Chapter 31 - The Night
The night had stretched over Queens like a living substance, an ancient sheet of ink laid down with an almost conscious slowness over the buildings, the streets, and the silhouettes still moving through them without truly noticing they were crossing something larger than themselves. New York never slept, but that sleeplessness had taken on a different tone tonight, heavier, as if the city were holding its breath between two beats of the world. Faded neon lights carved fragments of color across the wet asphalt, and every reflection seemed to tremble slightly, as if reality itself was hesitating to remain stable.
Inside the small Italian restaurant, the contrast was almost unreal. The warmth there had a soft, almost deceptive texture, made of the smell of simmering sauce, hot pasta, and old wood soaked with countless past meals. The customers' conversations formed a mundane background noise, a fabric of normality that nothing seemed capable of tearing apart. And yet, at the center of this ordinary scene, something was already beginning to crack.
Zayn was eating.
This wasn't a meal. It was a rhythm, an urgency, a way of filling something that had no name. The spaghetti vanished under his rapid, almost mechanical movements, as if consumed by a hunger that far exceeded the logic of a human body. Each bite seemed to push back an invisible void, an inner tension he wasn't even trying to understand. He didn't take the time to savor, because savoring implied slowing down, and slowing down would have let something else rise to the surface.
Azel, across from him, did not participate in that urgency. He simply observed, with that particular calm of beings who have seen too many catastrophes to be impressed by everyday excesses. His gaze followed Zayn without insistence, but with a silent precision, as if reading in his movements something deeper than simple hunger.
"Eat slower," he finally said, without harshness, almost like a statement.
Zayn barely looked up, his mouth still occupied, and replied in a breath muffled by food. "Impossible."
He immediately resumed, as if the outside world had no hold over him. He sometimes spoke about calories, recovery, maintaining his body, but in the way he ate there was mostly a form of silent struggle, a attempt at stabilization. As if his existence depended on this continuous accumulation.
Then, without warning, something changed.
It wasn't a sound, nor an identifiable movement. It was more like a shift in air density, an invisible pressure settling into the restaurant like a second layer of reality. Sounds became slightly muffled, lights a little too stable, shadows a little too sharp. Azel raised his head before anyone else understood why.
His gaze locked onto the window.
Outside, a silhouette was waiting.
A tall man, wrapped in a dark cloak that fell to the ground like an extension of the night itself. His skin had a strange bluish tone, almost mineral, and his red eyes shone with a calm, almost polite intensity. But what was most disturbing was not his appearance, it was what he emitted. An ancient presence, heavy, as if the air around him had been bent, strained, marked by an energy that did not belong to this world.
A Djinn.
Zayn felt a brutal chill run down his spine, instinctive, animal. His body had understood before his mind that something had crossed a boundary.
Azel stood up without haste. His chair creaked slightly against the floor, a mundane sound that nevertheless felt abnormally loud in the sudden silence. He walked toward the exit, each of his steps giving the impression of moving something far larger than himself.
Zayn stayed frozen for a second, then stood up as well, disturbed, unable to remain passive in front of a tension he did not fully understand.
The door opened.
The cold entered.
And with it, the night seemed to deepen.
Azel found himself face to face with the Djinn, and for a moment, neither of them moved. It was a strange stillness, almost respectful, as if each were measuring the other's density.
"Do you think you can enter here without being noticed?" Azel asked.
His voice was calm. Too calm.
The Djinn smiled slightly. A smile without warmth, without concern.
"I'm not trying to hide."
And that answer was enough.
Zayn understood that something had just shifted.
He suddenly straightened. "EVERYONE GET OUT OF HERE!"
But the customers did not understand. They only saw a panicked young man, maybe drunk on adrenaline or imagination. Some laughed, others rolled their eyes. The ordinary world was still resisting the idea that it could be in danger.
Zayn clenched his teeth.
He didn't have time to explain.
So he did what he always did when words failed.
His hand touched the OMNIHAND.
Green light exploded.
The restaurant was flooded with an abnormal surge of life, as if nature itself had been forced to obey a brutal command. Dark vegetal forms erupted from the ground, twisted, fast, almost aggressive. The air filled with raw energy, and in a fraction of a second, the room turned into an unstable space where reality no longer followed its usual rules.
Then CITROLLE appeared.
Massive, unreal, like a creature born from excess power and instinct. Its presence alone shattered the illusion of normality. The customers screamed, stood up, overturned chairs and glasses in chaotic panic. The restaurant became living chaos, a space expelling its occupants like an organism rejecting infection.
And just as quickly as it began, it stopped.
The green light vanished.
Zayn returned to his normal form, out of breath.
"Alright… it's done," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
Outside, the real battle had already begun.
Azel had struck.
Not with visible violence, but with such speed that the air itself seemed to tear apart. The Djinn was launched into the sky, and both silhouettes disappeared above the buildings of Queens, leaving behind a strange void, as if the city had just lost a piece of its gravity.
High above, the clouds vibrated under invisible impacts. The fight was nothing earthly. Every movement was an anomaly, every exchange a fracture in the logic of the world. The Djinn sometimes laughed, as if he enjoyed the resistance.
"You're fast… but limited," he said.
His body fragmented through space, appearing and disappearing at impossible points. Each teleportation was a cut in the continuity of reality.
But Azel followed.
Always.
His light sword appeared without transition, as if it had always been there, hidden in another dimension. Every block, every counterattack drew golden lines in the sky, impossible trajectories briefly illuminating the New York night like an ancient language.
Then, a flaw.
A wound appeared on the Djinn. Then another.
He was starting to fall back.
But he still laughed.
And disappeared.
This time, elsewhere.
Very close.
Inside the restaurant.
Zayn didn't have time to understand.
The Djinn was in front of him.
"Give me the Boréalis."
His hand closed around Zayn's throat.
Zayn suffocated, his feet leaving the ground, his body suspended in cold, immediate violence. The OMNIHAND reacted, green light exploding, forcing the Djinn to step back.
And the world changed again.
Zayn's body transformed.
Cryptoscale.
A primitive, massive, dangerous form fused with shadow and matter. The ground trembled under its arrival, and without hesitation, the Primal struck. The claws tore through the air, reappearing directly on the Djinn's face, forcing him back for the first time with real surprise.
Azel returned from the sky in a burst of light.
"Zayn. Behind me."
But Yamos was still laughing.
And in that laughter, there was something more dangerous than pain.
A decision.
A distortion.
And suddenly, the Primal vanished.
Teleported far away.
Very far.
Silence fell.
Yamos raised his hand.
"If you move again, he disappears permanently."
Azel froze.
The entire world seemed to contract around that sentence.
And somewhere, at the academy, Yojuro felt the bond snap.
His gaze changed.
"Zayn…"
He drew his blade.
And left.
Everything that followed was only rising tension, heavier and heavier seconds, until Yojuro's blade finally pierced the Djinn's chest in absolute silence.
Time seemed to stop.
Yamos looked down.
Behind him, Yojuro simply whispered:
"You talk too much."