The mess hall was quiet at this time of night. It was when Jim liked it most; just before the changing of the guard, and just after all the midnight returnees from jobs had gone to bed. Often, he would spend his scant time off in the mess hall and just listen to the gang as it rested. Even when the people of Spring Street were on near global down-time, they were not quiet. There was always going to be some sort of noise, people talking, fighting, walking about or making deals with their own personal devil. It was a fact of life, and Jim loved to listen to it.
Tonight, however, he was here for another reason. Tonight he was here to say his farewells and to begin putting the plans that he and Law had spent the last two years drawing up and consolidating for into motion. It was a three step plan, with the first being impossibly embroiled in the lives of those that would run the executioners pen and the desolate strip after the boy's had left. By all means, Jim did not think that he controlled either section of the city, but he had no illusions over what his role was. He was a knife, made to cut out any problematic occurrences that might appear. When you could not use the knife, when you could not destabilise an enemy force through bargaining, bribery or blackmail you brought out Law, the hammer.
It had been four years since they needed Law, generally the threat of the masked demon would quell any sort of issues that might arrive. Spring Street’s nuclear option had only become more of an urban legend when it was revealed that he had dealt once and for all with the devourer. It was useful, but when he and Law left the gang would have to use the memory of the masked demon as a form of deterrence for anyone who would become a threat to them.
Jim viewed himself as a more subtle implement than Law was. When he had awoken his powers, he was worried to begin with. He had the capability to become a monster who could control the minds of those around him without recourse for any response, but after spending time reading the book, stripping away his fears and processing all the information he had gleaned from the purple Book, he had come to the conclusion that there was something rather poetic about the nature of the Book of Order. The Book gave him the power to reorder the priorities of things, be it physical, emotional or immaterial. He could walk into a room an unknown, pull the heartstrings of the people inside with a small amount of mana and walk out with them loving him more than they loved their own families. He could also make two lovers instantly burst into a fit of rage, or a miser give all his money to the poor. His power was subtle, slow and insidious, but it had to be. One step at a time he had to move his targeted idea deeper into the mind of the target, until finally the idea either consumed them, or simply did not matter to them.
Because of this power, Jim had taken it upon himself to slowly transform many of the rival gangs in the region, eventually twisting them into auxiliary gangs that supported the head that was now Spring Street. It had taken him far longer than he would have liked to admit, but he had achieved something he thought would have been impossible. Now he was leaving, and he needed someone to take his mantle, to control the region through subtlety rather than brute strength. Law could stop mobs forming, and people like serial killers cropping up, but he could not stop another gang rising to power and slowly forcing Spring Street out. That was why he had asked Orwell and Nae to meet him. The gang in truth was theirs. It had always been theirs since they had been given it by their old leader, the man who had originally worn the mask that made Laurence so infamous. They had never told Jim who the founder originally was, but he did not care that much. Laurence had bothered them about it for a long time, but as the holder of the mask, he had a much larger vested interest in the knowledge than Jim ever would. For Jim it was purely academic.
He got off the table he was waiting on and walked over to the far wall. It was one that was occasionally looked at by the gang, and one that served as a reminder of all the people they had lost in the time since Law had joined. After the festival of the dead, Law had come back and made the wall, a memento to those who had fallen in the battle between the Arrows and Spring Street. Jim had originally assumed that it was some sort of way of Law apologizing for not saving those people, but soon he had learned Law simply did not work in that way. He had discovered that it was instead a gift to those who came after him. It was a stele which contained the all the information about the fall of the Arrows, and the names of every single person who Law had considered was ‘his’ in any respect who had died. It showed them by troupe, and it was something lasting for them to be remembered by. In a sense it was Law’s way of bringing them back to life, ‘to fix the unfixable’ in his words.
Jim would often stare at the stele and wonder what went on in his friend’s head. Sometimes he would be so impossibly unfeeling, completely missing social cues and shooting himself in the foot when it came to relationships between people, but other times Jim felt that he was the most vulnerable out of them all. He was brutish, sly, violent and possessive, but he was also stuck with a sort of childlike innocence about how people acted and should act. His moral code was so obscure that Jim had no chance to follow it in any way, and yet Jim knew the only way he could actually get on Law’s bad side was by hurting someone who Law put value into, or breaking something of his. Without that, Law was simply a boy, almost a man, who simply wanted to know what was on the next page of the book he was reading, or what the world was like on the other side of the hill he could see. Sadly this could be seen as arrogance by some, and it had been by Cleo, which had made their continued friendship, or at least parallel existence difficult, and Jim was often left cleaning up the shards of their fallings out.
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He mulled over the situation with Law and Cleo, and was still thinking about it when the two people he had been waiting for finally showed up. Orwell and Nae were the diamond duo of the Spring Street bashers, and they had run the gang for over seven years at this point. They were both in their mid twenties, and stood with an air of command that could only be achieved through years of work and effort. It was not the regal aura that seemed to appear around some golden children, or Law's aura of command through pure strength. Instead it was an aura that demanded you listen to their commands, because they had long since earned the respect of better people. Jim respected them anyway. They had taken him in when his drunk of a father was no longer capable of looking after him, and had become his true family long before the man had actually died.
He hugged them both before retrieving a linen sack from where he had been sitting. It was a big sack, about the length of his forearm and half that for the depth, and seemed to contain something box shaped. Placing the bag on the nearest table with a thud, he smiled at the two leaders of Spring Street. “Orwell, Nae, I want to thank you for raising me for the last few years. You know I will be leaving within the next couple of days, and I wanted to give you something before I left. You two honestly deserve the world for looking after me like you did”.
“I wouldn't go that far,” Nae replied, smiling at the teenage boy who was quickly showing that he was approaching adulthood. “You are our greatest success, Jim. I would never have believed that the six year old boy we found playing in the gutter would become... well, a Saint to say the least. I'm extremely proud of you”.
“I agree with Nae, though I knew you were destined for greatness the moment you brought in Laurence. It takes a certain amount of luck to become embroiled with someone like him. I'm no soothsayer, but that boy has a destiny like few others”. Orwell grabbed Jim round the shoulders. “You're like a son to me, Jim, so I will worry about you when you leave. You best become strong and then come back to visit”.
“That's what the present is for. I will come back and visit, to see the both of you, but to lap check on how you are dealing with the Books”. Jim smiled and opened the bag, letting two purple leather bound books fall in front of them.
“What... are those?” Orwell and Nae said simultaneously, their eyes twitching at the sight of something they could tell had great value.
“Those are two copies of the Book of Order for both of you. Somehow the Book knew I needed a surefire way to protect you both and the gang, so created two copies for me to give to you. With these you will be able to control any gangs that spring up like I did with every single one that began causing us trouble. You don't have to change anyone's world views, just point them in a direction where they will need to help us rather than hinder us and you will do excellently”. Jim beamed at the two leaders as he said this. It eased his burden if they mastered the Book in any respect, and if they became Saints, then he would have even less to worry about. The only people stronger than Saints in the city, were the ten Immortal guards and the occasional Heaven rank individual who stopped by.
“I can't take this, Jim,” said Orwell, his forehead frowning like saying that caused him great pain. “This is a legacy of your clan. If I took this then I would be denying you it”.
“You don't get it,” Jim replied, “I still have my copy, the Book just reproduced on its own”. He stopped, putting his right hand out and then frowned. “More to the point, why do I care what the Caesar clan does? They never did anything for me. Spring Street is my family, so I am leaving it a legacy instead”.
Orwell continued frowning, but Nae burst out laughing. Normally it was the other way round, with Orwell being the more boisterous one and Nae being the serious, ice queen like figure, but she had never really been able to take Jim seriously. She could not help but think that this was his final prank on the clan, giving them two of the most valuable objects in the universe, but two objects that were impossible to sell. The books were worth ten thousand times their weight in gold shards, probably more, but no fence would take one. The heat was simply too much. If someone was caught trying to sell one, and they would be, they would become a meat puppet for the clan they just offended. It had happened before, and happened almost every hundred years, when a fence simply got too big for his boots and thought he was untouchable.
Orwell knew this too, which was why he had originally tried to return them. Having them near him would torment him likely for the rest of his life. In the end, he sat down heavily on a chair next to the table and began swearing continuously.
“Orwell,” Nae said. “You kiss me with that mouth?”
He smiled weakly and looked at Jim. “Fine, I'll take mine. But you better come back and give us something we can sell that is valuable”.
“Don't worry,” Jim replied, “I will. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to chase up Law and Yun before we go”.
He walked out of the mess hall and left Nae and Orwell in a continued state of shock. Neither one of them had properly processed what they actually had in front of them, but after a couple more minutes, Orwell began swearing again.