At the beginning of the second day since Ash went to fight the immortal, Aghat sent me a message saying that there was an informal meeting at the shooting range and insisted that I go. Later, when I arrived, my friend, Nair, the others and unfortunately… Süld were there.

  With the curiosity of what could have brought them all together here?, I approached Nair and asked her.

  —Süld took Ash’s things out of the box and now we’re playing with them, you should see them, they’re quite strange —she replied.

  They had placed an old wooden table that could easily be moved from place to place, and there they had scattered the pyromaniac’s belongings. Zhenshin was comfortably wearing Ash’s coat, it even seemed he had already claimed it because he wore it naturally; Baltasar was carefully inspecting his shotgun and alternated between loading it, unloading it, the reverse, and aiming it; Berke and Erdem had cornered Feng and it looked like they were about to inject him with the strange substance that was inside Ash’s syringes.

  —Stop, stop, I’m not going through that again! —shouted Feng while stepping back with his guard up.

  Hong approached and intervened:

  —Stop, guys, we don’t know what that liquid can do, don’t do something stupid.

  —Of course we know, this is a truth serum —said Erdem.

  —And we also know that Feng was injected and he’s still alive —said Zhenshin.

  —And we also want to know how much Feng knows —said Berke.

  Hong, seeing that this would not end well, quickly snatched the syringe from Erdem, who had been holding it. Holding it in his hand, he began to examine it. It was small, no larger than a disposable one. Hong estimated it would hold about five or six milliliters. Another thing that caught his attention was the quality of the materials: the glass felt like high-quality stainless steel, the needle seemed to be as hard as diamond but without its fragility, and the metal plunger looked indestructible. That made him assume they were not disposable at all and explained why there was an empty one among them, which led him to ask Feng the following question:

  —Did you happen to get any tests done?

  Then Aghat could be seen contemplating Ash’s knife, black like the dark of space. It had such a special finish that the reflection of the light looked like a white line painted across the dark metal, which came alive when the angle of the weapon changed, moving from one side to the other. Just by brushing a finger along the edge, Aghat made a small cut and immediately brought his finger to his mouth, sucking the blood that escaped from his body. He placed it gently on the table and, next to him, Aura was observing everything, and the instant she could, she took the dagger. At first she examined it just like Aghat had, but then, holding the handle with one hand and the blade with the other from the side of the sheath, it seemed as though she tried to bend it with great force. After a few minutes of failed attempts, she gave up and commented:

  —This is not flexible at all.

  Then I saw there, in the middle of the table, the knives Ash had taken out in the casino, but they were abandoned and had not attracted anyone’s attention because they were only ordinary pieces of sharpened metal. Nair took me by the arm and brought me with her to the strangest object among them: that black watch.

  It had a robust finish, metallically black, but it showed a very intense blood-like shine. Being a pocket watch that displayed the time by opening its cover when pressing a button located between the clasp that connected to the long dark chain, no one had been able to open it. They tried everything: with pliers, a lever, strange physics experiments they got from videos on the internet, and Süld, who had been the instigator of all this, was the most desperate to know what was inside the mechanical device. Reaching the limit of his patience, Süld began throwing it against the floor, the wall, the table, and when he saw it did not even get a scratch, he drew his pistol and aimed it at the device lying on the ground.

  All of us stepped back and unconsciously formed a deformed oval. I have no trouble admitting it, Süld has very good aim, almost on par with Nina, so when he fired at the time counter, he did not miss a single one of the eight bullets he shot consecutively. The watch jumped like a cricket with each impact and, while in the air, spun like a gyroscope. Some bullets ricocheted elsewhere and one almost hit Feng, who had dodged it by ducking his head purely on survival instinct.

  When he finished, Süld approached the object that had ended up farthest from him because of the shots, picked it up, brought it close to his face, and examined it. After a moment of contemplation, turning it and flipping it, he said:

  —Nothing! Not even a scratch. What the hell is this thing?

  I approached and quickly and unnoticed took it from his hands, looked at it closely and felt that it had considerable weight for its size.

  —Let’s see, “genius,” if you can open it —Süld said arrogantly.

  First I tried to do it the normal way, pressing the button; however, nothing happened.

  —Wow! That hadn’t occurred to me —the idiot said sarcastically.

  I looked at him with challenge and contempt and then began hitting it with my hand to see if something happened. Nothing did, and Süld kept making his “necessary comments.” I wasn’t going to waste time repeating what the others had done, so out of mere curiosity I brought the device close to my ear. For a good while I tried to listen, but I could not detect anything that sounded like a mechanism, until, just as I was about to move it away from my ear, I heard a “Tac.” A dry and strong one, not like that of any watch that produces a vibration or a sound generated by the mechanism; it was an unreal “tac,” a sound that did not seem to come from the device, but rather as if it had come from nowhere, as if the very space had produced it, a tac generated by the universe itself, one that absorbed all the sound around it only to make itself heard and nothing else.

  Startled, I dropped the watch and it fell to the floor. Süld, far from mocking or insulting me, seemed to share the fear I felt at that moment and simply took the device and threw it onto the table. Then he commented to the group:

  —Well, I think that’s enough inspection. We’d better put these things away before one of them actually explodes.

  —I have a bad feeling —said Ash, who was inside a rather deep crater.

  —Oh, how nice that you feel it. Because you’re going to die, bastard! —Shāng shouted, falling on him from a small height with all his strength and weight. Using his feet he crushed Ash, making the crater even larger. From the pressure of the attack, Ash exhaled while coughing up a large amount of red mucous saliva; his body bent forward and at that moment, by reflex, he clapped in front of Shāng and an electric flash was generated that kicked Shāng with electricity and sent him flying backward.

  Like a silent mortar projectile, the mass of Shāng’s body fell dryly onto the ground and produced the same sound it would make if a sack of flour fell onto dusty soil.

  Shāng stood up with a severe burn on his chest and electrifying scars that looked like pink venous marks across his body, the kind only survivors who have been struck by lightning have. They began to disappear as if they were worms traveling inside his body and, of course, his burn faded as well.

  Ash crawled out of the crater and commented with the little breath he had left:

  —I’m… willing… to negotiate… your surrender.

  Shāng had nothing to say. He had already surpassed his anger. That resentment toward the man who had believed himself too good to have him in his group was now lying before him, broken. Someone who had been placed above him in the past, someone who felt no empathy for his rivals, someone who gave him a strange sensation, that sensation that sensation that had been there since the first day he met him, a feeling of distrust no, more than that, a feeling of unfamiliarity, of strangeness, of incomprehension. Something similar to the first time he encountered a being of another race… that was it.

  What stood before him was not human. He did not sympathize with humans, he did not think like one, he did not behave like one, he was not one.

  What is Ash?

  The little attention he had paid him in the past revealed that he had never seen him angry, sad, or insecure. What was he? He could not experience happiness or love, he could not grow tired of war, and he could not kill him. He was not human, and Shāng could not even imagine what kind of disguised being might be hiding behind that mask of flesh. But beyond knowing Ash’s biological identity, he did know this:

  He is a monster.

  That was what he learned once when remembering a scene in which they shared a battlefield.

  It had been a clear day, or at least it began that way, because soon the black smoke that rose from a bloody battle that began at noon became black clouds that eclipsed the sun. Beyond how the battle began, it was at the end of the fight where that memory started. Shāng and Ash had been sent to the front in a trench battle; their task was to annihilate the defenses that blocked that front, and they certainly succeeded. While Ash generated waves of fire that covered much of the terrain, Shāng moved hidden among them and entered the trenches where the soldiers sheltered from Ash’s attacks. Once inside, he used his magic and, pointing from one side to the other, blasted a large hole through the line of soldiers gathered there; in that way they gathered all the enemies in one place and massacred them in enormous numbers.

  After going through all the trenches, only the stragglers remained. This was the most normal part of Shāng’s routine. The soldiers ran from him, they did it because they knew they could not win, they only knew they had to escape. It was normal that while running they would throw magic at him or fire shots to try to distract or delay him, but it was useless. He perfectly simulated a tank, those new assault machines that seemed unstoppable. When you saw one you knew the best option was to retreat, but you could not do it, so you had to try every form of counterattack your imagination could provide if you did not have a cannon at hand, or accept your death. Shāng showed a firm and arrogant composure; he watched the faces of his prey showing defiance, anger, frustration, and hope while they ran from him. He took his time, he did not chase them nor did he use his magic; he enjoyed his victory, his superiority calmly, as if he were eating his favorite food in a comfortable place on a day free from everything that was his work. After becoming satisfied, he ended his targets easily and quickly. He only made sure to let the youngest go, or officers of important ranks that he did not have to eliminate, so that when they reached safety and reunited with their allies, they would tell them how unstoppable and strong he was, that they had no chance against him, that they had used all the luck of their lives just to reach a safe place alive and whole. That was the dessert, the sweetest and most delicious divine nectar he could enjoy: hearing them whisper his name with fear.

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  But then he discovered that there was something better, something he would never obtain… terror. That is what he saw that day. Three—three soldiers escaping from Ash. Unlike when they ran from him, these could not run well, not because they were injured, but because their minds were completely altered by fear. He saw how they had dropped their weapons in desperation, a useless attempt to leave behind the useless weight and run faster, but they kept stumbling over one thing or another on the terrain. Tears of fear ran from their eyes; they held no hope in their hearts, only terror. Once they fell, they could not stand because their legs trembled so much; they crawled like wounded animals, and Ash walked quickly toward them and shot them when he was close. That was because, according to what Dimitri had told Shāng, Ash did not have good aim; he could not hit a person from more than three meters away, which is why he used shotguns. But then… how could he hit the target with his magic? Because he used “precompuestos,” a way of formulating a set of spells that worked as one. So when Ash had to hit a target from afar and it was not an area attack, he used one spell that commanded the next so that it struck the target, and that was how he managed it. However, when it came to firing any type of physical ammunition or any projectile with pure physical skill alone, Ash was terrible. That is why he got so close to kill his victims. And even so he was not like Shāng; while he enjoyed the hunt, Ash exterminated. He sought no satisfaction in it. It was not mercy, it was not compassion, it was not cruelty, it was work. While the soldiers Shāng pursued knew they had a tiny chance of escape, Ash’s victims knew they would die like rats, like garbage, like insects. And although that could make anyone in that position wet their pants, it was the image of Ash that caused that terror.

  A man who simply walked toward them completely unpunished and stained with blood all over his face terrified them with the calm, cheerful, and indifferent expression with which he pulled the trigger. They were nothing, they meant nothing to him, they were only his work. I suppose that in their final moments many of those men and women must have remembered how they once had to kill a rat that had slipped into their homes, whether with a shotgun or a cruel vermin trap, thinking in their last moments how those unfortunate creatures had once been in the same place they now were.

  But that memory no longer mattered. He was in front of him now, and he had the advantage and all the time in the world to finally kill him, and yet he still had that uncomfortable feeling that he was losing. And the worst part was that it was beginning to scare me; my magic was not as effective as before. I thought that mongol’s magic had affected me, but no, the problem was Ash. I had never fought against him, I had only fought beside him and ahead of him, since his job was that of a pyromantic bomber while I drew all the enemy’s attention. By this stage of the fight I had come to know that Ash has a very peculiar body. I even came to think he had some curse of immortality inferior to mine. However, he did not possess the aspects of one, and one of those aspects is that he scarred before healing, in addition to the considerable time it took, which made it unlikely to be a curse. Another very strange aspect was his body, very hard, everything about it, almost as hard as an orc’s: skin, flesh, bones. Magic did not seem to affect him very much for some reason, but physical attacks enhanced with spells had a powerful effect, so I used them to the fullest.

  Almost every time I caused some damage he easily destroyed me, but being immortal it was no problem. No matter what he hid beneath that skin, it was only a matter of time.

  Shāng, contemplating Ash exhausted and wounded like a wild animal that had not stopped being hunted, crossed his arms and let him keep babbling uselessly.

  —So? Do you surrender? —Ash said to him.

  —Why should I?

  —Because if you don’t… you will lose “forever”.

  —The only “forever” I know is the one I am going to live —said Shāng, already tired of the bastard’s nonsense. Putting the games aside, he decided to finish everything now and lunged at him with his arms and fists extended.

  —Anyway, that thing about surrender was a joke —Ash says quickly and prepares to defend himself.

  Agnar and the others continued watching the terrible battle. By then it had lasted a day and a half. At night it looked like a spectacle that would be perfect for a nocturnal festival, with so much fire and lightning magic roaming across the area. Shāng’s magic was no less striking; it was as if he could take the scenes he imagined in his head and materialize them, as if the setting of an action movie were constantly changing.

  But the most surprising thing was Ash’s endurance. It was true that several times during the fight they stopped to exchange some comments, or Shāng cursed him in new ways, or Ash ate one of his limbs, but aside from those moments they were fighting the entire time. From Shāng he could understand it, but from Ash it left him perplexed: not only did he not get tired, or at least did not run out of energy, but he had also received damage that would normally be enough to send someone to the hospital… to their funeral, and yet he was still standing and fighting as if it were the beginning, although sometimes he seemed short of breath. That made him reflect a lot on how they had underestimated the enemies of the past; now he had no doubt that if Ash had wanted to kill them, he would have done it.

  But the most unsettling thing was the result: who would win? Agnar had thought that Ash would end the battle quickly with whatever it was he planned to do, but after he did what anyone would have done, he wondered how long it would be before Shāng killed him and then how they would deal with him afterward. Something similar to what the Zhong guones had could work: they could imprison him and freeze him, the most effective way to contain an immortal. Another method was to lock him in a cage with stakes so that they interrupted the functioning of every organ, muscle, nerve, and the pulse of the blood; in that way the immortal could neither move nor think. A combination of both would be a safe solution, but the difficult part was locking him in there. Could it be that Ash was waiting for the right moment for something like that? Or did he simply believe he could improvise? Whatever the reason, I only knew it would not end well.

  In the end the battle made Agnar think that another immortal would also be the answer, the two of them facing each other eternally in an uninhabited zone until the end of time, and it almost seemed that way with what was happening. After all, the problem was that Agnar did not know what the hell Ash was going to do.

  While the fight continued, Agnar began to notice a pattern: Ash and Shāng would clash, struggle for the advantage for a while, until Shāng reached his limit and, without caring about anything else, launched himself into a decisive attack. Ash would take the hit and then unleash a deadly counteroffensive, blowing Shāng to pieces. After regenerating, they would exchange a few comments and return to the same routine again—a cruel reminder of the cycle of history. The battle grew more intense with every exchange, and it did not seem like it would end today.

  Nair and Lorelai were walking together through the city streets after the meeting where everyone had been playing with Ash’s belongings. There were few people around and night was already settling in; most were returning to their homes. They quietly enjoyed each other’s company during the walk until they began to talk.

  —Do you think he’ll find out we used his things? —said Lorelai.

  —Something tells me he will, but judging by how he is, I don’t think he’d get angry over something so trivial —Nair replied.

  —Just in case, let’s keep our distance when he comes to take them back… if he comes back.

  —If I had the kind of luck that would make that happen, I would’ve already managed to do plenty of things, like winning the lottery.

  —How can you be so sure?

  —The guy literally took down more than three hundred men by himself. I doubt they’ll kill him anytime soon.

  —From what I know so far, anything can happen —Lorelai said with a warning tone.

  —Anyway, if he’s still alive he’ll handle the hard work while we watch and learn. The more time we have, the better —she said with an indifferent look, then gave her an optimistic smile.

  —And what will we do if he dies, or if we eventually have to kill him because he’s no longer useful? —Lorelai asked with concern.

  —Well, if he dies we’ll have big problems, because that would mean we ran into someone even more dangerous than him. And if we manage to kill him, we wouldn’t have to worry too much about the rest of the monsters.

  —You’re right, but I still have a bad feeling.

  —About what?

  —I wish I knew. It’s a shame no one can see the future anymore —she said with a nostalgic tone.

  —Meh… I think the world is better off without prophecy. My grandfather told me that his father used to say that a known future was a curse.

  —I never really understood why.

  —Me neither, but one day I asked Mr. Abel.

  —And what did he say? —Lorelai asked, very intrigued.

  —He didn’t live in the era when people could do it. I think he was born a few years after that day happened. But he told me that the people he had known who could see the future basically played tug-of-war.

  —What? How does that work?

  —Well, it goes like this: if one person can see the future, they can basically control it. Now, if two people can see the future, they both manipulate events in their favor, constantly changing the future they see. But if hundreds of people can see the future, that means each one is pulling the rope to their own side. The knot in the center stays in place because of all the forces pulling it in different directions. That was the analogy they used to explain why, in the end, everyone saw a single future, and no matter what they did, they couldn’t change it.

  —Yeah… it’s still hard for me to understand, but what happened if someone managed to pull the rope? If someone had greater power, would that actually make a difference? —she began to ask with curiosity.

  —Well, in that case there wasn’t anyone, nor any method, that would allow you to pull the rope and drag everyone else to your side. Rather… how should I put it… the one who had the advantage was the one who could see further into the future. In that sense, you could compare it to a game of shatar: whoever could see more moves ahead had the advantage. So the one who could see a day more, a month more, a year or even a decade further than another seer would know what to expect from the future. They knew what they themselves would do, what others would do before those people even knew it, who would inevitably win or lose, and some even knew when they would die.

  —It sounds like seeing the future wasn’t as good as one might think… and the more people who could do it, the fewer possible futures there were.

  —Yes, but it’s actually a great power, as long as you’re the only one who has it —Nair said, emphasizing it as a fact.

  —Do you think anyone could still do it? —Lorelai asked, a hint of curiosity in her voice.

  —Nah. If someone could still do it, we would already know. Besides, the disappearance of that power was the main cause of the world war of the last century. The lesson from that is that seeing the future never brings anything good.

  —Unless you’re the only one who can.

  —Yeah… unless you’re the only one.

  —I've got a bad feeling —said Agnar, worry tightening his throat as he paced from one side to the other. He had already stopped paying attention to the screen and instead looked toward the distant battlefield. Night had fallen and the fight continued as fiercely as the day before. Ash and Shāng were putting on a nocturnal spectacle that many people would gladly pay to see or display at some festival: flames, lightning and clouds of dust clashing like ingredients in a violent storm.

  Peng remained seated, watching the screen, speaking to Agnar without turning to look at him.

  —Don’t you think it’s a bit late to say that?

  —It’s not that it started now. I’ve felt it since the beginning. It began like a small blade of grass in my garden… and now it’s turned into an entire field of bad omens invading my land.

  —And what exactly worries you?

  —I don’t know. At first I thought he asked for that wide perimeter to avoid collateral damage from the fight. But seeing how stationary his little macabre show has been, now I feel a bit deceived. At first I thought he might try to recruit the immortal, despite everything he told me about him. Then it crossed my mind that he would betray me and escape, leaving us with Shāng as a distraction. But then I remembered how he trusted us with his belongings to keep safe. That only leaves one possibility —he said, gesturing theatrically.

  —And what have you concluded? —asked Peng.

  —That he’s going to do something insane.

  

  

  

  

  Chocolate can be Black.