Down below,
ODEL still stood in the middle of the abandoned factory
like the trunk of a tree in a storm.
Though he was free now,
the chains of truth were heavier than any metal bonds.
After hearing SHOUTNA's story,
the facts were no longer mere words to his ears;
They had become knives that pierced his soul.
The truth he had long tried to push away
began to devour him from within like fire consuming paper.
"MOHITO never tried to hurt LOUVNA..."
He whispered to himself,
eyes fixed on the ground.
"Rather,
he was the one who defended her
when I couldn't even stand by her."
In that moment,
he felt the ground fall away beneath his feet.
All his doubts,
all his investigations, a
ll those suspicious glances
they had been built on illusions he had made... his fear.
"Aren't you leaving yet?"
MOHITO's voice came from the top of the stairs
and pulled him from his thoughts.
ODEL turned slowly;
his eyes met MOHITO's.
He saw in them the calm he had mistaken for coldness,
and he saw the depth he had feared.
"I just wanted to..."
ODEL faltered,
words dancing on the edge of his lips.
"To apologize... no,
not an apology...
to say..."
He clenched his hands,
gathering his courage.
"I'll see you next week at the institute."
MOHITO could not hide his surprise.
His eyes widened slightly,
then softened into a rare, warm smile,
like a winter sun.
"Yes."
His simple word held all the forgiveness ODEL had not asked for.
It was a pledge without a covenant,
like a flower that blooms in the desert.
A new path opened between them,
as if to say,
"Do not go;
let's begin again."
ODEL turned toward the exit but paused at the threshold.
He looked back at MOHITO one last time,
his eyes glinting with memories of past days.
"If you do not come..."
He smiled faintly,
carrying a world of recollection within it,
"LOUVNA will be worried.
And ... I don't want her to be sad."
In that moment,
MOHITO understood that these were not mere words about LOUVNA.
It was ODEL's way of saying:
"I have accepted you,
I trust you,
and I will stand by you.
"Even in a world filled with blood and darkness...
humans remain capable of reconciliation...
and of beginning again.
***************
After bidding farewell to ODEL,
MOHITO set off through the deserted city streets,
leaving behind the factory of painful memories.
His steps were heavy
as if carrying all the burdens of the past on his shoulders.
The cold air caressed his face,
but his heart's chill was colder still.
He took out his phone,
which had been out of service like his heart closed to the world.
The cracked screen reflected his tired eyes,
and then a single message appeared:
MOHITO stopped abruptly,
as if struck by those simple words —
as if they spoke to something inside him.
"When will you return?" —
a message of four words.
He repeated the words softly,
like someone reading an old incantation.
He raised his eyes from the screen
and looked up at the night sky.
He smiled a sad smile,
full of contradictions.
His eyes shone with a mixture of conflicted emotions.
"Which part of me do you mean...
LOUVNA?"
He glanced at the bag carrying his sword.
In that moment,
he felt that every journey back from TZARIA,
every battle he had fought,
every drop of blood spilled...
had been a journey returning to this point.
The point at which he asks himself:
Who am I truly?
And which part of me deserves to come back?
He began walking again,
but his steps were lighter.
He carried a question in his heart
and a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
Perhaps—
just perhaps—
there was a part of him worth returning.
He looked back at the phone and typed a one-word reply:
"SOON."
***************
In a dark corner of the factory,
five figures stood whispering
as if discussing a grave secret.
Their quick breaths mixed with the echo of wind passing through broken windows.
"Whose idea was it to return MORASAMI'S SWORD to him?"
SHOUTNA asked sharply,
his voice carrying the anguish of a worried father.
BELL shrank a little,
his eyes avoiding the looks directed at him:
"He asked me to return it to him...
What was I supposed to do?"
"We all know its destructive influence on him!" SHOUTNA burst out,
trying to restrain his anger.
"That is why BORBAKI hid it from him in the first place."
SHOUTNA stepped forward,
his eyes scanning the surrounding faces:
"MORASAMI is not just a sword...
It is an evil entity that feeds on blood.
That dark blackness veined with branching red lines like throbbing arteries,
the blood-red hilt that feels like living skin...
The more it is stained with blood,
its red lines grow denser and wider,
and its hunger for more increases."
ZACK, who rarely broke his silence,
stepped from the shadows:
"We do not yet know the full consequences of this,
But we must watch MOHITO closely."
NABEL added in a gloomy tone:
"Let's hope it doesn't end like last time... when MOHITO lost himself."
A heavy silence fell,
as if the ghost of the past had descended among them.
Each carried in his eyes the memories of those dreadful days.
"The worst part..." SHOUTNA finally whispered,
"Is that the sword not only kills the victims...
It kills a part of MOHITO every time he uses it."
SHOUTNA paused,
unwilling to imagine that reality, then continued:
"And we may lose MOHITO forever this time."