One month later, Kiro, Worh, and Sone were walking through a small town when they noticed a crowd keeping its distance from a run-down house. Curious, they approached and opened the door. Inside, there was nothing but absolute darkness. Kiro reached for a light switch, and it fell off the wall and clattered to the floor. The bulb flickered on anyway, stuttering weakly.
Deeper in the house, they spotted a silhouette and something gleaming beside it.
They crept closer, and the gleam sharpened. The tip of a razor-sharp hunting sword lunged at them. Sone threw himself into one corner and Worh dove into another, but Kiro was too slow. The blade sliced across his chest, splitting his shirt and drawing a thin line of blood. He looked up as the figure rose from the floor and strode toward him, sword in hand.
In the blink of an eye, five slashes came at him. They tore through the wall behind Kiro, and sunlight poured into the room. It revealed Kiro shirtless, his muscular body marked with fresh scratches, and it lit the figure at last: a boy with black hair and pale blue eyes, wearing a black shirt buttoned at the collar, black pants, and black shoes with blue laces. He took one step forward.
Without a word, he unleashed slash after slash, and Kiro scrambled to dodge them. Each cut came faster than the last. Behind Kiro, the neighboring houses split open under the strikes. Kiro realized it and charged straight at the boy. The boy stopped slashing at once. Kiro cocked a fist, but the blade met his hand first, leaving a shallow cut. The boy seized the opening and drove the sword toward Kiro's throat.
He never finished. Worh's fist slammed into his stomach, and he spat as the air left him. He staggered back, dragging in deep, ragged breaths.
Kiro glared at the boy with open contempt, but Sone stepped forward.
"Hey, we didn't come here to attack you," Sone said, his voice firm but gentle. "We were just curious why this house was so isolated from the others."
The boy exhaled and let his guard drop.
"Sorry about that," he said. "Though I don't really care whether it was curiosity or some other dumb reason. My name is Eduin, but you can also call me Eduin López Kun."
He held out a hand to Sone, who took it. The two stared at each other, then let go. Sone sighed with relief and walked back to Kiro and Worh, explaining that there was no need to be hostile anymore.
"Hey!"
Eduin's voice rang out, and the three of them turned expectantly.
"I don't know if you're a team, but can I join?" Eduin asked, his voice calm and steady. "I'm tired of sitting here doing nothing. And I need to find my mother and ask her why she abandoned me and left me alone with my father."
The three of them nodded. Eduin had joined the team.
The four walked out of the half-ruined house and down the street. The townspeople stared in shock. The boy who had once been impossible to approach was now strolling along, perfectly relaxed, beside three strangers they had never seen before.
"What country are we in?" Eduin asked.
"Germany, I think," Kiro replied.
Eduin nodded and kept walking with them as the daylight faded. A beautiful sunset stretched across the sky. Restaurants began to close, and workers headed home to their families or to empty apartments.
Something stirred on the horizon. A hooded figure stood there, and it was Sebastián. He was gazing at the sky in his Level 5 Fury form, though the presence of his Forbidden Sadness still lingered around him. Sebastián closed his eyes, leapt upward, and vanished into the clouds.
Eduin looked up just in time to see the figure disappear. A question surfaced in his mind: *Who was that, and how did he do that?* He shook his head, and the question dissolved into the air. Kiro clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs-up. Eduin smiled a little and returned it.
They continued down the road with the others... or perhaps someone was watching the four of them from a place they could not see.