The desert's emptiness was the kind of emptiness that pressed into the bones wide, like the world was holding its beauty.
Elior walked alone, boots sinking into thin sheets of sand, the faint glow of the bunker behind him fading until it was just another dying star.
His mind gnawed on Tom's condition.
The fungus, the Hhan Jdu. He had seen it before, once, long ago. It didn't just corrupt veins; it bent a man's will until he was nothing but a hunger gnawing at his own skin.
He tightened his vest, blood still faintly soaked into its inner cloth from earlier battles. His branch twitched in his back like a scar wanting to open again.
A flicker of red in the distance.
The air trembled. Heat.
A voice cut the silence, rough but playful, carried by a burning wind,
"You walk like a man dragging graves behind him, Elior Jones. Still the same as ever."
The sand ahead lit up, not from stars but from fire, shaping itself into a circle on the ground.
From that circle Johan Graham stepped out.
Golden-haired, coat swaying, a half-smile on his lips, and his hands glowing with flame that danced like it had a mind of its own. His eyes carried the calm of someone who had killed too much and made peace with it.
Elior stopped walking. The desert between them stretched like a drawn blade.
"Johan…" Elior's tone was flat, though something flickered under it. A nostalgia, maybe even warmth. "Didn't think I'd see you here."
Johan tilted his head. "Old partners don't meet by chance."
He snapped his fingers. Sparks cascaded in the air, settling on the sand, hissing as if the ground itself burned.
"I hear you need herbs. Lucky you. I've got them. But you know me." His grin sharpened. "I don't give. Did you forget how we greet eachother?"
Elior's hand flexed. He already knew what that meant.
He muttered, half to himself, "You will never change red ass."
"Wouldn't be me if I did," Johan said, and the air erupted.
A wall of flame spiraled upward around Johan, forming into a serpent that screeched without sound, its body stretching across the sky. It lunged then threw fireballs at Elior.
Elior ran like a horse, evading all the fireballs. Each fireball landed created crater on sands flowing magma from it, rejecting nearby atoms to stop reaction. Creating holes in space for a brief moment.
Elior's body jerked. The branch tore out of his shoulder in a violent spasm, shredding flesh and muscle. Blood sprayed down his back as jagged wood curled outward like a tree growing too fast, lilies blooming along it, unnatural, sickly beautiful.
Surprisingly, he had his old Face.... ' Dawn of happiness, Smile' remained even after his death....
Elior's hand slammed into the ground, and the desert itself bucked upward like a tidal wave frozen in earth. Grains fused together, shaping into a jagged wall that swallowed flame, leaving the serpent thrashing.
The shock scorched the air. For a moment, it was fire against earth, light against shadow, both forces clawing for dominance.
Johan laughed in the storm. "You still resist like a king!"
He spread his hands wide, fire condensing into burning chains that lashed across the sky, descending toward Elior like judgment.
Elior's face darkened.
He shifted his stance. The sand at his feet began to spin, controlled, deliberate. When the chains fell, they didn't strike him. They bent unnaturally.
The grains rotated faster and faster until the chains cracked, disoriented, their flames snapping back toward Johan.
The detective didn't flinch. He took it. Fire ate his own coat, revealing scars across his chest but he only grinned wider.
"You're still stronger, Elior. Always stronger. But what about me?" His eyes flared. "I cheat."
Flames twisted, crawling up Johan's arms like armor, turning into clawed gauntlets that seared the air. He lunged forward with devilish speed, fists blazing.
Elior's branch whipped outward, tearing through space itself, the lilies on its tips falling like glowing embers. The branch cut into Johan's fire-arm, splintering sparks, and rotted the flames at their edge.
It was wood and sand against fire and fury.
The desert became a battlefield. The stars above were drowned by their clash.
This was no duel of survival. This was how old partners said hello.
....
The bunker air was quiet, carrying the faint smell of cooked vegetables and desert dust.
Johan leaned back in a chair, boots resting on the table as if it were his own house. His golden hair caught the lantern-light, sharp grin never leaving his face.
On the other side, Elior sat straight, eyes heavy but steady. He looked more like a shadow than a man who had just fought a storm of fire.
Tom, meanwhile, stood at the corner, quietly pressing the herb Johan had given him against his arm. A subtle warmth spread through his veins.
The ache dulled. The fungus seemed to draw back, as though it had been burned from the inside out. He exhaled, calmer, though a cautious part of him waited for pain to return.
"You'll live, kid," Johan said, flicking a hand as though he had just brushed away death itself. "Don't get too grateful, though. Herbs like that don't grow on trees."
Tom offered a short nod. He wasn't good at thanks.
Then Johan turned to Elior, fire flickering faintly at his fingertips again.
"Now," he said with a dangerous kind of playfulness. "We've got time, you and I. How about a duel? It's been ages since I stretched against someone who can take a real hit."
Elior didn't flinch. He answered as if cutting the suggestion in half,
"No."
That one word hung in the air.
Johan arched a brow, chuckled. "No? That's it? What happened to you? You used to say a good fight was worth more than a feast."
Elior's gaze didn't waver. "Too much is at stake. I'm not here for games."
The silence seemed to stretch between them, thicker than smoke. Then Johan leaned forward, dropping his boots to the floor, elbows on his knees. His grin returned, but his voice dipped low, quiet and sharp.
"Relax, old friend. I won't linger long. I've got devils to hunt."
Elior's eyes narrowed slightly.
Johan's smile twisted into something darker. "One case in particular… a man who invited a devil into his house. Let it sleep under his roof. Even let it screw his wife just to make a wish of his become true by the devil's charm. Now the lady is bearing a devil in her. Can you imagine?" He let out a soft laugh, half-disgust, half-amusement. "People like that don't deserve pity. They deserve fire."
The lantern flickered. Tom's fingers tightened on his bandaged arm. Elior didn't speak, but the air around him shifted, heavy as stone. Johan leaned back again, as casual as if he had said nothing unusual. "So, I'll be here for a while. Kick some devil's ass, move on. Simple."
Stars were scattered sharp and bright, and the air was still enough that even the faintest breath of wind felt like a whisper.
On the roof, Rosario stood alone. His pink hair caught strands of starlight, his red sentinel robe flowing gently as if alive.
A violin rested in one hand, but he did not play. His other hand curled around the edge of the roof, knuckles pale.
His eyes narrowed on the sand dunes, but he wasn't really seeing them. He was thinking.
"The plan failed…" he muttered under his breath, voice carrying like the rustle of dry leaves.
His face carried an absurd motion. The smile he wore before, that charm he spread so easily, had vanished. Now his face was calm but hard, sharp as glass.
He thought of the infection that should have spread through the boy.
He thought of the cracks it should have made, breaking the fragile group from the inside.
Yet the herb had cut it off.
Again, Elior… Elior was back from the grave, walking around.
Rosario tilted his head upward. He closed his eyes. The night air carried a known scent of sand and steel, like blood had dried a long ago.
"Not yet," he whispered to himself. "It's too soon. Too many chess pieces are moving at once."
He let out a quiet laugh, but it was hollow and humorless. "A merchant should know better than to gamble everything in one trade."
The violin string hummed as his thumb brushed against it. The sound was soft, almost like a sigh.
Rosario turned his gaze back toward the bunker below. His expression was unreadable now, sealed behind that same calm mask.
"They'll never see the weight of the scales until it crushes them," he murmured.
And with that, he stepped back from the roof's edge, swallowed again by silence.