Asta was standing at the far edge of the clearing.His back to the group.His sword at his side, not raised, not threaded, just held in the hand at the side, the position of something that had been used and had stopped being used and was in the moment after.He was breathing.The breathing was steady. Not the hard breathing of someone who had expended everything they had,the specific steady breathing of someone whose body had done what it had done and was in the state after the doing of it. The trance was still there, still in the quality of the stillness, still in the specific absence from the eyes that had been there before he moved.But it was fading.The way the trance faded was the way things fade when they are fading from the inside,not a visible change, a quality change, the specific quality of the stillness loosening slightly, the body returning to the inhabited quality it had not had for the last ninety seconds.The group had not moved.They were where they had been when Ast

The corridor turned.Gull took the turn without slowing,the forward movement of someone who walks the same hallways enough that the turns have become automatic, the legs making the adjustment before the eyes have confirmed the geometry. Web and Kyx took the turn behind him, the formation holding, the three of them moving through the dark realm castle's specific quality of corridor the way they moved through everything in this place.Then Gull stopped.Not a slow stop,the immediate halt of someone who has found something in the space ahead that was not expected and is processing the finding.He looked.Web came up beside him.Kyx on the other side.They looked.Benimaru and Gabimaru were at the window.The large arched window at the far end of the corridor,the one that looked out over the dark realm's terrain, the hard ground and the Binding Towers and the specific dark of the realm's sky. Both of them standing in front of it, side by side, not quite together and not quite apart. Both

He was standing in front of Benimaru.His arm came forward.Benimaru's arm came forward.They were looking at each other.Both of their hands were out.Gabimaru's was a flat palm facing down.Benimaru's was two fingers extended.Paper over scissors.Benimaru's two fingers looked at Gabimaru's flat palm.Gabimaru's flat palm looked at Benimaru's two fingers.Benimaru looked at Gabimaru.Gabimaru looked at Benimaru.They reset.Counted again, the rhythm of the countdown, the specific rhythm of rock-paper-scissors that had apparently been established between them in the years since the world was young, the cadence of the countdown the same cadence it had been the last time and the time before that and every time before that going back to whenever the first time was.Paper. Scissors.Benimaru won again.………..The corridor was very quiet.Web's jaw was at a position that jaw was not typically at.Kyx's jaw was at the same position.They looked at the two of them, at Gabimaru and Benimaru r

"Genuinely. Let's do this and get out."Roderick looked at her.Something moved in his expression,not sympathy exactly, the specific acknowledgement of someone who has registered what another person is carrying and is noting the registration without dwelling on it because dwelling on it is not what the situation allows."Yeah.” He said.He looked at Yuki."Yuki.” He said. "The surveillance technique. Before we move, we need to know exactly where Jabber is being kept. We go in blind, we spend time we don't have to search." He looked at her. "Can you run the second form from here?"Yuki was already adjusting her position.She shifted to a crouch that was lower than the one she had been in, the specific low position of someone who was preparing to do something that required stability and was finding the most stable available configuration in the limited space behind the boulder.She looked at her hands."On it." She said.Her fingers came together,the specific hand position of her

He had been saying something to Web,something about the bet, something about the specific quality of rock-paper-scissors as a method for resolving serious matters, the ongoing monologue of someone who was finding the situation funnier than anyone else in the corridor was finding it.The sentence stopped.He looked at the wall.At the crimson running through it.Web and Kyx had gone still beside him, the immediate, total still of two people who have received a signal and are in the first instant of processing what the signal means and what the signal means for what comes next.On the other side of the corridor, Gabimaru and Benimaru.The rock-paper-scissors ended.Not gradually, immediately, the game simply ceased to be the thing that was happening in the same instant the alarm became the thing that was happening. Both of their hands dropped. The game's energy, the concentrated competitive focus of two people who had been deeply invested in the outcome of a children's game, dissolved