Elias exhaled slowly, feeling the weight of every look leveled at him.
Junjio stood frozen near the back, his frame rigid, fists clenched tight enough to tremble. His Ikona clung dimly to his shoulder, a frail flicker of light barely holding form. He hadn't moved since the tunnel was revealed. Hadn't spoken. Just stared — not at Elias, not at the others — but past them, like whatever answer he needed hadn't shown up yet.
His silence filled the spaces the others had left behind. Where voices had clashed — Kikaru's anger, Faye's careful hope, Tidwell's cynicism — Junjio left only the sound of his breathing, uneven and shallow. The absence of sound became a pressure of its own, pressing into the narrow space with more weight than any argument.
