[PS: Little Red Riding Hood's appearance has been delayed again and again. I doubt anyone will like it if this keeps dragging on-so from this point onward, the timeline jumps ahead ten years.]
Jin'en was awakened by a chill from the iron-sand floor.
His back was numb from the hard ground, and his right hand was still clenched into a fist as it had been before he fell asleep.
He sat up and shook his wrist. His cuff slid down a little, and the silver markings gleamed faintly in the white light of the fluorescent tubes, resting quietly beneath his skin.
The training room's lights had been replaced. They were much more glaring than he remembered.
The wooden posts were thicker now, wrapped in three layers of sheet metal, still covered in densely packed slash marks.
A row of stone targets had been added along the west side of the room, numbered one through twelve. The base of the innermost target had a crack cleaved straight down its center, clean and sharp.
Jin'en glanced at the crack, then looked away.
He had been with Red Letter for far, far too long.
He could not be bothered to count exactly how many years.
His days were too regular: training, missions, training, missions, interspersed with Broken Rainbow's occasional pranks and Daffodil's occasional silences.
Time grew thin in that rhythm, so thin that yesterday and today hardly seemed any different.
He was twenty now.
The face in the mirror had matured considerably since he first arrived. His jawline was sharp, his dark gray eyes expressionless, and the silver-gray streaks in his black hair extended from beside his ears to the back of his head.
The training room door was pushed open.
The sound of high heels came from the stairs.
Inanna stood at the foot of the stairs, her long silver-white hair falling to her waist, the collar of her long dark gray trench coat turned up.
Her face was a little thinner than Jin'en remembered, but her red eyes were the same. There was a faint smile in them when she looked at someone, a smile that never reached their depths.
"You're awake."
Jin'en nodded once.
Inanna strolled over and stopped three paces in front of him.
Her gaze slid from his face to his right wrist, lingering for half a second.
"Your condition today?"
"Not bad."
"How many out of ten is not bad?"
Jin'en checked.
The "tension" of space in his awareness was very low. The silver markings lay quiet, showing no sign of heating up or expanding.
Over the years, he had practiced "closing" rifts until it became instinctive, something that required no deliberate thought, like breathing.
Opening them required concentration. Closing them did not.
"Eight."
"Eight," Inanna repeated, tapping her riding crop against her palm twice. "After all these years of practice, eight is your everyday standard. But we both know you haven't touched the line between eight and ten."
Jin'en said nothing.
She was right.
He could use basic spatial folding, tearing, and a rudimentary form of stitching.
But he knew better than anyone that an ability like spatial control had almost no discernible upper limit if used well.
He had brushed that line. Sometimes, late at night when he trained to his limits, the edges of his rifts would faintly touch something deeper.
But whenever he tried to move in that direction, something inside him would abruptly pull back.
Inanna called it "instinctive fear."
She said fear was a good thing. People without fear did not live long.
"There's a mission today." Inanna turned and pointed her riding crop at target number seven. "An auction. Red Letter wants to acquire something. I'll handle the negotiations. You and Daffodil will watch the floor."
"Daffodil's going too?"
"Two people watching the floor will be more reliable." Inanna was already heading toward the stairs, the hem of her trench coat swinging as she turned. "We leave at ten. Put on something presentable."
Jin'en watched her disappear up the stairs.
Over the years, Inanna had taken him on quite a few missions to "watch the floor."
After all those years of practice in the training room, he could open a spatial rift from his wrist to nearly a meter long, close it precisely within three seconds, and cut five-inch-deep gashes into stone targets.
But he had never truly used those abilities in actual combat.
Inanna would not let him act.
Her exact words were, "Your blade isn't for cutting people. It's for making people afraid to draw theirs."
Jin'en left the training room and headed down the corridor toward his room.
As he passed the courtyard, he glanced at the bare tree.
It still stood behind the iron fence, its naked trunk resembling a broken finger in the dim light.
Rust obscured even more of the lettering on the sign attached to the fence. The small line beneath "Do not touch" was now completely illegible.
He returned to his room and changed.
Several coats Inanna had bought him hung in the wardrobe, all dark, made of crisp fabric with snug cuffs.
He picked a long black trench coat and put it on, tugging the cuffs down to make sure they completely covered his wrists.
Then he pulled something from the very back of the wardrobe.
A fishing rod.
Its dark, jointed bamboo shaft was a little over a meter long and could fit inside his trench coat when collapsed.
His palms had worn the surface glossy. A layer of dark gray nonslip cloth was wound around the handle; he had wrapped it himself.
He had found this fishing rod in a secondhand shop in Hethereau.
Broken Rainbow had gone with him that day and stood at the entrance laughing so hard she could not straighten up.
"What are you buying a fishing rod for?"
"To practice."
"Practice what? You don't even fish."
Jin'en had not explained then.
Later, after watching him train a few times, Broken Rainbow understood.
The tip of the fishing rod was exceptionally fine. Using it to "touch" the edge of a spatial rift was more precise than using anything else.
When the tip touched a rift's boundary, an extremely faint vibration traveled back to his palm.
He had used that to develop his perception of the rifts' boundaries.
The first time Inanna saw him train with the fishing rod, she stood at the edge of the training room and watched for a long time. In the end, she said only, "Interesting."
She had also left him the dagger she wore at her waist.
It was a short dagger, with a blade less than a foot long and a black sheath. It made almost no sound when drawn.
Jin'en usually attached it to a concealed fastening inside his trench coat, where it could not be seen from outside.
He checked the dagger's clasp to make sure it was secure, then stowed the fishing rod in a specially made pocket inside his coat.
The shaft rested against his ribs, neither obstructive nor conspicuous.
When he left his room, the corridor was livelier than usual.
Flora ran toward him with a stack of books in her arms, her twin ponytails swinging.
She was fifteen now and had grown considerably taller, but she still spoke with the same headlong energy.
"Big Brother Jin'en!" She braked sharply in front of him, nearly dropping her books. "You're going today too?"
"Too?"
"Big Sister Daffodil's going too. Unica told me. Mother wants two people to watch the floor." Flora bounced the books higher in her arms and tilted her head at him. "With both of you there, it should be fine. Big Sister never makes mistakes on missions."
With that, she ran off, her twin ponytails flashing around the corner and vanishing.
Jin'en continued on.
There were few people in the dining room. A black-clad figure sat by the window.
Daffodil had her back to the door, her ponytail tied with meticulous care, her blue-streaked bangs hanging beside her ears.
The plate in front of her was already empty. Her right hand rested on the table, her fingers absently twirling a table knife.
The knife flipped back and forth between her fingers, reflecting the morning light from outside and casting a slender patch of light across the tabletop.
"Finished eating?" Jin'en sat down across from her.
Daffodil lifted her eyes and glanced at him.
"Waiting for you." She set the knife back on the table, its tip pointing outward, precisely aligned.
"Mother told you?"
"Mm. We leave at ten. Miguel District." Daffodil stood and pushed her chair back into place. "The auction house is called White Whale, on Third Street. The venue's underground. Two entrances, one at the front and one in the back alley."
Jin'en picked up the half piece of bread left on the table and took a bite.
Daffodil had always worked this way. Whatever the mission, she knew the details before everyone else.
"Did you sleep last night?"
Daffodil glanced at him, a look so brief it was almost impossible to catch.
"Enough."
"You say that every time."
She did not reply and turned toward the door.
She paused for a moment as she passed Jin'en.
"Did you bring your fishing rod?"
"I did."
"Don't use it today."
Jin'en looked up at her.
Daffodil's gaze settled on the inside of his trench coat, as though she could see the shaft through the fabric.
"The auction will be crowded. Once your rift opens, no one within its radius can get away."
"I know."
"Good."
She left.
Jin'en swallowed the last bite of bread, rose, and followed her out.
A black SUV was parked outside the mansion.
Inanna was already in the back seat, her trench coat draped over her knees as she leafed through something in her hands.
Daffodil opened the front passenger door and got in.
Jin'en opened the rear door and sat beside Inanna, leaving half a seat's distance between them.
The car started.
The road wound around the mountainside. Outside the windows, dense forest gave way to residential neighborhoods, then commercial streets.
Miguel District's skyline was completely different from the Bridge District's. The reflections from the glass curtain walls were bright enough to hurt his eyes.
Jin'en leaned back in his seat, his right hand resting on his knee. His fingertips absently touched the spot inside his trench coat where the fishing rod lay.
The shaft rested against his ribs, cool.
"Jin'en."
Inanna's voice came from beside him. She did not look up, still leafing through what she held.
"If anything unexpected happens today, you don't need to act."
"Then what am I going for?"
Inanna turned a page, the corner of her mouth curving.
"Just stand there. Let them know you're standing there."
Jin'en was silent for two seconds.
"What if there's no other choice?"
Inanna finally raised her head, her red eyes meeting his, that faint smile resting at the corners of her mouth.