The elevator screamed the whole way down.
⠀
It was an old sound, metal grinding against metal in a rhythm too uneven to trust, and every few seconds the floor gave a lurch that made Mori certain, however briefly, that the whole car was about to give out beneath them. The sign bolted beside the doors claimed a capacity of three hundred. Judging by the crush of shoulders and elbows and the hundred different kinds of nervous sweat in the air, somebody had decided that number was more of a suggestion.
⠀
Mori's stomach turned before his feet did. A wave of dizziness hit him sideways, and he pitched forward too fast to catch himself.
⠀
A hand closed around his shoulder before he hit the ground, grip firm enough to bruise.
⠀
"Hey. You alright?"
⠀
"Y-Yeah! I'm okay!" The words came out somewhere between a laugh and a flinch, and he hated how badly his hands were still shaking once he'd found his footing again. "N-Never took a ride like this before. 'Specially not one this big."
⠀
"Easy there." The stranger let go once he was sure Mori wouldn't fall again. "I'm Yuhuan. Fourth District. You?"
⠀
"Mori. Mori Ryunosuke. Sixth District."
⠀
"Family name too, huh." A faint, easy smile. "Mine's Lau."
⠀
Yuhuan offered a hand and pulled him upright the rest of the way, and it was only then, steady on his own feet again, that Mori actually got a proper look at him: white fabric, fine blue thread curling along the sleeves in a pattern too deliberate to be anything but expensive. The kind of clothes Mori had only ever seen behind storefront glass.
⠀
"Your clothes," he said, before he could stop himself. "They're really nice."
⠀
"This old thing? Hand-me-down. My parents insisted. Something about making a good impression on the crowd." Yuhuan caught Mori staring and didn't seem bothered by it. "Fourth District. We tend to overdress for things."
⠀
"Right. I've heard it's pretty luxurious out there."
⠀
"So what brings you down here? Or—" Yuhuan tilted his head, reconsidering. "What kind of Fixer are you hoping to become?"
⠀
Mori's throat tightened around the question. Antollio had told him to sign up. He'd signed up. He still wasn't entirely sure what that was supposed to make him.
⠀
"...I think I want to join the Argus Directorates. Seventh Division."
⠀
"Argus Directorates." Yuhuan considered that, polite and curious in equal measure. "What do they specialize in?"
⠀
"I... um."
⠀
"You don't know."
⠀
Before Mori could scrape together an answer that wasn't an admission, the crowd behind them shifted, and a voice loud enough to cut clean through the elevator's grinding filled the space instead.
⠀
"You serious, kid?"
⠀
The man who pushed through was built like he'd been assembled specifically to be intimidating in tight spaces: shoulders too broad for the crowd around him, arms like something forged rather than grown, a face carved into a permanent scowl.
⠀
"You're signing up for Argus and you don't even know what they do?"
⠀
"I—I was told to apply."
⠀
"They're ARCH hunters." He said it like the words alone should have been enough to embarrass Mori into silence. "ARCH. You've heard of those, right?"
⠀
"...Could you say that again?"
⠀
The man's arms crossed with a thud loud enough to be its own punctuation. "You an outsider of the Ring or somethin'? Fine. Maybe you'll survive the first round if you actually know something going in."
⠀
He told it the way people tell stories they've had to repeat too many times to still find interesting: flat, fast, worn smooth at the edges.
⠀
Three years ago, DaeSyndicate had gone looking for something useful in human suffering, and found it. Push the mind hard enough, align it with a single emotion sharp enough, and something answered back: entities that hadn't existed a moment before, standing in the wreckage of whatever experiment had called them. DaeSyndicate named them ARCHs, Agony Resonance Catharsis Harmonies, and once they'd cataloged enough of them, they'd sorted them the same tidy way they sorted everything else: by color.
⠀
Red for Acrimony. Anger sharpened until it cut.
⠀
Orange for Tenacity. The strength that refuses to fold.
⠀
Yellow for Euphoria. A joy with no brakes on it.
⠀
Green for Trepidation. Fear that hasn't found its floor yet.
⠀
Blue for Tribulation. Suffering with a source and no relief.
⠀
Purple for Apathy. The feeling of having no feeling left.
⠀
Pink for Lust. Wanting, and wanting, and never quite finishing.
⠀
"It's easy to remember," one of the man's friends offered, entirely too pleased with himself. "They go in rainbow order!"
⠀
"Shut it."
⠀
The story kept going whether anyone had asked for the rest of it or not. One night, every cataloged ARCH broke loose at once. Most were put down before morning. The ones that weren't tore through the districts for weeks, and entire blocks folded under the weight of it, and by the time anyone thought to give the disaster a name, Fixers had already started changing, some of them becoming something the Ring called Elegies, people who could hold an ARCH's power without it hollowing them out on the way through.
⠀
They called the whole thing the Season of Folly.
⠀
"These days everybody's got the potential to make one," the man said. "Don't get it twisted, though. Whatever your ARCH would be, it's got nothing on somethin' like Gun."
⠀
Yuhuan's eyes flicked toward Mori, some quiet alarm crossing his face.
⠀
Mori's chest went tight and cold at once.
⠀
"...What if a human tried to talk to an ARCH?" The words were out before he'd fully decided to let them go. "What would happen then?"
⠀
The man's grin faded into something colder. "Ryunosuke. That's you they're talking about. The boy from last week. The one with the Gun ARCH."
⠀
"...Yeah. That's me."
⠀
The elevator seemed to hold its breath along with everyone crowded into it.
⠀
"Kid, don't waste your breath on that story." Whatever humor had been in the man's voice was gone now, replaced by something flatter, meaner. "ARCHs don't talk. They don't negotiate. They're just people's ugliest moments wearing a body, and if I got mad enough to make one right here, you'd be paste on the floor before you finished your next sentence."
⠀
"You're wrong."
⠀
"Oh, am I? You ever actually talked to one?"
⠀
"I have!"
⠀
"What?"
⠀
"Ryunosuke," Yuhuan said, low, urgent, "what are you—?"
⠀
"I'm the one who faced the Gun ARCH."
⠀
The silence that followed had weight to it. Even the people crushed in close enough to overhear seemed to lean back from it.
⠀
Then a fist caught Mori square in the jaw, and the elevator floor came up to meet him hard enough to taste blood.
⠀
"Hey! Recruitment hasn't even started yet!" someone shouted, though nobody moved to actually stop it.
⠀
The man turned his grin on Yuhuan next. "You want some too?"
⠀
"I'm not opposed to it," Yuhuan said, mild, unbothered. "But I'd rather you didn't."
⠀
Mori pushed himself up onto one elbow, jaw throbbing. "You want proof?"
⠀
"Proof of what? You're both idiots. The two of you'll be dead on your first real mission at this rate. I'm doing you a favor, kid, beating some sense in before the Ring does it permanently."
⠀
"I'll—! I'll—!"
⠀
"That's enough, Ryunosuke."
⠀
Something in Yuhuan's voice made Mori stop trying to finish the sentence. He looked up and found an expression that said, plainly, that this particular fight had already been lost, whatever Mori still had left to prove.
⠀
"Our apologies," Yuhuan said, easy and formal all at once, the words fitting his mouth like they'd been worn smooth from use. "A truce, until we're down there properly? That seems fairer to everyone."
⠀
The man studied them both a long moment.
⠀
"...Fine. Don't think I'll go easy once we're actually fighting."
⠀
"Wouldn't dream of asking you to."
⠀
The man shouldered his way back into the crowd, and Yuhuan exhaled, some of the polish slipping out of his posture along with the breath.
⠀
"You need to learn when to let a fight go," he said, quieter now. "Keep swinging at everyone who underestimates you, and people will start treating you like dead weight instead of a threat." A pause, considering. "That said."
⠀
"...I understand if you'd rather keep your distance from me now."
⠀
"I'd rather fight beside you for the exam, actually."
⠀
"Wh-What?"
⠀
"I'll be honest with you about what you're lacking, since it's clearly a great deal. But it's less trouble flying next to you than watching you crash on your own from a safe distance." Yuhuan tilted his head. "You did mean what you said. About the Gun ARCH."
⠀
"I did."
⠀
"I can work with most things. Lies aren't one of them. So I'd like the truth, plainly, if you're willing to give it."
⠀
"I'm not lying. I swear it."
⠀
Mori slid down the wall until he was sitting, knees drawn to his chest, and let the whole thing out the way it had been sitting in him for a week, unspoken and heavy.
⠀
"I don't really know how to explain it. That day, watching it kill people who hadn't done anything to deserve it, I just wanted it to stop. That's all I could think. I told myself I'd do anything to make it stop."
⠀
Yuhuan lowered himself down beside him. "And then?"
⠀
"It heard me. I was screaming at it, asking why it hurt people who didn't deserve it when the Ring's full of people who do. Telling it to kill me instead, if it wanted someone dead so badly." His hands curled into loose fists against his knees. "And it stopped. It looked at me, and it asked me something."
⠀
"Mori Ryunosuke," it had said, and the words had arrived in a register that didn't belong to sound at all, somewhere behind his eyes instead of in his ears. "I will ask you a single question, and your answer decides whether I keep emptying these barrels into this city, or whether I leave these people be for the rest of eternity: if you were locked in a room with your worst enemy, and you had a gun with a single bullet in it, what would you do?"
⠀
"It spoke to you," Yuhuan said, quietly. "In a language you understood?"
⠀
"I don't know how. I don't know how any of it worked."
⠀
"What did you tell it?"
⠀
"I can't remember." Mori's jaw tightened. "Most of that day's just gone. Except the very end. It said my name, and then it said one more thing before it disappeared."
⠀
"...We have become one."
⠀
Neither of them said anything for a while after that.
⠀
The elevator gave one last shriek, and the doors dragged open, sunlight spilling in bright enough to sting. A silhouette filled the doorway, tall, draped in layered clothing that didn't seem to agree on a single style, face lost in the glare until the man tipped his head and his glasses caught the light instead.
⠀
His grin was wide enough to be its own warning.
⠀
"We're gonna have some fun. Would you look at how many of you there are."
⠀
⠀
The ceremony began not long after; the proctor was flanked by several Fixers Mori didn't recognize and one he did. Antollio caught his eye across the crowd and waved, entirely too pleased with himself, and Mori returned the gesture with considerably less composure. Yuhuan noticed.
⠀
"You know him?"
⠀
"That's the director of the Argus Directorates. He's the reason I'm here at all."
⠀
"Listen up!" the proctor called, loud enough to flatten the murmur of the crowd. "Behind me stand the good people who'll be watching today's exam. If you've got anyone worth impressing, it's them."
⠀
The man from the elevator shoved forward again. "When do we start? I'm dyin' for some action."
⠀
The proctor's grin didn't waver. "First thing you'll show our spectators is what you can do in a fight."
⠀
He hauled a lever, and somewhere behind him a storage container shrieked open, rows of weapons catching the light inside: guns, blades, clubs, things Mori had no name for at all.
⠀
"What are you best with, Ryunosuke?" Yuhuan asked.
⠀
"I wouldn't know. I've never held anything like that."
⠀
"...I'd start with a gun, then. Simplest thing to learn under pressure. All you need is ammunition and the sense not to waste it."
⠀
"Take a weapon and find your ground," the proctor called out. "Five minutes' grace. Then I fire the flare, and you're free to start showing these people what you're made of. Thirty minutes on the clock. No fight, nothing to show. Go."
⠀
The crowd surged for the container at once, twenty bodies packed in before Mori and Yuhuan had gotten within ten feet of it.
⠀
"This is on purpose," Yuhuan muttered, already backing off. "Five minutes isn't enough time to arm this many people and still find somewhere safe to stand. They want a bottleneck. A stage."
⠀
"So what do we do? Hide?"
⠀
"Maybe that's the actual test. Whether we fight for a weapon, or run from the crowd entirely."
⠀
Mori's gaze drifted, without meaning to, toward the spectators, and found Antollio watching them both with that same easy smile, one hand at his chin, the other arm crossed low across his body, pointing, subtly, toward a stack of unremarkable wooden crates well clear of the crowd.
⠀
"Yuhuan. This way."
⠀
"Wait—!"
⠀
"Come on!"
⠀
They broke from the crowd and crossed the open ground at a dead sprint, and the crates, once opened, held exactly what the container hadn't been able to spare: a wide yanyuedao in a white sheath, which Yuhuan lifted free with the particular reverence of someone finally holding something that fit, and a revolver, gold patterning traced along its barrel, which Mori fumbled into his hands like it might go off just from being looked at wrong.
⠀
"Twenty rounds in the pouch," Yuhuan said. "Tie it to your belt properly, don't just hold it."
⠀
"Got it!"
⠀
Behind them, the crowd had noticed. "Hey! Those two already got weapons!" "Grace period's almost up!"
⠀
They ran, ducking into the shell of a ruined building, and Yuhuan shoved a bookshelf against the door before sliding down the wall, breath coming ragged.
⠀
"You alright?"
⠀
"Fine. Just... taking it in." Yuhuan's eyes stayed fixed on the dust drifting through the broken light. "First time outside the house. Or the Garden, I suppose."
⠀
"The Garden?"
⠀
"It's—" He stopped. Started again, and didn't finish either attempt. "It's where everyone in my family lives. And they all—"
⠀
"You don't have to."
⠀
"No, it's fine. I just remembered something I'd rather not have." He pushed himself back to his feet, some of the usual polish sliding back into place like a mask being resettled. "Roof. Let's get a look at what we're working with."
⠀
⠀
The stairwell groaned under every step, and halfway up, the tread beneath Mori's boot gave way entirely. He pitched forward, and Yuhuan's hand shot out again, hauling him bodily onto the next landing before either of them had time to properly process how close the drop below had come.
⠀
"—Thanks."
⠀
They reached the roof breathing hard, the whole battlefield spread out beneath them in miniature: dust, movement, the first scattered fights already breaking out even before the flare.
⠀
"We're supposed to be watching for the weak ones," Mori said, quiet. "Aren't we? Are we meant to take them out?"
⠀
"No. Skill, not carnage. Even down here, there's a line."
⠀
"Feels wrong either way. Like we're just waiting to pick something apart."
⠀
Yuhuan glanced sideways at him. "Second thoughts?"
⠀
Before Mori could answer, the flare cracked overhead, and the noise from below turned instantly, violently real: gunfire, the clash of blades, voices that didn't sound like they belonged to people play-acting a demonstration anymore.
⠀
"So, Ryunosuke," Yuhuan said, leaning against the ledge, voice gone carefully casual in the way only people raised to make small talk in dangerous rooms ever managed. "How does the Sixth District still manage to surprise you? Surely you've had your share of unpleasant Offices and Coalitions down there."
⠀
"..."
⠀
"—Forgive me. That was forward of me. Old habits."
⠀
They watched the fighting instead of each other for a while. Two men squared off directly below, and it ended fast and ugly, one of them dropping where he stood while the other simply walked on, like nothing at all had happened.
⠀
"My parents are dead," Mori said, flat, though his hands had curled tight without his permission. "It's not special. Everyone down here's lost, somebody. Season of Folly took them. I didn't even know that was what it was called until today. News doesn't travel fast in the Sixth."
⠀
"My condolences," Yuhuan said it gently, carefully, the practiced warmth of someone who'd learned exactly how much sympathy was appropriate to offer a near-stranger and not a drop more.
⠀
"Doesn't matter. It happened."
⠀
Yuhuan opened his mouth to say something else, and a scrape of something heavy dragging across concrete cut him off entirely.
⠀
They turned together.
⠀
It stood taller than either of them by half again, its shape a slow, wrong accumulation of gears and loose paper and the bent hands of a dozen broken clocks, ticking in a rhythm that belonged to no single clock at all. The sound of it crawled straight through Mori's skull and settled somewhere behind his teeth. A platform groaned into place nearby, carrying the proctor and a knot of spectators, all of them leaning in at once, delighted.
⠀
"Looks like we've got a live one! Let's see how our two contestants handle an uninvited guest!"
⠀
Antollio, watching from the platform's edge, only smiled wider.
⠀
Mori checked the cylinder without quite remembering deciding to.
⠀
"Well, Yuhuan..." His voice came out steadier than he expected. "...Guess it's time we actually show them something."
⠀
Yuhuan rose beside him, blade already lifting into a ready stance.
⠀
"Right behind you."