– CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT –

  THE FART

  O flash came without warning, too white to be light, too hot to be merely glare. For half a second, Americ-Ana lost the world, as if the Seractcube had spat reality into her face and said, "run."

  When her vision returned, she was on the "X."

  The "X" on the asphalt didn’t look like a track marking, it looked like an opened seal. The old Bugatti inherited from Helena Blavatsky reappeared there like an animal ripped out of a dream, tires biting the ground, suspension complaining, engine swallowing air as if it were hungry for blood. BAAL’s skin wrapped everything, the car, the four of them, even their breathing. Americ-Ana felt the living scales settle around the steering wheel, like fingers that weren’t fingers, as if the demon were confirming: "we’re back."

  Poppandacorn sat in the passenger seat, small and absurd, a robotic plush panda-unicorn in living armor, eyes shining with a childlike fear that didn’t belong with the hell outside. In the back, Astyam already leaned forward, infernal goggles stuck to his face, trying to turn panic into calculation. Wwwyye set her shoulders, ready to protect the rear, with the kind of energy that doesn’t ask permission to survive.

  Americ-Ana swallowed hard. The air of the Solomon Coliseum tasted of heated metal and judgment. There was no time to understand, only to act. The "X" was exit, it was return, it was finish line, all at once, and the route now was short, cruel, without mercy, one lap through the smaller section and back to the same point, as if fate had reduced the world to a circle just to see who bleeds first.

  Up ahead, the track opened into tight curves, nervous, fast. A slice of asphalt and violence, then a cramped contour that made the stomach remember it exists, and finally the promise of the bottleneck, the inevitable turn back to the “X”. It was a sprint. It was a dagger. It was “don’t blink”.

  Americ-Ana felt BAAL inside the car like a spiritual engine. The acceleration came thick, infernal, as if the Bugatti had been made for this since before the world’s first lie. The steering wheel vibrated, the dashboard trembled, and the engine’s sound climbed, deep and ancient, a throat from another era with modern hatred inside.

  "Hold on, Poppa." Her voice came out low, unromantic, only command.

  Poppandacorn pressed his little paws to his own chest, as if he could hold the seven seals of RONOVE there inside fate, and not only in the game’s inventory. Astyam drew a single, long breath, like someone marking the beginning of a plan. Wwwyye said nothing, but her silence was a blade.

  The Bugatti left the "X" behind and dove into the first sequence of curves. And in that instant, Americ-Ana understood what the Seractcube truly did to winners: it didn’t return you to the track, it returned you to the arena.

  And the "X" was waiting at the end of the road, like a mouth that only opens to swallow the first one who comes back.

  The sound came before the presence.

  A sharp, modern roar, different from the old deep growl of Blavatsky’s Bugatti, as if the air itself were being sawed. Americ-Ana felt the vibration cut through BAAL’s skin and bite the steering wheel.

  In the rearview mirror, two eyes of light swelled too fast.

  The Bugatti Bolide appeared glued to them, devouring distance, and then slid to the side with indecent ease. In a blink of the world, Parys drew level with Americ-Ana, side by side on the short stretch of the smaller track, too close to be "racing," close enough to be a threat.

  "It’s her," Astyam said, voice low, already calculating behind the infernal goggles.

  Wwwyye didn’t move, but her entire body went ready.

  "She’s going to try to kill us."

  Poppandacorn shrank into the front seat.

  "Mommy…"

  Americ-Ana held her line without yielding a centimeter. On the other side, Parys Bloodpure turned her face, and her smile was cold, without joy, only hunger. The favorite. The darling. The second-best player in THE-IMPERIUM. And there, running abreast, she didn’t look interested in winning, she looked interested in ruining.

  The track ahead tightened into the next sequence of curves, obeying the route’s arrows, and Parys tipped the Bolide a little too far, invading space the way someone tests an opponent’s courage.

  BAAL’s skin bristled along the bodywork, alive, irritated, and the crowd roared as if it could smell an impact coming.

  Then the two of them entered the first curve together, side by side, too fast, too close, as if the track had become a blade and someone had decided only one car would come out whole.

  The smaller course cinched into quick bends, arrows ordering them to turn and return, and the two Bugattis went in together as if someone had thrown two knives into the same cut.

  Blavatsky’s old Bugatti was weight and memory, but BAAL was inside, and that turned elegance into fury. Americ-Ana made micro-corrections on the wheel, millimeters of decision, feeling the scales of the living skin respond, tightening along the bodywork like muscle, pinning the car to the ground when the rear threatened to slip.

  Beside her, Parys’s Bolide seemed to deny the curve’s existence. It surged half a hood ahead, fell half a hood back, invaded space the way someone tests courage. RONOVE thrummed there, an invisible pressure, pushing at the air, wanting to crush.

  "She wants to shove you off the line," Astyam said, dry, reading geometry through the glass. "Hold the center."

  Wwwyye went rigid in the back seat, ready to guard the rear, ready to bite back if chaos touched them.

  Poppandacorn lifted his little paws, as if he could defend the front of the car with his own body, eyes bright with loyalty.

  Americ-Ana braked late, went in hard, and for one second the two cars ran so close the world seemed to hold its breath. She felt the drag of wind, the risk of contact, the scent of disaster.

  Parys turned her face, still glued to her, still cold, and her smile wasn’t victory, it was execution.

  The two Bugattis kept dancing through the sequence of curves, too fast, too close, and Americ-Ana understood: this wasn’t a sprint, it was attempted murder at high speed.

  Suddenly, the air changed.

  Poppandacorn was the first to feel it. His eyes flickered, and he turned his little face toward nothing, as if he were listening to a sound that didn’t exist for anyone else.

  "Mommy… Poppa’s sensors…" he whispered, frightened. "The atmosphere… it’s turning wrong."

  Astyam already had the infernal goggles working. The lenses reflected numbers and invisible lines in the air, and his jaw tightened.

  "It isn’t wind," he said. "It’s an opening. She set it off."

  Before Americ-Ana could ask "who," Parys’s Bolide answered with its effect.

  Her car’s exhaust deformed like a mouth, and a dark jet, hot, almost liquid, erupted backward. Smoke and black embers burst outward, and then the Coliseum sky above the track filled with form.

  Skeletal warriors. Visible. Solid.

  Curved horns, shattered armor, long swords, cracked shields. An entire legion, six thousand infernal soldiers of RONOVE, pouring into existence, running along the edges of the track, flying low over the asphalt, rising and dropping like an armed swarm. Several were already coming straight for the corridor between the cars, trying to reach tire, hood, throat, any point that could kill.

  Wwwyye braced herself in the back seat, ready to hold the rear. Poppandacorn didn’t look away.

  Americ-Ana felt the pressure of the attack as if the air itself had weight. There was no time to hesitate. She tightened her grip on the wheel, felt BAAL’s skin bristle along the bodywork, and spoke in the voice the game obeyed.

  "BAAL, DETONATE a legion."

  The old Bugatti answered at once.

  The exhaust transfigured, pulsing incandescent, spitting red smoke and molten embers. And from that jet more warriors were born, bone and steel, horns and blades, materializing visible, solid, filling the space around the car like infernal bodyguards thrown into war. Six thousand infernal soldiers of BAAL.

  Above, the two legions were already colliding. Metal against metal, bone against shadow, screams and sparks in the sky. And on the ground, some tried to drop lower, trying to invade the corridor like hungry parasites.

  And even so, Parys stayed alongside, glued to her, pressing.

  The smaller course kept folding into tight curves, and now the race had become open combat.

  The sky became a war field.

  The two legions of infernal soldiers collided in the air with the sound of ancient metal and new hatred. Swords struck swords, shields burst into sparks, bones snapped like dry wood. With every clean hit, a soldier exploded into black smoke and vanished, like ash torn away by wind.

  CLANG. CLANG. RRRRAAHH.

  It was an ugly battle, brutal, without heroism. Only shove, blade, horn, broken armor, scream. Six thousand against six thousand, tearing at each other above the asphalt as if the sky were an arena hanging overhead.

  But not all of them stayed trapped up there.

  Some breached the wall.

  A warrior of RONOVE dropped like an arrow and came straight for the corridor between the cars, trying to reach the hood of Americ-Ana’s Bugatti. Another dove along the side, hunting the tire, hunting the weak point. BAAL’s skin reacted, scales tightening, repelling a blow that cut the wind a hand’s breadth from the bodywork.

  "They’re trying to get in, Mommy!" Poppandacorn screamed, his thin voice trembling.

  Wwwyye leaned forward, feral, and seized the rear window as if it were a trench. A soldier tried to come down along the side, and she struck with what she had, BAAL answering in her body, making the motion heavy, precise, infernal. The skeleton was thrown off axis and unraveled in midair into smoke.

  Astyam spoke low and fast, as if he were playing chess at high speed.

  "Don’t let them latch on. If one latches on, it climbs. If it climbs, it reaches you, Americ-Ana."

  Americ-Ana held her line, curves tightening, steering wheel vibrating, and Parys’s Bolide stayed there, glued to her, using the chaos as cover. The legion above was war, but the real danger was in the ones dropping down, the ones that wanted to touch, suffocate, cut.

  Another soldier broke through the aerial brawl and fell into the corridor, coming like an armed parasite. BAAL’s legion intercepted at the last second, two blades meeting, and the creature burst into black smoke, vanishing as if it had never existed.

  Above, the battle continued, unending, a storm of bone and steel.

  On the ground, the race went on.

  And the two Bugattis remained running abreast, as if death were trying to decide which door to knock on first.

  Even with the war still raging in the Coliseum sky, the pattern had changed.

  Astyam saw it first through the infernal goggles.

  "Split attack. RONOVE is coming for us. BAAL is pressuring her."

  The first soldier dropped and latched onto the side of the Bugatti, climbing fast, claws searching for a seam. BAAL’s skin tightened along the bodywork, trying to throw him off, but he was already scrambling upward.

  Wwwyye threw herself back. Her arm transformed, flesh becoming extension, extension becoming blade. A living sword, scaled, black. She cut the soldier in the air, and the creature fell into smoke, but the enemy blade scraped her first. A quick wound, hot blood. Wwwyye didn’t retreat.

  Another came straight for Astyam.

  Poppandacorn raised the adaptable shield. The shield changed shape on impact and caught the sword with a dry sound. Poppandacorn shook, but struck back with the shield, hurling the soldier away, and it unraveled into black smoke a hand’s breadth from his face.

  "Poppa is getting the crap kicked out of Poppa!" Poppandacorn shouted, incredulous.

  A strike slipped through and caught Astyam in passing. Pain and blood. He clenched his jaw and kept the goggles on.

  "Don’t lose focus."

  Americ-Ana held her line, curves tightening, steering wheel vibrating. She couldn’t look back, she could only drive and trust.

  Beside her, Parys’s Bolide was under pressure too. BAAL’s legion dropped onto her, trying to break the pairing, but Parys didn’t yield an inch.

  And then Americ-Ana saw the detail.

  A minimal adjustment in the Bolide’s angle, too precise to be instinct.

  Like someone finding an opening.

  Like someone setting up the next move.

  Parys made the move in the middle of the chaos, as if chaos itself were the cover.

  The Bolide gave a micro-shift, almost imperceptible, and a soldier from RONOVE’s legion dropped like a snap, latching onto Parys’s car with absurd naturalness. In the next instant, he was in control, slotted in as if he had always been the driver, bony hands steady, hollow eyes locked on the track.

  And Parys… Parys let go of the wheel.

  Americ-Ana caught the motion in the corner of her eye and her stomach dropped. Parys had handed the Bolide’s steering to an infernal soldier of RONOVE, while she had other plans to fulfill. The soldier adjusted himself in the driver’s seat, pressed the wheel with both skeletal hands, and kept the Bolide at the same speed.

  "Parys let go of the car," Astyam said, and for a second his voice lost its coldness.

  Parys rose on her own Bolide, the wind lashing her hair like a whip, RONOVE’s skin vibrating on her body like a living threat. Then she launched herself sideways, a clean, precise leap, permitted, suicidal for any ordinary human.

  Parys Bloodpure landed on the hood of Americ-Ana’s Bugatti.

  BAAL’s skin on the hood tightened like an animal under attack, scales bristling, trying to throw off the weight. But Parys drove her hands and feet in like claws, and the impact made the entire car shudder. The world became wind and metal. The smaller course kept cinching into curves, and now there was a person on the hood, glued to the windshield, staring straight at Americ-Ana.

  Poppandacorn let out a short sound of panic.

  Wwwyye raised the living sword, ready to reach the front if she had to. Astyam held his breath, reading angles, reading risk.

  Americ-Ana felt BAAL answer under her fingers, as if the demon wanted to bite Parys right there.

  But Parys smiled.

  And then she struck the windshield with her fist, not to break glass, but to test it. To measure. To say, "I’m here."

  The legion was still fighting above, some soldiers still dropping down, and even so the world’s focus narrowed to that hood.

  Parys lifted her face, pressed closer to the glass, and stared at Americ-Ana the way someone stares at a sentence.

  And it was in that instant that her face began to change.

  Parys’s face began to move.

  Not like an expression. Like matter.

  Her skin lost its firmness and became something like living clay, soft and plastic, as if invisible hands were kneading from within. Her nose gave way, her cheekbones melted, her mouth stretched and rearranged, and Americ-Ana felt ice climb up the back of her neck.

  The first face surfaced and passed too fast to be a dream.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Chanceler.

  Seth.

  Patron Uvo.

  Thor.

  Jessie.

  Donnie.

  Abda.

  Beni.

  One by one, like masks swapped in seconds, like a catalog of people clicking into place and slipping out of the same flesh. Each transformation was clean and horrible, each new gaze carried the same intention behind it, as if the same something were looking from the inside out, only changing shape to test the impact.

  Americ-Ana almost lost the curve. Her instinct screamed to brake, to swerve, to do anything that would tear that terrifying sight away, but the track did not forgive. She held the line hard, hands steady, BAAL vibrating beneath the car’s skin.

  It took only seconds.

  Parys’s face set again. The clay became skin. Her features returned to normal as if nothing had happened, as if reality itself had blinked.

  Parys smiled again, this time with pleasure.

  And raised her arm to strike.

  Parys’s arm transformed.

  RONOVE’s skin stretched and hardened like living metal, and her hand became a blade, a sword born from the demon itself, long and sharp, shining with a sickly coldness in the middle of the wind.

  Parys aimed for Americ-Ana’s heart.

  Americ-Ana saw the strike coming and, for a second, the entire world became too small to hold it. She gripped the wheel hard, knowing she couldn’t let go for even a millisecond. There was no way to move her body, no way to lift an arm, no way to react, only drive and die.

  But BAAL reacted before she did.

  The car’s living skin contracted with violence and slammed sideways, like a gigantic muscle shoving Parys’s intent off axis. The blow missed its mark, but it didn’t lose its force.

  The sword went through Americ-Ana’s shoulder.

  It drove in fully, punching straight through, tearing flesh, biting deep, as if it meant to pin her to the seat. Pain came like a black flash, an explosion inside the body. The wheel almost slipped away. Americ-Ana let out a scream that didn’t feel like a voice, it felt like pure instinct, and blood heated her sleeve, ran fast, frightening, real.

  BAAL’s skin closed around the wound as if it had teeth.

  Living scales contracted, pressing, stemming, fighting to keep the blood from leaving. It was like feeling something trying to stitch from the inside while the body was still in shock on the outside.

  "No… no…" Americ-Ana gasped, forcing the line, her shoulder burning as if it were a live coal.

  Poppandacorn saw.

  His panic turned to fury, and his voice burst out loud, childish and ferocious, cutting through the chaos like a siren.

  "DON’T HURT POPPA’S MOMMY, YOU UGLY MEAN EVIL LADY!!!"

  And he jumped.

  An impossible leap for a robotic plush panda-unicorn, straight for Parys’s head. Poppandacorn latched onto her face and covered her eyes with his little paws, as if he meant to blind death.

  Parys punched.

  Punch after punch, striking her own head to try to rip him off. Poppandacorn held on, shaking, and then he bit. He bit her fingers hard, like a little animal possessed by desperation, and Parys let out a sound of rage.

  Wwwyye didn’t lose a second.

  The living sword in her arm gleamed dark, and she drove the blade into Parys’s stomach, punching through with violence, as if she meant to tear her rival in half in the middle of motion. The strike was dry, direct, permitted, brutal.

  Parys lost her balance.

  Poppandacorn let go, sprang again, and was back in the passenger seat in an instant, panting, eyes blinking in alarm, as if he still couldn’t believe what he’d done.

  Astyam rose from the back seat like a snap. He didn’t think, he executed. A hard kick, a full-body strike, and Parys was thrown off the hood, hurled toward the asphalt.

  For a second, it looked like she would hit the track and be crushed by her own fate.

  But before she touched the ground, a soldier from RONOVE’s legion caught her in midair.

  Skeletal arms, armor creaking, and Parys was yanked out of the fall as if she’d been reeled in by a hook from hell. In a blink, she was being carried back to the Bolide, returned to her own machine, her own demon.

  And the focus snapped back inside Americ-Ana’s Bugatti.

  "Mommy!" Poppandacorn whimpered, desperate, staring at her shoulder.

  Wwwyye leaned in, eyes lit, ready to kill the world if she had to. Astyam was already back to calculation, but his voice faltered with care.

  "Breathe. Tell me your hand is steady. Tell me you’re not going to black out."

  Americ-Ana drew air as if it were her first time in the universe.

  The pain throbbed, her shoulder felt split open in fire, but BAAL kept tightening, stitching, sealing, fighting for her. She swallowed the panic and spoke in a voice that was both plea and command.

  "BAAL… I trust you to heal me."

  The living skin answered.

  The scales contracted even more, and the sensation was grotesque and miraculous, as if invisible fingers were pulling flesh back into the right place. The bleeding eased. The wound began to close, slowly, stubborn, painful, but closing.

  Americ-Ana moaned, squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then opened them again, staring down the track.

  "I’M FINE! I’M FINE! LET’S FINISH THIS RACE!"

  The old Bugatti answered with a roar, and the curves of the smaller course were already running out.

  The "X" was ahead.

  And fate, hungry, waited for the return.

  Americ-Ana kept the old Bugatti steady, her shoulder still burning inside, but BAAL’s skin holding everything in place, stitching the impossible while the world demanded speed. Above, the legions kept tearing at each other in the Coliseum sky, metal and bone clashing in bursts of screams, and the smaller track kept tightening toward the final return.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  That was when it happened.

  A sound. A single sound.

  A FART so loud and so heavy it felt like an explosion.

  Americ-Ana felt the whole car shudder and, for an instant, her brain screamed "bomb." The wheel almost turned by itself in her hands, and her heart jumped as if it had taken a shock.

  "What the fuck was that?" Wwwyye growled, already ready to attack anything that had touched the car.

  Poppandacorn froze in the passenger seat, eyes wide, little paws held up in the air as if he had just pressed a forbidden button in the universe.

  Then Americ-Ana saw it.

  Purple smoke coming out of Poppandacorn’s butt.

  It wasn’t a little smoke. It was a plume. A dense, supernatural purple trail, as if hell itself had let out an indecent sigh.

  "Poppa…" Americ-Ana said, not taking her eyes off the track, but her voice threaded with disbelief. "Did you… did you just… fart?"

  "Mommy…" Poppandacorn whispered, horrified. "Robots don’t fart."

  Another FART popped, smaller but fast, and the purple smoke burst out again, like a machine-gun shot in the middle of the apocalypse.

  Poppandacorn brought a little paw to his belly and made a face, as if his body were betraying every law of manufacture.

  "There’s… there’s something moving in here," he said, and his voice trembled. "Poppa is feeling… pain. That doesn’t make sense."

  Astyam didn’t even have time to really look, infernal goggles locked on the track and on the legions, his voice cutting the air like a combat coordinate.

  "Curve’s tightening. Hold it. Focus on the return."

  Americ-Ana obeyed, but her stomach clenched. Because Poppandacorn was writhing in the seat as if there were an animal inside him trying to get out. BAAL’s skin over him contracted and expanded along with it, as if it, too, were confused.

  Poppandacorn let out another fart, more purple, more desperate, and started to panic.

  "Mommy… Poppa… Poppa thinks this is going to get worse," he said, his eyes blinking on maximum alert. "Poppa thinks Poppa is going to poop Poppa’s pants."

  "Poop your pants?" Americ-Ana repeated, not believing it, and even so she kept driving, because the "X" was right there, pulling the world like a magnet.

  Poppandacorn writhed more, as if there were an alien inside his plush belly trying to be born. BAAL’s skin over him tightened, expanded, and with each contraction came another sound.

  FART-FART-FART.

  Now it was a burst. A fart machine-gun.

  And every fart released thick purple smoke, coming out of Poppandacorn’s butt like an emergency flare from hell.

  "This doesn’t exist," Wwwyye said, furious and scared at the same time. "Poopghene robots don’t get stomachaches."

  "Poppa knows!" Poppandacorn whined. "But it hurts! It’s moving! It’s tearing from the inside!"

  Astyam, still calling coordinates for the course and the legions, turned his head for a second and went wide-eyed. Then he snapped his focus back to the track, as if he refused to accept what he’d seen.

  "Not now. Not now."

  Americ-Ana spoke without taking her eyes off the final return. "Poppa, is it Cupcake? Are you going to do Cupcake?"

  "No!" Poppandacorn screamed, desperate. "It’s not Cupcake! Poppa… Poppa doesn’t know what it is! It’s coming out!"

  Another FART cracked, so loud it sounded like a gunshot, and Poppandacorn went into total panic.

  "Poppa is going… Poppa is going… Poppa is going to poop!" he announced as if he were confessing a crime against logic.

  And then, as if his body had decided there was no longer a choice, Poppandacorn yanked BAAL’s skin down like pants, hiked his butt up on the seat, and aimed it at the void, at the wind, at the track running beneath them.

  "No, Poppa!" Americ-Ana screamed, unable to turn. "Hold it!"

  "Poppa can’t!" he cried. "Poppa can’t do it!"

  The sound that came after was thunderous, grotesque, impossible.

  A jet of purple smoke, denser, brighter, exploded backward as if the car had released a purple flare from its rear. And with that flare… no poop came out.

  A seal came out.

  A piece of RONOVE’s seal, spat into the air, spinning and dropping onto the track behind them.

  Poppandacorn froze.

  Everyone froze.

  "No…" Poppandacorn whispered, his eyes blinking in terror. "No, no, no…"

  Then another came out.

  And another.

  One by one, the seals were expelled into the wind, flew like cursed coins, and fell onto the asphalt behind them, abandoned, lost, as if fate were ripping victory away with its own hands.

  "POPPANDACORN!" Wwwyye screamed, her voice cutting through the chaos. "HOLD IT!"

  Astyam nearly lost his voice.

  "It’s the seals… it’s RONOVE’s seals… don’t let them fall!"

  Poppandacorn plunged into absolute despair.

  He squeezed his butt with his little paws, as if it were possible to lock a door to hell. He writhed, he cried, and then he did the most desperate thing in the world, as if logic no longer mattered.

  He shoved his little finger into his own butthole.

  "POPPA IS HOLDING IT!" he screamed, in panic. "POPPA IS HOLDING IT!"

  It didn’t help.

  His body convulsed again, the purple smoke exploded once more, and the last seals were spat out, all of them, the rest of them, ending any hope. Seven pieces in total, dropped along the way, scattered like a trail of defeat.

  Poppandacorn lifted his finger and looked at his own little paw, as if he were looking at a crime.

  "Mommy…" he said, broken. "Poppa… Poppa lost…"

  Americ-Ana saw the "X" grow on the asphalt.

  The finish line. The full lap. The possible victory.

  And at the same time, the certainty of disaster.

  Americ-Ana gripped the wheel, accelerated as if she could accelerate against fate, and the old Bugatti, possessed by BAAL, tore through the last stretch of the smaller course, returning to the "X" with a roar.

  They came in first. They crossed the finish line.

  But the seals… the seals were left behind.

  The old Bugatti crossed the "X" like a wounded comet, and for an instant the SOLOMON COLISEUM exploded.

  Millions.

  Millions of throats screaming at the same time, a collective roar that made the air tremble, that made the chest vibrate from the inside, that turned the painted line on the asphalt into a sacred border. Lights burst in the stands like an electric storm, drones wheeled overhead like metallic flies, and Americ-Ana’s name, even if fragile, even if a scholarship girl, was swallowed by the noise of the world as if she had become myth for one second.

  Americ-Ana braked hard.

  The Bugatti jolted violently, tires singing, and her whole body complained. Her struck shoulder burned as if the sword were still inside it, and she had to clamp the scream between her teeth so she wouldn’t let go of the wheel at the last instant. BAAL’s skin tightened along the bodywork as if the car itself could feel pain, and the engine dropped its revs in a deep, hot, panting hiccup.

  For one second, there was that absurd feeling of victory.

  "We… we came in first place…" Poppandacorn tried to say, his voice broken, as if he needed to hear it out loud so he wouldn’t collapse.

  Wwwyye looked back, her sword-arm still vibrating, searching for threat, searching for Parys, searching for the next attack. Astyam was already on his feet, looking too fast in every direction at once, eyes and goggles trying to turn chaos into reading.

  But then the judge appeared.

  He came quickly, decisively, as if he weren’t human, as if he were part of the game’s own protocol. His posture held no emotion. It held function.

  He approached the car, and a drone descended with him, hovering beside the hood, camera on, a red light blinking like an eye.

  The judge extended his hand.

  Not to congratulate.

  To check.

  The word "seals" didn’t even need to be spoken. The gesture already said it.

  Astyam swallowed hard. Wwwyye went still. Americ-Ana felt her blood turn to ice, because her brain, too late, connected the whole scene to the purple trail on the asphalt.

  Poppandacorn started to shake.

  "No…" he whispered. "No…"

  The judge waited. His hand stayed there, open, patient, cruel in its neutrality.

  Americ-Ana tried to move, but her shoulder throbbed and BAAL’s skin tightened harder, as if to say, "Don’t fall." She took a deep breath, and the victory, that victory from seconds ago, began to rot.

  "The seals…" Astyam murmured, more to himself than to the world, and the sound came out weak, as if he had swallowed sand.

  Poppandacorn’s eyes went wide and he started searching with his little paws, as if the seals might have fallen into the seat, into his chest, into guilt itself.

  "I… I…" he tried.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing.

  The judge didn’t change his expression. He only turned his face slightly, and the drone rotated with him. A short beep cut through the Coliseum’s noise, and the judge said something to the drone, cold, technical, immediate. The kind of thing that doesn’t need to be understood to be felt.

  It was in that instant that the crowd’s sound changed.

  The roar of celebration became a roar of anticipation. The mass wanted the next frame of the spectacle. It wanted the verdict. It wanted blood in the shape of a rule.

  And then the sound came again, that modern howl, clean, aggressive.

  The Bugatti Bolide.

  Parys Bloodpure crossed the "X" next as if she had arrived to receive what had always been hers by right. Her car stopped with a confidence that felt rehearsed, and she got out with the calm of someone who knows exactly what the screen is going to show.

  Millions screamed her name.

  The darling was the center again.

  The judge walked over to Parys, and the crowd parted in the noise like a sea opening for Israel to pass. The drone followed, recording everything. Parys raised her hand, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, handed it over.

  Seven pieces.

  Seven.

  The pieces of BAAL’s seal, intact, counted, confirmed. One by one, like sacred coins of victory.

  The judge received them, and the drone blinked. One second later, the jumbotron.

  The gigantic LED screen that covered the SOLOMON COLISEUM lit up like a new sky.

  Parys Bloodpure’s photo exploded into light.

  WINNER.

  Her name came in immense letters, vibrating in aggressive colors, and the entire stadium answered like a satisfied animal.

  And right below, like a mechanical humiliation, clean, objective, there they were.

  Americ-Ana. Poppandacorn. Astyam. Wwwyye.

  Defeated.

  Their image was cruel because it didn’t need exaggeration. It was only a record. A frame. A label pasted onto the soul.

  Americ-Ana couldn’t breathe.

  Her shoulder hurt, but now it hurt less than that. The sensation was that someone had ripped out the ground and left her standing in emptiness. Americ-Ana looked up at the jumbotron, at her own face up there, the QR Code marks tattooed on her face shining like never before, and for a second she didn’t recognize herself. The scholarship girl. The intruder. The one who crossed the finish line first and still lost.

  Wwwyye clenched her jaw. Her gaze hardened, dangerous, as if she were storing her rage somewhere the game couldn’t see.

  Astyam stood too still. The infernal goggles were still on his face, but now they looked like useless weight. He blinked slowly, trying to organize the impossible, trying to find a logic that wasn’t just cruelty.

  And Poppandacorn…

  Poppandacorn collapsed.

  He began to cry with a sound that didn’t fit a robot, but fit someone who had just broken on the inside. He hit his own little paws, hit his own chest, as if he could punish the body that had betrayed him.

  "Poppa hates Poppa," he said, between sobs. "Poppa hates Poppa."

  He repeated it, like a mantra of self-destruction.

  "Poppa hates Poppa. Poppa hates Poppa. Poppa hates Poppa."

  "Poppa…" Americ-Ana tried, her voice failing, because she wanted to comfort him and she wanted to scream and she wanted to undo time.

  But the Coliseum wouldn’t allow silence to exist.

  Millions were screaming. Drones were buzzing. The jumbotron shone. Parys was receiving the people’s delirium. And there, inside the old Bugatti, with BAAL still breathing along the bodywork, defeat had physical weight, as if it were another blade driven through them, only this time in the place where there is no easy cure.

  Americ-Ana closed her good hand on the steering wheel, took a deep breath, and felt BAAL tighten around her shoulder as if to remind her, "You’re still alive."

  She lifted her face.

  The "X" was there, simple, indifferent.

  In the corridors of the Solomon Coliseum, on the way to the locker room, Americ-Ana had already said goodbye to BAAL and handed the seal to Parys Bloodpure, before all of THE-IMPERIUM.

  The noise of the Coliseum still pulsed somewhere far off, muffled by walls and metal, like a giant heart that didn’t know how to stop beating. The corridor lights were cold, and the floor felt too long for a defeat so recent.

  Americ-Ana pulled out the KING MatNat sphere and held it carefully in the palm of her hand, as if she were holding something alive. She took a deep breath, looked inside and… saw no seal at all.

  Nothing.

  No glow, no fragment, no mark.

  The emptiness inside was worse than the jumbotron.

  Wwwyye let out a curse, loud, without brakes, as if the corridor deserved to hear it.

  "Months and months of study and training for nothing," she spat, her eyes burning with rage and disbelief. "For nothing."

  Astyam didn’t answer right away. He walked with his head down, as if each step weighed more than it should. When he spoke, it was low, without drama, and that was why it hurt more.

  "It wasn’t easy in there," he said, his voice tired. "In the Seractcube… we fought so hard… for nothing."

  Americ-Ana closed her hand around the sphere, trying not to shake, trying not to break.

  Then the sound of hurried footsteps appeared in the corridor, coming toward them.

  Poppandacorn arrived like a disaster.

  He came running down the hallway, his LED eyes blinking with panic and guilt, and then dropped to his knees in front of them.

  "Poppa deserves it," he said, trembling. "Poppa deserves it, Poppa deserves it, Poppa deserves it."

  Before Americ-Ana could say anything, Poppandacorn projected a whip. The whip came out of Poppandacorn like solid holography, a bright strand, long, almost theatrical, as if it were a stage prop and an instrument of penance at the same time.

  "Whip Poppa," Poppandacorn begged, his voice sharp, desperate. "Please. Whip Poppa."

  Americ-Ana blinked slowly, like someone trying to return to reality.

  "Stop it, Poppa," she said, without energy, only exhausted. "I’m tired. I don’t want games."

  "It’s not a game!" Poppandacorn answered too fast, as if he’d rehearsed the sentence inside his own despair. He rose a little, placed the whip into Americ-Ana’s hands with care, as if he were handing over a sacred weapon.

  "If you give Poppa a beating, Poppa will feel better," he said, eyes wet, his voice failing. "Poppa needs it."

  Americ-Ana pulled the whip back as if it burned.

  "No," she said, firm. "I’m not doing that."

  Poppandacorn then turned his back with a dramatic flair, stuck out his butt, and stayed there, offering his rear as if it were a tribunal.

  Americ-Ana stared at the scene, her mind locked between absurdity and pain.

  "Poppa," she tried again. "Enough."

  Poppandacorn turned around, his small body trembling, and his voice came out different, harsh, too loud for a corridor, too loud for what he was.

  "POPPA IS IN CHARGE NOW, FUCK!"

  The echo hit the cold walls.

  Astyam jerked his head up in shock. Wwwyye went still for a second, her eyes narrowing like a blade.

  And Americ-Ana, the whip in her hand, felt the entire corridor hold its breath, because that wasn’t the kind of thing Poppandacorn usually said, nor the tone he usually used.

  Wwwyye took a step forward, as if she’d decided the absurd needed an immediate answer.

  "If that’s what you want," she said, with an electric coldness, and before Americ-Ana could even open her mouth, Wwwyye lifted her leg and landed a clean kick right in Poppandacorn’s ass.

  The sound was dry.

  Poppandacorn went flying down the corridor, spinning in the air like a toy hurled by an irritated child, and hit the slick floor sliding until he bumped onto his side, far enough away to look even more ridiculous and sad.

  "Wwwyye!" Americ-Ana exploded, indignant, the whip still useless in her hand. "What did you do?"

  Astyam turned to her too, shocked.

  "Have you lost your mind?"

  Wwwyye shrugged, hard, without regret.

  "Besides it being his fault, he yelled at you," she said, jerking her chin toward where Poppandacorn had landed. "I’m not going to stand here and watch him yell at you."

  Poppandacorn got up too fast for someone who had just flown. He was trembling, but not from pain, from shame. And even so, he raised a little paw as if asking for silence.

  "Don’t fight with Wwwyye," he said, his thin voice breaking into a sob at the end. "She’s right. She… she’s right."

  He walked back, a little crooked, and stopped in front of them with seriousness. Then he turned around again and stuck out his butt, insistent, as if that were the only way to put the world back in place.

  "Kick again," he asked, looking over his shoulder. "Please. Kick again, Wwwyye."

  The corridor seemed to shrink.

  And for an instant, no one knew whether they were watching a desperate joke or a cry for help.

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath, like someone who has to pull her own heart back into place.

  "Poppa, enough," she said, her voice low, tired and firm at the same time. "I’m not going to hit you. I’m not going to let anyone hit you. I’m… exhausted."

  Poppandacorn was still turned away, butt stuck out, waiting for a punishment that wasn’t coming. Wwwyye looked ready to argue it to the end of the world. Astyam stayed still, looking as if he were trying to find logic in a scene that had turned into a broken mirror.

  That was when Americ-Ana spoke, changing the air in the corridor.

  "That smoke," she said, and the word came out heavy. "That purple light that came out of Poppa’s butt while Poppa was farting… it was the same purple light that opened the portal that day."

  Astyam frowned at once, as if someone had thrown an impossible piece onto the board.

  "The portal… under the glass platform?" he asked, slowly.

  "Under the ‘X’," Americ-Ana confirmed, and the memory seemed to hurt somewhere else, not in her shoulder, but behind her eyes. "The same light. The same feeling. It was that that pulled me with him, straight into the vault beneath the altar."

  Poppandacorn turned around at once, forgetting his own theater. His eyes blinked fast. He didn’t say anything, but his plush face seemed smaller.

  Astyam ran a hand over the back of his neck, trying to fit the pieces together. "This… this doesn’t make sense."

  "I know," Americ-Ana said, and then swallowed hard before continuing. "And there’s one more thing."

  Wwwyye huffed, impatient.

  "Of course there is."

  Americ-Ana looked at the two of them as if asking them to believe her for just five seconds.

  "The moment Parys jumped onto the hood…" she said, and her voice dropped even lower, as if saying it would draw something in. "Her face changed."

  Wwwyye gave a skeptical smile, quick and hard. "You were nervous, Americ-Ana. You must have seen things."

  "No," Americ-Ana answered without hesitation. "I saw."

  And, as if there were no other way to say it, she listed them, one by one, with the certainty of someone who still had the image burned into her retina.

  "Chanceler. Seth. Patron Uvo. Thor. Jessie. Donnie. Abda. Beni."

  Astyam went still, looking at her as if he were calculating the probability of madness and the probability of truth, and neither of them came out good.

  "Are you sure?" he asked, serious, direct.

  Americ-Ana held his gaze, unblinking.

  "Absolutely."

  The silence that came after wasn’t disbelief. It was omen.

  And then footsteps echoed in the corridor, coming toward them, too light for someone in a hurry, and too confident for someone who was lost.

  The footsteps drew closer with an irritating ease, as if their owner were strolling inside his own triumph.

  Thor Bloodpure appeared around the bend smiling, the kind of smile that didn’t need a reason because the reason was himself. His body moved loose, relaxed, and his eyes shone with that cruel joy of someone who has found the perfect scene.

  "Well, look at that," he said, clapping slowly. "The ones my sister defeated."

  Wwwyye lifted her chin, ready to cut with words. Astyam went hard, tense. Americ-Ana only tightened her grip on the KING MatNat sphere as if it could keep the world from collapsing.

  Thor laughed, as if it were impossible to hold it in.

  "Did you see it?" he asked, and didn’t even wait for an answer. "They’re replaying it on the Coliseum’s LED screen right now. The moment that idiot Poppandacorn shits out the seals."

  He pointed upward, as if the jumbotron were there, inside the corridor ceiling. And then he burst into real laughter, loud, mocking, savoring every syllable of the humiliation as if it were dessert.

  Poppandacorn, who was already broken, split even further. He started crying in quick, desperate sobs, his eyes blinking with shame, and walked to Wwwyye as if he were going to an altar.

  "Poppa deserves it," he cried. "Poppa deserves punishment. Kick Poppa again."

  And he stuck out his butt.

  Wwwyye looked at him with a mix of rage and disbelief.

  "No," she said, flat. "I’m not doing that."

  Thor’s smile widened even more, satisfied, as if he’d just been handed an invitation.

  "If that’s the issue," he said, already leaning forward to run.

  Before anyone could react, Thor took two quick steps and kicked Poppandacorn’s butt so hard the small body went flying as if it had been launched like a rocket.

  Poppandacorn sailed through the corridor, spun, hit the floor, and slid away, too far, too far, the sound of his sobs mixing with the scrape of the polished surface.

  Wwwyye exploded, stepping forward.

  "What is wrong with you, idiot?" she growled, her voice full of hate. "Have you lost your mind?"

  Thor spread his arms, pretending innocence, laughing.

  "He’s the one who asked for it," he said, with pleasure. "I was just… being useful."

  Thor looked at Americ-Ana, as if he wanted to carve that defeat into her.

  And then he turned his back, still laughing, and walked away down the corridor, celebrating his sister’s victory as if all of THE-IMPERIUM belonged to the Bloodpure family.

  And up ahead, Poppandacorn wasn’t getting up.

  The distance between them and the little bear on the floor felt like an abyss.

  Americ-Ana stood still for a second, staring at the empty corridor where Thor had vanished, as if his laughter were still stuck in the walls.

  Then she looked forward.

  Poppandacorn was a tiny dot on the floor, lying twisted, too small to carry all that guilt. The sound of his crying came muffled, broken, as if he were trying to swallow his own shame.

  Americ-Ana closed her eyes for an instant, took a deep breath, and opened them again.

  "I’m going after him," she said.

  Astyam took an immediate step.

  "I’m going with you."

  Wwwyye moved too, tense, as if she were ready to tear someone’s head off if she had to.

  "Me too."

  Americ-Ana shook her head, not aggressively, but leaving no room for negotiation.

  "No," she said. "I’m going alone."

  Astyam frowned. "Americ-Ana…"

  "You must be tired," she continued, already walking, her voice low. "Go back to the locker room. Poppa and I need to have a conversation alone."

  Wwwyye let air out through her nose, irritated, but didn’t insist. Astyam stood watching, as if he wanted to protest, but Americ-Ana’s expression didn’t allow it.

  She passed them and quickened her pace.

  The corridor felt longer than it should have. Cold, white, metallic, echoing every breath. Americ-Ana kept calling as she got closer, her voice firm, but fear underneath.

  "Poppa?"

  Nothing.

  She walked faster, rounded the bend, her chest tight.

  "Poppa?" she called again, louder.

  And a few meters ahead, she saw.

  Poppandacorn was on the floor, but it wasn’t only crying now.

  He was writhing.

  Poppandacorn’s body was writhing in a way that wasn’t just tears and wasn’t just shame. It was pain. A real stomachache, and that alone was an insult to the laws of the world, because he was a robot, and yet there he was, curling in, folding over, clutching his little belly as if something alive were trying to tear its way out from inside.

  "Poppa!" Americ-Ana quickened her pace and crouched beside him, her heart racing, defeat still lodged in her throat. "What’s happening?"

  The answer came before any explanation. A FART cracked loud, thick, so aggressive she jerked back on reflex, and the purple smoke blasted out with force, dense, lit from within, spreading through the corridor like a venomous, theatrical fog, coating the floor, climbing the walls, swallowing the air as if the place’s light had been dyed.

  Americ-Ana’s eyes widened and her stomach turned. That purple wasn’t just color, it was memory.

  Poppandacorn brought his little paw to his belly again, shaking, his eyes blinking on maximum alert, and his voice came out small, pained, too childish for what was happening.

  "It hurts so much, Mommy."

  He folded in tighter, as if trying to keep something from coming out, and then another FART came, more purple, more voluminous, like a discharge of smoke that made the entire corridor feel like an aquarium of purple light. Americ-Ana coughed, felt her throat scrape, and tried to see his face through the haze.

  "Poppa, breathe… look at me… breathe…" Americ-Ana tried, but her own body was already in panic, because that pattern wasn’t normal, and she knew it.

  Poppandacorn moaned, pressed his belly with both little paws, and then his body jolted as if it had forced something out with violence.

  A strange sound, heavy, dry, like an object falling where no object should ever fall.

  And it fell.

  On the corridor floor, in the middle of the purple smoke, a book appeared. The book filled with indecipherable codes that Poppandacorn had found among the daisies, inside the Cryptakashic.

  A book too large to fit that logic, spat out of Poppandacorn’s butt like an inventory item, as if his body were an improvised portal. The cover hit the floor and scraped, cracking open a little, revealing pages packed with indecipherable codes, warped symbols, lines that seemed to want to flee the paper.

  Americ-Ana went rigid, her mind trying to keep up with what her eyes were seeing.

  "Poppa…" she whispered, his name coming out with fear. "That is…"

  But before she could finish, footsteps echoed in the corridor, coming too fast, and a voice rose in the purple, surprised and alarmed.

  "Americ-Ana? What is this?"

  The purple smoke was still rippling through the corridor when a figure appeared inside it, as if crossing a stage of purple light.

  It was Nioh Nemmesis.

  He was wearing a customized shirt, printed with photos of Americ-Ana, Poppandacorn, Astyam, and Wwwyye, as if it were a uniform of fandom or devotion. In one hand he held a little pennant, and his face was painted with big letters, almost childish, but proud: "Go BAAL." The scene was so absurd and so sincere that, for a second, Americ-Ana didn’t know whether to laugh, to cry, or to simply pass out right there.

  Nioh stopped abruptly, his smile dying the instant his eyes found the floor.

  The book.

  The cover half open, the pages breathing warped symbols, indecipherable codes, lines that looked as if they had been written by someone who didn’t need to obey the world’s grammar.

  Nioh took a step, then another, slowly, as if approaching an injured animal. His gaze stayed fixed on those pages, and his voice came out low, tense, different from the fan’s tone he carried in his body.

  "This book…" he whispered. "These symbols…"

  Americ-Ana straightened, her chest still tight, trying to cover Poppandacorn with her own body, as if that could protect them both from what was coming. She felt cold sweat at the back of her neck and spoke fast, before Nioh could come to any conclusion.

  "Nioh, I can explain."

  Nioh lifted his eyes to her, confused, frightened, as if he were seeing two scenes at once: the idolatry he had built and the wrong thing lying there, shining on the floor, with indecipherable codes considered forbidden in THE-IMPERIUM, considered terrorism.

  He opened his mouth to say something else.

  But another voice cut through the corridor, dry, sharp, with the contempt of someone who had already arrived judging.

  "Explain what, scholarship girl?"

  The sentence fell into the corridor like a blade. The sentence was repeated:

  "Explain what, scholarship girl?"

  Americ-Ana felt her stomach turn before she even saw who it was, because that voice didn’t ask for an answer. That voice decreed.

  Patron Uvo appeared at the far end of the corridor with the presence of someone who didn’t need to run to arrive first. He advanced a few steps, cutting through the purple smoke as if it were only dirty air, and his eyes went straight to the floor, to the open book, to the pages covered in forbidden, terrorist indecipherable symbols.

  His gaze narrowed.

  Then it lifted, slowly, to Americ-Ana, as if guilt had already been pasted onto her before the scene even began.

  "You’re in deep trouble, scholarship girl," Patron Uvo said, cold. "Your days in THE-IMPERIUM are over."

  Americ-Ana tried to speak, but her throat seized. Poppandacorn moaned softly behind her, still in pain, still shaking.

  Patron Uvo tipped his chin toward the book, as if that object were living proof.

  "Or should I say…" he continued, with the word chosen to wound. "Terrorist."

  Nioh’s eyes widened, and his body moved before his mind decided. Even at a little over fifty centimeters tall, he stepped forward, placing himself between Americ-Ana and Patron Uvo, as if it were possible to hold back a judgment with his own spine.

  "That book is mine, Patron Uvo," Nioh said, firm, fast, with the courage of someone who knows he still has social room to be brave. "I came to see how Americ-Ana was. I tripped over Poppandacorn and fell. I dropped that book. It’s mine."

  Americ-Ana looked at Nioh, surprised, and for a second she understood what he was doing. It wasn’t an attack. It was a shield.

  Patron Uvo didn’t blink.

  "Yours?" he repeated, with disdain, as if the word were a joke. "You think I believe that?"

  His gaze returned to Americ-Ana, insistent, accusatory, as if Nioh were only noise in the way.

  "I believe what I’m seeing," Patron Uvo said, and the sentence landed heavy, like a verdict. "And I’m seeing you with it."

  The purple smoke kept crawling through the corridor, and Americ-Ana had the sensation that the purple was listening.

  Then another voice arrived, familiar, cutting through the ice with an intimacy that didn’t match judgment.

  "But what is going on, fluffy?"

  Bylly appeared in the corridor with the presence of someone who owned everything without needing to say so. Her gaze swept the purple smoke, found Americ-Ana tense, found Poppandacorn writhing on the floor, and stopped on the open book as if the scene had changed genres right in front of her.

  Nioh didn’t wait for any question. He hurried, as if he knew every second was danger for Americ-Ana.

  "I came to see how Americ-Ana was," Nioh said, pointing to his own chest, without losing focus. "I tripped over Poppandacorn and fell. I dropped that book. That book is mine."

  Patron Uvo let out a short laugh, without humor.

  "You’re lying," he said, flat, and his gaze returned to Americ-Ana as if she were the official target. "It’s hers."

  Bylly lifted an eyebrow, and her expression hardened.

  "Patron Uvo," she said, too calm for someone under tension. "You’re accusing my fluffy based on what? Your guess?"

  "It’s not a guess," Patron Uvo replied, cutting. "I’m seeing it. I know what this means. And I’m not going to pretend a boy is carrying this by accident."

  Bylly stepped forward, placing herself between Patron Uvo and Americ-Ana with a naturalness that said: authority has changed hands here.

  "If he’s saying it’s his, then it is, Fluffy," Bylly declared, and the sentence fell into the corridor like a hammer. "This is no longer for you to judge, Patron Uvo. This is a matter for the QUEEN ORION bunker, in the Geburah Pyramid."

  Patron Uvo narrowed his eyes, irritated, but didn’t move forward. He seemed to swallow the urge to crush the conversation by force, because Bylly carried a kind of weight you don’t shove without consequences.

  Bylly turned to Nioh, and her voice returned to a practical tone, almost gentle.

  "Come, fluffy," she said. "We need to speak with the authorities."

  Americ-Ana opened her mouth, impulse arriving before prudence, as if she were about to tear the corridor open with her own guilt.

  "Nioh…" she called, taking a step forward. "Wait."

  Nioh looked at her, and for an instant the painted face, the customized shirt, and the little pennant seemed out of place, as if all of it were a disguise for what he was really doing there. He swallowed hard, and when he spoke, the attempt to reassure her came loaded with urgency, as if he needed to close the matter before anyone changed their mind.

  "Don’t worry," Nioh said. "I’ll be fine. My family is very rich."

  He gave a half-smile, not mocking but internally logical, like someone who truly believes money is a shield against the world.

  "Unlike you…" Nioh continued, and his gaze wavered for a second, as if he hated having to say it. "You’re just the scholarship girl."

  Americ-Ana opened her mouth to protest, to say the guilt was hers, to stop Nioh from being taken because of something that had exploded out of Poppandacorn’s body, but the words tripped over each other inside her.

  "No, wait, I…" Americ-Ana began, trying to step in front.

  That was when Poppandacorn stood up.

  Still pale with purple, still trembling, but on his feet, as if shame and pain had been shoved to the bottom just so he could keep Americ-Ana from destroying herself. Poppandacorn took her arm gently, like someone asking for silence without being seen, and leaned in to her ear.

  His voice came out very low, a whisper only Americ-Ana could hear, laden with a strange, cruel, practical understanding.

  "Mommy…" Poppandacorn said, swallowing his crying. "Nioh said the book is his… and that you’re just a scholarship girl, Mommy. He has money and influence here in THE-IMPERIUM."

  Americ-Ana went still for a second, because it hurt to hear, but it hurt more to realize that was exactly how this place worked.

  In front of them, Nioh was already being escorted away, and Americ-Ana felt the urge to run after him, to scream, to stop it, but Poppandacorn’s small hand was still on her arm, asking, begging her not to sacrifice herself in the wrong place.

  And in the middle of all that, Bylly was already turning to follow Nioh, without looking back, as if the decision had been made and the world would have to keep up.

  Patron Uvo crouched with the calm of someone who wasn’t just picking up an object, but ending a conversation with a gesture. His hands took the book as if they were taking evidence, and he shut it firmly, muffling the symbols inside as if they could be locked away by pressure alone.

  Americ-Ana took a step, instinct screaming to stop it, to rip the book back, to truly explain, but her body didn’t respond. It wasn’t cowardice. It was the weight of understanding, too late, that there the rules of the game weren’t only racing and Seractcube, they were hierarchy, name, influence, and a kind of judgment that didn’t ask permission.

  Bylly was already walking ahead, leading Nioh the way you lead someone into a serious conversation that won’t end in a smile. Nioh looked back over his shoulder one last time. His gaze met Americ-Ana’s, and for a second his courage seemed to apologize for existing that way.

  Patron Uvo passed by Americ-Ana without veering, the book held close to his body, as if that corridor were a line of power and he were simply reaffirming his position. And then they were gone. Footsteps fading. The purple left behind like ownerless fog. The sound of the Coliseum, far off, still vibrating, indifferent.

  Americ-Ana stood there, feeling the KING MatNat sphere too heavy on her neck. Poppandacorn stayed beside her, small, trembling, and for an instant it looked like he might ask for punishment again, but he didn’t. He only stared at the floor, as if he were seeing the exact place where everything had begun to go wrong.

  The corridor became a corridor again. Cold. Long. Cruelly normal.

  And Americ-Ana understood, with a clarity that hurt, that that defeat hadn’t ended at the finish line.

  It had only changed shape.