The chirping of birds made Rakna open his eyes, the vast expanse of the blue sky being reflected on them. He sat up and looked around, inspecting the roof of his school.

“I fell asleep, huh?” He muttered to himself and as he was about to stand, he heard a hiss. But when he tried to look at where it came from, he saw nothing. “My imagination…?”

“RAKNA!” A shout resounded from the door as it was slapped open.

Rakna’s naturally taciturn expression turned toward the woman who yelled his name. He already knew what she was going to say but when she took a proper look at his face, she suddenly stopped in her tracks and blinked dumbfoundedly.

“What’s wrong?” He scowled.

“Eh… um…” She stammered. “Did something happen…?” She asked oddly.

“Why?”

“No, it’s just… you look different somehow,” she blushed a bit then cleared her throat. “A-anyway, give me my key back and get yourself back to class!”

“Yes, yes…” Rakna mumbled and jumped down from the elevated flooring of the roof. He looked back briefly at the empty rooftop before going inside with Flavia.

* * *

Several hours later, with the sun setting down, Rakna exited the school grounds and headed back to his house alone. Five minutes later, as he waited at a crossroads for the lights to turn green, someone greeted him from the side.

“What are you brooding about, Xiorra?”

Rakna looked at the source of the voice to see a man older than him by a few years standing there without even facing him despite having addressed him directly. The man was taller than him, but not too tall either. He also had a lean build but was far from skinny.

As for his face, he could be considered quite a handsome man. He had a gentleman-like charm with short black hair, that was so naturally smooth it would make women envious. But the most glaring feature were his eyes; entirely closed at all times. One would only need to look at the telescoped cane in his hands to understand why they were so.

“Eizen…” Rakna muttered the man’s name. “It’s been a while. How have you been?”

“You know, working my ass off in this unfair society,” he responded dryly. “What about you? Why do you stand there all edgily like a kid with eighth-grader syndrome? You’re not with Allan today?”

“…how did you even know it was me, much less how ‘edgy’ it was?”

“You’re like your old man, you have a presence. Spend enough time trying to sense people without sight and you’ll eventually feel some sort of ‘air’ around people. It’s basically instinct. Isn’t that the thing you’re so good at?” Eizen retorted as they both began to walk when it was green. “…it could also be explained by smell, but we don’t talk about that,” he added.

Rakna snorted and mused. “I was… thinking.”

“Wow, that sounds so much worse.”

The younger man rolled his eyes. “I took a nap earlier,” he said blankly.

“Uh-uh? And?”

“I’ve been feeling weird since I woke up. Several times in the past hours, in class or otherwise, I unconsciously asked myself what I was doing there. I’m not sure why… It was weirdly impulsive.”

Eizen didn’t scoff at him this time and hummed. “Interesting, I have to admit. Did it finally hit you? You and the old asshole trounced Flood, which you hated so much. And as if nothing happened, you decided to live a normal life afterward. It was crazy to me.”

“…why?”

“Because that was not human,” Eizen expressed and stopped walking. Rakna did the same and turned toward the blind man next to him only to see a pair of blank blurry white eyes roughly directed at him. “The change was instantaneous. No hesitation, delay, or deliberation.”

“…is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

“Yes,” he affirmed firmly. “You went from a life of blood to the mundane as if both were the same shit. But they’re fucking not and you seem to be incapable of recognizing that. It’s psychotic at the very best. If you ask me, I’d say you’re rejecting yourself.”

Rakna’s expression twitched.

“Remember how you told me why you adopted that ‘duty’ of yours? You said that if you, out of all people, don’t try to do what’s right, your revenge would be meaningless. You don’t think there’s anything wrong with that sentence?”

“…”

“Doing what’s right is something a morally decent person does. It’s not a freaking salary job with paid vacations,” Eizen spat and closed his eyes again. “You don’t even feel happy doing it. Running away from yourself is all you’re doing. Poor Flavia is chasing after you with all her might, but you refuse to slow down.”

“That duty is an excuse you created so you can dissociate yourself from your past sufferings, deeds, and crimes. For so long, you had no damn idea of what you were doing. So, you made up one once you had the chance.”

“My advice for you, Xiorra; wake up,” the blind man finished and walked off on his own way back home. Rakna watched him go and stayed immobile for who knows how long before he was pulled out of his daze by the pain in his legs. By that time, the night had already begun to fully set in.

He looked down and almost staggered as he walked the remaining distance to his house. When he crossed the entrance of the large oriental house handed down to him by Arimane, he dropped his bag and exhaled.

Much to his confusion, the breath that came out of his mouth was white. He frowned at that and went to check the thermostat. The numbers were perfectly normal, just as he felt, but he increased it for good measure.

As he was about to go ahead and cook a quick meal before going to bed, he heard a noise coming from the backyard. He scowled and opened the back door leading to the porch. He skimmed the lawn and spotted a small silhouette hiding behind a bush.

He approached and parted the branches to see a small fox with red fur lying on its stomach, breath labored and body trembling. It sniveled quietly and Rakna slowly reached for the animal, when he touched it, he instantly felt how cold the poor thing was.

He lifted it softly and brought it back inside where he lit the fireplace. He sat down with the little fox on his lap and stroked its fur until it stopped shaking. Quickly, the animal blinked its eyes open and noticed the human holding it. But it surprisingly didn’t get scared or startled, it merely made a small happy noise that seemed to convey its thanks.

“What a relaxed little guy you are,” Rakna snorted but the fox narrowed its eyes and lowered its head as if pouting in anger. “What? You don’t like being called a little guy? Are you a girl then?” He tilted his head and he seemed to have gotten it right when the fox nodded in satisfaction.

He huffed in amusement. “Smart too, huh? So, where do you come from? There’s a big park a block away, I suppose, but why were you so cold?”

The vixen looked at him in the eyes for a moment then whimpered, looking away. Rakna shrugged and settled to pat her, which she seemed to appreciate quite a lot. After a few minutes, the heat of the fire got to him and an urge to sleep overcame him.

He leaned back on the couch behind him but while closing his eyes, the fox cried out and suddenly jumped on his face. “Woah, woah…” He shifted his head to the sides to avoid her paws hitting him and when he took a closer look at the vulpine’s face, he shuddered at the intensity of her gaze. He didn’t know for sure, but somehow, he knew they were screaming at him; don’t fall asleep!

““Wake up.”” At the same time, he heard two voices overlapping in his head, saying the exact same thing, and in his brief moment of daze, the fox jumped and ran off to the backyard again.

Rakna took a few seconds to react and when he did, he shot up to his feet and made a strange face when he saw a trail of snow on the floor leading to the gap of the sliding door leading outside.

He rubbed his temples to clear a strange numbness he didn’t realize had set in and followed after the traces. He stepped out onto the grass and tried looking around for the fox but she was nowhere to be found.

“Looking for something, kiddo?”

Rakna stiffened and looked over his shoulder with widened eyes. Before he knew it, someone had sat down on the porch. “Old man…” He uttered.

“Yep. That’s me.”

“Where the fuck were you for the past six months?”

“…can’t even enjoy the reunion a bit, huh?” Arimane snickered as he unwrapped a lollipop and put it in his mouth. “Where was I, you ask? Who knows? I think you are the most pressing issue.”

“Huh?” Rakna glowered and the old man smiled.

“Come on, sit,” he said whilst patting the spot next to him and Rakna scowled before eventually complying. He sat down with a groan and kneaded his forehead with his knuckle.

“Sleepy?” Arimane inquired and he instantly stopped. “You look cold, as well.”

“I’m not col--"

“Look at your hands, kid.”

Rakna furrowed his eyebrows and inspected his open hand. He was alarmed when he realized he couldn’t stop it from trembling. Not to mention that his skin had traces of swelling preceding frostbite and was dangerously losing its color. “What…”

“Maybe you caught some nasty sickness. The inexplicable kind,” Arimane remarked. “I have seen a lot of weird stuff in my life. I had allies and enemies whose capabilities were beyond human. One of them was a genius engineer at least fifty years ahead of his time with a brain that could compute information ten times faster than normal humans. Another was so physically gifted and proficient in martial arts; he could cut flesh with his bare hands.”

“…why are you telling me this all of a sudden?”

“Because you are one of them,” the old man replied seriously. “People like you and me, we’re damn weird, aren’t we?” He jested. “And we’re also high maintenance. I had a point in my life where the only thing driving me forward was the accomplishment of an empty goal; till my death. Perhaps I was even worse than you. I lost everything worth gaining anything for.”

“And you, kid, are going the opposite way. You have nothing to drive you forward, so you made up an excuse to move backward,” Arimane smirked and chuckled. “Sounds silly, don’t you agree?”

“…”

“Wanna know what your most fundamental flaw is?” He followed up and pointed his lollipop at his nephew. “You have a lack of pride in your accomplishments. The only thing you’ve ever shown being satisfied with is your strength. Nothing else. Not your little hunt for righteousness or even your successful revenge.”

“Everything is just a step to you. Have you ever seen someone not get tired by perpetually walking down the same road for their whole life? I certainly haven’t… they’re probably dead anyway,” he shrugged. “Regardless, it’s about time you realize,” he declared and stood up.

“Take pride in how far you’ve come; take pride in having survived; take pride in being the one who killed instead of the victim; take pride in the people that love you despite that; take pride in how many lives you have saved.”

“And most importantly… find pride in your weaknesses; find pride in yourself. And for fuck’s sake, kid, learn that your little worries don’t mean shit in this world. It’s do or die,” he concluded with a shit-eating grin that Rakna would have loved to punch had the situation been different.

“Now, if you get it, you know what to do,” the old man said whilst pointing at the adjacent house and Rakna automatically looked in that direction as well. The ‘cold’ was growing stronger and he could feel his body becoming numb.

In a haze, he laughed in the driest voice he ever mustered. “This day doesn’t make any sense…” He muttered in exasperation, his breath crystallizing every time he opened his mouth.

“Of course, it doesn’t. Dreams never make sense.”

Hearing those absurd words, Rakna snapped his head back toward Arimane but, as if he had never been there in the first place, the backyard was bare of the old man’s presence.

The cold and lonely teen sat there, not knowing or understanding what was going on. But sticking to his rationality, he knew one thing for sure; this cold would soon kill him. Whether it would save him or not, there was one thing… he had to do no matter what.