The forest was alive in that eerily quiet way only eldritch woods could be: branches knotted into shapes that defied reason. Small motes of pale drifted through the air like snow caught in an eternal dusk. Somewhere far off, something with too many legs skittered up a tree trunk slick with iridescent resin.

  I should have known she'd find me here.

  Aria stood with her back half-turned to me. Her silhouette was severe and so elegant it made my chest ache in strange, old ways. She wore that gothic dress still, lace gloves sleeved high up her arms, her short hair brushing her cheeks.

  When I stepped closer, a brittle laugh cracked from her throat. Her shoulders were tense.

  "It's not fair," she said without looking back. Her voice carried a tremor I couldn't quite read. Rage, grief, or both? "That you get to be so certain of your path. That you have people to fight for who still want you around."

  Her red eyes were shaded with something fierce: hungry and sad all at once.

  My heart stuttered. "Aria…"

  I stepped closer anyway, until I was almost near enough to touch her shoulder. "It doesn't have to be unfair. Come with me. Stay. We can figure it out together. I know what happened before. I know I failed you. But I want to try again."

  Her laugh this time was hollow and cold, her shoulders shaking with it. She turned, and for a moment the light caught her eyes, deep red, rimmed with smoky kohl that had begun to smear. The smile she wore was brittle glass.

  Her hands clenched at her sides. "You're different. Stronger. Changed. And yet somehow you still carry all of them with you. All that hope, all that softness." Her gaze lowered. "Meanwhile I'm just… still clawing my way out of nightmares that never end."

  I took a cautious step forward. "That's why you should come with me. We can still fight together. Be sisters again. I've already decided! I'm going back for Diantha and Denji, and I want you there with me."

  Aria's laugh was soft, almost sweet, but carried a brittle edge that hurt to hear. "Kia… you don't understand. My goals are far more important than rescuing your little monster family."

  A cold knot formed in my chest. "What could be more important than taking back the people we love?"

  Aria lifted her head then, eyes bright and unflinching. "Hunting down the monsters that ruined everything. The ones who brought Earth to its knees, who shattered any chance we had of ever having a home."

  I frowned, searching her face. "Who?"

  She stepped closer, her breath steaming faintly in the air. "Three. That's how many I've marked. And I'll claim whatever power I must to obliterate them."

  My throat worked. I whispered the name that haunted every charred memory of Earth. "…Lorgagore."

  A smirk ghosted across Aria's lips. "Clever. That wretched fiend is one of them, yeah. But there's another. A particular legendary creature that wrote the very rules of Zeldritzon… this twisted world that reassembled us into these shapes."

  I blinked, shock hollowing me out. "Wrote… the rules…?"

  Aria nodded, eyes lidding slightly with a conspiratorial gleam. "That's what Vaida told me. This rule-maker was involved in orchestrating the crisis. Using Earth like a proving ground or a test pen. I won't stop until I've torn them all down."

  A hundred memories of careful pages, patient telepathy, and that calm, sonorous voice flooded my mind. My hand went instinctively to where GamaGen had once perched on my shoulder.

  I said nothing.

  And that silence was all it took. Aria's smile faltered, her gaze sharpening with suspicion. "What is it? You look like you've swallowed glass."

  I tried to shake my head, forcing my features into neutrality. "Nothing. Just… shocked, that's all. Who could possibly have that kind of power?"

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  Her eyes pinned me like needles. "If you're hiding something from me, Kia—"

  "I'm not," I lied, the words tasting foul on my tongue.

  Aria studied me a bit longer, then let out a sigh. "It doesn't matter. You have your mission. I have mine. And I can't drag you into the path I've chosen."

  "You could," I whispered, starting to feel desperate now. "Or I could come with you. Help you."

  But she just shook her head. "No. I can't let your softness weigh me down. Or worse… get you killed again. Stay with your mortal attachments. Win your tournament. Be the hero. I'll be the knife in the dark, cutting out the heart of the rot."

  Her smile then was bittersweet. She reached out to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear; her glove brushing my skin with a ghost's tenderness.

  "Goodbye, sister."

  Then she turned, her silhouette folding into the twisted undergrowth until the eldritch gloom swallowed her whole. I stood there long after she was gone, hand pressed to my hair where she'd touched it, heart pounding with too many truths I wasn't ready to face.

  Behind my ribs, however, thoughts of GamaGen stirred faintly as though weighing whether to defend him from an accusation I hadn't even dared to speak aloud.

  ??? ??? // ??? ???

  The manor's long, winding hallways were emptier than I'd ever felt them. Even the veiled statues seemed to shy away from me with their hollow faces turning in judgment or fear. Hard to tell. Not that it mattered.

  My hands smashed faintly on the polished black stone as I pushed through door after door, searching for the one fox I was certain had answers he'd never volunteered.

  At last, I found him standing alone in a dim gallery, framed by a series of towering arched windows that showed nothing but an endless swirl of nightmare fog. Vaida was meticulously adjusting the cuffs of his silver suit, his nine luminous tails arranged with absurd, almost lazy elegance around him. His ears flicked once at my approach.

  He'd known I was coming long before I arrived.

  "Miss KiAera," he greeted, not even turning to face me. "Do mind your tone. This gallery is acoustically delicate, and my master would be quite cross if your… shrieking cracked her vaulted ceilings."

  I stalked right up to him, teeth bared in a snarl I didn't bother hiding. "What did you tell her?"

  Vaida finally looked at me, his eyes half-lidded, a smirk playing at the edge of his lips. "You'll need to be more specific. I have so many delightful conversations. Some about tea blends, others about the inevitable heat death of mortal dreams. Context helps."

  My claws flexed, the Spectral Flame under my skin threatening to leak through the seams of my body. "Aria. You fed her stories! About Lorgagore, about the rule-maker of Zeldritzon. You pointed her at them."

  He let out a small, patronizing hum, his tails lifting to coil lazily behind his head like a living throne. "Oh, dear. Did your sister grow ambitions beyond chasing dolls and garden parties? How positively monstrous of her."

  "Don't mock this!" I hissed, stepping in until I could feel the static ripple of his aura; a divine pressure that settled on my shoulders like hands that could crush me flat without effort. "She's chasing something that will get her killed. Or worse. And you—" I poked a nail hard against his chest, ignoring the burn of his spiritual field resisting me. "—you lit that fire on purpose."

  Vaida's amusement didn't slip, but it sharpened. His eyes flared just slightly, tails drawing tighter around him like serpents preparing to strike. "Careful. You're well out of your depth scolding me. I merely offered your dear sister the truth of her existence here. Something you would have denied her in your gentle, suffocating mercy."

  My breath stuttered. I wanted to slap that smug, fox-faced calm right off him. "You used her. She's only just clawing herself back together, and you handed her a bloody roadmap to her own destruction!"

  His smile faded into something thinner, less amused. "Perhaps. Or perhaps I gave her a map to revenge, to purpose. You see it as cruelty, because you're still desperate to keep her in a neat little circle of safety. But some souls burn brighter in catastrophe. Some must. It is the nature of predators born from apocalypse."

  My tail lashed behind me. "Don't you dare dress this up like philosophy. She's my sister. I'd tear down this entire plane to keep her from dying again."

  At that, Vaida’s gaze warmed into something horribly knowing. Almost tender, which frightened me more than his disdain. "Yes, that's precisely why I made sure you couldn't stop her. Because your love would have clipped her wings, and her fury is so much more… interesting unbound."

  My jaw clenched, eyes stinging with frustrated heat. "You're a monster."

  He tilted his head, one of his ears perking high. "Correct."

  I backed away, every muscle quivering, my mark pulsing furiously at my throat like it wanted to leap out and strangle him on instinct. But even at the edge of my restraint, I knew better. Vaida was a game I couldn't win by force. Not fucking yet.

  So I just spat at the floor, let it sizzle with a burst of spectral cold, and turned sharply on my heel.

  Behind me, Vaida's chuckle followed like silk trailing through razors. "Do take care in DreaGoth, KiAera. I'd hate for your lovely grief to end too soon. Watching the two of you circle one another is simply too delicious."

  I didn't give him the satisfaction of looking back. I just kept walking, fingers clenched so hard I felt them puncture my own palms, blood mingling with the frost of my rage. Deeper still, an oath coiled.

  If Aria truly meant to run headlong into monsters like Lorgagore or the rule-maker of this twisted realm, I would chase her through every horror. And if Vaida thought he'd scripted this tragedy, he would learn what it meant when prey wrote their own ending!