The Abyssal Reliquary

The airship had long since left the chaos of the city behind.

Now it sailed in quieter skies.

The engines no longer screamed under stress, no fires licked at its hull, no creatures clawed at its frame. The ship had been repaired with almost absurd efficiency, polished brass gleaming again, white enamel restored, arcane glyphs humming in stable, controlled rhythms. Below them, the desert stretched endlessly, dunes like frozen waves under a bleeding sunset,

The Abyssal Reliquary waited.

Patient.

Watching.

Alice sat in the captain’s cabin, legs stretched out in a chair that was far too comfortable, boots propped on the edge of a polished table like she was trying to disrespect the furniture on principle alone. The room was wide, all curved glass and reinforced crystal, giving a panoramic view of the sky ahead. Maps floated in faint projections, slowly updating. The wheel stood idle, the ship largely self guided for now.

She should have felt powerful.

Instead, she felt… off.

Her fingers tapped idly against her thigh, nails clicking faintly. Her tail flicked, restless. Her horns caught the fading light in the glass reflection, framing a face that still didn’t quite feel like hers.

“…Fuck,” she muttered under her breath.

The word came easier now.

Too easy.

Everything did.

Her emotions didn’t sit still anymore. They spiked. Crashed. Flared into something sharp and immediate before she could sort through them properly. The Oni blood in her veins didn’t like patience. Didn’t like restraint. It wanted action, reaction, something to grab onto and burn through.

And right now

It kept circling back to Yamaba.

Alice leaned her head back, staring up at the ceiling.

“…I made the right call,” she said, like saying it again might make it feel better.

The parasite stirred faintly beneath her skin, warm and attentive.

You chose restraint over hunger, it murmured, voice soft and approving. That is rare.

“Yeah, well,” Alice huffed, “it still feels like shit.”

Regret is not the same as wrong.

“…Feels the same.”

No, the parasite replied gently. One fades. The other festers.

Alice didn’t answer that.

She didn’t really want to.

Instead, she dragged a hand down her face and exhaled slowly, trying to **** the heat in her chest to settle into something manageable.

That was when Nox moved.

Alice hadn’t heard her approach.

One second she was alone with her thoughts, the next

Warmth.

Solid. Grounding.

Nox stepped in behind her and wrapped her arms around Alice’s torso in one smooth motion, pulling her back just enough that her spine rested lightly against the centaur’s human half.

Alice’s breath hitched.

“…You’re doing that thing again,” she muttered, voice a little thinner than she wanted.

“What thing,” Nox asked calmly, though her arms didn’t loosen.

“The sneaking up on me like some kind of of ” Alice gestured vaguely. “ emotionally supportive assassin.”

Nox hummed, the sound low in her chest. “You were spiraling.”

“I was thinking.”

“You were spiraling,” Nox repeated.

Alice clicked her tongue, but she didn’t pull away.

Didn’t even try.

The hug tightened slightly.

Not enough to trap her.

Just enough to be felt.

“You are tense,” Nox observed, her voice quieter now, closer to Alice’s ear. “Your breathing is uneven. Your tail has been agitated for approximately six minutes.”

“Stop tracking my fucking tail,” Alice grumbled.

“No.”

“…Bitch.”

Nox’s ears flicked back in quiet satisfaction at that.

Her chin rested lightly against Alice’s shoulder now, the contact grounding in a way Alice didn’t want to admit she needed. For all her composure, for all the way she carried herself like a weapon wrapped in etiquette, Nox’s presence was… steady.

Unmoving.

A fixed point.

“You regret your choice,” Nox said after a moment.

Alice stiffened slightly. “…No.”

A pause.

“…Yes.”

Another pause.

“…Fuck, I don’t know.”

Nox didn’t press.

Didn’t correct her.

Her arms simply shifted, one hand flattening briefly against Alice’s stomach, the other settling just beneath her ribs, like she was holding her in place against the storm inside her rather than against herself.

“You wanted intensity,” Nox said. “Not commitment.”

Alice swallowed. “Yeah.”

“You chose not to take something you were not prepared to hold,” Nox continued.

“…Yeah.”

“That is not weakness.”

Alice huffed. “Feels like it.”

“It is not,” Nox repeated, softer now.

The parasite chimed in, pleased.

She chose you, it said to Nox, tone almost teasing. That is interesting.

Nox didn’t react outwardly.

But Alice felt the subtle shift.

A tightening.

A consideration.

“I am aware,” Nox said quietly.

Alice blinked. “…Wait, you can hear that?”

“I can feel when it addresses me,” Nox replied.

“…That’s fucking weird.”

Correct, the parasite said brightly.

Alice groaned. “Great. Now I’ve got two things in my life that talk back.”

You like us, it added.

“…Shut up.”

Nox’s lips curved faintly against Alice’s shoulder.

“You are adjusting,” she said. “To your body. Your instincts. Your decisions.”

“Yeah,” Alice muttered. “Poorly.”

“No,” Nox said. “Honestly.”

Alice shifted slightly in her grip, not pulling away, just… settling.

“…I don’t like how loud everything is,” she admitted after a moment. “It’s like every feeling’s turned up to eleven and I don’t get a fucking mute button.”

“Oni do not mute,” Nox said simply. “They channel.”

“Cool. Love that for me.”

“You will learn.”

Alice snorted. “Or I’ll burn out spectacularly.”

“If you do,” Nox said calmly, “I will restrain you.”

Alice blinked. Then let out a short, incredulous laugh. “You say that like it’s comforting.”

“It is a promise.”

“…That’s not better.”

Nox’s grip shifted again, just slightly more possessive now, just enough to toe that strange line they lived on.

Servant.

Master.

“You are not alone in this,” Nox said quietly.

Alice’s chest tightened again.

Different this time.

“…Yeah,” she said, softer. “I know.”

For a moment, neither of them moved.

The ship drifted forward.

The sky darkened.

And far ahead, the distortion of the portal grew just a little larger.

Alice let her head fall back slightly, not quite resting against Nox, but close enough to feel the warmth there.

“…Hey,” she muttered.

“Yes.”

“If I start doing something really fucking stupid because of this Oni shit,” Alice said, eyes half lidded, “you’re allowed to stop me.”

“I already intend to.”

“…Good.”

A pause.

“…Don’t enjoy it too much.”

Nox’s tail flicked once behind her.

“I will enjoy it exactly as much as necessary.”

Alice groaned. “God, you’re insufferable.”

“And you are mine,” Nox replied, calm and certain.

Alice’s Crimson face blushed even further.

“DON’T say that like it’s ” she cut herself off, flustered, waving a hand uselessly. “You know what, fuck you.”

Nox’s hold didn’t loosen.

“…Later,” she said mildly.

The parasite practically purred.

I approve of this dynamic.

Alice dragged both hands down her face.

“I’m surrounded by fucking menaces.”

But she didn’t move out of Nox’s arms.

And for the first time since leaving the city

The noise in her chest quieted.

Just a little.

Nox was the first to break the stillness, though only by moving her hands.

She released Alice slowly, not like she was letting go because she wanted to, but because duty had nudged its way between them. One hand lingered at Alice’s shoulder a moment longer than necessary, straightening the fall of fabric that did not really need straightening. Then she turned toward the wardrobe built into the captain’s cabin wall, opened a polished compartment, and withdrew a fresh suit folded with surgical precision. Dark fabric. High collar. Reinforced seams. Something formal enough to make Alice look like she belonged to Quin’s bloodline and practical enough that she could probably kick someone through a wall in it.

Alice eyed it with immediate suspicion. “That looks expensive.”

“It is,” Nox said.

“Of fucking course it is.”

“You are about to enter the Abyssal Reliquary,” Nox replied, already shaking out the jacket. “You should look composed.”

“I’m about to enter a haunted fish dungeon watched by a drowned machine goddess,” Alice muttered. “I don’t think my outfit is gonna be the deciding factor.”

Nox stepped closer, holding the suit out.

Before she could dress Alice, the parasite reacted.

The suit never touched her.

Black flesh rippled across Alice’s body in a sudden wave, surging up from beneath her skin like ink poured backward. It spread over her shoulders, waist, chest, arms, and legs in elegant, violent obedience, forming something that was not quite armor and not quite clothing. Plates softened into tailored lines. Veins of faint magenta light threaded along seams where stitching should have been. What looked at first like wet muscle became smooth, dark, leather like flesh, polished and sculpted into a nobleman’s suit with a high collar, fitted jacket, gloves, and a short shoulder cape that unfurled with smug theatrical precision.

Alice stared down at herself.

Nox stared as well.

The parasite pulsed with pride.

Cloth is unnecessary, it said. I am superior.

Alice closed her eyes. “You are jealous of clothes now.”

Protective, it corrected.

“You shredded my panties, ate my ring, ate my sword, ate three more magic items, and now you’re cockblocking a fucking suit.”

Nox’s ears flicked.

Alice pointed at her. “Don’t you start.”

Nox folded the actual suit over one arm with calm resignation. “It appears your symbiote prefers exclusivity.”

“I’m starting to think my symbiote has attachment issues.”

I have been abandoned inside boxes for a very long time, the parasite replied with no shame whatsoever. I am allowed preferences.

That made Alice pause.

The joke died somewhere between her ribs and her tongue. She looked down at the glossy black surface wrapped around her arms, at the way it adjusted to every twitch of her fingers and every shift of her breathing. It did not feel like armor anymore. Not really. It felt like an animal curled around her bones, listening.

“…What the hell even are you?” Alice asked quietly. “Like, actually. What’s your deal?”

The parasite went still.

Not silent. Still.

For the first time since bonding, it felt less smug. Less hungry. Less like something enjoying being clever. Its presence softened inside her spine, spreading carefully through her nervous system like it was trying not to bruise the question.

I was called A Chorus, it said at last.

Alice blinked. “A Chorus?”

A species name. A role. A mistake. We were not meant to be alone. We were made to harmonize with hosts, to share instinct, sensation, protection, memory. Symbiosis. Communion. Mutual survival.

“That sounds… not evil,” Alice said carefully.

It was not, A Chorus replied. Then the curse came.

The cabin felt colder.

Nox’s expression sharpened. Her posture shifted from intimate attendant to bodyguard in a heartbeat, eyes narrowing toward Alice’s armor like she was suddenly considering whether she might have to kill something that lived inside the person she cared about.

“What curse,” Nox asked.

A Chorus seemed to curl inward. Hunger. Corruption. Consumption rewritten as bonding. Every host before you became food because the curse made it so. I did not want to eat them. But wanting did not matter. The System found me after that. Bound me. Labeled me. Priced me. Stored me. The curse remained. The purpose was warped.

Alice swallowed.

The armor tightened faintly across her ribs, not enough to restrain. Enough to hold.

Then I touched you, A Chorus continued, and the curse could not bite. Your class rejected it. Your bond rejected it. Your soul was… inhospitable.

Alice snorted despite herself. “That’s the nicest way anyone has ever called me a fucking disaster.”

You are sanctuary, A Chorus said warmly.

Nox exhaled slowly.

The relief in the sound was subtle, but Alice caught it. The centaur’s shoulders loosened by the smallest fraction, one hand resting against Alice’s back as if confirming she was still solid, still herself, still safe.

“You were concerned,” Alice said.

Nox’s face remained unreadable. “You bonded with a cursed parasite from an S rank vault after spending all of your points in a gambling shop.”

“…Fair.”

“A curse would not be... unexpected,” Nox added, voice dry.

Alice grimaced. “That’s deeply fucked up.”

“Yes.”

Alice looked back down at the parasite suit. It looked incredible, which was annoying. Sleek and predatory, noble and monstrous all at once. Flesh pretending to be fabric. Armor pretending to be etiquette. The magenta lines along her collar and sleeves pulsed in time with her heartbeat, and the cape shifted behind her as if caught in a breeze that existed only for drama.

She wanted to ask more.

About A Chorus. About how many hosts it had lost. About whether it remembered them. About whether it hated the System for turning it into loot.

But before she could speak, a chime rang through the captain’s cabin.

The shipwide announcement crystal flared pale blue.

“Approach confirmed,” came the navigator’s voice, distorted slightly by mana resonance. “Visual contact with Abyssal Reliquary portal zone. All passengers prepare for descent. Repeat, visual contact confirmed.”

The panoramic glass ahead brightened as the captain’s cabin dimmed around it, automatically enhancing the view.

Alice forgot to breathe.

The desert below had changed.

The golden dunes were gone, swallowed beneath a vast scar of black glass. Obsidian stretched for miles in every direction, glossy and uneven, like the land itself had melted and hardened while screaming. Jagged pillars rose from it in impossible formations, some no wider than towers, others as thick as city blocks, all sharp edged and reflective, catching the dying sunset in bloody shards. The air shimmered above them with heat and old mana, twisting the horizon into broken ribbons.

At the center of the scar, several rivers met.

They had no business existing there, cutting through the desert like silver veins, rushing with impossible **** toward a single point. The waters collided in a massive circular basin surrounded by obsidian rocks, and there they plunged downward into a whirlpool so wide it looked like the world had opened an eye.

The whirlpool itself did not roar like normal water.

It sang.

Low. Deep. Layered with a sound Alice felt in her teeth and spine. Like whale song. Like something ancient breathing through a hole in the world.

Far above it, the airship slowed, hovering over the blackened landscape.

Alice stepped closer to the glass, arms hanging at her sides, tail going still.

“…That’s the portal,” she said.

Nox stood beside her, expression solemn. “Yes.”

The parasite was quiet for a moment.

Then, very softly, it whispered inside Alice’s mind.

Something below is listening.

Alice’s jaw tightened.

Her new Oni blood flared hot in her chest, eager and afraid and angry at being afraid. Her parasite suit responded, tightening into a cleaner fit, smoothing the cape, sealing the gloves, making her look more ready than she felt.

She stared down at the whirlpool.

The Abyssal Reliquary waited.

Patient.

Watching.

Alice did not stay in the captain’s cabin.

She couldn’t.

The room was too quiet after that. Too polished. Too controlled. Too full of reflections that showed her horns, her red skin, the sharp shape of her new body dressed in living black armor pretending to be a noble’s suit. The portal below kept pulling at her attention even when she wasn’t looking at it. That deep, whale song hum seemed to vibrate through the hull, through the glass, through the soles of her boots, until sitting still felt like waiting for something to crawl up her spine.

The door slid open, and she stepped onto the upper prow of the airship with her jaw clenched, shoulders tight, and tail already lashing.

The moment she stepped out onto the forward deck, her tail lashed behind her and the metal dented inward with a sharp clang that made three nearby crew members flinch.

Alice froze.

Slowly, she looked back.

The railing now had a perfect tail shaped bend in it.

“…Fuck.”

Nox followed behind her at a polite distance, hands folded, face calm.

Alice narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you fucking smile.”

“I am not smiling,” Nox said.

“You’re smirking on the inside.”

“That is possible.”

Alice growled and kept walking.

“Fucking tail,” she snapped, grabbing it with one hand like that would help. “Fucking Oni bullshit. Fucking cursed ocean toilet singing at me from the bottom of a glass crater.”

Three steps later, her tail struck a polished deck post.

CLANG.

The post bent sideways.

“Gods fucking damn it.”

The Oni body still wasn’t right. Not wrong, exactly, but too much. Too tall. Too strong. Too reactive. Her center of gravity had changed. Her balance had changed. Her tail had opinions now, and apparently those opinions involved property damage.

She tried to hold it still.

That made it worse.

The tail stiffened, twitched, then whipped sideways and knocked over a decorative mana lantern.

Alice grabbed it before it shattered, claws digging into the metal casing.

“Okay,” she hissed through her teeth. “Great. Amazing. Love having a fucking demolition noodle attached to my ass.”

Nox made a soft sound.

Alice spun. “Was that a laugh?”

“No.”

“That was absolutely a laugh.”

“It was admiration.”

“Bitch.”

Nox’s ears flicked back, pleased.

“You are smirking at my suffering.”

“I am admiring your passion.”

“I’m having a fucking temper tantrum.”

“Yes,” Nox said. “It is adorable.”

Alice’s face went crimson beneath her already crimson skin, which was a deeply unfair biological disadvantage. “I am not adorable. I am dangerous. I have horns. I have claws. I have a fucking **** suit that eats magic items.”

Nox tilted her head, still walking behind her. “All of those things can be adorable.”

Alice made a strangled sound and stomped forward, which would have been dramatic if her armor had not decided to remain completely silent. The lack of sound made the stomp feel stupid. That pissed her off too.

Below, the portal zone spread out in awful beauty.

The airship descended toward a fortress carved from a single enormous chunk of black obsidian, its walls fused straight into the glassed desert around it. Metal reinforcements wrapped around the structure like ribs, steel and brass bolted over volcanic stone, threaded with glowing cables and arcane floodlights. It looked less like a toll booth and more like a military installation built by people who had accepted that the ocean wanted to kill them personally. Turrets tracked the sky. Docking arms extended from fortified towers. Signal crystals pulsed red, blue, and white in strict sequence, guiding the airship toward a landing platform plated in dark metal.

Around the fortress, dozens of boats clustered near the rivers and the whirlpool’s outer basin. Some were sleek Guild skimmers with sealed hulls and mana engines. Others were old fashioned fishing vessels covered in charms, bone hooks, and salt stained prayer flags. A few were salvage barges with cranes mounted to their decks, crewed by people in heavy diving suits and reinforced helmets. All of them looked tiny compared to the whirlpool. All of them looked like offerings.

Alice leaned over the prow just enough to see the water turn.

The whirlpool spun below with impossible patience, its surface dark blue, almost black, streaked with pale light that rose from somewhere deep beneath. The song coming from it vibrated through the hull of the ship, through Alice’s teeth, through the new horns on her head.

Her tail flicked again.

This time Nox caught it before it dented another railing.

Alice whipped around. “Hey.”

“You were about to damage public property again.”

“The public can eat my ass.”

Nox’s expression did not change. “Noted.”

Alice glared at her, then looked down at the glossy black sleeve of the suit wrapped around her arm. The magenta veins pulsed gently, almost smugly. It had been quiet since they came outside, but she could feel it watching the whirlpool through her senses, cautious and fascinated. It still felt wrong to call it the parasite. That was what the System called it. That was what Quin called it. That was what it had been reduced to after being boxed up and cursed and turned into loot.

She flexed her fingers.

The armor flexed with her.

“…I need to stop calling you parasite,” Alice muttered.

Nox looked at her. “You are naming it?”

“I’m naming him? Her? Them? Fuck, I don’t know. The **** underwear has personhood now. This is my life.”

I do not object to being named, the symbiote said warmly.

Alice scowled down at her own arm. “Yeah, well, don’t get smug. I’m picky.”

She started pacing again, but slower this time, eyes drifting over the obsidian fortress, the whirlpool, the boats, the sky, anything except Nox’s face. “Okay. It’s gotta be something good. Not too obvious. I’m not calling you Venom, because that’s cringe and also embarrassing. Not Carnage. Absolutely fucking not. Too try hard. “

Nox stared at her.

Alice kept going because her brain had already committed and refused to stop the train before it crashed. “Could go deep cut. Body horror people. Stan Winston? No, that sounds like an accountant who turns into a werewolf. Rob Bottin is cool, but naming my armor Bottin sounds like I’m yelling at a butler. Mike Ploog? Dale Kuipers? No. Those are names for haunted mechanics. Clive Barker’s good though. Body horror, monsters, hidden societies, weird beauty under the skin, all that fucked up poetic nightmare shit.”

Nox continued staring.

The symbiote listened with what felt like fascination.

Alice snapped her fingers. “Cabal.”

The word landed cleanly.

The armor pulsed.

Alice stopped pacing.

“…Cabal,” she repeated, quieter. “Original title of the book Nightbreed was based on. Means a secret group, a hidden gathering. Kind of like Chorus, actually. Not exactly, but close enough. And it starts with a C, so there’s continuity. Also it’s obscure enough that nobody’s gonna immediately think I’m ripping something off. Unless they’re fucking nerds, in which case they deserve to know.”

Silence.

The airship hummed.

The whirlpool sang.

Nox blinked once.

Alice slowly turned her head.

Nox’s face was blank.

Utterly blank.

Too blank.

Alice’s stomach dropped.

Alice finally noticed.

Slowly, her tail stopped moving.

“…I said all of that out loud, didn’t I.”

“Yes,” Nox said.

Alice’s crimson face darkened her entire body locked. Her tail curled so tight it nearly wrapped around her own leg.

“Fuck.”

Nox’s lips twitched.

“Do not laugh,” Alice snapped, pointing at her with one clawed finger. “Do not fucking laugh. I was having a private naming ceremony with my eldritch bodysuit and my stupid mouth betrayed me.”

“I was not laughing.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“Yes.”

Alice threw both hands up. “Gods damn it. This is exactly why I don’t talk about my interests around people. You say one thing about horror movies and suddenly you’re the weird girl naming her cursed flesh suit after Clive Barker lore.”

“You are the weird girl naming her cursed flesh suit after Clive Barker lore,” Nox said.

Alice stared at her.

Nox added, very softly, “It's cute.”

That shut her up harder than mockery would have.

Inside her, the armor warmed, the magenta veins brightening faintly.

Cabal, it said, tasting the name. I accept.

Alice swallowed, suddenly and stupidly touched.

Then immediately covered it with anger because that was easier.

“Yeah, well, of course you fucking do. It’s a good name. I have taste.”

Nox stepped closer, still composed, still smirking just enough to be lethal. “You do.”

Alice looked away too fast. “Shut up.”

The airship’s announcement crystal chimed again, saving her from having to process whatever the hell that look meant.

“Docking approach confirmed,” the navigator’s voice called through the ship. “Abyssal Reliquary forward fortress in range. All delving parties prepare for Guild inspection and portal clearance.”

Below them, the fortress lights shifted from red to green.

Docking arms extended.

The boats around the whirlpool bobbed in the current like toys at the edge of a god’s bathtub.

Alice took a breath, feeling her new body, her horns, her claws, her tail, the anger still hot under her skin, and Cabal wrapped around her like a second self.

Nox stood at her side.

Not behind her this time.

Beside her.

Alice stared down at the black whirlpool and bared her teeth.

“Alright,” she muttered. “Let’s go meet the haunted fish dungeon.”

Cabal pulsed with quiet approval.

Nox’s tail flicked once.

And the airship descended toward the obsidian fortress.

The fortress swallowed the airship whole.

Not literally, though Alice would not have put it past the Abyssal Reliquary to have that kind of bullshit prepared. The docking arms extended from the obsidian structure like black metal ribs, clamping onto the airship with heavy, echoing thuds that vibrated through the deck. The entire ship groaned as pressure seals locked into place, and layered warding fields rolled over the hull in slow, shimmering passes. Blue light. Then green. Then a deep violet that made Cabal tighten around Alice’s skin like it did not appreciate being scanned.

Nox handled the paperwork.

Of course she did.

Alice watched from a short distance as the centaur maid stood before a reinforced inspection console, utterly composed, filling out forms that would have made most adventurers cry blood. Dungeon clearance. Emergency extraction waivers. Mana contamination disclaimers. Deep pressure adaptation acknowledgments. Crew manifests. Party manifests. Living equipment declarations. Symbiotic intelligence declarations. Mount registration declarations, which made Alice make a strangled sound before Nox calmly checked the box and moved on without even looking back.

Alice crossed her arms and muttered, “Fucking bureaucracy dungeon before the actual dungeon. Great. Love that.”

The fortress interior was worse up close. The walls were carved obsidian, glossy enough to reflect movement but warped enough to make every reflection look drowned. Metal beams braced the stone in huge industrial arcs, bolted deep into the black glass. Cables hung in organized bundles overhead, carrying mana pulses from one inspection station to another. Guild workers in reinforced coats moved with grim efficiency, their badges warded, their boots magnetic, their faces carrying the shared expression of people who had watched too many overconfident parties go down into the whirlpool and come back as paperwork.

Beyond the reinforced viewing glass, the whirlpool spun.

The entire ship was being prepared to enter, not just the party. That was the part Alice still hadn’t fully wrapped her head around. The airship would pass through the portal and become their mobile base inside the Reliquary, at least as long as the dungeon allowed it. Engineers were sealing external vents. Divers in heavy suits inspected the underside. Arcane technicians adjusted flood wards and pressure compensators. The ship’s hull glowed in bands, each rune waking one after another like scales along a deep sea creature.

Alice’s tail lashed once.

Cabal quietly redirected it around a stack of crates before she smashed anything.

“Don’t fucking babysit my tail,” Alice muttered.

I am preventing an incident, Cabal replied.

“I am an incident.”

Yes, Cabal said warmly. That is why I am busy.

Alice snorted despite herself, then looked away before anyone could see her smiling.

That was when Melisse found her.

Or more accurately, when Alice became aware that Melisse had been leaning against a nearby column for at least a minute, watching her with that impossible incubus ease that made standing still look like an invitation. Pale pink hair framed his face in soft, artful mess, falling just enough over one eye to look accidental despite absolutely not being accidental. His green eyes were bright beneath delicate lashes, too warm and too knowing, the kind of eyes that made you feel like they had already noticed the embarrassing thought you hadn’t finished having yet.

His nurse’s coat was pristine despite the repaired airship, the fortress, and the smell of obsidian dust around them. His tail swayed lazily behind him, the heart shaped tip curling and uncurling in slow little loops like it had its own agenda.

His lips curved.

Alice’s brain, traitorous little shit that it was, immediately supplied an old thought.

Watermelon.

She had thought that back at Mytherion too. Years ago. Every time he smiled at her in the infirmary, every time he handed her a bitter potion or pressed a cooling sigil against her forehead, she had wondered if his lips tasted like watermelon candy.

She hated that she remembered that.

She hated even more that the thought still got her hard.

Melisse tilted his head. “You’re staring.”

Alice snapped her gaze upward. “I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I was thinking.”

“About my mouth,” he said sweetly.

Alice’s face went hot. “You don’t fucking know that.”

His smile widened by a fraction. “Alice, darling. I’m an incubus. Also, you have the subtlety of a brick thrown through stained glass.”

Cabal stirred with amused interest.

Alice covered her face with one hand. “I’m gonna throw myself into the whirlpool.”

“Please don’t,” Melisse said, pushing away from the column and drifting closer. “I only just got assigned to you. It would be devastating to lose my new contractor before I even get to properly disappoint all her expectations.”

“That sounds like a fucking threat.”

“It was a promise,” he said, delighted.

The word contractor hit strangely.

Alice looked at him again, really looked this time, past the teasing, past the dangerous softness of his expression, past the way he seemed able to tilt his head and make it feel like flirtation and diagnosis at the same time.

“You’re really free of the academy contract?” she asked.

Melisse’s smile changed.

It did not vanish, but it softened into something more honest around the edges.

“Yes,” he said. “Your father bought me out.”

Alice leaned back against the railing, arms folding tighter. “Was it bad?”

He hummed, eyes drifting toward the fortress window, toward the black water spinning beyond the glass. “Mytherion Grand Adventurer Academy does not like to call anything bad. They call things necessary. Structured. Beneficial. Character building.” His smile flickered back for half a second, playful and sharp. “The prettier the cage, the more offended people get when you call it a cage.”

Alice’s jaw tightened.

She remembered that place too well.

White marble everywhere. Perfect white marble, polished so clean it looked fake. The academy had been built around a silver worldtree whose glowing golden leaves shed auroras across the open courtyards and high towers. The tree did that. The worldtree breathed air into a place that should have been dead stone and silence, its silver bark glowing softly beneath moonlight, its golden leaves spilling waves of pale green, blue, and gold through the atmosphere like the sky itself was underwater.

And all of it on the fucking Moon.

Because apparently elite education wasn’t pretentious enough unless you had to leave the planet to be miserable.

Alice had hated it.

She had hated the moonstone walkways that glittered beneath her shoes. Hated the gravity light training courtyards where teachers called falling “an opportunity to correct form.” Hated the dorm rooms that looked like luxury prisons. Hated the uniforms. Hated the way everyone knew who her father was before they knew her name. Hated the way teachers smiled too tightly when she struggled. Hated being ripped away from Maria because Quin had decided it was “best for her future,” as if her future needed to be polished until it stopped looking like her.

But some people there had been kind.

Not enough to make it bearable.

Enough to make leaving complicated.

Melisse had been one of them.

“You used to sneak me extra painkillers,” Alice said quietly.

Melisse’s expression softened. “You used to pretend you didn’t need them.”

“I was fucking thirteen and stupid.”

“You were lonely,” he corrected.

Alice looked away sharply.

The fortress hummed around them. Workers shouted clearance codes. Somewhere above, Jett laughed at something loud enough to echo through the docking bay. Rezzy was being yelled at by someone official, probably for touching something explosive, and answered by flipping them off while her hair briefly caught fire. Nox remained at the inspection station, signing Alice’s life away with terrifying competence.

Melisse stepped beside Alice, close but not crowding her. For once, he did not lean in like a flirt. He simply rested his elbows on the railing and watched the whirlpool with her.

“I remember when you arrived,” he said. “You looked furious enough to bite through the doors.”

Alice barked a laugh. “I tried.”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s why I had to treat your jaw.”

She groaned. “Fuck. I forgot that.”

“I didn’t.”

“Of course you didn’t. You remember everything embarrassing.”

“I remember patients,” Melisse said lightly. Then his gaze flicked back to her, bright and teasing again. “Especially the pretty angry ones who glare at me while secretly wondering what my mouth tastes like.”

Alice choked. “I was thirteen, you absolute menace.”

“And I was professional,” he said primly, one hand over his chest. “Tragically professional. Heroically professional. Songs should be written.”

“Songs about you not being a creep?”

“Exactly. Very moving ballads. Jett can perform them.”

Alice tried to glare at him.

Failed.

A tiny laugh slipped out instead, sharp and unwilling.

Melisse looked pleased enough to be insufferable.

Then his voice softened again, losing the sparkle without losing the warmth. “I remember patients,” he repeated. “Especially the ones nobody listened to.”

Alice’s throat tightened before she could stop it.

She hated that too.

Her emotions were still raw from the Oni change, still too close to the surface, but this was older than that. Smaller. A bruise that had been there so long she had built personality around not touching it.

“I hated that school,” Alice said.

“I know.”

“No, I mean I really fucking hated it. Everyone acted like I should be grateful. Like getting dragged away from my mom and dumped in a moon palace full of rich prodigy assholes was some kind of blessing.” Her claws clicked against her sleeve as her hands tightened. “And then when I couldn’t keep up, it was like… like I was wasting the chance.”

Melisse did not answer immediately.

That helped.

He had always been good at silence. Not the heavy kind Quin used like leverage. Not the sharp kind Seraphina used like a knife. Melisse’s silence was soft. Roomy. It made space.

Eventually, he said, “You were not wasting it. You were being **** to carry a future someone else designed.”

Alice glanced at him.

His green eyes met hers, bright and warm and far too knowing.

“That sounds like nurse talk.”

“It is.”

“Manipulative incubus nurse talk?”

“Also yes.”

Alice snorted. “At least you’re honest.”

“I try to be.” His tail flicked lazily behind him, the heart shaped tip tracing one idle loop. “Besides, I like this version of you better.”

Alice raised an eyebrow. “The red **** goblin version?”

“Oni,” he corrected sweetly. “And yes. You’re louder. More honest. Less folded inward.” His eyes traveled briefly, not quite rude, not quite innocent. “Also the horns are doing excellent work.”

Alice’s tail twitched. “Don’t start.”

“I already started. You’re the one catching up.”

“I’m also more pissed off now.”

“Also honest.”

She huffed, trying not to smile. “You are dangerously fucking good at this.”

His grin returned, softer but still wicked at the edges. “Healing?”

“Making people feel seen.”

“Occupational hazard,” he said. Then he leaned just a little closer, voice dipping playfully. “And personal hobby.”

Alice rolled her eyes, but the heat in her chest had changed shape. It wasn’t gone. It wasn’t calm. But it was less like a fire trapped under her ribs and more like coals she could actually breathe around.

For a moment, they simply watched the whirlpool together.

Then Melisse glanced at Cabal’s living suit, studying the magenta veins along the collar. “And you found yourself a new companion.”

“Cabal,” Alice said.

The armor pulsed.

Melisse smiled at it like it was another patient. “Hello, Cabal.”

Hello, nurse, Cabal replied inside Alice’s mind.

Alice blinked. “It says hi.”

Melisse’s eyes sparkled. “Charming. Polite, too. That’s more than I can say for most cursed things I’ve met.”

“Don’t encourage him. Them. Fuck, pronouns are the least weird part of this whole situation.”

Cabal seemed pleased anyway.

At the inspection station, Nox finally turned away from the console. A Guild official stamped a glowing seal onto the manifest, and several heavy locks disengaged along the docking arm with a series of metallic booms. The airship shuddered as final clearance routed through its systems.

The announcement crystal chimed overhead.

“Portal entry authorization granted. Abyssal Reliquary descent begins in twelve minutes. All personnel to assigned stations. Delving party to forward command.”

Melisse straightened, the flirtation settling back under professionalism like a blade sliding into a sheath. “That’s us.”

Alice pushed away from the railing.

Her tail flicked, but this time she caught the motion before it hit anything.

Small victory.

Nox approached, paperwork complete, expression unreadable as always. Her eyes moved briefly from Melisse to Alice, then to the faint warmth in Alice’s face.

Alice scowled immediately. “Don’t.”

“I said nothing,” Nox said.

“You thought something.”

“Yes.”

Melisse smiled brightly. “She was thinking you’re adorable.”

Alice pointed at both of them. “I will throw both of you into the haunted fish toilet.”

Nox’s ears flicked.

Melisse laughed, light and musical and unfairly pretty.

Cabal hummed against Alice’s skin,

Melisse’s laughter faded first.

Not vanished. Not completely. That was the dangerous thing about him. Even when he grew quiet, even when the flirtation slipped into something gentler, it still lingered in the curve of his mouth, in the warmth of his green eyes, in the lazy little curl of his heart tipped tail. He leaned beside Alice near the railing like he had been designed specifically to make casual proximity feel illegal, close enough to be intimate, far enough away to pretend he wasn’t doing it on purpose. Beyond the fortress glass, the whirlpool turned and sang, its deep drowned note vibrating through the obsidian walls, through the metal braces, through the bones of the airship waiting to descend.

Then Melisse said, lightly, almost casually, “You know, there’s a very good chance Jax will be inside.”

Alice went cold.

Not startled.

Cold.

The kind of cold that started behind her sternum and spread outward, swallowing every sharp, hot Oni instinct before it could flare. The fortress noise dulled around her. The Guild workers became smeared movement at the edges of her sight. The announcement crystals, the pressure wards, the groan of the airship preparing for descent, even the terrible whale song of the whirlpool below, all of it receded behind a single name.

Jax.

Her first boyfriend.

The first boy she had ever looked at and thought, stupidly, desperately, maybe he actually sees me.

He came back in pieces.

Messy dark hair tied back in a careless ponytail that always looked like it was one bad mood away from falling apart. Tan skin that looked warm under the moonlight of Mytherion’s courtyards. Otherworldly pink eyes, too bright and too sharp, glowing with irritation like the entire world embarrassed him personally. A narrow, beautiful face that made him look delicate in a way he clearly hated, femboy pretty and lean and sharp around the edges, with a mouth always ready to sneer before it remembered it might want to smile.

He had been beautiful.

Alice hated that she still remembered that first.

She remembered him under the silver worldtree, golden leaves drifting around them while auroras rolled across the academy sky. He had stood with his hands shoved into the pocket of his hoodie, shoulders hunched, eyes turned away from her like looking at her directly might give something away.

“You’re late,” he’d muttered.

“You waited,” Alice had said.

“Don’t make it weird.”

That had been Jax. Always sharp. Always annoyed. Always acting like the things he chose were burdens someone else had **** on him. Alice had thought it was funny then. She had thought the rough edges meant there was something softer underneath. She had thought if he kept showing up, if he kept waiting, if he kept staying even while complaining about it, then that had to mean something.

The memories came faster.

Jax walking beside her after class, pretending he wasn’t matching her pace. Jax tossing her a drink after combat drills and telling her she looked like she was about to pass out. Jax sitting beside her in the infirmary with one knee bouncing, scowling at the floor while Melisse treated her injuries. Jax glaring at another student so hard the boy apologized before Jax ever had to speak. Jax calling her reckless. Jax waiting anyway. Jax saying, “You’re such a pain in the ass,” while offering her his jacket when the moonlit courtyard went cold.

She had thought that was love.

Or maybe she had just needed it to be.

Because the memories turned.

The first kiss, awkward and angry and too sudden, with him pulling back immediately afterward like he had been the one burned.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he’d snapped.

Alice, breathless and stupid, had grinned. “Wow. Romantic.”

“Shut up,” he’d said.

But he had not left.

The secret dates. The quiet corners. The place behind one of the white marble lecture halls where the worldtree’s roots glowed through the stone like veins of moonlit gold. The way he stood too far away in public and too close when nobody was watching. The way his hands trembled when he touched her, not in a way Alice understood back then, not in a way that made sense to a lonely academy girl **** to believe someone wanted her for herself.

At the time, she had thought he was nervous because she mattered.

Now all she could think was that he had been disgusted from the start.

She remembered giving herself to him.

Not in clean detail. Not in anything her mind wanted to look at directly. It came in flashes. Trust. Fear. Heat. The crushing, humiliating need to be wanted. The awful brightness of thinking, This is okay. He chose me. He wants me.

Then she remembered his face afterward.

The way his eyes had dropped.

The way his mouth had tightened.

The silence.

Then the word.

“Disgusting.”

The memory hit so hard Alice’s claws dug into the railing.

Cabal reacted instantly, curling tighter around her fingers before she could gouge the metal open.

She remembered the way Jax had said it. Not loud. That would have been easier. No, it had been quiet. Small. Like something slipped out before he could make it prettier. Like her body had betrayed some rule neither of them had written. Like the fact that she had a cock, the fact that she was born different, the fact that she was not the clean, simple fantasy he wanted to pretend she was, made her something wrong.

He had made her hate it.

That was the truth that still lived under her ribs like a rusted hook.

After Jax, she had started making herself smaller. Not all at once. A little every day. She hated mirrors. Hated changing clothes. Hated the shape of her own body. Hated the word “different” when adults said it gently, like kindness could make it stop cutting. She hated the way people talked around her instead of to her. She had wished, more than once, more than she could ever admit out loud without wanting to claw her own throat open, that she had been born a “normal” girl. Simple. Easy. Something no one had to explain. Something no one had to tolerate. Something no one had to be brave about wanting.

And now?

Now she had changed again.

Red skin. Horns. Fangs. Tail.A Stronger body. A cock she had been trying, stupidly, to feel proud of that morning in the mirror before Nox scared her half to ****. A body that should have felt powerful, should have felt like choice, but suddenly felt like another reason someone could look at her and recoil.

Alice’s breath caught.

The memories kept coming.

Jax laughing once, short and startled, when Alice made fun of professor Caerwyn’s robe. Jax pretending not to smile. Jax kissing her under aurora light. Jax flinching from her body. Jax calling her disgusting. Jax avoiding her afterward. Jax snapping cruel little comments in public, like he had to prove to everyone, maybe to himself, that whatever had happened between them had not meant anything.

And then the worst memory.

Not Jax.

Quin.

A conversation she had never been supposed to hear. A contract she had never been supposed to know existed. Her father’s name stamped across the foundations of the relationship like a brand. Jax had been placed near her. Encouraged. Rewarded. Paid, maybe not in something as crude as coins, but in opportunity, favor, access, academy advancement. Enough that the truth did not need to split hairs.

The relationship had been arranged.

Managed.

Orchestrated.

Alice had loved him, or thought she had, and all along her father’s hand had been behind the curtain.

None of it had been real.

Jax had dated her because Quin made it worth his while. He had touched her because there was something in it for him. He had smiled because he was supposed to. He had waited because someone powerful had nudged him into place.

And when the act got too real, when her body stopped being an arrangement and became something he had to face, he had looked at her and called her disgusting.

Alice had not known anything else then.

She did not know anything else now.

All she knew was that the first person she trusted with her body had made her feel like a mistake.

“Alice?” Melisse said softly.

She snapped back halfway.

Melisse was watching her now with all the playfulness gone from his face. His green eyes were careful, almost pained, like he had realized too late that he had touched a wound that was not scar tissue at all, but something still open beneath the skin.

Nox had already moved closer.

Alice barely noticed.

Her pulse was too loud.

The whirlpool’s song folded into it, deep and endless, turning the fortress into a throat around her. The obsidian walls reflected warped versions of her body from every angle. Horns. Tail. Red skin. Cabal’s black suit breathing against her. Too much. Too visible. Too wrong.

“No,” Alice said.

Melisse’s expression tightened. “Alice ”

“No.” Her voice sharpened, rising fast. “No, fuck no. You don’t get to just say that. You don’t get to drop that shit on me.”

“I thought you knew,” Melisse said quickly.

“I didn’t fucking know!”

Several nearby Guild workers turned.

Alice didn’t care.

Her tail lashed behind her and slammed into a metal brace hard enough to ring the whole walkway. Cabal tried to redirect it, but her body was already spiraling, every new Oni instinct turning panic into motion, motion into rage, rage back into panic until she couldn’t tell what she was feeling anymore.

“He’s in there?” she demanded, voice cracking. “Jax is fucking in there?”

“Probably,” Melisse said, quiet and careful now. “Not confirmed. But he’s one of the strongest up and coming adventurers in Ikos. The Reliquary draws people like that. Guilds want promising names attached to S rank expeditions, even if they’re only operating in support zones. If there’s a rotating academy or young elite detachment involved, his name would be near the top.”

Strongest up and coming adventurers in Ikos.

Of course.

Of fucking course.

The boy who had made her feel like a broken thing was out there becoming exactly what the academy had wanted him to be. Talented. Recognized. Worth investing in. Worth sending into an S rank dungeon because he had become someone important.

And Alice was here too, but she felt thirteen again.

Small.

Wrong.

Humiliated.

Alice’s vision tunneled.

She saw Jax’s pink eyes. His sneer. His hands shoved in his hoodie pocket. His face under golden leaves. His absence. Her father’s contract. The shape of herself in a mirror after he left.

Her lungs stopped working right.

“Fuck,” she gasped. “Fuck, fuck, fuck ”

Nox was in front of her immediately.

“My lady.”

“I can’t,” Alice snapped, though she wasn’t sure at what. “I can’t see him. I can’t fucking see him. Not like this. Not with this body. Not after ” Her voice broke, and that made her angrier. “Gods damn it, I can’t breathe.”

Nox reached for her, then paused half a second, waiting for the smallest sign of permission.

Alice grabbed her first.

She fisted both hands in Nox’s uniform and dragged herself against her like someone clinging to the edge of a cliff. Nox’s arms closed around her at once, firm and steady, one hand bracing the back of Alice’s neck, the other pressing between her shoulder blades.

Cabal tightened under Alice’s skin, a second embrace beneath the first.

You are here, Cabal whispered. You are not there. The academy is not here. He is not here. Breathe.

“Shut the fuck up,” Alice choked, but she tried.

It didn’t work at first.

Her breath came in broken little pulls. Her body shook with the **** of it, tail curling tight around her own leg like it needed something to bind. Her horns pressed awkwardly near Nox’s shoulder. Her face burned. Her eyes stung. She hated every second of being seen like this and could not stop.

Melisse stood close, hands visible, voice low. “I am sorry. I should have led with more care.”

Alice laughed once, wet and ugly. “Yeah? No shit, watermelon boy.”

Melisse blinked.

Even through the panic, Alice realized what she had said.

Nox’s hand stilled against her back.

Cabal went very, very quiet.

Melisse’s mouth parted slightly, then curved in the gentlest, most devastating smile Alice had ever seen.

“Watermelon boi~?” he asked.

Alice made a strangled sound and shoved her face harder against Nox. “I’m having a panic attack. You are legally not allowed to be smug.”

“I am not smug,” Melisse said.

“You are.”

“I am touched.”

“That’s worse!”

A faint laugh escaped her.

Tiny. Broken. Barely there.

But real.

Nox’s hold tightened just enough to acknowledge it.

Alice kept breathing. Badly at first. Then better. The whirlpool still sang. The fortress still watched. The possibility of Jax waited somewhere ahead like a blade left under a pillow.

But she was not at Mytherion.

She was not thirteen.

She was not alone under the worldtree, trying to understand why someone had pretended to want her and then made her hate the body they had pretended to want.

She was here.

Older. Angrier. Red skinned and horned and shaking in the arms of a centaur maid

Nox did not ask permission to escort her away from the railing.

She simply moved.

One moment Alice was still trying to breathe through the aftershock of Jax’s name, face hot, eyes wet, pride lying dead somewhere under the obsidian. The next, Nox’s hand settled firmly at the small of her back, guiding her with calm, unarguable pressure with such absolute certainty that Alice’s body obeyed before her brain had finished processing what was happening.

“The dungeon can wait,” Nox said.

Alice blinked, still unsteady. “What?”

“You are compromised.”

“Fuck you, I am not compromised.”

“You are shaking.”

“I’m pissed.”

“You are also shaking.”

Alice opened her mouth to snap something vicious back, but her breath caught halfway through it, and that was worse than losing the argument. Nox saw it. Of course she saw it. The centaur maid always noticed too much, always filed it away behind that unreadable face, always moved like she knew exactly where Alice’s edges were even when Alice herself didn’t.

Melisse watched them go, hands still visible, expression soft but mercifully quiet. For once, he did not chase the last word. He only dipped his head, pale pink hair sliding over one green eye, the heart tip of his tail curling anxiously behind him.

“I’ll inform the others you needed a moment,” he said.

Alice hated how grateful she was.

She managed a hoarse, “Yeah. Whatever.”

Nox guided her back through the fortress corridor and onto the connected airship passage. The walk blurred. Obsidian reflections. Metal ribs. Guild workers moving aside. The distant thrum of the whirlpool. Every few steps Alice’s tail twitched, but Cabal kept catching it, gently tightening along the base of her spine, redirecting motion before she smashed more shit.

By the time they reached the captain’s cabin, Alice felt less like she had walked there and more like she had been delivered.

The door slid shut behind them with a soft hiss.

Instant privacy.

Too much privacy.

Alice turned sharply. “Okay, I’m fine. I just needed ”

Nox was already moving.

Not toward the wardrobe this time.

Toward her saddlebag.

Alice’s mouth went dry as Nox opened a side compartment and withdrew a coil of dark rope.

Ninja rope.

Soft, matte black, braided with faint threads of mana silk that caught the cabin light in tiny silver flashes. It looked practical. Professional. Something meant for climbing, restraint, emergency extraction, silent captures in the dark.

In Nox’s hands, it looked like a threat and a promise.

Alice stared. “Oh, fuck no.”

Nox’s ears flicked once. “You have not heard the proposal.”

“I saw rope. I can infer.”

Nox stepped closer, the coil resting neatly over one arm. Her face remained composed, but her eyes had changed. Not soft now. Not exactly. There was heat there, focused and controlled, wrapped in discipline the way a blade was wrapped in a sheath.

“You are spiraling,” Nox said. “Your mind is moving too quickly. Your body is trying to flee, fight, and collapse at the same time.”

Alice swallowed hard. “Wow. Thanks. Love being emotionally diagnosed by my horny horse maid.”

“I can help.”

“By tying me up?”

“By giving your body something clear to understand,” Nox replied calmly. “Limits. Pressure. Stillness. Obedience.”

Alice’s face burned. “You are making that sound way hotter than it has any right to be.”

“That is intentional.”

“Bitch.”

“Yes.”

The answer was so immediate, so unashamed, that Alice almost laughed. Almost. But her chest still hurt. Jax’s name was still there, hooked behind her ribs. Her memories were still flashing in sharp, ugly little shards. Golden leaves. Pink eyes. A sneer. Her father’s contract. Her own reflection turning red and horned and monstrous.

Nox stepped close enough that Alice had to tilt her head back slightly to meet her gaze.

“I could bind you,” Nox said, voice low. “Not as punishment. Not unless you ask for that. As containment. As care.” The rope shifted through her fingers with a whisper. “A simple Shibari. Arms supported. Chest open. Legs grounded. Nothing you cannot leave. Nothing you cannot end with a word.”

Alice’s pulse hammered.

Cabal stirred, attentive but not alarmed.

Nox continued, quieter. “I could hold you. Or fetch Melisse. Or do nothing. You choose.”

That was the part that made Alice’s throat tighten.

The choice.

The lack of pressure beneath the dominance.

Nox could look at her like that, could stand there with rope in hand and command humming in every inch of her posture, but the actual power remained offered, not taken. It made the whole thing feel more dangerous, not less.

Alice wrapped her arms around herself. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“Yes.”

“At least fucking lie.”

“No.”

Alice let out a shaky laugh, then immediately hated how close it came to a sob.

“Let me fuck away the pain”

Nox’s expression did not change.

But one ear flicked.

Alice narrowed her eyes through the tears. “Wait. Is that a song lyric?”

“No.”

“You hesitated.”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did. You quote music now? Is that a maid thing? A ninja thing? A freaky horse thing?”

Nox’s mouth twitched. “It is a useful phrase.”

Alice barked a laugh despite herself, sharp and ugly and relieved all at once. “Gods, you’re fucking impossible.”

“For you,” Nox said, “I try.”

The warmth that hit Alice then was almost worse than the panic.

Because she wanted to give in.

She wanted to let Nox take the choice out of her hands for a little while. Let the rope replace the shaking. Let the pressure of knots and hands and a voice telling her what to do drown out Jax, Quin, Mytherion, the mirror, the whirlpool, all of it. She wanted something simple. Touch here. Breathe there. Hold still. Good girl. Safe.

And that terrified her.

Because everything she touched got complicated.

Yamaba had been complicated before Alice even knew what she wanted. Jax had been fake and cruel and still somehow left good memories rotting inside the bad ones. Her father loved like a contract. Her family stabbed at breakfast. Her armor was alive. Her maid was also her mount, bodyguard, maybe girlfriend, maybe mistress, maybe something Alice did not have a word for and was too afraid to name.

And now she was an Oni.

That thought rose like a nightmare.

Alice froze.

Nox noticed instantly. “Alice.”

“No,” Alice whispered.

The rope lowered.

“What is it?”

Alice backed up a step, claws flexing. “The Oni orc thing.”

Nox’s gaze sharpened.

Alice’s breathing started to slip again, faster now, panic changing shape. “The shop said things. I remember it said things. Musk. Saliva. Sweat. Jizz. Addictive chemistry. Bioactive bullshit.” She pressed both hands to her head. “Fuck. Fuck, what if that’s happening?”

Nox stilled.

Alice stared at her, horror spreading cold through the heat in her veins. “What if you’re not choosing this? What if my body is making you want me? What if I’m fucking drugging you just by existing?”

Nox’s expression shifted.

Only slightly.

But Alice saw it.

Concern.

Not fear for herself. Fear for Alice.

“I knew this was a mistake,” Alice said, voice cracking. “I knew I shouldn’t have bought it. I fucking knew it. I spent all my points like an idiot, turned myself into a monster, and now I’m going to ruin this too.”

“Alice,” Nox said, firmer.

“No. Don’t.” Alice’s hands shook as she snapped open her system panel. Gold light spilled across the cabin, reflecting off the panoramic glass and the polished table. “There has to be a refund. A rollback. Race reversion. Something. There has to be something.”

The panel unfolded.

Cabal tightened across her chest, worried.

Nox did not touch her.

Good.

Bad.

Alice didn’t know anymore.

The shop interface appeared with its familiar predatory elegance, gold rimmed panels opening like a casino pretending to be a holy text.

[CASH SHOP]

Dice’s voice slid in, delighted and immediately unbearable.

(Ohhh, we’re doing buyer’s remorse already? That was fast. Usually people wait at least one dungeon.)

Alice snarled at the panel. “Refund Oni.”

The menu chimed.

[REQUEST: RACE PURCHASE REFUND]

Purchased Lineage: ONI Greater Orc Variant

Purchase Status: Completed

Biological Integration: Active

Soul Template Adjustment: Active

Trait Expression: Ongoing

Refund Eligibility: LOL

Alice stared.

“…Did it just say fucking LOL?”

Dice continued brightly.

(Yes! Because you are trying to return a fully integrated biological rewrite like it’s a jacket that didn’t fit. Sweetheart, you grew horns. The receipt is in your bones.)

Alice’s hands curled into fists.

“Can I reverse it?”

A second panel opened.

[RACE REVERSAL OPTIONS]

Option 1: Full Reversion Procedure

Cost: 240 Attribute Points

Requirements: Licensed Soul Surgeon, Stabilized Identity Anchor, 3 7 Recovery Days

Risks: Phantom Limb Syndrome, Mana Rejection, Emotional Instability, Possible Loss of Integrated Adaptations

Option 2: Suppression Seal toggle

Cost: 40 Attribute Points

Effect: Temporarily dampens selected racial traits

Duration: 24 hours per activation

Notes: Physical traits remain. Horns stay. Tail stays. Stop asking.

Option 3: Trait Regulation Training

Cost: Free

Effect: Learn self control like an adult

Duration: Ongoing

Difficulty: Hilarious

Dice sounded far too pleased.

(Recommended option: maybe don’t panic delete your character build five minutes after unlocking emotional volume settings.)

Alice’s vision blurred. “Fuck you.”

(That is not currently a shop option.)

“Dice.”

(Okay, okay. Fine. Actual useful note, because watching you emotionally explode is only funny when it isn’t derailing the content.)

The panel shifted again.

[ONI BIOACTIVE TRAITS CLARIFICATION]

Passive pheromone expression is currently: LOW

Combat/heat/stress expression: VARIABLE

Addiction risk requires sustained exposure, repeated exchange, or deliberate activation

Current nearby bonded individuals show no **** dependency markers

Nox: No addiction marker detected

Cabal: Already inside you, different problem

General crew: Minimal exposure

Dice added:

(Translation: no, your centaur maid is not a mind controlled horse wife because you got red and spicy ....well not yet, She likes you because she has eyes and questionable taste.)

Alice stopped breathing for a second.

Then dragged in air too fast.

Nox stepped closer, slow enough that Alice could refuse.

“You see?” Nox said quietly.

Alice stared at the panel.

No addiction marker detected.

The words should have helped.

They did.

They also made her feel stupid, which made her angry, which made her feel worse, because apparently that was her entire emotional cycle now.

“I still could,” Alice whispered. “If I’m stressed. If I’m not careful. If I ”

“Yes,” Nox said.

Alice looked up sharply.

Nox held her gaze.

“You could hurt someone if careless,” she said. “So could I. So could Melisse. So could your father. So could anyone with power.” Her voice lowered. “That is not the same as having already done so.”

Alice’s throat worked.

Nox set the rope down on the table.

Deliberately.

A choice put aside.

“I want you,” Nox said plainly.

Alice flinched like the words hit.

Nox continued anyway. “Not because of pheromones. Not because of your pheromones. Not because of Cabal. Not because of your father. I wanted you when you were smaller. I want you now. I will want you if you change again.”

Alice’s eyes burned. “You can’t know that.”

“I know myself.”

“That must be fucking nice.”

“It is useful.”

Alice laughed, broken and quiet.

The system panel still hovered beside them.

Dice, for once, did not interrupt.

Alice looked at the rope. Then at Nox. Then at her own hands, red and clawed, trembling despite all the strength packed into them.

“I don’t know what decision to make,” she admitted. “About you. About this body. About Jax. About the dungeon. About anything. Every time I choose something, it turns into a fucking mess.”

Nox nodded once. “Then make one small decision.”

Alice swallowed. “Like what?”

“Sit,” Nox said.

Not seductive now.

Still dominant. Still firm.

But gentle underneath.

Alice hesitated.