The tires of Ren's grey SUV ground into the cracked asphalt of the Merge District's outskirts, the sound of crushing gravel echoing under the weight of the heavy vehicle. He pulled into a narrow alleyway, wedged between buildings caked in soot and grime. Ren killed the engine, but his fingers remained locked around the steering wheel. His gaze was fixed on a small building at the corner of the street.
His mind spiraled back two years. He had been a fugitive then—a boy who had just burned every bridge to his past in the bloodiest way possible. It was in that cafe that Sid and Ciel had pulled him in. They had fed him and given him shelter, never once asking for a name or a history.
Sid, Ciel... I'm back to settle the debt, Ren thought.
He stepped out of the car, pulling his denim jacket tight against a morning wind that tasted of rust and motor oil. He walked with a disciplined rhythm toward the cafe. But as he drew closer, a cold knot of dread tightened in his chest. The windows were opaque with thick dust, and a heavy iron chain was coiled like a snake around the main door handles.
The sanctuary was dead. No scent of roasted beans, no clinking of porcelain spoons. Only a suffocating, hollow silence.
Ren circled the building, his fingers tracing the peeling paint of the window frames. He looked for a sign, a hidden scratch, or any code Sid or Ciel might have left behind. They were smart; they knew that in Rich City, vanishing was often the only way to stay alive.
A factory worker in grease-stained overalls trudged past, clutching a plastic lunch bag. Ren intercepted him.
"Excuse me," Ren said. His voice was calm, but it carried an authority that made the man stop dead. "How long has this place been shuttered?"
The man squinted, eyeing Ren from his designer boots to his cold expression. "That place? It's been empty since last week. Word is they fell behind on the rent. That's all I know."
Ren's fist clenched. He was too late.
"Dammit," he hissed as the worker shuffled away.
He reached for his phone, hitting the speed dial for Bunker CUBE. "Isaac, I need you. Now. Pull the street CCTV within a two-kilometer radius of my coordinates. Go back at least seven days."
A beat of silence followed, filled only by the frantic clatter of keys on the other end. "Scanning now, Ren... I'm inside the Merge District traffic servers. You're looking for a man in glasses and a girl with brown hair? I've got a hit on the feed."
"Yeah. Where did they go?"
"Coordinates incoming. It's not far, Ren. An abandoned scrap metal warehouse in the dead industrial zone. Be careful—that area is off the grid. No patrols, no laws."
Ren didn't hesitate. He tore through the potholed streets, pushing the SUV toward the skeletal remains of the industrial sector. The landscape here was bleaker; cooling towers stood like giant ribcages over a forgotten era of glory.
He pulled up in front of a massive iron warehouse, its corrugated walls riddled with holes. He parked a distance away, tucking the car behind a stack of rusted shipping containers. As he approached the entrance, his internal alarm began to scream.
Three men in frayed leather jackets and torn jeans stepped out from behind a mountain of scrap. They carried iron bats, and one was idly flicking a switchblade.
"Well, look at this," the one with a jagged scar on his cheek sneered. "Nice clothes, expensive watch, and you roll up in that tank of a car. What's a rich brat like you doing in the trash, kid? Get lost?"
Ren stopped. He exhaled a long, weary breath, his shoulders dropping slightly. He wasn't in the mood for games. His mind was too loud with thoughts of Sid and Ciel's safety.
"I don't have time for you," Ren said flatly. "Move. Or you'll regret waking up this morning."
"Ooh, the brat's got teeth!" The man with the bat swung with a sudden, vicious arc toward Ren's head.
Ren moved with a speed that defied the untrained eye. He ducked, letting the bat whistle through the empty air above him. In one fluid motion, he buried his elbow into the man's solar plexus, sending him to the ground retching.
The other two lunged simultaneously. Ren caught the knife-wielder's wrist, twisting it until a sickening crack echoed from the shoulder socket. The blade clattered to the floor, and before the man could even scream, Ren's roundhouse kick caught him square in the jaw, turning out his lights instantly.
The last thug tried to bolt, but Ren snatched his collar and slammed him against the corrugated metal wall with a thunderous boom.
"Who told you to guard this place?" Ren's voice was now a low, predatory growl.
"N-nobody! We were just after the car!" the man whimpered, trembling.
Ren shoved him away in disgust. No marks of the Royalist Faction; just bottom-feeding opportunists. He let them crawl away into the dirt.
Ren straightened his jacket and stepped toward the half-open warehouse door. Inside, a cavernous darkness swallowed him, punctuated only by slivers of light through a leaking roof.
Unbeknownst to Ren, behind a stack of oil drums in the deepest corner of the warehouse, a pair of eyes watched through a narrow slit. The owner of those eyes held their breath, hands shaking as they gripped a heavy pipe wrench. They had watched the boy dismantle three men in seconds. There was terror there—but also a flicker of awe.
Ren moved deeper into the gloom, the air tasting of oxidized metal and stale oil. His footsteps were light as feathers, nearly silent on the cracked concrete. Despite the storm in his heart, he didn't call out their names. In a place this wild, sound was an invitation for a bullet. He chose silence, letting his instincts map every shadow.
He passed rows of towering iron racks filled with rusted engine parts. Just as his shadow stretched past a corner, the air behind him shifted. A sharp vibration—an amateurish but desperate killing intent—crept toward his neck.
Ren's predator reflex took over. In one explosive rotation, he spun. His left hand shot out, catching the attacker's wrist with bone-crushing force, while his right hand locked onto the figure's throat, pinning them against the rack.
KLANG!
The iron pipe intended for Ren's skull slipped from the attacker's fingers, hitting the concrete with a deafening ring.
Ren stared down his attacker, ready to end whoever had dared to strike. But as the pale light from the roof caught the man's face, Ren's muscles went slack. His pupils trembled. The face before him was gaunt, unkempt, and etched with a bone-deep exhaustion—but the eyes still held the quiet strength he had recognized two years ago.
Ren's grip loosened slowly. His voice was a choked whisper.
"Sid?"
The man in front of him gasped, his chest heaving with shock and fading adrenaline. He stared into Ren's dimly glowing eyes in the dark, before a long, familiar sigh finally escaped his lips.
"Ren?"
Silence reclaimed the warehouse. Two years had passed since that last dinner in the Merge District, and now they were reunited on the same threshold: at the edge of death, with secrets far darker than they had left behind.