A lamp's shadow threw itself the wrong way for a second. Arashi spoke, and his own voice replied a heartbeat later, a quarter-pitch off, like a joke he didn't remember rehearsing. He stopped talking. The echo stopped too, late and embarrassed.
Hikari stepped out of the tent and blinked up at the line where cloud met ridge. Snow fell. Only for a heartbeat, the flakes near the perimeter paused midair, a crowded constellation, then remembered to fall again. She watched it, not as a scientist, not as a healer. As a person who had learned to recognize when a room lied.
"Raizen" she said quietly, not alarmed, not casual.
"I see it" he said. He had; he was already looking.
Alteea found them even before he pinged. "Heads up" she said, voice steady, a little too steady. "My loops are back. Partial strings, repeating. If you hear something twice, the second time is fake. Do not answer a voice that sounds like you unless it swears in exactly your style."
