[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This Chapter 113: In Which The Arbiters Have Bad News (Again)

"Mama!"

The voice was high and bright, like a small child discovering a new word.

Nothing ancient about it, nothing layered or wrong or threatening.

Just... cute.

Void’s newly ford mouth moved again, testing the shape of the sound. "Mama! Mama!"

I stared at the small black furrball that had just grown crystalline teeth and called Mama in the most adorable voice I’d ever heard.

"Did it just..." Mara started.

"Call Riven Mama," Henrik finished, sounding slightly stunned. "Yes."

Void bounced in midair, clearly delighted with this new developnt, and the mouth curved into what might have been a smile. "Mama!"

Through the binding, I felt Azryth’s shock mixing with reluctant amusent.

"Well," he said finally. "That’s... unexpected."

"Unexpected?" I looked at him. "It just grew a mouth because I sarcastically told it to, and now it’s calling Mama in a voice that sounds like a toddler discovering language. I think we’ve blown past unexpected and landed sowhere around ’completely absurd.’"

"Mama!" Void agreed enthusiastically, floating closer.

Mara’s scanner had stopped screaming and settled into rapid beeping that suggested it was trying very hard to make sense of sothing that violated multiple laws of physics.

"Can it actually eat now?" Ryota asked, cutting through the existential crisis with the practical question.

Void’s eyes brightened imdiately, and it dove for my plate with single-minded determination.

I barely managed to move the pasta out of the way before the furrball could faceplant into it.

"Okay, okay! Here." I speared a piece of pasta on my fork and held it out. "Let’s see if this actually works or if you just grew a mouth for no reason."

Void approached cautiously, mouth opening wider than it probably should given the size of its body, and took the pasta.

We all watched in fascinated silence as it chewed.

Or tried to. The mouth moved, the crystalline teeth definitely seed functional, but Void made a confused sound after a mont.

"How is it?" I asked.

An uncertain warble, then a small sparkle that felt questioning rather than happy.

"I don’t think it knows how to taste," Azryth observed.

"It just grew a mouth five minutes ago," Mara pointed out. "Sensory processing probably takes ti to develop. Or this is completely unprecedented and I have no idea what I’m talking about because Nexus residual energy growing mouths isn’t exactly covered in standard biology."

Void tried another piece, this ti making a pleased hum that suggested it was figuring things out.

"Fast learner," I said.

"Mama!" Void chirped, clearly proud of itself.

"This is the weirdest thing I’ve seen all week," Ryota said moving closer to void. "And we destroyed an ancient organization this morning before having fondue in Switzerland."

"Normal Tuesday," I agreed, feeding Void another piece of pasta.

The pleased sound was imdiate this ti. Definitely learning.

"So Void can talk now," Henrik said, making notes on his tablet with the kind of clinical detachnt that suggested he was coping by cataloging every impossible thing. "And eat, and has decided Riven is its mother... Just adding that to the list of dinsional anomalies."

"Technically I told it to grow a mouth," I pointed out. "So this is at least forty percent my fault."

"Only forty?" Azryth asked.

"It’s the one who actually did it. I was being sarcastic."

"Your sarcasm has consequences now, apparently."

Void made a happy sound and created a small sparkle near my face, affectionate, gentle, completely at odds with the fact that it had just altered its own physical structure through sheer determination.

"Mama!" it said again, like it was testing how the word felt.

Sothing warm settled in my chest that I absolutely was not going to examine closely right now.

"Well," Mara said, setting down her scanner. "At least nothing else can go wrong tod—"

Reality lurched sideways like soone had grabbed the entire universe and yanked.

One mont I was sitting on the couch feeding pasta to a furrball that called Mama, the next the world shifted violently and I felt my consciousness being ripped away with enough force that fighting it wasn’t even an option.

Beside , through the binding, I felt Azryth experience the sa thing.

My body was still in the fortress, I could sense that dimly, but my mind was suddenly sowhere else entirely.

"Oh co on," I managed to think before everything went crystalline.

***

The atrium snapped into existence around us.

I’d been here at least twice before, which didn’t make it any less disorienting. Architecture that hurt to look at stretched in impossible directions, surfaces that were sohow both transparent and reflective showed nothing and everything at once. The floor looked like soone had frozen starlight and decided that was a reasonable building material.

Everything glowed with soft light that ca from nowhere and everywhere simultaneously.

My brain hated it.

"I thought you forgot about us after we saved the world," I said to the empty space. "Why are you summoning us again?"

Azryth materialized beside , not physically here, but our consciousness pulled to the arbiter’s realm simultaneously through the binding.

"Their timing is terrible," he said.

"Their timing is always terrible, I was having a nice mont with my nexus energy child."

The crystalline formations started glowing brighter, pulsing in patterns that probably ant sothing to beings that understood geotry in more than three dinsions.

The architecture reorganized itself, flowing like liquid while staying completely solid, and there in the center of it all the arbiter appeared.

Still too tall, still proportioned wrong in ways that made my depth perception give up. Made of light that shifted through colors I was pretty sure didn’t exist in normal reality, with a face that was smooth and featureless except for the constant rippling suggestions of sothing almost human but not quite.

When it spoke, the words bypassed my ears entirely and went straight into my brain.

Three voices, layered together but slightly out of sync. So higher, so lower, so almost human, others definitely alien.

"Kael warden. Valek demon." The voices harmonized in my skull. "Urgent matter requires imdiate communication."

"Does it involve more rifts?" I asked. "Because we closed all those, saved reality, and sealed the cosmic entity. We’re done with rifts."

"Not rifts." The arbiter’s form pulsed with sothing that might have been urgency or might have been indigestion, hard to tell with cosmic entities. "The entity fragnt."

The crystalline space went very cold.

"What?" Azryth’s voice was sharp.

"During nexus closure," the arbiter’s three voices said, "fragnt separated. Entity power divided. Piece escaped."

I felt my stomach drop. "Escaped? To where?"

"Unknown initially. We detected separation during sealing process. Energy signature fragnting, scattering. One piece broke away during dinsional collapse."

"And you’re just telling us this now?" I asked.

"We searched." The voices layered with what might have been defensiveness. "Fragnt signature difficult to trace. Dinsional barriers unstable after nexus event. Required ti to locate."

Azryth’s presence sharpened beside . "Have you found it now?"

"Yes. Fragnt located. Signature identified. Very close to your current position. Fragnt is—"

Reality scread.

The crystalline atrium shattered like glass hit by a hamr, fragnts of impossible architecture exploding outward in directions that shouldn’t exist and probably didn’t exist outside this realm.

I felt sothing imnse push against the summon...power that wasn’t mine or Azryth’s or the arbiter’s, sothing else entirely forcing its way into the connection and breaking it.

The arbiter’s form flickered, distorted, light fracturing into pieces.

"Fragnt is—" the voices tried again, but the connection was already severing.

Everything went white, then black, then—

***

I was on the floor of the fortress common room, gasping for air that my body hadn’t actually stopped breathing.

My head felt like soone had split it open with an axe and then put it back together wrong.

Azryth was beside , one hand pressed against the stone floor, his power manifested around him instinctively in defensive patterns.

"There we go," Mara’s voice said, sharp but controlled. "Vitals stabilizing. They’re coming back."

I blinked up at the ceiling, trying to rember how vision worked.

"Arbiters again right?" Henrik asked, already pulling up his tablet.

"Yeah," I managed, my voice coming out rougher than expected.

"What did they want this ti?" Mara asked, scanner still active but her tone more resigned than panicked.

Void was hovering near my face, eyes dimd with worry, making small distressed sounds that were honestly kind of heartbreaking.

"Mama... okay?" it asked, and the concern in that tiny voice made sothing in my chest squeeze.

"Yeah, I’m okay." I reached up to touch it gently. "Just had another weird conversation with cosmic entities. It’s becoming a thing."

Azryth pushed himself to sitting with careful movents, and I accepted his hand to pull myself upright.

My legs didn’t want to cooperate but I made them anyway.

Ryota was the only one who looked genuinely confused. "What are arbiters?"

"Ancient cosmic entities in Limbo that occasionally yank our consciousness to their realm to deliver important information," I said. "It’s uncomfortable and gives you a headache, but apparently it’s how they communicate."

"That’s happened before?" Ryota asked.

"Right before we closed all the rifts," Henrik confird. "Sa symptoms...unresponsive, vitals dropped, about five minutes of complete absence. We’re getting used to it."

"I wouldn’t say ’used to it,’" Mara muttered, though she’d already set down her scanner. "But it’s recognizable now."

"So what did they want?" Henrik asked again, stylus poised over his tablet. "Must be important if they pulled you mid-pasta-feeding."

I looked at Azryth. Through the binding, I felt his grim certainty matching my own dread.

"You know how we sealed the entity at the nexus?" I started.

"Yes of course," Mara said.

"Right. Well. Apparently during the sealing process, a piece of the entity broke off and escaped."

The room went quiet.

"Broke off," Henrik repeated slowly. "As in... separated from the main entity."

"Yes."

"And went where?"

"The arbiters didn’t know initially," Azryth said. "They detected it escaping during the nexus collapse but couldn’t track it imdiately. Dinsional barriers were too unstable."

"But they found it, and they were about to tell us where," I said. "But the summon broke before they could finish."

Mara frowned. "The summon broke? That didn’t happen last ti."

"No. This was new." Azryth’s voice was grim. "Sothing pushed against the connection and shattered it. Power that wasn’t ours or the arbiter’s."

"What kind of power breaks an arbiter summon?" Henrik asked, typing rapidly.

"The kind that probably cos from an entity fragnt," I said.

"Wonderful," Ryota muttered.

Void pressed against my cheek, still worried. "Bad thing?"

"Maybe," I told it. "We don’t know yet."

It made a protective sound, small sparks of energy crackling around it. "Void keep Mama safe!"

I felt Azryth’s attention sharpen on Void for just a mont, so thought forming and being dismissed.

"If a fragnt is nearby, I should be able to detect it," Mara said, already pulling up her scanner readings. "Energy signatures, dinsional anomalies, anything unusual."

"Define ’nearby,’" Henrik said. "Did the arbiters say it was close?"

"Very close to our current position," Azryth said. "Those were their exact words before the connection broke."

"Very close," Mara repeated. "That could an Alaska, or this fortress.... Or this room."

"Thanks for narrowing it down," I said.

"I’m being realistic."

"Realistic is terrifying."

Henrik was already running analysis on his tablet. "Entity fragnt. Powerful enough to interfere with arbiter communications. Location unknown but nearby. Intentions unknown."

"You’re really selling the severity here," I said.

"Soone should," Henrik replied. "This is the second ti the arbiters have pulled you away to deliver urgent information. It’s concerning."

"It’s fucking terrifying," Mara corrected. "We sealed the entity. Now a piece of it is loose and we have no idea where it is or what it wants."

"Or what it can do," Azryth added quietly.

Void chirped on my shoulder, completely oblivious to the implications. "Bad thing close?"

"The arbiters seed to think so," I said.

"Void protect!" it said with absolute certainty in that bright, innocent voice.

The conviction should have been comforting.

Instead, it just made the dread settle deeper.

Because sothing powerful enough to shatter an arbiter summon was out there.

Sowhere very close.

And we had absolutely no idea what it was.