Abrax woke to the faint glow of threads moving in the dark. The room was quiet, save for the whisper of lines weaving and folding, light bending to Sage's will. She sat in the corner at her desk, bare shoulders touched by the pale sheen of the System she was sculpting, her hair spilling loose down her back.

For a moment, Abrax just watched her, the outline of her profile caught in the shimmer. There was a severity to her—every breath controlled, every motion purposeful, as if even sleep would have been an indulgence. It was almost serene—almost. Every line she drew seemed to hum in tune with her heartbeat, each fold of light measured with surgical care.

Since he'd met her, there had been many nights like this. While the rest of them slept, she sat in silence, weaving Systems that glowed brighter than the lamps on the walls. He had thought then—as now—that she looked less like a soldier and more like a priestess praying on an altar no one else could see.

He rubbed a hand across his face and pushed himself upright. His muscles ached from too little rest, scars shifting with the movement. "We were busy all day... and most of the night," he murmured, his voice rough. "You should at least find time to rest."

Without looking at him, Sage replied, her tone as flat as the glow in her hands. "I'd have plenty of time if you were the one dealing with Amaterasu."

That jab hit its mark. Abrax frowned, pulling a shirt over his chest as if to shield himself. "You know that isn't something I can control. It's the instincts. None of us can—"

"None of you," Sage cut in, her fingers never faltering as the lattice of Vaylora shifted in her hands. "The Twins carved theirs out. I killed mine before it had the chance to grow. But you? You still let yours rule you." Her tone carried no pride. It was the same way someone might describe cutting out rot before it spreads.

Abrax let out a long breath, shaking his head. "It's not that simple."

"It's exactly that simple." She finally glanced at him, eyes like cold glass catching the glow of her System. "I don't care what you feel for her. I don't care if it's instincts or something else. It's not like we're a couple. What matters is that because of you, I have to carry more of the burden. You want to make it right? Apologize."

For a long moment, he held her gaze, jaw tight. Then, quietly, "I'm sorry."

The words were out and already felt thin against the weight she'd shouldered for his instincts. He thought of three burdens in quick flashes: her sleepless nights re-coding Vaylora lattices; the endless negotiations she endured while he trained; the way she bore the silence when instinct pulled him elsewhere.

Each image stacked into him until the apology shrank smaller and smaller, until he almost wished he hadn't spoken at all.

Sage's lips curved—not warmly, but with satisfaction. "Good boy."

The words landed heavier than he wanted to admit. He looked away first.

Abrax shifted the conversation. "Is there even a reason for you to work this hard anymore? Since the UN came in, it looks like the world's trying to move toward peace. For once, it feels like everyone's actually… trying."

That earned him a chuckle, low and sharp. Sage flicked her wrist, and the walls woke—light bled, flattened, and folded until screens tessellated the room. Dozens of feeds lit the air, their sound bleeding over one another until she narrowed them into order.

"Is that what you really see?" she asked.

Abrax leaned forward as the world unfolded around him.

On one screen, smiling diplomats signed exchange programs—students and scientists preparing to study under Firmatha Sangaur. Camera crews lingered on handshakes, banners waving, voices hailing a "new dawn."

A news ticker scrolled across one screen: "Kaunas Tech and Universidad de la Plata open joint labs inside Firmatha Sangaur." Footage rolled of young scientists stepping out of an armored shuttle into a campus lined with Veridahn patrols. Their smiles were wide, but their eyes darted often, drinking in the sight of ivy-colored pylons humming with alien power.

Another clip cut to a parent back home, voice trembling as she begged the anchors not to "send children into monster dens for the sake of progress." The split screen paired her fear with a young student's wide grin, who whispered that she had just heard a lecture from an Elven professor—voice distorted on the feed, his face blurred legally into nothing.

"Progress," Sage muttered, and her tone made the word sound diseased.

Another screen showed riots boiling outside a cathedral. Protesters screamed at priests, demanding to know what they had "hidden" about God's true nature now that monsters and Seats sat before the world. Faith fractured in the open, banners of scripture torn and burned.

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A child clutched a priest's robes as bottles shattered against cathedral steps. Smoke blurred scripture banners into ash while voices screamed that miracles had been lies all along, stolen from the same monsters who now signed treaties on screens elsewhere. Inside, a smaller group of worshippers locked arms and chanted against the crowd—"Faith isn't fragile. Truth is." Their voices trembled but did not break.

Abrax stared longer than he meant to. A memory pressed into him: kneeling as a boy in a chapel lit by candles, filled with hushed prayer. He wondered if that quiet calm would ever return to the world outside.

"Dogma is a load-bearing wall," Sage observed, voice clinical. "Pull it wrong, and the whole building falls."

A sports channel froze on an athlete mid-broadcast, his fangs bared for the first time. He admitted he had played under half a dozen lifetimes of false names.

The athlete lowered his head as cameras cut wide—shoulders broad, eyes bloodshot, fangs impossible not to see. He confessed to running under six names across six decades, altering his form each time suspicion grew too sharp. A world record flashed across the bottom of the screen, rewritten with a question mark.

On another channel, the actress's face filled the frame. Clips rolled of her laughing as a 1920s starlet, weeping as a 1970s icon, standing radiant in films made just last year. She smiled bitterly and said half of those roles hadn't been roles at all. She had simply lived and let humans applaud her disguises. Her words broke into a laugh, but her eyes shone with something closer to relief—or despair.

Abrax looked away. He couldn't decide if he envied them for surviving so long or pitied them for having to live unseen.

Other feeds showed lawmakers pounding tables. Drafts of legislation scrolled across the bottom: the ticker names scrolled like weapons: SERVA—Sentient Entity Registration & Verification Act. CSPAA—Civil Species Protections & Autonomy Act. Two screens split the room.

One showed a senator declaring, "Security through order. Identification is peace." Applause thundered. Another showed a young activist facing cameras, voice cracking as she shouted back, "Safety is mutual. This is coercion dressed as law!"

At a border crossing, footage rolled of a man being dragged away after scanners marked him as "anomalous." He screamed his citizenship as guards tightened their grip.

"They're paralyzed—torn between obvious security theater and suicidal empathy," Sage said flatly, her eyes never leaving the feed. Abrax's jaw worked tight.

In a classroom broadcast, children wore paper masks of Shango's grin, chanting his name like a game. A mural in London took shape stroke by stroke in time-lapse, Shango's grin widening across a ten-story wall. Children danced below with their paper masks, their voices sharp, playful, unknowing.

In a stadium on another screen, drones flared into the same grin above the crowd. Roars drowned the announcers. Symbols were already heavier than the boy who bore them.

Abrax groaned. Symbols unify—or ignite.

And then came the louder demands: not just to register monsters, not just to regulate them, but for the Persequions themselves to act. Anchors with perfect hair leaned into cameras, asking why Heka and Firmatha Sangaur didn't topple dictators, why they didn't sweep away corruption now that their power was undeniable.

The crawl beneath the anchor listed a grocery list of impossible demands: dismantle a cartel, reroute famine supply chains, end a plague, rebuild drowned coasts. Each line came faster than the last until the crawl blurred.

The anchor leaned close, voice confident and condescending: "Power without responsibility is violence in a tuxedo." The phrase clung to Abrax like a thorn, and he scoffed in derision.

"Responsibility without consent," Sage countered softly, "is tyranny in street clothes."

Abrax's mouth pressed into a thin line. "This… this isn't—"

"This isn't peace," Sage finished for him. She leaned back, Systems still humming around her hands. "This is humanity doing what it always does. Taking. Demanding. Dressing greed as order. They only learn through tragedy, Abrax. And this time, the tragedy will be wholly of their own making."

The words sat heavy between them. The screens flickered, riots and parades bleeding into each other until it was impossible to tell which was which.

Abrax ran a hand through his hair, the tension in his shoulders refusing to ease. "You want to talk tragedy? My assignment is to fight The Conductor if this peace breaks. You're really fine with me killing your cousin?"

That made her laugh—not cruelly, but as if he had just said something foolish. "Fine? No. But, honestly? I don't think you can."

His brow furrowed. "You don't—"

Sage finally turned fully toward him, her eyes catching the glow of her System. "The Conductor isn't like you. He isn't even like me. He's brilliant in ways you don't see until it's already too late. Battle strategy runs in his blood. He's a better fighter than I am, and I don't say that lightly. His ability—" she paused, shaking her head—"holds infinite possibilities. Every fight with him is different. You cannot predict him. And most importantly, he is vicious. He will do anything to win. You think you can match that?"

Abrax's jaw tightened. His fists curled in his lap, though he said nothing.

"But let's say you did," she went on, her voice like steel cooling. "Let's say you killed him. Would I care?" She shrugged, unblinking. "Not really. I'd be sad for a while. And then I'd move on. Because I will do what I must to accomplish my goals. You should learn the same."

Her words left no space for comfort. No space for argument. Only the truth.

Abrax lay back down slowly, staring at the ceiling. The faint hum of her System filled the silence, threads weaving faster, pulsing brighter, as though they were echoing her conviction. He closed his eyes, but rest did not come. Her words pressed on him heavier than the world outside.

Her voice cut the silence one last time. "Peace isn't held by thrones or treaties. It's held by people willing to do what must be done. Remember that."

One thread in her lattice snapped under its own tension. Her annoyed sigh filled the room before she corrected her mistake. The lattice stabilized again, brighter than before.

Abrax watched the glow crawl across her collarbone, and couldn't decide if it looked holy or surgical. He took a last look at the screens in front of him. Multiple channels cycled slogans in an endless loop: PersequionsAct • ChoiceIsViolence? • ChoiceIsHuman. The world itself couldn't decide what it wanted to be.

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