Chapter: Quiet Between Storms
The headquarters was unusually silent.
No alarms.
No mission alerts.
No tension in the air.
Just the soft hum of electricity and the faint sound of wind outside.
Ayu stood alone in the training hall.
Lights were dimmed.
He wasn't training.
He was just standing there.
Thinking.
The sand from the beach fight still felt stuck in his memory.
A punch he couldn't block.
A moment he couldn't control.
Footsteps echoed softly.
Miko entered first, carrying two cups.
She handed one to Ayu.
"Tea."
Ayu took it.
"Thank you."
They didn't speak for a while.
Sometimes silence wasn't heavy.
Sometimes it was needed.
Across the hall, Kaito was lying flat on the floor staring at the ceiling.
"I feel weird when there's no mission," he said.
Milosevic sat at a table with papers but wasn't reading them.
"It's called peace," he replied.
"I don't trust it," Kaito muttered.
Yoi was cleaning his gun slowly, methodically, like it was meditation.
Click.
Slide.
Check.
Click.
Shadow stood near the large window.
Looking outside.
Not at the city.
At the sky.
Clouds moving slowly.
Ayu finally spoke.
"You all did well."
Kaito turned his head. "That's it? No long speech?"
Ayu shook his head slightly.
"No speech today."
Milosevic looked up. "You're thinking."
"Yes."
"About what?"
Ayu's eyes shifted to Shadow for a second.
"About how fast things change."
No one asked more.
They understood.
Miko sat cross-legged on the floor.
"Can we just… stay like this for a while?"
Ayu nodded.
"Yes."
No strategy.
No ideology.
No talk about responsibility.
Just quiet breathing in the same room.
The headquarters no longer felt like a system.
It felt like a home.
Outside, the sun dipped lower.
Inside, five young heroes sat in peace.
Because even storms…
Need silence between them.