They dove into an alley. Obi grabbed both collars, and pressed Raizen and Hikari against the wall. They all held their breath. The vendor thundered past, cursing inventively.
Silence.
They waited.
Still silent.
Safe.
Raizen picked a tomato seed off his face, and flicked it at Obi. Obi looked back, completely serious. "Well… It was a minor design flaw."
Raizen's face twitched as Obi started giggling. Then Raizen lost it completely.
Full, gasping laughter.
Hikari watched them both - these two idiots covered head to toe in what could count as a smoothie, laughing like the world wasn't dangerous. The corner of her mouth lifted. Then she was laughing too. Quietly, but there.
All three collapsed against the wall, unable to breathe, unable to stop.
For a moment, the Underworks didn't feel like a trap. It just felt alive.
The laughter faded slowly.
They sat there catching their breath, sticky and grinning.
Raizen wiped his eyes. "We should head back before the guy finds us again."
They stood, brushing off what fruit they could. Then, Obi led them down a different route - avoiding the main market.
The alley narrowed. Darkened. And then Raizen realized.
This wasn't a shortcut. It was living quarters. Makeshift walls of scrap metal and cloth stretching between buildings. Lanterns hanging low, casting long shadows. Laundry strung across the gap. Voices murmured behind thin curtains.
This was where people lived. The ones who couldn't afford even the Underworks' cheapest places.
"Whoopss, wrong turn" Obi muttered. "Let's go back-"
But it was too late.
Five figures stepped out from between the makeshift homes. They were kids - not much older - maybe even younger. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen at most. But the Underworks had built them differently: Lean muscle, scars on knuckles eyes that tracked movement like predators.
They spread out slowly, blocking the alley, positioning.
One had wrapped knuckles. Another had a jagged scar across his jaw.
What looked like the oldest one was tall and wiry, with a nose that looked like it had been broken twice and healed crooked both times. Coal dust smudged his cheek. He tilted his head, studying them.
Then his gaze landed on Hikari, and stayed there.
He stepped forward.
Raizen's hand twitched. He had no weapon. He had nothing. His eyes ran a quick scan of the environment – he couldn't use a rag as something he could defend himself with. Obi's weird broken grapple was completely cracked, and would only hinder him more in a serious fight.
Hikari went perfectly still. The kid's grin widened - not friendly. It was curious. Dangerous.
"Well" he said slowly. "New faces, huh?"
He took another step, his eyes flicking to Obi.
His grin turned sharp. "Obi, my guy!"
Obi's expression went flat. His usual chaos vanished like someone had flipped a switch. "Snout."
The kid - Snout - spread his arms wide, mocking.
"Been a while."
Snout stepped closer, eyes still on Hikari. His grin widened. "You're not from around here, are you?" He circled slowly, like a buyer inspecting merchandise. "Look at that. Clean skin. No scars. Bet you've never even touched rust before in your life!"
His hand lifted - not quite touching, just pointing - tracing the air near her face. "Where'd you pick her up, Obi? The city?"
The way he said "city" dripped with something between envy and hatred.
Obi's jaw tightened. "Back off, Snout."
"Or what?" Snout's grin turned mocking. "You'll mock me to death?"
His fingers drifted closer to Hikari's shoulder.
"I'm just asking where you found your new-"
The slap came out of nowhere. Obi's open palm caught Snout across the cheek so hard his head snapped sideways.
The alley went dead silent. Snout stood there, blinking, hand rising slowly to his reddening face. His eyes went wide - not with pain. With disbelief.
The other kids froze. Obi leaned in, voice low and dangerous in a way Raizen had never heard before. "You and me, rat? We're gonna have a talk later."
Snout's mouth opened, then closed. Obi's expression changed, though. His usual, joking grin right back. "And I might put a word to your dad, too."
Snout's face went pale. "NO!" He stumbled backward. "Not Father! Come on, Obi, I was just-"
"Go." Obi jerked his hand, as if shooing a dog. "Before I change my mind."
Snout hesitated - pride versus survival.
Survival won.
"Fine. Fine." He backed up, hands raised, trying to salvage what dignity he had left. "We're going. Didn't know she was yours-"
"She's not anyone's" Obi said sharply.
Snout muttered something under his breath, but he was already moving. The other kids followed, shooting glances back.
"Snout got slapped-"
"Shut UP-"
"With an open hand-"
"I SAID SHUT UP!"
Their voices faded into the deeper alleys.
Raizen let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "What just-"
"Snout's an idiot" Obi said, rolling his shoulders like nothing happened. "But his dad runs half the smuggling routes through the eastern parts. You don't mess with him without starting a war. Thankfully, I fix his carts and sharpen his stuff when he needs."
"So you slapped his kid!?"
"Open hand, man!" Obi waggled his fingers. "Don't tell me that hurt. Also? It was hilarious, and I had a solid reason to do what I wanted to do for quite some time."
Hikari was staring at him.
"What?" Obi said, suddenly self-conscious.
"Thank you" she said quietly.
Obi blinked. Then grinned, back to himself. "Yeah, well. Nobody should mess around like that."
✦ ✦ ✦
They started walking toward the alley exit. They almost made it, when-
"Hey, Obi!"
One of the younger kids – twelve, maybe thirteen, skinny, nervous - had doubled back. He stood at the edge of the street light, hands shoved deep in pockets.
Obi turned. "What?"
The kid glanced around - checking if anyone was listening. "Just... Careful, yeah? Snout's dad doesn't forget stuff."
"I know his dad" Obi waved. "We're fine."
The kid nodded, but didn't look convinced. Then he was gone, melting back into the shadows.
Raizen exhaled. "Let's just go back, before you decide to slap another rich guy's kid..."
They took a different route - one Obi swore was safer. Through wider passages, past more people that didn't really care about them. The Underworks shifted around them, getting quieter. Darker.
Then they rounded a corner and stopped.
Three Gravers sat slumped against the wall.
Not dead - but close enough that Raizen's first thought was to look away.
All pretty young. Maybe nineteen, twenty at most. Their armor - if you could call it that, thin intertwined plates of old metal - was torn and slightly scorched. One had a wound across his leg, blood seeping through makeshift bandages from his own shirt. Another's shoulder was burned, the skin red and blistered. The third pressed his hand against his side, breathing shallow.
Cheap weapons with Luminite gems at their core lay discarded beside them - dull red, pale yellow, faint purple, chipped edges catching the dim lantern light. The weapons were pretty basic. A long sword, a curved blade and a spear of sorts. "All of them were ridiculously dangerous to use against Nyxes" Raizen thought. Did these "Gravers" – mostly poor people from the Underworks who killed Nyxes all on their own, based on contracts – kind of likeNyx Mercenaries – really fight with these primitive tools?
Images flashed in his mind. The Nyx moving faster than his eyes could see, the swings appearing instant… Could people really comppete with that?
He heard about Vanguards and Divisions: Neoshima's answer to Nyxes. Trained special divisions tasked with the worst of Nyx missions. They're the ones keeping Nyxes away. But he heard that the Vanguards had far better technology and weapons – At least, that's what Obi told him.
…And if that was the road to killing all the Nyxes…
Raizen wanted to walk that road.
The one with the leg wound looked up as they approached. His eyes were tired. Not full of terror. Not afraid. This wasn't his first mission, and probably won't be his last, either.
He didn't register them as outsiders - the dried fruit juice on their clothes just looked like dirt. Like everyone else down here.
"What… Happened?" Hikari asked, analyzing every scratch and wound the Gravers had.
"Contract" he rasped, voice rough. "Fortitude four-point-five. South-Eastern fields-"
He gestured weakly at his leg. "Claws went clean through."
The one with the burned shoulder coughed – it sounded wet, painful. "We got it though. Killed the bastard."
The third one, still holding his side, managed a bitter smile. "Barely."
They weren't complaining. Weren't looking for sympathy. Just… Stating facts. This was the norm for them.
Footsteps echoed from behind - many of them.
Raizen tensed, hand instinctively twitching toward a weapon he didn't have.
But it wasn't the Wardens he heard about. Not the Neoshiman guards that occasionally came from above, took what they wanted, and left. It wasn't a gang either. Just …People.
A vendor Raizen had seen three stalls down from the fruit stand. Two men who looked like they'd rob you for your boots. A woman with a scar cutting across her cheek. The scammer kid who usually loitered near the market entrance, hands too quick for honest work.
They pushed past Raizen, Obi, and Hikari - not aggressive. Just moving them out of the way.
And immediately started helping.
One brought a steel pipe - less rusty than the ones lying around, like he'd been saving it. Another had bandages made from bed covers, folded and surprisingly clean. A third carried a bottle of aspirin, precious and expensive down here. Someone else pulled out his alcohol flask from his jacket – but this time not for drinking. For cleaning the wounds. They worked together shouting over each other yet somehow still coordinating, like they'd done this before tens of times.
Because they had.
The vendor knelt beside the one with the leg wound, examining it with careful hands. The scarred woman cleaned the burn with more care than her cracked hands suggested. One of the rough-looking men checked for broken ribs while the other held the wounded Graver steady.
No doctors. Raizen's village had one – he somehow always knew the right treatment only by mixing herbs and different plants. The doctors here were just people who'd learned across time.
Raizen stood frozen, watching. These people probably fought each other. Probably stole from each other. The vendor had definitely overcharged them before. The pickpocket kid had probably tried to lift their coins.
But right now, none of that mattered.
Because Nyxes didn't care about grudges.
And down here, everyone understood that.
"Need something to secure the splint" one of the men shouted, struggling with torn cloth that wouldn't hold.
Obi looked down at the grappling hook strapped to his arm.
The wire inside - high-tensile, expensive. He spent weeks finding someone who had something like it, and it cost him more than he wanted to admit. He bragged about it all afternoon.
But Obi didn't hesitate.
His fingers worked the casing open, ripping through the mechanisms he'd spent days, if not weeks building. The wire came free - coiled, imperfect, but strong.
He held it out. "Here. Use this."
The man splinting the leg looked up. Saw what Obi had just destroyed.
Nodded once, and took the wire. Ignoring the Graver's grunts, he wrapped it around the pipe and the Graver's leg, tight and secure.
No "thank you." Nobody needed one. In the Underworks, it wasn't a good deed. It was contribution. Everyone gave what they had. Regardless of the beef they had before, regardless of anything they could settle later.
Hikari's hand found Raizen's sleeve. She didn't say anything. Just stood close, watching the Underworks care for its own.
Obi stepped back, grappling hook ruined and useless in his hands. He tossed it aside without a second look.
Suddenly, a voice cut through the others - loud, mocking, wrong.
"Fortitude four-point-five and you come back like THIS?"
A young man stepped into the alley from the far entrance. Maybe seventeen. Clean armor, well-maintained. A Luminite blade hung at his hip - brighter green than the slightly chipped weapons on the ground. Better quality.
No wounds. No scars. Everything fresh.
He laughed - cruel, dismissive.
"Pathetic. Guys like you shouldn't even be Gravers."
The wounded one with the leg looked up, too tired to argue. "Kid. Shut up."
"Don't "kid" me." The young Graver stepped closer, grin widening. "I've taken down fortitude fives solo! You three needed help with a four-point-five?"
His eyes swept over the community helpers with contempt. "Maybe get better instead of crying about it."
The alley went tense. People stopped helping for a few seconds. Everyone looked up. Expressions shifted - disgust, anger. But no one moved, and nobody made a comment about it. Because he was a Graver, too.
And they weren't.
"Hey, now. Don't give me that look, everyone. You all know how much I helped you with some of my hauls." The young Graver's hand rested on his Luminite blade, casual. Confident. "And as for you…" He pointed his finger at the wounded Gravers.
"You make the rest of us look weak."
Something snapped in Raizen.
Maybe it was the training - weeks of getting faster, stronger. Weeks of trying more than he should. Maybe it was seeing Obi destroy his creation without hesitation. Maybe it was the wounded Graver's tired eyes. But he just couldn't keep his mouth shut.
"They came back alive" Raizen said, stepping forward. "And they took down the Nyx. That's what matters."
The young Graver turned, seeing him properly for the first time. Took in the dirty clothes, the stains, the lack of armor or weapon. He scoffed dramatically.
"What do YOU know?" His grin sharpened. "You're not even a Graver!"
"I know enough to respect people who fight. They could have died!"
The young Graver stepped closer, hand still on his blade. "You've got a mouth." He drew the Luminite weapon - dull green light pulsing along the edge.
"Want to back it up?"
The alley went completely silent now. The helpers paused mid-motion. Even the wounded Gravers looked up.
Obi's hand touched Raizen's shoulder – a warning that said "Raizen, don't. You're only gonna cause trouble."
But Raizen was already moving forward. Weeks of training burning in his muscles. Kori's voice in his head: You're getting better. Less like a wet potato, at least. The rods he'd learned to dodge. The patterns he'd learned to read. The Balance Grid he'd finally crossed without falling.
He thought: I can take him.
The young Graver took a stance - confident. Raizen mirrored it, hands curling into fists.
No weapon.
No Luminite.
Just technique and Ego. Weeks of believing he was improving.
Someone whispered: "It's gonna be bad..."
But no one stopped them.
Raizen's heart pounded. His first real fight since the village. His first test of everything Kori had taught him.
The Graver's grin widened. He mumbled to himself: "Street rat…"
...And lunged at Raizen.