The town of Vouille looked the same the next morning.
Clouds drifted lazily across the pale sky, shops opened with their usual sleepy rhythm, and students walked to school with backpacks slung low and earbuds in.
Nothing had changed.
Except Kahel.
He stood beneath the same tree he always did, leaning against the bark with his arms folded. His eyes didn't move, but his senses stretched as far as he could manage.
Nothing.
No unusual movements. No aura spikes. No pressure in the air.
Still, his skin itched.
The man from yesterday hadn't just attacked him. He'd sensed his qi, an ability that shouldn't exist in modern Earth unless…
There were others.
Hidden. Watching.
Just like him.
That evening, after walking Mia home and making sure she was asleep, Kahel slipped into his training shed.
The familiar scent of sweat, metal, and old wood greeted him. His bandages were still stained with dried blood from two days ago.
He sat cross-legged on the floor.
Breathed in.
Slowed everything.
And then he opened the small wooden box in the corner.
Inside was a notebook. Worn leather, pages yellowed with time. The only thing his mother had left behind that he never showed Mia.
No pictures. No letters.
Just fragments of a journal.
"There are things in this world no one talks about. Not because they don't exist, but because we're not supposed to see them."
He'd never understood what she meant. Until now.
Kahel stood suddenly.
He grabbed a coat and left through the window.
If what the man said was true… then there was something called an association. And if there was an association, there was a network. A hidden community.
He needed answers.
And there was only one place in Vouille that stayed open all night, where information flowed freely and rules didn't matter.
Café du Nord – Midnight
It was the kind of place where people traded stories over cheap drinks and pretended the world outside didn't exist.
Kahel walked in with his hood up.
Behind the bar was an old man with a shaved head and a sharp gaze that didn't match the slowness of his body.
"Not serving kids," he grunted.
"I'm not here to drink," Kahel said.
The man raised an eyebrow. "Then what?"
Kahel walked up to the bar and said two words:
"The Association."
The clatter of a glass behind the counter.
The room stilled.
The man leaned in. His voice dropped low.
"Kid, where'd you hear that name?"
Kahel didn't flinch. "I need to know."
The man studied him for a long, long time.
Then he poured a drink, for himself.
"There are people in this world who do things most of us would rather not believe. Things that can't be explained. Martial arts, sure, but not the stuff you see in movies."
He sipped. "The real stuff."
Kahel said nothing.
"You ever see a man punch through steel? Burn someone without fire? Shatter bones without touching them?"
"Yes," Kahel said quietly. "Yesterday."
The man looked away.
"Then you're already in it."
Outside, Kahel stepped into the cold night air, mind spinning.
There was a world beneath the one he knew.
And he'd just knocked on its door.
Above, nestled in the trees, Jalior watched from the shadows, his arms folded.
"The boy steps forward," he said softly. "One step at a time."