[Location: Azure Hollow Outskirts - Broken Street, Restored Horizon]
The fractured skyline of Sector VI-B began to stitch itself back together, reacting to Ashborn's Dream Core stabilization.
Skyscrapers of light flickered into vertical runes, and the roads beneath his feet shimmered like a page being written in real-time.
Ashborn stood with Lunavelle gently perched on his shoulder, silent for a rare moment.
"Do we move toward them?" Lunavelle asked softly, still shaken from the Weeping Atrium.
"Or wait for them to come to us?"
Ashborn's eyes closed. He exhaled, the breath coming out like fire tasting ink.
"Let's wait."
Because something was already coming.
[Approach Detected: High-Speed Aetherial Thread Movement - Arc Sanctum Identified]
A pulse raced across the horizon, a silk slash of ink across the skyline.
The very language of the wind shifted. Symbols formed in the clouds. Flowers wilted and bloomed in reverse.
A figure burst forward with no sound, only the ripple of her narrative pressure.
And when she emerged from the veil of paradox.
She didn't step.
She arrived.
[envoy: Lady Shirohana Hozuki,
"Inkblade Oracle Of the Ninth Petal Scripture"]
•Arc Sanctum Elite Envoy
• Rank: Ink-Caster High Priestess.
• Paradigm: Narrative Combat & Poetic Law Inscription.
Title: "The One Who Bleeds Ink to Bury War"
• Known abilities:
[Petal Edict technique]
Every movement becomes binding scripture
[Inkblade Emanation]
Her katanas are not metal, but compressed will-stanzas.
[Spiritbond: Two Paperfox Familiars - Kōgetsu & Mangetsu]
[Haiku execution Rite]
If her opponent's intent can be fully described in 17 syllables, she can cut through them with absolute judgment.
???
???
???
---
---
---
Lady Shirohana stands with regal serenity, wearing an obsidian lacquered hakamashita-style battle kimono, marked with glinting white sakura crests. Her outfits flow like ink in water, ornamented with tassels of old contracts and prayer tags that trail behind her when she moves.
Her hair is long, half raven black, half silver like ink winter ink on rice parchment, falling in clean sheets around two curved obsidian horns adorning her head. Her eyes are rich garnet-red but unreadable. Their stillness speaks of those who have memorized death.
She carries a curved katana of black-glass script not forged, but written, its blade humming with calligraphy. The hilt pulses with quiet rhythm, like a heartbeat in a poem.
Two white foxes walk beside her, each with spell-etched fur and dreamfire tails:
• Kōgetsu (Descending Moon): calm, quiet, watches with mirrored eyes.
• Mangetsu (Full moon): alert, growling faintly, its tail bristling with scripture threads.
Lanterns of inkfire hover around her, illuminating glyphs that trail in her wake.
---
Ashborn narrowed his eyes as the air folded before her like parchment yielding to the pen.
Lunavelle whispered inside his soul:
"She's... beautiful."
"But hed presence. It's like reading your eulogy."
Shirohana stopped twenty paces from him.
She did now bow.
She simply raised her chin slightly, her blade still sheathed, but her aura poised like a loaded sentence.
"Ashborn Lionheart."
Her voice was soft, yet it carved straight through the ambient noise.
"Wielder of the Genesis Thread. Claimant of the Dream Core. Scion of an unwritten fate."
She studied him for a heartbeat.
"Do you intend to rewrite this world with poetry..."
"...or with fire?"
Ashborn gave a wry smile.
"Both."
"I intend to write the kind of story that no one forgets, even if it burns the page."
The wind shuddered.
Shirohana's gleamed with faint approval.
She stepped forward once, and the world behind her folded like origami ink, flattened, stylized, orderly.
"Then I am not your enemy."
She unsheathed her blade not to attack, but to gesture. The ink dropping from it formed a mandala of floating glyphs between them.
"The Arc Sanctum invites you to parley, not to duel. Not yet."
"The others will come with hunger. Some with judgment. One will offer kinship. One will offer chains."
"We offer clarity."
Ashborn tilted his head.
"And if I refuse?"
Shirohana smiled slightly for the first time.
"Then you shall walk unwritten into a war authored by others."
"And I..."
She turned her blade sideways, slicing her own shadow, which folded into a lotus scroll, now hovering before Ashborn.
"...will simply watch the ink spill where it may."
The scroll bore a simple title in glowing glyphwork:
"Petal Accord: Invitation to the Ninth Verse Chamber - One week hence"
Lunavelle blinked.
"She never blinked once, ash."
"She's like... a story that's already finished reading to us."
Ashborn glanced at the foxes, both now sitting in perfect silence, unblinking.
He smirked.
"Is that so?"
---
---
---
The sky above Axis-E110 did not roar. It wept.
Rain began to fall not in sheets, but in fine, slow drizzles that shimmered like stardust caught in calligraphy. Each droplet struck the ground like punctuation: Gentle, but final.
Ashborn stood silently as the first drops pattered against his shoulders, his long coat fluttering, damp but uncaring. Lunavelle sat curled against the side of his Cosmic Core,
Sheltered by his aura.
His gaze lifted, lavender star-shaped eyes fixed on the envoy before him.
She hadn't moved. The rain didn't seem to touch her, as if the story she walked into did not need weather.
But to Ashborn, she was vivid.
"Beautiful..."
His voice came softly, without flourish, genuinely.
The word was not wrapped in charm, but in recognition, a truth said aloud, because what else could one do when faced with a woman who looked like a poem made flesh?
Lady Shirohana's crimson eyes didn't flicker. Her silence held power, like a sword yet to be unsheathed.
Ashborn stepped forward once, the sound of his boots pressing water into the fractured stone.
"Anyways..."
"You know my name."
"But I don't know yours,"
He offered his hand not with swagger, but with grace.
His fingers were gloved in thread-woven armor, the knuckles carrying both violence and restraint.
"You wouldn't mind sharing it, would you, my lady?"
"Names are precious here, I hear."
"But a prince never forgets the hand that offers him peace."
The was a pause.
Rain hissed softly on the edge of his Genesis Aura.
Shirohana studied his face, for too long, like she was reading the meaning behind each line.
Then...
She stepped forward.
Her foxes did not move. Neither did the lanterns. Only she.
Shirohana lifted her hand, not delicately, but with composed strength, her wrist poised like an ancient brushstroke meant to write the opening line of an era.
Ashborn took it without hesitation.
And he bowed, slightly.
Then kissed the back of her hand, not performative, not sly.
It was custom.
Royal.
A gesture from one reality-bound legend to another.
As he rose, the moment crystallized.
Shirohana finally spoke again.
"Lady Shirohana Hozuki."
"Third Flame Petal of the Ninth Verse Chamber."
"Called the Inkblade Oracle by those who dare not rewrite what I've written."
Her voice was neither soft nor sharp, it was structured.
Each syllable was exact, like a word drawn across sacred paper with absolute precision.
"I do not usually permit my name to be used without ceremony."
"But... I believe our ink has already mixed,
Whether we intended it or not."
Ashborn let her hand go slowly, eyes narrowing in approval.
"Then let's not waste this page."
[Petal Accord Accepted: Visit Scheduled - Ninth Verse Chamber, Arc Sanctum | 7 Days]
The scroll between them glowed.
A glyph of cherry blossoms bloomed in reverse, then folded inward, embedding itself in Ashborn's System Thread.
[New entry: "Petal Accord - Arc Sanctum Treaty Thread Initialized"
Terms: Peaceful entry. Combat is prohibited within chamber bounds. Invitation attuned to the Author Candidate's signature.
Shirohana turned, her foxes moving now in perfect parallel, tails flicking stardust water into the fog.
She paused once more at the edge of a crumbling bridge.
"Seven days, Ashborn Lionheart."
"Then we decide... if your pen should be sharpened or sheathed."
With a flutter of her sleeves and a twist of ambient glyphs, she stepped off the bridge.
And vanished.
No light. No sound. Just the faint echo of a petal dissolving in the rain.
Ashborn stood still for a long moment.
Lunavelle finally broke the silence:
"She was strong."
Ashborn grinned.
"She was flawless."
The rain continued to fall, not hard, but never quite stopping
---
[Location: Azure Hollow Outskirts - Broken Silence, Rain-Soaked Reflection]
The rain didn't stop.
It didn't rush. It fell, like thoughts long buried finally finding a place to land.
Ashborn stood still on the shattered stone path of Sector VI-B, now veiled in a post-battle calm. The soft patter of celestial droplets slicked the streets and rooftops. Neon glyphs glowed faintly behind the veil of mist, flickering gently, as if breathing.
His Wraith MK1 mantle, matte-black and fractal-stitched with cosmic filaments, clung to his body, heavy now, wet through from shoulders to boots.
But he didn't care.
His eyes, lavender and star-shaped, remained fixed upward on the ink-dark sky.
No drones. No flares.
Just constellations blinking behind dream-weather.
Ashborn sighed quietly, his voice low, scratchy with the weight of a mind freshly rewritten.
"She's stronger than me..."
He said it with no shame, just fact.
No bitterness. Only admiration layered beneath exhaustion.
He opened his interface mentally, letting the last scan hang in fragmented data across his vision like ghostly text:
[Arc Sanctum Elite Envoy]
Name: Lady Shirohana Hozuki,
• Rank: Ink-Caster High Priestess.
• Paradigm: Narrative Combat & Poetic Law Inscription.
Title: "The One Who Bleeds Ink to Bury War"
"Inkblade Oracle Of the Ninth Petal Scripture"
• Known abilities:
[Petal Edict technique]
Every movement becomes binding scripture
[Inkblade Emanation]
Her katanas are not metal, but compressed will-stanzas.
[Spiritbond: Two Paperfox Familiars - Kōgetsu & Mangetsu]
[Haiku execution Rite]
If her opponent's intent can be fully described in 17 syllables, she can cut through them with absolute judgment.
Ashborn closed the interface with a mental flick. The scan had failed to go deeper.
Even his Genesis now evolved and synced with the Dream core couldn't extrapolate past the first veil of her narrative presence.
"Like she's made of story instead of substance..."
His lips curled upward at the thought.
He turned slightly to glance at the soaked ground where she once stood. The space still smelled faintly of inkfire and fox fur.
"Her foxes were cool, too."
"And cute..."
He chuckled under his breath.
"I want to pet them."
Lunavelle, warm and curled like a ribbon of starlight around his spirit-thread, responded in a soft, amused tone.
"You'd probably get ink on your hand."
"They'd let me," he replied smoothly.
"Eventually."
The small silence that followed was peaceful. For once, it wasn't broken by explosions or prophecy but by something... human...
Lunavelle's little belly let out a soft rumble.
She froze for a moment inside his soul, then let out a sheepish giggle, her wings fluttering like dream-smoke
"Tides at night..."
"Let's get something to eat."
Ashborn let out a genuine breath-laugh something between a sigh and a chuckle.
"Agreed, little one."
"You've earned it"
He stepped off the ruined path, the Genesis Fragment pulsing at his side like a tethered star.
His boots splashed through shallow puddles and the reflection below no longer showed the wounded, half-broken man from before.
It showed a Cosmic Spirit, wrapped in Dream-Script and ready to shape the future.
[Location: Azure Hollow Downtown | Sector Cafe: "Echolight Spire Noodles"
The city lights were warped now twisting around Ashborn as though the air remembered his touch. As he walked, digital paper lanterns lit unprompted, their calligraphy shifting in his direction.
He didn't demand obedience.
The world simply knew he'd returned.
He paused outside a care built inside a spiraling glass tree, a strange hybrid of neo-dream architecture and real spatial material. Holograms flickered menus above the door.
[Echolight Spire Noodles "We Fold Flavor into Time"]
"This'll do," Ashborn muttered, pulling his hood back. His damp hair clung in wild strands to his face, but his eyes gleamed brighter than any lantern.
Inside his soul, Lunavelle perked up.
"Do they have sugar stars?!"
"They'd better."
----
----
----
[Location: Cindervault Citadel, Sky of Falling Spells]
10 Minutes After Departing Azure Hollow.
The skies here were never still.
Even in silence, the Arc Sanctum's seat of power wept with arcane momentum, fragments of paradox, scripture-fog, and mana storms looped in slow cascades above a sea of reversed auroras. The Cindervault Citadel floated upside-down over an ocean of ink, its towers chained to nothing but belief, upheld by centuries of narrative law binding.
Within its spiral-shelled corridors, surrounded by semi-sentient scrolls and orbiting calligraphy, walked the Inkblade Oracle herself.
Lady Shirohana Hozuki.
Her sandals struck polished parchment-tile, every step writing and unwriting a poem that only the Citadel itself could read.
Behind her, Kōgetsu and Mangetsu, the twin Paperfoxes of moonlight and scripture followed in perfect formation, their silent paws unfelt but impossibly loud in intent.
Shirohana said nothing for several steps.
But within her silence, her thoughts tangled like thread brushed in ink.
---
"Ashborn Lionheart."
She spoke the name in her mind again, letting it settle.
The weight of it was disproportionate not heavy like a king's, nor sharp like a killer's.
"He knew I was stronger."
"He looked me in the eye anyway."
There was no trembling in his voice. No performance. No pretense of superiority. Yet no submission either.
That alone disturbed her more than it should've.
She could still see it, his Genesis Thread coiled around his arm like a celestial ribbon, shimmering with colors not born of magic or memory.
"So simple... yet so beautiful."
"It moved like it was part of his pulse."
"It wasn't trying to dominate the world, it was... weaving through it."
Her gaze flickered downward to her blade, a katana made of condensed-will-stanzas, etched by the hands of ten prior priestesses, sharpened by phrases that had ended revolts and rewritten cities.
"I've seen Cosmic Spirits. Fought them. Slain them "
"None ever wielded a Cosmic Core like that."
And that Thread... that's not just his weapon."
"It's his identity."
She paused at the edge of a mirrored hallway carved with forbidden edicts. There, the wind shifted.
Her two familiars spoke, not in sound but in pulse-thought.
---
[Kōgetsu, the Descending Moon:]
His mind-voice was soft, reflective, older than it should be.
"He carried something not written in this world."
"His core didn't burn like the others. It sang. Faintly... but dangerously."
"I heard voices inside him."
[Mangetsu, the Full Moon:]
Sharper. Defensive. Loyal.
"Too calm for someone recently chosen by the Dream Core.
"He smelled like he's burned through timelines before."
"Dangerous..."
Mangetsu growled aloud, fur bristling with writhing paper-script tails.
"If you hadn't stepped in first, someone lesser would've tried to test him."
"They would've died confused."
Shirohana continued walking in silence for several paces. Then finally murmured aloud just for them:
"There were... two other fragments."
"Not objects. Not weapons. Presence."
Her hand ghosted to the hilt of her blade.
"I could feel them in him. Deep. Dormant. Clever."
"I tried to sense them again... and they hid."
"They tricked my senses."
She frowned.
"I do not like being deceived."
"And yet... it excites me."
The foxes glanced at each other.
---
[Approach - Grand Ink-Chamber of the Archsage]
Cindervault's inner sanctum opened with scentless smoke, written in shape, not smell.
Floating above a stage of memory-script and law-circles sat Archsage Liorna of the Ninth Paradox, a towering figure clad in living robes that turned pages with every movement. Her blind eyes read what did not exist, and her voice was the echo of pages never written.
"Lady Shirohana. You return unmarked."
"Speak of the Quillbearer."
Shirohana knelt, not out of reverence, but decorum.
"He has accepted the Accord."
"He is Dream-Fused. Fully Integrated with the Core's True Seed."
"But more than that..."
She hesitated, a rare thing.
"He possesses not merely power but authorship."
"A cosmic Core I cannot read. A Thread that responds to emotion like it breathes."
"Two fragments not seen, but sensed.
Names unknown."
The Archsage tilted her head slowly.
"He is not written in our pages, is he?"
"No," Shirohana replied.
"And that may be why he can rewrite them."
Silence followed.
Then the Archsage smiled faintly.
"Let him come."
"Let him try."
"And if his pen falters..."
"You will bury it in ink."
"As always," Shirohana replied.
The Grand Ink-Chamber was no quiet, shielded from the city's chaotic mana winds by sixteen rotating law-rings inscribed with historical consensus edicts. The scrolls on the chamber walls did not flutter or breathe like the others, they were dead text. Archive, locked, final.
At the center of the floor, on a platform shaped like a writing desk the size of a throne, sat Archsage Liorna of the Ninth Paradox, the current monarch of the Arc Sanctum.
She sat tall, back straight, hands resting on her lap, fingertips pressed lightly together.
Despite her ornate ceremonial robes, woven with dried ink, failed prophecies, and ghost-papers, there was no mysticism in her expression.
She listened. Quiet. Calculating.
"Dream Core integration confirmed. Genesis Thread is... unique. There are at least two unidentified fragments within him, impossible to scan. His control is instinctual. Not system-dependent. Possibly older than Axis-E110's Core Layer structure."
Liorna didn't flinch.
She absorbed the data with the same stoic stillness she used when watching execution trials.
Her fingers tapped once, index to thumb.
Then, smoothly, with finality of a chessmaster who's played this exact move a dozen times before she gestured toward the exit scroll.
"Good. Check on your squad."
"As you command," Shirohana said with a calm bow and left without another word. Her twin foxes followed without hesitation.
The door closed softly behind her.
And then for the first time in hours.
Liorna allowed herself to exhale.
Her eyes narrowed.
She waved her hand once. Dozens of data-scrolls emerged from the floor and walls, compiled documents, extrapolated threads, symbol-prediction matrices, and all available identity reports logged into the Sanctum Memory Grid.
[Subfile - Ashborn Lionheart]
• Designation: Cosmic Spirit - [Mythforged Variant: Dream-Surged Hybrid]
• Current Core Status: Unknown Cosmic-Class Core.
• Origin: ??? (Pre-Log Layered Universe - Confirmed Divergent Entry)
• Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (fluctuating)
• Author Candidate Status: Active - True Dream Core Integration Confirmed.
• Last Scan: Genesis Thread Phase four - partially autonomous.
Notable Weapon: ??? - classified as Proto-Conceptual Blade.
• Associated Entity: Lunavelle Noctherium - Child-Class Seraph Spirit Variant - Luneater Subtype.
Then her eyes hit the line she had skimmed earlier, the one she'd dismissed as narrative fluff.
[Clan of Origin: Lionheart Royal Lineage.]
She froze.
Not with fear.
With sharp, suffocating focus.
Her fingers flexed once, curling like a claw, and the secondary scroll loaded in, one older, sealed by her predecessor, locked under "DO NOT INTERFACE" tags.
[Lineage File - Lionheart Dominion: Suppressed Archive Access Granted]
It opened.
And the information came fast:
• Cross-Multiversal Line Recognition.
• Past conflict involvement: The Absolute War or Threaded Heirs (Generation 2)
• Lineage classified under "World-Sovereign Tier Clans" - Rights to Author Systems, Subcore Generation, Reality Rewriting Immunity.
• Known for possession of Paradox-Bound Offspring: Unpredictable, unchainable by normal Faction Law.
Liorna leaned back.
Silent.
"Lionheart."
"Of course, he's from one of the legacy clans. Of course."
"And here I was planning to test his temperament and eventually bind him with a pact-cursed word..."
She rotated her wrist once. The scrolls shut themselves.
Her face remained still, smooth but the sharp flicker in her left eye betrayed the thoughtstorm inside her mind.
"Cosmic Core. Dream Core. Genesis Thread. Lionheart."
"He's not a resource. He's a wildcard."
"Too dangerous to ignore. Too dangerous to fight."
"If he turns hostile, he could unbind the Law Script holding our paradox layers together."
She tapped her temple.
"Forget manipulation," she muttered aloud.
"We court him."
"We build him a path to walk... and let him believe he chose it."
"If he sees us as enemies, the Arc Sanctum becomes a footnote in someone else's war."
Her eyes closed for a moment.
When she opened them again, her tone returned to cold, refined professionalism.
"Prepare the Ninth Verse Chamber for full diplomatic reception."
"No illusions. No tests. No manipulation attempts unless he initiates escalation."
"Assign Shirohana to be his liaison."
"Not just his watchdog, but his guide.
A construct scribe at the chamber wall bowed silently, accepting the command.
The Archsage stood, finally, robes trailing behind her like a liquid story.
"Let him rewrite Axis-E110 all he wants..."
"So long as our ink is on the first page."
---
[Location: Arc Sanctum - Ninth Petal Inner Ward, Squad Pavilion Chamber]
Time: A few hours after returning from the Axis-E110 surface.
---
The sound of polished inksteel doors creaking open echoed through the vaulted chamber.
Candles of flowing scripture light flickered softly revealing the familiar space where Shirohana and her squad always regrouped.
Long wooden tables filled with scroll fragments, null glyphs relics, sealed tea sets, and half-scribed verse wealons. This was their den. Their place. Only ten souls were allowed to linger here.
A few looked up. Then the chatter began.
Keigan Varn, bare-chested, runes humming faintly on his arm rose immediately, cracking his knuckles.
"Finally! Thought you got lost in the skywars, Shiro. What happened out there?"
Fennik Crossgale, leaning sideways in his lev-sling chair, blew a strand of white hair from his eyes. "Yeah, you took long enough. C'mon. Give us the good stuff. Was it another Voidlighter or did the choir screw up their causality machine again?"
Selyra Noxveil, Shadow-eyed and silent, simply turned toward her, waiting.
Kaela Hoshimi, arms folded, stepped beside her. "...You saw something dangerous. I can feel it in your gait."
Miraen Duskstar rolled her eyes. "Let her sit first, you vultures."
Shirohana exhaled and set her sheathed Inkblade down on the ceremonial rack.
Kōgetsu and Mangetsu quietly padded in behind her and lay curled under the altar.
She remained standing. Her eyes, still tired from her Genesis Ink Thread vision trace, met theirs with calm finality.
"It wasn't a Choir. It wasn't the Forge. It was something else."
The room grew quiet. Even Teysa Winfall stopped halfway through her sentence and spun around.
Ellion Nairn, who'd been humming to himself in the corner while inscribing a healing script, turned to listen.
Shirohana placed her hands behind her back.
"I meet a being in the forbidden Surface, the cyber ruins near Sector VI-B.
Name: Ashborn Lionheart.
Title: Wielder of the Genesis Thread."
Irin Vehlmire, eyes narrowed behind his faceless mask.
"Thread Wielders don't just appear."
Shirohana continued, unblinking. "He has a cosmic Core. Not theoretical. Not projected. Functional. His thread was alive, reactive to narration. It responded to abstract stimuli and combat intuition. And his resonance..."
She let silence fall again.
"...It was flawless. Even the Dream Core. The True Seed, responded to him. Synced with him."
Nio Rainsilk dropped his ink pen.
"Wait did you say Genesis Thread Phase IV? That's impossible. Even the Archsage's system hasn't read a thread past Phase III. It requires a stable mythic flux and dual-spiritual logic paths."
Shirohana gave a firm nod. "Confirmed. Phase IV: Echo-Loom Spiral. I saw it with my own eyes. It weaves past narrative weight into buffs. Memory, intention, despair... even silence becomes structure."
Selyra tilted her head. "...He's not from this world, is he?"
Shirohana's voice was calm. "No. He's not. He's something that doesn't belong here, yet fits perfectly. Like a page from a different book written in our tongue."
Keiga blinked, then gave a short laugh. "And what'd you do? Challenge him? Trade threats?"
A rare smirk ghosted across Shirohana's lips.
"No. I invited him to the Ninth Verse Chamber."
Silence again.
Kaela's brows furrowed. "You what? That's not procedure."
"I know," Shirohana replied. "But this isn't protocol anymore. This is strategy."
Miraen leaned on her side, curious. "And? What was he like?"
"Enigmatic. Arrogant, but sharp. Not emotional like a human. More like a narrative taking form. A fragment of a forgotten author's story but alive."
Ellion stepped forward hesitantly. "You saw no aggression?"
Shirohana shook her head. "He made no move to harm me. In fact..." her voice lowered, serious. "He addressed me respectfully. Extended his hand like an old-world prince. And he could tell I was stronger than him. But he didn't flinch."
Selyra murmured, "Fearless, or disconnected?"
"Both," Shirohana replied. "He feels no fear. Not because he's bold, but because he's something else entirely. He's not pretending. He just... isn't bound by the emotional infrastructure of humans."
Nio, hunched over his console, was now typing frantically. "Do you have his aura pattern? His language Code? Any particle traces from his Genesis Thread?"
"I do," she said, and a soft flick of ink thread poured from her sleeve, forming a compact encrypted seal.
Teysa Winfall, finally spoke, eyes wide. "...What now, Captain?"
Shirohana looked toward the squad, her family, all of them orphans like her. All of them are survivors.
"We prepare. He's coming to the Ninth Verse Chamber in seven days. I want every one of you ready. No attacks. No traps. This is not a mission. This is a negotiation. Or... a prelude."
Keigan grunted, leaning back. "And if he turns on us?"
Shirohana's eyes darkened. "Then we end him. Together."
Everyone fell quiet. Their captain had spoken. She wasn't poetic about it. She was clear, sharp, and precise.
But something had changed.
Shirohana didn't just want to test Ashborn. Somewhere deep down, a flicker of recognition had taken root. Not personal. Not romantic.
Something more dangerous.
Curiosity...
---
---
---
To be continued....