The training room was quiet in the way only exhausted people could make it.
No groans.
No complaints.
Just the sound of breathing—uneven, humbled, alive.
They stood where she'd told them to stand. A crooked line of former elites, shoulders bruised, pride worse off than their ribs. Sweat darkened the floor beneath their boots. No one wiped it away.
Aria leaned against the wall, arms crossed, a half-empty bag of chips tucked under one elbow like it belonged there. She crunched thoughtfully, eyes moving from face to face.
Once, these people had looked at her like a legend.
Then like a rumor.
Then like a traitor.
Now they didn't quite know how to look at her at all.
"You're slower," one of them muttered at last. It sounded like an accusation, until he swallowed. "Than before."
Aria raised an eyebrow. "Mm."
A beat.
"…But you hit harder."
That earned a few quiet laughs. Nervous ones. The kind people make when they're not sure they're allowed to.
Noah stayed silent. He hadn't stopped watching her since the last body hit the mat. There was something painfully familiar in his expression—relief tangled with awe, like a kid who'd finally confirmed the monster under the bed was actually guarding the house.
Another agent shifted his weight. Tall. Scar along his jaw. Always the loudest, once.
He cleared his throat.
"We thought you disappeared because you couldn't handle it anymore."
The room stilled.
Aria didn't interrupt. She didn't smile either.
"We told ourselves that," he continued. "Made it easier."
Someone else exhaled slowly. A third nodded, jaw tight.
Scar-Jaw looked down at his hands. "But watching you just now… that wasn't someone who ran."
He lifted his head.
"That was someone who chose."
The word hung there, heavy and undeniable.
For the first time since they'd arrived, no one argued.
Noah's voice came out rough. "You didn't abandon us."
Aria finally shrugged. Casual. Almost lazy. "You abandoned the idea that I was human."
Silence hit harder than any punch she'd thrown tonight.
Then—quietly, from the back of the line—someone spoke. A woman with trembling knees and stubborn eyes.
"We kept wondering," she said, "what we'd say if we ever saw you again."
She hesitated. Took a breath.
"…And none of it feels right now."
Aria met her gaze.
The woman straightened, despite the pain. "There's only one thing that makes sense."
Everyone knew what was coming.
Noah's lips parted first. He didn't say it—but he didn't stop it either.
The woman bowed her head, just slightly.
"Big Sis."
The room froze.
A heartbeat.
Then another.
No laughter this time. No embarrassment.
One by one, they lowered their heads—not in submission, but recognition.
The hierarchy they'd pretended didn't exist snapped back into place, clean and absolute.
Aria stared at them.
Then she sighed, reached into the chip bag, and shook it.
"…You know," she said dryly, "I really hoped none of you would say that out loud."
No one moved.
She crunched another chip.
"But," she added, mouth curving despite herself, "I'm not correcting you."
Relief rippled through the room like a released breath.
Noah smiled. Not wide. Not yet.
But real.
And for the first time since the past had come knocking—
it stopped trying to break the door down.