Chapter 144
"I'm flattered," she said, and the words came out in a tone that was impossible to read—whether it was sincere or merely a formality, whether it was acknowledgment or just a tactic, whether it was something she would remember once this battle truly ended or merely a sound that would disappear with the wind blowing through the ruins.
"But I will not hand this Abnormal over to you."
There was no pause after that sentence, no space for negotiation, no gap for bargaining, because Nirma had lived too long in a world where giving something away meant losing everything, where a single step backward could become the beginning of a thousand steps she could never take back, where the creature she had just captured—at the cost of blood still drying beneath her nose and strength not yet fully recovered—was the only card she had on a table that had never been fair.
She saw the change on Ashita's face, a change so quick, so subtle, so much like something moving beneath the surface of calm water, and she realized that the woman had likely expected this answer, had perhaps prepared herself to hear a refusal, had perhaps calculated every possibility from the very first minute the battle ended, yet hearing it directly was different from merely imagining it in her mind.
And before the last of her words had fully dissolved into the still dusty air—before Ashita could even open her mouth to respond, before Tegar, who sat on the ground, could open his eyes that had been closed all this time—Arya moved.
His movement was unexpected, not quite like something planned, yet not entirely spontaneous either; it was more like a reflex, like something practiced thousands of times until it became part of his body, like something that did not need to be commanded because it itself was the command.
The weapons that had been hidden beneath his worn jacket—the M4A1 modified into a shotgun with a barrel shorter than it should be, and the AWP whose length made it heavier than it looked—were now in his hands, in perfect position, at the exact angle, with their muzzles pointed directly at Ashita's chest and Tegar's head in alternating rhythm, unpredictable, unhurried, not overtly threatening yet clear enough to understand that this was no empty gesture.
His aim shifted from Ashita to Tegar, from Tegar to Ashita, moving like a pendulum that never stopped, moving like something that was calculating—calculating distance, calculating speed, calculating how many bullets would be needed if this situation suddenly became something that could no longer be resolved with words.
Yet Arya did not fire, did not pull the trigger, did nothing but show that he was ready—that he would not allow anyone to take what belonged to them, that he was the final wall that had to be broken before anyone could touch Nirma or the dimensional cage held in his other hand, and in his eyes, which no longer held laughter or mockery or bitterness, there was only a terrifying clarity—a clarity born from the understanding that in this world, sometimes the only way to protect something is to show that you are ready to lose everything.
Tegar did not immediately stand when he heard Nirma's words, nor did he reach for the Mesopotamian mace lying beside him with its stone head embedded in the dusty ground; he simply sat with his back still resting against a nameless rock, with legs that still felt like two wooden sticks attached by hands that did not know how to assemble them, and within his chest, still tight from the tremors of the battle that had just ended, something stirred—something like laughter that did not wish to come out yet could not be held back.
So he chuckled, softly, a dry laugh emerging from a throat still coated with the dust of Heraclea Cybistra—a laugh that carried no joy, no mockery, no bitterness, a laugh more like air being forced out of lungs that had held their breath for too long—and when the chuckle faded, when the silence that had been briefly disturbed began creeping back in among them, Tegar finally spoke, his voice no louder than the wind that passed through the ruins, yet each word came with a clarity that needed no repetition.
"Honestly," he said, leaning his head back against the stone behind him, gazing at the still-gray sky with eyes no longer alert—eyes that, for the first time since the battle began, allowed themselves to be free from the obligation of watching every direction, "I never believed it. That Arya Wiratama, one of the former high-ranking officials of the Temporal Cross-Police, the one who was often nicknamed as someone who never understood advantage, would actually become a defector."
He paused for a moment, drawing a long breath—a breath that felt like pulling something heavy from the depths of lungs long filled with dust, smoke, and the lingering scent of blood that never truly faded.
"I used to think maybe it was just a misunderstanding. Maybe something was wrong with the information. Maybe the person I knew as an ambitious yet rule-abiding official wouldn't suddenly throw away everything he built just to follow someone hunted by every agency across all timelines."
Tegar exhaled again, this time shorter, more like something released because he knew the words that would follow were words he did not want to say yet had to admit.
"But seeing you now," he turned, looking at Arya who stood across from him with the modified M4A1 and AWP still raised, the muzzles occasionally shifting targets between Ashita and himself in a rhythm that was neither rushed nor ever still, "now I realize. I was naive. Completely."
And then, for the first time since he began speaking, a smile appeared on his face—a smile that carried nothing, a mere curve of lips too tired to form anything more complex, perhaps the body's way of saying that it had finally accepted something it had long refused to see.
"Not without reason were you called a shameless defector, Wiratama. A former official who never understood what it meant to be on the advantageous side. And now, with those two weapons, with your position clearly far worse than it was years ago when you still had status, influence, and everything you could ask for—you're proving that title isn't wrong."
Arya did not answer—not immediately—because at the same moment Tegar's words still lingered in the air that was beginning to grow cold again, he did something none of them expected, perhaps not even Nirma, who had been standing beside him with an unforced calm.
He moved his left hand—the one not holding any weapon, the one free and empty and non-threatening—slowly to the side, a movement so deliberate, so slow, so much like someone shooing away a cat that had been sitting too long on a doorstep he did not wish to close.
To be continued…