Aeon and Masaru did not talk for very long, they just drank their tea and pondered on each of their fights.
"Your heart waivers. Why is that?" Aeon asked while watching his reflection in his cup.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Masaru stated, clearly trying to avoid the question.
"You are quite strong, maybe you always were."
"Not exactly." Masaru paused, "What exactly did you do in your fight?"
"Lots of conversations can be saved for later." Aeon replied, taking another sip.
After a couple of minutes, Masaru stood up and left as Aeon continued to entertain himself by making faces at his reflection.
The quiet of the tea lingered in Masaru's thoughts as he walked. The stillness only made the noise in his head louder—images of his fight, the brutal technique he used, the crowd's silence. He wished he had a solution to the pain in his heart.
Masaru continued to roam the city. And if he had to describe it in a word, "Bleak". He pondered on the fights he had watched, and how he had used his technique against Eldtritch.
"Was I too thorough?" He thought to himself, "Was I too flashy?"
He continued to ask himself these questions for a while before he came to a strange building. It had almost a dojo or studio like quality to its outside, but it was still run-down like the rest of the city. He decided to take a look, to see if it could potentially be a nice place to meditate and maybe even train.
He had to use a little force to get the door open, and as it creaked open, he found it to be a large open room, tattered scrolls adorned the walls. moldy tatami were spread across the floors, and the one light that resided in the middle of the room flickered.
Masaru stepped lightly onto the tatami, his sandals brushing aside the dust of a place long forgotten. The silence was thick—almost reverent—and he felt the instinctual urge to bow before stepping fully inside. He examined the scrolls, most were too faded to read, and besides, it in was in a language he had never seen before.
Suddenly, the light began to flicker a lot faster. And though it was uncharacteristic, a shiver ran down Masaru's back as he began to scan his surroundings. He noticed a door tucked away behind some boxes of training gear, that had been long abandoned. He sensed an overwhelming presence from behind the door-but it was wrong. He felt no life force, sensed no heartbeat, and couldn't feel an aura, but it was there. Right in front of him.
Masaru stepped back instinctively, His eyes narrowed, his heart began to beat faster. For someone who had trained to sense anything and everything, this absence was not just unsettling, it was terrifying.
He was unsure whether to reach for his sword or not, his breath was caught in his throat, something wasn't adding up. The silence behind the door was too perfect. As he approached, the flickering light above him cut out. In the moment of darkness, the door gently eased open on its own. Someone was there.
Masaru's hand shook. The dark figure stared at him silence. Masaru thought he could make out the being wearing what looked like a cowboy hat.
Masaru didn't move. The door now stood slightly ajar, casting no light—only deeper blackness—into the dim dojo. From within, the man stared back. He could feel it. Not with his eyes, or his instincts, but with a pressure in his bones, like the air itself was holding its breath.
Then, from the darkness beyond the door, came a voice, light, conversational… and wrong.
"Do the spoons still whisper when it rains?"
Masaru's grip on his sword tightened, but he didn't draw. His breath slowed. The voice didn't match the weight behind it. It shouldn't have been lighthearted.
And then… the sound.
It started as a low metallic scrape, then a dozen more. Within seconds, the black behind the door swarmed forward—gleaming outlines clattering into the flickering light. A blender blade spun to life, hissing as it skittered across the floor. A toaster launched into the air like it had been thrown. Dozens of appliances—microwaves, mixers, coffee pots—cascaded into the room like possessed debris in a wind tunnel.
Masaru dodged back, slicing a rogue frying pan in half with a reflexive strike, causing several appliances to be instantly destroyed, metal fell and sparks flew.
From within the doorway, still swallowed in shadows, the figure stepped out. Slowly. Calmly. Unbothered by the appliance apocalypse he had apparently unleashed. He was wearing a skin tight pink sport coat, polar bear fur pants, a cowboy hat, and (This time) no shoes
"Oh," the man said, smiling away. "Wowie Zowie."
It was Thalen Skierth.
Thalen took a step forward, arms wide like he was greeting an old friend at a family reunion he wasn't invited to.
"Did you know," he began, voice syrupy and cheerful, "if you microwave sadness, it turns into jazz?"
Masaru took another step back, eyes tracking every twitch, every motion. The appliances on the ground were still—half-broken, twitching, sparking. One of the coffee pots steamed ominously.
Thalen walked past them like they were rose petals on a wedding aisle. He paused beside a cracked waffle iron and crouched down beside it, patting it lovingly.
"This one's named Gerald," he said with deep sincerity. "He wanted to be an astronaut. But now he's burnt toast." He stood up and looked Masaru dead in the eyes. "We all burn, eventually."
Masaru didn't blink. His sword was half out of its sheath now.
Thalen suddenly gasped, pulling something out of his coat—what looked like a single playing card—and held it up like it was a wanted poster. "Have you seen this man? He owes me three marbles and half a dream!"
This was just too much for Masaru.
"Who are you!? What are you doing!?"
Thalen laughed and gestured to the broken and cut appliances. They somehow spelled out "Thalen Skierth".
Masaru's eyes darted around to see the name spelt out before returning to Thalen's gaze, who had fallen to the floor, and phased into it. The appliances vanished, leaving no trace of him ever being there.
Masaru decided that was enough nightmare fuel for one evening, and he also thought that assuming this lunatic wasn't here, he might return to use the space.
Masaru arrived at the gate to transport him back to the quarters, entered him room, skipped meditation, and fell fast asleep.