Sunny left Cassie's habitat without another word.
The door sealed behind him with a soft—
—HISS—
—and he dissolved back into the arteries of Bastion's inner ring.
Cassie's words clung to him like frost that refused to melt.
Fractures.
Choices.
Fire turning cold.
She had offered no answers. Only inevitability, wrapped in gentle certainty.
Sunny moved deeper.
Toward the training halls.
The corridors here widened, ceilings arching higher, walls reinforced with echo-infused alloys that thrummed faintly beneath each step—
—HUM—
Few people walked these paths. Those who did carried power in their posture alone—Masters and Saints dressed in unassuming civilian attire, nodding to one another with the restrained courtesy of predators sharing hunting ground.
Valor's presence was unmistakable.
The anvil and sword gleamed in silver on sleeves, pendants, belt clasps.
Song's influence lingered more subtly—in imported fabrics, in melodic chimes woven into communication devices, in the cadence of distant announcements.
The cold war Cassie spoke of was already built into the walls.
Sunny kept to the edges, hood drawn low, ponytail tucked beneath his collar. His presence was a suggestion, not a certainty—shadows bending just enough to divert eyes, memories blurring as he passed.
The training arena lay buried beneath the central spire.
A vast chamber, three stories deep.
The floor was paved in impact-absorbing alloy. Observation galleries ringed the space, shielded by one-way barriers. Projectors could summon entire worlds—ruins, forests, abyssal voids.
Tonight, it was set to default.
An open expanse beneath artificial starlight.
Aurora projections rippled across the domed ceiling in pale greens and violets.
And at the center—
She was there.
Alone.
Nephis moved through a kata with deliberate, merciless precision.
Each motion cut the air—
—SWISH—
—measured, exact, unyielding.
Her silver hair, longer than he remembered, was bound into a practical braid that flowed like liquid moonlight with every turn. She wore lightweight training armor—white and grey plates over a black undersuit, Valor's colors muted for function.
In her hands rested a plain steel longsword.
Unadorned.
No aspect woven into it.
Yet the flames were there.
They coiled around her in controlled spirals—white-silver fire, pure and cold, tracing the blade without consuming it. Each swing painted comet trails that lingered for heartbeats before dissolving.
—CRACKLE—
The temperature in the arena dropped.
Frost crept outward where her feet touched the floor, rimming the alloy in pale white.
Sunny slipped into the observation gallery above, settling into the deepest shadow between two support beams. From here, he could watch unseen—barriers opaque from below, lights dimmed for spectators who rarely came.
She's stronger, he noted clinically.
Then—
Beautiful.
The second thought arrived uninvited.
He crushed it immediately.
Nephis shifted into a defensive stance.
Blade raised.
Flames condensed before her, forming a shield of solid light—
—LOW THRUM—
She held it there, eyes closed, breath even.
Then she exhaled.
The shield exploded outward in a silent ring of fire—
—WHOOM—
—incinerating holographic abominations that flickered into existence and vanished without a scream.
She didn't smile.
Didn't pause.
Didn't acknowledge perfection.
She reset.
And began again.
Repetition.
Refinement.
The discipline of someone who had learned early that survival demanded more than talent.
It demanded obsession.
Sunny's fingers tightened on the railing.
The tether within his soul stirred.
A quiet resonance he refused to name.
It had existed since the Forgotten Shore. Since shadow and light had been bound together by forces neither of them had chosen. Distance had dulled it during his exile.
Proximity sharpened it now.
Warmth against his endless cold.
He wondered if she felt it too.
Probably not.
Nephis had always been better at building walls.
Time stretched.
Minutes bled into an hour.
She shifted forms—sword dissolving into a spear of condensed flame, wings of light unfurling briefly to lift her above the floor—
—RUSH—
—then a burst of radiance so pure it flooded the chamber like midday sun.
Each evolution flawless.
Each carrying the unmistakable mark of growth.
Finally, she sheathed the practice blade.
She stood still.
Arms at her sides.
Flames rose around her in a slow, contemplative column. Not violent. Not aggressive.
Thinking.
The fire shifted.
White to pale blue.
Edges sharpening with cold.
Cassie's words echoed:
Fire turning cold.
Sunny leaned forward.
Nephis opened her eyes.
Grey.
Piercing—even from this distance.
She looked up.
At the gallery.
At him.
Or through him.
The flames dimmed.
But did not vanish.
For a long moment, the world held its breath.
Then she turned away.
Gathered her things with unhurried grace.
The column of fire folded into her like breath returning to lungs.
Lights brightened automatically as she exited through the far door—
—CHIME—
Sunny remained.
The aurora projection continued its silent dance above—green and violet ribbons against false stars.
He exhaled slowly.
Not yet, he told himself again.
But the words felt thinner now.
Weaker.
Outside the barriers—beyond alloy, beyond shields, beyond the fragile warmth of Bastion—
Snow fell against the dome.
Slow.
Silent.
Inevitable.