The Gymnasium
It was late. The school was silent, save for the rhythmic, distant hum of the industrial cleaning machines buffing the hallways floors miles away. The gymnasium complex was a cavern of shadows and echoes, the air smelling of floor wax and old sweat.
Eiden was in the boys' locker room. He wasn't there for gym class. He was there because it was the only place left in this hostile fortress where he could change his bandages without his roommate—or one of Akuma's spies—seeing the fresh blood seeping through his shirt.
He sat on a wooden bench, shirtless, the steam from the adjacent showers drifting around him in ghostly ribbons.
Even broken, he was a masterpiece of lethal engineering. The dim, flickering locker room light caught the sharp definition of his abdominals, a rigid washboard of muscle honed by years of climbing the jagged peaks of the Den. His shoulders were broad, tapering down to a narrow, sculpted waist—the perfect V-shape of a predator built for speed and violence. He was lean, corded with functional muscle that looked like it was made of steel cables rather than flesh. Sweat from the humidity glistened on his chest, tracing the line of his sternum and highlighting the raw, physical power he held in check.
But that perfection was marred, a statue chipped by war. His torso was a map of recent violence: the angry, puckered red scar of the bullet wound on his back, the deep, purple and black bruising of his ribs that bloomed like a nebula across his side, the raw, angry burn on his hand where he had held the shotgun.
He unwrapped the adhesive tape around his chest, hissing through his teeth as it pulled at his skin. Every movement was a negotiation with pain. His muscles rippled, tense and defensive, as he inspected the damage. The ribs were knitting, but slowly. Too slowly.
Click.
The sound of the locker room door locking was soft, but in the silence, it sounded like a gunshot.
Eiden froze. His hand hovered over his shirt. He didn't look up immediately. He listened. Heavy breathing. The creak of leather. The smell of wet fur, ozone, and unwashed metal.
He slowly reached for his shirt, the movement accentuating the terrified knotting of the muscles in his back.
"You're bleeding, Wolf," a deep voice rumbled from the steam. It wasn't a human voice; it was the sound of tectonic plates grinding together.
Eiden sighed, a long exhale of exhaustion. He recognized the voice.
"Kane," Eiden said.
The massive boy stepped out of the mist like a nightmare manifesting. He wasn't wearing his school uniform. He had shed the pretense. He was wearing his heavy, plated leather armor, stitched together with thick gut. He held a new weapon—a heavy, rusted iron pipe he had ripped from the plumbing in the wall, water still dripping from its jagged end.
"Vorian said I had to put on a show," Kane growled, stepping closer, his boots heavy on the wet tile. "He said I couldn't kill you then. That I had to make it look like a game. But the show is over. And you..." He touched the dark bruise on his forehead where Eiden had hit him with the skillet. "You embarrassed me. You made the Bear look clumsy."
Eiden stood up. He was half-naked, injured, and unarmed, but he straightened his spine, ignoring the scream of his ribs. He looked more dangerous in his broken state than the armored boy facing him.
"You're trespassing, Bear," Eiden said, his voice calm, flat, and deadly. "This isn't your territory."
"It's a graveyard," Kane roared, his patience snapping. "And you're the first burial."
He charged.
There was no technique this time. No martial arts. Just pure, unadulterated rage. Kane swung the iron pipe like a baseball bat, aiming to take Eiden's head off.
Eiden ducked, the wind of the swing ruffling his hair. The pipe smashed into the metal lockers behind him, denting the steel inward with a deafening CLANG that rang in Eiden's teeth.
Eiden stepped inside the swing, moving into the danger zone. He aimed a punch at Kane's throat, a "River" strike meant to crush the windpipe.
But his ribs seized. The pain flashed white-hot, a lightning bolt through his core, slowing him down by a fraction of a second.
That fraction was enough.
Kane caught Eiden's fist in his massive hand. He squeezed, the bones in Eiden's hand grinding together.
"Too slow," Kane grinned, his teeth yellow and broken.
Kane headbutted him.
It was like being hit by a car. Eiden's head snapped back. He flew backward, sliding across the wet tile floor, crashing into a heavy wooden bench. He tasted copper. Blood filled his mouth.
He tried to scramble up, his instincts screaming move, move, move, but Kane was on him. Ideally, Eiden would use the "River" style to redirect the force, to flow around the obstacle. But he had no leverage, and his body was failing him.
Kane kicked him in the ribs.
Eiden curled up, gasping, as his healing bones fractured again. A fresh wave of agony washed over him, blacking out his vision for a second. He retched, coughing up blood onto the pristine white tiles.
"Pathetic," Kane spat, looming over him like a monolith. "Is this the Devil? Is this the legend the students whisper about? You're just a broken boy playing soldier."
Kane raised the iron pipe high, his muscles bunching for the killing blow. "Say hello to your mother for me. Tell her the Bears sent you."
BANG.
The shot was deafening in the tiled room, magnified a hundred times by the acoustics.
The iron pipe in Kane's hand rang like a church bell. A spark flew from the metal, inches from his fingers, stinging his skin. The impact jarred his arm to the shoulder.
Kane dropped the pipe, stumbling back in shock, clutching his vibrating hand.
He spun around, searching for the threat.
Emily Cronus stood in the doorway of the locker room.
She looked like an apparition. She wore her school uniform, pristine and sharp, the blazer buttoned, the tie perfect. In her hand, she held the new, black pistol her father had given her. Smoke curled lazily from the barrel, drifting up into the steam.
She didn't look scared. She didn't look angry. She looked bored. Coldly, terrifyingly bored.
"This is the boys' locker room," she said, her voice echoing with absolute authority. "You're violating curfew. And you're making a mess."
Kane narrowed his eyes, confused. "Princess. Your father paid me. I have a pass. I have immunity."
"My father paid you to scare me," Emily said, walking forward. The heels of her shoes clicked on the tiles, a steady, rhythmic countdown. "He didn't pay you to break my toys."
She leveled the gun at Kane's chest. Her stance was perfect, her grip firm.
"Get out."
Kane growled, his pride warring with his survival instinct. "I don't take orders from a little girl with a—"
BANG.
Emily fired again. She didn't blink. The bullet hit the floor between Kane's feet, sending sharp ceramic shards exploding into his shins.
"The next one goes in your knee," she said, her voice devoid of emotion. "And I never miss. You can ask the men in the crypt. They walk with canes now."
Kane looked at her. He looked at the gun, steady as a rock. He looked at Eiden, bleeding on the floor, his bare chest heaving with pain, his eyes glazed.
He realized something. The girl wasn't saving the boy because she loved him. She was saving him because she owned him. It was a territorial dispute, not a rescue.
Kane grinned, a bloody, jagged smile. "Have it your way, Princess. He's all yours. Broken toy for a broken girl."
He stepped over Eiden, pausing to spit a glob of blood and saliva on the floor next to Eiden's head.
"Watch your back, Wolf," Kane whispered. "She's got a sharper bite than me."
Kane walked out the door, shouldering past Emily, vanishing into the night.
Silence returned to the locker room, heavy and suffocating. The steam swirled in the currents of air.
Eiden coughed, a wet, racking sound. He clutched his side, trying to hold his ribs together. He tried to push himself up against the bench, his arms trembling.
"Emily..." he wheezed, blood staining his lips. "You... you came..."
He looked at her, hope flickering in his pain-filled eyes like a dying candle. She had saved him. She had defied the Bear. She had come for him.
"You came back," he whispered.
Emily walked toward him. She moved with a strange, mechanical grace. She stopped five feet away, just out of reach.
She didn't offer her hand. She didn't ask if he was okay. She didn't rush to check his wounds.
She raised the gun.
She pointed it directly at the center of his forehead. The black bore of the barrel looked endless.
Eiden froze. The hope in his eyes died, strangled in an instant, replaced by confusion and a deep, aching hurt.
"Emily?"
"Don't speak," she said. Her voice was unrecognizable. It wasn't the girl on the train. It wasn't the girl in the vault. It was Akuma's voice coming from her throat. "Don't you dare speak to me like we're friends. Friends don't exist."
"He... he would have killed me," Eiden said, staring at the gun.
"And you would have deserved it," she replied coldly. "You brought this here. You brought the violence to my doorstep. You stained my floor with your war."
She clicked the safety off. The sound was loud, a metallic snick in the quiet room.
"My father gave me this gun for a reason," she said, her eyes glassy. "He told me the Wolf would try to turn me. He told me you would use your pain, your blood, to make me feel sorry for you. To manipulate me."
She looked down the sights, aligning the dot with his skull.
"I don't feel sorry for you, Eiden. I feel nothing. You are just a problem to be solved."
Eiden looked at the gun. Then he looked at her eyes. He saw the conflict buried deep beneath the ice, the tremor she was trying so hard to hide.
"Then shoot," he whispered. "If you believe him... if you really believe I'm the monster... shoot. Do it."
Emily's finger tightened on the trigger. The metal bit into her skin.
She thought about her mother, bleeding in the nursery. She thought about the dagger. She thought about the lies. She wanted to do it. She wanted to end the threat, to prove to her father that she was strong, that she was a Cronus.
But then... a flash of memory, unbidden and bright.
The smell of meat pie on a rattling train. The warmth of his shoulder as she slept. The way he looked when he held the burning shotgun barrel, his flesh sizzling, just to save her.
Her hand trembled. Just once. A microscopic failure of will.
She lowered the gun by an inch. She fired.
BANG.
The bullet smashed into the wall next to Eiden's ear, burying itself in the plaster, showering him with white dust. Eiden didn't flinch. He didn't even blink.
"I missed," Emily whispered, her voice shaking with rage at her own weakness, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "Looks like death is too easy for you." She holstered the gun with a clumsy shove. "This is my school, Eiden. I am the Law here. And you are just a prisoner." She turned her back on him, unable to look at the blood anymore. "Clean up this blood," she ordered over her shoulder, her voice cracking. "It's disgusting."
She walked out, the door swinging shut behind her.
Eiden sat alone on the wet floor, the smell of gunpowder and steam choking the air.
He touched his ear. It was ringing from the shot. He touched the wall where the bullet had hit.
She had missed on purpose. She had saved him from Kane, and she had saved him from herself.
He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the cold metal locker.
She's still in there, he thought. Buried deep under Akuma's lies. But she's still there.
He forced himself to stand up, his body screaming in protest. The war wasn't over. It had just become a civil war.