Astrid Vane did not handle losing well.
He discovered this approximately three minutes after his semifinal victory, when she came storming into the staging area with fresh bandages covering wounds that were already half-healed and fury twisting her face into something barely human.
"REMATCH!"
The word echoed off the stone walls and made several nearby climbers flinch and scatter. Ravenna moved instinctively behind him, her hand going to the knife at her belt.
"The tournament has rules," Dante said flatly. "You lost, I advanced, that's how it works."
"Fuck the rules!" Astrid stalked toward him with her bare feet slapping against the floor hard enough to crack stone. Up close she was even more imposing than she had been in the arena: nearly six feet tall with shoulders broader than most men and muscles that bulged under scarred skin. "You didn't win, you just... you barely even tried! I could feel it!"
"I tried enough."
"Bullshit!" She was in his face now, close enough that he could smell the sweat and blood still clinging to her. "That last part at the end, when you finally moved like you actually gave a damn? That was maybe ten seconds. The rest of the fight you were holding back so hard I'm surprised you didn't yawn."
He said nothing.
"I want to fight you for real." Her voice dropped lower, rough with something that might have been desperation. "Not this tournament bullshit where you're trying to hide what you are, a real fight, all out, no holding back."
'If I do that, I'll either kill you or reveal exactly how broken I already am, and neither option is good.'
"No."
Astrid's face went through several expressions in rapid succession: disbelief, rage, something that looked almost like hurt. Then she laughed, loud and harsh and completely without humor.
"No? Just... no? That's it?"
"That's it."
"You don't get to just walk away!" She grabbed his arm with a grip strong enough to bruise and yanked him back toward her. "I've been looking for someone like you my entire life, someone who can actually push me and actually challenge me and actually make me work for a victory. And you're just going to say no and disappear?"
"That's the plan."
Ravenna stepped between them before Astrid could respond, her lavender skin flushed with anger and her tail lashing behind her.
"Let go of him."
Astrid's eyes flicked to her, dismissive at first, then narrowing with curiosity. "The fire demon, you're the one who's been traveling with him."
"Her name is Ravenna." He pulled his arm free while Astrid was distracted. "And she's right, let go."
The two women stared at each other for a long tense moment. Ravenna was shorter, slighter, obviously weaker in every measurable way, but she didn't back down or flinch and just met Astrid's stare with the steady determination he had watched develop over weeks of travel.
Something changed in Astrid's expression as the rage faded into something more calculating.
"You're protective of him," she said slowly. "And he's protective of you, that's interesting."
"It's none of your business."
"Maybe not." Astrid stepped back and her posture relaxed into something that almost resembled casual. "But I'm making it my business. From now on, wherever you two go, I go."
"What?" He stopped walking.
"You heard me." The grin was back, savage and delighted. "You won't give me a rematch willingly? Fine. I'll follow you until you have no choice. Eventually you'll have to fight something, and I'll be there to watch. And then I'll challenge you again, and again, and again, until you stop holding back or I die trying."
"That's insane."
"Probably." She shrugged, completely unbothered. "I've never been accused of being stable. So what do you say, Ghost? Want to try losing me? Because I promise, you can't."
He looked at her, at the manic determination in her eyes, at the way her body was already healing from wounds that would have killed a normal person. In the original timeline Astrid Vane had been a legend on the mid-floors: unstoppable, unbeatable, a walking disaster that left broken bodies in her wake.
She had also been one of the Black Surge's first victims, taken down by ambush and numbers when fair combat couldn't do the job.
'If I save her, if I keep her close, she could be useful or she could be a disaster, probably both.'
"Do whatever you want," he said finally. "Just stay out of my way."
Her grin widened into something almost feral. "That's the spirit."
---
Ravenna was not happy.
"She's following us." Her voice was tight with an emotion he couldn't quite identify. "She's been following us since we left the staging area, she's still following us right now."
"I know."
"Why aren't you doing anything about it?"
'Because she's too strong to kill, too stubborn to discourage, and too useful to waste.'
"Because it doesn't matter." He kept walking toward the arena where the finals would take place in an hour. "She wants to follow? Fine, as long as she doesn't interfere I don't care."
"But she..." Ravenna trailed off, her expression conflicted. "She looks at you like..."
"Like what?"
"Like you're a challenge, like you're something to conquer." Her tail lashed harder. "I don't like it."
He stopped walking and turned to face her. She was upset, genuinely upset, in a way that went beyond simple annoyance at having a third person in their dynamic.
'She's jealous, she's actually jealous.'
He hadn't expected that. He had been so focused on surviving and climbing and preparing for the eventual confrontation with Adrian that he hadn't noticed Ravenna's feelings deepening into something more than gratitude.
"She's not a threat to you," he said carefully. "To us, I mean, whatever she wants it's not..."
"You don't know what she wants." Ravenna's eyes met his, vulnerable and fierce at the same time. "You're the first person who ever saw me as something worth protecting. What if she sees the same thing? What if she decides she wants it for herself?"
'Then I'd have a very different problem than I thought.'
"Ravenna." He reached out and touched her shoulder, the contact brief but deliberate. "I saved you because I chose to, I've kept you close because I choose to, and that's not going to change just because some berserker decides she wants to tag along."
She searched his face for something, found it or didn't, and let out a breath that carried the tension with it.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Behind them, maybe twenty meters back, Astrid watched the exchange with narrowed eyes and a smile that suggested she had just learned something very interesting.
---
The finals were anticlimactic.
His opponent was a mage type, a glass cannon who relied on powerful ranged attacks to overwhelm opponents before they could close the distance. Against most fighters it would have worked.
Against him it was a joke.
He crossed the arena in the time it took the mage to start his first spell, his knife already moving in the precise arc that would end the fight. The mage saw death coming and had just enough time to raise his hands in surrender before the blade reached his throat.
[Match complete: Dante Graves wins tournament]
[Rank: 1st place]
[Reward tier: Maximum]
[System points: +3000]
[Administrator attention: Level 5]
The crowd went insane because the Grey Ghost, undefeated, had torn through the tournament without losing a match and claimed victory in a final that lasted less than four seconds.
He stood in the center of the arena, surrounded by cheering spectators and the weight of attention he had spent the entire climb trying to avoid, and wondered how badly this was going to complicate things.
The answer came almost immediately.
[Hidden achievement: Tournament champion]
[Bonus reward unlocked]
[Proceed to the victor's chamber for claim]
He followed the directions that appeared in his vision, walking through corridors carved from ancient stone until he reached a small room lit by crystals that pulsed with soft golden light.
In the center of the room, floating above an altar of white marble, was a sword.
[Item detected: Champion's Blade]
[Rarity: Epic]
[Description: Forged for the victor of the arena, this weapon grows stronger with its wielder]
[Bound on pickup]
He reached out and took it.
The moment his fingers closed around the hilt, the sword hummed with energy that matched his own. It was longer than his knife, slightly curved, with a blade that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Perfect balance, perfect weight, perfect for someone who had spent eight years learning to kill.
[Champion's Blade bound to: Dante Graves]
[Current enhancement: +15% physical damage]
[Special ability: Phantom Edge - blade extends reach by 50% when activated]
"Not bad."
Astrid's voice came from the doorway where she stood with her arms crossed and her expression a mixture of envy and approval.
"First place gets the good stuff, huh? Makes me wish I hadn't lost."
"If you'd won, you'd be carrying that sword right now."
"Maybe." She pushed off the doorframe and walked toward him with her eyes never leaving the blade. "But then I wouldn't have seen what you can really do. Worth the trade."
"You shouldn't be here."
"Probably not, but like I said, wherever you go I go." She stopped a few feet away with her grin returning. "So, Floor 6, sounds fun, when do we leave?"
He looked at her, at the impossible stubbornness written across every line of her face, and knew there was no point in arguing.
"We're not a team."
"Not yet." Her grin widened. "But we will be, give it time."
She turned and walked out, leaving him alone with his new sword and the uncomfortable feeling that his carefully controlled climb was starting to slip beyond his control.
Ravenna was waiting outside the chamber, her expression shifting between relief at seeing him and annoyance at seeing Astrid emerge first.
"Did you get something good?"
He showed her the blade and her eyes went wide.
"That's... that's beautiful."
"It's useful." He sheathed the sword at his hip while adjusting to its weight. "Come on, we need to prepare for Floor 6."
"We?" Ravenna glanced at Astrid, who was already walking ahead of them like she owned the place. "You're really letting her come with us?"
"I'm not letting her do anything, she's making her own choices." He started walking and Ravenna fell into step beside him. "Like you did back on Floor 1, some choices you can't stop."
She was quiet for a moment while processing that, and then she reached out and took his hand with her fingers threading through his.
He let her.
Behind them Astrid glanced back and saw the joined hands, and her expression flickered with something unreadable before settling back into that cocky grin.
The dynamics were changing and the party was growing, and somewhere ahead Adrian Cross was watching it all and taking notes and preparing for whatever play he would eventually make. The climb was getting complicated and he had a feeling it was only going to get worse.