[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This Chapter 103: In Which We Sleep for Two Days and Name The Fur

I woke up to the sound of soone knocking on the door.

Not aggressive knocking. Polite, asured knocking that suggested the person on the other side had been waiting for signs of life and was now actively creating so.

"Food’s ready," Ryota’s voice ca through the door. "You’ve been out for two days. Figured you’d be hungry."

I blinked at the ceiling, my brain slowly coming online.

We were in a coalition safehouse, mortal realm, sowhere that wasn’t the infernal throne room. The bed was comfortable in a way that suggested soone had put actual thought into "places where people recover from fighting cosmic entities."

"Give us a few minutes," I called back, voice hoarse from two days of disuse.

Footsteps retreated down the hallway.

I turned my head to look at Azryth, still asleep beside , and had the kind of mont that probably should’ve felt ridiculous but didn’t.

My demon husband was just unfairly handso.

Even exhausted, even after everything we’d been through, he looked like soone had specifically designed him to make my brain stop working. Dark hair falling across his forehead, features relaxed in sleep, the kind of face that belonged in art museums with plaques about classical beauty standards.

I leaned over and kissed him.

Just a soft press of lips, stealing a mont while he was still unconscious and couldn’t be smug about it.

His hand imdiately grabbed my ass.

Not gently, not sleepily, with the kind of imdiate proprietary grip that said his body recognized even when his brain was still offline.

Then his other hand was on my waist, pulling closer, and he was kissing back with the focused intensity of soone who’d woken up and decided this was exactly how mornings should start.

"You’re awake," I said against his mouth.

"You kissed ," he replied, like that explained everything.

"So?"

"So you don’t get to steal kisses and escape."

His hands tightened on my waist, pulling fully on top of him. I went willingly, settling my weight against him, feeling the imdiate interest his body took in the situation.

I pressed down, slid up slightly, pressed down again. His hands tightened on my waist, possessive.

This was a good plan, an excellent plan. Weeks of cosmic crises ant weeks of not doing this, and my body had very loud opinions about that tiline.

I slid up again, slower this ti, feeling exactly how much he appreciated the movent.

Then sothing burned on the back of my neck.

Not painful burning. Attention burning. The feeling of being watched so intensely it created a physical sensation.

I turned my head slightly.

A small black furball sat beside my leg, about a foot away, staring at with purple-black eyes that were entirely too knowing for sothing the size of a cat.

"Oops," I said.

Azryth followed my gaze, saw the furball, and I felt his frustration spike through the binding.

The thing had saved our lives, driven off an Equilibrium Emissary with power that shouldn’t exist in sothing that small. We owed it.

But right now, Azryth was very clearly wishing it would develop the ability to read a room.

I climbed off him, sat up, adjusted my pants in a way that suggested standing up imdiately was going to be uncomfortable.

"We should go eat," I said.

"We should," Azryth agreed, voice tight.

The furball chirped, apparently satisfied now that I wasn’t actively engaged in activities it had decided to interrupt.

We got dressed in silence, both very aware of unfinished business, both very aware we were being supervised by whatever the hell this black furrball actually was.

Residual nexus energy that manifested as a furball. Sure. That’s what Azryth had suggested.

Except residual energy didn’t usually have opinions about who got close to , or the ability to drive off Equilibrium Emissaries with demon-lord-level power.

But I didn’t have a better explanation, so furball it was.

***

The common area had more people than I expected.

Ryota stood by the table, setting down plates. Mara sat in one of the chairs, scanner on the table beside her, looking like she’d been up for hours. Henrik was near the window doing sothing on his tablet. Kelvin and Kade occupied the couch, both looking significantly more rested than the last ti I’d seen them.

"You’re alive," Kelvin said. "Nice. We were taking bets on whether you’d sleep for three days or four."

"Who won?" I asked.

"," Kelvin said. "Kade bet on four days. I had faith in your resilience."

"Or lack of patience," Kade muttered.

The room slled like actual food, which was shocking after two days of nothing.

Ryota had set up a proper spread on the table. Rice, grilled mackerel, miso soup, tamagoyaki rolled perfectly, pickled vegetables arranged with the kind of care that suggested he’d been cooking to process stress.

"You made Japanese food," I said, sitting down at the table.

"You’ve been unconscious for two days. Your body needs nutrition." Ryota gestured at the food. "Eat."

I ate.

I didn’t even ask questions, I just consud everything with the focus of soone whose body was demanding calories imdiately.

The rice was perfectly cooked, each grain distinct, the mackerel had crispy skin and tender flesh that flaked apart with chopsticks. The miso was rich and salty in a way that made realize how much I’d missed actual flavors after weeks of eating whatever the coalition happened to have available during rift closures.

Azryth sat beside , eating with equal intensity. Henrik had moved to the table at so point, working on his tablet while eating with one hand in that efficient way people developed when they refused to stop working for als.

The furball settled on my lap, watching us eat with those unsettling purple-black eyes.

I was very aware of it. The weight of it, the warmth, the way it felt both solid and not-quite-solid at the sa ti. Like touching sothing that existed in more dinsions than I could perceive.

It had saved my life.

It had also waited until I was nearly dead before acting, only moving when the Emissary lifted away from it.

Not to save , to get back.

I didn’t trust it.

But it was small and round and looked like soone had compressed darkness into a ball and given it eyes, and so part of my brain kept insisting it was cute despite all evidence suggesting it was dangerous.

Mara’s scanner sat on the table, not actively running but present. She was watching the furball with the intensity of soone cataloging data.

"The coalition wanted to study it," Ryota said, setting down his chopsticks. "The creature, they wanted it brought in for analysis."

I looked up from my food. "And?"

"I told them if they had counters to eye lasers that can drive off cosmic entities, they should co try to take it from you themselves."

"And they just accepted that?" I asked.

"They went completely quiet," Ryota said. "Then decided analysis could wait indefinitely."

Kelvin laughed. "I would’ve paid to see their faces."

"Chen Wei probably had an aneurysm," Mara added.

Henrik glanced up from his tablet. "She sent three follow-up emails asking for ’clarification on threat assessnt protocols.’ I deleted them."

The furball chirped quietly, like it approved of this outco.

"They also wanted a debrief about the Equilibrium Emissary," Ryota continued. "I already gave them the report. Told them an entity calling itself an Equilibrium Emissary appeared, claiming we’d created imbalances through the binding and the realm rger, that it attacked, the creature drove it off, and we don’t know if it’s dead or just gone."

I heard what he wasn’t saying, the things he’d left out.

The comnt about my father, the bloodline that should have ended, the specific focus on as the greater transgression.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

Ryota shrugged. "Chen Wei already thinks the rift situation is your fault. Didn’t see the point in giving her more ammunition when we don’t even know what it ant."

Azryth’s hand found mine under the table, a brief squeeze of acknowledgnt.

Mara nodded slightly, understanding passing between the three of them. She knew sothing had been left out, and she agreed with that choice.

The furball made a small sound and shifted on my lap, settling more comfortably.

I looked down at it. Small, round, black fur that seed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Two eyes that glowed faintly with purple-black energy, no visible mouth, no limbs, just a ball of sothing pretending to be harmless.

"You need a na," I said to it.

It blinked at .

"We can’t keep calling you ’the furball’ or ’the thing’ or ’the creature that saved us from the Equilibrium Emissary.’"

The furball’s eyes brightened slightly.

I ran through options ntally. Shadow felt too obvious. Darkness was pretentious. Orb was just describing its shape.

"Void," I said finally.

The furball’s eyes flared brighter for just a second, purple-black energy pulsing.

"You like that?"

It chirped.

"Void it is then."

Azryth’s expression suggested he was already regretting the thing having a na, like that made it more permanent.

Void settled more comfortably on my lap, apparently satisfied with this developnt.

Then it turned its head and looked directly at Mara’s scanner.

And hissed.

Not loud. Just a quiet, sustained sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Mara’s hand moved away from the scanner imdiately.

"It doesn’t like being studied," I observed.

"Noticed that," Mara muttered.

Void turned back to and chirped, like nothing had happened.

I was starting to understand that this thing was learning, watching, figuring out what I responded to and what I didn’t.

The hissing at Mara’s scanner had stopped the mont I’d spoken, acknowledging the behavior.

It was adjusting.

Which was either very convenient or very concerning, and I hadn’t decided which yet.