CHAPTER — AXIOM VOID
Yamiya found Veydras awake at three in the morning.
This was not difficult.
Veydras had slept approximately sixteen minutes.
His body disagreed with every position.
He sat beside one of ACT Headquarters' impossible windows, staring into a sky the building had no physical relationship with.
Yamiya approached.
Her notebook was under one arm.
Veydras noticed.
"Are you documenting me?"
Yamiya stopped.
Then she placed the notebook on a table.
"No."
Veydras looked at it.
Then at her.
"That was suspiciously considerate."
Yamiya sat opposite him.
"I can leave."
Veydras looked back through the window.
"I didn't say that."
Yamiya settled into the chair.
For a while, neither spoke.
Somewhere two rooms away, Kaosu yelled something.
Raiyo yelled back.
A chair hit a wall.
Yamiya did not react.
Veydras listened.
"Are they always like that?"
"Yes."
"All day?"
"Yes."
"At night?"
Yamiya nodded.
"Sometimes they sleep."
Veydras frowned.
"Together?"
Yamiya looked horrified.
"No."
Veydras's mouth moved.
Yamiya stared.
"Was that a joke?"
"No."
"It was."
"You cannot prove intent."
Yamiya leaned back.
"You are getting worse."
Another crash came from the hallway.
Raiyo shouted, "THAT WASN'T EVEN MY ROOM."
Kaosu shouted back, "IT IS NOW."
Veydras closed his eye.
"I understand why reality dislikes this building."
Yamiya smiled.
The smile stayed longer this time.
Then her gaze dropped toward Veydras's hands.
They were wrapped.
Not because bandages could contain destabilization.
Because the pressure reminded him where his fingers ended.
Yamiya asked, "Does it hurt?"
Veydras knew what she meant.
"Yes."
"All the time?"
"Yes."
Yamiya was quiet.
Veydras looked at her.
"Your turn."
"My turn for what?"
"A question."
Yamiya considered it.
Then she asked, "Why did you call us Axiom voids?"
Veydras looked surprised.
"You remembered."
Yamiya's expression flattened.
"You threatened to spread like a broken thing and disappeared through the floor."
Veydras thought about that.
"Fair."
Yamiya waited.
Veydras raised one wrapped hand.
"Most things are allowed to exist because the world can say what they are."
Yamiya listened.
"A stone is a stone."
"A person is a person."
"An event happened or did not."
Veydras looked at his own fingers.
"When I touch something, those agreements stop agreeing."
Yamiya's eyes narrowed.
"That is why objects destabilize."
"Yes."
"You aren't deleting them."
"Not initially."
Veydras flexed his hand.
"I make the descriptions holding the thing together lose synchronization."
Yamiya leaned forward.
"And when enough descriptions fail…"
"The system cannot keep pretending there is one coherent thing there."
Yamiya looked toward her notebook.
She did not reach for it.
Veydras noticed that too.
Yamiya asked, "Then why me?"
Veydras studied her.
"What does your Dark Logical Energy do?"
Yamiya answered carefully.
"It simplifies."
"Explain."
Yamiya raised one hand.
A tiny dark current gathered above her palm.
"Suppose a system can produce ten thousand answers."
The current contracted.
"I remove distinctions the system does not require."
It contracted again.
"Until fewer possibilities remain."
Again.
"Eventually…"
The darkness became a point.
"…the simplest valid answer."
Veydras stared at it.
Something about the technique bothered him.
Not because it felt foreign.
Because it did not.
Yamiya let the energy disappear.
"Yours destabilizes complexity."
Veydras shook his head.
"No."
Yamiya frowned.
"No?"
Veydras looked at the empty space where the point had been.
"Mine makes complexity unable to agree with itself."
Yamiya considered that.
"Opposites."
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
Veydras's gaze moved back to her.
"Opposite sides of the same problem can still touch."
Yamiya went quiet.
Neither knew why that sentence felt important.
Neither wrote it down.
After a while, Yamiya asked, "Do you hate having the Mieko name?"
Veydras turned.
That question landed differently.
Yamiya immediately added, "You don't have to answer."
Veydras looked through the window again.
"I don't know what it means anymore."
Yamiya waited.
Veydras continued.
"It used to mean family."
His voice changed slightly.
"Then it meant people who were dead."
Yamiya's fingers tightened.
"Then it meant me."
Silence.
Veydras whispered, "I disliked that version."
Yamiya looked down.
"I know something about names surviving places."
Veydras looked at her.
Yamiya did not explain further.
She did not need to.
He knew what she had lost.
Her world.
Her people.
The places that had once made Mieko an ordinary sound.
Veydras asked, "Do you hate it?"
"No."
Yamiya looked at him.
"Sometimes I hate that I'm the one carrying it."
Veydras understood.
That was worse.
A long silence passed.
Yamiya finally asked, "Did you actually want everything to end?"
Veydras did not pretend not to understand.
"Yes."
"Everything?"
"Yes."
"Us?"
"I did not know you."
"That wasn't my question."
Veydras looked at her.
Yamiya held his gaze.
He looked away first.
"I believed suffering was being arranged."
Yamiya said nothing.
"That the repeated tragedies…"
Veydras's jaw tightened.
"…the wars…"
"…the deaths…"
"…people surviving just long enough to suffer another useful thing…"
His wrapped hand trembled.
"I thought perhaps the only moral refusal was to stop participating."
Yamiya asked quietly, "By ending everything."
"Yes."
"You thought that would free everyone."
"I thought nothing could be exploited if nothing remained."
Yamiya was silent for so long that Veydras looked back.
She asked, "Do you still want that?"
Another crash sounded down the hall.
Kaosu screamed, "GIVE IT BACK."
Raiyo answered, "COME TAKE IT."
Nyxus yelled from somewhere else, "DOES EITHER OF YOU HAVE MY FORK?"
Veydras stared toward the door.
Then he looked at Yamiya.
"Not tonight."
Yamiya blinked.
Veydras continued.
"I do not want everything to end tonight."
Yamiya stared at him.
"That is an incredibly low standard."
"Yes."
"Almost embarrassing."
"Yes."
Yamiya's mouth curved.
Veydras looked offended.
Yamiya said, "But it is progress."
Veydras looked away.
"Unfortunately."
Yamiya leaned back.
"Then tomorrow."
That word stayed.
Tomorrow.
Veydras had spent so long treating the future as an indictment that he had forgotten it could sound like an invitation.
Yamiya reached toward her notebook.
Veydras watched.
She stopped.
Then pulled her hand away.
Veydras asked, "Why?"
Yamiya looked at him.
"Why what?"
"You wanted to write something."
"Yes."
"And?"
Yamiya shrugged.
"You told me something."
She looked at the closed notebook.
"That does not automatically make it data."
Veydras stared at her.
Yamiya became uncomfortable.
"What?"
Veydras shook his head.
"Nothing."
Yamiya stood.
"I'm going to sleep."
"Good."
She reached the doorway.
Veydras spoke before she left.
"Yamiya."
She turned.
Veydras looked embarrassed by whatever he had decided to say.
"I was wrong."
Yamiya frowned.
"About?"
"Broken things."
She waited.
Veydras looked at his wrapped hands.
"Sometimes…"
He paused.
"…they spread."
Yamiya smiled.
Then she left.
Aoikishi stood around the corner.
Yamiya nearly walked into him.
She stopped.
"How long were you there?"
Aoikishi looked innocent.
"I live here."
"That did not answer the question."
"You've been spending too much time around Noctis."
Yamiya narrowed her eyes.
Aoikishi handed her a cup.
"Sleep."
Yamiya took it.
"You heard him?"
Aoikishi looked toward the room where Veydras remained.
His expression softened.
"Enough."
Yamiya studied him.
"You really like him."
Aoikishi was quiet for a moment.
Then he smiled.
"Yes."
No joke followed.
Yamiya walked away.
Aoikishi looked through the doorway one last time.
Veydras was still staring through the impossible window.
Aoikishi did not enter.
For once—
he let someone else have the moment.