Yoma and Yami walked side by side on the path back to the village.
Not fast. Not slow. With that particular rhythm of two people who have spent everything they had and let the body decide the pace.
The grass around where the dome had been was still flattened. You could see it from the path, that perfect circle in the plain that was going to stay there for several days.
They didn't talk much.
There wasn't much to say that hadn't already been said with their fists.
"Your guild," said Yoma after a moment. "How many members does it have?"
"Enough."
"That's an answer."
"It's the only one I have for now."
Yoma nodded. With Yami it had always worked that way.
They arrived at the entrance to the village.
Bourg-Éclat was quiet in the evening light. A few lit windows. The smell of dinner from some of the houses. Fernand was no longer at his door — too late for him. Marcel either.
Yami stopped.
He looked at the village for a second. Not long. Just enough to look.
Then he turned to Yoma.
"It's time to go."
Yoma looked at him.
"What are you going to do now?"
Yami thought. Not long either. The answer had been there for a long time, it didn't need to be searched for.
"Become even stronger."
He looked at the plain behind them. The place where the dome had been. The place where the ground was still fractured.
"Without your injury I wouldn't have beaten you today. You know it. I know it."
Yoma didn't answer immediately.
"The strength you already possess is extraordinary," he said finally. "You don't need more to do what you have to do."
"That's you talking."
"That's me talking."
"Then you're wrong."
Yoma looked at his son. This man who had inherited his style and spent his life pushing it in a direction no one else would have taken. There were things you didn't change in someone. Vocation was one of them.
He sighed.
"If you ever run into Yuma," he said. "Go easy on him."
Yami looked at him.
Then he burst out laughing.
A real laugh, genuine, the kind that wasn't often heard from him.
"That little brat just deserves to get hit."
Yoma laughed too in spite of himself.
"That's exactly what I said about you at his age."
"And you were right."
They both laughed. Not for long. But really.
The laughter faded slowly into the evening.
Yami looked at the forest ahead of him. Dense, dark, the horizon swallowed by trees for dozens of meters.
"It's time," he said.
"Safe travels," said Yoma.
Yami turned back for a fraction of a second.
"Rest well, old man. I'll come back for another fight."
Yoma nodded.
"I'll be here."
Yami smiled one last time — that smile that was never quite complete but said something anyway — and in two steps he disappeared into the immensity of the forest as if the darkness between the trees had simply absorbed him.
No more mana. No more presence. Nothing.
As if he had never been there.
Yoma stayed at the village entrance for a moment.
He looked at the sky above the forest. Dark blue now, the first stars appearing one by one in the background. The kind of sky you looked at for no particular reason and that was enough to fill something in your chest.
He thought about Yuma somewhere out there.
He thought about Yami sinking into a forest toward something only he could see.
He thought about what those two were eventually going to do to each other when the moment came.
He nodded slowly.
Then he went back into the village.
The train had been rolling since morning.
It was now around seven in the evening and the sun was going down behind the hills to the west, casting that long orange light that came through the cabin windows at an angle and laid soft shadows across everything.
Yuma and Enji had spent the day there — sitting face to face, talking about this and that, about techniques, about Vantarcity, about what was waiting for them, about what they had left behind. Those train conversations that went in all directions without ever truly getting lost because there was enough common ground for everything to eventually reconnect.
Then Yuma's stomach made a sound.
Not a subtle one.
Yuma looked at the ceiling.
"I have nothing to eat."
Enji looked up from what he was reading.
"If you hadn't eaten the entire lunch basket earlier there might be some left."
"A meal is meant to be finished."
"There was a whole basket."
"So?"
"It was for both of us."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Enji looked at him with that expression of mild exasperation and faint amusement that was his default when Yuma said something indefensible with absolute conviction.
"Not finishing your meal," continued Yuma with complete dignity, "is a lack of respect to the kitchen. Everyone knows that."
"You know that."
"Everyone knows that."
Enji put down what he was reading.
"We're going to the dining car."
Yuma stood up in one movement with the energy of someone who had been waiting for exactly that for ten minutes without admitting it.
"Good idea."
Enji watched him stand.
"I have the feeling this was the plan from the beginning."
"Absolutely not."
"Hm."
They stepped out of the cabin and walked along the corridor toward the front of the train. The evening sun cast their shadows on the corridor floor through each window they passed, long then short then long again.
The dining car was almost empty at this hour. A few tables occupied by travelers finishing their meals, the golden evening light coming through the panoramic windows and making the place more pleasant than a train car had any right to be.
Yuma and Enji approached the cashier. A man in his forties with the resigned expression of someone who had seen many hungry travelers in his career.
"Good evening," he said. "What can I get you?"
Yuma looked at the menu on the wall with the concentration of a man studying an important document.
"The burgers. What's in them?"
"Ground beef, melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, house sauce."
"How many do you have available?"
The cashier blinked.
"Right now? About ten or so."
"I'll take eight."
Silence.
"Eight burgers."
"Eight burgers."
"Just for you."
"Just for me. With fries if possible."
The cashier looked at Enji with an expression that silently asked for confirmation that what was happening was real.
Enji nodded once.
"It's real. And for me it'll be the daily special. The roast with vegetables and mashed potatoes."
"Large size?"
"Yes."
The cashier wrote everything down with the professional calm of someone who had decided not to ask questions.
"It'll be ready in about ten minutes. Cabin number?"
"We're eating here," said Yuma, pointing to a table by the window.
"Very well."
They sat down. The evening sun lit the table at an angle, the hills rolling past behind the glass at that regular, hypnotic speed of the train.
"Eight burgers," said Enji.
"I was hungry."
"Eight."
"You already said that."
"I just wanted to hear myself say it a second time."
Yuma looked out the window. The hills. The orange light. The horizon that never ended.
"We arrive tomorrow morning," he said.
"In a few hours, yes."
"Vantarcity."
"Vantarcity."
They stayed quiet with that for a moment. The word that contained too many things to be said without a small silence after it.
"We're ready," said Yuma.
It wasn't a question.
"We're ready," said Enji.
The order arrived. Yuma's eight burgers stacked in an improbable tower that made the server smile despite himself. Enji's roast, generous, lightly steaming, with the golden mashed potatoes and vegetables arranged around it.
Yuma looked at his plate.
Then looked at Enji.
"Good."
"Eat."
He ate.
They were halfway through the meal when the door of the dining car opened.
Two people walked in.
Yuma didn't look up immediately — he was busy with his fifth burger and life was good. Enji glanced at them briefly from the side, with that instinct for reading entrances that he had developed without really deciding to.
The two people went to the counter.
The first was tall. Very tall. The kind of tall that made the space around them proportionally smaller. They wore dark, understated clothing with no ornamentation, and something in the way they stood said they weren't in the habit of worrying about the space they occupied because they had never needed to worry about it.
The second was more ordinary in appearance — shorter, more discreet, but with something permanently attentive in their eyes, the gaze of someone who is constantly reading the situation around them.
"Burgers," said the tall one to the cashier. Direct. No pleasantries.
The cashier mentally checked his stock.
"I'm sorry, there are none left."
Silence.
The tall person looked at the cashier.
"No burgers."
"No, I'm truly sorry, we just had a large order and —"
What happened next was difficult to precisely qualify.
It wasn't visible. It wasn't a gesture. It was in the air itself — a presence spreading from the tall person like something very heavy being suddenly lifted, a pressure that descended on the entire car at once and made the glasses on the tables vibrate and silenced the conversations of the other travelers.
A colossal mana.
Not targeted. Not aggressive in the sense of an attack. Just released — as if frustration had found an outlet and that outlet was the totality of what was inside.
The cashier stepped back.
"Number 8."
The second person's voice. Calm, low, with the quality of someone who had said that name many times in similar circumstances.
"Stop."
The pressure rose another notch.
"Number 8."
The glasses vibrated harder.
Enji slowly set down his fork.
Yuma kept eating his sixth burger.
The tall person, Number 8, was letting their mana pour into the car with the indifference of someone who hadn't yet decided whether it was worth stopping. The other travelers at the far end of the car had frozen. One of them was looking at the door with the expression of someone calculating whether standing up right now would be a good idea.
Then Number 8 looked around the car.
And saw Yuma's table.
More precisely — saw what was on Yuma's table.
Eight empty wrappers and two burgers still intact.
Number 8's eyes went from the burgers to Yuma. From Yuma to the burgers. Then Number 8 crossed the car with that heavy, regular step and stopped in front of the table.
The mana was still there. Dense, present, occupying all the space within a few meters.
Number 8 looked down at Yuma.
The difference in size was remarkable. Yuma wasn't small — he was actually quite tall for his age, with the build that had been constructed over two months of relentless training. But Number 8 surpassed him in a way that wasn't just about centimeters. It was a question of volume, of occupied space, of physical density. Like comparing a hill to a mountain.
"Give me your burgers."
Sharp. Firm. No preamble, no name, nothing that resembled a question.
Yuma stopped chewing.
Put down his burger.
Looked up at Number 8.
Stood up.
Not thinking. Responding. Directly, instinctively, with that way he had always had of reacting to things before analyzing them.
"No."
Yuma's mana deployed.
Not as much as Number 8's — nowhere near as much, the difference was visible and clear. But present, real, warm, with something inside it that wasn't joking.
And the two manas met in the air between them.
The car shook.
Not much. Just enough for something to fall off a table at the far end and for the last seated travelers to quietly stand and begin moving toward the exit.
The cashier looked at the scene from behind the counter.
Looked at the door of the car.
Looked at the scene again.
And disappeared into the back room.
"Yuma," said Enji.
He hadn't moved. He was watching Number 8, the mana flows readable, Number 8's signature displaying in his perception as something immense and stable and very, very dangerous.
"Yuma, calm down."
Yuma didn't move. His eyes didn't leave Number 8's.
"Number 8."
Number 7's voice. More urgent this time.
"Number 8, don't forget why we're here. And what we need to do. If we don't pull this off the boss is going to kill us."
Something changed in Number 8's eyes.
Slow. Gradual. Like a decision being made reluctantly but being made nonetheless.
The mana retracted.
Not completely — never completely, with someone like Number 8 the mana didn't disappear, it contained itself — but enough for the air in the car to become breathable again in the figurative sense of the word.
Number 8 kept looking at Yuma for one more second.
Yuma kept looking at Number 8.
Then Number 8 turned away.
"You're right, Number 7. Let's go."
They headed for the exit of the car.
Number 8 had their hand on the door when something landed on their shoulder.
Two burgers, carefully wrapped.
Number 8 stopped.
Turned around.
Yuma's arm was extended, his hand still open from where he had just thrown.
"Next time," said Yuma, "you should ask more nicely."
Number 8 looked at the burgers on their shoulder.
Looked at Yuma.
A long moment.
Then nodded once — a brief, sharp gesture, but real.
And walked out.
Number 7 cast one last look at the car before following, with something in their eyes that would have been difficult to identify precisely but vaguely resembled interest.
The door closed.
Silence returned to the car.
Yuma sat back down.
Looked at his last burger.
Ate it.
Enji watched him do it without saying anything for a moment.
"You were really going to fight him."
"I didn't fight anyone."
"Because his partner stopped him."
"Nuance."
"There isn't one."
Yuma finished his burger.
The cashier reappeared cautiously from the back room, looking first left then right with the expression of a man checking that the weather had cleared before going outside.
"They left?" he said.
"Yes," said Enji. He stood up and took out his wallet. "We're leaving too. Sorry about the trouble."
"Me too," said Yuma, standing. He looked at the cashier. "The burgers were really good."
The cashier watched them pay and leave with the expression of someone who had had a more eventful evening than expected and wasn't sure they wanted another one.
They went back into the corridor. The sun had finished going down and the windows now showed a dark blue outside with the first stars appearing above the hills.
"Those two," said Yuma as he walked.
"Yeah," said Enji.
"They reeked of death."
Enji didn't answer immediately.
"When Number 8 released their mana," continued Yuma, "I remembered something."
"Reishin's clone."
Yuma looked at him.
"You felt the same thing."
"Yes. But this was even worse."
Yuma thought about that as he walked. The corridor passing beneath their feet, cabins on each side, the train continuing to roll toward something.
"Under my throat," said Enji slowly, "I felt like there was a knife ready to cut at any moment. Even when I tried to read the flows with the goggles — the signature was too dense, too compressed. I couldn't see the bottom."
Yuma nodded.
"Same."
They arrived in front of their cabin.
Yuma opened the door and went in.
And slid to the floor.
Not a fall — a slow, deliberate slide, back against the edge of the bed, legs stretched out, sweat running along his temples with that way the body has of releasing at a delay what it held back during a confrontation.
Enji came in behind him.
Leaned against the wall.
Swallowed slowly, arms crossed, with something in his expression that resembled someone fighting against their own stomach.
They stayed like that for a moment without saying anything.
The train rolled on.
The stars passed by the window.
"We arrive at Vantarcity tomorrow evening," said Yuma finally.
"Yes."
"And those two probably as well."
"Probably."
A silence.
"We'll be ready."
Enji looked at Yuma slumped on the floor, sweating, who had just come face to face with something that surpassed them both and had still said we'll be ready with the same conviction as if it were an established fact.
"Yes," said Enji.
And he meant it.
They went to sleep.
The cabin lights went out. The train continued through the night. The hills gradually gave way to something flatter, denser, the first distant glows of a large city appearing on the horizon like stars at ground level.
Vantarcity.
A few more hours.
The sun woke them up.
It came through the cabin window with the particular directness of end-of-journey mornings, that frank, straight light that doesn't ask if you're ready.
Yuma blinked.
Looked at the ceiling.
Then a sound.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Firm. Regular. Not the way of a service employee — the way of someone who knows you're there and is waiting for you to open but doesn't particularly intend to give you a choice.
Enji was already awake. He got up, quickly adjusted his clothes, and went to the door.
"Who's there?"
"Room service."
Enji hesitated for a fraction of a second.
Opened the door.
Several men in uniform.
Not a train uniform. Something more understated, more structured, with discreet insignia in dark colors. They deployed immediately into the cabin with the efficiency of people who had done this often, two toward Enji, two toward Yuma who was still half in his bed.
Yuma reacted immediately.
"Hey —"
A hold. Firm, precise, both arms locked behind his back. He tried to struggle — the mana beginning to circulate in his fists, the physical resistance, that way he had of never passively accepting what happened to him.
It changed nothing.
The men held. Well trained, well coordinated, with a way of neutralizing resistance that suggested they had dealt with considerably more complicated cases than him.
"Let go of me —"
The cabin door opened one more time.
A man walked in.
Not tall. Not short. Mid-forties, maybe a bit older, with a look that immediately evoked something specific — the kind of detective you saw in old American films, the jacket rumpled but not just any way, the gaze that was used to reading people before they had finished opening their mouths. And a cigarette at the corner of his lips, lit, smoke rising quietly into the cabin air.
He looked at Yuma.
Looked at Enji.
Took a long drag.
And slowly exhaled the smoke, with all the calm in the world, looking at them both.
"We need to talk," he said.
He looked at them one more second, the two boys pinned in their own cabin at dawn, arms held, eyes open, Vantarcity approaching outside the window.
"You little punks."
End of Chapter 23