The laughter died.
Not suddenly, not sharply—like a joke that didn't quite land, it trailed off into the wind, swallowed by the silence of the desert. Kokuto stood alone among fractured sand dunes and bone-white remnants of Hollows past, his grin slowly fading into thought. His golden eye flicked back and forth as if trying to spot a hidden audience. There was none.
Only him.
The bells on his ankles swayed as he paced in a slow circle, humming to himself. "What's the punchline?" he muttered. "There's always a punchline…"
He crouched low, tracing shapes in the sand with a long finger. Arrows. Circles. A stick figure with Xs for eyes. A throne with a sword stabbed through it. All nonsense—but it was his nonsense. It meant something, didn't it? Had to.
"Let's think, let's think… I woke up from… what? A nightmare? A feast? A scream? A scream and a laugh, yes, yes…" He clapped his hands once, the sound echoing off nearby stone formations like a cheap magic trick. "But what now?"
He looked up at the eternally fixed moon, grinning down like a bored spectator. "You saw it all, didn't you, old friend? Tell me—am I the jester or the king? Or maybe just the stagehand sweeping up after the show?"
No answer. Just wind.
His grin returned, this time slower, stranger. "Fine. If the universe won't give me a script, I'll write my own."
Kokuto rose to his full height—thin, wiry, unstable—and took a few steps forward. He paused near the corpse of a Hollow, one that had probably been watching from the shadows, hoping to scavenge him like carrion. Poor thing. Its eyes were wide open, its head twisted the wrong way, tongue hanging loose like a deflated balloon.
Kokuto crouched beside it, tapping its skull with the tip of his finger. "Not very funny, were you? No timing, no flair. Don't worry, I'll do better."
He stood again and started walking.
No destination. Just away. But something tugged at him—not a place, but a presence. A hum in the static of Hueco Mundo. Powerful. Intentional. Focused. That energy—he felt it even through the dry wind and shifting sand. Someone important was nearby.
Someone worth entertaining.
He spun in place like a dancer, eyes closed, letting the direction find him. When he stopped, his hand pointed toward the far-off silhouette of a palace—black against the pale desert, impossibly vast.
Las Noches.
"Ohhh, that's where the party is," he whispered, eyes sparkling. "Kings and queens and monsters and masks. A castle full of liars in white robes. Now that's a stage."
He began to walk, then skip, then run, arms out like wings, the bells on his ankles chiming in twisted rhythm.
"I'll knock on their door with a smile, bow with flair, and if they ask what I want—"He somersaulted into the air, landing in a crouch."—I'll say: I want to make the world laugh again."
He stood slowly, staring into the distance, serious now. "Even if I have to rip it open to do it."
And so, Kokuto Harlequin wandered into the night. Not to conquer. Not to serve.
But to perform.
The desert watched silently.
Something wicked was walking toward Las Noches, and it was humming a carnival tune.