Chapter 393: Personal Arrival

They knew the difference the second the pressure changed.

It wasn’t another agent, and it wasn’t a recovery line trying to reform in the smog. The weight that settled over the ruined lane wasn’t searching the same way they’d sensed it before, when they were inventory and not coverage. He didn’t come looking. He came to stand.

Zeus stopped first.

Wukong lowered his staff and exhaled through his teeth. ’Please tell me that isn’t what that feels like.’

’It is,’ Athena said quietly. She had already raised her spear but even she could hear the unlikelihood of the gesture as she met the presence entering range. ’That isn’t a messenger.’

Kratos adjusted his stance and said nothing. Hades’s green glowed dimmer as if instinct alone wanted to avoid focus. Poseidon planted the trident, spat to the side - nervously more than in distaste. Hermes checked the rear once, then stopped bothering. If the latter had walked in himself, the former stopped being worth consideration in the same way a minute earlier it had ceased being a valid place to aim for survival.

Loki’s voice was edged. ’So one of the owners tired of hands finally.’

Odin leaned Gungnir against the floor boards and looked with his singular eye at the forming darkness ahead. ’Tohu.’

Zeus felt it in the same way the chaos under his skin responded with reluctant recognition, though he forced the sensation down. Whatever this was, he was done accepting it as knee deep or half blind either way.

The figure stepped out of the denser shadow.

Tohu didn’t bother with the full display. He presented himself as himself, scent of storm clinging at his back, eyes narrow along the lines of a body that said surviving throne seat weight rather than the carefully polished equivalent. When the others saw a thinner shape ahead who looked as if he’d been dismissed in favour of a less threatening option, it was enough to confirm even in their altered states what the first sight already demonstrated.

He gave them all a single measuring look before settling on Zeus.

’You put my agent on the floor,’ Tohu said. His tone was almost gentle. ’That was impressive and inconvenient.’

’It took you a while to make the visit,’ Poseidon said before Zeus could reply. ’I assume for your benefit rather than ours.’

’Same visit,’ Tohu said after a brief glance. ’Residual force from my early runs is walking freely in open Continuum traffic while Sera’s people and half the nearby scavs attempt to make a display race out of it. I’m done chasing the edges of this.’

Athena kept her spear raised. ’You mean the visit you made was for Zeus.’

’I made the visit because something he carries might want to still stick around,’ Tohu said. ’I don’t care what the rest of you do provided you’re all still capable of coherent statement through the process. If some of you want to be stupid about this, that’s your problem. I wouldn’t expect you to present this as something different.’

Hades’s voice was low and icy. ’You sound as if we’re objects with valuable parts.’

’I sound as if from where I stand you’re survivors of a finished lower design who should no longer be in this condition,’ said Tohu. ’One of you is tangled up in leftover authority I assumed was finished ages ago. As a result, I think this practical rather than personal, practical rather than sacred.’

’One step forward is fine,’ said Zeus. The others went where he did, hobbled and in formation. He could feel the tight spaces, the unseen net Sera still had behind them, the weight of the current lane. Tohu was here. Distance was at an end.

’Say what it is, simply,’ Zeus said. ’No agents, no statements of recovery. You.’

Tohu levelled his gaze. ’I want you under my custody to read the residual force properly and make a decision about whether it remains active, is sealed, or taken. The rest can remain free of Sera’s shelf if they don’t cause problems. That’s the clean version.’

’And the unclean?’ asked Sun Wukong.

’I’ll take you regardless, the rest becomes a headache solved as quickly as possible either way,’ said Tohu. ’I’d prefer the clean version. Preference is not a promise.’

’If we fight him and he’s not an agent we just fought one of the ones responsible for what we lost,’ said Hermes, a note of tension in his voice.

’You know that,’ said Zeus.

He was certain in that at least. And it filled him with as much heat as the fact that it was not another agent that appeared here wearing heavier Continuum pressure than any of them were used to, but one of the old names attached to this operation, standing in the ruined lane and discussing custody arrangements as if the end of the universe they had been part of was something he could wrap up at the appropriate time. He forced himself to listen.

’You’ve rejected Sera already,’ said Zeus. ’Her agents - yours. If that’s all you came with, the answer has been given.’

Tohu studied him for a moment. There was no immediate expression of anger on his face, if anything the opposite. ’You’re treating this as if it’s a matter of dignity,’ Tohu said. ’I’m treating it as a matter of containment of leftover force. You’re carrying an element of residual strength and it wasn’t simply created. It’s a thread of work I contributed to. If left alone it’ll attract attention until Sera, you or some other force decides its value. You might dislike that, but you don’t erase the fact by running through fog.’

’If that’s the case it would be more useful if you taught us to support ourselves than presented one piece of it in bags for collection,’ said Athena sharply.

Tohu’s mouth twitched. ’You assume I came to teach.’

’I assume that if this was all you wanted was a seizure you’d have opened with one.’

That was the first time tohu had looked like he’d expected things to conclude more simply since arriving. It still didn’t happen. The weight remained on the lane, the larger scope of Sera’s reach still pressing from further back, and the nine were still in the practical sense contained. And yet, for a fraction of the time required, a new option was open.

Zeus took advantage of it.

’You want the residual force understood and contained,’ said Zeus, ’We want our lives returned to our control. It’s not the same request but it’s not entirely impossible to discuss. If you insist on this as a matter of capture we have a conflict in the presence of Sera’s observation. If you use other terms perhaps this doesn’t come to an end with all of us contributing to the volume of that.’

Tohu was quiet for a moment, then looked past Zeus, past the back of the ruined lane towards the continued shifting of Sera’s signal.

’Sera won’t be delaying this conversation,’ said Tohu.

’Then you stop promising custody and start promising terms,’ said Zeus.

The two men continued to measure each other, the others waiting, weapons readied but bearing signs of the fights already endured, none willing to be first to act. Tohu wanted to end the pursuit personally, and he’d done that much. There was never truly going to be a negotiation, but what it changed to wasn’t a new certainty either.

Far behind them, Sera still closed with measured pauses between intervals of pressure. Higher above and across from both sides, Jehovah still hovered over board like something uninterested in cleaning up its own footprint.

’Terms,’ said Tohu at length. ’Narrowed ones. If Sera gets this lane before we’re done, all conversation ends in a difficult fashion.’

Zeus did not relax his posture. ’Then speak quickly.’

The pursuit had ended.

The confrontation was just starting.