The evening had settled into a comfortable quiet, the sun painting Aethelberg in shades of gold and amber.
The city seemed softer from here.
The noise of merchants and travelers faded into the distance as Maria led Elias away from the busier districts and into a quieter part of the city.
The buildings here were older. Wealthier.
Stories clung to them.
Memories.
The sort of place where people walked slowly because they had nowhere urgent to be.
Elias glanced around.
"This is the romantic district."
Maria smiled.
"It is."
"Do you plan to propose?"
Maria laughed.
Elias frowned.
"What's funny?"
"You're asking that so seriously."
"Do you think I'm being serious?"
That only made her laugh harder. Elias decided he didn't understand women.
''Women are incomprehensible creatures.'' Tamamo agreed.
'You're a woman.'
''Exactly.''
Elias sighed and ignored her.
Maria laughed suddenly.
Elias blinked.
"What?"
"You look like you're arguing with someone."
"I am."
Maria nodded.
"That explains a lot."
"It shouldn't."
"It really does."
They continued walking. Eventually Maria slowed. Then stopped. They were on a small bridge over a canal, A bevy and a waddling of ducks swam around the bridge. There were some people were in Gondola's, taking advantage of the evenings calm. Calm so deceptive one almost forgot about the extremist group attempting to overthrough the government. Of the resentment towards the nobility or the possibility of attac by Nautical Marauders.
From were they stood, the facade of te museum of ages was facing them. The lights of its lanterns had been turned on and its elegance had taken a different perspective in the evening atmosphere.
Maria looked toward the museum. Then down toward the city beyond.
"Can I ask you something?"
Elias noticed that omething about her expression changed. The confidence remained, the calm remained. But beneath it Elias noticed something else.
Uncertainty.
Not fear.
Vulnerability.
'How peculiar.'
"You just did."
Maria rolled her eyes.
"You know what I mean."
"Then yes."
She took a breath. For a moment she seemed unsure how to begin. That alone caught Elias off guard. Maria Clementes was not someone who hesitated.
Finally she spoke.
"Do you know what an Itinerant is?"
Elias thought about it for a bit. He had heard the word be used a few times over the past half year but he didn't really look into it as more important things were happening.
'Now that I you mention it, didn't that guy...what was his name again? Lyle say he was an Itenerant? Hmm, I haven't seen him in a while, wonder if he finally found his grandpa or moved on to a new city.'
He shook his head.
"No."
"They are a nomadic people," Maria explained.
"They carry pieces of their history on their bodies. Oral tradition made flesh. They have been shut out of the system of Flow—they do not manifest Traits nor can they influence Flow. The world treats them as anomalies. As humans who aren't human."
The smile faded from Maria's face.
"My mother was one."
Elias became still. The answer explained many things about her.
Her scent.
Her strange intuition.
The subtle wrongness he had occasionally noticed around her but never properly understood.
Maria watched his reaction.
"You figured something out."
"Maybe."
She hesitated then she reached for the collar of her shirt.
Elias tensed.
She did not undress. She simply pulled the fabric aside, pulled her hair away and turned around, revealing her back to him. At first, Elias didn't see anything but Maria did something, as if she was releasing somthing and the moment she did, Elias felt it.
Cold pressure.
The skin there was marked—not with a birthmark, not with a tattoo, but with something else. Something that seemed to move when viewed indirectly.
Writing.
Ancient script, flowing and angular, burned into her flesh in characters that Elias could not read. Looking at them hurt. Not physically, mentally. His thoughts slid away from the markings every time he tried to focus.
Corruption. The knowledge etched onto the bodies of Itinerants is forbidden knowledge that was capable of driving beings mad. What was written on Maria was just a small patch and didn't seem that impactful and yet just revealing it had an effect on the environment around them.
Around them pedestrians visibly grew uncomfortable.
One woman crossed the street.
A man frowned and hurried away.
Another looked momentarily nauseous.
But the writing wasn't written in Runic, the language he had grown up in this world learning, this he could not absorb the forbodden knowlwdge and therefore couldn't be corrupted. But hat wasn't the only reason. Whether it was because of his unique nature as a reincarnator or the fact that he had a Divine Beast currently squatting in his soul, he was resistant to this corruption. Maria herself seemed immune to whatever unholy knowledge was written on her back.
Elias forced himself to continue looking.
The pressure intensified.
Maria then covered the markings again. The pressure vanished immediately.
She studied him then smiled.
"Most people can't look at this for more than a few seconds," she said quietly. "They start screaming. Or crying. Or they just... shut down."
"You've shown this to other people?" Elias asked in shock.
"No, other than my dad no one knows I have this."
Elias heaved a sigh of relief.
Maria laughed softly.
"You really are strange."
The silence stretched. Then Maria continued.
"The Itinerants carry history."
"History?"
She nodded.
"Fragments of it."
Her fingers brushed the covered markings.
"Different clans preserve different pieces."
"Why?"
She shrugged as she adjusted her shirt.
"I couldn't tell you. Whats on my back just started appearing after a period of time. It seems each of us is givven a piece of knowledge to remember."
Those markings weren't information. They were memory, living memory stored directly into flesh.
A horrifying thought. And yet somehow beautiful.
"Do you know what yours means?"
Maria shook her head.
"No."
"You carry it anyway."
She shrugged again and smiled.
"Besides."
Her smile became smaller.
"Some things are better left unknown."
Elias found himself agreeing.
She began walking again.
Elias followed.
Maria paused and looked toward the city before continueing again.
"I grew up hearing stories."
"About the Itinerants?"
"About everyone."
She laughed quietly.
"Especially the Head Hunter, Dante Clementes. Everyone knows his name."
A strange emotion entered her voice.
Not resentment.
Not bitterness.
Something more complicated.
"They know mine too."
Elias remained silent.
"They know it because of him."
"My mother died giving birth to me," Maria said. "Dad watched her fade away. He held me for the first time with hands still wet with her blood."
Elias said nothing.
The image was stark. Unforgettable.
"He has never remarried. He has never even looked at another woman the way he looked at her." Maria's voice was calm, but there was something beneath it. "I am all that remains."
Elias said nothing.
"My father is not the unshakable, carefree man he appears to be. He is deeply emotional. Fiercely protective. And every time I walk into danger, he feels my mother die all over again."
They walked in silence.
"But you do walk into said danger regardless." Elias said.
Maria smiled.
"That is not my nature."
"Hmm, I see, a spitting image of your old man then."
Maria looked at him with wide eyes then threw her head back and laughed.
"I guess. Birds of a feather they say-"
"Confuse their owners." Elias finised. Maria though about what he had said then frown in confusion but decided to brush it aside.
"He introduces me as his daughter because it was safer."
"So people won't know your an Itinerant."
Maria nodded.
"But eventually protection becomes a cage."
The words hung in the air.
Heavy.
Honest.
"I don't want to be a burden remembered as Dante's daughter."
The conviction in her voice surprised him.
"I don't want to be an object of fear remembered as an Itinerant's child."
Her eyes met his.
"I want to accomplish something so important that people remember me and not judge based on heritage or lineage."
They reached the other end of the bridge. Maria stopped, looking back down at the water.
"I cannot do this alone," she said. "I need people. People who can have an impact on the future."
Elias stood beside her.
"How do you know I'm one of them?"
Maria turned to him.
"It's just a feeling."
"That's not an answer."
"No," she agreed. "It's not."
She held his gaze.
"A feeling that you'll be one the most important piece on the board. That whatever happens next—whatever breaks the world or saves it—you, the Three Blazing Suns will be at the center."
Elias was quiet.
"She's not wrong," Tamamo murmured. "But she doesn't know the half of it."
"I'm not asking you to join a cause," Maria said. "I'm not asking you to believe in anything. I'm asking you to be in my camp. Because I may need you to break the chains of fate."
"Chains of fate," Tamamo scoffed. "Dramatic."
Elias thought about it.
'I need people too,' he realized.
"You want to use me."
Maria did not deny it.
"Yes."
"You know I'll back right?"
She smiled.
"That's fair."
"Thats not a bad arrangement. Dunno why you felt the need to tell me all this though. You could have just manipulated me like some pawn."
Maria landed a chop on his head.
"Hey." Elias stepped back rubbing his crown.
"I believe a cooperative effort is built on trust. I'm opening up because I think I can trust you." She smiled.
"I hope you can also trust me in turn." She extended her hand.
Elias looked at her outstreched hand.
"Do we have an agreement."
Elias hesitated for a moment then took it.
"Excellent."
But the voice was not Maria's.
It was sickeningly polite. Cheerful. Familiar.
Elias's blood ran cold.
The world shifted.
The colors bled away—gold and violet fading into grey, into washed-out hues that hurt to look at. The canal became a smear. The buildings became suggestions. The sky became a void.
He knew this place.
The 4.5 Dimension.
Maria stood beside him, but her eyes were different now. Empty. Waiting.
And her mouth moved, but the words came from everywhere at once.
"I didn't even need to ask."
Elias's hands clenched into fists.
"Deus."