【我会找到正确的时机】

然后他挥手，水珠散去，像从未存在过。

-----

The following morning, Santali's vision had steadied at roughly thirty percent.

The world resolved into amorphous shapes and muted blurs, much like someone severely nearsighted without glasses. Yet a tide of colour had crept back in: he could now make out the violent red of X's hair, akin to flame or coagulated blood, and the absolute black of her eyes, deep as a starless midnight.

He sat on the sofa, holding the documents X had given him—the known information on the “Nightwatchers” system. The pages were printed, but the content had clearly been filtered and edited. The framework was there, the logic coherent, enough to build a rudimentary understanding—but all the key parameters—specific technical pathways, personnel lists, coordinates, energy frequencies—were either replaced by vague descriptors or outright blanks.

"A collective consciousness—forged from the memory modules and personality matrices selectively imprinted by each successive leader upon their deathbeds, via a dedicated neural protocol." His voice was steady as he read. "Theoretically achieving immortality on a consciousness level, but requires physical terminals as an interaction interface..." He looked up. “What are the 'terminals'”

"People," X said, sitting opposite him, cleaning parts of a handgun. "Or, to be precise, strictly selected and biologically modified individuals whose nervous systems can form a stable connection with the system's core matrix."

She reassembled the cleaned parts with a speed that was almost a blur, yet each movement was methodical and flawless. A final, definitive click signaled the weapon was whole again. She racked the slide, checked the mechanism, ejected the magazine, and cleared the chamber.

“‘Crimson Tide,’” she said, placing the pistol on the coffee table and pushing it toward him, “before he became a killer with that code, was a 'terminal' candidate.” Her gaze met his, flat and direct. “He failed. The system rejected his consciousness. The result was permanent brain damage, a fractured personality. After that… he became a pure instrument.”

Santali picked up the pistol. A Beretta 92FS, classic model, impeccably maintained. The checkered grip felt cool against his skin. The weight distribution was even, the balance perfect... entirely standard, no modifications.

"Is this a test?" he asked, his fingers tracing the serial number.

“A tool,” Nyxl countered, her tone flat. “You’ll need a weapon. I can’t watch your back everywhere.”

A practical excuse. Santali saw the true calculus: arming him was a risk assessment. She believed he might use it, but not against her.

Or rather, she believed she could neutralize him if he turned.

A subtle form of trust, built on deterrence.

He set the pistol down with a quiet finality. “The system’s flaw,” he said, his focus snapping back to the documents. “It needs a new physical terminal every cycle. The changeover creates a 72-hour window of instability. When is the next one?”

“Seventeen days from now,” X said. “The active Terminal has been operational for over five years. It’s nearing its limit. The replacement sequence will run at the main Arctic facility—where the system signal strength is highest.”

Santali looked up, his unfocused violet eyes "seeing" her. "You want to make a move then."

"I plan to infiltrate then," X corrected. "Retrieve the system's core data. Then… I’ll see."

“See what?”

“See what the truth turns out to be.” X rose and walked to the window. "If the system is truly, as the Whites claimed—a tool to control, even ‘prune’ Arcanists at the consciousness level—then I’ll scrub it. If it’s just… another form of immortality experiment, I’ll extract what’s useful and disappear. For good.”

A rational plan. Santali appreciated the rationality, even when it veiled deeper motives.

"What do you need me to do?" He lowered his gaze to the cold pistol resting on his knee.

"Three things." X turned, leaning back against the window. "First—a full layout of the main facility.

Patrol patterns, surveillance gaps. Everything you scouted."

"Agreed."

"Second, on replacement day, create a diversion. Something that draws at least forty percent of their security."

Santal calculated swiftly. "I'll need three days. And some specialized equipment."

"You’ll have it." X paused briefly. "Third… if I’m compromised inside, if I’m not out by the agreed window—you come in and bring me out. Or confirm my death."

The request gave him pause. Not the risk—risk was routine—but her phrasing: bring me out. Not extract, not retrieve. Bring. Spoken as a matter of course, as if... she believed he was capable of it.

"Why would I agree to that?" he asked softly. This fell far outside the risk-reward calculus of a 'temporary partnership.'

X returned to the sofa and sat opposite him once more, closing the distance to just over a meter—that precise border where shared space tilts into the intimate.

"Because you want in, too," she said, her dark eyes fixed on his, which still couldn't discern details. "You want to know what secret the Whites left behind, what the Nightwatchers are hiding at all costs. This is the best chance." She let the silence stretch a beat, "Probably your last."

Absolutely correct.

Santali smiled. Not the practiced, gentle facade, but a genuine smile, sharp and appreciative.

"Done." He extended his hand. "A pleasure, X."

X regarded his outstretched hand, the pause stretching a fraction too long before she met it with her own. Their palms connected—his surprisingly warm, hers cool from holding the glass.

The handshake was professionally brief, the pressure exact. A standard three-count. Yet, as they parted, the tips of his fingers grazed the back of her hand, a whisper of contact that lingered against her skin like an errant thread.

X stilled. Not a flinch, but a coiling of muscle so minute it was felt rather than seen——the instinctive defensive tension of a top-tier operative.

"My mistake," Santali withdrew, his smile clean. " Misjudged the distance. The depth perception... it's the last thing to return."

A lie.

She knew it with cold certainty. The man who could snatch a syringe from the air by sound alone didn't misjudge distances. From his earlier precision in catching her wrist to the way he’d turned toward her voice without hesitation, his spatial sense was clearly intact. The ‘miscalculation’ was deliberate.

She acknowledged the lie with a slight nod, retrieving the half-reassembled pistol from her lap. The snick-click of components seating into place was a familiar cadence, a ritual to restore order. She focused on the cool, hard certainty of steel.

Santali listened to the precise symphony of metal, leaning back against the cushions. Behind closed lids, his mind was a vortex of calculated variables: her hypersensitivity to touch, the subtle shift in her breathing at the mention of the Whites, the specific cadence of her silence when he'd said his own name. The evidence was coalescing into a single, irrefutable shape.

But the truth was a blade that cut both ways. To name it now was to risk everything. This fragile, nascent alliance needed a more stable foundation. Patience.

"About the diversion," he began, shifting the current, "I have the beginnings of a plan."

The next two hours were spent in meticulous planning. Santali wove strategy, his mind a loom threading timelines, topographies, and probabilities into a complex, elegant tapestry. X countered with logistics and contingencies, her thoughts a whetstone sharpening each move, honing escape routes and fallbacks. Their minds engaged in a silent, intricate dance—his the grand architecture, hers the flawless execution within it. They were complementary, two disparate systems finding an unexpected, seamless fit.

Halfway through, X looked up from the schematics. "Your Arcana. Aerokinesis?"

He nodded. "Best kept sheathed. The Nightwatchers' grid is sensitive. Using it inside the facility would be like ringing a dinner bell. Their detection arrays... they'd pinpoint us before we took a second step."

"Cryokinesis," she offered in return, a significant concession. "Comes with its own constraints. The energy signature is sharp. And the aftermath requires... management." She was building a bridge, plank by careful plank.

"The backlash?" he asked, his tone clinically neutral, a physician's query.

"A thirst. For twenty minutes, maybe less. A heightened... appetite for violence." She delivered the confession with a shrug, packaging the monstrous in mundane terms. "Controllable."

He stored the information away, not in the cold vault of tactical data, but somewhere else, somewhere warmer and more uncertain. "Mine is visual. A delay, then darkness. Duration depends on the strain."

The exchange hung between them, a delicate truce. He felt the weight of her gaze, an assessing look that seemed to measure the man behind the damaged eyes.

Outside, the brief Moscow afternoon was already bleeding into an early twilight.

"The dressing needs changing," X said, rising. "I need to check for infection."

Santali complied, pushing the fabric aside to expose the bandage. The performance of weakness was gone, as was the rigid stoicism. He was simply a patient, accepting necessary ministrations.

Her hands were efficient, but different now. A slight hesitation before peeling back the old dressing, a momentary warming of the salve between her fingers before application—small, almost imperceptible gestures of consideration woven into the clinical routine.

Santali noted each one. They felt like absolution.

When the dressing change was complete, X handed him a cup of warm milk—this time with a touch of honey.

"For energy. And it helps with sleep," she said, her voice retaining its practical edge, though the gesture itself was softer. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we prep."

Santali took the mug, cradling it in both hands. The heat seeped into his palms, a comforting warmth that spread through his fingers. The faint, sweet scent rising from the milk wove strangely with the lingering traces of antiseptic and the ghost of blood in the air, creating a peculiar, fragile tranquility.

"X." He spoke just as she turned to leave.

She glanced back, a question in her dark eyes.

Santali did not answer at once. He brought the mug to his lips and took a slow sip of the milk. The warm, honeyed liquid traced a path down his throat, and for a fleeting moment, it seemed to soften the rigid architecture of his reasoning—a temporary thaw at the edges.

“If…” he began, the word measured, deliberate, “and it is a considerable if… we both come through this. What then for you?”

The question settled between them—unexpected, intimate, crossing some unspoken boundary that had long separated tactical alliance from personal revelation. The room seemed to hollow into a deeper silence; even the wind outside appeared to still its breath.

X was quiet for a long time. So long that Santali assumed she would let the question dissolve unacknowledged. When her voice finally came, it was quiet, almost provisional, as though testing the sound of a long-suppressed truth.

"Find a place. Somewhere quiet." She paused, the words tentative. "Doesn’t have to be large. Somewhere the sun reaches. Get a cat. Grow things that are hard to kill. Wake up when I want to."

It was an ordinary dream, stark in its plainness, and it hung strangely in the dim, transient air of the safehouse.

“And you?” She turned the question toward him, her gaze steady now.

Santali’s fingers tightened around the mug, its warmth fading against his skin. He took another swallow; the initial sweetness was gone, leaving only the rich, faintly pungent aftertaste of the milk.

“Haven’t properly thought it through,” he said, his tone carefully vague. Yet, unbidden, an image surfaced in his mind's eye: a sunlit windowsill, a cat curled in a warm mound on her lap, plants swaying in a breeze, and beside her… He severed the thought before it could fully form. That answer was too specific, too sharp, too heavy with an expectation their fragile alliance couldn't yet bear. To voice it now wouldn't be honesty; it would be a gamble.

He offered a smile then—faint, wistful, a thing of fragile suggestion. “Perhaps I’ll take up music again. Learned as a child. Wasn’t half bad.”

X’s gaze held his. Something shifted in the onyx depths of her eyes—a fleeting, unreadable current—before it stilled, sealed away behind a practiced calm.

“Get some rest,” she said, and turned, her footsteps retreating from the living room.

Santali remained on the sofa, slowly draining the last of the milk. Beyond the window, night had settled fully, the city’s lights blooming one by one into a inverted starfield.

He lifted a hand, his fingers moving lightly through the air as if conducting an unseen phrase.

The humidity answered. Beads of moisture gathered, trembled, then settled upon the cool glass of the pane, tracing words only the dark could read:

[Just a little more time.]

[I will find the right moment.]

A subtle turn of his wrist, and the letters blurred, dissolved—gone as though whispered into silence.