It was one of those quiet afternoons on campus where everything felt mildly academic and pleasantly unimportant. Akio sat at their usual table beneath the shade of the courtyard awning, chair tipped back just slightly on two legs. A stack of annotated papers from advanced literature was spread neatly in front of him, margins filled with tidy notes. A cup of hot tea rested comfortably in his hand.

  Across from him, Damien sat in near perfect symmetry—papers aligned with meticulous precision, coffee untouched at his right, arms folded in relaxed authority. He tilted his head slightly, gaze sharpening with the subtle satisfaction of someone about to introduce a new line of inquiry.

  “So, Avenis,” he began smoothly, tone mild but unmistakably prosecutorial, “when were you planning to inform me that you took my sister on a date?”

  Akio nearly laughed into his tea.

  He recovered quickly, taking a slow sip instead, as though stalling for time in a courtroom. He lowered the cup with careful composure.

  “It wasn’t a date,” he said evenly. “She wanted to visit the museum. I was already headed there. Going together was simply the most efficient logistical outcome.”

  Damien raised one eyebrow. “Is that so?” His fingers tapped once against his arm. “You purchased her ticket. That behavioral pattern aligns rather consistently with standard courtship behaviors.”

  Akio exhaled softly, placing his cup down on the table. “Accommodation does not inherently equate to romantic intent,” he countered. “It is entirely possible to demonstrate basic human decency without ulterior motive.”

  “Fascinating,” Damien murmured, gaze sharpening. “So we are to believe that two individuals attending a leisure venue alone, one of whom financially sponsors the outing, is merely an exercise in philanthropy?”

  Akio clasped his hands together now, posture straightening slightly. He looked like a man defending his honor before an unnecessarily smug judge.

  “I am aware of the social optics,” he said evenly. “However, the intent was supportive rather than romantic. Yoru appeared unsettled following the incident involving Aira. The museum environment is neutral, structured, and predictable. The objective was to cheer her up.”

  Damien watched him for a long moment, lips twitching at the edges.

  “Reasonable,” he conceded at last with a small nod. “I will accept this answer.”

  Akio inclined his head slightly, as though a verdict had just been delivered in his favor.

  “However,” Damien added lightly, “should you ever possess even a single questionable thought regarding my sister…”

  Akio smiled before he could finish.

  “I am dead,” he supplied helpfully.

  “Correct.”

  Akio held back a small laugh. He understood exactly what this was. Damien was not angry, nor was he even suspicious. He was simply exercising his older brother privileges because he could—and because somewhere beneath the smug theatrics, there was real protectiveness there.

  And honestly, Akio respected it.

  If the roles were reversed—if Damien had taken Aira to the museum, purchased her ticket, and spent an afternoon alone with her—Akio would be conducting this exact interrogation with far more scrutiny and considerably less mercy.

  Across from him, Damien sat up straighter and adjusted the stack of papers in front of him, expression cool as ever.

  “You are spared,” he said dismissively, “for now.”

  Akio let out a quiet, amused breath. A faint smile tugged at his lips as he watched him. “You know I don’t see her that way.”

  Damien’s eyes lifted to meet his. He didn’t respond, but the look of acknowledgment said enough.

  Akio held his gaze for a moment before leaning back slightly in his chair, thoughtful rather than defensive. It wasn’t even something he had to think about carefully.

  He had never looked at Yoru and felt even the beginning of romantic inclination. The idea simply didn’t exist in that direction. Part of it was temperament—he did not tend to develop romantic feelings easily, if at all.

  But with Yoru, it was even more defined than that.

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  She was Aira’s best friend. That alone placed her in a space of protection rather than pursuit. There was an unspoken ethical line there—age, proximity, influence. He was older. He understood the weight that came with that. The idea of creating any imbalance, even unintentionally, felt fundamentally wrong.

  Then there was the fact that she was Damien’s younger sister, which only layered things further. Their dynamic thrived on equilibrium—mutual challenge, mutual understanding. Introducing something personal into that space would distort it, and he had no desire to skew what worked.

  In his mind, the boundary was simple.

  Off limits.

  More than that, though, Yoru herself mattered.

  She was kind. Soft spoken. Gentle in a way that made you instinctively want to shield her from sharper edges of the world. The thought of ever being the source of her discomfort, even inadvertently, sat poorly with him. He disliked the idea of hurting people in general, but with her it felt particularly unacceptable.

  And if she ever did pursue something romantic in the future, she deserved someone fully present. Someone capable of offering devotion without hesitation or calculation. Akio knew himself well enough to understand that he was not that person.

  Damien’s voice drew him from his thoughts.

  “How is your sister, by the way?” he asked, leaning back in his chair, coffee resting loosely in his hand.

  Akio lifted his tea, the warmth grounding him as his expression softened without effort. “She’s all right. Still a bit shaken, but feeling better for the most part. She’s coming back around noon tomorrow.”

  Damien nodded once, absorbing that with quiet understanding. “Have you considered any security measures?”

  Akio exhaled faintly. “We have. Aira is very against it.”

  Damien swirled his coffee, humming lightly. “Makes sense,” he said evenly. “But given that it’s attacked her twice, the likelihood it will happen again is high.”

  Akio didn’t respond immediately. He looked down into his tea instead, watching the surface ripple slightly. He had reached the same conclusion. What unsettled him was that after all these years, he still couldn’t identify the variable connecting Aira to the Hollow. And until he understood it, he couldn’t eliminate it. Which meant it could happen again.

  He straightened slightly, filing the problem away for later analysis. “I’ll just… see what I can do.”

  A brief pause lingered before his thoughts shifted. “Did Yoru tell you about what happened at the museum?” he asked, tone lightening just a fraction.

  Damien took a sip of his coffee. “She mentioned there was a lockdown. And that you gave her instructions on how to restart the power generator.”

  A small smile formed before Akio could stop it. “Not just any generator. An EQ4. She did it entirely by herself on the first try.”

  Damien looked at him then, mild surprise breaking through his composure. “An EQ4? That’s… impressive. Not many would be able to do that under pressure.”

  Akio watched the subtle shift in him—the quiet pride that surfaced almost against Damien’s will. It was rare to see that softness on him.

  “She’s more competent than she gives herself credit for,” Damien said after a moment, nodding once. “I hope she realizes that.”

  Akio smiled in agreement. “I hope so too.”

  Then Damien’s gaze shifted back to him, sharpening slightly. “You didn’t pressure her into doing this, did you?”

  Akio felt the familiar shift in tone—the courtroom reopening.

  “Not at all,” he replied calmly, hands folding neatly around his cup. “She volunteered. I merely provided instructions.”

  Damien set his coffee down with deliberate care and leaned back, posture slipping back into something faintly prosecutorial. “Really now? You better have—”

  He cut off mid sentence, going unusually still.

  The smugness drained from Damien’s expression in a single beat. His eyes widened just slightly, something like pain flashing behind them. One hand gripped the armrest of his chair with sudden tension, knuckles whitening. He inhaled sharply—controlled, but wrong.

  After a beat, Damien leaned slightly to one side, pressing his fingers against his temple and closing his eyes. He drew in a careful breath, then another, as though trying to steady something invisible but severe.

  Akio watched closely, posture straightening without conscious thought. His voice remained neutral, but his focus sharpened fully.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Damien turned his head just enough to glance at him. The smugness was gone. In its place was exhaustion and pain he wasn’t bothering to disguise.

  “…I have a migraine.”

  Akio studied him quietly.

  This was… odd, to say the least. In all these years, he had never once seen Damien experience a migraine severe enough to produce a visible physical response. Complaints about “headaches” were usually rhetorical—dry remarks about being surrounded by incompetence. This was different. The tension in his grip, the way his breath had shortened, the unguarded flicker of strain across his expression—none of it felt performative.

  Akio leaned back in his chair and took a slow, measured sip of tea, filing this incident away. “I see,” he said lightly. “That’s unfortunate.”

  Damien didn’t respond. He lingered on him for a moment longer before looking away, eyes half closed as he focused on steadying himself. There was no point continuing the conversation.

  Akio let the silence settle. He turned his attention toward the courtyard, watching the wind thread through distant trees, catching at loose papers and tugging gently at passing students’ jackets. The campus continued on in its unbothered rhythm.

  He took another sip of tea, letting his thoughts shift inward.

  He was fully recovered now. His mind felt sharp again, his body had regained its balance. He had been gone just over a week, and during that time, Gabriel had managed everything on his own—exactly as Akio knew he would. The Hollow had not appeared again after the incident with Aira, which meant it likely would soon.

  His thoughts shifted again, and his eyes narrowed slightly as he recalled the news from that morning.

  Forty eight armed men. All found at the center of a reconfigured structure. Crushed together into a single convergence point. The architecture itself twisted and rewritten around them.

  The image had dominated every news outlet. There were no witnesses. No functioning cameras. Just the aftermath. Bodies compressed into a space that should not have allowed such compression. It had likely happened hours before discovery.

  Akio replayed the scenario in his mind with clinical detachment.

  From his experience fighting Echo, this was not his typical approach. Echo preferred layered manipulation—subtle environmental shifts, pressure applied incrementally, isolating core structural elements and exploiting them with precision. To crush a group that size would require something else: a full environment overwrite. Instantaneous. Every surface altered at once. It was the natural escalation of his abilities, and the only explanation that made sense.

  Akio’s gaze drifted back to the trees, but his focus remained elsewhere.

  He’s gotten stronger. Another reason why he needs to be stopped.

  He lingered on that for a moment before taking another slow sip of tea, letting the warmth ground him. The world always felt chaotic beneath the surface. Recently, even more so. But as long as there were systems, peace and order could be achieved.

  He let the thought anchor him.

  The Dawn Hound would return soon, and this time, more ready than ever.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Aira