"Navarik," Kai whispered inside the depths of his mind.
No response.
Kai opened his eyes to the same old factory. He was sitting on the makeshift bed he'd built from an iron frame and piles of clothes. A torn couch lay beside him where Bella used to nap. A small table stood in the center, holding his swords and her metal staff.
It'd been three days since he had woken up....from the dead.
He still wasn't quite sure.
At first he had just thought that hell was showing him false promises, that8 maybe this was his hell. Reliving his life again and again. Then he thought maybe the gods were mocking him. Because to be honest they never really liked him, did they?
But then everything was just so identical, yet so different at the same time. If this was reliving, Bella wouldn't have been able to answer differently to what she was originally supposed to see.
Kai had tested it too.
He'd stopped Bella from stepping on the loose nail near the doorway. The first time, she hadn't seen it. She'd stepped on it and cursed for ten whole minutes. This time, he grabbed her wrist before she could. The nail never drew blood.
The next day, he'd left the factory two hours earlier than he originally had. The patrol that had cornered him that night never appeared. Because they had only found him the first time due to the delay.
There were some things that he had grasped from these three days.
One- He was currently ten years back in time.
Two-Bella was still very much alive.
Three- They hadn't met Ben and Lance yet. Or Shion yet.
And four- Navarik, was not responding.
How had their relationship been at this point in time?
Was this the hateful phase, when he shut her out completely? Or the mistrustful one, when he questioned everything and anything, even her?
Another thought had also crept in.
If his body had truly gone back in time, but his mind and soul had not… and if Navarik was bound to his soul; Then maybe, just maybe… She had traveled back with him.
But then why is she not responding?
Navarik was definitely there. He could feel her. The one that wasn't there was one of the souls.
Inara did not exist within him at this point of time.
Kai rubbed his non-metal hand through his face before plopping on on his back into the bed. He pulled a hand onto his head, closing his eyes to mental exhaustion.
Dossier still has ten years to collapse.
Ten years for me to try again.
Was this what Ben wanted me to do?
"What do you want me to do, Ben?" Kai muttered.
"Who's Ben?"
Bella's voice cut through the air.
Kai lowered his arm and looked at her, brows lifting slightly. She leaned over him, her hair falling across his face.
He still couldn't get used to this
"Get that shit out of my face, Bella," Kai groaned.
Bella just clicked her tongue and straightened. "Why do you keep lazing around, you sloth?" She rolled her eyes. "Didn't you say we had work to do?" She added in Russian.
"I did?" Kai got up, blinking away his thoughts.
Bella paused. "You know?" Her voice was skeptical. "You're being very suspicious. By now you would've already packed your bags and set out to the capital after making a new plan to annoy the ASA."
Don't tell me she found out?
"Don't tell me." She paused dramatically. "Did you find a new girlfriend?"
Huh?
Kai stared at her for a second before exhaling through his nose. Of course she'd land there.
He stood, pulling his coat off the table. The swords were cleaner than he remembered.
"Since you're so eager to go out," he said, fastening the straps, "let's go."
"Both of us?"
"Yes."
"Whatever happened to going together is 'dangerous'?"
"Well I changed my mind." Kai and Bella used to always go out separately because guards from the Arcane Suppression Authority aka ASA were always on high alert around these areas.
Kai was confident in escaping, but he had been so attached to the place that he had not wanted to escape unless need demanded it.
But now he didn't really care.
He smiled. "Coming or not?" He said as he walked towards the entrance of the factory.
"Where are we going though?" Bella immediately followed suit.
"The market."
"Why did you want to come to the market?" Bella pulled her hood over her head.
"I wanted fresh air." Kai looked around at the forgotten market streets. The fresh food on the splintered stalls. Guards circling around. Smoke from cigarettes, cheap alcohol, the smell of wet mud.
Fresh indeed.
"Seriously?" Bella muttered.
Kai huffed a laugh. He walked through the crowd for about ten minutes before he took a sharp turn at the end of the alley. It was almost the end of the market and the start of the entertainment district.
Perfume layered over sweat. Men and women stared at them alike, some recognizing them but not daring to approach.
"Remind me again why we are here." Bella's eyes wandered around.
Of course. She did not know this place.
Yet.
He ignored her and walked straight towards where the red lights were the brightest. It was just like he had remembered them. A red haired woman stood on the front, laughing at the sorry jokes of a small, fat man with dirty stubble.
Her eyes flicked to them when she heard them approach. She paused before a full grin lighted her pale features. Her tongue brushed the mole beneath her lips.
"Well, well. If it isn't the D'yavol." She said, shooing the man inside the gambling house.
"Marissa." Kai nodded.
"Here to see the master?" She leaned in and straightened his collar. The scent of heavy perfume filled his nose and he instinctively held his breath.
Kai smiled. "Yes. She home?"
"Aww. But, what do I do?" Marissa pouted, patting his shirt. "She just went out." She drawled, eyes looking up at him. "I am here though. How about we have some fun?"
Kai stared straight into her black eyes. He closed his eyes and exhaled. He slowly removed her hand from his shirt.
"Stop it. She's my sister."
Marissa's face fell in an instant. "Oh." She said with distaste.
Kai tried not to look behind at Bella who was probably looking at the whole scene with utter disgust. But Marissa was like that. She liked teasing people.
A nasty woman who was really good at her work.
Marissa jerked her chin toward the stairwell. "She's in her office. She already knows you're here."
"Thanks." Kai smiled faintly and headed for the stairs.
"Don't get too close to her," he added over his shoulder to Bella. "She's an alchemist. That perfume isn't just perfume. It's an aphrodisiac."
"Fuck you, D'yavol." Marissa roared behind him as he entered the den.
Bella entered behind him with a slight exhale.
"Who the hell was that woman?" Bella said almost too loudly in the midst of all the sound.
The inside of the gambling house pulsed with low laughter, loud groans and cheers and clattering of dice against wood. Smoke clung low, visible under the magic lanterns that were fueled probably by the fire of another Alchemist.
"She's an acquaintance." Kai walked through without hesitation.
The layout hadn't changed.
Card tables to the left, , betting pits to the right and a bar straight in the middle. He spotted the staircase to the end of the corridor that led to the private offices of the gang's head. He walked straight towards it.
Halfway there, he heard a loud scrape of a chair.
He didn't stop walking.
"That's not for guests." A voice slurred behind him.
Kai's gaze shifted slightly. Bella noticed too. He felt her attention sharpen.
Three men sat near the bar, trying hard not to look too drunk. Rigid posture, scarred hands.
A small firearm with a black chord tied to its end. Anti-magic firearms.
ASA.
One of them stood up and blocked the entrance of the staircase.
Kai's brows knitted.
Was this house under ASA's protection?
"You lost?" The man swayed slightly.
Kai stopped and paused, tilting his head slightly. "No."
The man smirked. "The floor is restricted."
Behind them the conversations were already dying down. Stares burned into his back.
Marissa said she knew he was here. So this wasn't completely random.
That old woman.
Interesting.
"Move," Kai said calmly.
The man didn't. That was mistake number one. His second mistake was reaching towards Kai's shoulders. Kai caught the wrist before it touched him and twisted. A groan rang through the air before he cracked the bone completely.
The man yelled as his arm bent in the wrong way, tears welling in his eyes. The other two lunged. Kai side-stepped one.
Bella kicked the other. She dove her elbow into his throat, air disappearing out of his lungs as he fell to the floor.
The third swung. Kai pivoted and caught his arm, twisting it to his back with his metal arm and smashed his face into the edge of the staircase.
The wood splintered. There was a moment of silence. But when the people saw the three weren't moving, they resumed their activities. As if nothing had happened.
After all this was normal in gambling houses.
The third man tried to hold a blade with his unbent hand, but got kicked in the face by Bella. "Fuckers," she cursed in Russian.
From the balcony above, he heard a low cackle.
A woman in her forties stood on top of the stairs. White short hair, brown eyes. A loose white shirt tucked into black pants and a coat slung over her shoulders.
The leader of the lions.
Odessa Vetle smiled.
"Well, well." She said lazily.
"If it isn't the devil himself."