Nathaniel stood at the front door quietly debating with himself as he looked at his current ward he said still unsettled by the silent look she gave him.
Valarie was just behind him.
When Ginah opened it, her eyes moved over him first, slow and deliberate. She took in the state of his clothes, the faint residue of uratsu clinging to him, the subtle signs of exhaustion he usually masked better. Her expression did not change, but something in her posture tightened.
Then her gaze shifted.
At first glance, the young woman behind him could have passed for ordinary. Clean clothes. Calm posture. No visible restraints. She stood quietly, hands at her sides, waiting.
Then Ginah saw her eyes.
White.
Not glazed. Not unfocused. Alert and reflective, tracking everything in the entryway with unnerving precision. The facial markings sealed it. The same thin black lines beneath the lower orbitals. The same symmetry she had memorized on Nathaniel's face long ago.
Ginah did not react outwardly.
She simply looked back at Nathaniel.
"How long," she asked, voice even, "has she been like this."
Valarie did not move. Did not speak. Her attention remained fixed forward, waiting for instruction that did not come.
Ginah's eyes flicked to her for half a second longer than necessary, cataloguing details. Muscle tone too even. Breathing too steady. No ambient emotional noise bleeding off her aura.
Whatever this was, it was not cosmetic.
Ginah stepped aside and opened the door fully.
"You should come in," she said.
It was not permission.
It was an acknowledgment , a fact that she was learning to accept as a new normal, he was up to his own bullshit again that something had already crossed the threshold.
Nathaniel offered a sheepish smile as Ginah stepped aside and let them in.
It was his home, technically, yet he crossed the threshold with a faint hesitation, Valarie following a half step behind him. Ginah closed the door and moved ahead of them, quiet, thoughtful, already running through possibilities she had not voiced.
They settled in the main room.
Ginah took a seat beside Nathaniel on the sofa, posture composed, one leg crossed over the other. Nathaniel leaned back slightly, hands resting on his knees, eyes forward. Valarie stood in front of them, waiting, perfectly still unless prompted otherwise.
Ginah studied her.
She reached out with her senses, probing carefully. There was no connection she could grasp through Nathaniel's uratsu. No tether she could pull on, no familiar resonance. Whatever bound Valarie to him did not operate on channels Ginah was accustomed to navigating.
That absence unsettled her.
She withdrew the probe and leaned back, eyes narrowing slightly as she sifted through memory and data. Arc. Reports. Fragments of old records. One detail surfaced with uncomfortable clarity.
Arc had been unique.
An entity capable of operating almost exclusively on ura.
Ginah's eyes glowed faintly jade as the realization settled in. Not alarm. Not accusation. Understanding. The color reflected softly in the dim light, steady and controlled.
Nathaniel noticed.
He always did.
The tension in his shoulders eased just a fraction at the sight of it. Jade meant calculation, not panic. Assessment, not judgment. It was a color he trusted, one he was quietly grateful to see.
Valarie remained silent, gaze forward, posture attentive.
Between the three of them, the room felt balanced on something fragile. Not confrontation. Not acceptance.
Evaluation.
And for the first time since leaving Arkham's Woks, Nathaniel allowed himself to sit with the weight of what he had done, knowing Ginah now saw enough to begin asking the right questions.
Ginah turned to him after he finished explaining.
She did not interrupt while he spoke. She listened all the way through, eyes half-lidded, fingers steepled, absorbing the sequence of decisions rather than the excuses behind them.
From the adjacent room, another presence made itself known.
Alyssa.
She paused in the doorway, arms folded, eyes locking onto Valarie. There was a brief flicker of recognition, followed by a tight grimace she did not bother hiding. Memory surfaced fast. Gunfire. Pressure. The way Polaris had moved without hesitation.
Alyssa did not say anything.
She did not need to.
Ginah finally spoke, turning fully toward Nathaniel. There was a smile on her face, but it was thin and accusing in a way only she could manage.
"So," she said calmly, "you mindfucked an assassin."
Valarie did not react.
She stood where she was, posture straight, gaze neutral, waiting for instruction that did not come. The contrast between what she had been and what she now was made the room feel smaller.
Nathaniel exhaled slowly.
"I did not rewrite her," he said, measured. "I imposed alignment. Her cognition is intact."
Ginah raised an eyebrow.
"That is not the defense you think it is."
Her jade eyes flicked back to Valarie, cataloguing the stillness, the lack of ambient hostility, the way her attention subtly tracked Nathaniel's breathing rather than his movements.
Alyssa shifted her weight, discomfort evident now.
"She tried to kill me," Alyssa said flatly.
Valarie turned her head toward Alyssa immediately. Not aggressively. Not submissively. Simply acknowledging the statement.
"Yes," Valarie said. "That is accurate."
Alyssa stiffened.
Ginah's smile faded.
"That," Ginah said quietly, looking back at Nathaniel, "is going to be a problem."
Not a threat.
Not a warning.
A logistical assessment.
The three of them stood in silence for a moment, the weight of consequences settling in. Whatever Nathaniel had crossed at Arkham's Woks had followed him home.
And now it was sitting in his living room, waiting for orders.
"Relax," Nathaniel said, waving a hand lightly. "She's cool."
His eyes flared white for a split second, then bled into crimson.
Valarie's arm jerked.
Not violently. Fluidly. Like a system responding to a command rather than a body deciding to move. Her fingers flexed once as her augment engaged, the motion precise enough to look rehearsed.
The television remote slid across the room and snapped into Nathaniel's open palm.
Ginah did not move.
Alyssa did.
She took an involuntary step back, eyes darting between Nathaniel and Valarie.
Nathaniel exhaled through his nose. "See. Clean execution."
He loosened his focus. Valarie's arm fell back to her side, the tension draining from it instantly. The remote slipped from his grip and froze midair, held in place by a faint magnetic distortion. The air around it hummed softly.
His brow furrowed.
"That part," he added, voice strained now, "is easier to do through her. Costs me more to replicate directly."
The remote wobbled, then dropped onto the table with a dull clack as he released the field. Nathaniel rolled his shoulder once, tension lingering in the movement.
Valarie returned to stillness immediately. No lingering motion. No curiosity. She looked at him, waiting.
Ginah's jade eyes narrowed.
"You are using her as a relay," she said calmly.
Nathaniel nodded. "Among other things."
"And she knows you are doing this."
Valarie answered before he could. "Yes."
Alyssa stared at her, unsettled now in a way she had not been during the explanation. "Does it hurt."
Valarie considered the question. Actually considered it.
"No," she said. "It feels warm like an odd but good warmth."
Ginah leaned back against the sofa, arms crossing slowly.
"That," she said, "is not reassuring."
Nathaniel glanced at Valarie, then back at Ginah. His eyes had already faded back to normal.
"She's not a puppet," he said quietly. "She's cooperative."
Ginah met his gaze without blinking.
"For now."
The room fell silent again, the remote resting innocently on the table like nothing strange had happened at all.
"I can do more," Nathaniel said.
Before Ginah could respond, Valarie's palm ignited.
Red flames bloomed across her hand, tight and contained, not wild. They burned with an unstable mix of uratsu and ura, layered together in a way that felt wrong even to look at. The heat did not scorch the room. It pressed outward instead, dense and coiled, like energy forced to behave.
Alyssa sucked in a breath.
Ginah stood immediately.
"That's enough."
Nathaniel did not look at her. His focus was locked on Valarie's hand, jaw clenched as he fed ura through the link. Hellcharge flared, not directly from him, but relayed through her augment. The strain showed in the way his shoulders tensed, the faint tremor creeping into his breath.
Valarie did not react to the flames beyond adjusting her stance slightly to keep balance. Her expression remained calm, attentive. The fire did not harm her. It obeyed.
Ginah stepped between them without hesitation.
"Turn it off," she said, sharply now. "You've proven the point."
Nathaniel hesitated for half a second.
Then he cut the flow.
The flames collapsed inward and vanished, leaving Valarie's hand unmarked. She lowered it immediately, returning to stillness as if nothing had happened.
Nathaniel exhaled slowly and leaned back against the arm of the sofa, rubbing his temple again.
"That's the problem," he muttered. "It works."
Ginah stared at Valarie, then back at him.
"No," she said quietly. "That's the danger."
Alyssa folded her arms tighter, eyes never leaving Valarie now. Not fear exactly. Wariness. The kind you reserve for something that looks human but no longer follows human rules.
Valarie broke the silence.
"Was that demonstration sufficient," she asked, looking at Nathaniel. "Or should I remain idle."
Nathaniel closed his eyes.
For the first time since she had spoken that name, it felt wrong hearing it come from her mouth.
"No," he said finally. "That's enough."
Valarie nodded once and went still.
The room did not relax.
If anything, it felt heavier than before.
"So because you can use raw ura in our world," Ginah said, voice tight, "you decided to create a way to hijack people's bodies and use their augments."
She stepped into his space before he could answer.
Up close, her usual composure slipped just enough to show irritation. She jabbed a finger into his chest through the thin fabric of his undershirt, not hard enough to hurt, but deliberate enough to make the point unavoidable.
"You didn't just bend a system," she continued, eyes glowing jade now. "You bypassed it. You turned people into interfaces."
Nathaniel did not move.
He looked down at her finger, then back at her face, eyes steady. White bled faintly at the edges of his irises before settling again.
"I did not hijack her," he said calmly. "I created a compatible pathway. She still decides. I just… widened the options."
Ginah scoffed quietly.
"That is corporate language for something deeply unethical."
She glanced back at Valarie, who stood exactly where she had been left, posture straight, eyes attentive.
"You routed Hellcharge through her like a cable," Ginah said. "You used her augment as a relay because it was cheaper for you energetically. That's not cooperation. That's exploitation with consent you engineered."
Valarie turned her head slightly toward Ginah.
"If clarification is required," she said evenly, "I am not experiencing distress."
Ginah's jaw tightened.
"That," she said, without looking away from Nathaniel, "does not make me feel better."
Nathaniel finally reached up and gently pushed Ginah's hand away from his chest, not dismissive, just firm.
"I didn't do this because I wanted to," he said. "I did it because people like the Black Order are already doing worse. I just made it visible."
Ginah held his gaze, searching for cracks, for uncertainty.
She found none.
Instead, she found something else.
Resolve.
She stepped back slowly.
"You understand," she said quietly, "that if the Association finds out about this, they will not debate you. They will classify you."
Nathaniel nodded once.
"I know."
"And if Vanorion learns you can turn augments into shared infrastructure," she continued, voice low now, "they will not try to kill you."
Valarie spoke again, tone unchanged.
"They will attempt acquisition."
Silence followed.
Ginah exhaled through her nose and rubbed her temple.
"You crossed a line today," she said. "Not because you lost control. Because you didn't."
Nathaniel looked at Valarie, then back at Ginah.
"I know."
The room stayed tense, all three of them standing in the aftermath of a truth none of them could take back.
This was no longer about survival.
It was about what Nathaniel had become capable of doing.
Nathaniel glanced toward Alyssa.
She caught the flicker of crimson energy before it fully manifested, subtle but unmistakable. Her body reacted before her mind did. A brief shift of weight. A tightening in her shoulders. The instinct to move, to prepare, buried just as quickly as it surfaced.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
Alyssa forced herself to stay still, face neutral, even as her thoughts churned. This man had saved her. There was no denying that. Without him, she would already be dead again.
And yet.
She did not know whether to keep him close, earn his favor, or erase him before he became a future catastrophe. Either choice carried consequences, and neither guaranteed safety.
Blasting him into nothing might prevent a future headache.
Or it might make everything worse.
That option had failed before.
She remembered other cycles. Other worlds. Other vessels she had found and destroyed. Burning them down to the core had never stopped what followed. It had only delayed it.
And delay had never saved her.
She had still died.
Over and over.
Sometimes hunted. Sometimes betrayed. Sometimes simply outmatched.
Once, she remembered with bitter clarity, Zenith himself had ended her. No theatrics. No hesitation. Just overwhelming force delivered by one of this world's top predators.
That memory alone was enough to keep her cautious.
Killing Nathaniel would not end the problem. It would only paint a larger target on her back, one she could not outrun in this cycle.
Her gaze drifted back to him.
Crimson. White. Control without restraint.
This time was different.
This time, the threat was not the vessel.
It was the man standing in the living room, calmly rewriting the rules while pretending he had not.
Alyssa exhaled slowly through her nose.
Whatever she decided, it would not be today.
Not while Ginah was watching.
Not while Valarie stood there, silent and aligned.
And not while Nathaniel was still deciding what he wanted to become.