In the dim, cathedral-hushed hall of the Alliance’s spaceship, a lone woman sat before a sweeping display wall—holograms flickering with crisp detail, audio filtered to a ghostly intimacy. She watched them.

The spy cam hovered discreetly over the couple as they bickered near the koi pond.

“Why? The edges aren’t even deep,” the devastatingly beautiful woman protested.

Apex Two—or so the Alliance called him—his jaw sharp with exasperation, snapped, “If I let you dip your feet there, those shameless fish are going to lick and suck on your toes!”

Mahkato raised an amused brow. She watched the woman double over with laughter, utterly unaware of how even flora and fauna seemed bewitched by her.

The feed cut to later: the estate gardens, the sun low and honey-warm. Apex Two dragged his empress around like a man on a countdown. Their joy—obscene in its fullness. She watched them swap filthy jokes, laugh like criminals, burn through time like it was fuel. The woman shone with vitality. The man looked at her like she was gravity.

Then came the city. Camlann. Apex Two refused to stand in a queue; his empress shoved him with glee.

“Sit there and wait like a good boy.”

He did.

Onscreen, Mahkato watched Apex Two alone on the bench, opening and closing a locket. A drunk beside him muttered something, and the emperor answered with a name.

“Morgan Le Fay.”

Mahkato paused the footage. Said the name aloud like a curse. Then let it continue.

She watched Apex Two bolt—camera following at a swift angle as he vanished into the crowd, clearly evading her notice. A smooth, surgical detour into a jewelry store. Orders barked. A ring selected. Imperial brooch dropped.

The storekeeper’s stunned silence. The gift offered for free. The rushed escape. The emperor, still thinking he had time.

And then: the stall.

Mahkato’s knuckles tightened around the chair arm. She zoomed the feed.

Crowd. Blood. Panic.

She watched him find her. Watched his body halt. Watched the golden box fall, the ring spin free. Watched the silence descend like a burial cloth.

The surveillance cut off.

Mahkato leaned back slowly in her chair, the silent hum of the ship pressing against her spine.

"Pathetic," she muttered. But her voice wavered—just slightly.

The recording ended. But the look in Apex Two’s eyes, and the way he had said her name, remained. Haunting. Irrefutable.

Even across galaxies and centuries, love was still the most ruinous weapon of all.

The hall door whirred open.

A man with long blonde hair and rose-gold eyes stepped inside, unhurried. Alicei took one look at the paused surveillance feed and sighed—long-suffering, cold.

“Ah. Watching the unimportant footage again?” he said, voice slick with mock reproach.

“I do recall personally curating the relevant moments so you wouldn’t waste time on sentimentality. But no matter. If empathy for the enemy is your new indulgence, far be it from me to interrupt. After all, we are going to annihilate them, aren’t we?”

Mahkato didn’t turn. She didn’t need to. Her voice, when it came, was cool iron.

“What about you?” she asked. “Didn’t you just get humiliated by them?”

Alicei let out a soft exhale. “Yes,” he said. “Quite a shock, indeed.”

There was no anger in his tone—only the brittle grace of a man who had bled pride instead of blood, and now wore his shame like a silk ribbon, too refined to be honest.

“What do you think of them?”

Alicei paused, folding the question like a paper blade in his mind.

“They… have honor,” he said, slowly, as though tasting something bitter. “They have love. They’re respected by their people. Needed. Worshipped. Not at all the primitive, flailing civilization I’d hoped they’d be.”

Mahkato sneered, her voice dry as bone. “Surprising. Especially from you.”

He chuckled—light, derisive, a man playing at humility. “Oh, come now. It’s painfully clear those men would rather die than bend to us. Apex Two in particular—his inner circle treats him like a god.” A pause. “And yet, somehow, he doesn’t carry himself like one. Just... a man.”

“A man that arrogant?” she asked, arching a brow like a blade.

“With reason, I suppose,” Alicei replied. “Backed by himself.”

“Hmm.”

Silence fell, heavy and unkind. They let the footage roll again. The screen flickered with moments of love, fire, and ruin. Neither of them spoke—for a while.

Then, as if asking the air itself, Alicei said quietly, “Are you sure we’re doing this? Taking this world by force?”

Mahkato’s response came sharp. “What, afraid now, Alicei? Afraid of peasants from a nameless world?”

He shrugged with practiced apathy. “Just seems… such a waste.”

“You were the one lecturing me about empathy a moment ago.”

“I was being sarcastic,” Alicei smiled. “Unless… you weren’t?”

Mahkato gave no answer. Her gaze was fixed, as if her eyes could burn meaning into the screen.

“It’s just…” Mahkato said, more quietly now, “nostalgic.”

And though neither said it aloud, the room filled with the weight of a shared memory: of something once lost, and now dangerously close to being found again—only to be destroyed.

“He’s invited you to his wedding,” Alicei said.

Mahkato lazily closed her eyes. She reclined further in her chair, the cold hum of the ship’s systems a lullaby of detachment. 

“Would you attend?” he asked.

There was a long pause. Then Mahkato, like a queen who already knew the outcome of every war, murmured without inflection: “Accompany me.”

***

Nemo woke.

These days, the world had grown loud—grating, even. Everyone bustling with purpose, chatter, and plans she wasn’t yet invited to understand. How lovely for them.

Her language protocol had advanced well enough—flawlessly, in fact—but the cost was steep. Her little girl form, that quaint charade of vulnerability, couldn’t last as long anymore. Turns out pretending to be soft takes a toll when you’re busy sharpening your mind into something surgical.

So now, she spent her days alone. Floating unseen above streets and towers, invisible to all, absorbing how sentients lived, laughed, lied. She could disappear for days and no one panicked anymore. A marvelous sign of trust. Or neglect. Hard to tell sometimes.

This independence? Vlad’s idea, of course. Isaiah added the philosophical sugarcoating, and Morgan—eventually—nodded it through. Approval wrapped in reluctant smiles.

Today she’d rebooted herself among the trees near Inkia’s Capital—why not? The birds didn’t complain. Still cloaked in early darkness, she drifted back to the Wilderwood Capital Mansion like a ghost returning to haunt the living.

She slid silently into her parents’ chamber. They were asleep—how charming. Vulnerable. Predictable. Human.

She needed recalibration. A gentle confirmation. It wouldn't do to process the world wrong. Mistakes, after all, were for flawed minds. So she did what any conscientious construct would: she began gnawing on her Papa’s wrist. Accessing his thoughts directly was much more efficient than asking questions.

She recalled how the first time she tried this—using her ouroboros head to form a binding contract—his skin had been so stubbornly tough she nearly dislocated her jaw. A formative memory.

This time, she was gentler. A considerate little gnaw. His skin, after all, had enough elasticity for the teeth to find purchase now.

Ah, so that was deontology. How quaint. Her Papa truly was an encyclopedia wrapped in a man.

And—oh. So that’s what kiwi tasted like? Intriguing.

Hmm… oh, oh—ohoho.

Naturally, Burn woke up. His eyes opened to see a blonde girl—uncannily similar to his wife—gnawing casually at his wrist like it was a bedtime snack. He narrowed his eyes in groggy irritation.

Why?

A perfectly reasonable question. Not that he was likely to get a satisfying answer.

“Good morning, Papa!”

Ah. Her communication skills improved.