✦ PROJECT GENESIS: BORN FROM ASH ✦
SUPER-ACT I
「THE RETURN」
SAGA I
「THE RETURNED DRIFTER」
VOLUME I
「HOME」
「THE BOY WHO LEFT IS NOT THE MAN WHO CAME BACK.」
---
ACT I
「THE MAP」
---
[CHAPTER V:] 「POPS」
[LOCATION:] HOMEWARD HALL • FAMILY-RETURN SUITE
[POV:] CURRENT ASHBORN LIONHEART
[TIME:] IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING CHAPTER IV
---
The message was sent.
«Tell him he can come.»
Three seconds later?
Ashborn regretted every decision that had led him here.
Not:
returning home.
That part remained excellent.
He specifically regretted:
saying yes.
His heart rate was still elevated.
The physician had left the monitor on.
Which meant the display beside him continued providing unwanted commentary on the fact that Ashborn Lionheart, survivor of Nihil Aeternum, was currently being bullied by:
a door.
HEART RATE: 103.
Ashborn glared at it.
It remained:
103.
"Traitor."
Lunavelle sat cross-legged on the edge of the recovery couch.
"The machine?"
"My cardiovascular system."
"It seems accurate."
"Nobody asked you."
"You brought me."
"Unfortunate oversight."
She smiled.
Ashborn resumed pacing.
Five steps.
Turn.
Five steps.
Turn.
Fourfold had returned to a relaxed partial configuration around his body.
Not full warplate.
Not completely retracted.
Thin black-violet biological architecture remained across:
his torso,
forearms,
spine,
and hips.
Enough to respond.
Not enough to make him look like he expected the Headmaster of the Genesis Corps to burst through the door and initiate a boss encounter.
Aetherion rested against the nearby wall.
Passive.
Mostly.
Its violet Core produced the occasional quiet resonance whenever Ashborn's stress rose.
Apparently his sword had opinions too.
Wonderful.
The Halo of the First Return rotated slowly above Ashborn's head.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
Ashborn looked up at it.
"Don't start."
Lunavelle tilted her head.
"Can it start?"
"I don't know."
"Comforting."
---
The family-return suite was deliberately different from the examination rooms.
No diagnostic platform.
No harsh lighting.
No visible containment fields.
No medical staff hovering nearby.
Warm gray walls.
A low table.
Two couches.
Several chairs.
A window looking across Homeward Hall's terraced gardens.
Real sunlight.
Real plants.
Somewhere beyond the glass, water moved through an artificial stream between white stone terraces.
The architects had clearly understood something important.
People returning from the impossible did not always need:
another laboratory.
Sometimes they needed:
a room.
Ashborn hated that the room worked.
He hated that it made him feel more exposed than the medical chamber had.
There?
He had tasks.
Questions.
Scan permissions.
Data.
Problems.
Here?
Nothing.
Just:
waiting.
---
Lunavelle watched him make another circuit around the room.
Five steps.
Turn.
Five steps.
Turn.
She counted silently.
On the eighth repetition:
"Ashborn."
"No."
"I didn't ask anything."
"I know what you're going to say."
"Do you?"
"You're going to tell me to sit down."
"Sit down."
"No."
She stared at him.
Ashborn stared back.
Lunavelle pointed toward the couch.
Ashborn continued standing.
Then his knees bent.
He sat.
He looked offended by this development.
"I chose that."
"Of course."
---
Silence.
Twenty seconds.
Ashborn stood again.
Lunavelle sighed.
"Hopeless."
"I'm nineteen. I can stand whenever I want."
"Very impressive."
"Thank you."
The display beside him updated.
HEART RATE: 108.
Ashborn covered the screen with a towel.
Better.
---
He tried looking outside.
That failed.
His reflection stared back through the glass.
Nineteen.
Long black hair falling past his shoulders in wild heavy layers, carrying violet and pale celestial reflections where sunlight reached it.
White lashes.
Four crystalline Crown-Horns.
Star-Eyes.
Scars.
A rotating star-halo.
He could see:
the man in the glass.
But somewhere in his head?
He was also trying to remember what he looked like the last time Caelum Voss saw him.
Ten.
Smaller.
Shorter.
Rounder in the face.
Far fewer scars.
No Fourfold.
No Aetherion.
No Lunavelle.
No Dream Core.
No body rebuilt by nine years of hostile reality.
No need to identify an exit before sleeping.
No habit of checking food for predatory tissue.
No automatic calculation of whether the person approaching him could reach his throat before he moved.
Ashborn pressed his thumb against the window.
Nine years.
A ridiculous number.
Not cosmologically.
Not historically.
Not to civilizations that measured eras in millions.
But nineteen-year-old Ashborn did not care.
Nine years was:
almost half his life.
---
"Do you think he'll recognize me?"
The question escaped before Ashborn could murder it.
Lunavelle went still.
Ashborn kept looking through the glass.
He immediately tried repairing the sentence.
"I mean visually."
Coward.
Lunavelle did not let him escape.
"Yes."
"You don't know him."
"No."
"Then how?"
"Because you are scared he won't."
Ashborn's jaw tightened.
"That's terrible logic."
"It is emotional logic."
"Worse."
Lunavelle stood.
Walked toward him.
Stopped beside his arm.
She did not touch him immediately.
Another thing she had learned.
Ashborn noticed.
Then allowed her hand to rest against his wrist.
The Riftbond warmed.
Not a command.
Not emotional suppression.
Presence.
Ashborn exhaled.
---
The door announced:
AUTHORIZED VISITOR ARRIVAL.
Ashborn stopped breathing.
Lunavelle looked toward the entrance.
Aetherion's Core brightened.
Fourfold tightened one fraction around Ashborn's ribs.
The Halo slowed.
Ashborn's Star-Eyes instantly read:
door pressure,
incoming mass,
step pattern,
field signature,
air displacement,
Core resonance.
His entire body prepared to identify:
unknown arrival.
Then his nervous system recognized the footsteps.
Before:
his eyes.
Before:
the scanner.
Before:
the door opened.
The cadence was older.
Slightly slower.
Still controlled.
Still economical.
Right foot landing almost perfectly beneath center.
Left step fractionally shorter because of an injury Caelum had received decades before Ashborn was born and apparently still refused to have cosmetically optimized because:
"if it functions, stop fucking with it."
Ashborn's throat closed.
He knew that walk.
---
The door opened.
Caelum Voss stood there.
And for several seconds?
Neither of them moved.
---
Ashborn remembered:
an old man.
That was inaccurate.
He had always called Caelum:
old man.
Caelum had already been ancient by ordinary pre-Ascendant human standards when Ashborn was a child.
But the person standing in the doorway was not frail.
Not remotely.
He stood:
six feet four inches.
Approximately one hundred ninety-three centimeters.
Tall enough that Ashborn, despite being physically imposing at six feet, still had to angle his gaze slightly upward.
Caelum's frame remained:
broad-shouldered,
lean,
dense,
and built with the hard economy of an old soldier who had never stopped training.
Not bodybuilder massive.
No unnecessary bulk.
Nothing decorative.
His physique looked less like:
someone trying to appear strong
and more like:
someone whose body had spent a century learning which movements were worth keeping.
The old-soldier hardness remained.
Maybe sharper now.
His skin was pale.
Human.
Subtly weathered despite longevity treatment.
There were lines around his eyes that Ashborn did not remember.
Not many.
But enough.
History had collected in them.
His face remained long and sharply mature.
High cheekbones.
Stern brow.
Strong angular jaw.
The kind of face that could make cadets reconsider poorly researched statements before Caelum had even opened his mouth.
A prominent scar tracked through the region around one eye and across the upper cheek.
Still there.
Ashborn remembered that scar.
Other marks remained hidden beneath clothing and gloves.
Caelum could have erased them.
He had not.
Records.
That was how Caelum thought.
Some people kept photographs.
Caelum kept:
evidence.
His hair had become even more completely white-silver.
Natural age.
Not Divine radiance.
Not supernatural mutation.
Simply:
time.
Medium-short.
Swept mostly backward.
One heavier silver lock crossed part of his forehead, refusing the otherwise military precision of the style.
Ashborn remembered more dark silver when he was ten.
Not much.
Enough.
Nine years.
There they were.
His eyes remained deep crimson-red.
Human crimson.
Severe.
Bright.
Focused.
But when the door's security systems briefly mapped the room around him, Ashborn caught tiny cobalt coordinate lines moving through the red irises.
Atlas overlays.
Calculation.
Then they disappeared.
Caelum wasn't here to map a battlefield.
His formal Headmaster uniform remained unmistakably him.
A long white-silver officer coat fell nearly to his calves.
Its interior lining was cobalt blue.
Underneath sat a fitted black waistcoat over a royal-cobalt shirt.
A patterned blue tie.
Black tactical gloves.
Silver-black insignia.
Minimal ceremonial plating reinforced the shoulders and upper arms.
An officer chain crossed part of his chest.
The Genesis Corps crest rested over his heart.
No ridiculous medal wall.
No attempt to display nearly ninety years of service on his torso.
Caelum had never liked wearing history like jewelry.
And above his head?
A narrow cobalt ring floated silently.
Four elongated directional spires crossed its circumference.
Beautiful.
Precise.
Almost celestial.
But Ashborn knew better.
The Blue Horizon Annulus was not divine.
Caelum Voss had no divine blood.
No hidden Godhood.
No sacred ancestry required.
The halo above him was:
human-made.
Core-bound.
Engineered.
A navigation instrument worn by a human being who had simply refused to accept that the unknown belonged exclusively to monsters and gods.
That somehow made it more:
Caelum.
The entire visual package said:
Headmaster.
Veteran.
Cartographer.
Warden.
Human.
Danger.
And to Ashborn?
Something much simpler.
Home.
Caelum's established physical appearance was exactly that: 193 cm, tall, broad-shouldered, lean and battle-hardened, with pale subtly weathered skin, white-silver hair, crimson eyes carrying cobalt Atlas overlays, retained scars, formal white/cobalt/black Headmaster attire, and the permanent human-made Blue Horizon Annulus.
---
Caelum stared at Ashborn.
And Ashborn watched the Headmaster of the Genesis Corps forget how to speak.
That was new.
Caelum Voss was famous for:
knowing what to say.
Briefings.
Funerals.
Disciplinary hearings.
First contact.
Failed missions.
Hostile negotiations.
Academy lectures.
Black-zone emergency command.
He could talk to:
kings,
machine civilizations,
gods,
things pretending not to be gods,
and sixteen-year-old cadets who had accidentally detonated a laboratory and were somehow more frightening than all previous categories.
Yet now?
Nothing.
His mouth opened.
Closed.
The Headmaster looked at:
Ashborn's horns.
His face.
The scars.
The long black hair.
The star-shaped eyes.
The Halo.
Fourfold.
Aetherion.
Then back to:
his face.
And Ashborn understood.
Caelum was not seeing:
one person.
He was seeing two.
---
Ten.
Ashborn could almost imagine the image in Caelum's head.
A boy with too much confidence.
Too many questions.
Too little patience.
Probably somewhere he had been specifically told not to stand.
Probably touching something glowing.
Probably arguing that:
"technically, you never said not to activate it."
Probably receiving the legendary Caelum Voss expression that translated across every language as:
I am trying very hard to remember why murder is against institutional policy.
That child had left.
Now?
A nineteen-year-old man stood in his place.
Same eyes.
Not the same eyes.
Same posture.
Not the same posture.
Same Ashborn.
Not the same Ashborn.
---
And Ashborn?
Ashborn saw nine years.
Not in a dramatic transformation.
That almost made it worse.
Caelum was still unmistakably:
Caelum.
But Ashborn remembered:
slightly less silver in the hair.
Fewer lines at the corners of the eyes.
One less small scar on the visible hand.
Shoulders held maybe half a degree differently.
A tiny stiffness near the left hip that had not existed before.
The coat design had changed.
The Corps crest had changed.
His Annulus had evolved.
Even the old man's silence felt:
nine years heavier.
Ashborn had imagined home frozen.
He knew intellectually that was impossible.
But some childish part of him had preserved:
everyone
exactly where he left them.
Caelum had continued living.
Without him.
Nine years had happened:
here too.
---
They stared.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
Lunavelle remained completely silent.
For once?
She understood that even one word would be:
too much.
---
Ashborn finally spoke.
"Headmaster."
Caelum's expression changed.
Very slightly.
Almost nothing.
Ashborn noticed anyway.
He knew that face.
He had spent a childhood learning that face.
The old man's jaw tightened.
Not anger.
Something hurt.
"Don't."
Ashborn blinked.
Caelum's voice was exactly how Ashborn remembered.
Deep.
Controlled.
Low.
Age roughened around the edges.
But now it carried something he had never heard inside it before.
Fragility.
Ashborn's stomach turned.
"What?"
"Not that."
Ashborn's brows drew together.
"It's your title."
"I am painfully aware."
"You're Headmaster."
"I have spent decades trying to escape that fact."
Ashborn almost smiled.
Almost.
Caelum continued.
"Not from you."
Silence.
Ashborn looked away.
"I didn't know what else to call you."
That sentence landed harder than either of them expected.
Caelum's face went still.
Ashborn hated himself immediately.
"I didn't mean..."
"I know."
"No, I mean..."
"I know, Ashborn."
His name.
Just that.
No:
Returned Drifter.
No:
Cosmic Knight.
No:
Nihil survivor.
No:
Order IV Ascendant.
No:
medical anomaly.
No:
missing operative recovered after nine years.
Ashborn.
Caelum had always done that.
---
The old man stepped into the room.
Then stopped.
Not because there was a barrier.
Because Ashborn's body had changed.
One tiny movement.
A shift in stance.
Barely visible.
But Caelum Voss had trained people for nearly a century.
He saw it.
Ashborn's right heel had moved back.
His torso had angled.
His shoulders were relaxed.
Too relaxed.
Hands open.
Too open.
The posture said:
I am not threatening you.
The body beneath it said:
I have already calculated seventeen responses if you become one.
Caelum did not approach further.
That hurt too.
Ashborn wished it didn't.
---
"May I come in?"
Ashborn stared.
"You're already in."
"Further."
A pause.
Ashborn swallowed.
"Yeah."
Caelum took another step.
Then another.
Slow.
Nothing tactical about it.
Nothing exaggerated.
He simply gave Ashborn time to watch each movement happen.
The old man stopped several feet away.
Close enough to talk.
Far enough that Ashborn did not feel cornered.
Ashborn noticed.
Of course he did.
---
Caelum looked around.
At the couch.
The medical display hidden beneath a towel.
Lunavelle.
Aetherion.
Then Ashborn.
"You covered the monitor."
"It was annoying me."
"What was it displaying?"
"Propaganda."
Lunavelle answered.
"His heart rate."
Ashborn slowly turned his head.
"Lunavelle."
Caelum's mouth twitched.
The first almost-smile.
"What was it?"
"Classified."
"One hundred eight."
Ashborn closed his eyes.
"Why did I rescue you?"
"Poor judgment."
Caelum's almost-smile became:
real.
Small.
Brief.
But real.
And the room changed.
Just a little.
---
There.
Ashborn recognized that smile.
Older.
More lines around it.
Still:
his old man.
---
Caelum gestured toward the chair.
"May I?"
Ashborn nodded.
Caelum sat.
Ashborn remained standing.
Caelum looked up at him.
Ashborn looked down.
That lasted five seconds.
"Sit."
Ashborn immediately frowned.
"No."
Caelum raised one eyebrow.
Lunavelle brightened.
Ashborn pointed at her.
"Don't."
She said nothing.
That was somehow worse.
Caelum leaned back.
"Nine years."
"Yeah."
"Different dimensions."
"Yeah."
"Unknown realities."
"Yeah."
"Hostile civilizations."
"Sometimes."
"Things our medical staff now appear to be inventing new diagnostic categories for."
Ashborn glanced toward the door.
"...Possibly."
"And somehow..."
Caelum looked directly at him.
"...you still don't know how chairs work."
Ashborn stared.
Then:
"Old man."
Silence.
---
Caelum froze.
Not physically.
Something behind his face did.
Ashborn saw it happen.
The title:
Headmaster
fell away.
The Last Meridian.
Gone.
The old war hero.
Gone.
Order IX.
Meaningless.
For one second there was only:
a tired human man
who had waited nine years to hear a disrespectful child call him:
old.
Again.
Caelum looked down.
His breath left through his nose.
Once.
His shoulders shook.
Ashborn stared.
"Are you laughing?"
Caelum covered his mouth with one gloved hand.
That made it worse.
"You fucking..."
The old man laughed.
Quietly.
Not elegantly.
Not professionally.
One broken sound escaped.
Then another.
Ashborn's lips twitched.
Caelum looked up.
Crimson eyes wet.
Not crying.
Not quite.
He said:
"There you are."
Ashborn's smile died.
Because that sentence?
Found somewhere behind his ribs and:
stayed.
---
Ashborn sat.
No argument this time.
Caelum noticed.
Said nothing.
---
For several moments?
They just looked at each other.
There were too many questions.
Neither knew which one deserved to survive being first.
How are you alive?
What happened?
Did you suffer?
Did you look for us?
Did you think I abandoned you?
Did you stop believing I was coming?
Why couldn't we find you?
Why did you leave me?
Why didn't I find a road back sooner?
Did you ever think of home?
Every day?
Did you hate us?
Did you hate yourself?
Are you really okay?
Do you remember me?
Are you still my son?
Are you still my father?
Do either of those questions need asking?
Too many.
So Caelum selected:
the smallest.
"Are you hungry?"
Ashborn blinked.
"What?"
"Hungry."
"I ate."
"That isn't what I asked."
Ashborn narrowed his eyes.
"You haven't changed."
"Answer."
"A little."
Lunavelle:
"A lot."
Ashborn looked toward the ceiling.
"Everyone in this building is against me."
Caelum nodded.
"Promising medical environment."
---
Another crack.
Small.
Safe.
They were not discussing:
Nihil.
Good.
Not yet.
---
Caelum's eyes lowered toward Ashborn's arms.
Scars.
Muscle.
Fourfold's thin living architecture.
Then the four horns.
Then the Halo.
"I was told your medical examination destroyed a diagnostic screen."
Ashborn straightened.
"I did not destroy anything."
"Mm."
"It committed suicide."
Caelum stared.
Lunavelle covered her mouth.
Ashborn continued.
"It attempted unauthorized Prime Identity analysis."
"That explains absolutely nothing."
"It turned into ash."
"I gathered that from the phrase diagnostic screen destroyed."
"I warned them."
Caelum pinched the bridge of his nose.
For a second?
Ashborn was ten.
Absolutely ten.
Sitting in Caelum's office explaining that:
technically,
the research drone had exploded itself.
Caelum looked at him through two fingers.
"You have been home less than one day."
"It wasn't my fault."
"You have been home less than one day."
"Still not my fault."
Caelum lowered his hand.
Ashborn saw it.
The old rhythm.
Report.
Counterargument.
Disapproval.
Technical defense.
Exasperation.
Home.
His chest hurt.
---
Caelum saw that too.
His expression softened.
"Pain?"
Ashborn immediately said:
"No."
Caelum waited.
Ashborn sighed.
"Nothing acute."
"That's a medical answer."
"I was in medical."
"You're not now."
Ashborn looked at him.
There it was.
The distinction.
Not patient.
Not operative.
Not anomaly.
Son.
Ashborn rubbed his palm against his knee.
"Some things hurt."
Caelum nodded.
No follow-up.
That was worse.
Or better.
Ashborn did not know yet.
---
Eventually Caelum's attention moved toward Lunavelle.
She had been watching them with the focused stillness she used when trying to understand something emotionally unfamiliar.
Caelum looked at her.
Not at Ashborn.
At:
her.
"Lunavelle Noctherium."
She blinked.
"You know my name."
"I read the preliminary report."
Ashborn immediately groaned.
"How much?"
"Enough."
"Define enough."
Caelum looked at him.
Ashborn stopped.
Fair.
Caelum returned his attention to Lunavelle.
"Caelum Voss."
"I know."
"I suspected."
Lunavelle studied him.
Then:
"Ashborn talks about you."
Ashborn stared at her.
"You said you wouldn't weaponize private conversations."
"I didn't."
"You just did."
Caelum looked almost interested.
"What did he say?"
"Nothing."
"Lunavelle."
She smiled.
Ashborn whispered:
"Traitor."
---
Caelum's expression shifted.
Gentler.
Not infantilizing her.
Not treating her like:
Ashborn's strange pet.
Not treating her like:
an artifact.
"Welcome to Nexus Prime."
Lunavelle's smile faded.
Not from displeasure.
The sentence surprised her.
Caelum continued.
"And welcome to the Genesis Corps, provisionally, until someone invents enough paperwork to describe your situation."
Ashborn snorted.
Lunavelle glanced at him.
"Do I want that paperwork?"
"No."
Caelum answered simultaneously:
"No."
They looked at each other.
First father-son synchronization achieved.
Terrifying.
---
Caelum regarded Lunavelle again.
"I understand several people have already asked what you are."
Her shoulders stiffened slightly.
Ashborn noticed.
So did Caelum.
He amended:
"I won't."
Lunavelle blinked.
Caelum said:
"I read enough to understand that the useful question is who."
Ashborn looked at him.
Of course.
Of fucking course.
Lunavelle's expression softened.
"Lunavelle."
Caelum nodded.
"Good answer."
Ashborn slowly looked at her.
She looked back.
"Don't."
"What?"
"That's my line."
"It was correct."
Caelum's lips twitched.
Different ecosystem indeed.
---
Then Caelum said:
"Thank you."
Lunavelle tilted her head.
"For what?"
"For being with him."
Ashborn's expression changed immediately.
Lunavelle's changed too.
Caelum caught it.
Good.
Because Lunavelle answered:
"He was with me too."
Caelum did not hesitate.
"Then thank you both."
Perfect.
No:
guardian.
No:
caretaker.
No:
little Dream creature who saved Ashborn.
Two people.
Who had survived:
together.
---
Lunavelle nodded.
Something quiet passed between her and the old man.
Acceptance.
Not complete trust.
That would take time.
But the first bridge existed.
Ashborn watched it and felt a strange pressure leave his shoulders.
He had not realized he had been worried about:
this too.
Whether his old home would accept the person who had become part of his new one.
Apparently his nervous system had been keeping:
a fucking spreadsheet.
---
Caelum noticed Aetherion next.
The weapon leaned against the wall.
Still.
Beautiful.
Dangerous.
Sentient.
Its violet Core pulsed once.
Caelum looked at it.
"Aetherion."
A single crystalline note answered.
Caelum nodded.
"Thank you too."
Another note.
Ashborn blinked.
"That's it?"
Caelum looked at him.
"What were you expecting?"
"I don't know. Security argument."
"It already passed conditional intake."
"You didn't ask if it's dangerous."
Caelum's crimson eyes moved over the blade.
Then Ashborn.
"Of course it's dangerous."
"Okay."
"You picked it."
"Rude."
"I raised you."
Ashborn opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Fair.
---
Fourfold was harder.
Caelum's gaze shifted toward the living architecture around Ashborn.
The armor subtly watched him back.
A pale-gold line compressed.
Hollow Maw stirred.
Caelum noticed.
He did not touch it.
Smart old bastard.
"Fourfold Calamity."
Ashborn nodded.
"Current designation."
"It used to be Crownward Plate."
"Same continuity."
Caelum studied the armor for several seconds.
"You kept it alive."
Ashborn looked down.
"Sometimes."
A pause.
"It kept me alive too."
Caelum's expression tightened.
He understood the sentence.
More than most people could.
Not:
equipment ownership.
Relationship.
Mutual survival.
Caelum nodded once.
"Then we'll treat it accordingly."
Fourfold settled.
Ashborn stared.
"Did my armor just approve of you?"
Caelum leaned back.
"I am widely considered charming."
Lunavelle laughed.
Ashborn looked between them.
"This alliance is already becoming a problem."
---
The room became easier.
Not easy.
Never that quickly.
But easier.
A conversation began forming from fragments.
Caelum asked:
"Do you remember the Academy east observatory?"
"Yeah."
"It's gone."
Ashborn's face fell.
"What?"
"Renovated."
"Oh."
"Still an observatory."
"Same telescope?"
"No."
"Fuck."
"Language."
Ashborn stared.
Caelum stared back.
Ashborn slowly raised one eyebrow.
The old man lasted three seconds.
Then:
"Fair."
---
"Hearthline?"
"Still there."
Ashborn's shoulders loosened.
"The residence?"
"Still there."
"My room?"
Caelum hesitated.
Ashborn narrowed his eyes.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"That hesitation was guilty."
"I converted part of it into storage."
Ashborn looked genuinely betrayed.
Caelum added:
"Temporary storage."
"For nine years?"
"Time got away from me."
"You put boxes in my room."
"I refused to let administration reassign it."
Ashborn stopped.
The joke dissolved.
Caelum looked away first.
"Technically, the room remained registered."
Ashborn's voice became quieter.
"Registered to who?"
Caelum's answer was immediate.
"You."
Ashborn said nothing.
---
The Missing Ledger.
He knew about it.
Everyone in Genesis Corps knew about it.
A living registry for people whose status could not honestly be converted into:
dead.
Not because the Corps believed every missing operative remained alive forever.
Because:
unknown was not proof.
No body.
No Soul-confirmed death.
No valid continuity termination.
No evidence sufficient to close the case.
Missing remained:
missing.
Even when years passed.
Ashborn swallowed.
"My status?"
Caelum looked at him.
"Missing."
"For all nine years?"
"Yes."
"You never changed it."
"No."
"Even after..."
"After what?"
Ashborn looked down.
"After everyone probably assumed..."
"I do not promote assumptions into evidence because enough people are tired of waiting."
The old cartographer's voice hardened for the first time.
Not at Ashborn.
At the idea.
"If the map ends, I write:
map ends here.
I do not write:
nothing exists beyond this point."
Ashborn stared.
Caelum continued.
"No confirmed body."
His voice stayed controlled.
"No Soul termination."
"No verified death event."
"No causal confirmation."
A pause.
"So you remained:
missing."
Ashborn's throat tightened.
"You kept looking?"
Caelum's face did not change.
"Yes."
"For nine years?"
"Yes."
Even after the routes failed.
Even after probes vanished.
Even after missions returned empty.
Even after models changed.
Even after public memorial culture began quietly transforming Ashborn from:
missing child
into:
dead legend.
Caelum Voss had refused to convert:
uncertainty
into:
death.
The old man's deepest law had always been simple.
If reality disagrees with the map, the map is wrong.
And apparently?
That included:
Ashborn.
---
Caelum reached into the inner layer of his coat.
Ashborn's body tightened.
Barely.
Caelum noticed.
Slowed.
Then withdrew:
a thin data-slate.
Nothing else.
He placed it on the table.
No dramatic artifact.
No childhood trinket.
No sentimental hologram.
Just:
a Corps document.
Ashborn looked at it.
Caelum touched the display.
A registry opened.
Thousands of names.
Some green.
Some gray.
Some red.
Some gold.
Some carrying unresolved markers.
Then one.
[ASHBORN LIONHEART]
STATUS:
[MISSING]
LAST VERIFIED AGE:
[10]
CASE STATUS:
[OPEN]
Ashborn's lungs forgot what they were doing.
Caelum touched the entry.
A new notation appeared beneath it.
One word.
[HOME.]
Ashborn stared.
Caelum locked the slate.
Put it away.
No speech.
None needed.
Caelum had spent his life drawing:
routes.
Apparently that was how he said:
I never stopped waiting.
---
Ashborn looked away quickly.
The window became extremely interesting.
Lunavelle pretended not to notice.
Caelum also pretended.
A room full of liars.
Kind ones.
---
Several minutes passed.
Conversation wandered.
The Academy.
Infrastructure.
Changes.
People Ashborn remembered.
People who had retired.
People promoted.
People who were still around.
Places rebuilt.
Departments renamed.
Old restaurants closed.
New ones opened.
Ashborn repeatedly reacted to the wrong things.
"Commander Vael retired?"
"Six years ago."
"What?"
"He was eighty-four."
"He was fine."
"He wanted to garden."
"That's irresponsible."
Caelum stared.
Ashborn grinned.
There.
Another tiny piece.
---
Eventually Caelum said:
"You're shorter than I expected."
Ashborn stared.
"I'm six feet."
"I know."
"That is a normal tall height."
"For civilians."
Ashborn pointed toward Caelum.
"You're cheating."
"With what?"
"Old-person longevity."
"That isn't height."
"You probably used cartography to find extra centimeters."
Caelum looked deeply unimpressed.
Lunavelle whispered:
"Can he do that?"
"No."
Caelum paused.
"Not responsibly."
Ashborn slowly turned.
"Old man."
Caelum's eyes glinted.
"Boy."
"I'm nineteen."
"And?"
Ashborn considered.
"...Fair."
---
It felt natural.
That was the dangerous part.
The rhythm had survived.
Not unchanged.
But alive.
Ashborn had spent nine years learning:
civilizations.
Languages.
Survival systems.
World Frames.
Foreign customs.
How to identify whether someone's smile meant:
friendship,
submission,
predatory mimicry,
religious greeting,
courtship,
or preparation for ritual disembowelment.
Yet apparently?
His body still remembered how to argue with:
his dad.
Caelum was not Ashborn's biological father.
He was not his Creator.
He did not replace the mother Ashborn already had.
His role was simpler and more human.
He was the man who had raised Ashborn through his Genesis Corps childhood, given him structure, training, discipline, a home, and the practical experience of being someone's child. Ashborn's names for him reflected different emotional distances: Headmaster for professional formality, Old Man for affectionate disrespect, Pops for warmth and home, and Father for the rare moments when Ashborn was emotionally exposed.
---
Then the conversation reached the edge.
It happened quietly.
Caelum asked:
"Do you remember where the expedition began?"
Ashborn stopped smiling.
There.
The room changed.
Not completely.
But enough.
The squad entered without:
entering.
Five empty spaces.
Five people who should have been:
older now.
Nine years older.
Talking.
Complaining.
Retelling the story badly.
Arguing with Caelum about reports.
Maybe laughing at Ashborn for:
still touching glowing things.
Instead?
Nothing.
---
Caelum saw the change instantly.
"Never mind."
Ashborn looked at him.
The old man had already withdrawn the question.
No pressure.
No follow-up.
No professional demand.
Ashborn could have accepted the escape.
He almost did.
Then:
"Old man."
Caelum waited.
Ashborn's hands clasped together.
Too tightly.
His knuckles paled.
"The others..."
The sentence broke.
Lunavelle moved slightly closer.
Not touching.
Just there.
Ashborn swallowed.
Caelum remained completely still.
No commanding presence.
No investigator.
No Headmaster.
Just:
Caelum.
Ashborn tried again.
"They didn't..."
His voice stopped.
Damn it.
He had killed creatures while:
drowning in blood,
missing organs,
half-blind,
and laughing because death had become absurd.
He had negotiated with beings that could alter local causality.
He had crossed realities without maps.
But apparently:
one sentence
could still beat him.
---
Caelum did not finish it for him.
That mattered.
Ashborn finally whispered:
"They didn't come back."
Caelum's face changed.
Tiny.
Devastating.
"None?"
Ashborn shook his head.
"No."
Silence.
The word remained between them.
No.
Five lives inside:
two letters.
---
Caelum looked downward.
His hands rested on his knees.
Still.
Ashborn had never really thought about:
what those five people were to Caelum.
He had known them too.
Of course he had.
Their training records.
Their certifications.
Their habits.
Their arguments.
Their mission histories.
Caelum Voss had spent nearly a century sending people:
out.
He remembered who came:
back.
And who did not.
The five had never been:
statistics.
Not to Ashborn.
Not to Caelum.
Caelum's grief over the squad was established as personal rather than statistical, and Nihil Aeternum remained one of the deepest wounds beneath his life and leadership.
---
Ashborn's mouth opened.
Caelum raised one hand.
Not to silence him.
Gently.
"Not yet."
Ashborn stared.
Caelum's voice stayed low.
"You don't owe me an after-action report tonight."
"I can give one."
"I know."
"I remember."
"I know."
"I can tell you what happened."
"I know."
Ashborn's jaw tightened.
"Then why don't you want to know?"
Caelum looked directly at him.
"I want to know."
That answer hurt more because it was:
true.
"I want every detail you are willing to give me."
A pause.
"I want to know where they fell."
Another.
"What killed them."
Another.
"What we misunderstood."
Another.
"What should be added to doctrine so nobody repeats it."
The Headmaster existed in those sentences.
Then Caelum continued:
"But I do not need to extract that from you during your first day home simply because I have questions."
Ashborn said nothing.
"The information can wait."
Caelum's crimson eyes softened.
"You've waited long enough."
---
Ashborn's fingers trembled.
Barely.
Caelum saw.
He always saw.
Ashborn hated that.
Loved that.
Hated that he loved that.
---
"They were competent."
The sentence came out defensive.
Caelum answered immediately.
"I know."
"It wasn't..."
Ashborn stopped.
Caelum waited.
Ashborn tried again.
"They weren't careless."
"I know."
"They did what they were supposed to."
"I know."
"They..."
The pressure behind Ashborn's eyes became dangerous.
He looked away.
Caelum did not rescue him from the sentence.
Did not say:
everything happens for a reason.
Did not say:
they knew the risks.
Did not say:
at least you survived.
Did not say:
you did your best.
Not because those words could never matter.
Because right now?
They would be:
too easy.
Caelum simply said:
"I remember them."
Ashborn closed his eyes.
That was enough.
For now.
---
Later.
Much later.
There would be:
reports.
Names.
Maps.
Deaths.
Five stories.
One by one.
There would be:
anger.
Questions.
Grief.
There would be a day when Ashborn could finally say more than:
they didn't come back.
Today?
Caelum let the door remain:
closed.
Not locked.
Just:
not opened yet.
---
Ashborn breathed.
In.
Out.
Wyrm-Arc respiration tried to turn even grief into:
mechanics.
Diaphragm.
Pressure.
Spine.
Control.
Ashborn hated his body for approximately half a second.
Then remembered:
it had kept him alive.
Hard to stay angry.
---
Caelum looked at him.
"You don't have to sit straight."
Ashborn blinked.
"What?"
"Your shoulders."
Ashborn realized he was sitting in:
briefing posture.
Spine vertical.
Hands controlled.
Feet positioned.
Head aligned.
A body waiting for:
questions.
Caelum leaned back deliberately.
"This isn't a debrief."
Ashborn looked around.
The warm room.
Lunavelle.
Aetherion sleeping by the wall.
No recorder.
No officers.
No tribunal.
No mission clock.
His shoulders lowered.
One centimeter.
Two.
Three.
Caelum pretended not to notice.
Again.
Kind liar.
---
"How long did you search?"
Ashborn asked eventually.
Caelum knew what he meant.
"For you?"
"Yeah."
"Continuously?"
Ashborn nodded.
Caelum considered.
"Depends what you count."
Ashborn almost rolled his eyes.
Cartographer answer.
Caelum continued.
"Dedicated retrieval operations decreased as the risk became unjustifiable."
There it was.
Truth.
No romantic lie that ten thousand operatives had been continuously thrown into the same abyss for nine years.
Good.
Caelum would never waste lives to perform:
grief.
"But the case never closed."
Ashborn listened.
"Passive search architecture remained active."
More.
"Cartographic models were revised whenever compatible anomalies appeared."
More.
"Nullwatch retained your signature."
More.
"Dream and Soul intelligence divisions cross-referenced unidentified continuity events."
More.
"The Missing Ledger stayed open."
Ashborn looked down.
"So..."
He swallowed.
"...you stopped sending people."
"When sending them became indistinguishable from killing them."
Ashborn nodded.
That made sense.
It hurt.
But it made sense.
Caelum continued:
"I did not stop looking."
Different thing.
Ashborn understood.
---
There was something almost cruel about coming home.
Nihil had made the world simple in terrible ways.
Survive.
Eat.
Move.
Learn.
Fight.
Protect Lunavelle.
Repair equipment.
Find route.
Do not die.
Home?
Home contained:
nuance.
People could fail to rescue you
and still love you.
People could stop sending teams
and still refuse to stop searching.
People could move on with their lives
without leaving you behind in their hearts.
People could grow older
without betraying your memory.
Ashborn had forgotten how complicated love was.
Monsters were easier.
---
Caelum studied him.
"What?"
Ashborn shook his head.
"Nothing."
"That face has meant trouble since you were six."
Ashborn blinked.
"You knew me at six?"
Caelum stared.
Ashborn stared back.
Then:
"Right."
Caelum's eyebrows rose.
"I see Nihil did improve your memory."
"Fuck you."
Lunavelle made a scandalized sound.
Caelum looked deeply unimpressed.
Ashborn grinned.
Again.
There.
---
The old man leaned forward.
Forearms on knees.
"What do you need?"
Ashborn immediately answered:
"Nothing."
Caelum looked at Lunavelle.
She looked at Caelum.
Ashborn saw the alliance forming.
"No."
Caelum's gaze returned.
"I asked what you need."
"I said nothing."
"That's not an answer."
"It's literally an answer."
"It's a bad one."
"I survived nine years with less."
The room went still.
Ashborn regretted the sentence instantly.
Not because it was false.
Because:
it revealed too much.
Caelum's face changed.
No anger.
Pain.
Ashborn looked away.
"Sorry."
Caelum spoke quietly.
"Don't apologize for that."
"I didn't mean..."
"I know."
A pause.
"That is exactly why I'm asking."
Ashborn looked back.
Caelum continued.
"What do you need now that survival isn't the only requirement?"
Ashborn had no answer.
That scared him.
Food?
Sleep?
Room?
Training?
Information?
Selena?
Lunavelle?
Weapons nearby?
Sky?
A door he could leave unlocked without dying?
A room where someone else kept watch?
Permission to stop?
He did not know.
Caelum saw that.
"Good."
Ashborn frowned.
"Good?"
"You don't know."
"That's good?"
"It means we don't pretend."
The old cartographer leaned back.
"We establish where the map ends."
Ashborn stared.
Of course.
Of fucking course Caelum would turn emotional recovery into cartography.
And somehow?
That made it understandable.
Caelum continued.
"We know you need medical follow-up."
Ashborn grimaced.
"Food."
Worse.
"Sleep."
"The propaganda continues."
"Time."
Ashborn's expression changed.
Caelum added:
"Choice."
That one stayed.
"No immediate reinstatement."
Ashborn looked up sharply.
"What?"
"You're not returning to active duty tomorrow."
"I'm cleared operationally."
"Medically stable does not mean operationally requalified."
"Old man."
"Boy."
"I am literally an Order IV Ascendant."
"And currently unable to sit through a conversation without checking the door every thirty seconds."
Ashborn's head snapped toward the door.
Then slowly back.
Caelum raised an eyebrow.
Lunavelle covered her mouth.
Ashborn looked betrayed by reality itself.
---
Caelum continued.
"You're home."
Ashborn's humor faded.
"You don't have to prove you deserve to stay."
Ashborn looked at him.
Caelum's voice became very quiet.
It was not:
Headmaster doctrine.
Not a combat principle.
Not a regulation.
This was older than:
today.
Something he had apparently believed long before Ashborn needed to hear it.
"You do not have to earn the right to come home."
Ashborn stopped moving.
Completely.
The sentence struck somewhere none of his armor covered.
No spell.
No Authority.
No Origin architecture.
No cosmic force.
Just:
words.
And somehow?
His defenses failed.
---
For nine years, every shelter had been earned.
Every meal earned.
Every safe route earned.
Every hour of sleep purchased with:
traps,
weapons,
distance,
or blood.
Every ally required:
verification.
Every resource required:
work.
Every day required:
proof that he was still capable of surviving it.
Ashborn had forgotten the idea of:
belonging somewhere
without first demonstrating utility.
Caelum looked at him.
"You don't have to be useful tonight."
Ashborn's throat tightened.
"That's a stupid thing to tell a Genesis operative."
"Good thing I'm not talking to one."
Ashborn's eyes burned.
Caelum continued.
"I'm talking to you."
---
The room blurred slightly.
Ashborn looked down.
His hands were shaking again.
Damn.
Caelum noticed.
Of course.
Said nothing.
Of course.
---
Ashborn laughed once.
Quiet.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was worse.
"You're fucking annoying."
"I've had a century of practice."
"Old bastard."
"Better."
Ashborn wiped one eye with the heel of his palm.
Caelum politely examined the opposite wall.
Lunavelle became fascinated by Aetherion.
Everyone remained:
terrible liars.
---
Ashborn tried breathing again.
It worked somewhat.
Then he looked at Caelum.
Really looked.
At the silver hair.
Scar.
Crimson eyes.
Cobalt ring.
The old coat.
Nine years.
The man who had not frozen in memory after all.
The man who had aged.
Worked.
Lost people.
Changed the Corps.
Kept searching.
Kept a room registered.
Kept a name open.
Kept:
a road.
Ashborn's voice came out small.
Not childish.
Just:
unguarded.
"I didn't know if you'd still be here."
Caelum stared at him.
There it was.
The thing beneath everything.
Not:
Would you recognize me?
Not:
Did you keep looking?
Something even simpler.
Would you still exist when I finally got back?
Because Ashborn had learned another cruel law in Nihil.
You could find the road home
after the person you wanted to return to
was already gone.
---
Caelum inhaled.
Ashborn saw him struggle.
The old man's control was remarkable.
Almost irritating.
Then Caelum said:
"I told you I'm difficult to kill."
Ashborn laughed wetly.
"Yeah."
A pause.
Then, without planning it:
"Pops."
---
Caelum stopped.
The entire room stopped with him.
Ashborn's eyes widened.
He had not said that word in:
nine years.
Not once.
No reason to.
No one else was:
Pops.
The word had belonged to:
home.
To annoying morning briefings.
To training.
To stolen food.
To walking into Caelum's office without knocking.
To pretending he did not need help.
To being a child who knew someone older was:
there.
It came out naturally.
Too naturally.
Warm.
Casual.
Home.
Exactly what it had always meant.
---
Caelum's face broke.
Not dramatically.
That was not him.
His jaw tightened.
His eyes closed once.
When they reopened, the crimson had gone:
wet.
Ashborn's chest hurt.
"Shit."
Caelum stood.
Ashborn instinctively stood too.
He had no idea why.
They faced one another.
Four feet apart.
Three.
Caelum crossed the rest.
And pulled Ashborn into:
a hug.
---
Ashborn froze.
Only for:
a fraction of a second.
Maybe less.
But Caelum felt it.
Of course he did.
Ashborn's entire body became:
stone.
Not from rejection.
Reflex.
The moment arms closed around his torso, the Genesis Neuroweave began calculating.
Grip position.
Weight distribution.
Neck exposure.
Hip angle.
Potential restraint.
Arm trap.
Escape direction.
Knee clearance.
Head position.
Nearest weapon.
Aetherion distance.
Fourfold's response lattice woke beneath his skin.
Hollow Maw flexed.
Black Star prepared gravitational bracing.
Ashborn's right hand twitched toward:
nothing.
His body had spent nine years learning:
if something grabs you, solve it immediately.
Then another system answered.
Older.
Quieter.
Memory.
White-silver coat.
Cobalt fabric.
The faint scent of old paper, machine oil and whatever impossible coffee Caelum had consumed since before Ashborn was born.
One hand behind his shoulder.
One around his back.
Heartbeat.
Human.
Familiar.
No weapon.
No trap.
No restraint.
Caelum.
Pops.
Home.
---
Ashborn's body stopped calculating.
His shoulders released.
Fourfold settled.
The Halo slowed.
His hands remained awkwardly at his sides for one second.
Then two.
Caelum did not tighten the hug.
Did not joke.
Did not tell him:
relax.
Did not mention:
the freeze.
He simply stayed.
Ashborn noticed that too.
---
Then Ashborn lifted his arms.
Slowly.
Wrapped them around:
Caelum.
And held on.
Hard.
Too hard for:
an ordinary human.
Caelum was not an ordinary human.
Good.
Ashborn gripped the back of the old man's coat.
His face turned into Caelum's shoulder.
Something inside him gave way.
Not:
broke.
Released.
There was a difference.
A very important one.
---
Caelum's arm tightened around him.
One hand moved to the back of Ashborn's head.
Carefully navigating the horns.
Apparently fatherhood now required:
horn logistics.
Ashborn almost laughed.
Instead something that might have been:
a sob
escaped.
He hated that.
Caelum pretended not to notice.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until pretending became:
mercy.
---
Lunavelle watched.
She had been close to Ashborn before.
Closer than almost anyone alive.
She had:
held him while injured,
sat against him during sleep he barely achieved,
felt his terror through the Riftbond,
shared dreams,
watched memory break and reform,
remained beside him when reality became unreliable.
She knew:
proximity.
She knew:
trust.
She knew:
bond.
But this was different.
Not greater.
Not lesser.
Different.
She realized something then.
Being physically near someone meant:
the distance between bodies disappeared.
Being bonded meant:
part of the distance between inner worlds disappeared.
But home?
Home was something stranger.
Home was the place where Ashborn's body could remember:
who held him
before it learned
to fear being held.
---
His nervous system had frozen.
His heart had not.
That was the difference.
---
Caelum felt:
everything.
The hesitation.
The tension.
The moment Ashborn decided:
this is safe.
The old soldier catalogued it automatically.
That was who he was.
But he did not:
diagnose it.
Did not:
comment.
Did not:
ask who had hurt him badly enough to create that response.
Not yet.
There would be time.
For now?
His son was:
in his arms.
Alive.
That was enough.
Caelum's deepest pride regarding Ashborn had never been the new Core, weapons, armor or legendary power accumulated during the Lost Years. It was simply that Ashborn had come home alive.
---
Eventually Caelum whispered:
"Welcome home, son."
Ashborn's grip tightened.
His eyes closed.
"Yeah."
His voice cracked.
He hated that too.
A few seconds later:
"Took me a while."
Caelum's answer came immediately.
"You came back."
Not:
too late.
Not:
finally.
Not:
why did it take you nine years?
Just:
you came back.
Ashborn breathed.
"Yeah."
---
They separated eventually.
Not far.
Caelum kept one hand on Ashborn's shoulder.
Ashborn did not flinch this time.
Progress.
Small.
Important.
---
Ashborn wiped at his face.
"If you tell anyone about this..."
"I am Headmaster."
"That's not reassuring."
"I control the relevant records."
"Worse."
Caelum's mouth twitched.
Lunavelle raised one hand.
"I witnessed everything."
Ashborn slowly turned.
"Lunavelle."
"I will preserve it forever."
"You live in my Dream architecture."
"Convenient."
"I'm evicting you."
"No."
Caelum looked between them.
For the first time since entering?
He smiled without pain beneath it.
Not completely.
But enough.
---
Then the old man looked at Ashborn's Halo.
"That's new."
Ashborn looked up.
"Yeah."
"It destroyed hospital equipment."
"Allegedly."
"Ashborn."
"It defended my privacy."
Caelum considered.
"Better phrasing."
"Thank you."
The Blue Horizon Annulus rotated quietly over Caelum.
Ashborn pointed.
"You can't talk."
Caelum raised an eyebrow.
"Mine has never reduced medical equipment to ash."
"Yet."
"Do not inspire it."
Lunavelle looked between the two halos.
"Do they talk?"
"No."
Ashborn paused.
"Probably."
Caelum stared at him.
Ashborn shrugged.
"Project Genesis."
Caelum sighed.
"Unfortunately."
---
Eventually they sat again.
Closer this time.
Not across the room.
Same couch.
Ashborn kept enough distance to breathe.
But not:
battle distance.
Lunavelle claimed the chair opposite.
Aetherion remained nearby.
Fourfold relaxed almost completely.
Outside?
Homeward Hall continued.
Ships landed.
Doctors worked.
Families reunited.
Some reunions went well.
Some did not.
Some people came home changed enough that:
home
would need to learn them again.
Ashborn realized:
that included him.
---
Caelum's communicator vibrated.
He checked it.
His expression became:
interesting.
Ashborn noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That's my line."
"Mm."
"Old man."
Caelum looked at the message again.
Then:
"You have another visitor."
Ashborn's expression changed.
His body knew before his mind committed.
"...Who?"
Caelum looked at him.
Lunavelle looked between them.
Then the door system displayed:
[VISITOR ARRIVAL REQUEST]
[SELENA HEART]
Ashborn stopped breathing.
Again.
Caelum watched.
One second.
Two.
Then the old bastard smiled.
Ashborn saw it.
"Don't."
"I said nothing."
"Your face said several things."
"Did it?"
"Help me."
Caelum raised an eyebrow.
Ashborn pointed at him.
"You're my father."
"Apparently."
"Do father things."
Caelum stood.
"I already did."
"You can't leave me here."
"Why not?"
Ashborn stared at the name.
Selena Heart.
Nine years.
Caelum's smile widened one microscopic amount.
Ashborn whispered:
"I fought things that ate causality."
"Impressive."
"I've killed monsters larger than cities."
"Very good."
"I survived Nihil."
"Yes."
Ashborn looked toward the door.
Then back.
"Pops."
Caelum picked up his coat.
"No."
"Motherfucker."
Lunavelle burst out laughing.
Caelum headed toward the exit.
Ashborn called after him:
"Old man!"
Caelum raised one hand without turning.
"Boy."
"I'm nineteen!"
"And?"
Ashborn stared.
"...Fair."
The door opened.
Before leaving, Caelum stopped.
Turned.
Looked at Ashborn.
No Headmaster.
No Last Meridian.
Just:
Pops.
His expression softened.
"You'll be fine."
Ashborn looked at Selena's name.
"No evidence supports that conclusion."
Caelum's mouth twitched.
Then he left.
The door closed.
Ashborn stared at it.
Lunavelle stared at Ashborn.
Silence.
Then she asked:
"Who is Selena?"
Ashborn slowly turned toward her.
His face held an expression Lunavelle had previously seen only when confronting phenomena classified as:
potentially catastrophic.
He swallowed.
"My best friend."
Lunavelle smiled.
"That sounds good."
Ashborn stared at the door.
"You'd think."
A new message appeared.
[SELENA HEART]
[ARRIVAL: IMMINENT]
Ashborn whispered:
"Fuck."
Lunavelle tilted her head.
Outside the suite?
Footsteps approached.
Ashborn Lionheart had finally come home.
Unfortunately?
Home had spent nine years:
waiting for him.
CUT.
END CHAPTER V
NEXT:
[CHAPTER VI:] 「THE GIRL WHO WAITED」