Morning light crept through the inn's dusty windows as Grub slipped on his coat, fastened his morning star across his back, tucked his notebook into his pocket, and headed downstairs.
Wrighty was already seated at a table near the counter, surrounded by what could only be described as a food catastrophe. Empty plates stacked three high. Bowls scraped clean of porridge. A small fortress of bread crusts arranged around the perimeter. The innkeeper stood behind the counter watching the dark-skinned boy eat with an expression that balanced between horror and professional admiration.
Wrighty spotted Grub and grinned through a mouthful of something unidentifiable. "Oh, you're awake, Doc! Sleep good?"
Grub surveyed the carnage across the table. "How long have you been eating?"
"Since they opened." Wrighty swallowed and reached for another roll. "I think the cook is starting to hate me."
Grub shrugged, sat down, and ordered his own breakfast. Something modest that wouldn't bankrupt Luthiel's increasingly strained allowance
The duo ate together in a rhythm that felt like slipping into old shoes. Wrighty filled the air with chatter about the inn's strange architecture, the quality of the bread compared to Eden's, and a detailed ranking of every food he had tried since arriving. Grub offered small, measured responses between bites while his mind turned over something unrelated entirely. Wrighty didn't seem to mind the imbalance. He never had.
After the meal, they stepped outside and found Luthiel waiting near the fountain at the village center.
Thi's crimson eyes locked onto them with their usual intensity. Her messy red-streaked hair framed a scowl that could have curdled fresh milk.
"Took you long enough, ya lumps."
Grub checked the position of the sun. "We're early."
"Well I was earlier."
A sigh escaped through her teeth as she folded her arms.
"Look, we've got meetings and training later today. But until then, let's do something before it all starts." The scowl softened by exactly one degree. "So before all that boring crap, let's actually have some fucking fun."
Grub offered a modest shrug. "Sure."
Wrighty beamed so brightly a nearby villager squinted. "Yeah! Let's do it!"
The trio wandered to a small park near the eastern side of the village. A cluster of trees shaded a grassy clearing dotted with rocks and fallen logs. It was quiet here, away from the reconstruction noise and the somber atmosphere that hung over the rest of the settlement.
Thi hopped onto a flat-topped boulder and sat cross-legged, her crimson eyes sweeping between the two boys standing below her.
"Alright, shitheads. I think we should get to know each other." She cracked her knuckles. "Bug and I have history. Bug and Musclehead have history. But Musclehead and I are strangers. So let's fix that."
Wrighty blinked. "Musclehead?"
"You heard me."
He considered objecting, then apparently decided it wasn't worth the energy. "Fair enough, I guess."
Thi continued explaining her idea with earnest. "So here's what we're doing. You better listen up, because I'm not explaining it twice."
She leaned forward on the rock.
" Let's play a game where two people compete while the third person picks the challenge. Whoever wins that challenge gets to ask one question, and the loser has to answer it honestly." Her crimson gaze sharpened. "No dodging, no half-answers, no bullshit. Pretty simple if you ask me."
Grub sighed internally because he honestly couldn't care less.
Still... If everyone else wanted to waste time this way...
"Fine I guess."
Wrighty pumped his fist. "Bring it on!"
Thi's competitive grin spread across her face. "Good! I won't lose to you, Musclehead!"
Wrighty's grin faltered slightly. "You know my name is Wrighty, right?"
"Don't care. Musclehead suits you better." Thi pointed at Grub. "You're the challenge picker first, Bug. Make it good, or I'll kick your ass."
Grub thought for approximately two seconds.
"Push-ups," he said flatly. "Both of you. Until you can't anymore."
Thi smirked and rolled her shoulders. "I got this in the bag. Doing it without a boulder on your back is practically a vacation."
Wrighty scratched his cheek. "Yeah, I agree. Should be pretty chill."
Thi glanced at him with a competitive fire, then dropped to all fours as Wrighty lowered himself beside her, balancing on one arm and his feet with rehearsed ease.
"Oh," Grub added without inflection. "No Anima reinforcement."
"Trust me bro," Wrighty chuckled, "that won't be a problem."
Thi clicked her tongue but said nothing. Her jaw was already set.
"Go."
And they were off.
For the first hundred, they matched each other rep for rep. Thi's enhanced physicality and combat conditioning kept her pace steady and controlled. Wrighty, on the other hand, moved with the effortless cadence. He seemed completely relaxed and unworried.
In fact, he chatted while doing them.
"So..."
Down.
"...how long..."
Up.
"...have you lived..."
Down.
"...here?"
Thi glared.
"Shut..."
Down.
"...the hell..."
Up.
"...up!"
By two hundred, the gap started showing. Thi's arms trembled on the upstroke while Wrighty's rhythm hadn't changed.
By three hundred, sweat was pouring down Thi's face and her crimson eyes burned with stubborn fury. Wrighty still looked like he was warming up.
By five hundred, Thi's arms gave out. She collapsed face-first into the grass with a frustrated growl muffled by the dirt. Her body refused to push up one more time despite the violent protests her willpower was lodging against it.
Wrighty, however, kept going.
Six hundred. Seven hundred. Eight hundred. Grub watched the count climb with growing disbelief. At some point past a thousand he lost track entirely because the number had stopped meaning anything. Wrighty's arm rose and fell with the mechanical consistency of a piston, his breathing barely elevated, as his expression remained calm.
Eventually Wrighty stopped on his own, stood up, and stretched his one arm overhead with a satisfied pop.
"Guess I win."
Thi lay in the grass, her crimson eyes aimed at the sky, her chest heaving.
"I only lost because you're a Musclehead," she grumbled between gasps. "That doesn't count."
"Pretty sure it counts."
"Shut up."
Wrighty chuckled and sat down on the grass beside her. "Well, I guess I get to ask you anything, right?"
Thi puffed her cheeks but didn't fight it. "Yeah, I guess. Whatever, Musclehead. Ask your dumb question."
Wrighty thought for a moment, his dark eyes studying her with that deceptive perceptiveness.
"Well first, I want to know what the deal is with... this." He gestured vaguely at her face. "I didn't say anything yesterday because Grub told me to wait. But you're definitely different from the person I met before. Your eyes are a completely different color and there's different colored streaks in your hair. The style changed too." He tilted his head. "And your voice sounds different, like a different tone from the same throat."
He paused. "Are you like... wearing contacts or something?"
Thi stared at him. "What the hell is a contact?"
"Never mind. Just explain the eye thing."
Thi sighed dramatically, sat up, and launched into an explanation of her three aspects. Her delivery was characteristically blunt, stripped of the careful nuance El would have used and missing the warmth Lu would have brought. Instead it was to the point with no extra details.
Lu was the golden-eyed emotional one. Thi was the crimson-eyed fighter. El was the blue-streaked analytical one. Three aspects sharing one body, switching based on emotion, circumstance, or internal negotiation. One person, three ways of being that person. A quick an easy explanation.
Wrighty's eyes widened progressively throughout the explanation until they threatened to consume his face entirely.
"Wow! That's awesome! You're like three people!"
Thi's crimson gaze narrowed dangerously. "No, you Musclehead. Three aspects. One person."
"What's the difference?"
Thi immediately looked aggravated. She clenched her fists and seemed ready to brawl over a simple explanation, however Grub had no interest in watching that so he interrupted them.
"Let's just move on," he said flatly.
The next round pitted Grub against Wrighty. Thi climbed back onto her boulder with a sore loser's posture and surveyed them from above.
"Alright," she said, tapping her chin. "I want you two to race. Sprint to that rock over there and back. First one to cross the finish wins."
She pointed at a large stone roughly fifty meters away.
Grub and Wrighty lined up side by side. Grub glanced at his competitor's legs, then at his own, and performed a quick calculation whose result was deeply unfavorable. Wrighty's raw physical capability existed in a different dimension from his. There was no world where Grub won a straight race against him.
Which meant winning straight wasn't the plan.
Thi raised her hand. "Ready? GO!"
Wrighty exploded forward. His legs churned through the grass with absurd speed, each stride eating several feet of ground. Grub, however, immediately jumped onto his back.
"Hey, what are you doing, bro?!" Wrighty stumbled slightly but kept running, his one arm instinctively adjusting to stabilize the sudden passenger. His legs maintained their sprint despite the added weight, muscle memory overriding confusion.
From the boulder, Thi burst into howling laughter. She doubled over and slapped her knee as the ridiculous image of a pale boy riding a shirtless sprinter processed through her brain.
Wrighty spoke up as he ran. "This feels illegal!"
"The rules didn't forbid it."
Thi's laughter became so overtaking she nearly fell off the rock.
"Oh my gods! Bug is cheating already!"
"Strategizing," corrected Grub.
Wrighty kept running anyway, laughing the entire time. "You're ridiculous!"
He reached the rock, pivoted, and started running back as Grub clung to his shoulders, his white coat flapping behind them.
That was when Grub struck.
His fingers found Wrighty's ribs and began tickling with surgical precision.
The effect was instantaneous. Wrighty's controlled sprint disintegrated into a thrashing, laughing catastrophe. His legs tangled and his balance evaporated. The dark skinned boy's one arm flailed uselessly as involuntary laughter ripped through his body.
"STOP — HAHAHA — STOP IT, BRO — HAHAHA — THAT'S NOT FAIR—"
Wrighty collapsed face-first into the grass, his entire frame convulsing with helpless giggles. Grub rolled off his back, stood up calmly, brushed grass from his coat, and walked the remaining distance to the finish line at a leisurely pace.
His expression never changed.
Thi was crying with laughter on her boulder, her crimson eyes streaming. She barely managed to raise a shaking hand and point at Grub.
"Bug... Bug wins..."
Wrighty lay in the grass, still chuckling, staring at the sky. "Dang, man. You got me good." A breathless pause. "Felt a little unfair, though."
Grub shrugged. "You never said I couldn't ride you."
"That's because nobody would think to do that!"
"Your oversight. Not mine."
Wrighty laughed again, harder this time, and pushed himself upright. His dark eyes sparkled with genuine amusement despite the loss. "Alright, alright. Ask away, dude. You earned it."
Grub considered his options. He had won the round through absurdity rather than merit, and honestly, he didn't have a burning question for Wrighty. Most of what he wanted to know had already been covered during their curb conversation the night before.
So he asked something simple.
"What made you save Morrigan? You had no idea who she was."
Wrighty thought about it for a moment, his face becoming more genuine beneath the perpetual grin.
"She just seemed like she needed help," he said eventually. "She was on the ground and that thing was about to eat her. I could tell it was an anomaly because it had the same vibe as the bone monster. I know what those things do to people." "So I stepped in."
He had no grand philosophy or a lick of calculated risk assessment. Someone was dying and he could help. So he helped.
The answer was so perfectly, infuriatingly Wrighty that Grub almost smiled. "Fair enough."
Thi hopped off her boulder, crimson eyes blazing with renewed competitive energy. A confident grin cut across her face as she squared up to Grub.
"Well, now it's me versus a dumb Bug." She cracked her neck. "And this time I'm winning."Wrighty rubbed his chin as he studied the two of them, thinking about what challenge to set. Grub waited patiently, his expression blank.
But behind the blankness, his mind was already elsewhere. He didn't care much about the challenge. He already knew exactly what question he wanted to ask.