Arthur looked at Ryan as his steps froze, for the first time he heard Ryan say something too loud in front of him. Arthur's expressions softened a bit, not with the kindness, but with a kind of understanding that came from having seen similar kind of things like this before.

"So you already got involved with all this." he said, voice low but sharp.

Ryan tried to explain it to him at once— that what happened in the restroom, how we fought with them, Daniel came and helped him and revealed the secrets about the Crew, the Drugs.

But, Arthur didn't get convinced with any of it, he held his hand up in the air as his voice came out. "I know why you're fired up, but don't involve yourself in any of this."

Ryan's body stiffened, eyes fixated on Arthur as they had a glint of fire burried deep inside of them. "Then help me," Ryan's said, his voice weak, trembling. "I want to take them down."

Arthur's gaze flicked away, away to the sun-sliced parking lot beyond the school gates. "Alone?" he asked.

"No." Ryan shook his head. "Not alone."

Arthur said nothing for a long beat. There was weight to that silence — a thousand fights without applause, a thousand choices only someone who'd been on the line could understand. Ryan felt a stray tear prick at the edge of his eye. He blinked it away. The system chimed in his head like it always did, hard and blunt:

[Sub-Quest Unlocked: Form your crew. Objective 1: Recruit Arthur Cain. Reward: Allied assistance; possibility to learn Arthur's move sets.]

The notification hovered in Ryan's mind like a small, bright command. He read the reward and his breath hitched. "Arthur," he said again, this time with an honest, trembling plea. "Join me. I need you. I can't do this alone."

Arthur's face did something Ryan had never seen — a tiny curl at the corner of his mouth that felt like a rare, private permission. It was not a smile. It was a recognition that Ryan's voice carried something real.

"You don't get to pick fights because you have righteous anger," Arthur said quietly, and the lecture felt less like chastisement and more like a pact. "These are street fights. There are no rules. You get hit where it hurts and nobody calls foul. You can die."

Ryan's heart slammed against that truth, but it didn't make him step back. He'd been staring at death for a while now — the threat of it, the humiliation — and that distance made the idea less terrifying, not more. He had already lost a version of himself; he was safer risking a fight than returning to being nothing.

"I know," he said. "I know all that. But I'd rather die trying than live like before."

Arthur studied him. The air between them felt like glass — delicate, clear, easily shattered. Ryan's palms were slick with sweat; his face was still bruised from the match, but conviction steadied his jaw.

For a while Arthur said nothing. He turned, started walking again — slow steps toward the school gate — and Ryan followed, muscles tight with the fear that Arthur might change his mind. Then Arthur paused again, mid-stride, and without turning toward Ryan, he said one word.

"Okay."

It was small. It was not dramatic. But the syllable carried enormous weight. The hallway felt briefly like it tilted, like the world had adjusted its center of gravity. The system pinged again, bright and mechanical:

[Sub-Quest Complete: Recruit Arthur Cain.]

[Rewards Claimed:]

[- Allied Assistance: Arthur Cain will support in missions.]

[- Learn Move Set: Possibility to learn Arthur Cain's techniques upon permission.]

Ryan didn't know how long he stood there after the notification. The corridor noise seemed to rush back like someone had opened a valve. Students pushed past, laughter and jostle resumed. But Ryan only had eyes for the blue panel that hovered in his head, for the promise that learning Arthur's moves might mean more than popularity or strength — it meant survival, it meant a real chance.

Arthur walked toward the gate with the same unreadable face he always wore, but now there was the faintest slackening at the corners of his mouth. He'd said yes. That single decision felt like an arm around Ryan's shoulders, steady and firm.

A rush of relief hit Ryan so hard he felt his knees go soft for a second. Tears blurred his vision — not humiliation now, but something like relief, and a flowering kind of hope he hadn't dared to feel.

He heard himself whisper, almost to the quiet machinery in his head, "Damn."

Arthur glanced at him once, his eyes hard and calm. "We don't do this for glory," he said, voice quiet and low. "We do it so it stops."

Ryan nodded. He didn't have the words that would sound noble or heroic, just a rough edge of truth: "Then let's make them regret touching our school."

Arthur said nothing more. The pair walked out into the evening light together. Ryan felt the system's new objectives settle into him like small metal weights — a lineup of tasks, a map with red marks. The path ahead was raw, dangerous, filled with fights that could end worse than bruise and pain. But every step with Arthur made the path feel less impossible.

He had a crew objective now. He had Arthur's uneasy promise. He had the system's cold guidance and a pale piece of paper in his hand: the name of a quest that could turn him into something else, if he survived it.

Ryan breathed in the evening air. It tasted like metal and motor oil and hot sun on concrete — the taste of streets he'd once been afraid to face. It tasted like the first step toward owning the place that had been his prison.

And for the first time in a long while, the word "home" felt like it might belong to him — if he fought for it, if he earned it.

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