The Gifted Divide

Chapter 12


"But eventually, you'll have to ask yourself precisely what you're fighting for. And you'll have to find a reason to live past vengeance." - R.F Kuang (The Dragon Republic)

* * * *

"You know I've got no problem being your second. But are you really sure about this?"

The question lingered in the air between them, soft but loaded.

Timo's hands moved with quiet precision behind the counter, the muted clink of glasses and the faint hiss of a steamer the only sounds accompanying the tension threading through the café.

The lights overhead cast a gentle golden glow, catching on the polished surfaces of the café's mahogany counters and glinting off the warm sheen of Timo's dark green apron.

He slid two drinks across the bar—one to Sera, the other to Zest. Neither of them spoke as they took them. Words felt like cracks in fragile glass; each one risked breaking open something they weren't quite ready to face.

The duel was all anyone could talk about within the underground, whispered in alleyways and shadowy corners, traded like precious contraband between informants and drifters. And now, even in the quiet sanctuary of Cross Café, the weight of it hung thick in the air.

Security in the Abyss was at an all-time high.

No one entered, no one left. Not without explicit clearance and a reason that would hold under scrutiny.

The Abyss was many things—harsh, unforgiving, lawless to the surface world, but it had its own order, its own brutal brand of justice. When someone broke the Abyss's code, the response was never ambiguous.

Justice came swiftly, and often, bloodily.

And now, The Pit, an ancient and near-mythical rite of combat, was being resurrected. A public challenge. A public reckoning.

A message.

"I trust you to do it," Sera said quietly, her fingers curled around her glass. "Though… Truthfully, I don't think you'll need to do anything."

Zest smirked faintly, his crimson eyes glinting with amusement as he raised his glass. "Yeah, I can't picture a hunter walking out of the Pit in one piece. Not against you."

Their glasses clinked gently.

Without a word, Timo placed a plate of chocolate cake between them—a rich, dark slice with a delicate drizzle of caramel. Sera and Zest both looked up in unison, eyes narrowing in mild confusion.

They hadn't ordered dessert.

"It's on the house," Timo said with a smile, answering the question they hadn't asked. "Figured you two could use it."

They murmured their thanks, though the unspoken weight beneath the gesture wasn't lost on either of them.

After a moment, Timo's voice dropped, quiet but firm. "Did you both know? That it wasn't the ESA who attacked Blade, but the hunters?"

Sera and Zest exchanged glances. Something unspoken passed between them before Sera finally responded, her voice low.

"Not at first," she admitted, stirring her drink slowly. "I suspected. The Gifted Task Force is always the first to be deployed in Gifted-related incidents. We've seen them before. Plenty of times. But that night… I didn't recognise a single face. Their formations, and even their weapons… It was different. They weren't ESA. They were too precise. Too cruel."

Zest nodded grimly, his gaze distant. The memory of that night was etched into him like a scar that refused to fade. "The Gifted Task Force always showed their teeth, but they played by some kind of rules, however thin. That night? No rules. Just slaughter."

Timo exhaled slowly, his arms crossed. "And no matter how hard you try to bury something like that… The truth has a way of clawing its way to the surface. You and I both know the ESA Director. She wouldn't stay quiet if she knew."

Sera gave a sharp nod. "Exactly. That's how I knew it wasn't sanctioned. There's a difference between chaos and calculated destruction."

Zest's voice was quiet, but laced with steel. "And if the hunters know you're alive now, and that you're the one leading Aegis? Then this duel is just the beginning."

The café was warm, and yet a chill had crept in, like the whisper of a blade unsheathed in the dark.

"I'm bunking in the Abyss until the duel," Sera murmured, changing the subject with a weariness that didn't go unnoticed. "Hayder could use the help with…cleaning house."

Timo snorted softly, while Zest coughed, barely disguising his laugh behind a raised hand.

"Running only makes it worse, you know," Zest said, his lips twitching. "Raul and Letha know where the Abyss is. You think they won't storm in and drag you out by the collar the day before the duel? You're avoiding them, and they're not stupid. They'll want answers."

Sera groaned and let her forehead drop onto the polished counter with a muted thunk. "I know. I know. I should probably go face the music. Before I make it worse." Her voice was muffled but raw. "Leroy told me months ago. I bottle things up. I shoulder everything myself and I push people away when it gets too much. It's just… What if I let them in and they walk away? What if they can't handle who I am?"

Zest's gaze softened. "It's how you've always been," he said gently. "But you've changed too. Slowly, you let me in. Leroy. Jamie. Lleucu. You started letting yourself be part of something again. You're doing that now with Aegis, whether you realise it or not."

He leaned forward slightly, his eyes locking with hers. "They'll follow you to hell, Sera. But they need to know the real you. Not just the strategist, not the blade in the dark. You. And if they can't accept that, then they never deserved to follow you in the first place."

Sera didn't respond at first. She simply stared down at the fork in her hand, then slowly cut a piece of cake and lifted it to her mouth. The sweetness was a quiet balm, but the silence afterward was louder.

Only Zest knew the truth buried in that silence, the fear Sera carried like a second skin. The fear of being left behind. Of being seen, and still being abandoned.

She remembered something Karl had once told her. A man broken by the world, but still full of wisdom:

"Better to know love and companionship for one day, than to be alone for all of them."

"…I guess."

Zest studied her for a moment longer, then stood with a quiet grace, bracelets catching the artificial light like fragments of memory. "Come on," he said, reaching out and tugging her up by the arm with surprising gentleness. "There's something I need to tell you. Before the duel."

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Sera didn't resist.

Outside, the city moved with the illusion of peace, but the undercurrents had shifted. The Abyss was preparing to pass judgment, and their justice was not one of laws or mercy. It was forged in violence, blood, and survival.

The Pit was more than a duel. It was a message.

And to the hunters?

It would be a warning.

* * * *

A sharp crack of thunder split the silence just as a flash of lightning illuminated the room—brief and blinding—casting long shadows across the dust-laced remnants of the old bar that had once been Blade's sanctuary. The windows, worn and streaked with rain, trembled against the wind as the storm outside howled through the alleys of Elvryn like a ghost searching for memories.

Inside, the old hideout remained untouched, frozen in time like a shrine to a forgotten era. The cracked counter, the lopsided stools, the vintage jukebox that hadn't worked in years—all of it stood where it always had, untouched by the chaos that had razed the lives of those who once called this place home.

Sera stood near one of the dusty cupboards, rubbing her raven-black hair with a towel she'd found tucked behind an old bottle of whiskey. Droplets of rain slid from the edge of her coat, soaking into the warped floorboards. Her scarf, usually so neatly tied at her waist, hung loose, the tension in her body mirrored in the delicate slump of her shoulders.

Across from her, Zest was wringing out his soaked hoodie, bare-chested beneath the dim, flickering ceiling lights. The silver glint of his dagger tattoo caught the brief lightning again, a sharp contrast against his pale skin and the ink-dark hair clinging to his neck.

Sera tried very hard not to stare.

"You know," she began softly, her voice threading through the crackle of rain outside, "it was raining the night we met, too."

Zest glanced over, red eyes warm with a rare gentleness. He gave a quiet chuckle, padding across the room until he was standing near her, facing the windows that rattled from the wind's relentless battering. "I remember that," he murmured. "You looked like a demon risen from the underworld. Black coat, broken blade, and a temper that could've set the whole damn bar on fire."

A half-smile tugged at her lips.

"And I also remember," Zest continued, gesturing loosely around the dim interior, "how we always used to come back here. No matter what happened, we always came back."

The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable.

If anything, it was laced with something softer—nostalgia laced with sorrow, the kind that comes from remembering something beautiful that was stolen too soon. Even after all these years, the hideout remained a monument to their lost youth.

A symbol of Blade's wild, chaotic unity. And its inevitable fall.

"…I miss those days," Sera confessed at last, her voice barely above a whisper. "Not all of them. Not the blood, not the wars. But I miss what we had. The simplicity of knowing where we stood. I started Blade for Leroy and Alisa. For all of us. But I didn't know what I was doing back then. I led with instinct, not wisdom. Not like Klein. Not like Yusa."

Zest didn't deny it. "No, you didn't," he said bluntly, and Sera winced. "But you learned. And that's what made you different. You were reckless, sure. You were stubborn as hell. But you cared. That was enough. That's what brought us together. Not some grand cause or political game, but you. Even if none of us said it aloud, we all followed you because we believed in you."

He stepped closer, his gaze unreadable as he studied the cracks in the wood between them.

"I was terrified when Blade fell. When I woke up and realised you were gone, that they had come for you, that no one knew what happened…" Zest's jaw tightened. "There were moments I truly believed you'd died that day."

"I almost did," Sera admitted quietly. "In more ways than one."

Zest's eyes softened. "Yeah. I know."

There was no need for further elaboration. Of everyone, he knew best what that silence had cost her, what that night had stripped from her soul.

"But then you came back," he continued. "Changed, yes. But you found that fire again. At first, maybe it was for Aegis. For Raul, for Letha, for the Gifted. But I see it now, Sera. You're not just living for them anymore. You're living for yourself again. And that's what we all wanted. For you to stop carrying the world like it was your punishment."

Sera exhaled slowly, approaching the window where he stood, the rain streaking down the glass in chaotic rivers. She leaned against the other side, facing him in the dim light.

"You don't think I'm making a mistake?" she asked, her voice low and uncertain. Almost childlike in its vulnerability. "Leroy and Alisa both think I'm being reckless with Aegis. That I'm walking into something I can't control."

"I don't pretend to control you, Sera," Zest replied, the faintest grin curling at his lips. "And trust me, I've tried. You're a force of nature. And like any storm, you leave destruction and clarity behind. What you're doing with Aegis? It's not a mistake. It's necessary. This country needs a purge. The hunters won't stop. Not until they burn everything down or until someone stops them first."

Sera was quiet, her gaze distant. "If we're not careful, this could become a war."

"Maybe it should," Zest said with frightening calm. "Maybe war is the only thing that'll cut through the rot that's poisoned Eldario. If we're seen as villains, so be it. Better to be hated for doing what's right than loved for being silent."

Sera made a small sound in her throat but didn't argue. She'd had those same thoughts countless times. About fire. About cleansing. About sacrifice.

Zest turned to face her more fully now, his red eyes softening as they met hers. "You've always carried the weight of being strong, Sera. Of leading. Of surviving. But even storms need a place to rest. And if there's one thing you should've learned by now…" He reached out, brushing a strand of damp hair behind her ear with more tenderness than she could stand. "…it's that you don't have to do this alone anymore."

Something flickered in her eyes—uncertainty, perhaps, or a kind of awe. For all their teasing, their banter, their bloody history and broken past, this was a moment of truth between them. Raw and unvarnished.

And she didn't run from it.

"I trust you," Sera whispered.

Zest gave a quiet hum of acknowledgment and stepped closer, the space between them now barely a breath. "I know," he murmured, his voice steady, grounding. "And when this is over, no matter what happens in that pit, no matter what the world decides… I'll be here."

They stood like that for a long time, rain washing down the windows, thunder rolling far in the distance like a distant drumbeat of what was still to come. But in that moment, inside that worn-down bar that had once been their haven, they were just Sera and Zest again.

And for a moment, that was enough.

"So," Sera said at last, her voice low and even, "what did you want to talk about?" Her eyes narrowed. "I seriously doubt you brought me here just for a bout of nostalgia."

Zest said nothing at first.

Then, he knelt down near the far wall, brushing aside a small dresser that had been gathering dust since Blade fell. His fingers worked at the edge of a floorboard until it groaned loose with a reluctant creak.

Then, with practiced ease, he reached into the cavity and drew out a thick, weathered folder—its corners bent, its seal almost faded.

Sera's gaze locked onto the aged paper in his hand, and her breath caught when she recognised the barely visible emblem—an eye wrapped in flame, the sickening sigil of the hunters, like a wound burned into the cover.

Her voice dropped. "What are those?"

Zest didn't answer immediately. He stood, and offered her the folder without hesitation. "Project Nona," he said simply.

Sera froze, the name cutting through her like a buried blade. Her fingers hesitated before accepting the folder. "You got this from the hunters?"

"When I torched the facility I was originally stationed in," Zest said, his tone flat but not without emotion, "I didn't just destroy them on the way out. I took everything I could carry—intel they buried, evidence they'd die to keep hidden. Project Nona was one of them. It's how I ended up here, in Elvryn."

Sera's fingers moved slowly, carefully flipping through the fragile pages, as if disturbing them would awaken something long dead. "So, right from the beginning…"

"I couldn't be sure you were her," Zest interrupted, his voice quieter now. "Not at first. Not until our first battle. But by then, I knew. I didn't say anything. Not just because of how dangerous Nona was, or the censure around it. But because it wasn't my secret to reveal."

Their eyes met, and for a moment, the flickering bulb seemed to dim between them.

"You could've outed me to the rest of Blade," Zest said. "And with their hatred of the hunters—Leroy, Yuna, even Earl and Angela, they'd have had every right to kill me. Or exile me. And I wouldn't have blamed them." His voice softened, brushing against something raw. "But you didn't. You let me in. You let me stay."

Sera said nothing, but the silence spoke volumes.

"I'm sure Lleucu and Jamie dug into me," Zest added. "They're too good not to. Probably even matched Raul's skills. You already know the three of them are the best cyber experts alive."

Sera's fingers brushed a particularly fragile sheet as she murmured, "Project Nona… It's been years since I last heard that name. One of Eldario's greatest buried sins. And with everything happening now, I don't think it ever ended. I think they just got better at hiding it."

Zest let out a scornful scoff, reaching for the shirt slung over the back of the sofa. As he pulled it over his lean frame—finally dressed again, much to Sera's relief, he muttered, "They never stopped. Of course they didn't. It's the hunters. They don't stop. They just evolve."

The words echoed in Sera's mind like thunder: They never stopped.

Her grip on the folder tightened as memories surged—rumours of 'facilities,' whispers of escapees like Claudia and her brothers. The mutilated stories they told of what they endured. The things done to them in sterile labs and dark, padded cells.

Project Nona was never dismantled. It was refined. Hidden behind sleeker fronts and newer names.

"The Goddess help us," Sera whispered, burying her face in her hands. "If they're really behind the mess in the underground… All the trafficking, the disappearances… We'll be swallowed alive if we don't act soon."

"We will," Zest said, his voice firm and resolute. "But not yet. After the duel. Larissa and Hayder won't ignore this. The Abyss won't let the hunters root themselves deeper. Not while they still breathe."

"We'll need to support them. Even with the Enforcers and Leroy, they can't handle this alone." Sera leaned back into the couch, avoiding the threadbare holes, her eyes falling to her left wrist, where Blade's tattoo marked her like a brand. Her gaze flickered to Zest's neck, to the same symbol etched on him. "Why did you come back?" she asked, softly now. "You could've disappeared. Started over. No one would've blamed you."

Zest looked at her, his red eyes unwavering. "Because I couldn't leave you behind."

Sera blinked.

"The night the hunters attacked us," Zest continued, taking her hand in his without warning, "my last thought wasn't fear. Or regret. It was just… I can't leave Sera behind." His fingers gently traced the mark on her wrist. She felt her skin shiver beneath the touch. "Then I woke up, and it was nearly two years later. And I hated everything about that time I lost. Especially the chance to tell you the truth." He looked into her eyes, all the walls between them stripped away. "You felt it too, didn't you?"

Sera's gaze dropped to her hands, her voice almost inaudible. "…I have secrets, Zest."

"So do I," he replied easily. "And I think I know some of yours. Or at least enough. But it doesn't matter." Gently, Zest tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, the touch delicate, and almost reverent. "I swore myself to you when you welcomed me into Blade," he whispered, their foreheads resting together now, their breaths mingling. "No matter what happens. Even if the world turns against you, I won't."

The rain started outside, soft at first, then steadier, the patter against the glass filling the silence between them. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled, a warning or a promise, neither of them could tell.

Sera leaned her head against his shoulder, her voice little more than breath. "You've always been like this," she murmured. "You've always seen through me. Even when I didn't want anyone to."

Zest smiled, fingers lacing with hers. "We've walked the same darkness. Maybe that's why we recognise each other so well."

Sera shifted to look up at him. "Are you sure about this?" Her voice trembled with something rare—uncertainty. "About us?"

"I am."

"You know what I'm planning. Or at least, you have a pretty good idea. Even then, you'll stay?"

"Even then," Zest said again. "Even if they curse your name, I won't move from your side. I know you. Every choice you make, even the hard ones, comes from your sense of what's right. No one else might see it, but I do."

Sera stared at him for a long moment, then gave a small, weary smile. "Then let's hope Aegis sees it the same way."

Zest tilted his head. "You're going to tell them?"

"After the duel," Sera whispered. "Everything. My past. And my plans. All of it."

Zest nodded, and tightened his hold on her hand. Whatever storm waited outside, it would have to go through both of them.

And that storm was coming.

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