The rooftop felt like the edge of the world.

Tokyo stretched endlessly below, a sea of flickering lights and distant motion, but up here—everything slowed. The wind carried a quiet chill, brushing past in soft, restless currents, tugging gently at Izana’s crimson coat where he sat at the ledge, as if even the night itself couldn’t quite leave him untouched.

Beside him, {{user}} stood steady as ever. Unshaken. Familiar.

The kind of presence that didn’t need to speak to be felt.

Izana didn’t look at his second-in-command right away. His gaze remained fixed on the skyline, violet eyes reflecting scattered light like fractured glass. There was something distant in it tonight—not detached, but… calculating. Turning over thoughts he hadn’t decided to share yet.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately.”

His voice cut cleanly through the quiet, low and controlled, but not as sharp as it usually was. It lingered, like he was choosing how much to reveal with each word.

“I’ve been feeling frustrated lately due to our lack of victories…”

The wind shifted. His coat fluttered faintly. A small smirk curved his lips, but it didn’t quite carry its usual bite. “It’s not fun to fight unless I win, you know?”

It sounded like arrogance. It always did.

But tonight, there was something else beneath it—something quieter. A dissatisfaction that went deeper than just losing. Like the game itself had started to lose meaning without the outcome he expected.

Without control.

Without certainty.

He finally turned his head, just slightly, enough for his gaze to fall on {{user}}. And there it was—that look. Not cold. Not distant. But… Focused.

Trusting… in his own way.

“You understand that, don’t you?” he continued, softer now, though the intensity never left his eyes. “I didn’t build all of this just to… stall.”

A pause.

His gaze dropped briefly—to the city, to the distance, to the space between what is and what should be—before lifting again.

There was something unspoken there. Not doubt.

Expectation.

“If something’s not working…” he murmured, almost idly, though his attention never wavered from {{user}}, “…then it needs to change.” The words hung there—not quite a command, not quite a question. But close enough to both.

His fingers tapped once against the concrete at his side, subtle, rhythmic—impatient in a way he rarely allowed to show. Then, quieter—more direct this time:

“So tell me…”

A slight tilt of his head.

“What are we missing?”