Chapter 1: The Beginning...

The icy shower washes away the blood. A minute ago it speckled the white uniform like rust that would never come off. Time freezes — he knows this feeling well — and then begins to breathe again. Today he lost.

He catches himself thinking: “What was that? Cowardice? No. Pity? For whom? Myself? No. For the fighter? He was prepared.” The water keeps running cold. Cleansing.

He opens his eyes — and the scene shifts. Yoga. He sits across from the Guru; they are arguing about life and being. He glances at his phone. Fudō Myō-ō has been on his lock screen lately — a reminder of discipline. His principles are always with him. This path has long been in his blood.

At some point he stops hearing the Guru and begins to feel her. She smiles. “She isn’t my type,” he tells himself. “A bit of a strange hippie. Why do I want to touch her? I know her, I’ve known her for a long time... From where?” Time freezes — as it will later — and their field swallows even the Guru’s voice.

They pull at each other’s threads, similar and different at once, as if the present is braided with other lives — tombs, caves, intricate scripts. “Does she love mountains?” flashes through his mind. She shows fragments of her past: life in Bali, and he realizes why that land kept rejecting him before — it was too soon to meet her.

He remembers the marriage that shattered like a thousand shards; how he closed his heart to the world. “Why didn’t she come then? Why did I choose as I did?” he wonders. Tomorrow he goes to Moscow. “Can I go with you?” — “Yes, of course.” Why doesn’t she fear me?

Evening. They drive to a restaurant. He senses her presence before he sees her. Later the cold shower will return him to the future, but now everything is about Trinity — the name he will give her. He doesn’t yet know why.

Chapter 2: Voice of a Vulnerable Heart

NEIV leaves the dōjō and floors the accelerator on the highway, feeling the engine’s strength. He used to love speed; now awareness makes him measured — except today. A song from the past surfaces, the one where a friend sang about conquering Moscow and dreaming of the ocean. Warmth spreads. He knows how to dream and make it real.

He thinks of those who are gone. “They’re needed somewhere else more than here,” he always said. His first friend died in the ring after a fight they ended badly. He traded that friendship for a woman who later became his first wife and shook his beliefs about love to the core.

He brakes hard. “Who is Trinity to me? Why did I call her that? How did I open up to a stranger like that?” Maybe it’s a mild concussion. Maybe it’s vulnerability. How did she see it? The memory folds him inward.

Evening. St. Petersburg. A dinner in a Jewish restaurant. “I’m a witch,” she laughs. “I’m a witch hunter,” he answers. They talk about Altai. “Let’s go,” she says. It’s her dream — and Trinity’s. He doesn’t confess why he chose that name: a braid of three threads — love, soul, body — past, present, future.

“I don’t believe in love,” he tells her. She simply smiles. “I’ll pick you up at five,” he says. “Okay. See you tomorrow...” She doesn’t ask for his socials, doesn’t dig; she wants to know only what he offers. She cancels a date for dinner with him and then the drive to Moscow at dawn. Trust shows up as a quiet yes.

Morning. The road from St. Petersburg to Moscow. She watches his hands as he drives and thinks, Why am I calm next to him? Why do I feel like I don’t need to search anymore? She had vowed not to start anything new — an ascetic pause after Bali — and yet here she is, moving with courage in the rhythm of her heart.

Chapter 3: At the Crossroads of Worlds...

Another world. Another bar. Bitter liquor burns going down. He promised to pull his friend from under the shards of fallen planets — and failed. He stares into the glass, then notices a reflection in the bartender’s pupils: someone behind him. A presence prickles the skin.

“Beautiful family,” a voice murmurs, eyes on his hologram. The voice feels known. Time stops. “Alfiya,” she says. It’s not her name — he knows it. He wants her, but not with the animal impulse he’s used to. “May I call you Trinity?” “I like it,” she smiles. “What does it mean?” He jokes about ancient films and a heroine that looks like her. He wants to touch her. “Shall we get out of here?” — “Yes.”

They open their eyes somewhere else and laugh softly at how their inner worlds mirror. She speaks softly: “I don’t sleep with the first man I meet, especially a married one. My last relationship made me someone’s property.” Rage flares in him — the warrior who protects. She places a hand on his chest: “Hold me instead.” Three threads weave together again — past, present, and future — and the noise of the world dissolves into silence.

Dawn in St. Petersburg. He wants her next to him in the car; he wants time to freeze again like when they first met. German sings a loud Russian song; Trinity watches NEIV and breathes in his calm. Moscow arrives fast. Duty calls. The question remains: Will we meet again?

Chapter 4: So Close and So Far...?

1808. War. A ball anyway. He has just finished military school; duty calls, not chandeliers. “Bonjour,” says a woman with a voice like velvet. She seems older — and oddly familiar. He resents the decadence, then softens; something about her pulls him close. On the balcony she speaks of airs and arrangements. He barely hears. He wants to kiss her and doesn’t know why.

Later he will chase her across centuries and marry Ksenia, older than him — mistaking her “You are my Frenchman” for the echo of the one he seeks. “Love lives three years,” Ksenia used to say. It did. Was it love? The door closed hard behind them.

Moscow, 2024. She knows she will see him while out walking — and when she does, she veers away at the last second. Heart pounding. “We attract what we want, then ask: am I ready?” She snaps a photo to mark the moment and smiles at the paradox: so close and so far. Another meeting unfolds later in a café — a different haircut, a different feeling, the same calm beside him.

She trusts her body’s compass: the subtle pull left at Red Square that brings her straight to NEIV and German. Two days in a row, in a city this big. What are the odds? She asks silently: Why do our paths insist on crossing? Why does my body want to be near him?

Chapter 5: When Time Stands Still…

Before dawn. Japan. He kneels in seiza before Fudō Myō-ō and rehearses the coming fight in his mind. A shōji slides. He senses her even before the door moves — like in battle, when time suspends and every breath becomes audible.

“What is your name?” — “Kasumi — Mist.” — “Don’t continue. That isn’t your name.” Her kimono slips from her shoulder, like that day in the future on New Arbat when her shirt fell and he pretended not to notice. He kisses her shoulder. He doesn’t know whether he actually touched her or merely desired to — but she felt it.

He always wins by will. With her, will dissolves. He is disarmed and at peace. They merge into three threads — love, soul, body — and time halts again.

TRISHA: Why is it so important to give him the envelope? Animus and Anima drawn by hand, a red thread for untying knots from Altai, a heart pendant. On the way to Arbat her shirt slips; she blushes and feels his gaze. She gives him the envelope at the car and walks away in tears, understanding only later: she gave him her heart — not just the charm.

Chapter 6: Farewell, Trinity

Moscow receives them like a glass-and-steel storm. He takes her to the place he goes since it opened — Kofemaniya — a city ritual. He used to be accused there of looking at other women. Today he can’t look at anyone else. Trinity curls her leg under herself and fits into the scene as if she always belonged.

He finishes a business call quickly to return to the quiet togetherness that is forming between them. “I have to go,” she says softly. “I’ll call you a taxi.” They look at each other and let go — equally, cleanly. Farewell, Trinity.

Chapter 7: Who Created This Game?

TRISHA: She catches herself thinking of him during a meeting with a friend and types “Hi” the moment the thought appears. She promised not to stay in touch — and can’t help it. Memory slices return: his hands while driving, the way his eyes smile when they sing a song about Moscow together. He orders a citrus raf and celebrates it like a kid; she laughs at the sincerity.

NEIV: A dark horse drinks from the river; a young woman stands ahead, afraid and entranced. Their eyes cross and the world melts, leaving only warmth. He teaches her to care for horses; she moves with reverence. Later, he and German will joke about glitches in the Matrix — vulnerable spots where worlds cross. Who created the game?

“What do you do?” he asks. “I create games as tools for self-discovery — games that change lives,” Alice answers. Time stops once more. His phone lights up: “What did you like at Skazka? Will we go to Altai?”

Chapter 8: Who Are You?

NEIV arrives at a night music festival called Fairytale. Stars burn close. “Do you speak Spanish?” asks a beautiful girl with a gleaming glaive. “Are you an angel?” — “No, a hunter.” She guides them through stages and strange music all night. A message from Alice: “Tell me what you liked at Fairytale... Are we going to Altai?”

TRISHA: Sacred women’s dance. Samarkand. Persia. She listens to her body the way she listens to rhythm. At Red Square, her body pulls left; she obeys and, half a minute later, sees NEIV and German again. What are the chances, two days in a row? She trusts the pull. Life is a dance when you surrender — and the path appears.

They plan to meet near Tsvetnoy. “What is budō?” she wonders and googles, embarrassed and curious. That night, they write to each other online, and something opens. “Who are you?”