Kana stood alone in the training corridors. She was upset with herself, the weight of walking away from Koma and Koa still pulling at her chest. Her hands were clenched at her sides.
Her knuckles were pale and her shoulders were drawn tight, like she was bracing for a blow that never came. Weapons lined the walls around her. Spears, blades, and the tools of people who were actually seen.
She didn't reach for any of them. She rarely did anymore. "I hate this," she said quietly. Her voice echoed once against the cold stone and then vanished into the silence. "I hate feeling like I don't exist."
The words slipped out too easily. They'd been sitting in her chest for years, waiting for the moment she finally stopped pretending they weren't there. She took a step, then another, pacing the length of the corridor. Her reflection stared back at her from the dull polish of a mounted blade. She looked smaller in the steel. Lighter. Wrong somehow. She wasn't broken, she just wasn't forged the same as the others.
"I get it," Kana continued, her jaw tightening. "I know I'm not strong like the rest of you. I know I don't move fast enough, hit hard enough, or scare anyone when I walk into a room."
A bitter breath left her
"But for my own siblings to look through me?" Her hands curled into tighter fists. "Like I'm air?"
That hurt more than any physical strike could
"and I hate..." Her voice faltered.
She pressed a palm to her chest, trying to ground herself against the rising tide of emotion.
"I hate what he's going through." Kota's face surfaced in her mind, uninvited and vivid." I hate that he survived Koma's attack," she whispered. The words felt cruel even as she said them. "Not because I wanted him dead," she corrected quickly, as if the walls themselves might hear and judge her.
"But because he shouldn't have to carry this. This sickness. This pain. Whatever it is that's eating him alive."
Her eyes burned with unshed tears. "He didn't deserve to live just to suffer."
The corridor offered no comfort. It only offered memories of a time before the rot set in.
"I miss being a family," Kana said at last. "I miss my brother who didn't let being sick define him. The little brother who liked to play and laugh. I miss who he was before that mysterious power awoke. The one who always stayed by my side before his confinement."
Her shoulders sagged as the strength drained out of her. She was left standing alone among weapons she'd never be trusted to wield. Somewhere far above, commands were shouted. Metal rang against metal. Life continued. It continued without her.
Koa was anything but still. She stormed through the upper halls, her boots striking the stone hard enough to echo like hammer blows. Her hands flexed at her sides. Energy was wound tight beneath her skin, coiled and furious.
"This is bullshit," she snapped, pacing sharply as she followed Koma toward his chambers. "I should be running better missions. I can do more.
"Koma didn't slow down. His stride remained measured and unbothered. His cloak whispered behind him as if it agreed with every cold decision he made.
"You're not ready," he said evenly. "I'm more ready than half the people you send out," Koa shot back. "You just don't want to admit it."
She opened her mouth to push further, but a voice slid into her mind without warning.
It was cold and intrusive. Koa. Her steps faltered. "Kaola," she muttered, her eyes narrowing. I forgot my bow, Kaola's voice said, calm and precise within her mind. Bring it to me.
Koa's jaw clenched. "No." Koma didn't look back at the exchange. "I'm not your fetcher," Koa said out loud, heat rising in her voice. "If you forgot it, that's on you."
There was a pause. It wasn't empty. It was deliberate.
You'll do what you're told, Kaola replied. The words carried a heavy weight. It wasn't a force or a threat, it was an expectation. It was the kind of tone that assumed obedience had already been decided by the universe.
Koa stopped walking altogether. "No," she said again. "I don't care." Koma finally turned around. One of his brows lifted slightly. It wasn't surprise, it was a warning but Kaola's presence was already withdrawing from her mind.
The command had been delivered whether it was accepted or not. Koa stood there shaking. Anger crawled under her skin like insects. She watched Koma disappear into the shadowed entrance of his chambers.
Her hands curled into fists so tight they trembled. Beyond the halls, Kaola moved along the outer perimeter with a steady, measured pace. She was the anchor on the surface, scouting for disturbances while the air beside her remained a jagged, violet blur.
Hykee and Lokee were traversing through the Void to cover ground with lethal efficiency. Hykee's massive, brute frame flickered in and out of reality as he bridged the gaps in space. Lokee sat perched casually upon his broad shoulder, her small frame contrasting with his bulk.
She let her twin's strength carry them through the high pressure dimension. She looked bored as they ghosted past the physical terrain. Kaola didn't slow down as the Void hummed beside her. "Keep up," she said flatly. The air churned with the low vibration of the rift. It swallowed her voice as the three of them vanished into the darkening horizon.