Kamina started walking.
Forward. Toward Voyager, whose cosmic cloak flickered at the edges, whose orbiting lenses trailed glass dust through the smoke-choked air.
Curiosity moved beside him.
The terra-cotta armor of [Aeolis Mons] ground against itself with each step, Martian dust sifting from the joints. Voyager was his charge. His failure. His responsibility to shape back into something that could hold a name without shattering under the weight of it.
They walked together across the scorched earth, two figures in borrowed power, toward the boy who had decided that merging all minds into one was mercy.
Then the sword came down.
Black steel slammed into the ground before Kamina's next step, the blade embedding itself in the cracked soil with enough force to send a shockwave through the debris. The greatsword stood upright, its edge gleaming, a barrier between Kamina and his path.
Kamina stopped.
He looked at the sword. Then along its length. Past the hilt. Past the gauntleted hand that held it.
Rowbotham stood there. His white cloak was torn and ash-stained. His black formal attire was scorched at the cuffs. His single visible eye was steady.
"Before you continue," Rowbotham said, "you will hear my answer first."
Kamina held his gaze for a long moment. Then he turned his head slightly.
"Curiosity."
"Here."
"Deal with Voyager by yourself for a bit."
Curiosity did not argue. He did not question. He simply adjusted his grip on the grinding wheels that had replaced his surgical tools and stepped past the greatsword, past the Proxy, toward the boy in the cosmic cloak.
Kamina turned to face Rowbotham fully. He rolled his shoulders. His hand found the hilt of his katana.
"Alright," he said. "Let's hear it."
Rowbotham pulled his greatsword from the ground.
The blade rose vertically, held before his chest, the golden chains rattling against the metal.
"I protected that girl," Rowbotham said. Factual. "In a moment where everything was burning and falling apart, I chose to keep one small thing alive."
Kamina's hand gripped his katana.
"That is simply... a choice. The only thing I have that belongs entirely to me."
He lowered the greatsword.
"So I will ask you… is that enough? Is that small world worth protecting?"
Kamina drew his blade.
Steel rang clear in the smoke-filled air.
"Yeah," he said. "It is."
Rowbotham moved first.
The greatsword came up in a vertical slash, the blade moving fast, the weight behind it immense. Kamina sidestepped. The sword carved through the air where he'd been standing, the wind of its passage hot enough to singe his hair.
Kamina countered.
His katana flashed. A quick strike aimed at Rowbotham's exposed flank. The Proxy pivoted, bringing his greatsword around in a tight slash to block. The blades met with a sound like a bell struck hard.
Rowbotham pressed forward.
He wasn't trying to kill.
Kamina could feel the difference in the weight of the attacks.
They were testing each other.
The greatsword came down in a heavy overhead strike. Kamina blocked, his katana taking the full force. His legs bent slightly under the impact, boots scraping backward across the cracked earth.
Kamina pushed up.
He drove the greatsword away and stepped forward in the same motion. His katana came in at an angle, trying to cut across Rowbotham's shoulder. The Proxy turned his body, using the motion to create distance, and swung the greatsword horizontally.
Kamina ducked under it.
The blade whistled past overhead. Kamina was already moving, already inside Rowbotham's reach. He drove his elbow upward. Rowbotham brought his gauntleted hand down to block. The impact rattled both of them.
Rowbotham stepped back.
Kamina pursued.
The Proxy adjusted his grip on the greatsword and came in again, a thrust, the blade aimed straight at Kamina's chest.
Fast.
Kamina twisted sideways.
The blade passed inches from his ribs. He could feel the air displacement, the whisper of how close it had been. He moved with the dodge and came up with his katana raised, ready for the follow-up.
Rowbotham recovered and spun.
The greatsword came around in a low horizontal cut, trying to catch Kamina's legs. Kamina jumped. The blade passed beneath him. He landed and immediately pressed forward, his katana coming down in a fast strike toward Rowbotham's shoulder.
The Proxy brought his greatsword up to intercept.
They met again. And again. And again.
The fight was moving faster, both of them pushing harder, testing the edges of what the other could do. Rowbotham's strength was immense, each swing of the greatsword carried weight that threatened to overwhelm, to push Kamina backward, to grind him down through sheer force.
But Kamina was faster.
He moved in tight spaces. He angled his cuts to slip past the Proxy's defenses. He used Rowbotham's own momentum against him, turning the massive sword into a liability when there wasn't enough room to swing it properly.
Rowbotham brought the greatsword down in a vertical strike.
Kamina blocked. But instead of trying to hold the position, he pushed his katana forward and to the side, sliding Rowbotham's blade away at an angle. The greatsword descended and struck the ground instead of its intended target.
Rowbotham looked up.
His eyes met Kamina's.
Then he smiled.
Wide. Genuine. Like something had clicked into place.
"PROVE IT!" Rowbotham shouted, raising his greatsword again. "PROVE IT THAT THE WORLD IS BOTH FLAT AND ROUND!"
Kamina grinned back.
He blocked the next slash, his katana taking the full weight of the greatsword's downward swing.
"JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE HIT IN THE HEAD AND IT WILL DO!" Kamina said, his voice carrying across the battlefield.
Shmuel, still lying face down on the ground, looked up.
He watched Kamina moving, dancing around Rowbotham's massive blade, the two of them engaged in something that was part combat and part conversation. The Proxy was smiling. Kamina was laughing.
Shmuel turned his head slightly toward Imogen.
"He is a bit of a mad, isn't he?" Shmuel said.
Imogen was still standing there, her rifle held loose, watching the fight with the expression of someone who had seen this exact thing happen before and would probably see it again.
"Probably one of two reasons why I joined this Office," she said. "But still regret joining it."
Shmuel smiled weakly from the ground.
"What is the other reason?" he asked. "Come on, say it."
Imogen kept poking her rifle at Shmuel's face continuously, the barrel tracing lines across his cheek, his forehead, his nose. Annoying him. Testing his patience.
"Never."
Pioneer walked close to where Imogen, Shmuel, and Opportunity were standing. She looked up at the ongoing fight between Curiosity and Voyager, her researcher's mind already cataloging details, analyzing patterns.
"What is your assessment of the engagement?" she asked Imogen and Shmuel directly.
Imogen glanced at her. "Assessment?"
"The tactical situation. The combat dynamics." Pioneer's voice was clinical, precise. "You are both fixers. Fighting is... your specialty, so to speak."
Shmuel pushed himself up slightly on his elbows, still too exhausted to stand.
"Both of them are amateurs," he said. "Curiosity and Voyager. Neither of them has real combat experience. But that doesn't mean they're not dangerous."
He paused, watching Curiosity's terra-cotta form move against Voyager's flickering cosmic cloak.
"What they're manifesting on their bodies is a lot stronger than the weapons that an average workshop would make."
Pioneer processed this, then looked at Imogen.
"What exactly is manifesting on them?"
Imogen lowered her rifle slightly.
"It's manifested by the person," she said. "Uniquely theirs. It's the blooming of their own self after overcoming the breaking of one's self, accepting your true self with your own answer."
Pioneer and Opportunity exchanged a look.
"Is that what you called a Psychoment?" Opportunity asked.
"Yeah," Imogen confirmed. "That's what it is."
Opportunity watched Curiosity fighting. Then she looked at Voyager, whose cosmic cloak was barely holding together, fragmenting at the edges.
"Why does Voyager's Psychoment look so incomplete?" she asked quietly.
Shmuel was quiet for a moment.
"His own self's answer was incomplete," he said finally. "Extremely vulnerable. But he still stands with his own answer." He looked at Voyager directly. "Much like I did when I distorted. When I turned into that thing in the laboratory."
He shifted his weight slightly, the exhaustion evident in every movement.
"Holding on to that weak answer is a lot better than what I became [Remains of a Metal Ship]. A Distortion doesn't have a definite answer. At least he chose to be something."
Imogen nodded slowly, understanding the weight of what Shmuel was saying.
Pioneer looked back at the fight.
"So he is losing because his answer is fragile," she said. It wasn't a question.
"He's losing because his answer is fragile," Shmuel agreed. "But he's still fighting for it. That's the only difference between him and a beast."
Pioneer turned to Opportunity.
"What do you think he is thinking?" she asked. "Voyager. You are much closer to him than anyone else in the Far Beyond. What does his mind sound like right now?"
Opportunity opened her mouth to answer.
The ground erupted.
Curiosity came up from below, his enlarged wheel-hands grinding against the dirt, accelerating fast. He'd built momentum from somewhere, a depression in the earth, a ramp of his own making and now he was ascending, his terra-cotta form rising higher, the Martian dust swirling around him.
Voyager saw him coming.
The cosmic cloak tried to shift upward, to create distance, but it was too slow. Too unstable. The fragmentation was too far advanced.
Curiosity slammed into him from above.
The impact sent both of them crashing downward, directly into the space where Kamina and Rowbotham were fighting. The greatsword and katana went still as the two younger fighters collided with the earth between them.
Kamina moved instantly.
He grabbed onto Curiosity's moving body as it slid across the ground, using the momentum to keep himself moving. He didn't waste time with words.
"Throw me," he said.
Curiosity understood.
His right hand, one of the wheel-hands, shifted. The grinding gears retracted. The hand reformed into something almost human, fingers extending. He grabbed Kamina and twisted, using the momentum of his slide to add force to the throw.
Kamina flew.
He was airborne for maybe two seconds. His katana was already drawn, blade angled forward, ready. He crashed directly into Rowbotham at high speed.
Rowbotham brought his greatsword up to block.
The blades met, but Kamina's speed was too much. The impact forced Rowbotham's guard backward. His arms bent. His footing slipped.
Kamina twisted his wrist.
The katana slid past the greatsword and slashed across Rowbotham's chest.
Blood bloomed across the Proxy's black attire. Not deep, Rowbotham had moved just enough to avoid the worst of it but there. A line of red against scorched fabric.
Rowbotham dropped to one knee.
He braced himself with his free hand, breathing hard. The greatsword hung loose in his other grip for just a moment before he tightened it again, readying himself for the next exchange.
Kamina didn't raise his sword.
Instead, he held out his open hand.
In a world where everyone danced to their predetermined roles..
A hand extended wasn't a weapon. It was a question. An offer. A refusal to accept that the script was already written.
"Shmuel!" Kamina shouted across the battlefield.
Shmuel, still lying on the ground, pushed himself up on his elbows.
"You want another work force in the office?"
"PLEASE DO!" Shmuel shouted back.
Kamina turned back to Rowbotham, his hand still extended.
"Join my office," he said simply.
Rowbotham stared at him.
The absurdity was almost laughable. A Fixer office, small, independent, operating on the margins, asking a Proxy of the Index to join. One of the Five Fingers. One of the beings who controlled the backstreet Kamina walked on. It violated every logic the City operated under.
Rowbotham wanted to refuse.
But he looked at the girl. The one he'd protected. The one who was alive because he'd chosen to stand between her and the Sweepers.
He reached for Kamina's hand.
A figure appeared.
She moved at high speed, it was simply the way she existed. White cloak. Black suit. An Index Messenger, identical in uniform to Rowbotham.
She arrived between them in a step.
From her hand, she extended a white paper slip.
Rowbotham's hand froze.
He took the Prescript and unfolded it.
The words were few. Simple.
"Don't attend your own funeral."
Don't join. Don't leave the Index. Don't walk away from the role you've been assigned. Don't die to your old self by being reborn into a new one.
Kamina's voice cut through the silence.
"Don't you have an answer?" he asked Rowbotham. "A defined one. A polished one. A meaningful one."
Something shifted in Rowbotham's expression.
He looked at the Prescript in his hand. At the Index Messenger standing before him, waiting for compliance. At Kamina's open hand. At the girl, watching from a distance. At the City itself, vast and indifferent, grinding forward with its predetermined logic.
Everyone in this world was truly starving like fools, starving for choice, for meaning, for the right to answer for themselves instead of being answered for.
Rowbotham threw the Prescript into the sky.
The white paper drifted upward, catching the smoke and ash, dissolving into nothing.
He grabbed Kamina's arm.
Kamina pulled him up.
The Index Messenger watched this exchange as interesting, perhaps, but ultimately irrelevant. She did not move to stop them. She did not draw her blade.
"I do not understand," she said quietly, "what freewill of yours would do good for the Prescript. Let alone defy it."
She did not wait for an answer.
She turned away, her white cloak trailing behind her, her footsteps carrying her back toward the depths of the City and the world made sense in the way only predetermined things could make sense.
She was protecting her own worldview, where choice was illusion, where the City's will was the only will that mattered.
Rowbotham stood beside Kamina.
A man who had decided that his funeral would not be attended by anyone but himself.
From the distance, Shmuel let out a long sigh.
"There's going to be a lot of paperwork to do with the Hana Association," he said to no one in particular. "Getting an ex-syndicate member into the office. This is going to be a nightmare."
Imogen glanced at him. "Worth it?"
Shmuel didn't answer immediately. He watched Kamina and Rowbotham, now standing together, the Proxy's hand still in the Fixer's grip.
"No," he said. "Not worth it."
Opportunity looked at Pioneer, who was still watching the ongoing fight between Curiosity and Voyager. The cosmic cloak was fragmenting faster now, barely holding shape.
"The question you asked me," Opportunity said quietly. "About what Voyager's mind sounds like."
Pioneer waited.
"He had a twin sister," Opportunity continued. "A long time ago. Earlier in his life than any of us probably remember him having. He valued her. A lot." Opportunity's voice was soft, careful. "When we lost her, something broke in him. I don't think he remembers it clearly anymore, but... he's been trying to reconnect ever since."
Pioneer absorbed this in silence.
Imogen suddenly straightened, her rifle coming up.
"I'm joining the battle right now," she said, and she began to ignite her E.G.O.
Flames bloomed around her. Her dress burned bright. The molten metal started to form.
A hand came down on her head.
Shmuel pressed gently but firmly, stopping the transformation before it fully took hold. The flames died back down. The molten metal cooled.
"I have a better idea," Shmuel said. "But I need to confirm it first."
Imogen looked at him, confused.
Shmuel turned to Pioneer and Opportunity.
"Do you want to gaze into Voyager's mind?" he asked.
Both of them blinked.
"What does that mean?" Opportunity asked carefully.
"It's a yes or no question," Shmuel said. "The method is... a bit of a mad move."
"Mad how?" Pioneer asked.
Shmuel didn't answer. He just waited.
With no other option, no other way forward, Opportunity and Pioneer exchanged a look.
"Yes," Opportunity said.
"Yes," Pioneer agreed.
Shmuel nodded once.
He turned and jumped down from where they'd been standing. He ran across the scorched earth toward Kamina and Rowbotham, his exhausted body moving on pure determination.
"Kamina!" he called out.
Kamina turned, still holding Rowbotham's arm.
Shmuel skidded to a stop in front of them, breathing hard.
"We need you to connect your light to Voyager," Shmuel said. "To go into his mind's fathom. To see what's inside."
Kamina blinked. Once. Twice.
"I don't know how to do that," he said.
"Neither do I," Shmuel admitted.
Kamina grinned.
"But I'm very much willing to try anyway," he said, already looking toward where Curiosity and Voyager were still fighting, the cosmic cloak barely coherent now.
Shmuel looked directly at Kamina.
"Synchronize with Imogen's E.G.O," he said. "And do the things you've always been doing."
Rowbotham turned to look at Shmuel, his expression blank.
"I don't understand what you're asking him to do," Rowbotham said quietly.
Shmuel didn't explain. He just looked back at Kamina.
Kamina understood immediately.
He didn't need clarification. He didn't need a detailed plan. He just needed permission to do what he'd always done, the impossible thing, the thing that made no sense, the thing that worked anyway.
"Imogen!" Kamina shouted across the battlefield. "Shoot me!"
Imogen's eyes widened for just a moment.
Then she moved.
Her form ignited. The flames bloomed outward. The wedding dress materialized around her, flowing, ceremonial, burning at the edges. Embers floated upward like fireflies. Her face became serene, almost mournful, her eyes pools of liquid fire.
[Effloresced E.G.O :: Wedlocked]
She didn't hesitate.
The molten round fired directly at Kamina's chest.
The bullet moved fast, combustible, trailing heat in its wake. It struck him dead center and disappeared into his form on impact.
Imogen's E.G.O deactivated immediately.
The flames died. The dress faded. She was just Imogen again, breathing hard, her part in this finished.
But Kamina was transforming.
Black fabric materialized across his skin, a pastor's suit lined with molten gold veins that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. The high, severe collar radiated an authority that his usual posture actively undermined, that his grin actively mocked. Heat shimmered off him in waves, warping the air around his body.
His katana melted.
The solid blade became liquid sunlight, edges indistinct, flowing with a slow golden current that dripped brightness to the ground, vanishing before it touched earth. Each step he took left glowing footprints that faded behind him like echoes.
A red cape settled around his shoulders.
[Synchronize E.G.O :: Wedlocked]
Kamina looked down at his hands. At the blade of liquid light. At the way the heat was bending the very air around him.
"I know what to do," he said.
He turned to Rowbotham, still holding the Proxy's arm.
"Throw me," Kamina said. "Full force. That kid over there."
Rowbotham didn't question it.
He tightened his grip on Kamina's arm, shifted his stance, and prepared to release.
Kamina launched forward.
Rowbotham's throw had sent him airborne, the liquid sunlight blade trailing brightness behind him, the red cape billowing like a banner. Voyager saw him coming, still mid-struggle with Curiosity, still fragmented, still losing and raised his cloak in a desperate attempt to block.
It didn't matter.
The liquid sunlight blade passed through the cosmic weave like it was made of smoke.
Kamina's sword found Voyager's heart.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then light pure, white and absolute erupted outward from the point of contact. It consumed everything. The battlefield. The smoke. The sound of fighting. All of it collapsed into brightness.
Kamina was standing in a place that had no edges.
White. The absence of all color except white. He could see his feet, but there was no ground beneath them. He could see his hands, but there was no air around them. Space didn't function here. Distance didn't exist. And yet he was standing.
"It's this place again."
A voice came from behind him.
"That boy will be in a better state of mind," Carmen said, "if he accepts that it's better to give up on his world's version."
Kamina turned slowly.
"To appreciate the world of others," Kamina said, his voice measured, "what you must never do is destroy someone's world."
He paused. Let the words settle.
"Because all of them are precious," he continued. "All of them are someone's home."
Carmen tilted her head slightly.
"Even the broken ones," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Especially the broken ones," Kamina replied.
They stood in the white place for a moment, neither advancing, neither retreating. Two beings arguing about the nature of mercy in a space that didn't technically exist.
"You say you'll reshape how he sees the world," Carmen observed. "But one point of light in an infinite dark."
"How?" Kamina asked, acknowledging the implicit question without needing it to be spoken aloud.
Carmen waited.
"It won't be just me," Kamina said simply. "The kids in the Far Beyond. Curiosity, Pioneer, Opportunity. They really want to connect with that kid. They want him to understand that his answer doesn't have to be the only answer. That he can have his world and they can have theirs."
He looked directly at Carmen, or through her, or past her—it was hard to tell in this place where everything and nothing existed simultaneously.
"That's the thing you never understood," Kamina continued. "The answer is just... letting people stay broken together? Letting them choose their own wrong answers? But still let them see how warm it is to see other ways"
"That being, Hermes," Kamina said. "Do you have any info about them?"
"Yes," Carmen replied. "But I can't speak their name in vain unlike you who are not bound by this world."
"Really? Not one bit?"
"No."
"Well, figuring that out myself probably will be really cool when I find out what they are."
Carmen chuckled. "With a person so unique like yourself, finding it out probably will happen. Probably not in the near future though."
"Also, I feel something wrong about this battlefield," Kamina said. "No, probably this whole world. It doesn't seem like the one I was previously in."
"I'm surprised you felt it and didn't go through any research at all."
"That's because I'm the Great Kamina."
"For explanation, you and all who stand before his presence were sent to another Mirror World."
"Mirror worlds? I think I heard you mention about it before. What is it?"
"They are infinite alternate realities that can be seen through the Mirror. These worlds vary from being nearly identical to the City."
"I don't understand much of what you said, but dumb it down, it should mean that we are in a different world, right?"
"Yes."
"What is different in this world than mine?"
"G Corp had their decisive weapon actively fighting for them compared to your world."
"I don't know what that means," Kamina said. "But I gotta go and knock some sense into that kid."
"He might not accept help. He might not want to be saved."
"Then I'll save him anyway. That's what I do."
"You really believe that? That broken worlds are worth saving?"
"I don't just believe it," Kamina said. "I know it. Because someone saved mine."
"Salvation has a cost."
"Then I'll pay it."
"You might not have a choice."
"I always have a choice. That's what separates me from you. I know it runs on stubbornness."
"Perhaps. But stubbornness alone won't save that boy."
"Then it's good I'm not alone, isn't it?"
"Then I'm outta here," Kamina said. "Oh, and I WILL REACH THE HEAVEN JUST SO ANYONE WAIT."