ups who sent him there on purpose. Trying to forget the looks people gave him like he was the bloodstain that never washed out.
Up here, none of that mattered.
Up here, he wasn't Richie's brother.
He wasn't Kesher's son.
He wasn't the cursed prodigy or the unwanted hero.
He was just… Ash.
He breathed deeper, letting the cold air sting his lungs. The stone beneath him was rough, uneven, carved by hands that probably died centuries before any starship touched the sky.
He liked it like that.
He traced a finger along the cracks in the statue's palm. They reminded him of old scars, the ones that didn't hurt anymore but still said something.
The sky above him darkened slightly as a cluster of clouds drifted across the moons. Ash folded an arm behind his head, the other lying across his chest, fingers twitching with tiny arcs of static that flickered like fading fireflies.
"Should've gone home," he murmured to himself.
But he didn't move.
Here, on this broken titan's hand, he could finally breathe without feeling watched. He could let his mind wander without someone asking him if he was okay.
He closed his eyes.
If there was a place the universe allowed him to rest…
it was here.
He felt himself drifting, not asleep, but somewhere close. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere he wished he could stay a little longer.
The wind shifted. Just barely.
Ash's eyes snapped open. His body moved before his brain even finished processing the sound — a low crack slicing through the space where his head had been resting. Ash rolled sideways, boots scraping against weather-worn stone as a metal whip, laced with jagged hooks and rusted spikes, struck the palm of the statue with enough force to carve a thin trench through solid.
The echo vibrated up the colossal arm beneath him.
He landed in a crouch, sparks flickering around his shoulders, scanning the open expanse of the statue's platform.
Two figures stood at the edge of the giant stone hand.
The first was tall and sickly thin — almost stretched, like someone had pulled him into shape rather than let him grow naturally. His shoulders were sharp, his eyes sunken and ringed with a sleepless black. In his hand, he lazily twirled the spiked whip, letting its metal links clink and shimmer in the moonlight. There was something wrong about his smile.
The second was the exact opposite.
A hulking, monstrous figure made of muscle and thick veins, his body almost bursting out of the clothe. He wasn't holding a weapon. He didn't need one.
Ash straightened, electricity coiling instinctively around his arms. His heart didn't race — it narrowed, sharpened. His mind cleared the moment danger appeared.
A burst of blue light cracked across the statue's hand as Ash darted behind the skinny whip-wielder, arm poised to slam a palm full of voltage straight into his spine—
A shadow fell over him.
The hulking man moved like a collapsing mountain. One thick arm swung toward Ash with a speed that didn't make sense for a creature that size. Ash blocked it with his forearm.
It was like slamming into a steel beam mid-impact. The shock sent him sliding backward, boots grinding against stone.
Ash didn't hesitate. Sparks flared violently around his hand, electricity surging through his nerves as he reached out and grabbed the giant's arm, channeling a full discharge directly into the man's body.
The air crackled. Electrical arcs danced across the giant's skin for a full second.
Nothing.
The man didn't scream.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't even twitch.
He simply stared down at Ash, unblinking.
Ash's eyes narrowed. "…that's new," he muttered.
The giant's lips curved into something that might've been a grin.
The skinny man lifted his whip again, metal spikes dragging across the stone, carving shallow grooves.
Ash stepped back, electricity wrestling to build again under his skin.
So much for peace.
So much for quiet skies.
So much for resting.