Lead Soul

Months passed.

On the flagball field, the wind swept across the synthetic grass, raising small golden waves beneath the sun. The young players ran, shouted, slipped, and the ball spun as if it had a life of its own. Dark received the pass, dribbled past two players, and sent it to Daime, who completed the play with a precise spin. The whistle blew. Daime's laughter echoed as if the world were still simple.

Dark smiled again, something rare. The ball was returned, and Theo caught it firmly. He passed to Dark, who passed it back to Daime—as before, like in the days when nothing had yet been broken.

— Theo, I'm your father! Show some respect! — Daime shouted, throwing his arms into the air. — Yoooo!

Theo simply laughed and shook his head.

The coach blew the whistle, ordering new formations: offense against defense. Theo took his position in midfield—the brain of the game, the one who decided the direction of everything. Dark stayed on the same team. Kan and Daime were on the other.

The whistle cut through the air. Kan advanced. Theo tried to tackle him, but Kan slipped past with a sharp feint, as if dancing. He passed the ball to Daime, who came charging at full speed. Dark tried to intercept, but Daime spun his body and sent him crashing to the ground.

— Oh, take that, take that, take that, take that! — Daime laughed, celebrating. — I bent a crooked guy! Wooooo!

Dark got to his feet, his eyes flashing, and grabbed Daime by the collar.

— Are you crazy? — Daime stepped back, raising his hands. — I know you're strong, but I'm faster! Calm down, it's practice, for fuck's sake!

The others tried to separate them. Theo shouted something, but the wind carried it away. Dark turned toward him, his eyes almost black with anger.

— Don't let Kan get past you, understand? — he said quietly, tense.

The next play began. Kan advanced again, but Theo intercepted him at exactly the right moment. Even so, the ball slipped away and reached Daime. Dark came like lightning and slammed him violently to the ground.

— Are you fucking crazy? You're going to ruin my gear, you stupid animal! — Daime shouted angrily.

Dark pointed a finger at him.

— You're not getting past me.

Daime, still sitting on the grass, raised his hands in surrender.

— Hey, Dark... take that little bit of rage out on the opponents, okay? This is practice! And if there's any left... — he was about to finish when a shadow crossed the stands.

— ...send it to Dru — he finished, without noticing who was passing by.

Dru raised her eyebrows, appearing with her trinkets hanging from her belt.

— What did you say, Daime?

— Nothing! — he answered quickly, pointing at Dark. — He started it!

Dru simply walked past, like an omen, and silence returned to the field.

Theo grabbed Daime by the arm and dragged him away.

— What is this, you want me now? — Daime teased. — Jealous?

Theo sighed.

— Shut up, Daime. Let's play.

— Okay, okay — he replied, laughing. — No need to get pissed off, man.

The whistle sounded again. The ball rolled. And for a moment, amid the sweat, laughter, and golden dust, it seemed as though nothing on Ceres had changed—but the lead was already running invisibly through everyone's veins.

Practice ended. The field was quiet now, the sound of distant laughter mixing with the wind and the slow movement of the nets. Some were still trading jokes in the locker room, while others gathered the equipment. No serious trouble—just the heat of the game, sweat, and tempers.

Theo, as always, climbed the stands. There, on that cold concrete, he had built his own private altar. He liked being alone, watching the empty field—the same field where he had smiled, lost, won, and been happy so many times. Now, that green rectangle was merely a cracked mirror in which he saw the past and the future overlapping.

He sat down, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes fixed on nothing. He took off his gloves and slowly untied his cleats, like a ritual. He felt the cold air on his fingers, the faint trembling, the invisible contamination of lead coursing through his body. The stands were his tomb—and also the wake for his own soul.

For months, Theo had thought about the two favors Mother Ceres had asked of him. When she called him, he imagined a punishment, a trial, perhaps even the final correction. But no. She merely looked at him with that monstrous serenity and said nothing. Mother Ceres's silence was more devastating than any punishment. And it had been eating away at him ever since.

He searched for a way out. But how could he escape when there was no way out? Perhaps the only answer was to accept it—to dive deeper, to let the lead fill everything.

Theo closed his eyes. The memory of Flagball returned like a burned film: the moment he lost his innocence, the instant he understood that good and evil coexist within the same body, on the same field, in the same gesture. The purity of the game had died on the same day he understood the price of obedience.

Love, he thought, was not a verb—it was a substance. Heavy, metallic, and always contaminated.

And Ceres... Ceres was the reflection of that love. More lost than he was.

A girl who did not know how to say what she felt, but revealed everything through her eyes. Beautiful eyes, dangerous, deep as a well from which no one returns. He wondered how he could lose himself in someone so lost.

The love between them was blood, it was a spark. Peace between them had never existed—it was, as the saying went, an accident. Theo looked at his own arm. The scar from her bite had disappeared. But the mark was still there, inside.

He smiled without joy.

Love between him and Ceres was an accident. It was violence. It was necessity.

And he knew what lay behind it all.

He knew who her father was—Chancellor Aquila, dictator of Silencium. He also knew what Mother Ceres wanted: for him to possess her, to father a child who would unite the bloodlines, a biological and political heir.

It was a theater of blood. A favor disguised as a mission.

“Ceres will go to Silencium,” he thought. “With her mother, if she is alive.”

Theo lowered his head.

“I am damaged,” he murmured. “I failed my brother. I failed Mother Ceres.”

Daime. Koee. Ceres. All fragments of something he no longer knew how to repair.

Two wrongs don't make a right, he repeated, but Ceres was the wrong he wanted to make again.

Koee... so different. Pure, light, like the air that is missing. She was the opposite of Ceres—an accident that brought peace. And perhaps that was why Mother Ceres wanted her in her plans as well.

Theo sighed.

“I'm inside a meat grinder,” he thought. “But I don't know which part I'm in—whether I'm going in or coming out. Or perhaps I'm already part of the machinery.”

The next thought came like a blade:

A rebel in Ceres is like a bacterium screaming about its importance inside a body that doesn't even know you exist.

And in that instant, he realized—there was no pain anymore.

His soul, after all, was already lead.

Theo's Monologue — “The Lead Beast”

Imagine if I told Ceres and Koee.

How would Mother Ceres react?

Nothing.

She chose me because of this—because of fear.

She trusts my fear.

Fear of losing all of this.

Fear of Daime having his chance to turn the game around.

Fear of Ceres feeling something and saying what she feels.

Fear of Koee having a dignified life... even if she is only free within these walls.

Because out there, she would be hunted.

Crushed by her own miraculous blood.

Lucky or unlucky, she is alive—and that is enough for Mother Ceres.

My brother on Ceres.

Theo looks at the station in the sky and remembers the letter:

“I won't be able to hug Tycho and Theo in person,
but look up—I am embracing the world.”

A tear falls.

I have never cried before.

No matter how much it hurts, this was the last garment of my soul leaving me,

and lead taking its place.

I am alone.

Without a cure.

Without salvation.

I learned that forever is biological—

it lasts until the body rots.

And even buried, I won't have peace there either:

I will become fertilizer.

If I am going to grieve,

it will be for the love that died inside me.

I am the lead beast who loves his invisible hunter: Mother Ceres.

Love is beautiful—

but it is the death of my peace of mind.

Koee... I hope she forgets me.

It has been a long time since I've seen her—and thank God.

I hope Mother Ceres chooses someone else.

But Mother Ceres... when it comes to choices, she is merciless.

If I am to lose myself in them,

let it be with force—

with all the force—

to see if something is greater than this pain that never goes away.

Theo laughs.

A sadistic, resigned laugh.

It seems like a pact—sealed in lead,

with Mother Ceres herself.

The field was empty, with only the sound of the wind between the goalposts and the echo of memories.

Theo was still standing in the stands, the shadow of his body stretching beneath the pale light of dusk.

He laughed quietly, a laugh born not of joy—but of domesticated despair.

— What are you laughing about? — a voice asked behind him.

Theo did not turn around. He knew who it was.

Ceres appeared on the same step as always, the same place where their first conversation had taken place.

Time seemed to move in circles, but now the circle had cracks.

— I'm laughing at a joke you wouldn't understand — Theo said, still facing away.

— Really? — Ceres replied lightly, but with something tense in her eyes.

Theo turned.

He stared at her, and the silence between them was almost tangible.

The light reflected in her blue eyes, and for a moment, he saw himself within that glow—the same glow that had once made him believe there was salvation.

— Beautiful eyes, Ceres... beautiful eyes — he murmured.

Ceres noticed something.

Theo was different.

Calmer, darker, more... sure of himself.

What had once been doubt now seemed like command.

— What's so funny? — she asked, trying to understand what was going on.

Theo gave a half-smile.

— I'm directing my hatred toward something positive in my negative life.

Ceres did not answer. She simply watched him.

Theo approached slowly.

The sound of his footsteps against the concrete echoed like a metronome.

He came so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath.

Theo raised his hand, and Ceres blinked in an involuntary reflex.

But he merely touched her face lightly and removed a loose eyelash.

— Your request is my command now — he said quietly, almost in a whisper. — Get ready... half an hour from now, at the train station behind the school. That's an order.

Theo turned his back and walked down the steps, leaving behind only the sound of his footsteps and the wind.

Ceres remained motionless, trying to understand what had happened.

Something inside her faltered—it was neither fear nor anger.

It was as if, for the first time, Theo was playing her game... and winning.

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