Scene: The Weight of Names
Saki's pencil hovered over her notes, eyes darting between Nero and Eri. "Are you two...?"
Nero chuckled, adjusting Wanderer's silver-streaked wig. "Eri's the fire to my shadow. Where she burns bright, I flow through cracks."
"Poetic," Saki smiled, but her gaze lingered on Eri's hand possessively gripping Nero's sleeve. "Just friends?"
"She's my gravity," Nero's soul-voice brushed Eri's mind. "Without her, I'd drift into darkness."
Eri flushed, pulling Nero closer. "We're partners. In all things."
Scene: The Unbreakable Barrier
Battle practice echoed with clashing steel. Ayumi's blade danced – precise, lethal, empty.
"Wanderer! Your turn!" the instructor barked.
Nero feigned reluctance, summoning a paper-thin barrier of crystalline light. His opponent rained furious blows – each strike fracturing into prismatic shards that reformed instantly.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" students gasped. "Barriers can't self-heal!"
Ayumi's knuckles whitened. That shimmer... Nero's blue flames refined into light.
Scene: Birdsong and Bloodlines
Nero played a guitar beneath sakuras, notes weaving through petals. Birds alighted on his shoulders as Ayumi emerged from shadows.
"You mourn someone," Nero observed, melody shifting minor.
"My mother." Ayumi's voice cracked. "Assassinated by Nero Almik two years ago."
Nero's fingers stilled. A sparrow took flight. "Why would he kill her?"
"She discovered something that she wasn't supposed to." Ayumi's tears fell. "The night she died... Nero's blue flames scorched her study."
Scene: Echoes of Truth
In the training yard, Daiki parried Ayumi's distracted strikes. "Why dredge up Nero?"
"What if he's alive?"
Daiki's staff slammed the earth. "Then I'd ask why a boy who shared his last bread with slum kids would murder a queen." He leaned close, voice raw: "We knew his soul, Princess. While you nobles called him mongrel, he healed our wounds with flames that never burned skin – only pain."