Key did not like V. Key disliked the visitor so much that it would have been amusing, were they not currently stuck together and trying to figure out how to get to the next area. Emilia wasn’t even sure why the Enclave boy disliked V so much, given the dislike had been palpable since practically the moment V had appeared. Key couldn’t even understand what V was saying, for stars sake!

“So…” Emilia started as they walked along the sea cavern tunnel. She had been forced to plant herself squarely between the two boys, after Key had refused to stop glaring and bumping shoulders with the other man. Even worse, every time Key bumped into V he would wipe his shoulder and make a disgusted face. This was somewhat fair, given how much mud was currently caking V, but also! Rude! “Where did your babysitter go?” she finished asking, smiling at V and trying to ignore the angry energy radiating off Key.

V smiled back at her, his teeth oddly clean compared to the rest of him. He’d grown even dirtier over the last few hours, explaining that he’d ended up crawling through a small, maze-like cave system and a portion had been flooded with water and mud.

“Honestly? I’m not sure if my babysitter turned back or is still stuck in there…” V mused, gazing upwards as they walked down the twisting path. “There was a section that was really tight, and I didn’t think he’d make it, so I told him to turn back. I’m actually a little surprised I made it!” he laughed, eyes crinkling as though he weren’t talking about potentially dying a slow death, stuck in a cave.

“Did you cave in the real world?” Emilia asked, curious about whether the labyrinth really were designing these challenges specifically for each person or not.

“Not in the real world,” V told her, “but I used to be really into this game that involved caving. It was one of the early ones, from before they sorted out how to emulate humans so well? Really dark shit. A lot of the caves were designed to kill you. Some had monsters, too. It expanded over the years but, ah… it’s not really playable anymore.”

Emilia frowned up at him, wondering what detail he was obviously leaving out. He was taller than both her and Key—just slightly too short for her to be tucked under his chin.

Not that that was on the agenda.

“That sounds horrible,” she said, fighting down a smile when he laughed and explained that he’d had a few rough years after the war and buried himself in gaming to cope.

“Did you play many of the early games?” he asked, eyes sparkling as he listened to Emilia tell him that she hadn’t.

“I also had a few rough years after the war,” she admitted, something about the slight anonymity of the situation making her more open about herself and her past than she normally was. “I avoided pretty much everything scary for a while. Even moved to one of the cities that rarely get echoes, eventually.”

V’s eyes flickered, his smile flattered slightly. “I think I was the exact opposite.”

“The astoundingly different ways people deal with trauma~” Emilia teased, bumping shoulders with him. “Did you find what you needed in the scary games?”

“And real-world raids,” V said, smile breaking out across his face again. So wide and carefree. “And yes. They did give me what I needed. I always felt a little… lacking, during the war. I was a good soldier, but…” he trailed off, and Emilia didn’t need him to say anything more to know what he meant.

You could be a great soldier, and it was still never enough. Or, it was for some people. People without hearts. Emilia had never liked those people, instead surrounding herself with people who had always been training—always been trying to be just the slightest bit better. That had created a whole different set of problems in their unit, however. Some of them grew and learned so fast, it was inevitable that many of their slower members felt useless and left behind for much of the war… especially in the later years.

“It might not matter that much,” V continued, feet scuffing over the ground as they moved, “but I’m good at games—I’m really great at real-world raids.”

“I hate real-world raids,” Emilia sighed, sagging dramatically and startling when Key caught her arm, eyes wide and concerned. “Ah… sorry,” she said and signed at him. It really was rude to be excluding him so much from the conversation, but it wasn’t like he could hear them, and even if she signed everything, it wasn’t like he’d be able to catch most of it…

Okay, maybe that was part of why he disliked V so much—the exclusion that naturally came with being around two people with more in common and the ability to easily communicate.

“Ah… how long do you think this goes for?” she asked each of them, her signs coming out as something closer to “Where this go?”

⸂Why would I know where it goes?⸃ Key grumbled, because apparently he was now in a mood and not willing to read between the lines of her easy-peasy signing.

“I assume it goes to the next part of the place,” V offered, blinking awkwardly between Emilia and Key, and she abruptly realized that Key had only spoken to her. Great. Now she was effectively stuck with a sulking child as her babysitter.

“Maybe if we’re lucky, it’ll go to the heartcore,” she said, stalling out when she got to heartcore and had to make a new sign for it.

Key, at the very least, enjoyed that, and they spent several minutes going through potential options for the sign, eventually ending on a grasping motion—which was itself part of a sign used for acquiring power from something—that moved between the signer’s core and heart.

Her friend smiled at her as they laughed and made the sign together, but it was short-lived, his amusement dropping away the moment V spoke and drew her attention away.

Emilia wanted to sigh. This was too much like the time she’d been stuck having dinner with Olivier and her ex. It had been after the two had gotten into a fight and ended up spending the night in the brig as a result. It was supposed to be a peaceful meeting—a mending of bridges between two of the people she cared the most for. Instead, she’d spent the evening being pulled between their conversations because they refused to speak to each other in anything more than snorts and snide remarks.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

This was worse, because neither she nor V could talk to Key and Key was refusing to talk to V! That said, at least Key was a veritable child. It wasn’t a good excuse for his behaviour, but at least it was something. Her ex and Olivier had both been adults, acting like spoiled children, forced to make nice with their worst enemy!

“What’s a heartcore?” V asked again, because she’d been too distracted mulling over the stupid men in her life to have acknowledged him the first time.

“Wait, you haven’t come across any yet?” Emilia asked, blinking widely at him.

“Should I have?”

“Well… maybe not? But— wait. Does that mean you can’t hear the locals speaking?” Not that not being able to hear locals would have helped him with Key, given Key was speaking only to her.

V smiled somewhat tightly at her. “I assume you’re not referring to the way some of the Risen Guard and Enclave members speak?”

“No… wait. Why did your babysitter even tell you you’re here for, if not to find the heartcore?”

The man shrugged. “He just said something about this being a first step. He’s not the most talkative of fellows.”

Emilia’s stepped stuttered. Fellows. It was just a word, but it was an odd word, and her mind raced as it tried to track down every memory she had of someone using it in a sentence. It was such a rare wording that she was certain that if she figured out where people used it, she could narrow down who V was—or at least who the man reminded her of!

Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of anything concrete, and V was continuing to talk, complaining about how secretive the Enclave was. She really needed to listen.

“How’re these guys?”

Emilia signed, gazing into the distance of the tunnel. It was a lot like the other tunnels she’d encountered in this place: dark, boring and long. “They’re nice, although I think Key isn’t quite at the age where he would be properly taught all he needs to know.”

Key perked up at the mention of his name—at seeing the sign Emilia had given him float through her hands—and their conversation briefly derailed while she tried to get him at least partially to what they were talking about. Mostly, what she got to him understanding was she thought he was too young, which was neither entirely accurate nor entirely inaccurate, and he went back to pouting.

“Too young indeed…” V whispered, as though Emilia didn’t need yet another reason to suspect they knew each other in the real world—her attempts to communicate with Key had been entirely in sign language, and V was either just as fast a learner as Key was, or he already had some knowledge of her signing.

She glared at him. V smiled back as though nothing were amiss. Fucker.

“So, why did they stick you with someone too young?”

“His grandmother hates me,” Emilia replied, still glaring daggers at V. At the very least, Key had noticed her annoyance with the other man and had perked up. “She doesn’t think I’m suited for this, so wouldn’t support me as their candidate. She straight up told Key to keep me out of her sight.”

“Dude, what did you do to piss her off so much?” V asked, expression so incredulous that Emilia added another item to her list of reasons they likely knew each other: He was shocked anyone could potentially find her wanting. Well, that at least narrowed it down a bit. Most of the people she’d met in the last decade found her wanting, so V was probably someone from her old life.

Emilia shrugged, looking off into the distance of the tunnel, where a small surge of energy had drawn her attention. “I cried because they kill people who miscarry or have irregular periods.”

The anger that flooded out of V was, quite frankly, shocking. Where she had been upset and saddened by the reality of what locals did to those who bled outside of schedule, V was…

⸂What is his problem?⸃ Key asked, his hand wrapping around Emilia’s arm and pulling her away from the fuming man.

Emilia made a series of signs and general movements that she hoped conveyed that she’d told him about their conversation regarding the killing of locals by the Risen Guard.

⸂Oh…⸃ the sound came out was more a breath across her core, intimate and… something. Something she couldn’t quite put her fingers on, but when Emilia glanced away from V to Key, she saw it in the boy’s eyes: respect, and perhaps a healthy dose of hero worship.

My, how fast the little local boy changed his tune, although, given the way he had also spoken passionately on the topic, it was perhaps unsurprising that he would appreciate V’s anger.

⸂Is it normal,⸃ he asked, throat bobbing as he swallowed around whatever else he was feeling, ⸂for men from your world to become so upset on the part of women?⸃

There was so much in there for Emilia to respond to, and now, inside this cavern without a proper way to communicate, was definitely not the time. Instead, she signed, “It’s complicated,” to him, along with the sign for later—which they’d spent a portion of their descent deciphering, since it had seemed liable to become a necessary sign. They’d used it a few times as they made their way downwards, once when Key had been telling her about his adventures in less than approved diving, as well as when Emilia had tried to ask him what magic types he specialized in, wanting to know if it really was air and water or not.

Key nodded, although he seemed to be paying very little attention to her, his eyes glued to V instead.

“Are you alright?” Emilia asked after whatever internal battle the other visitor had been having seemed to come to an end.

V shook his head. “No. That is…” He ran a hand through his hair, still wet mud flicking off it. “The Enclave family that grabbed me implied there were some pretty nasty things going on with the Risen Guard, but…”

“But they didn’t say it was that bad,” Emilia finished, thinking back to her own conversation with Key and Rin. “I mostly found out because this guy and the girl from before were arguing about whether the Risen Guard has good intentions or not.”

The man hummed in thought, eyes vacant as they walked. It was so different than before. Before, he had been cheerful and smiling, seemingly having no cares until his babysitter had appeared. It had been the same when he’d reappeared. He was all smiles and laughter until he wasn’t.

“I think the lower level Risen Guard care,” he finally said, smile sad as he looked at her. “My assigned guard was nice enough. I almost think we could have been friends. Then…”

“Then he wasn’t?”

V blinked at her, too thick eyebrows pulling together. They messed with the balance of his face, just like his double dimples did. “No. Then the Enclave killed him and made me make a weapon from his blood.”

Emilia’s steps faltered and Key pulled to a stop beside her, eyes shifting between her and V in concern. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to V. He wasn’t looking at her, instead simply staring off into the distance, no smile or amusement to be found on his face.

“Well, collateral damage and all that,” he said, shooting her a sharp smile. “Yo, Taoran! Glad to see you aren’t gonna be rotting away in that tunnel for the rest of time!”

From the dark, V’s Enclave babysitter stepped into view.

⸂Uncle,⸃ Key squeaked from beside her, his entire body pulling taut.

Emilia looked between the two of them, finding not a shred of resemblance, as Taoran barely spared her friend a glance.

⸄We are leaving,⸅ he said to V, his long, black jacket flying wide as he turned, expecting V to follow.

V did, but his steps were so slow that Emilia knew he must be fucking with the man—the man who had possibly killed his Risen Guard babysitter.

The man who had possibly killed someone he was friendly with, and almost certainly supported it.