Chapter 51| Give It A Rest

Chapter 51: Chapter 51| Give It A Rest

"What are you?," Nyx asked.

Not who. Not what’s your Sigil classification. What are you? The framing of someone who had already moved past the registration question and was asking something more fundamental about the category itself.

Zane looked at her for a long moment.

’She deserves something real,’ he thought. ’Not everything. But something real. She’s been running this investigation with more patience and precision than anyone else in this building and she’s been right about the correlation since week two. She earned a real answer, that’s something a simp would say.’

He exhaled slowly.

"Something the registration file doesn’t have a category for yet," he said.

Nyx held his gaze. Said nothing. Waiting.

"The stutter instances you’ve been documenting," Zane said. "I wish I could help you figure that out. Genuinely." He held her gaze. "But at the moment I have my hands full with other things."

Nyx looked at him.

The calculating stillness running whatever it always ran.

She knew he was deflecting. He knew she knew. Neither of them said that out loud.

"Fair enough," she said finally. "For now."

""The contact output in the trial," she said. "That’s real too."

"Maybe," Zane said. "Maybe not."

Nyx looked at him.

"That’s not a denial," she said.

"It’s not a confirmation either," Zane said.

"And the blank Sigil file," she said.

"Also accurate," Zane said. "As far as the registration system is concerned. The file isn’t wrong. It just doesn’t cover what’s actually there."

Nyx looked at him for a long time. Long enough that the specific quality of the evening light shifted slightly around them while she did it.

The courtyard was completely quiet now. Whatever students had been moving in the distance had gone inside.

Just the two of them and the late evening air and something that had been building since the first morning she’d filed a stutter instance and started running the numbers.

"Your replies are not what I expected," she said finally.

"What did you expect," Zane said.

"Something worse," she said. "A flat denial. A lie I couldn’t poke holes in." She paused. "Instead you gave me nothing concrete but nothing I could disprove either."

"That’s all I have right now," Zane said.

She looked at him for a long moment.

"You’re careful," she said.

"I try to be," Zane replied.

She looked at him. Her eyes brimming with dissatisfaction. Then she sighed.

"You’re not going to give me anything useful are you," she said.

"Not today," Zane said.

She looked at him for one more long moment. Then picked up her bag from the ground beside her.

"The principal’s meeting this morning," she said.

Zane looked at her.

"I saw you going in," she said. "And coming out. I heard something about NSA classification assessment."

"You were peeping in the principal’s office?," Zane said.

"I was passing through," she said. "I notice things."

’Of course she does,’ he thought.

"When you can explain the mechanism," she said, picking up her bag from the ground beside her. "I’d like to be the first to hear it."

"Then make me a priority," she said. "When you’re ready to explain whatever is actually going on. I want to be the first to know." She looked at him sideways. "Why are you so shady?"

"Aren’t all heroes," Zane said.

She held his gaze for one more second.

Then turned and walked away without elaborating.

Zane stood in the courtyard.

’Make her a priority,’ he thought.

『 She is methodical, observant and persistent. Prioritising her information access costs you nothing and gains you considerable goodwill with someone who will find the answer eventually regardless. 』

’I’ll keep that in mind,’ he thought.’she for sure wants to bootlick info’.

Zane stared at her back as she walked away.

Dark hair. Pale skin. The uniform doing what it always did. The expression that was no longer just calculating, something else sitting behind it now that hadn’t been there in the corridor after the match.

His eyes lingered despite himself as her hips swayed with each step. The short skirt shifted with her movement, drawing his attention to the curve of her figure, her butt precisely he could see them taking shape from her skirt.

Damn. Even the way she walked was becoming a problem.

Then she walked away toward the main building without looking back.

Zane stood in the courtyard alone.

The system surfaced.

『 NYX HALE — Bound Target Candidate 』

『 NYX HALE — Familiarity: 8% 』

『 First genuine exchange detected. Familiarity tracking initiated. 』

’8%,’ Zane thought. ’From one deflection and a walk away.’

『 Genuine proximity and real exchanges accumulate faster than surface level interaction. Even partial honesty registers. 』

’She said she wanted to be the first to hear the mechanism,’ Zane thought.

『 Noted. She is also — for the record — the most methodical person who has investigated you so far. That quality does not disappear after a satisfying answer. It redirects. 』

’Meaning she’ll keep watching,’ Zane thought.

『 Meaning she never stopped. 』

Zane stood in the courtyard for a moment longer.

’What is it with these girls today,’ he thought again.

『 System Observation: I thoroughly enjoyed watching you admire the view back there. Atta boy. Making progress. 』

’Shut up,’ Zane thought. ’I was admiring nature.’

『 Nature. Right. Very poetic description. 』

’It was an objective observation,’ Zane thought.

『 Of course it was. I am very proud of you regardless. 』

’I genuinely cannot stand you sometimes,’ Zane thought.

『 And yet here we are. 』

Gerald wheezed somewhere in the distance.

Zane paused mid-step.

’Was that—’ he thought. ’Am I actually missing that broken vent right now.’

He considered that for a second.

’That’s concerning,’ he thought.

『 You have been away from the dorm for several hours. Gerald wheezes every twenty minutes without fail. His consistency is arguably his best quality. 』

’Don’t defend Gerald,’ Zane thought.

『 Gerald requires no defense. Gerald simply is. 』

Zane picked up his bag and walked back toward the main building.

’I miss Gerald,’ he thought quietly.

’Never saying that out loud,’ he thought immediately after.