Chapter 25
Rain and Fire
The murmur spread among the students, soft at first, then growing like a restrained wave. Some exchanged quick glances, others barely lifted their heads from their notes to observe him without discretion.
Bairon, of small build, with light brown hair and green eyes, walked with short steps to the desk assigned to him. The scrape of his shoes against the floor seemed to echo too loudly in the expectant silence.
He wore the same yellow and black uniform as the rest of his classmates, though it hung differently on him: the sleeves too long, the fabric still stiff as if fresh from some warehouse. It wasn't tailored for him.
He sat down silently, careful not to let the chair squeak. His back straight, his arms pressed against his body, but his gaze downcast, fixed on the wood of the desk.
The other young people in the room studied him with curiosity. Some whispered, others leaned forward to see him better, and the boldest smiled with that glint in their eyes that heralds uncomfortable questions.
Bairon didn't look up. His lips tightened, and a slight tremor ran down his throat before stifling itself in an obstinate silence.
He soon felt surrounded.
One to his left, a boy with a frank smile and short hair, leaned slightly towards him. The movement was so natural, so free of tension, that for a moment it disconcerted Bairon.
"Shall we form a group?" he asked while extending his hand naturally, without stopping smiling.
Bairon looked up, surprised.
It took him a second to process the gesture, but he managed to see something he didn't expect: honesty in that classmate's eyes.
Two others, from the other side of the table, peered over their desks and greeted him too with a quick wave of the hand, animated, as if they were already including him without hesitation.
The murmur of the rest of the class continued in the background, but in that small circle, something different was igniting.
The boy's hand remained outstretched before him, firm, patient.
Bairon looked at it as if it were a strange object, a challenge too great for how small he felt at that moment.
Inside, his mind was a whirlwind. One part of him wanted to take it immediately, to cling to that opportunity not to be isolated, not to repeat what happened before. But another part, stronger and older, screamed at him not to trust, not to expose himself, that the price of opening up was always too high.
His throat tightened. He felt the pulse in his fingers, the heat in his chest, that uncomfortable pang of someone who yearns and fears at the same time.
"I…" he barely whispered, his voice cracking.
The other two boys laughed enthusiastically, giving no space to his hesitation.
"Come on, don't think about it so much!" said one, with a peaceful calm.
After hearing those words, he felt a change, as if a mist had dissipated.
He reacted by turning to look at the people nearby… and noticed the change… how things really were.
The looks surrounding him held no hostility. It was strange. There was no judgment. Only expectation, simple and luminous.
Bairon took a deep breath, swallowing, and slowly raised his hand. He hesitated for another instant —half a second of eternity— before extending his fingers and finally shaking the hand offered to him.
A small squeeze. Brief. But enough.
The three classmates smiled, as if that gesture had sealed something invisible.
And, for the first time since he had entered the classroom, the weight on Bairon's chest lightened just a little.
He remained quiet, still a bit downcast, his shoulders tense, as if they might collapse at any moment. But deep down… deep down he was happy.
A brief, contained, almost shy smile formed on his face. Just a glimmer, but enough to illuminate his green eyes. Literally.
The young man who had invited him smiled even more upon feeling his response. Then, bringing the same hand to his chest, he gave himself a soft thump —not of violence, but of affirmation— and introduced himself proudly:
"I'm Hanz Prinz," said the boy with the frank smile, keeping his tone animated. Then he turned his wrist and pointed towards the other two expectant classmates. "And they are…"
"Laios Hardbrick," murmured the blond young man with his hair tied back, who accompanied his name with a slight nod of the head, sober but confident.
"Körper Picke," added the redhead immediately, with a messy three-quarter-length cut and a half-smile that gave him a somewhat roguish air.
Bairon nodded upon hearing each name, silently engraving them as if they were more important than any of them suspected.
Then, with an effort that felt almost monumental, he extended his hand first to Hanz, then to Laios, then to Körper.
The contact of each handshake was brief, but firm, and with each gesture he let out a little of the tension that oppressed him. Finally, he raised his voice just enough to respond:
"Bairon… Bairon Sword."
The name came out haltingly, but authentic.
The three classmates nodded as if they had just sealed an invisible pact. Hanz let out a short, confident laugh, Laios arched an approving eyebrow, and Körper clicked his tongue as if celebrating the formality of the moment.
For the first time since he had entered the classroom, Bairon no longer felt entirely alone.
[Present]
The officer remained there, motionless, letting each drop strike his face and mix with the dried sweat.
For an instant, the world shrank to just him and that blackened body. Not the waves, nor the wind, nor the creaking of the ship seemed to matter. The storm continued its indifferent course, as if the two of them meant nothing.
The shadow covering his eyes began to dissipate. That darkness, which just seconds earlier had gripped him like entangled tentacles, faded from his retinas.
But what emerged was not relief.
Something liquid welled up from there, different from the rain sliding down his skin.
It wasn't water from the sky.
They were tears.
The rain could hide them… but he knew the difference.
At first, the tears were few, silent, lost amidst the rain. Just a tremor in the eyelids, just a warm trace running down his cheek.
But soon the dam broke. His breath hitched in a brief sob, and then another. His shoulders, rigid until that moment, gave way suddenly, shaken by spasms he could no longer contain.
The officer lowered his head. One hand went to his face, wanting to cover it, but the other braced against the deck as if his not collapsing entirely depended on that gesture.
"Ahhh…" a groan mixed with the storm, hoarse, wounded.
The tears blended with the rain, but he felt the difference: his were warm, heavy, born from pain and helplessness. Each one dragged with it the memories of what was lost, the accumulated tension, the certainty of the impossible.
He cried. Not as a soldier, nor as an officer, but as a man defeated by the weight of his own limits.
The ship creaked under the storm, indifferent. The blackened corpse remained before him, a mute witness to his outpouring.
But…
But out of nowhere, without warning, the blackened body of the monster convulsed. A brief, violent spasm that shook it on the wet deck.
The officer stopped dead. The tears kept flowing, but his throat no longer let out any sound. Only his agitated, ragged breathing remained, as if the air itself refused to enter his lungs.
One… two… three times in total. Each convulsion was stronger than the last, twisting the charred body until it slammed against the ship's wet planks.
With each jolt, the officer's face hardened. The vulnerability of the crying was erased, gradually replaced by a cold, tense mask. His eyes, reddened, no longer reflected pain: only the dull gleam of someone contemplating something unworthy of continuing to exist.
His jaw clenched, his teeth grinding in time with his thoughts. That creature was no longer an enemy or a threat; it was trash. Trash that, for some cruel reason, hadn't finished dying yet.
And the officer's expression said it all: he wasn't going to give it another chance.
It opened.
The mouth of the blackened body, the one with six limbs, gaped open with a dull crunch, as if the broken jaws were splitting once more.
From that wet darkness emerged something impossible: an arm of flesh, flaccid and viscous, resembling a twisted tongue. Its skin was charred, blackened in several places, and gave off a pestilent vapor upon contact with the cold rain.
The appendage stretched out slowly, trembling, feeling the floor until it found support. The fingers, twisted and burned, clawed into the wet planks with the desperation of a wounded animal.
And then it began to drag itself.
First the entire arm came out, dragging strands of torn flesh from inside the corpse that held it. Then, pulling with force, a head emerged: wet, deformed, still covered in charred residue that flaked off like bark.
Finally, the torso. Twisted, convulsing, dripping a thick liquid that mixed with the rainwater and ran like a dark trail between the cracks in the wood.
The original corpse was still there, mouth agape, turned into an abject conduit giving birth to something new and unnatural in the midst of the storm.
Thump!
A dry thud reverberated on the deck when a foot sheathed in a translucent green rectangle came down with all its force on the back of the being trying to emerge. The impact sent up droplets of water and wood splinters, and a thunderous whine erupted from that mass of blackened flesh, vibrating in the air like an animal screech.
The officer, his face still marked by tears, gritted his teeth and pushed down with all the weight of his body. The green rectangle sizzled upon contact with the wet, burned flesh twisting under his boot.
The fleshy monster, halfway out of the charred corpse, struggled desperately. Its bony fingers scratched the wet planks, digging into the cracks, trying to drag itself out. Each tug made what remained of the original body's mouth creak, tearing bones and tendons as if it were a rotten husk.
But the officer's foot didn't yield.
The blow had stopped it dead, and now he held it there, crushed against the floor, like an insect trapped under glass.
Press.
The officer discharged every gram of his force onto the foot reinforced by the green rectangle. The crunch of charred bones mixed with the grating of the translucent material. Beneath him, the monster thrashed violently, shaking like an animal caught in a trap.
But it couldn't attack. Not with just two arms free and the lower half of its body still sunk inside the charred corpse that held it like a grotesque prison.
The abomination stretched its arms and placed both hands against the ship's wet planks. The blackened fingers dug furiously into the cracks in the wood, tearing out splinters, trying to gain leverage to free itself.
Nothing. The officer's foot kept pressing it into the floor, the weight multiplied by the green energy sheathing it.
Until, suddenly, the weight vanished.
The monster managed to lift its head for an instant, with a wet shriek that seemed like triumph…
Bam!
The weight reappeared in the same second, more violent, falling from above like a hammer blow. The being's body arched sharply, spewing a guttural noise that resonated amid the storm.
The whine was worse than before, a choked bellow lost between the rain and the distant roar of the fire.
The officer was no longer holding it with just one foot. Now he was standing on it, with both feet sunk into the twisted back of the abomination, pinning it to the planks like a nail refusing to go in.
But he wasn't looking at it.
His eyes were fixed on the glow still burning inside the saloon, a rabid fire consuming everything without distinction. There, among those flames, his mind hatched a macabre idea.
A glint shone in his gaze.
The left foot descended in a calculated motion, crushing the monster's head, burying it against the soaked floor. The blackened fingers scratched uselessly at the planks, producing an unpleasant screech.
At the same time, the officer bent his knees and dropped onto the being's torso, using it as a seat, like a hunter immobilizing his prey before slitting its throat.
The rain beat against his back, and under his weight the monster convulsed, unable to break free.