The silence stretched long after the stare had begun — thick with weight, but brittle at the edges.
Haru's hands curled into loose fists at his sides.
He finally spoke.
"I'm clearly not good at this."
His voice was level, but his eyes weren't still anymore.
They flickered — with something like shame. Something like fire trying not to catch.
"I barely ever succeed. Not really. Half the time I'm just surviving, and the other half I'm cleaning up my own messes. I disappoint people, Leonidas. I know I do."
Leonidas' brows narrowed.
"That's not how we measure worth here."
"Well maybe we should."
The answer came faster than expected — sharper, a flick of flame through a quiet room.
Haru stepped forward, chin just slightly raised.
"For a team like the C-Team — with the quality we have, the talent we have — I should be overperforming. I should be raising the bar. But instead, I'm dragging behind it. What does that say about me?"
Leonidas didn't flinch. "It says you have potential."
Haru let out a breath — but it wasn't relief.
It was disbelief.
"That's not what I have. That's what people keep saying. That I could be this, I could become that — like there's some version of me waiting to wake up. But what if that version's just not there?"
Leonidas' gaze cooled. His tone shifted — not harsh, but solid.
"Your father had it."
"And I'm not my father!"
This time Haru's voice cut — louder than intended, but too late to pull back.
He blinked — once, tight — and his tone dropped low again, shaking at the edges.
"…He was different. Stronger. Smarter. Braver. He had presence. Even he couldn't hold it together forever. So how the hell am I supposed to live up to something even he couldn't maintain?"
"You don't live up to it," Leonidas said calmly, stepping closer. "You build toward it. You work. You keep showing up."
Haru looked at him — really looked at him — eyes wide with frustration, disbelief, a thousand questions behind clenched teeth.
"…Why?"
The word came quiet, but it cracked like glass.
"Why me?" Haru pressed, breathing quicker now. "Why do I have to lead? Why am I the one who has to carry this?"
Leonidas opened his mouth, but Haru didn't stop.
"I don't meet the standard. I never did. I'm not bold. I'm not confident. I'm not strong. I don't have control. I barely have discipline. And I've been faking it since the beginning — so tell me, why am I still here?!"
Leonidas didn't blink.
"Because you're special."
The room stilled.
Azrael, silent in the shadows, slowly raised his head. His tail stilled. His eyes narrowed.
Haru's breath caught. Then released — through clenched teeth.
"…Even if I'm special," he said bitterly, "I'm clearly not good enough."
Leonidas' gaze darkened with something unreadable.
"What's the real problem, Haru?"
Haru looked away. For a moment.
Then… looked back.
His voice was quieter now — the kind of quiet that echoed louder than a shout.
"I have dreams."
Leonidas said nothing.
"I see the Mivtzar of Einaim in ruin," Haru went on. "I see it burning. Collapsing. The Watchers… falling. And every time — I'm the reason."
He swallowed, throat tight.
"I don't know how. I don't know why. But I know I'm the one who causes it. And I can't — I won't — be the reason the Order dies."
Leonidas took a slow breath. "Everyone dreams."
"Not like I do."
Azrael rose to all fours now. Silent. Watching. Waiting.
Leonidas hesitated. Only for a second.
"…I know your dreams are different, Haru. I do. But you can't let them define your path in life."
"Then what's the point?" Haru snapped, voice rising again, trembling with restrained fury. "I was told that if I took this path — if I became Captain — I could become something more. Something better. A hero. But all I've become is a disappointment!"
The final word tore from him — not spoken, spilled.
Leonidas' expression faltered. The room pulled tight around them, air heavy with heat and silence.
Haru stood there — chest rising and falling, jaw clenched — the weight of too many expectations pressing against his spine.
Then… he exhaled.
Long. Low.
And when he spoke again, his voice had dropped to that steady, fragile quiet again.
"…I'm sorry. But I can't be the Captain — no — a member of the C-Team anymore."
Leonidas straightened. His face was unreadable but his voice was becoming more and more melancholic.
"There will never be another Captain approved to take your place. I won't pick one. I won't allow it."
Haru turned sharply — eyes wide. Shock flashing through him like ice in the bloodstream.
He looked at Leonidas. Really looked at him.
And saw the truth in his face.
Not strategy. Not manipulation.
Just belief.
And it hurt.
He looked away.
"Then you'll have to figure it out yourself," he muttered, voice hollow.
"I'm going home."
Leonidas stepped forward. "HARU—"
But Haru was already walking.
And this time — he didn't look back.
Haru walked in silence, each footstep echoing too loudly down the pristine corridor.
His thoughts churned louder than his pace — looping back to Leonidas' words, his own outburst, the look in his uncle's eyes when he said he was quitting.
The sharp, silent blow that passed between them.
Azrael padded just behind him, paws making no sound on the polished floor.
"You know," the cat said, voice calm but pointed, "that's not a good place to leave things. With your uncle. Or your commander."
Haru didn't stop walking.
"I don't care," he muttered.
Azrael snorted softly. "You care. That's exactly why you said all of that."
Haru glanced over, just once. Then looked away.
Said nothing.
Azrael didn't press. He just followed.
Ahead, the corridor opened up into a wide observation platform — tall archways on one side, open to the outside, lined with thin silver columns and glowing rail points.
The light outside was fading — not into night, but into something else.
That golden, silver-washed hour unique to the citadel where time didn't pass so much as breathe.
Haru slowed as he reached the edge.
From here, he could see the city — all of it.
The towering spires of the citadel stretched impossibly high, like fingers of divinity piercing the clouds.
Their surfaces shimmered with etched sigils and moving glyphs, glowing softly against the backdrop of sky.
The glass-like panels and energy conduits rippled faintly like water across their curved faces.
The tallest ones vanished into the firmament, too high to measure.
Below, the city unfolded in full orchestration.
The canals shimmered. Bridges webbed out like lace.
White and light grey-cloaked citizens moved through the lower levels like ants in a silent ballet — small from here, but full of purpose.
And above them all — ships.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Aerial vessels shaped like divine spears carved in ivory and obsidian, their hulls engraved in golden script, engines glowing blue as they soared through the city's airspace.
Some large enough to blot out the stars in the sky for just a moment.
Some were small and fast like birds in orbit.
They moved in perfect arcs, crisscrossing layers of traffic — a sky alive with direction.
The entire city breathed coordination. Order. Design.
And yet Haru stood there, lost.
Small.
For a moment, he stared at his own reflection faintly mirrored in the polished frame of the arch.
He didn't realise the single tear that had fallen down his face.
But he did realise how high he was.
Then he looked down again.
He could leave. He could vanish into the crowd, throw on a grey cloak and ride the line all the way back to the border district. Back home.
His bed. His shows. Some leftover instant curry.
No more pressure.
No more "Captain."
Just silence.
But—
There was a pull.
Not strong. Not violent.
Just… persistent.
A hum in his soul. A tug behind the ribs.
Like something calling him upward.
He blinked. Whispered aloud, more to himself than anyone else:
"…Seisaku?"
The name tasted strange in his mouth.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was everything.
Maybe it was just his nerves, twisting like they always did after a confrontation.
Or maybe…
He exhaled.
"…Screw it."
At the very least, the view would be good.
He slipped his hand into the inside of his blazer pocket and pulled out his wireless earbuds — small, beat-up, and familiar in that quiet way some things are. He popped them in, the world softening just slightly as the vibe settled into his bones.
Then he turned.
And made his way to the rooftop.
It took a while but he eventually made it there after a bit of searching.
As Haru stepped onto the rooftop.
The wind met him like an old friend — quiet, cold, and full of secrets. Up here, everything felt thinner. The air. The silence. Even the space between his thoughts.
This was one of the tallest towers in the Mivtzar of Einaim — a structure so high it breached the outer veil of the city's atmosphere. There were no railings. Just a flat obsidian surface that reflected the sky above like a dark mirror.
He walked to the edge.
And looked out.
There was no sun in the Mivtzar.
Only stars — endless and unblinking, scattered across the sky like divine brushstrokes.
Some burned soft blue. Others pulsed gold or violet, white or crimson, each glowing in quiet harmony.
It wasn't warm. It wasn't cold.
It just… was.
Haru stood still as the last of the citadel's light faded behind him, the night deepening like ink poured over glass.
His music pulsed gently in his ears, the world quiet around him, almost far away — like he was watching it through a window instead of living inside it.
His gaze stretched outward.
And upward.
So many possibilities.
So many dreams.
He hated it.
All those things inside him — the visions, the feelings, the aching hope that maybe, just maybe, he could matter beyond surviving.
They rose in him like tidewater, filling the space behind his ribs, and he tried to ignore them, bury them, talk himself out of them.
You're just not good enough.
Dreams just make things worse.
They're not practical.
They're not real. You will just keep being a disappointment.
One slipped tear slid down his cheek before he caught it.
He wiped it hard with his sleeve — jaw tightening, eyes still locked on the stars like they were mocking him.
Another one escaped. Then another.
"Seriously?" he muttered, scrubbing at his face with his arm. "No. Not now. Not— dammit—come on—"
His voice cracked. Just slightly.
Azrael sat a few feet away, curled with his tail wrapped around his paws. He didn't speak. Didn't smirk. Didn't judge.
He just watched — with eyes soft and ancient. A kind of pity Haru would never accept, and a sympathy he couldn't admit he needed.
Haru sniffed, shaking his head, muttering to himself, taking off his earbuds and wiping at his face again with angry little motions, like he could erase the emotion if he scrubbed hard enough.
Then—
A voice.
Soft. Feminine. Light like breath across still water.
"…Are you okay?"
And everything was still.
The wind paused.
The stars, distant and quiet, seemed to listen.
Haru froze.
The voice hadn't come from Azrael.
It hadn't come from his head.
It was real.
Delicate. Gentle. Almost too kind to belong in this world.
He turned slowly—shoulders still tense, jaw still clenched—eyes red-rimmed from wiping tears he refused to name.
And for a moment…
He didn't breathe.
The rooftop, the night, the weight on his back—
All of it fell away.
Only the question remained.
"Are you okay?"
Haru had fully turned toward the voice.
And his breath was caught.
She stood just a few paces away, framed by the starlit backdrop of the Mivtzar of Einaim's skyline.
The light of the city below flickered against her figure, casting delicate, rippling glows along the smooth curves of her suit — but it was her presence that stilled him.
She was tall — tall for a girl, only a hair shorter than him — and carried herself like someone born in glass halls and golden chambers.
Every motion was effortless, refined, like she'd been trained in the art of grace since childhood. Yet there was no arrogance in it — just a kind of calm authority, a composure that made the world feel quieter around her.
Her skin was a rich, warm bronze — flawless, glowing with a softness that seemed kissed by the light of a thousand dawns.
Her long white-silver hair poured down her back in perfect waves, the strands catching the starlight like spun moonlight. It wasn't wild — it was regal. Styled but free, like it was meant to move with the wind and always fall back into perfect place.
And then there were her eyes.
Gold.
Not the pale kind. Not soft or hazel or honey.
Gold.
Rich. Deep. Luminous. Like they could see through the night and still find something good in it.
She wore a full-body suit in white, gold and a hint of black, trimmed with fine angular gold lines that followed the shape of her form with elegant precision. It was tight, but not flashy. Protective, but sleek.
Every piece of it looked custom — expensive — designed not just for function but to be seen. The subtle ridges of her gloves, the fine detailing along the collar, the way the fabric curved into itself along her waist — all of it bespoke.
She looked like something from a dream — or a story Haru once believed in before the world got too heavy.
"…Are you okay?" she asked again, softly. Her voice was like a warm string quartet — composed, gentle, and unmistakably poised.
Haru blinked. The wind stirred his hair. His face still burned faintly from the tears he'd just wiped away.
He straightened subtly, trying not to seem too flustered, and cleared his throat.
"…Yeah," he said, voice low. "I'm okay."
She studied him for a moment.
Her eyes dipped — not aggressively, just observantly — and Haru instinctively slid his hands into his pockets, hiding the number marked on the back of his hand.
Can't let her see.
Because just above the curve of her right hand, where the soft light of the city met her wrist —
78.
A C-Team mark.
She's new, he thought. They must've brought her in while I was gone.
He felt something twist slightly in his chest — not jealousy. Just… distance. Like the team had moved forward without him. Like the world had, too.
Her gaze returned to his face, and for a second longer than he liked, she didn't speak.
Then, gently, with a small, curious tilt of her head:
"…Are you sure?"
Haru hesitated — just a fraction.
But he nodded. "Yeah. Just needed air."
She didn't press.
She smiled — and it was a soft, refined smile. Not teasing. Not forced. The kind of smile people trained in etiquette are taught to give, but this one felt real. Compassionate, but not invasive.
She knew he'd been crying. And she knew he didn't want to talk about it.
So she didn't.
Instead, she turned her head toward the stars, her posture still poised, but her expression thoughtful now.
"…Why are you up here?"
He looked out again, thankful for the shift.
"To think," he said. "I didn't plan it. Just… ended up here."
She nodded slowly. "Same."
They stood like that for a while — not close, not far — just existing beside each other at the top of a world neither of them seemed fully at peace in.
And for the first time that night…
Haru didn't feel completely alone.
Cause this time there was two kindred souls looking out towards eternity. Both trying to find their place in it.
Both dreaming.
Both desiring.
Both wishing.
That this one moment…
Could be one of the Turning Points of their lives.