Ether had stayed behind. When Ethan had gathered his cloak and prepared to leave, the beige-masked one had only raised a gloved hand, stopping him at the warehouse threshold. "The knowledge of this world is not learned in books or under my shadow, Ethan. Walk through Onité. Observe how men live when they stop being slaves to what they feel. Wermilyass and I have matters from the past to settle."
Now, alone, Ethan walked through the basalt stone streets of Onité.
The absence of Ether's overwhelming presence made the air feel strangely lighter, but also more vulnerable. Without his mentor nearby, the weight of doubt returned with redoubled violence. The city's streets opened into a labyrinth of Gothic and industrial buildings, bathed in the dim light of vertical neons that barely cast shadows.
As he ventured into the central districts, the cultural shock hit him in subtle but disturbing waves.
On a corner, two men crossed paths. They did not embrace, did not smile, nor showed the slightest sign of warm recognition.
"Who are you today, Vane?" asked one of them, his voice flat, devoid of inflection.
"Sixty percent of what I was yesterday. The rest served to pay the rent in the south district," replied the other, adjusting a mirrored visor that covered half his face.
"May your void be stable."
Ethan swallowed hard and looked away, quickening his pace. A little further ahead, the glass facade of the Bank of Souls of Onité displayed reinforced glass vials in its windows. Inside the vials, luminescent liquids and mists of warm colors floated in suspension. Labels written in surgical calligraphy identified the contents: "Childhood Nostalgia (Purity 85%)", "Military Ambition", "Appreciation for Art".
People entered that building like they were going to a butcher's shop, ready to exchange precious memories for credit coins or for an anesthetic apathy.
Ethan stopped in front of a darker alley, leaning against the cold wall of polished stone. His chest felt heavy. Ether's words and Wermilyass's cold insults resonated in his head in an incessant cycle.
"If you want Zirinos's head, you have to stop being a Whole. You have to cut the pain."
But should he? Making the First Cut meant tearing from his own chest the ability to feel grief for Ana, Sara, and Ariny. If he stopped crying for them, if he erased the pain that had consumed him since the fall of Endomyar, what would remain of him? Wouldn't he be murdering the memory of the Decatry sisters for the second time, trading his humanity for a mechanical coldness?
"If I don't feel their pain... who will?" thought Ethan, squeezing his eyes shut. Doubt gnawed at him. He wanted revenge, he wanted Zirinos's blood, but the price demanded by Orhtid seemed to be his own soul. He stood there, pondering whether to transform himself into one of that planet's apathetic monsters.
The alley where he stood was narrow and poorly lit, surrounded by old abandoned loading depots. Onité's sepulchral silence seemed even denser there.
A soft rustle of fabric against stone broke the stillness.
Ethan opened his eyes and turned, his hand instinctively dropping to the sheath of his blade.
From a dark corner, between two columns of corroded stone, a silhouette emerged. She was completely covered from head to toe in rags and cloths of dirty white, made of cheap, rough material that dragged slightly on the ground. On her face, she wore a white porcelain mask, smooth and without any expression or adornment.
Despite the voluminous cloths, the shape of the body was undeniable: the wide hips and thin waist revealed it was a woman.
"Who are you?" asked Ethan, his voice tense, stepping back. "Did Ether send you?"
The woman did not answer. She did not make a single sound. She only took a step forward with an unnatural lightness.
Ethan tried to draw his steel, but his reaction was too slow, numbed by fatigue and the doubts poisoning his mind. In a ridiculously fast and precise movement, the woman advanced. She did not draw a bladed weapon or a magical artifact; in her right hand, she carried only a heavy piece of plywood, torn from some ruined structure.
Before Ethan could raise his arm to defend himself, the piece of wood cut through the air in a dry, violent arc, hitting him with brutal force directly on the back of his neck.
A dull crack echoed in Ethan's skull.
The force of the impact made the world spin in an instant vortex. The boy's legs gave way and he collapsed forward, falling heavily to his knees on the cold stone of the alley. The floor seemed to tilt, the neon light faded into a gray blur, and his vision began to close around a tunnel of darkness.
As his consciousness faded and his face pressed against the dusty ground, the memory of physical pain merged with a sudden, disconnected recollection. His shattered mind traveled back in time, to the exact moment he had woken up in the fifth world, surrounded by ashes, and had slapped Ana to wake her from her nightmare.
Ethan's last thought, before the abyss completely swallowed him, echoed like a dying whisper in his mind:
"Rosemary... and blood...?"
His vision went completely dark.
Above his inert body, the woman dressed in white rags remained motionless. Her faceless porcelain mask stared at the unconscious young man in absolute silence, without uttering a single word, only watching as darkness took him.