Crow’s body ached. That in and of itself was not surprising, every inch of him had been either scraped, bruised or otherwise battered. What did shock him, however, was the fact that the pain those injuries caused him as he sat with a drink in hand many hours later was somehow far worse than it had been when he had first received those wounds. He’d heard stories of heroes shrugging off spears to the shoulder without batting an eye, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly miffed at them not mentioning the part where the cut still brought tears to their eyes later on.

“What are you thinking, Birdie?”

He turned to see Astra looking at him from across their table, a slightly amused smile playing at her lips.

“Oh, uh, were you saying something?”

It was a relief when she grinned and shook her head.

“Nah, just noticed you pulling that weird face you always do when you’re putting a lot of thought into something. Try not to hurt yourself, alright?”

Crow found himself smiling, his sister’s joke somehow lessening the pain.

“That isn’t a problem for other people actually, Astra.”

The blonde girl stood up from her seat and made her way back to the front of the bar. Crow sighed to himself, taking another sip from his mug and suppressing a giggle at the strange buzz it sent back up to his head. He’d drunk alcohol before, but back in Selsis he’d always had his mother to stop him from downing more than the barest amounts. He supposed that was probably a good thing and resigned to stop after he’d finished his current drink.

It was down to his own discipline, too. As the establishment in which he currently sat was very different from those he remembered attending with his family, where a bartender might see fit to refuse a young man’s money once drink claimed his ability to walk.

Astra had been very clear when explaining the exact nature of this pub, though Crow could have guessed much of what she told him merely from the half-hour he’d spent sitting inside it. Betting shops had a very disreputable connotation to their names, after all. Even one as clean, orderly and popular as this. The image such places brought to his mind was one of barbaric, jeering criminals fighting one another and cheating at cards. The Hound’s Fang, however, was barely more loud than a regular pub.

He heard a roar of laughter from the back of the room, and turned to stare through the gloom and thin tobacco smoke- his gaze settling on the table farthest from the entrance before promptly dropping back down to his drink. Even so, his best efforts did not keep him from picking up Unity’s shrill voice as the artificial spat out another joke. In this way, the subdued volume of the other patrons worked against him.

As grating as it was to hear Unity’s every other word, to be reminded of the first stage and of Ethi, Crow still preferred it over having nothing to distract him from his thoughts. It was at those moments when he felt the still hot coals of his frustration ignite anew. A thousand credits…

He took another, very big, gulp.

It was a relief when Astra returned to the table, though as Crow looked up to smile at his sister he couldn’t help but notice her smirk was decidedly more mischievous than it had been before she left. His eyes flickered to her hands, revealing that they held no new drink or food, and he felt the great uncertainty that came to all men upon being in the presence of their sister when she knew more than them.

“What are you smiling about?”

Astra’s grin widened as she planted herself in a seat, though it was momentarily dimmed as she winced in pain with the movement. Her reply came before Crow could even ask about her injuries.

“I just had a very interesting chat with the owner, do you remember her?”

Crow frowned as he thought, then shrugged upon finding no answer in his memory. Astra continued, clearly having expected this.

“Does the name Adelina ring a bell?”

Stomach sinking upon hearing it, Crow answered with a rapidly drying mouth.

“Yeah, yeah it does. She’s the vampire who spoke to us before the second stage, right?”

“Yep, the one who mentioned the betting pools to us.”

She needn’t have reminded him, Crow didn’t imagine he’d have been able to forget anything a vampire said to him- even if he tried. Astra continued talking, her words carrying none of the shakenness he’d have expected from one who just conversed with one from a species second in infamy only to the Butchers themselves.

“She shared some information with me that I found very very interesting, specifically regarding the odds of certain contestants.”

Crow took a moment to realise what she was implying, immediately straightening up as he did.

“Wait, you mean we can see who’s considered most likely to win? Or at least who the general public thinks is most likely?”

His sister beamed at him, beginning to stand as she spoke.

“Yep, I assume you want to go over and basically interrogate Adelina right now?”

It took less than a second for Crow’s eagerness for victory to overpower his reluctance to interact with the vampire more than he had to.

“Absolutely.”

Crow heaved himself up to his feet, feeling a hot fissure of pain creep along his stomach as he did so. Apparently he was unable to hide his grimace from Astra, as she quickly moved around the table and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“You sure you’re okay Birdie?”

Crow clenched his jaw and nodded, knowing that it was a half truth at best. That undead’s sword had split his belly open like a fish and left his entrails spilling free, he wasn’t sure how Unity had healed him but it was a far cry from the work of the professional medical mystics who had treated him after the first stage. He had been left with a phantom pain along the now closed sight of the wound, as well as an ugly, yellow bruise where the impact had concussed his flesh.

After a moment he regained his breath and managed to smile at his sister.

“I’m fine Astra, I think I just pulled a muscle during the fighting. Hurts a lot but it’s nothing serious.”

The blonde girl nodded slowly, and Crow wasn’t sure that she fully believed him. The discoloured welt along his stomach had made for a very convincing story that he had caught the blade’s flat rather than its edge, but even so lying to Astra wasn’t something Crow was confident in his ability to do.

Thankfully she didn’t press the matter, once he straightened up and started walking it seemed that she was satisfied. The two of them made their way across the room in only a few seconds, the lighting of the building just a shade greater than what would have been necessary to clearly make out the faces of the people they walked past. Most of the patrons didn’t look up, only continuing to occupy themselves with their smoke, drink or food. One or two, however, gave Crow curious, and somewhat unnerving, glances.

Adelina was tending the bar, and when Astra and Crow came to stand before it she barely even looked up from polishing a glass to address them.

“Mr Tempora, I was wondering when we’d meet again.”

She still seemed to purr her words, as though her voice was that of a cat given the power of speech. It threw Crow off to hear. Thankfully she didn’t appear to be looking for his input as of yet.

“I watched your performance in the second round you know. Thrilling stuff, I must say. It’s not every day one sees a person continue to fight even after a disemboweling.”

Crow could practically feel Astra tense up as the vampire spoke. He turned to see his sister staring at him with a face like thunder.

“You were disemboweled? When? How? You told me your injuries were nothing serious, how are you still alive?”

His sister was clearly more worried than angry, but this only made Crow’s own temper shorten.

“I told you I was fine and I am, you saw my stomach yourself. It’s nothing but a bruise, relax!”

He could see the doubt in the girl’s expression, her suspicions warring with what her own eyes had told her of his injury, right up until she turned on the vampire.

“Yes, what he’s saying is true. How the hell did it just become a bruise?”

Crow silently willed Adelina to bite her tongue, but it seemed his wishes were either unknown or irrelevant to the vampire. She half-laughed as she answered.

“Oh I’m not entirely sure about that myself, Miss Tempora. You’ll need to ask Unity Eden, he is the one who repaired the damage after all”.

Suddenly desperate, Crow grabbed his sister by the arm to stop her from walking away.

“Wait hold on Astra, this is ridicul-”

She stared Crow in the eyes, and he suddenly felt the fight melt out of him at the look she had. She wasn’t just worried, she was terrified. For him.

“Can you promise me that what she says isn’t true, Crow? That it was just a bruise and nothing more?”

Crow said nothing, and Astra’s jaw tightened as she shook her arm free of him and marched across the room. Straight for Unity’s table. There was nothing he could do but hurry after and hope he was able to prevent the situation from descending to outright violence, and so he hurriedly followed- Adelina’s glass-like laugh ringing in his wake.

By the time he reached Astra, she was already giving the artificial an earful. He heard the black-haired boy’s high pitched voice cut over his sister’s.

“Come on Blondie, are you honestly trying to tell me you believe a vampire over… well, a not-vampire?”

Unity didn’t seem to particularly care about the blonde reaming him, and the people sitting next to him appeared to find it downright hilarious. Astra, on the other hand, had begun to start vibrating with rage. It occurred to Crow that he would best be served pulling them away from others, and so very carefully he added his own thoughts to the conversation.

“Uh, I think we should probably take this somewhere a bit more private. Don’t yo-”

Astra whirled on him, staring at Crow in such a way as to banish all coherent thoughts and arguments from his mind. She continued to hold her stare steady, freezing him in place with her gaze for several seconds until Unity spoke once more.

“Crow’s right, do you really want to be verbally murdered in front of a bunch of people?”

As he said that, one of the men sat by him raised his voice and whooped.

“Come on girlie, we don' mind hearin ye argue with ‘im. In fact if yez want, turn it into a brawl. We’ll take bets!”

He had a most peculiar accent, one which Crow couldn’t place for the life of him. And when he looked at the man to see if his appearance would help him recognise his dialect, he almost stumbled away with fright.

His eyes were black, like pitch. The only colour in them was where the irises and pupils should have been, a single reflective circle which more resembled a burning magnesium strip than something which would appear on a person’s face. A quick scan of the other four people at the table revealed each of them had identical features.

Crow glanced back to Astra, who suddenly seemed just a little bit less vigorous than she had a moment ago.

“He’s right”, she muttered. Then continued with a stronger, as though deliberately reinforced, voice. “Eden, let’s take this somewhere private.”

The artificial grinned and got to his feet to a chorus of laughter and exaggerated “oohs”, then he moved around the table and began walking away to the only deserted corner of the pub. Astra followed, as did Crow- pausing only slightly for one last glance at the people the boy had been sitting with. Much to his surprise, there was a girl there about his age- eyes just as black as the others, smile just as carefree and unrestrained. And then he remembered himself and urgently hurried after his teammates.

Once they were far from any potentially prying ears, Astra turned to Unity and addressed him with a voice like cannonfire.

“Explain what happened to Crow’s injury, now.”

The artificial didn’t let his easy-going smile drop from his face for a moment as he answered.

“I assume he already told you, but he got smacked away by the undead’s sword. I’m guessing he only got hit with the flat of the blade too, since all it did was wind him and put a massive bruise along his stomach.”

Astra turned to Crow, and he suddenly felt his face grow hot as he realised she expected his input. This was his last chance to lie, though he doubted she’d fail to see through it. Still though, the proof was all there- Unity had no healing ability, and Crow couldn’t have recovered otherwise.

And yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Crow looked up at the black haired boy, feeling just a slight hint of disgust at how easily he had tried to mislead Astra.

“Unity, it’s fine. She deserves to know.”

Pausing to make himself say what he needed to, Crow turned to his sister.

“Adelina was telling the truth, the undead we fought slashed me across the stomach with its sword and opened me up. My guts were spilling out, which is why I took so long to recover.”

He waited a moment to let his words sink in, then continued.

“The reason I only have a bruise now is because Unity did... “ He frowned, realising that he still had no clue what had happened. “Well, he did something.”

Crow shifted his gaze back to Unity.

“Care to tell us what it was?”

The artificial seemed put out at Crow not cooperating with his deception, but all traces of his annoyance quickly disappeared behind another smile as he answered.

“Alright, I used my ability on him. You know the one I used to destroy the undead, to bring down walls and stuff? Yeah, that.”

Astra cut in.

“How though? How did you use something like that to heal someone?”

Unity paused, then frowned as though he were thinking of a particularly difficult answer. Finally he spoke.

“I didn’t really “heal” him, so to speak. My ability lets me temporarily disable the natural laws which hold things together, the more strongly they’re held together by those laws, the harder it is to undo them, but it’s destructive enough to-”

“Get to the fucking point”.

Crow wasn’t at all surprised by his sister’s very characteristic impatience, she always got like that when her temper was wearing thin. It seemed to shock Unity, though, who hurriedly carried on.

“Right, well I did the same thing to Crow. Only instead of disabling whatever was holding him together, I disabled whatever was holding the two sections of his stomach apart. Not the same as properly healing him, more like… an extremely good stitching job.”

There was a temporary and heavy silence while his words sank in, the only sound reaching the three being the low hum of conversation from the other patrons- and the higher energy cackles of the black-eyed table. Crow was the first to resume the conversation.

“Why didn’t you use this earlier?

“What do you mean?”

Unity had a look of genuine confusion, yet something told Crow he knew exactly what he was being asked.

“I mean your ability to stitch people up, it let me get back into the fight when I’d probably have died otherwise. Why did you only just use it then? I can think of a few times it would’ve been helpful during the first stage.”

“Ah, right. Well… uh, hm. It’s sort of hard to explain.”

“Then use small words for us”, Crow snapped. It had been harsher than he’d intended, but somehow he found it hard to muster any real guilt. Unity’s expression seemed to harden in response.

“I already did for you, moron. Do you not remember the little run-down I gave you after you first got up? It was risky, ridiculously risky. The only reason I did it was because I figured you had a slightly higher chance of dying when you inevitably charged dick-first at the same fucking creature that had wiped you out while you were healthy.”

Astra stepped forwards, and before Crow could so much as ask what she was doing her left hand closed around Unity’s throat. She didn’t use magic, but even without it her arm was lean and honed- and Unity was simply too frail to ward her off. She forced him back against the wall and held him there even as he flailed to break her grip. Both she and Unity were gritting their teeth, though for entirely different reasons. Something in his sister’s eyes scared Crow, it was a look he’d seen only once before- the one his uncle had had on that fateful day.

He saw her lips move, but didn’t care to hear what she said. Instead he simply slugged her as hard as he could across the jaw, sending her stumbling to her knees and freeing Unity from her grasp. She stared up at Crow, and he met her gaze. Suddenly feeling claustrophobic and hot, but keeping his focus entirely on his sister as he spoke to her.

“Don’t… don’t do that. Don’t look at people like that, like you’re about to…”

The pain hit his knuckles before he began speaking once more, and Crow realised what he’d done. He’d hit a girl. A mystic, and one more powerful than him, yes, but he hadn’t used magic- and neither had she. He suddenly felt very sick.

“Astra, I’m sorry.”

Crow stepped forward, holding his hand out to help her up. He wasn’t surprised when she chose to ignore it and rose up herself. They looked at one another for a second, and he saw yet another new expression on his sister- genuine terror. He looked away.

Astra finally spoke with the shakiness always found in a voice which barely had emotion kept from it.

“Crow, what the fuck has gotten into you? Why are you entering the Sieve? Why are you so… like this?”

Her voice cracked at the last few words, a portion of the heartbreak she’d been trying to hold back breaking into it. Crow wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted anything as much as he wanted to tell Astra the truth right then and there, but he knew he couldn’t. Even if she believed him, his burden wasn’t something he had any intention of inflicting on his sister. Steeling himself, he forced his gaze back onto her eyes and answered.

“I’m sorry, but-”

He didn’t see the punch. Just Astra’s face contort into an angry snarl, followed by a slight shifting of her shoulder. Then the world spun, and a hot pain lanced up his nose.

Crow stumbled away, tears suddenly filling his eyes and turning his view of the world into one of distorted shadows and blurred half-forms. He groaned, blinking and wiping free the moisture to clear his vision. After a few seconds he could see mostly clearly again. Clear enough to see Unity still leaning against the wall, massaging his throat and looking utterly perplexed.

And clear enough to see that Astra was gone.