Chương 436: Chapter 423 - Between Us

"Is it ok if I come in?"

"Eh… Ayu? Yeah, sure," Lukas said from inside, and a moment later the door slid open. Ayu stepped in and gave Lukas a quick nod before her eyes moved straight to Chiara. She lay in the capsule bed, breathing slow and even, her expression relaxed in a way that looked almost too still. Ayu pulled up a seat beside the bed and sat, elbows on her knees, eyes on Chiara's face.

"She'll wake up soon," Lukas said quietly from the other side. He was leaning back against the wall, arms crossed, watching her with that same soft expression he'd had when he first knelt beside the bed.

"Her brain is just, well, as complex as it can get. Syncing the three minds back after forcing disorder takes time." Ayu was quiet for a moment.

"Alonso told me about it. Like, Chiara shattering her own mental balance to protect herself from their mind reading bullshit." She paused.

"But the fact she was pushed that far… what the hell did those bastards do to her?" Lukas didn't answer. He knew what it meant for Chiara to reach that point. Unravelling her three minds was her last line of defence, something she would only do when everything else had already failed. For her to have gone there meant… His jaw tightened slightly.

"They will pay for this, Lukas," Ayu said as she caught his expression.

"Bad guys or not in this stage's script… they messed with the wrong person." Her eyes narrowed.

"By the time we are out of this place… there will be no Church." Lukas said nothing as he looked at Chiara for a long moment, at the rise and fall of her breathing, at the stillness of her face. He then exhaled, letting the tension out, and forced an easy smile as he glanced at Ayu.

"So, you managed to get anything out of Alonso yet?" Ayu raised her gaze and grinned.

"Perhaps."

"Well, that was fast," he chuckled.

"Yeah, that's what I told him too," Ayu said with a straight face. Lukas froze for a moment, then slowly shook his head, as he couldn't help a smile.

"I will pretend I didn't hear that."

"Anyway, really cool stuff," Ayu continued, completely unbothered.

"But he made me promise not to tell so… just wait for Chiara to wake up, yeah."

"I see," Lukas nodded.

"Alonso is really something else, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is," Ayu said, a proud smile on her face as she leaned back against the wall. She then thought of something and grinned.

"I guess I can't blame your sister for having a crush on him." Lukas did his best to hold it, but chuckled regardless. This Ayu really had zero filter.

"I will be honest, I didn't like her at first," Ayu continued.

"Reminded me of Chiara's whole humanity-in-your-head phase, but with that confidence like she owned every room she walked into. Bossy as hell." She paused.

"Which she still is. But… yeah. I guess she's kinda cool in her own way." Her tone shifted slightly, losing the edge.

"That call to save Chiara… I honestly thought someone like her would make the rational choice. You know, the greater good crap, the world before your feelings. But she didn't." Ayu looked at him.

"She chose Chiara, or well, she chose you over all of that, Lukas. And that… that earned her some points in my book." Lukas stayed quiet for a moment. He knew his sister well. Better than anyone. They were twins after all. From the moment they were born, whatever the world threw at either of them, they always had each other. A bond that never wavered. Whatever Leonie had become over the years, however sharp or calculating or unreadable she seemed to everyone else, that part stayed the same even now.

So it didn't surprise him.

"Yeah," he said with a soft smile.

"That's Leonie." A comfortable silence settled between them. The low hum of the ship's magnetised core carried faintly through the walls.

"Can you imagine being alone in The Tower," Ayu said, cutting the silence.

"Like, truly alone. No one you know, no one you trust. Just… grinding through all this by yourself." Lukas' gaze settled on Chiara's closed eyes.

"It's… scary, yeah."

"I guess we're really lucky, aren't we? You and I," she continued.

"We got the people we love inside, and they match us in a way that it can actually be… real, you know." She paused, thinking it through.

"And I don't just mean the personality stuff, the human part. Like, can you imagine if you followed the Body path and Chiara the Pillar?" Lukas frowned slightly.

"You mean the gap it would create."

"I mean it could still work," Ayu said, waving a hand.

"I would love Alonso no matter what path he walked. But what I mean is… what's the word… platonic? Like at some point, can you really have a partner who is five times stronger than you, five times denser, faster reflexes, sharper senses? Someone whose body basically operates in a completely different league?" She tilted her head.

"Or the other way, someone whose mind runs at five times your speed, processing everything you say before you finish saying it, thinking thoughts you can't even follow?" Lukas was quiet for a moment, turning it over.

"I guess it does change the shape of it," he ended up saying.

"Yeah," Ayu said.

"That's exactly it. The shape of it." She looked at Chiara.

"I think about that sometimes. Like, what happens further down the road, when the gaps get even bigger. When the differences aren't just physical anymore but... everything."

"You get scared?" Lukas asked.

"Sometimes," Ayu admitted.

"Sometimes I think, what if Alonso goes too far ahead, to a place I just can't reach anymore. I know he would still love me, and all that, but… reality is, if the gap gets big enough, if I were, for instance, to die, to go back to Earth, and the next time we see each other… it would be, I don't know, like a god to a mortal? Would he be looking at me like some fragile little thing? Forget intimacy, he would have to limit himself just to talk to me, be careful he doesn't break me, watch every word, every move."

She exhaled.

"That's just… frightening." Lukas leaned his head back against the wall, looking at the ceiling.

"I think about it with Chiara too," he said.

"She already thinks faster than anyone else. Three minds running in parallel, each one sharper than any. There are moments mid conversation where I can tell she's already five steps ahead and she's just... waiting for me to catch up." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Another silence settled, softer than the last.

"I think the real fear," Ayu said after a while, "isn't just the gap itself. It's becoming someone they have to protect instead of someone they stand next to." Lukas glanced at her.

"But I refuse to become that," she said simply.

"I refuse to be the person Alonso has to slow down for." Her Will flickered faintly around her as she spoke, barely stirring the air around her frame, a trace of warmth along the edges of her outline. She looked at him.

"You and Chiara are my best friends, Lukas." Her voice stayed even.

"So please… don't slack off, yeah?" He held her gaze.

"While Alonso is the only person I couldn't live without..." she paused, just briefly.

"The world would be very dull and grey if any of you weren't in it anymore." Lukas was quiet for a long moment. Then he smiled, soft and genuine.

"We won't," he said.

"Promise." Ayu held his gaze for a second longer, then gave a single nod, satisfied, yet as she was about to leave the room—"Lukas?" The soft, familiar voice made Ayu turn sharply. Chiara was moving, eyes blinking slowly as she pushed herself upright, one hand braced against the edge of the capsule bed. Lukas was beside her in a single step.

"Take it easy," he said quietly. Chiara blinked a few more times, adjusting to the light, then looked around the room. Her gaze landed on Ayu. Ayu smiled back.

"Good to have you back."

"How long was I out?" Chiara asked.

"Long enough," Lukas replied.

"How do you feel?" Chiara paused, running a quiet internal check.

"I'm fine." Her gaze moved around the room.

"Are we on that airship you mentioned?"

"We are," Lukas answered, unsurprised, as she had probably already mapped the whole aircraft. Chiara turned to him.

"I see…"

"Do you want something? Food, water?" Lukas added. A faint almost-smile touched her lips.

"I could eat something."

"Got you covered." Lukas turned toward one of the wall panels. It rotated smoothly, and from inside he pulled out a vacuum-sealed container, still warm, then held it out to her.

"Your favourite." Chiara stared at it after opening it. Egg, soy, and rice. She looked up at him with a small pout that held for a breath before breaking into a quiet laugh.

"You don't get tired of it, do you?"

"I could say the same thing about you," he replied with an easy grin. Ayu watched from the doorway, a small smile on her face. She lingered just long enough to make sure Chiara was actually alright, then pushed off the frame.

"Alright. I'll leave you two to sweet-talk yourselves," she tossed over her shoulder.

"Call when you want Alonso to spill the beans, yeah?" Chiara glanced at her, curiosity flickering at the mention of Alonso, then set it aside as something warm crossed her expression.

"Thank you, Ayu."

"Don't mention it." she waved it off. The door slid shut behind her.

Alonso glanced at Chiara as the group settled. There was something he wanted to get out of the way first.

"About the Corrupted gear and the daemon situation," he began.

"I should've looped everyone in sooner. My bad, I—""It was my call," Chiara cut in, then looked at the others.

"I asked Alonso to keep it between us. I had my reasons at the time. Reasons that clearly didn't hold up as well as I thought..." A short silence followed.

"No harm in saying it plainly then," Leonie added.

"Going forward, if any of us comes across something that could have implications for the group, even if it seems contained, even if the reasoning to keep it quiet makes sense in the moment..." she paused, "just share it. We are harder to catch off guard when we are all working from the same information." The rest nodded, Chiara included, after a brief pause.

"Alright, with that off the agenda," Lukas said, his eyes sliding toward Alonso with a slow grin.

"Shall we get to the part everyone actually wants to hear?" Alonso looked at him for a second, then sighed.

"Fine." He straightened slightly.

"Two things first, though. One, contrary to what most of you would assume… I'm still at the Third State." Leonie stared at him, completely caught off guard by the revelation.

"... What?" Ayu grinned, already in the know.

"And second," Alonso went on, "I genuinely have no idea why the Holy Knight backed down the way he did. So." He looked around at them.

"Here's what happened. Questions at the end. Maybe between all of us we can piece together the part I'm still missing." And with that, he began, slowly covering most of it. His path, what he had been chasing across those weeks alone, the fights, the Fen Champion, what came after. He went through the Contender prompts one by one, reading them out steadily, letting each line land before moving to the next. It didn't take long for the room to shift. Eyes went wide. Jaws dropped at least twice before he finished.

When he finally stopped talking, silence held the room for a full breath. Then the questions came, all at once, from every direction, and the next hour dissolved into the seven of them pulling every line of the Tower's message apart, word by word. Each of them locked onto something different. Lukas leaned forward the moment other civilisations came up. Tier I, what it implied, what sat above it, what the ranking even meant on a scale that stretched beyond a single world.

He had questions Alonso couldn't fully answer, which seemed to energise him more than frustrate him. Leonie zeroed in on the seven designations for the next Ascent with the focus of someone spotting a strategic asset. She and Alonso exchanged enough back and forth on it that they eventually agreed to shelve the full discussion for later, when they had more time and fewer interruptions. Ayu had already heard the broad strokes in private from Alonso, but she brought it up in front of the others anyway.

Six Contender slots remaining, limited. She didn't push it further than that, just planted the flag and let it sit. Chiara, once she started, didn't stop. She went on with the fact The Tower had been rising in scope the entire time, from individual trials to collective ones, and now this, entire civilisations pitted against each other on a scale she wasn't sure was universal or beyond it.

She said it could be survival of the fittest taken to its absolute extreme, or something else entirely, a filter, a selection process for a purpose that sat so far above their current understanding. Imani was quiet, absorbing most of it, no less surprised than the rest, but more reserved about it. It was during a lull in the discussion that he looked at Alonso and asked:"This ability to visit Earth during the waiting rooms… would it be possible, next time, for you to bring me with you?"

Alonso met Imani's gaze and smiled. He wanted to throw in a usual joke, but… he knew what this meant for his friend, who had a wife and several kids back on Earth, so he answered directly.

"Yes." Imani nodded.

"Thank you." As for Pablo, he said almost nothing the entire time. He sat with his arms crossed, eyes somewhere between the floor and the middle distance. When the others spoke, he listened without interrupting, but it was clear part of his mind, maybe an entire one given his ability to run thoughts in parallel, was somewhere else entirely. Alonso's gaze had already moved past him when Pablo spoke up.

"The Title you got," he said." Sovereign Before His Time." Alonso looked at him, already guessing what he wanted to point out.

"The wording was odd, yes. Sovereign I can probably work with, but..." he turned it over for a moment." Before His Time. That part I couldn't quite place."

"You also mentioned something about authority," Pablo continued.

"Yes. The percentage was only 0. 7%, so… it's hard to get a reference. It's clearly a new stat, though. What it does… I guess we'll have to find out."

"Well, I can't add much to what the others have said, but… about why the Holy Knight backed away, your Title, authority, and everything you described…" Pablo paused.

"I think I have a decent guess at what happened."