Back at HQ, the team reported their mission as a success, omitting Deleo's appearance and the unsettling revelations they'd agreed to keep secret.

With everyone on edge, Val, Ember, and Exeo retreated to the Bellator manor, where Val could rest and recuperate, while Bo and Riggs found their own reprieve at the underground HQ.

Alone in his room, Val lay on his bed, feeling the weight of exhaustion settle over him, yet his mind was restless. Inwardly, he addressed the presence he knew would respond.

"Deleo," he began, breaking the silence, "I saw what happened during the mission. Why can't I remember the other times you took over?"

A pause. Then Deleo's voice came, low and steady. "Your body hasn't been able to withstand the power of the Void—until now. You've unlocked layers of the seal over your eyes, so the backlash was minimal this time. That's why your consciousness didn't fade away."

Val processed this, thinking back to the intense sensation of sharing his own body. "So… the reason they managed to extract Void power to put in that stone and… in Bo was because Reinhart was killed."

This time, Deleo was silent for a long moment. Val sensed the shift in his tone, tinged with a sadness that seemed almost foreign to the dark entity.

"What were… his last words?" Deleo asked quietly.

Val blinked, startled by the question. "Reinhart?"

"Yes."

"Oh… I couldn't tell exactly. The memory was chaotic. But I think… he was injured when it happened."

Another long silence followed. Val felt the ache of a thousand unspoken memories ripple through Deleo.

Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, Deleo continued, "Reinhart was the only one I knew who faced the Void head-on, even knowing the toll it would take. The Bellators before him," he chuckled faintly, the sound hollow, "they broke far too easily. But Reinhart… he kept his head high even when the Void wanted him for itself."

Val felt the hint of guilt and sadness woven into Deleo's words, a fear almost trembling at the edges.

The Deleo in Reinhart's dreams had seemed relentless and forceful. Yet here, speaking softly into the quiet room, Deleo sounded like someone haunted by the weight of ages and choices.

Val frowned, noting the contrast. "Deleo… you sound different from how you are in the dreams."

Deleo's silence held an answer of its own, the darkness around Val as still and thoughtful as the quiet in his own heart.

Deleo was silent for a long time, his presence humming quietly in Val's mind like a distant storm on the verge of breaking. .

When he finally spoke, his words were threaded with a heaviness that felt like confession.

"It's easy to look fearless in memories, isn't it?" His tone was almost self-mocking, an echo of something ancient.

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"Reinhart's will—the part of him that still reaches you—chooses to show you my strength, my purpose. But this?" His voice softened, dropping into a tone Val had never heard from him before.

"This is what's left when no one is watching. Reinhart… was my only equal and my only burden. And I…" He trailed off, words collapsing into a silence so dense it felt like an open wound.

In that brief hesitation, Val sensed the weight of what lay unspoken. The Void had seen countless lives, claimed unnumbered souls, but Reinhart had been something different.

Deleo's hesitation, his reluctance, revealed a flicker of attachment—a bond.

When he finally continued, his voice was quieter, as if speaking a truth only the shadows could bear. "He wasn't meant to be just a vessel. Not to me. I… saw his resilience, his foolish loyalty, his defiance, and… he never once treated me as the curse everyone else believed I was."

A faint quiver trembled through Deleo's words, more feeling than sound, a glimpse into the centuries he'd spent without that presence beside him.

"Reinhart… he understood the Void as no one else ever did. Not just as a weapon or a burden but as… something more. And when he accepted it, he accepted me—in ways that went beyond what even he understood."

Val's heart tightened as he listened, sensing for the first time that Deleo's attachment to Reinhart went far beyond simple duty or convenience. The bond between them, shaped through years of shared silence, defiance, and struggle, was more than the dark connection between wielder and weapon.

To Deleo, Reinhart had been a companion—a rare kindred soul bound to him through purpose and isolation.

"You were more than a burden to him," Val said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. "He saw purpose in what he did, even knowing it would cost him everything. You… you weren't just his burden. You were his strength."

A long pause stretched between them. Deleo's presence, usually so fierce and invasive, felt muted, contemplative. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, almost unwilling to admit what Val already sensed.

"Perhaps I was his strength," Deleo replied softly. "Or perhaps he was mine. We kept each other from the edge of ruin, in ways neither of us could admit."

The rawness in his words was unmistakable, a glimmer of the person he might have been if the Void hadn't twisted and reshaped him. But with it came a deep-seated regret, an ache that throbbed beneath the surface.

"He was the only one," Deleo murmured, voice laced with an ancient sorrow, "who could walk that path beside me. And when he fell… a part of me went with him."

Val sat with the realization, a heaviness settling in his chest as he absorbed Deleo's rare vulnerability.

The Deleo who haunted his dreams, fierce and unyielding, was only half the truth. There was another side—a side shaped by loss, by the memory of Reinhart and the unspoken bond they'd shared.

"Thank you," Val said softly, not entirely sure if the words were his or Reinhart's will reaching through him.

Deleo's voice, quiet and resigned, slipped away into the dark corners of Val's mind.

"Hold onto that strength, Val. It's all I have left to give."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After Val's serious talk with Deleo last night, his emotions were all over the place. While the three brothers sat down for a breakfast, Val was so out of it that Ember kept calling him.

"Huh? What did you say, brother?"

Exeo who just scrutinized Val silently, he let Ember talk. "I said, are you okay? You look out of it since you woke up."

Val ate some of his food, and then spoke up, "I'm sorry. I just..." he put down the fork and knife he was holding on the table, then ran his hands through his face.

He said, "Can I use the gym later? I feel suffocated lately. Not that I don't like it here. I mean, I needed to release some of this tension I'm feeling, which I don't even know." and sighed heavily, leaning back his head.

Ember and Exeo exchanged looks at each other, and while Exeo resumed eating his food, Ember took this cue to reply, "Sure, it's no problem. Would you like a spar with me later?"

Val just nodded, and instead of finishing his meal, he stood up, and said, "I'm going there now. You can come once you're done, Em."

When Ember heard the nickname their youngest brother had called him, he choked. He looked up and was about to say something, but it was already too late as Val had already gone to the gym, with the door just shut closed.

"Since when did he start calling me that instead of brother? That brat..." Ember muttered while continuing his meal.