Chapter 83 | Thank You

Chapter 83: Chapter 83 | Thank You

Shira found out at breakfast.

Her phone was propped against her bowl. She had been doing this for a week — reading while she ate. Kai had noticed and said nothing.

She stopped mid-spoonful.

She looked at the screen.

Kai looked at her.

"Three hundred comments," she said.

He waited.

"On the Webb article." She set her spoon down. "In twelve hours."

"I saw it last night," Kai said.

She looked at the screen.

She read something. He couldn’t see what.

Then she put the phone face-down and picked up her spoon and ate.

That was all.

But the line of her jaw was doing something it had not done before and he filed it away without saying anything about it.

====

Mira came out seven minutes late.

She sat. Found her bowl. Ate two spoonfuls.

The board appeared.

Denko sent me the article at midnight.

"I know," Kai said.

I didn’t sleep.

Shira said, to her bowl: "Neither did I."

Mira looked at Shira.

Shira looked at her bowl.

The board came up again. Mira pushed it to the center of the table so both of them could read it.

They’re saying both our names. Like before.

Shira set her spoon down.

She looked at the board for a long moment.

"Let them say it," she said.

She picked her spoon back up.

========

Carson called at nine.

"The formal record correction is official," he said. "Goes in the archive today. And the investigation committee wants to accelerate the unsealing — weeks not months."

"She should know," Kai said.

"I figured," Carson said.

Kai hung up.

He went to Shira’s door. Three knocks.

"Come in."

She was at the desk with a notebook he hadn’t seen before. She closed it when he came in.

He told her. Formal record. Archive. Weeks.

She was quiet.

Then she opened the notebook.

He looked at the page.

One name. Written in her handwriting. Underlined.

The wind-type provisional. One year out of Vanguard.

Below it — the date of the expedition.

"I found her name in the roster Denko sent," Shira said. "I wanted it written somewhere that wasn’t a legal document."

He looked at the name.

He left.

He made tea.

His hands were very steady and that was the only thing he could do with them right now so he did it.

=====

Denko called at eleven.

"Two other heroes contacted the authority this morning," Denko said. "Independently. Both had unusual classification assessments in Renmei-adjacent dungeons in the three years after the incident. Both want to file statements."

Kai was quiet.

"The Renmei family didn’t do this once," Denko said.

Kai looked at Mira’s door.

"I’m telling them," he said.

He knocked. Mira opened it with the board ready like she had been waiting.

He said: two other heroes, independently, three years of it, the case is bigger than them.

She held the board.

She wrote slowly.

She held it up.

It was never just us.

"No," Kai said.

She lowered the board.

She wrote: Shira needs to hear this with me there.

He looked at her.

She was already moving toward the hallway.

=

Shira listened without saying anything.

When Kai finished she was looking at the window.

Mira’s board appeared.

We weren’t alone in that dungeon. We weren’t alone after either.

Shira looked at the board.

A long moment.

"No," she said.

Then she looked at Mira directly. Not at the board. At Mira.

"You felt the node," Shira said. "Before the escalation. What frequency."

Mira blinked.

She picked up the marker.

Then she put it down.

"Eight-forty," she said.

Out loud.

One word and a number. At fourteen percent. Barely there.

Shira looked at her.

Mira’s ears went immediately red. She looked at the wall.

Shira looked at the window.

"Same range as your Gift base," Shira said. Completely matter of fact. "That’s why you felt it before anyone else."

Mira stared at the wall.

She picked up the marker.

She put it down again.

Kai looked at the kitchen doorway.

He went to make lunch.

===

Dorothy Callahan knocked at two.

Reading glasses on her head. Container in both hands.

"I saw the article," she said. "The canyon record." She held out the container. "Rice porridge."

Kai took it.

She looked past him into the apartment.

"Is she alright," Dorothy said.

"She will be," Kai said.

Dorothy nodded.

She turned to go.

"Dorothy," Kai said.

She turned back.

"The noodle shop on the east commercial block," he said. "Green awning."

She looked at him.

"My husband and I went there every anniversary," she said. "For eleven years."

She turned and went back to two-twelve, already humming.

Kai closed the door.

He stood in the hallway.

From the living room Shira said: "Dorothy."

"Yes," Kai said.

"What did she bring."

"Porridge."

A pause.

"Did she approve of the floor joins," Shira said.

"She approved of them weeks ago," Kai said.

Another pause.

"Good," Shira said.

==

Lunch.

All three of them.

Mira’s tea went cold. She was eating and the board was face-down and she kept looking at the table.

Halfway through Shira said, out of nowhere: "The noodle shop."

Mira looked up.

"Green awning," Shira said. "When the investigation goes public. First place."

Mira picked up the marker fast. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

I already chose it. You took my choice.

"I suggested it first," Shira said.

You suggested it after I thought of it.

"That’s not how choices work."

It is absolutely how choices work.

Shira looked at her directly.

"Three years ago," she said.

Good ideas take time.

Shira opened her mouth.

She closed it.

She ate.

Kai was looking at his bowl. He was not smiling. He was entirely unsuccessful.

Mira picked up her tea. It was cold. She drank it anyway. Deeply unbothered.

==

That evening Kai’s phone buzzed once.

Hero authority notification.

Canyon Dungeon Record — Official Correction Filed.Previous record: 43 minutes.Corrected record: 41 minutes.Solo completion.Hero: Shira Voss.

He read it.

He walked to the living room doorway.

Shira was at the window. The city doing its evening thing outside.

He held the phone out toward her.

She looked at it.

She read it.

She read it again.

She handed the phone back without saying anything.

She looked at the window.

Then: "Thank you."

Not to him specifically. Just — to the room. To the air.

He put the phone in his pocket.

He went to make dinner.

Behind him the window light caught the line of her jaw and it was the soft version entirely with nothing underneath it at all.