Day 100 Post-Impact
The message from Singapore arrived at dawn.
Serena found Sarnav in the communications hub, her tablet displaying encrypted data that had traveled through three relay points before reaching Harmony. Her brother's network. Secure, efficient, thoroughly Singaporean in its paranoid redundancy.
"Wei Ming has intel on Tanaka Yuki." She pulled up the relevant files. "Thought you'd want to see it before she arrives tomorrow."
The data painted a more complex picture than they'd had before. Yuki's research facility in Tokyo had been one of the first to study dimensional anomalies after the Impact. Her breakthroughs had come suspiciously fast. Too fast, according to Wei Ming's sources.
"She's not just studying the rifts," Serena said, highlighting a particular section. "She's been inside them. Multiple times. Solo expeditions that her government handlers don't know about."
"Reckless."
"Or desperate." Serena's probability sense flickered, processing implications. "The Japanese have almost no high-rank awakened. Their dimensional threats are escalating faster than they can handle. She's taking risks because her country needs solutions yesterday."
[INTEL UPDATE: TANAKA YUKI]
[UNAUTHORIZED RIFT EXPEDITIONS: 7 CONFIRMED]
[SURVIVAL RATE FOR SOLO RIFT ENTRY: 12%]
[CONCLUSION: SUBJECT IS EITHER EXTREMELY CAPABLE OR EXTREMELY LUCKY]
Given her ice abilities and intelligence, likely both. The system approves of calculated recklessness.
"There's more." Serena swiped to another file. "Her research focus has shifted in the last month. She's not just studying dimensional mechanics anymore. She's specifically researching sealed entities. Containment protocols. And..." She paused. "Transformation processes."
The word hung in the air.
"She knows about our seal," Sarnav said.
"She knows about a lot of seals. There are at least four confirmed across Asia. Ours isn't unique." Serena met his eyes. "But ours is the most unstable. And we have an S-rank guardian. That's why she's coming here instead of the Chinese site or the Indian one."
"She thinks I can help."
"She thinks we can help each other." Serena's tone was carefully neutral. "Wei Ming's assessment is that she's genuine. Brilliant, driven, possibly obsessive, but genuine. She wants to solve the problem, not exploit it."
"And your assessment?"
Serena was quiet for a moment, her probability sense extending, testing futures she couldn't quite grasp. "My power doesn't work well around her. The same way it doesn't work around the seal. She's a variable I can't predict." A slight frown. "I don't like variables I can't predict."
"Is that a warning?"
"It's information. What you do with it is your call, lah."
The Singlish particle slipped out, a sign she was more unsettled than her professional demeanor suggested. Serena rarely let her Singaporean speech patterns show unless she was emotional or exhausted.
"How are you doing?" he asked, shifting focus. "With everything."
"Fine."
"Serena."
She sighed, the professional mask cracking slightly. "My probability sense has been... jialat lately. The seal interference is spreading. Three weeks ago, I could read futures clearly up to a hundred meters from the rift. Now it's affecting my range even here, fifty kilometers away." She rubbed her temples. "It's like trying to see through fog that keeps getting thicker."
"That's concerning."
"Very. But there's nothing I can do about it except adapt." She straightened, composure reasserting itself. "I've been compensating by focusing on shorter-term predictions. Immediate threats. Combat applications. It's less strategic but more reliable."
"And personally?"
The question made her pause. "Personally?"
"When's the last time you weren't working? Weren't analyzing? Weren't being the probability specialist?"
She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. The silence stretched.
"I don't know how to stop," she admitted quietly. "In Singapore, I was always the one who worked hardest. Studied longest. Planned most thoroughly. It's how I got out of Tampines, how I made it to MAS, how I survived the Impact." Her voice dropped. "If I stop being useful, what am I?"
"My wife."
"That's a role. Not an answer."
"It's both." He stepped closer, and she didn't retreat. "You're not just useful to me, Serena. You're not a tool or a resource or a strategic asset. You're someone I care about. Someone I want to see happy, not just productive."
"Happiness is inefficient."
"Then be inefficient. Just for tonight."
Her quarters were meticulously organized. Everything in its place, labels on containers, a schedule posted on the wall. Even post-apocalypse, Serena maintained the discipline that had defined her career.
"I don't know how to do this," she said as he closed the door behind them. "Casual. Spontaneous. I always have a plan."
"Then make a plan."
She considered this seriously, because of course she did. "Step one: remove clothing. Step two: physical intimacy. Step three: emotional vulnerability." A pause. "Step three is where my planning usually fails."
"Then let me handle step three."
He kissed her, and she responded with characteristic efficiency. No hesitation, no fumbling. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. Her hands found his shirt buttons, working them open with practiced precision.
But when his hands slid beneath her blouse, she trembled.
"I'm not good at this part," she whispered against his lips. "The losing control part. I've spent my whole life maintaining control."
"You don't have to be good at it. You just have to let it happen."
He stripped her blouse away, revealing a practical bra that somehow still looked elegant on her. Her body was exactly as he remembered from their first night. Slim, toned, professional even in undress.
[WIFE: SERENA - EMOTIONAL BARRIERS DETECTED]
[RECOMMENDATION: PATIENCE]
He took his time. Kisses along her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts above the bra line. She made small sounds of pleasure, controlled and quiet, her hands gripping his shoulders.
"Let me hear you," he murmured against her skin. "No one's evaluating your performance."
"I'm always evaluating my performance."
"Then evaluate this." He unclasped her bra and took one nipple into his mouth.
"Wah lau-" The Singlish burst out before she could stop it, her back arching into his touch. "That's not fair."
"I'm not trying to be fair."
He guided her to the bed, stripping away the rest of her clothes with deliberate slowness. She was wet already, arousal glistening between her thighs, but her expression was still calculating. Still analyzing.
He needed to break that.
"Tell me what you want," he said, settling between her thighs. "Not what's optimal. Not what's efficient. What you actually want."
"I want..." She struggled with the question. Serena always knew what she wanted. That was her defining trait. But wanting something for pleasure rather than purpose was foreign territory. "I want to feel like I'm not in control. Just for a little while. I want someone else to make the decisions."
"Done."
His mouth found her pussy and she cried out, louder than before. He didn't give her time to think, to analyze, to calculate. He just took. His tongue worked her clit while his fingers slid inside, setting a rhythm that had nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with overwhelming her senses.
"Oh god- shiok- that's-" Singlish mixed with English as her control slipped. "Deo- more- I mean, deo isn't even- ah!"
[SENSITIVITY: INCREASING]
[LANGUAGE CENTERS: COMPROMISED]
[SINGLISH EMERGENCE: 73%]
He pushed her higher, faster than she was prepared for. Her thighs clamped around his head, hips bucking against his face. She came with a sound that was half moan, half surprised laugh, her whole body shaking.
"Cannot," she gasped. "Too much. I cannot-"
"You can." He crawled up her body, positioning himself at her entrance. "Again."
He thrust into her and she made a sound he'd never heard from the composed Singaporean. Raw. Desperate. Real.
"You feel so good." He set a deep rhythm, watching her face as control continued to slip away. "My brilliant wife. Always thinking. Always planning." He thrust harder. "Stop thinking."
"I can't- it's how I'm wired-"
"Then let me rewire you."
He hooked her legs over his shoulders, changing the angle, going deeper. She screamed, actually screamed, her nails digging into the sheets.
"Yours," she gasped. "Yours lor. I'm yours, just don't stop, please-"
"Say it again."
"Yours! Wah lau, I'm yours, okay? Yours lor, yours-"
[DUAL CULTIVATION: ACTIVE]
[EMOTIONAL BARRIERS: COLLAPSING]
[BOND RESONANCE: DEEPENING]
He drove into her relentlessly, not giving her time to rebuild her walls. She came again, and again, each orgasm stripping away another layer of the professional mask until there was nothing left but Serena. Not the analyst. Not the strategist. Just a woman who needed to feel something other than productive.
When he finally let himself go, spilling inside her with a groan, she clung to him like he was the only solid thing in a world of probability and uncertainty.
"Stay," she whispered. "Just for a while. Don't go yet."
"I'm not going anywhere."
[DUAL CULTIVATION COMPLETE]
[ESSENCE GAINED: +3,100]
[SERENA ESSENCE: +2,200]
[BOND LEVEL: SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED]
Later, she lay against his chest, her analytical mind slowly reasserting itself.
"I'm going to need to recalculate several probability matrices," she murmured. "That level of emotional compromise affects my baseline readings."
"Is that your way of saying the sex was good?"
"The sex was optimal." A pause. "Also good. Shiok, even."
He laughed, and she smiled against his chest. A real smile, not the professional one she showed in meetings.
"Yuki arrives tomorrow," she said, shifting to face him. "My brother's intel suggests she's genuinely here to help. But there's something else." She hesitated. "Her probability signature is strange. When I try to read futures involving her, I don't get interference like with the seal. I get... clarity. Unusual clarity."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know. Probability manipulation is supposed to be rare. If she has something similar, or something that interacts with my ability..." Serena frowned. "It could be useful. Or it could be dangerous. I can't tell which."
"We'll find out tomorrow."
"That's not very reassuring."
"It's honest." He kissed her forehead. "Whatever she brings, we'll handle it. That's what we do."
Serena was quiet for a moment. Then: "I'm glad you're here. Not just as a husband. As a..." She struggled for the word. "Anchor. When everything else is variables and probabilities and uncertain futures, you're the one thing I can count on to be solid."
"That might be the most romantic thing you've ever said."
"Don't get used to it. Emotional vulnerability is exhausting." But she snuggled closer, belying her words. "Wei Ming is sending a formal invitation tomorrow. Singapore wants to establish a permanent embassy at Harmony. A real alliance, not just mutual assistance."
"That's significant."
"It's necessary. The regional situation is deteriorating. The remaining Ascendancy factions are consolidating. The seal is degrading. And there are rumors of something stirring in Indonesia that my brother won't discuss over unsecured channels." She looked up at him. "We need allies. Real ones. Singapore needs us as much as we need them."
"Then we'll make it work."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." He pulled her close. "But not tonight. Tonight, you're not the Singapore liaison. You're just Serena."
"Just Serena," she repeated, testing the words. "I'm not sure I remember how to be just Serena."
"Then let me remind you."
He kissed her again, and for a little while longer, the probabilities and predictions could wait.
[DAY 100]
[SARNAV: S-RANK (HARMONY SOVEREIGN - FIRST STAGE)][PROGRESS TO SECOND STAGE: 8%]
[WIFE CULTIVATION STATUS][1. NISHA - D+ | 2. ISHANI - D+ | 3. ANANYA - D+][4. MINJI - D | 5. JADE - C | 6. SANA - C][7. JIYEON - C | 8. SERENA - C+ (PROGRESS) | 9. ZARA - C][10. ELENA - S]
[HARMONY SAFE ZONE: 1,298 SURVIVORS | 3 SECTORS]
[SEAL INTEGRITY: 93.3% (ACCELERATING)]
[ENTITY STATUS: TRANSFORMING - ACTIVITY INCREASING]
[INCOMING: TANAKA YUKI - ETA 1 DAY]
[SINGAPORE EMBASSY: INVITATION PENDING]
[WIVES BONDED: 10/32]