Aris opens his eyes. He heads for the Binding.

  Outside, it’s still night. Corpius is asleep. The lights are scarce, smothered by the low fog clinging to the streets. Aris disappears into it without hesitation. He avoids the main roads, the open areas, the places where the world still moves even at this hour. He knows the way. He has always known where to go when he couldn’t be seen.

  He walks where the light doesn’t reach. Narrow streets. Dirty fa?ades. The smell of damp and metal.

  A man waits in front of a door. Tall. Broad. A metal bat hangs along his thigh. He smiles when he recognizes Aris.

  “Well… look who it is. Little Aris. You’ve got some guts coming back after what you did.”

  Aris doesn’t answer.

  He hits.

  His fist drives into the man’s chest. Air leaves his lungs in a muffled sound. He collapses before he even understands. Aris picks up the bat. Metal crashes into his head, the skull gives.

  The door opens. Inside, the light is yellow. A man sits behind a counter, smoking something that reeks sharp and bitter. He smokes slowly, his voice broken.

  “Aris… fuck, what are you doing here…”

  The bat comes down. The jaw bursts under the impact. The body folds behind the counter. Aris moves deeper into the decaying building. He opens the next door.

  The room beyond is drowned in smoke. It floats at head height, heavy, soaked into that acrid stench. The light barely gets through. Shapes appear slowly, scattered across the space. Men, a lot of them, leaning on walls, around tables, on crates. Like a reversed aquarium, filled with smoke instead of water.

  When Aris steps in, the noise drops. A man takes a few steps forward, a crooked smile on his face.

  “We’ve got a special guest, boys.”

  A muffled laugh answers him.

  “Fuck… it’s the traitor. Aris.”

  Someone else adds, already too confident:

  “We bring his head to Shoe Hand. He’ll pay us.”

  The group starts to close in. Weapons knock against the ground. Bats, bars, short blades. They circle in, convinced they have time. The first one rushes. Aris swings. The bat cuts through the air in a wide, brutal arc. The impact throws several bodies backward. Cries burst out. He swings again, keeps going, not chasing precision, only forcing a way through. The blows are heavy, violent enough to make bodies give.

  They keep advancing, but something has shifted. The steps are less sure. The space between them opens. Aris feels it.

  He drops the bat, grabs a knife that fell to the floor. This time he strikes with precision. A throat. Then another. A sharp motion, one step forward, a body falling. He doesn’t slow down. He doesn’t give them time to understand. They’re just men. And they just remembered.

  Aris is still standing. Not a single bloodstain on his clothes. Around him, dozens of bodies litter the floor. The air is still thick with smoke and metal. Then footsteps echo. A strange sound follows each step.

  “Bravo, Aris. You’ve become strong.”

  He appears in the doorway.

  Shoe Hand. He’s missing a hand. In its place, a shoe is strapped to the stump, tightly bound. He slaps it into his good palm. The sound cracks, dry and steady. Two masked men follow him. They don’t look at the corpses. Their eyes are already on Aris.

  The man with the shoe speaks.

  “It’s time to pay for your crimes, you filthy piece of shit.”

  He tilts his head slightly. Almost polite.

  “I’m going to crush your face. And I’m going to make you eat this shoe.”

  The two men step forward in perfect sync. Each pulls out a pen and a folded sheet. Aris raises his guard. The pens slide. Word energy activates. The paper warps. It folds, hardens, twists. The written lines sink into the material. In seconds, the sheets stop being paper. A sword forms in the first man’s hand. A spiked mace in the second’s. Writers. They awakened a Word, but sealed part of it on purpose. They use Word energy through writing, without accessing the full extent of their Word.

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  Shoe Hand smiles.

  “You see, Aris… I’ve always hated you.”

  He taps the ground softly with the shoe strapped to his arm.

  The masked men move in. And now they’re not just humans. They launch without waiting. Aris slips aside immediately. The swordsman is fast, attacks chaining without pause. The one with the mace doesn’t force it, he watches. Then he strikes the moment an opening appears. Their coordination is clean. Together, they’re dangerous. Alone, much less. Aris knows it.

  The mace comes in. Aris avoids it with a sharp step, uses the momentum to circle the man and drive a brutal kick into his back. The body shoots straight toward his ally.

  The swordsman dodges the collision, but too late. His sight was cut for a fraction of a second. Aris counted on it. The knife leaves Aris’s hand before the man finishes moving. The blade hits exactly where the head arrives. He drops. The sword skids across the floor.

  The mace wielder backs off immediately. Aris steps in and grabs the fallen sword. It crumples in his fingers. The metal vanishes. All that remains is a crushed wad of paper.

  Shoe Hand yells.

  “You piece of shit! I’m not paying you for nothing. Kill him!”

  The man with the mace rushes. He lifts the weapon and swings straight down with everything he has.

  Aris slips aside at the last second. His foot snaps out and smashes into the man’s hands. The mace flies free and crashes into the floor. Aris closes in, strikes the face. The man staggers back a few steps. Aris picks up the mace and crushes his face with one dry blow. The body drops. The weapon crumples and becomes paper again.

  Shoe Hand pulls a pistol.

  “DON’T GET CUTE, YOU LITTLE SHIT!”

  “I’M GONNA KILL YOU!”

  He fires. Aris avoids the first bullet and keeps walking forward.

  “DON’T MOVE! DON’T MOVE!”

  Shots snap too fast. Aris doesn’t even try to dodge anymore. He just walks.

  “DIE! DIE, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

  The magazine empties. The bullets hit around him. Never him. Aris is in front of the man. He rips the shoe off the stump.

  “AAAAAH!”

  The scream breaks in his throat. Blood bursts from the torn stump.

  “NO! NO! WAIT!”

  Aris shoves the shoe into his mouth.

  “MMMPH… MMMPH…”

  He pushes. Arms flail, legs give. The body struggles for one more second, then nothing. Silence drops. Aris stays standing. He takes a deep breath.

  “I avenged you.”

  He leaves. Outside, the sun is rising.

  Aris goes to get breakfast and sits outside, somewhere ordinary, exposed. He stays longer than he needs to, alert to what’s around him. He expects something. He knows he’s being watched. A stop, a check, anything.

  Time passes without incident. Nothing that, in the government’s eyes, justifies intervention. That absence bothers him more than an arrest would have.

  He finally stands and starts structuring his days. A simple routine. Long runs. The gym. Exhaust the body to avoid thinking. At night, he books a room with a sauna and stays until the heat shuts down whatever tension is left.

  The next morning, he goes for coffee. He sits down, orders without hesitation. This time, he doesn’t look around.

  He’s waiting for someone.

  A young woman eventually arrives. Brown hair, brown eyes, a mature face with light makeup. Aris stands immediately. She pulls him into a hug without hesitating.

  “Aris… I’m so relieved to see you.”

  He holds her back. The gesture is brief, but sincere. They sit with a cup still hot between them. She speaks first.

  “You have to be careful. The gang is still looking for you.”

  Aris closes in slightly. His voice stays calm.

  “Don’t worry, Léa. They won’t touch us again.”

  She lifts her head, surprised.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wiped them out. We don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  Silence settles. Léa hesitates, split between relief and something darker.

  “How many men did you kill, Aris? You know she never would have wanted that.”

  He breathes in slowly.

  “I know. It was a personal choice.”

  She takes a sip. Her hand trembles slightly. She sets the cup down too fast.

  “I’m happy you’re okay… really. But please, don’t let hate destroy you. Move forward. I started a new life. I met someone. I left all that behind. Thank you for worrying about me, but now… everything’s fine.”

  She stands without finishing her drink. Aris realizes she isn’t really looking at him anymore.

  “I have to go. My boyfriend is waiting.”

  She’s already walking away. Aris stays still. Then he notices his hands are still on the table, knuckles white. He loosens them slowly. He didn’t expect to make her happy. Even less to become someone she avoids looking at. A dull discomfort settles in his chest. It isn’t regret. Just a heavy certainty. Something has closed.

  He finally gets up and walks off, steps calm, back into his routine. He finishes his physical training. The body is worked, controlled. He stops in a park and closes his eyes. He enters his Soul Definition.

  Aris stands on a staircase suspended in the void. No summit in sight. The steps climb endlessly. He moves forward, as always. Around him, chains are attached to his body. They pull downward, slow every step. They don’t stop him from climbing. They’re part of the path.

  Today, one of them snapped. He stops climbing. Aris opens his eyes in the park. His mophone vibrates. A message from Fortuna.

  “Tomorrow, we meet up. Don’t be late.”