The medical team wheeled Reyes away toward the Association’s healing wing, and the crowd that had gathered in the plaza showed no signs of thinning, whispers rippling outward faster than William could track. He stayed slumped against the low wall, Cerberus settled beside him like a mountain that had decided to rest, and let himself finally take stock of everything that had gone wrong with the last several hours even as everything else had somehow gone right.
’Captain Yuen believed the lie. For now.’ He watched a pair of hunters near the gate whispering behind their hands, eyes flicking toward Cerberus every few seconds. ’But how many people saw me walk out of that Tower with a guardian class monster at my heel? How long before someone with real authority decides luck isn’t a good enough explanation?’
That was only the first worry crowding into the space adrenaline had left behind. There were others, each one settling in behind the last like debris after a flood receded.
Kessa and Bram had already reported a guardian class anomaly to the Association. Word would spread through every guild in Ashvale by morning, and eventually someone would connect that report to the boy currently sitting in the plaza with an Epic grade beast curled beside him like an oversized dog. Nobles and guild masters didn’t ignore Talents that overturned expectations that dramatically. Some would want to recruit him. Others, the kind that had made his last seven years miserable, would want to control him, or worse, eliminate whatever advantage he now held before he grew too strong to touch.
’And that’s assuming nobody asks the obvious question. Why was a Floor Ten guardian on Floor Three in the first place.’ William’s stomach tightened at the thought. ’Displacement events aren’t supposed to happen. Not like this. Something caused it, and whatever that something is, it might still be out there.’
Then there was Cerberus itself, lying beside him in full view of a public plaza, drawing exactly the kind of attention William least wanted right now. A creature that size, black furred and easily as large as a loaded cargo wagon, was not something he could simply walk home with unnoticed. Every step back to his cramped apartment in the fourth district would be a parade, and every hunter, merchant, and curious bystander along the way would get a clear look at exactly what he’d walked out of the Tower with.
’I can’t hide something this big. I can’t protect it, or myself, if half the city already knows what I have before I’ve figured out what any of this actually means.’
He dropped his head into his hands, elbows braced against his knees, the weight of everything pressing down harder now that the immediate danger had passed and left nothing but consequences in its place. Seven years of being invisible, and in a single afternoon he’d become the single most interesting thing to happen in Ashvale City in longer than he could remember. It should have felt like vindication. Instead it just felt like one more way for things to go wrong.
’I need to think. I need a plan. I need—’
A soft warmth pressed against his knee, small and sudden, and William’s head snapped up in alarm before his mind caught up to what he was seeing.
Cerberus was gone. In its place, curled against his leg with its head tucked beneath one small paw, was something that looked for all the world like a puppy, black furred, no larger than a housecat, a faint afterglow of pale light still fading from its fur where the transformation had taken hold. One pair of dark eyes blinked up at him, and through the bond came an impression so gentle it was almost startling coming from the same being that had torn through his shoulder hours earlier.
Smaller. Safer. For you.
William stared, several seconds passing before he found his voice. "You... shrank."
The puppy sized guardian tilted its head, ears flicking, and the impression that followed felt almost like amusement layered over something more earnest beneath it. It had felt his worry, he realized. Somewhere in the haze of his spiraling thoughts, the bond between them had carried enough of his fear across for Cerberus to understand exactly what problem needed solving, without William ever having to voice it aloud.
’It read what I needed and did this on its own.’ Something in his chest loosened, unexpected and sudden, cutting through the tangle of anxiety that had been building since the moment he sat down. ’I didn’t even have to ask.’
He reached down carefully, half expecting the small form to be some kind of illusion that would dissolve at a touch, but his fingers found solid warmth instead, fur soft beneath his palm in a way that bore no resemblance to the black furred titan he’d bonded with in that hollow. The creature leaned into the touch, small body pressing trustingly against his hand, and for the first time since the fight began hours ago, William felt something in his chest unclench that had nothing to do with pain or fear.
"Thank you," he murmured, quiet enough that only the small shape curled against his palm could hear it. "I don’t know how you knew what I needed. But thank you."
The impression that answered was simple, wordless, and somehow more grounding than anything Captain Yuen or the Association’s procedures had offered him all day. Guardian. Yours. Always.
Around them, the plaza’s whispers had shifted in tone, curious onlookers now craning to catch a glimpse of the strange scene, a bloodied boy cradling what looked like an ordinary black puppy against his side, no trace remaining of the guardian class monster half the crowd swore they’d just watched him walk out with. William caught snippets of confused muttering, people already doubting what they’d seen only minutes earlier, and understood with sudden clarity just how useful this particular gift might prove to be in the days ahead.
’If it can hide its true size whenever it wants, maybe I don’t have to broadcast everything I’ve gained today.’ A fragile thread of a plan began forming somewhere beneath the exhaustion, tentative but real. ’Maybe I can walk through this city without every guild master in Ashvale watching my every move by nightfall.’
He gathered the small, warm shape carefully against his chest, wincing as the movement pulled at his wounded shoulder, and pushed himself up off the low wall on unsteady legs. There would be time later to sort through every fear crowding his thoughts, the Association’s evaluation, the guilds that would inevitably come sniffing, the unanswered question of how a Floor Ten guardian had ended up stranded on Floor Three in the first place. For now, there was only the walk home, a bonded guardian curled trustingly in his arms, and the first quiet, fragile sense that maybe, despite everything, he wasn’t facing what came next entirely alone.