Kurai lifted her head.
The connection broke like a thread snapping. Helios gasped as though torn from water after drowning, the rhythm of his heart staggering back to something like its own. His chest heaved, his skin clammy, and for a moment, he could only stare up at the moonlight cutting across the ceiling. The echo of her presence still lingered inside him like a phantom limb.
Slowly, his gaze found her. She hadn't moved far—still straddling him, her hand braced against his chest, her face pale and unreadable in the silver glow.
Helios' lips cracked into a faint smirk, even as his voice rasped and caught in his throat.
"…Do you understand now? Or do you need another dive?"
Her eyes, sharp and cutting, didn't waver. For a long silence, she studied him as if weighing his words, his wound, his very soul. Then, with a single nod, she spoke.
"Yes. I understand your future plans. No need for any further investigation."
Her tone was flat, clinical. Yet something heavy lingered in it, as if the knowledge she now carried was not a simple matter of tactics or ambitions, but a burden. A weight she hadn't expected.
Helios let out a strained laugh that quickly broke into a hiss of pain. He tilted his head back into the pillow, his smirk refusing to leave even as his body trembled.
Once, when she had been only a formless being of darkness, there had been no secrets. She had lived inside him, and every thought, every plan, every spark of pain or ambition had been hers to see. He could hide nothing from her.
But now she had a body, a heart. She had shape, will, and distance. She was Kurai, not just the shadow that haunted his chest. And distance meant ignorance. She no longer had free access to his thoughts.
Tonight's merging had been his promise fulfilled. She had thrown her match against him in the Colosseum, and in return, he had allowed her back in—allowed her to tear through his mind and seize what he had kept from her.
Now, though they were separate, the tether remained. With enough closeness, enough contact, they could become one again. Not as host and shadow, but as equals. And unlike before, the channel ran both ways. Just as she could see into him, he could also see into her.
Kurai didn't speak again. She simply watched him, her posture poised, her hand still pressed against the scar his wound had left. She slowly lifted herself off his bare chest and looked down on him. Helios, grimacing, tried to push himself upright. His arms shook, his stomach screamed with pain, and his body nearly collapsed back.
Her arm slipped around his waist, steadying him. She lifted him with ease, holding him against her as if he weighed nothing at all.
"You shouldn't push yourself." Her voice was low, colder than the night air. "If you worsen your wound, you'll delay our plans."
Helios let out another pained chuckle, his head lolling toward her shoulder. "I'm touched. You almost sound concerned."
Her eyes narrowed. Her face remained carved in ice.
Still, he pushed. "Tell me—now that you've seen it all. Do you have any objections?"
Kurai didn't answer immediately. The silence stretched long enough that the beating of his heart against her arm became loud, insistent. She finally spoke, words slow and deliberate.
"Only one." Her eyes sharpened, as cold as drawn blades. "Why include Skuld in this?"
The air thickened.
Helios' smirk widened despite the pain twisting his body. He tilted his head back enough to meet her eyes directly, his own gleaming faintly in the moonlight.
"Jealous?"
Her face barely changed, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop. Her gaze turned glacial, her body rigid above him. It was a silence that could slice flesh—a silence colder and heavier than any blade.
Helios winced as a jolt of pain raced through his chest, but his laugh came anyway, thin and cutting. "You already know why."
Kurai's eyes narrowed to slits. Her grip on his waist tightened, just for a moment, before she released him. The loss of her support sent him collapsing backward into the mattress. The jolt tore a groan from his throat, his wound flaring anew.
Above him, Kurai stood still, her shadow falling over his body, her expression colder than the grave. Her voice cut sharp in the silence.
"Although I don't agree… I'll let it go."
Her words carried no warmth, no concession. They were a verdict, clipped and final.
Helios lay there, staring up at her, his lips curved despite the agony searing his body. He didn't laugh this time—he didn't have the strength—but the smirk on his bloodied face was enough.
The silence that followed wasn't peaceful. It wasn't affectionate. It was taut, a string pulled to breaking.
Kurai looked down at him as though she couldn't decide whether to protect him or finish what Sephiroth had started. And Helios looked back at her as though he couldn't decide whether to provoke her further than this, afraid she might actually attack him.
The moonlight poured over them both, two allies too entangled to separate, too alike to fully trust, too bound to walk away.
Whatever existed between them—it wasn't love or friendship.
And it wasn't hatred either.
It was something sharper, stranger, far more dangerous, and maybe strong enough to tie them together for the things to come.