The basket hung between them for only a second.
A fragile, woven thing tumbling through London's overcast sky, crackling faintly with residual static from the man who'd thrown it. The city below was waking - double-deckers rolling through mist, pedestrians flooding pavements, unaware of the storm about to break overhead.
Takeshi caught the basket one-handed.
The weight was wrong. Too light. Too important.
Ryuunosuke drifted opposite him, suspended on crackling platforms of electricity, smiling with that infuriating ease - like this was all part of a play, one he'd rehearsed far too many times.
Sven and Isaac were far below, still arguing about their approach, still full of stupid bravado, still entirely unprepared for what was about to snap the world in half.
But Takeshi didn't think of them. Not at that moment.
He lifted the lid.
And his heart dropped.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically.
It fell like a stone dropped into a bottomless well.
