There's a city in Siracusa with no Families. It's called New Volsinii — a nomadic city that's barely a year old.

There's no smuggling here, no vendettas, no back-alley assassinations. Only the New City Management Act, and people who just want to live honestly.

For the city's first anniversary, Siracusa revives a festival it had sealed away for sixty or seventy years — Carnevale. The very festival where, once you put on a mask, anything you did was forgiven, now dressed in new meaning.

And right before the dazzling opening ceremony, the acting mayor's car gets slammed by a truck. The curtain was already rising.

1. The Ones Who Chose the Hard Road

Leontuccio is the acting mayor who abandoned his Family. Together with his partner, Chief Justice Lavinia, he's trying to prove that 'order without Families' can work in this city.

But the Twelve Families of Greyhall have slipped into the city under new signboards, still eyeing it hungrily. Just as Leontuccio moves to publicly declare his inauguration as mayor, Lavinia holds him back.

Then, the night they're filming his inauguration promo, Leontuccio's car — running late for a dinner appointment — gets rammed by a container truck and he's left critically injured. It's no ordinary accident.

His friend Texas brings Penguin Logistics in to stand watch at his hospital bed. She acts like she can't stand festivals or paperwork, but she couldn't just watch a friend in trouble.

Meanwhile, all over the city, there are people with their own stories — Naomi, a rookie cop who joined the force just to protect the pizzeria she works at; Lucino, a tailor's apprentice who idolizes Family bigwigs... The ideal this new city holds rests, in the end, on the wishes of ordinary people like these.

2. The Secret of the Truckers' Mutual Aid Society

The truck that hit Leontuccio was driven by Somer. He's the oldest friend of Eirene, leader of the truckers' mutual aid society.

Eirene and Somer used to run a small supermarket in Siracusa together, until a petty dispute got the place burned down by a Family and they lost everything, fleeing here as a result. Somer's daughter Guri caught Oripathy in that fire.

To pay for her treatment, Somer had been secretly hauling smuggled 'tires' for the Venezia Family. And that day, the wheel just suddenly stopped responding.

Trying to protect her friend, Eirene hides the wrecked truck among the Carnevale parade vehicles — but it burns up in the sun anyway. Cornered, she asks Saluzzo head Alberto to clean up the mess.

In exchange for his help, Alberto tries to bind the trucking guild to his own convenience. Somer is killed to keep him quiet, and all Eirene gets back is his lighter. In the very place she thought she'd escaped the Family, she finds herself stepping right back into the mud.

3. An Unexpected Meeting of Two Unlucky Souls

At the camp is a trucker from Ursus named Lyudmila. In truth, she's a former Reunion member, the Crownslayer. Having lost her master to the red-hooded assassin Red, who chased her all the way to Siracusa, she was drifting aimlessly until Somer took her in.

Red left Kal'tsit's side and now, under 'Grandma's' orders, hunts down the last remaining 'Fangs' as a wolf hunter. Lyudmila keeps throwing herself at her for revenge, only to be subdued every single time.

"No matter how unlucky you are, life takes care of you eventually" — Somer's words slowly start changing her, someone who's clung to nothing but revenge. But on the night Somer died, Lyudmila was off chasing Red again, and couldn't be there for him.

4. The Last Fang

The last 'Fang' Red was hunting turns out to be an unexpected figure — Umberto, the old tailor at the De Montano tailor shop. He's the only family his grandson Lucino has left, and once upon a time, he was the legendary 'Tailor' who kept the Family bosses of Montelupo up at night.

He was once Wolf Lord Vargo's 'Fang,' but instead of stepping into the game, he spent his whole life raising a son, and then a grandson. With his grandson caught in a Family crisis, Umberto calmly finishes a suit before his old master, Head of House Venezia.

He doesn't resist when Red comes for him. Instead, he calmly wraps up the roughly 450 steps of a Siracusa suit and leaves the final touches to Lucino.

In the process, Lucino learns everything — that his grandfather, always so strict, had once been a blood-stained killer; that his father Luca was found dead in a car alongside some actress; and that behind it all, his grandfather had carried every one of those sins and their price while still watching over him.

How many people, right up to the moment of death, are still doing the work they've done their whole life?... At least I was a decent tailor, and a lucky old man.

— Umberto

Sneaking aboard the land ship, Lucino tries to destroy the weapons and gets caught, but instead of becoming some big shot, he shouts that he'll solve his problems with his own two hands. Wolf Lord Vargo even breaks the rules of the game to let the boy go — honoring Umberto's final request.

5. A Mother's Blade

Venezia Family killer Ingrid has spent six years hunting down whoever really hurt her daughter Lisa, who caught Oripathy in the incident. Lisa is now an Operator at Rhodes Island.

The head of House Venezia is an old man who's spent his life taking in 'mongrels' with no shared blood or kin and binding them together as one family. He handed Ingrid the family crest too, saying "we're family," but for her, that blessing was also a shackle.

Leaving behind the 'family' the head took her into, Ingrid sets down the crest. And on the night of Carnevale, she finally confirms the truth — the one who hurt Lisa and pushed her out of the Family was none other than her own son-in-law, Antonio.

Antonio ambushes her with a powerful Arts of light, but Ingrid deliberately misses his vital point. She has no interest in giving him a dignified death. Leaving him to bleed out slowly, the mother walks away from the alley.

6. Antonio's Gamble

Antonio's true identity was a soldier from Bolívar. On the day a drunk noble's careless circle on an amnesty list decided who among his comrades lived and died, he came to hate this entire world, and the kind of power that lets someone casually circle a name that isn't theirs.

In Siracusa, in this filthy mud, is there really anyone with genuine dignity? Not among people like us, at least.

— Antonio

To Antonio, Leontuccio's ideal was nothing more than a privilege — an entire city handed over just because four young people got worked up around a round table. Just like that noble circling a name on the list. So he decided to seize that power for himself.

Under the cover of Carnevale, he smuggles a weapons-laden land ship into the city, aiming to seize the empty-guarded courthouse and city hall. It was a gamble to grab both the surface order and the underworld order at once, and take all of New Volsinii for himself. Not even the old Family head's pleas could stop him.

7. The Wolf Who Kicks Over the Table

But Lappland flips his whole plan over. This white wolf, abandoned by the head of House Saluzzo, has been riding around the city with Texas in a taxi, pulling every string from the shadows.

She hijacks Antonio's entire land ship, decks it out in ribbons and balloons, and drives it straight into the middle of the courthouse square. Then, up on deck, she kicks open the crates, raining guns, Arts units, and explosives down on the plaza like a downpour.

Family members, truckers, and swarms of ordinary citizens — weapons are now within everyone's reach. Lappland makes a bet with Texas: whether, before the midnight parade arrives, these two crowds will end up killing each other.

This is still Siracusa... still stuck in the mud. Don't underestimate this mud's magic, Texas. It can turn absolutely anyone into a wicked wolf.

— Lappland

In truth, Lappland had been pulling nearly every string of the night. Giving Ingrid the thread that led to Antonio, prying the operations her father Alberto controlled out of his hands, making sure Venezia's plot came to light for the whole world to see. Not really revenge — she just wanted to see for herself whether the mud really did turn people into wolves.

8. A Single Gunshot

Eirene lines up truckers armed with weapons to guard the courthouse. Wanting to avenge Somer, she begs Lavinia to condemn the Family in an emergency trial. But that would mean walking, of her own will, straight back into the very mud she'd fled.

Lavinia refuses to sign. She won't let the New City Management Act become anyone's tool for revenge. Lyudmila, too, fights desperately to keep Eirene from crossing that line.

In the very moment the two sides stand locked, weapons raised — a single gunshot rings out from somewhere. No one is hurt, but the sound is enough to reset the trigger on everyone's madness.

It's Eirene who lowers her crossbow first. Soon the midnight parade enters the square, and the two crowds stand side by side, weapons hidden back in their trucks, as if nothing had happened, welcoming the citizens. That gunshot, it turns out, was the sound of the old Family head, Venezia, cutting down the faction of his own traitor, Antonio.

9. As the Curtain Falls

Lappland loses the bet. Texas wins — because justice and conscience, once again, sided with him.

Lappland pulls off Texas's mask and hands it over, passing the lead role of this finale on to him. Then she leaves, taking the Wolf Lords, bored of their tedious games, out into the wasteland with her — so their little pastime never stains Siracusa again.

Disappointment presupposes expectation. ... I wanted to see a city, genuinely alive, right in the middle of the mud. I'm done running from it now. I'll stand with my friends.

— Texas

Leontuccio, now awake, mixes into the parade and reaches the square to give the closing address. He admits, honestly, just how much New Volsinii still lacks, how many problems it still carries — and that even so, he'll keep walking this hard road.

Epilogue — The Ones Who Remain

After the festival ends, everyone's place falls into line. Lappland leaves her father Alberto behind bars and hands Saluzzo over to the Vellones, while Leontuccio's old friend Dmitri decides to bring the Vellones into the city, 'by your rules.'

Ingrid heads for Rhodes Island to see her daughter Lisa, while Capone and Gambino, their citizen scores wiped clean, dream of a fresh start with the yellow taxi Lappland left behind.

Red finally realizes the truth — that the 'Grandma' who'd been leading her all along was herself a Fang, and that she was a human chosen by the Fangs to hunt Fangs — both hunter and Fang at once. The whole story, and 'Grandma' herself, had been a lie. Rather than kill Red, Lyudmila takes her away alive, saying she'll go ask Kal'tsit for answers instead.

On the night of Carnevale, everyone wore a mask — those trying to drag things back to the old ways, and those refusing to let them, all tangled together.

New Volsinii isn't a vineyard guaranteed a harvest even in a bad year. It's still just one precarious 'possibility,' built on top of the mud. But as long as there are people willing to protect that possibility — people who've decided not to go back to the old ways — Siracusa's new era has, in effect, already begun.