Tomorrow is my birthday!!! So here the extra chapter!!
"Now naming," Ren said.
Silas sat in the grafting chair with his skull still open and his gold brain catching the cardinal sigil light, waiting without visible impatience.
"Scalpel," Ren said. "No. Too obvious."
He thought about it.
"Forceps."
He turned it over. The instrument that grasped, held, extracted, manipulated the most delicate structures in the human body: nerves, blood vessels, tissue that would tear if you breathed wrong. A scalpel was for cutting. Forceps were for control. For precision over things that could not afford to be dropped. That was what Silas Mordane had been for sixty years and what he was now, except more so.
"From now on," Ren said, "you are No. 5. Forceps."
The branding came.
It was not like the others, which had appeared at skin level. There was no skin on the relevant area. The brand pressed itself directly into the surface of the exposed brain, the gold tissue darkening slightly where the characters formed, the sensation apparently registering at some level that made Silas go still for one second.
Then the characters settled.
No. 5 — Forceps
Ren looked at the gold brain with the brand on it.
Fucking hell, he thought. Even the placement is disgusting. Is this how people feel when they look at my abominations? I made a thing and the thing is repulsive and I made it. I'm repulsed by my own work. This is new.
He stood there for a moment with this information.
Fuck it. I need a drink.
"Forceps," he said.
"Yes, Father."
"I'll join the Advent of Humanity with you. I'll come in as your assistant, under the identity of a newly ranked S-class alchemist affiliated with your guild. Not a Dao Guild member. A separate identity entirely."
Silas considered this. "Why the additional layer?"
"If I go in as a Dao Guild official, any investigation into my background eventually leads back to people who know that background. A new alchemist with no prior record is harder to trace."
"Reasonable," Silas said. "This old man will prepare the documentation."
"I'll handle the documentation. You handle the introduction."
"Yes, Father."
Ren looked at the open skull.
"Find a hat," he said. "Or something. You can't walk around like that."
Silas looked at the mirror he was still holding. "This old man rather likes the aesthetic."
"Find a hat."
. . .
The market in the eastern district ran until nine in the evening, the stalls close together, the smell of food moving from block to block as the wind shifted. Ren walked through it with his hands in his pockets and no particular destination, his white mask in place, his jacket on.
It had been a long day. Longer than average even by the recent standard of his days, which had already been running at a pace that would concern a normal person. He had administered a brain procedure, argued with his own System about his relative competence, named his fifth Abomination, and planned an infiltration of a secret organization populated by people who had declared him dead.
He wanted something to eat.
Takoyaki, he thought, without knowing exactly why.
He walked until he found the stall. It was a small setup, clean, the griddle going, the smell of batter and octopus carrying ahead of the sign. He stopped.
"One box. Octopus."
"Huh."
He looked up.
The girl behind the stall was wearing a tank top and had her hair pulled back and was holding a pick in one hand. She flipped a takoyaki ball without looking at it and looked at him instead.
"Mister?"
"Yeah. It's me." He settled on the stool at the counter. "I didn't expect you to actually work at a takoyaki stall."
"Wowww." Rhea pressed one hand to her chest. "So that's how you see me. As a liar. I'm sad. I'm deeply hurt. This wound may not heal."
"Whatever."
"You're no fun."
She turned back to the griddle. Her hands moved without thinking about it, the pick rotating each ball at the right moment, the batter crisping at the edges into the right shade. She did not check. She knew by sound.
"This one's on me," she said.
She opened the griddle port on one and put a piece of octopus in that was roughly twice the size it needed to be. She watched it cook. When the texture hit the right point she assembled the box, sauce applied in the right volume, mayo in the pattern she apparently considered correct.
She set it on the counter.
"Enjoy your meal, customer."
He opened the box. The smell hit first, the right combination of everything, and he took one.
"Thank you, head chef," he said.
"Of course." She leaned on the counter. "I'll text you later. Are you free this evening?"
He chewed. "Maybe."
"Let's go somewhere. I'll text you, you'd better actually come."
He looked at the takoyaki.
"Sure."
"You're acting tsundere," she said, with the tone of someone making a clinical observation. "It's a bit cute but also you're a very impressive guild doctor and at some point the mature adult thing should kick in, right?"
"I'm still a kid at heart."
She looked at him. "You're the least kid-at-heart person I've ever met."
"I contain multitudes."
"Sure you do, mister." She watched him eat. "Text me back tonight."
"I said sure."
"You said sure in the way that means maybe. I know your sures. I've collected data."
"You've been cataloguing my responses."
"Casually," she said. "I'm a political science student. Observation is a professional skill."
He finished the first takoyaki and took a second.
"I'll come," he said.
She smiled. Small, unhurried, the smile of someone who had expected this answer and got it.
"I'll text you at seven," she said. "Don't be asleep."
"It's been a long day."
"It's always a long day with you. Come anyway."
He stayed at the stall until the box was empty. The market moved around them, other customers, other vendors, the city doing its evening thing. Rhea worked through the queue when it formed and came back to the counter when it didn't, and they talked about nothing in particular, which was genuinely good.
He left when the box was done. She called after him as he went: "Seven! Don't make me text twice!"
He raised one hand without turning around.
He was already thinking about where she meant.