Laughter eventually burned itself out not in a clean break but in a ragged tapering, the hysteria dissolving into scattered chuckles, then breathless exhales, then the dull ache of abused lungs and aching ribs, until the room fell quiet save for the faint hum of electronics and the residual tremor of adrenaline still coursing through bodies unaccustomed to treating recreation as mortal combat. Sunny lay flat on the floor for several seconds longer, giggling like a lunatic as he covered his eyes. Beside him, Silver Wolf wiped at the corner of one eye with the heel of her palm, muttering something indistinct about stupid physics that might have referred either to the game or to gravity's role in their undignified collapse.
Then Sunny lowered his arm, stared at the ceiling with renewed detachment, and spoke in a tone so flat it seemed surgically removed from the laughter that had preceded it.
"Get out of my room."
Silver Wolf did not even bother to look at him.
"Nah."
The refusal landed with the casual weight of inevitability, as though she had been expecting the command and had already decided it did not merit compliance, and when he turned his head to glare at her he found her sprawled on her side, chin propped on one hand, idly scrolling through something on her wrist interface with all the urgency of someone waiting for paint to dry. Irritation, still raw from the emotional whiplash of defeat and victory and humiliation and exhilaration, sharpened instantly into something colder.
"I wasn't asking."
"And I wasn't agreeing."
Sunny's sword spawned in his hand.
Silver Wolf's eyes flicked up at last, and although her expression did not collapse into fear, the lazy insolence drained away in favor of something more calculating.
"Wow, you are really bad at post-game hospitality."
At the very least, she got up from his floor.
"Leave."
"Yeah, yeah, I was going to anyway."
She rose to her feet, stretching as though she had merely been lounging rather than staring down an Ascended Devil carrying a Transcendent sword, her joints popping audibly while she rolled her shoulders with theatrical languor.
"I was supposed to deliver some resources to Sky Tide tonight, so this worked out."
Sunny was already turning away when the words registered, his body freezing mid-motion with abruptness.
"Wait, wait, wait, who?!"
Silver Wolf smirked, and the expression carried the unmistakable flavor of someone about to enjoy a revelation at another person's expense.
"You didn't seriously think that two Saints and a few Masters were enough for us to be as successful as we were, right?"
"I, uh... kind of did?"
She continued breezily, as though discussing courier routes rather than alliances capable of reshaping power balances.
"We've got a whole network of Saints, and Blade trades his works to them in exchange for help moving things around or keeping quiet. Too bad we can't sell his stuff normally. Nobody wants to get implicated by a traceable flow of credits or Soul Shards."
Sunny blinked once, slowly, the gesture less about confusion than about recalibration.
That explained everything.
The Sanctuary of Noctis had accepted his anchoring with suspicious ease, Saint Tyris's Citadel providing stability without the usual negotiations. Same could be said for Sparkle and the Abyss Watchers. Now, the simpler answer presented itself with humiliating clarity, namely that a preexisting arrangement had rendered his presence merely another line item in an ongoing transaction. Blade's cursed weapons, Hail Sorrow being one of them, were too dangerous to circulate through conventional markets, had been flowing into hidden channels maintained by individuals powerful enough to ignore moral implications yet cautious enough to avoid official scrutiny, and Saint Tyris — Sky Tide herself — fit that profile with uncomfortable precision.
Sunny made a face.
"Okay... now, can you please get out of my room?"
Silver Wolf rolled her eyes so hard it was a wonder they did not detach.
"Touchy."
She stepped toward his desk, placing one hand flat against the surface of the computer tower with proprietary familiarity, and the moment her palm made contact her body began to unravel into cascading polygons, edges dissolving into streams of luminous data that flowed upward and outward like a reverse waterfall, her physical form translating seamlessly into digital abstraction until only a translucent silhouette remained, then nothing at all. The process completed in less than a second, leaving the room abruptly emptier, the lingering distortion in the air fading like heat haze over cooling asphalt.
Something fluttered downward in her absence.
Sunny's hand moved automatically, intercepting the falling object before it could reach the floor, fingers closing around a narrow strip of paper. He unfolded it with a faint frown, expecting some flippant remark or mocking doodle, and instead found a densely packed block of handwritten text in Silver Wolf's sharp, angular script, the ink slightly smudged in places as though written in haste rather than performative mischief.
His eyes scanned the contents once, then again more slowly, and with each pass his expression shifted incrementally from annoyance to surprise to a tightening focus that bordered on alarm.
Just two lines. Two threats approaching an area he had already claimed for himself.
"Ah... I guess I was supposed to meet up with Seele at some point. And Sparkle."
He blinked. Now that he thought about it, he never got Sparkle's number, had he?