"You’ve both matured."
Kael gave a snort of amusent. "That’s rich coming from you."
Astron’s gaze didn’t shift imdiately.
But his voice did.
Low. Even.
"How did you know I’d be here tonight?"
Lyra’s grin widened, the corners of her mouth curling like she was waiting for that exact question.
"Trade secret," she said, tapping her lips twice with a gloved finger. "Very hush-hush."
"A trade secret," Astron repeated flatly.
"Mmhm." She bounced on her heels. "Guess if you can."
Astron exhaled through his nose—quietly.
Then snorted. Just once.
Not with amusent.
But with inevitability.
His gaze finally moved—slowly settling on both of them in turn. Still, his expression remained unreadable.
"You knew I’d be coming tonight," he began, voice quiet but scalpel-precise. "You knew I’d be speaking with Reina. Which ans the information wasn’t ambient. It was scheduled."
Neither of them denied it.
Kael just shrugged.
Astron continued.
"There are only a handful of people who had access to that information. My return wasn’t publicly listed. The system cleared my arrival under Adept designation—encrypted tier. No broadcast."
Lyra gave a soft hum, almost playful. "Oooooh, deduction ti~"
Astron ignored her, eyes narrowing slightly in thought.
"And," he said, "the only common point of contact between us is Reina."
Kael inclined his head slightly. "Keep going."
"So," Astron went on, slower now, the pieces locking into place, "assuming Reina inford you herself... there’s only one reason she would. She doesn’t give out information casually. Not unless there’s operational overlap."
He paused.
Then turned toward them fully, arms uncrossing.
"I was originally scheduled to enter a gate with a team."
Kael said nothing.
Lyra tilted her head.
"But I opted for solo deploynt," Astron continued. "Reina resisted. Briefly. Then conceded. But the initial setup... must’ve already been finalized."
He gave them both a long, asured look.
"You two were supposed to be part of that team."
This ti, Kael didn’t shrug.
He nodded.
Lyra held up both hands in mock applause. "Ding ding. You win the prize."
"I don’t want the prize."
"Too bad. It’s glitter."
Astron’s gaze remained steady. "So. You were preassigned."
"Technically, yeah," Kael said. "Your resonance profile was matched with ours. Field compatibility rating was surprisingly high. I suspect they factored in your discipline."
"And your... inconsistency," Astron added, looking at Lyra.
She gave a beaming, unapologetic smile. "Balanced combat tempo~"
Astron turned slightly, his coat whispering against the corridor wall.
"So Reina told you," he said.
Lyra twirled a strand of her hair around her finger and nodded. "Yup. She didn’t say much, but she definitely told us to keep an eye out tonight."
But Kael... paused.
His brows drew together. Not confusion—just focus. Like he’d caught sothing in Astron’s phrasing that didn’t quite add up.
"Wait..." he said suddenly, stepping forward half a pace. "You were originally scheduled to enter with a team?"
Astron t his gaze without hesitation.
"Yes."
Kael’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Present tense. As in—you’re not anymore?"
Astron nodded once. Calm. Unbothered.
"Correct. I’ll be going in solo."
A beat of silence.
Then—
"Eh?" Lyra blinked, the word slipping out with an almost comical delay. "Wait, what?"
Kael straightened. "You refused a team deploynt?"
"Yes."
"But—why?" Lyra stepped forward now too, eyes wide with sothing between curiosity and disbelief. "It was calculated for synergy. You just said it yourself. The team was assembled. Your profile matched with ours. You chose to go alone?"
"I did."
Kael frowned. "That’s... not protocol. Even Reina pushed back on that. Right?"
"She did," Astron said. "Briefly."
Lyra stared at him, as if trying to find a hint of sarcasm or exaggeration in his voice.
There wasn’t any.
"But why?" she finally asked. "Don’t get wrong, you’re great. Scary-great. But going in alone? That’s like—asking for distortion anomalies to eat your liver. You know what Delta gates are like."
Astron’s gaze drifted between the two of them—asured, but not dismissive.
"Because I need clean data," he said simply. "Noise-free conditions. No external interference. No sync drift. No unpredictable resonance overlaps."
Kael crossed his arms slowly. "You’re treating the dungeon like it’s a lab experint."
"It is."
Lyra shook her head, almost laughing. "You’re insane."
"Possibly," Astron replied, voice flat.
Kael gave a short, dry laugh and shook his head.
"You really do love being the lone-wolf mystery man, don’t you?" he said, half-teasing. "All shadows and silence. Calculated isolation. Let guess—you’ve got a monologue prepared for every corridor too?"
Astron blinked once. "Only the ones with caras."
Lyra snorted. "Of course you do."
She stepped in closer, hands behind her back now, swaying slightly as she studied his face.
"You know, the whole brooding Adept aesthetic? Very dramatic. But one of these days, soone’s going to trip over themselves trying to follow you into the dark and break sothing important. Like a bone. Or their pride."
"Then they shouldn’t follow," Astron replied.
Kael rubbed his temples like he was getting a headache. "Unbelievable."
Lyra grinned. "But kind of iconic."
Then she paused, the teasing flickering behind sothing a little more curious.
"So—Reina let you do this," she said. "But did she put a condition on it?"
Astron nodded. "She did."
Kael arched a brow. "And?"
"She gave two days," Astron said, his voice smooth and composed. "If I don’t et the assigned quota by then, I’ll comply. Team deploynt. No resistance."
Lyra let out a slow breath and gave him a look that hovered sowhere between admiration and exasperation.
"...Your confidence with that straight face is really amazing."
Astron didn’t respond.
Didn’t smirk. Didn’t flinch.
Just stood there, every inch of him unshaken.
And that, more than any words, was the answer.
Kael let the silence stretch for a second longer, then finally exhaled and shook his head, stepping back to lean against the wall again.
"You know," he muttered, "we’ve been trying to figure out how exactly you managed to get the Adept badge so fast. So of us had bets going."
Astron tilted his head, curious but unmoved. "And?"
Lyra bead. "I won. Sort of."
"You picked ’secret combat trials under hostile distortion’ as your reason," Kael pointed out. "That’s not really winning. That’s just... accurate chaos."
"But I was still right." She turned back to Astron, her eyes bright now—not teasing, but genuinely interested. "You’ve been gone a while. Everyone saw the updates. Field numbers, clear rates, suppression timing. No one said it was you, but we knew."
Kael nodded. "So yeah. When your na ca up in the ops board? When they told us so of the senior trainees were being bumped up for dungeon runs due to age limits?"
Lyra finished the thought with a grin. "Your na was the first one listed."
Astron’s brows lifted a fraction. "Because of age restrictions?"
Kael gave a wry smile. "The Organization can’t keep sitting on recruits that are approaching advancent thresholds. It was either let the older trainees rot behind the line or start pushing them into real gates. When that happened, soone—maybe Reina, maybe not—pushed you forward as the standard to follow."
Astron said nothing.
But that silence wasn’t rejection. It was calculation.
Kael tapped the side of his arm. "The point is... you’ve got fans here."
"Quite a lot of them," Lyra added with a mischievous spark. "Even so of the older handlers are curious. Everyone wants to know how strong the quiet kid from Arcadia got after just a few months."
Kael gave a slight shrug. "Honestly? So did we. That’s why we were glad to be on your team."
Astron’s gaze shifted to the side—briefly—before returning to them. His voice was soft. Controlled.
"Glad, or curious?"
Lyra’s grin turned more honest. "Both."
Kael nodded. "You’re a benchmark now, Astron. Whether you like it or not."
Astron paused.
Then gave a slow, barely perceptible breath.
"...As long as they’re watching from far enough away," he said, "it doesn’t matter."
Kael chuckled. "Typical."
Lyra leaned forward again, clasping her hands behind her back.
"Well then," she said, smile widening, "just make sure you don’t disappear into the gate without saying goodbye. Or else I will hack the speaker system again."
Kael visibly flinched. "Please don’t."
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