"I was born in a place that no longer exists," Samael said, his voice growing deeper, slower. "Well, that's not true. The place exists. What no longer exists is the person I was when I lived there."
Ed fell silent, sensing that what he was about to hear was more important than any story about fishermen and spirits.
"My grandfather..." Samael continued, and as he spoke that word, his hand instinctively went to the locket. "My grandfather was a man who didn't understand the meaning of the word 'restraint.'"
---
BOOOOOOM!
The sound was deafening. A sword wrapped in blue energy crashed against a rock wall, destroying it as if it were wet paper. Fragments flew in all directions, and dust rose in a cloud that covered everything.
"You should have created a stronger wall if you wanted to stop me, rebellious grandson!" the old man's voice boomed through the echoes of destruction, deep and powerful, as debris flew around him.
The smell of dust and burnt stone filled the air, making breathing a challenge. Each inhalation was like swallowing sand.
Samael, barely three years old, watched from the other side of the training ground. His bare feet could barely register the heat of the earth beneath him. His white training tunic was already gray with dust.
"Grandfather," he said, in a voice incredibly calm for a child his age, "do you not know what the word 'restraint' means?"
The old man, his grandfather, let out a laugh that echoed throughout the valley.
"Ha, ha, ha! You're so funny!" he exclaimed, resting the sword on his shoulder with a familiarity that spoke of decades of use. "A clever boy like you, and you want me to restrain myself? That would be an insult to your talent!"
The dust hadn't dissipated. The cloud was still there, dense, blinding.
But Samael didn't need to see to feel.
The debris that had been flying moments ago, the rock fragments his grandfather had destroyed, began to change. To vibrate. To heat up.
And then, they turned to dust.
But not stone dust.
Incandescent dust. Reddish. Burning.
And that dust, each tiny particle, began to spin, to condense, to take shape.
A ball of fire—no, something more than a ball—was brewing. And it was approaching directly toward the old man's position.
Samael's grandfather, unfazed, raised his sword. The metal charged with an intense blue glow, as if absorbing light from the sky. He gripped the handle tightly, feeling the familiar vibration of energy coursing through his arm.
And then, he made a descending cut.
It wasn't a fast move. It was precise. Decisive. Final.
The blade split the fireball in half, but the cut didn't stop there. The energy accumulated in the sword released in an arc that continued its trajectory, crossing the training ground and opening the earth in a deep trench that stretched for dozens of meters.
The sonic blast headed toward Samael.
But before impact, the earth in front of him rose up.
A thick, solid wall emerged from the ground as if it had always been there. It wasn't just any wall: it was reinforced, compacted, with mineral veins that glowed faintly.
The shockwave hit the wall.
CRAAAACK!
The wall cracked. Large fissures ran across its surface like black veins. But it didn't break.
"Despite this," Samael thought, his mind working at a speed no other child his age could match, "I shouldn't get too confident. Something much bigger must be on the way."
Because he knew his grandfather. He knew this wasn't the end. It wasn't even the beginning of the end.
He hadn't even finished processing his thoughts when the wall was destroyed.
Not by the previous shockwave. By something much more direct.
His grandfather's sword pierced the wall like a spear, penetrating the compacted rock with the ease of a needle through fabric. The blade emerged on the other side, inches from Samael's face, and then, with a brutal movement, the old man twisted it.
The entire wall exploded.
And from the cloud of dust, from the debris flying in all directions, emerged the old man's silhouette.
His grandfather.
The tip of his sword was already in the air, aimed directly at him.
Samael's senses sharpened. It was innate in him, but also trained. His inner energy—his ki, his essence, the name didn't matter—flowed through his body, accelerating his reflexes, sharpening his perception.
At the last second, he dodged.
The sword grazed his side.
He hadn't been hit, not directly. But the attack was so brutal, so charged with energy, that just the friction of the cut—the compressed air, the residual force—opened his face from cheek to ear.
Blood gushed out.
Red. Hot. Alive.
It ran down his face like when you cut a sack of sugar and the contents start to spill out. A thick, insistent thread that fell onto his white tunic, staining it crimson.
His blood was hot, yes. Burning, even.
But a second later... it turned cold.
Not cold from shock. Cold because Samael was already processing, evaluating, moving to the next thought before the pain could even register.
"That was very close," he murmured, as his left eye—the one on the side of the wound—instinctively moved in that same direction, as if he could visualize the damage. As if his mind were already calculating the depth of the cut, the clotting time, the annoyance it would cause him in his next moves.
But he didn't cry.
That was the strangest thing for anyone watching. A three-year-old child, his face split open, bleeding like a pig, and not a single tear. Not a whimper.
He was already used to it.
Instead...
He smiled.
It was a small smile, barely a movement at the corners of his mouth. But it was real. It was the smile of someone who accepts the challenge.
He aimed his staff—a simple wooden stick, in appearance, but in his hands, a conduit for his energy—at his grandfather.
And he began to create.
A sphere began to form in front of him. But it wasn't a normal sphere. It wasn't a fireball like before. It was denser, more compact. A cylinder of energy, of pure fire, spinning on itself like an infernal drill.
It shot out.
The old man dodged it in mid-air. He didn't just move aside. His body, despite his age, moved with impossible fluidity, twisting in the air, dodging the attack by inches, while descending to the ground with the grace of a falling leaf.
Samael blinked for an instant.
And then...
"Ha, ha, ha," the laugh was bitter, but accepting. "So unfair."
His grandfather was no longer in the air. He wasn't in front of him. He had disappeared from his line of sight.
And then he felt the cold.
The blade of the sword, gently resting against his neck.
"So you know when to give up, huh?" the grandfather's voice came from behind, warm in his ear, proud.
"What are you talking about, Grandfather?" Samael said, feeling the cold edge on his neck, the promise of steel that could open him at any moment. But there was no fear in his voice. Only a complaint. "You cheated, you know?"
He sat on the ground, exhausted. The wound on his face was still bleeding, but slower now.
"Couldn't you have, at least, let me show off a little?"
The grandfather withdrew the sword and, with a quick but gentle movement, tapped him—just a little tap—on the head with the hilt.
"Ouch!" Samael protested, bringing his hand to his head.
"Watch what you say, boy. Who cheated?" the old man pointed with his chin behind him.
Samael followed his gaze.
There was a large rock behind where his grandfather had been standing. A massive rock, the size of a small house.
And it was pierced.
Not completely through, no. But the hole was deep, smoking, and the heat marks around the edge indicated that Samael's fire cylinder had been close to hitting him. If his grandfather hadn't dodged at the last instant, if he had been just one second slower...
For some people, that attack would have been lethal.
The wind blew through the valley, stirring little Samael's sweaty hair and his grandfather's long white beard.
---
Back in the tavern, the present.
"So," said Ed, who had been listening with his mouth slightly open, completely forgetting his mug of beer, "what would have happened if you hadn't dodged that attack? The one that wounded your face, I mean."
Samael, who had been eating a piece of juicy meat while he spoke, looked at him.
"Hmph."
He chewed slowly, savoring it, while the question hung in the air.
"Now that you mention it," he finally replied, "I'd never thought about that."
And he kept eating, as if the possibility of having died at three years old was as irrelevant as the color of the curtains.
The tavern continued its course. People went about their activities and business. Legal or illegal. Wholesome or shady. The loan shark remained at his table, occasionally glancing at the debtor. The bartender kept serving behind the counter, with his impeccable vest and kind expression. The floating bulbs continued their soft flickering.
"So..." Samael finally spoke, setting his utensils down on the empty plate. "Let me continue with the story."
Ed nodded, expectant.
And Samael, with that same characteristic calm, with that same deep gaze that seemed to come from far away, prepared to keep talking.
The night was long.
And his story had only just begun.