Ayane released Riku’s hand, but her gaze remained fixed on his chest, as if she could see through flesh and armor. The silence that followed was not empty; it was filled with the echo of the souls she carried.

  “This place will attract crows soon,” Ayane said, looking at the bodies around them. “The police, the government… and worse things. We can’t stay here.”

  She walked toward the warehouse exit, stopping beneath the doorway where the rain had begun to wash the blood from her invisible armor.

  “I live in an abandoned cathedral, on the border between District 9 and 8. The ground there has been consecrated by centuries of prayers, which helps muffle the screams of demons and the energy trail we leave behind. Come. There we can talk without Mika’s void chasing us.”

  They walked through alleys where not even rats dared to squeak. Riku was exhausted, feeling the weight of the bandages under his shirt, but curiosity kept him alert. Ayane moved with a supernatural lightness, the spectral fabric of her “Lament” seeming to float around her even without the armor activated.

  “Why do you keep looking at me like that?” Riku asked, breaking the silence.

  Ayane stopped before a large wrought-iron gate, its gothic towers rising against the cloudy sky. The cathedral was in ruins, yet it held a sorrowful grandeur.

  “I’m not looking at you, Riku. I’m looking at what’s hanging on you,” she replied, pushing the gate open as it creaked like a groan. “Morrvhael is the demon of lament. He doesn’t only see your power — he feels what you lost. And your lament… it’s different.”

  They entered. The interior was vast, with shattered stained-glass windows filtering the pale moonlight. Ayane lit a few candles scattered around the altar, creating a circle of warm light in the middle of the cold darkness.

  “Sit,” she gestured to a wooden bench. “Tell me, Riku Aoyama… what drives you? I feel the trace of a woman in your soul. Someone who was taken from you too soon. Someone you truly loved

  Riku felt a tightness in his chest.

  “Her name was Akari,” Riku said, his voice hoarse. “She was everything I had. She died trying to protect me And The money we didn’t even have, all because of a gang debt. I spent seven years hating every human who passed by me because no one reached out a hand to her And for me."

  He looked at the red ring, pulsing softly.

  “I accepted Kael’Zhorun because I got tired of being the rat that gets beaten. I want the world to feel what I felt in that alley.”

  Ayane sat in front of him, candlelight reflecting in her deep eyes.

  “So your motivation is revenge?” she asked, without judgment, only with a melancholic curiosity. “It’s powerful fuel, but it burns the engine. I feel your sister’s lament, Riku. She wouldn’t cry from hatred. She would cry because you are becoming what she feared you would find: the darkness.”

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  She tilted her head, watching him.

  “Do you want to destroy the world to avenge her, or do you want to destroy it because you’re afraid that if you stop fighting, her pain will finally catch up to you?”

  Riku stood up abruptly, the sound of his shoes echoing through the cathedral’s stone vaults. His face, lit by candlelight, twisted into a sneer. The mention of Akari’s name and her “kindness” was like salt in an open wound.

  “You don’t know anything about her!” Riku hissed, his voice carrying a metallic echo of Kael’Zhorun. “And don’t you dare talk about her soul as if you knew her.”

  He stepped toward Ayane. The ring on his finger began to glow an aggressive red, reacting to his fury.

  “Akari’s kindness… her light… that’s exactly what killed her!” Riku shouted, the words dripping with venom. “While she smiled and said tomorrow would be better, the world was sharpening its knives. She died with empty hands, Ayane. She died begging for mercy that this world does not have!”

  He pointed to his own chest, where the armor usually manifested.

  “What you call darkness, I call survival. I spent seven years as a ghost, getting trampled by people who weren’t better than me, just stronger. Kael’Zhorun didn’t give me a ‘burden,’ he gave me teeth. If I become the monster she feared, so be it. At least monsters don’t die crying in dirty alleys over a few coins!”

  Ayane remained still, watching his outburst of hatred with a calm that only irritated Riku more. She did not retreat from the demonic energy starting to leak from him.

  “That’s it, boy…” Kael’Zhorun’s voice purred, savoring the fury. “Show her that lament is for the weak. We are the ruin left when the crying stops.”

  “You speak as if power solves lament,” Ayane said, her soft voice contrasting with Riku’s rage. “But look around you. You killed people . You killed that gang.And you’re still bleeding. Power didn’t heal you, Riku. It only gave you a way to spread your wound to others.”

  Riku clenched his fists, feeling the ring’s heat burn his skin.

  “I’d rather bleed as the predator than be the prey that dies in silence. If Mika Kurose wants to erase me for that, let her try. And if you think you can ‘save’ me with cathedral sermons, you’re wasting your time. I don’t want to be saved. I want to be respected. I want them to be afraid.”

  Ayane kept her gaze locked on his as his fury reverberated through the cathedral walls. She did not move, did not defend herself, and above all, did not judge him. When silence finally returned, heavy and dense, she sighed, and the candlelight seemed to soften the harsh lines of her face.

  “You’re right, Riku,” she said, her voice lowering into a peaceful tone that disarmed the aggression in the air. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t feel the cold of that alley or see the light fade from your sister’s eyes. No one has the right to say how you should carry your pain.”

  She stood slowly, walking to one of the church pillars and extinguishing a candle that was already at its end.

  “I am not your enemy. And I’m not here to be your conscience. The world is loud enough without me trying to tell you who you should be. If you chose claws, I respect that. But remember: claws are for hunting, but they can’t hold anything without tearing it apart.”

  Ayane stopped near the cathedral’s side exit, wrapped in shadow.

  “If you don’t want help to fight, I understand. If you want to be the predator, the path is yours. But Morrvhael taught me one thing… even the fiercest predator dies of exhaustion if it has nowhere to return to when the hunt ends.”

  She looked over her shoulder one last time, and Riku could see that despite all her strength, Ayane’s eyes carried a fatigue born of centuries of loss.

  “I’ll be here, Riku. Not as a master, nor as a savior. But when the weight of what you’ve done becomes heavier than the pleasure of revenge… when her lament becomes too loud for you to ignore alone… I’ll be here to listen. Sometimes what a monster needs most isn’t new teeth, but someone who isn’t afraid to sit beside it in the dark.”

  She walked away, leaving Riku alone in the center of the cathedral, with the echo of his own hateful words still floating in the air and Kael’Zhorun’s ring pulsing, now colder, as if the demon were processing that strange offer of peace.

  Riku paused for a moment, his hand on the handle of the heavy gothic door. The heat of his fury had passed, leaving only exhaustion and the metallic weight of the latent armor in his blood. He glanced sideways at Ayane, who remained motionless under the candlelight.

  “I live in District 9,” Riku said, his voice now low and free of shouts, but still dry. “Tanaka Building, the only one that still has ‘security,’ apartment 402. If things get ugly with Mika or the others… you know where to find me. And now I know where you hide.”

  Ayane simply nodded with a small movement of her head, a silent gesture of acknowledgment.

  “Go carefully, Riku,” she murmured. “The night is long for one who carries an Alpha.”

  Riku left the cathedral. The early morning air was thick with fog and the acrid smell of burned rubber drifting from nearby industries.

  When he finally reached apartment 402, the building was silent. He didn’t turn on the lights when he entered his room. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the ring. The wound on his arm, the one Mika had “erased,” still throbbed with a residual cold.

  She’s dangerous, boy… Kael’Zhorun whispered, his voice vibrating in Riku’s bones. Ayane and that demon of lament… they weaken the will. Lament is poison for warriors like us. Don’t let her change what you are.

  Riku didn’t answer. He lay on his back, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. He had power, an unlikely ally, and enemies who could delete his existence with a touch.

  He closed his eye

  s, trying to find Akari’s face again, but the dream from the afternoon felt distant now.