The Undergrowth — Command Tunnels
The floor vibrated before they reached Byron's chamber — a deep, grinding roll through the stone as Dimakatso's work moved entire corridors sideways, the underground city reshaping itself around new coordinates.
Aemon braced against the wall. "He's moving the whole thing."
Snake kept walking. "Figures."
The chamber was rough-hewn and large, a massive map etched directly into the stone floor with markers that had been updated recently. Byron stood over it in human form, unhurried.
Snake didn't bother with preamble. "I'm going to the surface. I need to check on Moto."
Byron didn't look up. "No, you're not."
"We just pulled him out of a high-security prison," Byron continued, tone level. "You're not compromising our location for one surface-dweller."
Snake's tattoos began to glow faintly at the edges. "He's not just—"
"The tunnels have already moved," Byron said. "We're nearly out of Sango." He finally looked up. "The Fauna district won't hurt him. They don't buy Bizure's propaganda up there — they're the same as us, just without the will to act yet. As long as he stays put, he'll be fine."
"And if he doesn't stay put?"
Byron looked at him steadily. "Then that's his decision."
A long pause. Snake exhaled through his nose. "Where are you taking us?"
Byron turned back to the map. "Where it all began. It's too hot to stay in Sango." He moved a marker. "We'll retrieve him after."
Snake held the silence for a moment. "He'd better not be harmed."
"As long as he stays put," Byron said again.
Snake said nothing. He turned and walked out.
Sango — Military Base, Parade Ground
Chandler surveyed the base with the ease of someone who has never once in their life considered whether they were welcome somewhere.
Kuna and Makanaka stood nearby, frozen. They had never seen him before — but the pressure of him was unmistakable, the way a name you've spent your whole life learning to say finally resolves into a face. It's him. Their expressions held years of it. He glanced at them and looked away.
"Hey." He pointed at a random soldier. "Bring Yasmin here."
The soldier stiffened. The older woman who had inducted Tanaka stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "There's no need to summon the Queen, Lord Chandler. I can see to whatever you require."
Chandler shrugged. "Fine. Round up my daughters in this country. And those boys who were arrested recently — bring them too."
"The boys escaped," she said.
A genuine grin spread across his face. "...Nice."
"As for your daughters — three are here at this base. Alicia is in the country but won't be easy to locate."
"I don't need her." He waved it off.
In her bunker, Alicia listened through her father's ears. A flicker crossed her face — brief, specific, old.
"Bastard," she said.
Kuna and Makanaka stepped forward. Hearts hammering. Years of training. Years of being good enough. Maybe this was the moment.
Chandler looked at them. Tilted his head.
"No," he said flatly. "It can't be them. They're too ugly."
The words landed like something falling from a great height. The two women stood still, eyes wide, the expression of people who have just had the floor removed from beneath a belief they'd been standing on for a long time.
Tanaka stood apart, jaw tight. She looked at her sisters and then at the man who had made them feel that standing before him was something they needed to earn.
"You see?" she said quietly. "I told you he was a heartless jerk."
Chandler sighed, already somewhere else in his attention. "Does any of you know Nawick's son?"
Tanaka stiffened.
Chandler's gaze moved to her face and stopped. Something registered. He looked at her for a moment with the particular focus of a man solving a puzzle.
"...Damn it," he said. "It's you I'm looking for?"
Tanaka turned to face him, eyes level. "What do you want?"
He rubbed his face. "If I tell you, you'll just mess it up." He turned. "Forget I was here."
Tanaka's voice cut him off before he moved. "You're not going anywhere until you apologise to them. For what you just said."
Soldiers shifted. No one breathed.
Chandler looked at her with something between mild irritation and mild respect. "It was an observation," he said. "The world is full of them." He turned away. "Forget I was here."
He leapt.
Makanaka's rage broke through years of patience in a single second. All the nights of training, all the belief that blood meant something, all the waiting — cracking apart the moment his back turned. Her spear changed in her grip, metal stretching and writhing, and she screamed and hurled it.
Chandler caught it without turning, his hair moving from the inertia. He snapped the tip off with his thumb.
Then he swung the shaft downward.
The air collapsed. A pressure wave tore across the base — soldiers slammed into walls, glass shattered, buildings fractured at load-bearing points. Dust and voices filled the night.
Behind the ruins of a supply depot wall that no longer existed, Moto was thrown into open air.
A voice somewhere in the chaos: "IT'S BLACK MIST!"
He was surrounded before the ringing had stopped. He looked at the weapons pointed at him and didn't resist.
Bizure arrived minutes later, assessed the situation, and sealed it.
Moto was shackled again.
Tanaka pushed herself up from the rubble, coughing, and went to her sisters.
Maka was wiping her face with the back of her hand, the tears and the dust mixed together. "You tried to warn us."
Kuna's expression had gone somewhere beyond anger — the specific stillness of someone closing a door. She reached up and unclipped the silver Chandlarian crest from her neck. She pressed her medical knife through it and drove it into the dirt. Clean. Final.
Tanaka tore hers off. She took Makanaka's hands and held them until her sister did the same.
Three crests embedded in the soil.
"We leave them here," Tanaka said. Her voice held despite what was happening in her chest. She pulled them both close. "A sign. We have each other now."
She held the embrace.
Over her sisters' shoulders, her eyes stayed open. Sharp. Working.
What does he want from Najo and me?