Juno just…stood there, breathing hard, her optics flickering crimson and black.

  She looked like she wanted to scream—or, perhaps, cry.

  Then, Alice took a slow, careful step forward as Zalgo and Rachel staggered to their feet behind her.

  "Kinsey. …Talk to me." There was no anger, no blame, not even an order in the request. Just a plea. "Let me in. PLEASE."

  Alice's voice broke through the crackling code's barrier like fragile glass: "We looked everywhere for you."

  Juno froze... stuttered.

  "...L-Lies.”

  Alice took a step forward. "We looked everywhere for you."

  She's too close. Get her off-balance—

  Alice closed the distance, voice softer than gunfire between them. "We didn’t abandon you. We NEVER wanted you to leave."

  Juno's eyes flickered, glitchy with denial.

  Alice's closer. Close the distance, keep the knife away…

  "You didn’t need me," she spat. "You had each other."

  Alice shook her head, grief and regret heavy in her gaze. "We were a team." They were close enough Alice could reach out; close enough to brush fingers against Juno’s scarred cheek, just like the old days…if Juno'd let her.

  Juno's fingers trembled, the knife in her grip wavering. Static flickered across her optics like tears she wouldn’t let fall.

  "I waited for you to notice," she whispered, voice raw with betrayal older than the Cabal’s corruption. "For months. You didn't even look up from your damn plans."

  Zalgo staggered upright, clutching her ribs but standing firm—her spears disappearing as the fight left them all at once. "We were idiots," she admitted hoarsely. "But we never stopped being your crew."

  Rachel adjusted her railgun with a sharp click, jaw set—not in anger, but regret. "...Come home, Kinsey."

  The World Core shuddered around them... Juno's mission was already complete, the last of the Core becoming drenched in Darkness.

  The knife clattered to the ground.

  For a breathless moment, time itself seemed to freeze—Juno’s shoulders shaking as she stared at the weapon that had been meant for Rachel’s heart. Then, with a choked sob, she crumpled to her knees.

  "I hate you," Juno gasped out—but there was no venom left in it, only exhaustion and years of loneliness finally breaking through her fury like cracks in ice. "I hate you so much for making me believe I wasn’t wanted."

  Silence filled the air like a vacuum as the World Core continued to change around them… the three girls closing in slowly, carefully, like they were afraid the wrong word would break this fragile truce. Then—

  Alice knelt, eyes shining just as much as Juno's—and gently, gently, took the sobbing girl's hand.

  "I'm sorry we left you behind," she whispered. "We should have listened. We should have noticed."

  Juno squeezed Alice’s hand so hard her knuckles turned white.

  "You should have never let go," she repeated.

  Zalgo lowered her head, guilt creasing her forehead.

  "It's our fault we let you pull away," she admitted. "It’s on us for not realizing how badly you needed us."

  "YOU, shut up," Juno spat, glaring at the split-color-haired girl, "You're the one that the others replaced me with. You serve to fill the void that I left behind. If there even was one, you two seem fine without me," she ended, eyeing Alice and Rachel.

  Juno's voice broke on that last word—sharp as shattered glass. "You didn’t even notice I was gone until it was too late." Her nails dug into Alice’s palm, but she didn’t pull away. Not anymore.

  Rachel exhaled hard, "Because we were stupid," she admitted, voice rough. "We thought you just needed space after the fight—not that you'd vanish into the damn Cabal!" She dragged a hand down her face. "...We failed you."

  Zalgo stayed silent, shadows curling guiltily at her feet—until Juno's glare snapped to her. "And YOU." The venom in her tone made Zalgo flinch. "You slit right into my spot like I was never there. Was I that easy to replace?"

  Zalgo met Juno’s eyes without defense left in them: "...Never. You left holes they couldn't fill." A beat of brutal honesty: "...I tried anyway because they were drowning without you and SOMEONE had to keep them alive while they searched every damn corner of reality for traces of you–”

  The raw truth hit like a bullet between ribs. Juno actually recoiled, breath hitching as Alice tightened her grip on their joined hands. Around them? The World Core pulsed its corrupted heartbeat…but for once? Kinsey (not Juno, not here) wasn’t running toward the darkness anymore.

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  "But yet," Juno continued, "It also looks like I'm the only one taking finding Kairy seriously."

  Upon hearing the familiar name, Elara quickly butted into the conversation, her gaze intense. "Hey, did you say...Kairy?”

  The moment Kairy’s name left Juno’s lips, Elara moved, crossing the shattered ground between them in three strides. Her hands clamped down on Juno’s shoulders, not violent, but desperate.

  "You know where Kairy is?" Her voice was razor-edged with something beyond urgency—terror. "TELL ME."

  Juno blinked, thrown off-balance by the sheer intensity of Elara's reaction. For the first time since this battle began… she looked genuinely shaken. "...Why do you care about her?"

  Elara’s grip tightened like a vice, shadows writhing around them both as if sensing her distress. “Because she was taken from me.”

  Juno tensed.

  A pause.

  "How?" She forced out between clenched jaws. "How and when?"

  Juno’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it cut through the chaos like a blade.

  "How?" Her fingers dug into Elara’s wrists—not to shove her away, but to anchor herself against the storm of memories threatening to drown them both. "When? Who took her from you?!"

  Elara's shadows recoiled as if burned by the name alone. "...The Cabal." Her words were ash and embers. "The same people I assume you're working with."

  Juno's breath hitched—her optics flickering between crimson and something softer, older. "...That’s why you joined this fight. Not for relics or revenge—you were tracking them. Just like me." The realization hit like a detonation. You...knew Kairy too?"

  Elara didn't answer with words.

  Instead—she let go of Juno's shoulders... and pressed something small into Kinsey's palm: A tiny metal bird charm, tarnished with age.

  Kairy’s favorite trinket.

  A moment of stunned silence as Juno stared down at the tarnished bird charm in her hand, her grip tightening around it almost involuntarily. She was silent for so long that even the World Core’s pulsing heartbeat seemed to pause, as if waiting for her to speak.

  Finally, she did—voice carefully neutral.

  "...Where did you get this?

  A flash of pain crossed Elara's face as she clenched her jaw, but her voice remained steady.

  "I was."

  Zalgo and Rachel exchanged a glance, the same memory darkening their eyes—but it was Alice who stepped forward, taking Juno's side like they'd planned a thousand battles together before.

  "Elara," she said carefully, "Why haven't you said anything?"

  Juno's grip tightened around the bird charm, her glare flickering between Elara and Alice.

  "If you were there—if you saw them take Kairy's life—why the hell did it take you this long to come after her?" Her voice dripped with accusation, but beneath it was something raw. "Or did they offer you a better deal than scraps from their table?"

  Elara didn’t flinch. "I spent every second since that day hunting down every trace of them," she snarled. "Do you think I enjoyed watching your little crew stumble into this mess like amateurs? While I was already five steps ahead of their next move?!"

  Alice stiffened. Rachel's finger twitched on the trigger of her railgun—but Zalgo cut in before things could escalate further:

  "...Then why not team up from the start?" She gestured at the IOTA members and the others, still trapped outside Juno's barrier with Venera and the others. You had resources. We had intel."

  "I've learned not to trust anyone willing to sell someone else's freedom for a shot at power," Elara said, voice biting. "I have no intention of handing Kairy's life over to anyone who thinks they're owed something."

  Alice stepped in again, eyes pleading but her voice is steady. "You could have helped us all if you just told us what you knew instead of keeping secrets like it was a competition!"

  Juno flinched—a quick, almost hurt movement that she tried to hide with anger.

  "Maybe I would have if I wasn't convinced you all moved on without me!" she all but spat. "I wasn't going anywhere near this damned war unless my information was the final key!"

  Zalgo looked like she'd been slapped. "So instead you let Kairy be the Cabal's plaything or what have you for who knows how long?" she bit back.

  "You don't think I tried?" Juno snapped. "There was never an opening without risking everything we'd already lost! Information isn't worth a damn if using it too soon gets her killed!"

  Alice took a deep, frustrated breath, trying to calm the tension rising. "But you could have trusted us. We would have helped you!"

  "Trusted you?" Juno let out a sharp, hollow laugh. "After you left me to rot in the dark?"

  Her hands shook—not with rage now, but something worse: the weight of choices that had cost her everything.

  Zalgo stepped forward before Alice could argue further, voice softer than expected:

  "...We can't undo what happened. But Kairy needs us to stop fighting each other long enough to find her."

  Juno's optics flickered—the static in them unstable as she clenched her fists. "...I hate this." She didn’t specify whether she meant the situation… or how much part of her still wanted to believe them.

  Elara exhaled sharply through gritted teeth.

  "Hate me all you want. Just help me bring Kairy home."

  Juno hesitated. The bird charm still pressed into her palm, its edges digging crescent moons into her skin. An age of distrust warred against the desperate need to finally find Kairy, to undo what she’d failed to stop long ago.

  Then—she clenched her fist around the charm and looked up, optics flickering back to steady crimson.

  "...Fine. But you're gonna work with those three, not me," Her voice was poison laced with promise.

  Elara didn't flinch. "Deal." A beat, then she turned toward Alice, Rachel, Zalgo. “I'm coming with you guys."

  Alice and Zalgo exchanged a glance, then each gave a slow nod.

  Rachel raised an eyebrow, wary but not surprised. "Alright, but first: You're giving us everything you know."

  Elara clenched her jaw. "Fair enough.”

  The air was thick with tension, charged like a live wire as Juno finally relented, but not without conditions. Her optics burned with mistrust as she pointed at Elara, then to the trio before her.

  "They work with you," she bit out. "I don't. I've got my own leads; ones I'm not handing over until I see proof this isn’t just another dead end."

  Elara didn’t blink. "Fine by me," she shot back, rolling her shoulders like shedding the weight of an old grudge. "As long as we’re both headed for the same target."

  Zalgo exhaled sharply through her nose. This was messy, but it was progress. "...Then let's move." She turned toward Antiquus and the others still waiting outside Juno's barrier, giving them a sharp jerk of her chin: Get ready.

  Alice reached out impulsively, like muscle memory from missions past, and grabbed Juno’s wrist before she could stalk off alone again... then froze when Kinsey flinched at the contact.

  "...Come home after this," Alice murmured, softer than any battlefield had a right to be. "Kairy wouldn't want you left behind twice.”

  Alice took a steadying breath, letting go and taking a step back as a strange, fragile something passed between them—an unspoken truce.

  Juno exhaled sharply, rubbing her wrist with a glare. "We'll see what information gets us to Kairy first," she said, turning on her heel and stalking toward the exit through the shattered ground without waiting to see if they'd follow.

  Elara didn't look back either, already making for the exit.