The man holding Elina's arm looked at Mayo's back and laughed.
"That kid your friend? He didn't even look at you."
Elina didn't answer him. She was still watching the path where Mayo had gone, her eyes wet and unblinking.
Then one of the group peeled away from the others and jogged after Mayo, loud and swaggering, like this was still fun.
"Aye. What is this? A stray walking like he owns the place."
Mayo stopped.
He didn't turn around right away. He just stopped, standing there on the path with his back to all of it, and for a moment nothing moved.
Then the boy caught up and put his hand on Mayo's shoulder. "Looks like you should worry about yourself first, brat."
Mayo turned around slowly. He looked at the hand on his shoulder. Then he looked at the boy's face with those flat, calm eyes and said nothing for a moment.
"Get your hand off me."
The boy laughed. "Oh yeah? You mad? Gonna make me cry?"
"Get your hand off me."
The boy raised an eyebrow. "You threatening me?"
"I will not repeat myself."
The words came out quiet and final, like a door closing.
From behind the tree line at the far end of the path, three figures came through at a jog. Toviro spotted him first and slowed, grabbing Ozair's sleeve.
"There he is."
Ozair stopped beside him, breathing slightly from the run. "Yeah, that's him." He started to step forward.
Aryan caught Ozair by the arm before he could move any further. "Wait. We have to see what he is—"
The rest of the sentence never came out.
His eyes shifted, drawn past Mayo without meaning to, and landed on Elina.
She stood near the bank, held in place by a boy gripping her arm too tightly, with no intention of letting go. Tears slipped down her face in silence, one after another, and she didn't even try to wipe them away.
Something inside Aryan snapped.
It wasn't slow or controlled. Just sudden and violent. His heart slammed against his ribs and his muscles locked the moment he saw that hand on her arm.
He started walking toward them.
Each step was heavy and deliberate, carrying a weight that made it clear he was not going to talk.
Ozair reacted immediately, moving in front of him and grabbing his arm.
"What are you doing?"
"Move."
Aryan's voice was low and strained.
"Aryan, stop."
"Get out of my way, Ozair."
There was no hesitation in it. No restraint. Just pressure building behind every word.
Ozair didn't let go.
"You were the one stopping me," Ozair said, his voice sharp. "And now look at you."
Aryan's jaw tightened, teeth pressing together as if he was holding something back by force alone. When he spoke, his voice came out low and burning.
"Can't you see what he's doing to Elina?"
For a brief second it looked like Aryan might push through him anyway.
Then Toviro stepped forward, placing himself just enough between them to be seen, his presence calm but unyielding.
"I understand your frustration," he said, his voice steady and controlled. "But right now, the most important thing is what happens next with Mayo. This is the moment. We will not get another one."
Aryan went quiet.
But nothing in him actually settled.
His fists were closed at his sides, his breathing uneven, his eyes still fixed on Elina and that hand gripping her arm. His body remained angled forward, as if he were already in motion, as if the only thing keeping him in place was Ozair's grip.
And if that grip slipped even a little, he would move.
The three of them watched.
Back on the path, the boy still had his hand on Mayo's shoulder, grinning now, enjoying himself.
Mayo reached up, took the boy's wrist, and began twisting it.
Slowly. Steadily. Like it required no effort at all.
The boy's grin disappeared immediately. He tried to pull his hand back. He couldn't. He tried harder and his wrist kept turning, slow and even, like something mechanical that had been set and was not going to stop.
"What the—" His voice had changed. "How are you this strong?"
He swung his other hand at Mayo's face.
Mayo caught it.
Both wrists now, one in each hand, locked. The boy could not move either arm. He pulled left, then right, and nothing gave. He looked down at his own hands like they belonged to someone else.
"How are you doing this?" His voice had gone thin.
Mayo said nothing. He kept twisting the first wrist, slow and steady, not looking away from the boy's face.
The boy's breathing turned rapid. "Let go. Let go of me right now."
He tried to kick. Mayo saw it coming. Before the foot even left the ground, Mayo drove his forehead straight into the boy's face.
The crack was sharp and short. The boy's legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, but Mayo did not release the wrist. He kept twisting even as the boy folded toward the ground.
The boy screamed. "Help me you fools! What are you all standing there for? Help me!"
Elina flinched at the sound.
She had gone completely still, her mouth slightly open. He wasn't just stopping them. He wasn't stopping at all.
The man who had been holding her arm had let go entirely without seeming to notice he had done it. His eyes were fixed on Mayo.
At the edge of the tree line, Ozair's hand had dropped from Aryan's arm. He stood with his arms loose at his sides, watching with wide eyes, something closer to unease settling into his expression.
Aryan had not moved, but the rage in him had shifted somewhere else. He was just watching now, quiet in a way that was not calm.
Toviro stood very still beside them, his eyes never leaving Mayo.
He watched the wrist, the face, the way Mayo's expression had not shifted even slightly through any of it. His chest felt tight in a way he could not explain or measure.
The rest of the group finally moved. Two of them rushed in at once, both going straight for Mayo.
Mayo let go and stepped back.
The first one threw a wide right. Mayo slipped under it and came up on the inside. He grabbed the back of the man's neck and drove his knee up into his face.
The man folded and hit the ground, both hands going to his nose.
The second one had pulled a thick wooden branch from the grass near the bank. He swung it hard at Mayo's ribs.
Mayo ducked low and the branch swung over him, cracking across the first man's head as he was trying to get up.
He went down again, rolling onto his side, making short, sharp sounds, then not moving at all.
The one with the branch stared at what he had just done for half a second.
Then he swung at Mayo again. Mayo stepped back. He swung harder. Mayo stepped back again, reading it, letting the man commit.
The branch came down a third time and Mayo stepped inside it, jumped, and kicked it out of the man's hands with one foot.
The follow through carried his other foot across the man's jaw and he hit the ground and didn't move.
Ozair said quietly, almost to himself, "I think we need to go get the ambulance."
Nobody answered. Nobody moved.
The leader had stayed back through all of it. He let go of Elina without looking at her and walked forward slowly, chin down, eyes fixed on Mayo. He wasn't rushing. He wasn't yelling. That was the part that felt different.
Mayo ran at him first.
He closed the distance in a few strides and left the ground, both feet driving toward the leader's face.
The leader caught the kick. He grabbed Mayo's foot with both hands, held it for just a second, then shoved it hard to the side.
Mayo hit the ground on his side but rolled with it and came up already moving, back on his feet before the leader could close the distance.
The leader came in swinging. Mayo slipped the first punch, let it pass his ear, and stepped in close. Left to the ribs. Right to the jaw. Left again. Short and fast, each one landing clean without stopping.
The leader tried to cover up. Mayo went to the body instead, two hard shots low, and when the leader dropped his hands Mayo put one straight down the middle into his nose.
The leader's legs gave and he dropped.
Mayo got down on top of him and kept punching. Right hand, again and again, into his face. Blood came. The man's head turned with each hit and came back and got hit again.
Some of the blood reached Mayo's knuckles. His expression did not change. Not once. Not even slightly. Like none of it was reaching him.
Elina took a small step forward without realizing it.
"Mayo…" she whispered, her voice breaking.
He didn't hear her.
Or he didn't care.
The last one still standing was the boy who had torn Elina's poetry book. He looked at the leader on the ground. He looked at Mayo's hand. Then he turned and ran down the river path as fast as he could and didn't look back once.
Mayo stopped.
He stood up slowly. His breathing was slightly heavier than before, but not by much. He looked down at the blood on his knuckles for a moment.
Then he turned around.
The first boy, the one whose wrist he had been twisting, was crawling backward across the dirt path on his good hand, cradling the hurt one against his chest. When he looked up and saw Mayo walking toward him, his face fell apart completely.
"Don't. Please don't come near me. Go away. Go away."
Mayo kept walking.
The boy looked past him at Elina. "Hey. Girl. Please stop him. Tell him to stop."
Elina looked at Mayo walking toward that boy and then she looked at his face, and something stopped her for just a second. Not fear. Something deeper. Something that felt wrong.
The same thing that had been sitting wrong in her chest since that morning, heavier now, right up close.
She found her voice. "Mayo. Stop."
He did not stop.
She ran toward him. At the same moment, Aryan and Ozair came sprinting down the path from the tree line. Ozair reached him first, grabbing him from behind, both arms locking around Mayo's body.
Aryan grabbed his arm with both hands and pulled back with everything he had.
Mayo's hand was already on the boy's wrist.
He was twisting again.
The boy was screaming.
Ozair pulled harder, his feet sliding on the dirt. "Mayo. Mayo, that's enough. Stop."
Aryan had both hands on Mayo's arm and was leaning all his weight into it. "Let go. Let go of him right now."
The wrist was bending further than it should.
Then slowly, like something powering down, the grip loosened.
Mayo let go.
He stood there between Ozair and Aryan, both of them still holding onto him, and looked down at the boy sobbing in the dirt. Then he looked at the blood on his hand again.
His face was the same as it had been through the entire thing.
Empty. Quiet. Somewhere else entirely.
Toviro walked up slowly from behind and stopped a few steps back. He stood there looking at Mayo and said nothing at all.
He had run every number he had. He had checked every reading. None of it had prepared him for this. Not for the way Mayo had moved, not for the cold efficiency of it, and not for that face. That completely empty face through all of it.
Elina stood close, the envelope still pressed to her chest. Her eyes were on Mayo.
She waited for him to look at her.
He never did.